Hot & Hollow

Clara's beautiful. Can Marcus see through her pride and vanity before it is too late?

Jack and Marcus had the kind of friendship you only get from spending years in rugby scrums together, shoving your heads into each other’s armpits in the rain, and then compensating for it all with lager and bad life choices in nightclubs. They were built like former locks: broad, tall, with the sort of legs once designed for bulldozing opponents but now mostly used to stagger between bars and late-night kebab shops.

On paper, Marcus was the “catch.” He worked for a bank, owned a Zone 2 flat (mortgage payments the size of a small nation’s GDP), and carried himself with the air of a man destined for something bigger. Jack, meanwhile, lived in his parents’ basement, was a certified plumber who fixed leaky pipes, and had the kind of gaming setup in his man cave that only someone without a mortgage could afford. Yet in the club jungle, Jack was the lion and Marcus was the gazelle. Jack mainly walked out with someone new draped on his arm; Marcus walked out with garlic sauce down his tie.

That Saturday night, the bass thudded like a migraine. Jack surveyed the dance floor, teeth flashing, while Marcus tried to look debonair, leaning against the bar, which in practice made him resemble a chartered accountant wondering if the barstool could be written off as a business expense.

And then she arrived.

Clara. A vision in a skimpy silver dress. Legs flashing, chin lifted, hips swaying like she owned the place. She cut through the dance crowd, which parted for her like the Red Sea for Moses, with the confidence of a woman who knew that every male eye was upon her and that she could pick and choose.

“Target acquired,” Jack muttered, nudging Marcus. “This woman is a total robobabe, and she's got you in her sights. Do us both a favor and don’t open with questions about her pension plan.”

Clara stopped at the bar, beside Marcus, leaned just so, arching her back with the same lack of subtlety you'd normally find on the front page of Hot Bike Magazine. She turned her head in slow motion. “What’s good here?” she purred, blue eyes drilling into Marcus.

Marcus froze. His brain had the processing power of a toaster at that moment. “Ah… wow… you really asking me?”

Jack groaned loud enough to startle the bartender and jabbed Marcus in the ribs. “What my eloquent friend here meant was that he’d be delighted to buy you a drink.”

Clara ignored him. She extended her hand to Marcus. “Hi, Marcus. I’m Clara. I’m sure you can speak for yourself.”

Marcus just beamed, nodding vigorously. And just like that, a catastrophe disguised as romance was born.

Marcus fell hard. Within weeks, Clara had stormed his life like Alexander conquered Persia or Genghis Khan took Asia. She told him frozen pizza was “a cry for help,” reorganized his wardrobe, saying “a banker in hoodies is basically a plumber in heels”, and bought lamps on his card that lit up his flat like a supernova had gone off on the ceiling. She described his furniture choices like "a spreadsheet that threw up" and made plans to replace everything.

By the second month, there was a ring. Marcus didn’t even remember buying it, but his card said differently. One day, they were out to dinner, the next she was slipping it on with a triumphant smile, while Marcus sat there like a man who’d just been mugged by Cartier.

Jack smelled trouble before the engagement ring even fit. “She’s not in love, mate,” he said, swirling his pint like a prophet in a pub. “She’s annexed you. Look at her, this isn’t affection, it’s empire-building. You’re not her fiancé, you’re her free ticket. She's a hairdresser for crying out loud. In the real world, she is not your equal, and in time that will be a problem for you.”

Marcus blinked happily. “You don’t know her like I do; she just never had the same chances in life that I had.”

“No, I do,” Jack shot back. “I know the type. Pride like a pop star without a record deal, vanity like an influencer with no followers, and inside? A mess nobody’s allowed to touch. She's too wounded for true love, Marcus. She’s a golddigger looking for a sponsor.”

Clara, meanwhile, had already marked Jack as the enemy. Not because he teased her. Not because he noticed things. But because he was that man, or close enough to count. The type who saw her once, undressed her with charm, then dropped her like a receipt he didn’t want in his wallet. Years ago, she’d wanted more. He’d given her less. So when she looked at Jack, it wasn’t Jack she hated, but the ghost of the humiliation he resembled. The reason she’d sworn never again. Never to be small, never to be powerless, never to be discarded. He might as well have been the one who broke her, and she’d fight him as if he had.

So she branded him toxic, declared she didn’t feel “safe” around him, and whispered to Marcus that he was… “creepy.” That word, lobbed like a grenade, left Marcus paralyzed. It was her or Jack.

The tension brewed until one icy February night, Clara cornered Jack outside the pub. Her eyes glittered like frost, voice cold and sharp. “Stay out of our lives, creep. You’re jealous, pathetic, and Marcus doesn’t need you poisoning his happiness.”

Jack raised an eyebrow. “Or what? You’ll drown me in hairspray fumes?”

She stepped closer, perfume hitting him like chemical warfare. “You don’t scare me. You’re nothing but a little man barking at a woman you can’t have.”

Jack’s laugh was short, bitter. “I don’t want you, Clara. I’ve had dozens of you, different names, same performance. Marcus deserves better than you and I will ever know; we are unclean. We are both whores! I can live with that, but it seems you can't. Your act does not fool me. You’re terrified he’ll see what’s behind the gloss: shallow, broken, desperate.”

Her face flickered with rage, shame, then the steel mask snapped back. Because in Jack’s words, she heard the echo of that other man, the one who’d stripped her bare and left her humiliated. It was the same voice. The same dismissal. The wound flared, raw as ever.

That’s when Marcus arrived. Clara turned, summoning tears with operatic precision. She clutched his sleeve like Jack had brandished a knife. “He threatened me,” she whispered. “He wants to ruin everything.”

And Marcus, torn between a lifetime of loyalty and a woman he thought was his future, chose cowardice dressed as love. “Jack… maybe you should go.”

So Jack walked away into the drizzle, shaking his head in the glow of a flickering streetlight. Clara pressed herself against Marcus, victorious, but trembling inside. She had kept her empire, yes. But in Jack’s eyes, she had seen the wound she could never hide from herself. The wound that never healed.

Marcus regretted that decision later as Jack had been the only one keeping him sane under the intense pressure from his new fiancée. The cracks began to show. Marcus realized dinners were now less about romance and more about impressing Clara’s friends. Affection became a loyalty points system: reward for good behavior, punishment for not doing what he was told. Every time a pretty woman walked past, Clara’s eyes narrowed like she was calculating homicide odds.

The great unraveling came one Tuesday over the wedding guest list. Marcus, weary, asked the fatal question:

“Why does everything have to be your way?”

Clara blinked at him like he’d just asked her to wear trainers to a ball. “Because if it isn’t, Marcus, what am I supposed to do, sit quietly in the passenger seat like some kind of decorative houseplant? Please. I am the Empress, Parliament, and the judiciary also, in this relationship.”

“I’m not asking for control; our relationship should not be about control,” Marcus said, though it sounded like even he didn’t believe that was possible, “I just want to be trusted.”

Clara laughed so sharply it could’ve cut glass. “Trusted? Darling, the day I let my guard down is the day you’ll suddenly ‘need space’ and start finding yourself… in someone else’s bed. That’s what men do. They explore. Like Columbus. Only worse, because at least Columbus brought back souvenirs.”

Marcus stared. She'd never revealed her true self so clearly to him before. It was arrogance on her part that she thought that she could, that she had him so controlled he could never contemplate an alternate path. For a flicker of a second, he saw the cracks under her perfect eyeliner, the desperate fortress made of vanity and hairspray. She wore pride like it was Dior, but beneath it, there was something raw, some caged animal she’d never let anyone touch. And the cruelest part? She wanted love so badly that she choked it to death every time it came too near.

He sighed. “Clara… this isn’t love. This is...” he gestured vaguely around her dramatic presence “...prison... he glanced at the ceiling and all the lamps Clara had bought. With too much lighting.”

Clara recoiled as she realized her mask had slipped and Marcus could see her now. “You know what you are? Weak. Too weak for me. I deserve a gladiator, Marcus. Not… whatever you are. A mall Santa without the beard.”

Then she flung her coat over her shoulder like she was storming off a movie set, and slammed the door so hard the cutlery drawer leapt open and donated half its spoons to the floor.

Silence.

Marcus stood alone, surrounded by abandoned champagne glasses. She’d left her glittering engagement ring on the counter when moisturizing her hands. He wondered if, at least, he could get that money back. The faint smell of expensive perfume seemed sickly now, and he opened a window. Relief surged inside him as he breathed in the fresh air. He realized he hadn’t lost love; he’d dodged an emotional hostage situation. He thought about calling Jack but decided not to; it was time for a change. Instead, he contemplated church on Sunday. Perhaps I will meet a woman I could trust there, he thought to himself, smiling for the first time in a month.

As for Clara? She strutted out into the night, heels clicking like gunfire, already rehearsing the smile she’d flash at her next target. Pride would carry her forward, vanity would cloak her wounds, and once again she would sabotage the very thing she claimed to crave.

Because Clara wasn’t really looking for love. She was looking for proof. Proof she was enough. And no man alive could ever give it to her.

W/C & Notes ▼

W/C: 1768
CONTEST:

SURVEY

What a Character! : Official WDC Contest  (E) Create a memorable character using the given prompt for huge prizes! #1679316 by Writing.Com Support

PROMPT: Write a story about a character who falls victim to one of the seven deadly sins
(i.e., envy, gluttony, greed, lust, pride, sloth, or wrath)
Notes: I chose pride with a toxic dose of vanity thrown in. We always get the toxic male stories in the media today, so a toxic female one seems overdue.