Short Story

Slow Dancing

Nancy's Notes 🖊️🎶

Written for OLWG #419.
The prompts appear below.
This is my story.

© ChatGPT and Me

Elise Stevens stood outside Clancy’s Bar smoking a long slim Benson & Hedges cigarette. She leaned her back up against the glass window, her tight red skirt inching up just enough to show some tantalizing thigh. She had a look in her eyes like she was a million miles away.

A chill – not just from the unseasonably cool July evening – ran up her spine; she pulled down the rolled-up sleeves of her thin white cotton shirt. The chilly air was surprisingly humid; little beads of sweat dripped down her neck like so many lies carelessly falling from her lips.

Elise was an intriguing woman; her thoughts smoldered like the white hot embers of her memories. This was her city and it hummed with secrets; tonight it was alive with the scent of danger.

Inside the bar, Lucky Webber sat in the far booth sipping a cup of black coffee and nursing his killer headache … the result of too many bottles of tepid Budweiser. He couldn’t shake the memory of Elise or the feeling that she was nothing but hot trouble wrapped in seduction, and yet he was drawn to her like a helpless kitten to a bowl of cream.

Elise stamped out her last cigarette, reapplied her lipstick which matched her red skirt perfectly and sashayed her way into Clancy’s. When her eyes met Lucky’s across the smoke-filled room, a warm fire ignited deep down below. Elise smiled, relishing the sensation, and slid into his booth. “I’m burnin’ up, sugar. Tell me some sweet lies and make me believe them” she purred, her voice a sultry melody that slow danced a tango around his hazy brain. Lucky groaned softly as Elise’s breasts brushed against his arm.

No matter how many times he heard those words, they still got to him. He was lured into the depths of darkness where every heartbeat echoed danger but he didn’t give a damn; she was worth it.

As they stepped out into the night, Elise reached for Lucky and made herself comfortable in the crook of his arm. He was ready to chase the shadows, entwined in a bad romance that promised both ecstasy and ruin. The night was young, but their destinies were already written in the stars – dark, twisted, and forever joined in a slow dance.

NAR©2025
#OLWG

Here are the prompts: 1) ‘a long sleeved shirt and a cool summer evening’; 2) ‘caffeine and warm beer’; 3) ‘promises never meant to be kept’. We can use one, two, all three or none at all. It doesn’t matter; we just need to be creative.

This is “Bad Romance” by Lady Gaga

OLWG#419- Only Prompts

All text, graphics and videos are copyright for Nancy’s Notes 🖊️ 🎶, The Sicilian Storyteller, The Elephant’s Trunk, The Rhythm Section, et al. and are not to be used without permission. NAR©2017-present.

55 thoughts on “Slow Dancing”

  4. Oooooo! This was wonderful! And I am so jealous of the word ‘tepid’ That was the one part of my story I was displeased with not better describing the warm beer. I guess that’s tunnel vision for ya…..

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  19. I see I don’t have a corner on the market of moody, sexy, noir storytelling, Nancy. This is excellent. Reading it, I felt like I was watching a scene from a colorized 40s black and whites film being shown on the Turner Classic Movies channel.

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    1. This pleases me to no end, Fan! Thank you very much! I love writing in this style, having practically cut my teeth on old B&W movies of this genre. The language is so campy and colorful and they were the kings and queens of the run-on sentence! I’ve been writing stories like this for quite a while but didn’t publish my first piece on WP until May 1, 2022; it’s a story I’m very proud of and one of my favorites of any genre. You can check it out HERE when you have some time.

      Thanks again!

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      1. Well, you have been at this noir business for a while. I have posted some detective and private eye stuff in the past, but not in the noir genre. So I am a rookie at this, but in reality am enjoying writing in this style.

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