Does a rose by any name smell as sweet? Does saying someone is a vampire mean he is a bloodsucking parasite, or that he sparkles romantically? Arguably this is the problem with any metaphor; it is a shoddy method to communicate meaning since the reader has no idea which is meant by the context in which the metaphor is placed.It is amorphous.
Darkness falls and the banker strolls from the office where he has labored since sunrise. His car lies deep in the underground garage along with the cars of all his office-mates. He is elated from his busy day of trading futures, having made lots of money. His predatory urges have been wakened, and instead of going home, he turns his car towards the clubs where he can find a desperate woman for who will fall for his line of patter. He can get off and walk off.
The apartment complex was, shall we say euphemistically, a fixer-upper complex with some terrace fences clearly needing replacing, and a roof with odd patches of darkness where the moss seemed to have taken over and grown unhealthy under overhanging tree branches. Walking into the unit the woman could smell odd aromas underlying the fresh paint smell and the smell of the newly laid, inappropriately tannish, carpet. Even with all the lights turned on, and there were damned few of them, the place was dim; as though the apartment was attempting to hid its issues from the casual viewer. The woman knew that if she was no longer a casual viewer the issues would become all to clear, and she would have to live with them. But her credit wasn't stellar and the rent, though high, was about standard for the area, and this owner didn't require the expensive background checks or high deposit so many others did.
She was a knock-out. She was an eleven on the scale of one-to-ten. Her little black dress lived up to its name as it clung to her curves, displaying them quite clearly even while saying, "understated." And she, quite clearly, was out of place in this run-down, workingman's pub.
The men sitting at the bar looked, hell, they gaped and slavered, but they gave her a wide space. The men and women sitting at the tables in their jean and flannels, 'nice' outfits and chinos, whispered among themselves as they kept glancing at her, asking each other, in quite tones, "What is THAT doing HERE?" or some variant thereof. But again, for all their looking and whispering, they just looked and whispered.
The bartender who had mixed her gin fizz made casual conversation with the men at the bar, watching attentively for her beaconing gesture while giving an appearance of drying the already dry glasses with his bar rag. "She paid with a fifty, and gave me a twenty tip!" he whispered importantly, understand that, for a change, he was the most important person in the bar; he was the only person in the bar she'd spoken to.
There was a collective intake of breath when the woman swung her bar-stool so that she could look at her audience -- for they had become her audience in all the ways that matter. Many had only seen her figure since her face was turned toward the bar, and she was two stools over from where the bar's back-mirror would have given her reflection. They moved her up to twelve status. Every man, and a few of the women, wondered even more if she were blond all over, since blue eyes indicated her blond hair was natural.
She sipped her drink and then smiled. Her very white teeth reflected in the dim light.
The waif stood in the shadows looking very waif-like; small gamine face with a few smudges and huge eyes, jeans and oversize open button-down shirt. Yet her huge eyes had a hint of the predator within them if one looked very closely; she was used to fending for herself. Some kind man or woman would soon come along and want to 'save' her.
Although Josh tried hard to vary his routine, travel to school by a different route every day, and make damn certain they were random; the last leg of the trip required walking down the main street to the only open door of the building, and every few days Trevor would waylay him.
Metaphor. Vampire. Predators. Prey.
Leslie Ormandy
