Inspired by this photo on flickr by user The Unpredictables and this post from the Gurrier, I hereby present the my first Flickr Fiction attempt. The idea is that those of us who participate in this (currently just myself, the Gurrier and the Gin Lady) write something for a particular photo on flickr and post it on our blogs on Friday. The deal is that I don’t read their post and they don’t read mine until after we have written and posted our own. This one is very rushed, quick and nasty, my bad. i might re work it into something proper at a later stage. So, on to it anyway…

He found the ad in the small print in the back of the magazine. It wasn’t big and flashy like the other ads, didn’t boast scantily clad women or glaring neon text splashed across bare skin and ending in ‘69′.
‘Lonely? Looking for love? Let Claudia look after you. Available in five easy installments.’
Then the ad had provided a phone number. That was it, nothing more.
On the phone business was conducted quickly. The woman he spoke to ran through a list of questions, so quickly that it was obvious she had done this many, many times before.
At the end, when she thanked him for his business he felt a little odd, not guilty or dirty or all those other feelings that normally came with buying sex. Just odd. As if there was something that he’d missed, something that was obvious to everyone else but him.
A week later a package arrived in the post.
It was in plain brown paper, about 2 feet long. The company logo was discreetly stamped above his neatly typed address.
He opened the box, ripping through the paper and then eventually cutting through the tape that secured the cardboard flaps. Inside, nestled in styrofoam popcorn was a woman’s arm.
Not a plastic womans arm, or a rubber womans arm, but a real womans’ arm. It was still pink and rosy, there was no sign of necrosis, the full shoulder socket had been surgically removed with the arm. Slipped in beside the arm was a sheet of paper.

‘Thank you for purchasing Claudia. We hope you have many years of enjoyment together. This is the first installment of your purchase, over the coming 4 weeks you will continue to recieve further installments. ‘

He passed out before getting to the assembly instructions.