Covet by Charles Carter
from Seven Deadly Sins: a PUNK NOIR Magazine series
I noticed her silhouette first, a billion grains of sand, all compacted and held in place by the hourglass shape of her.
Damndest thing about infatuation: you have no control over it. One minute I was scanning the track listings, wondering what drives a castrated horse to run so hard. The next, my blind spot swallowed me whole.
If you’d asked me two weeks ago, I’d have said infatuation and covet were the same thing. Said it straight-faced. Maybe even smug. But I was wrong. Slips of the tongue, the silhouette of a woman, these things change things.
Infatuation is covet’s bait. And I took just a nibble, thought I could taste without swallowing. Then the trap snapped, steel jaws kissing bone. If I had any sense, I’d chew off my own leg. Escape, one limb short, limping from place to place, relationship to relationship. But I’m dumb, tried to unrig the thing. Cover my tracks.
Only two ways out, twisted and gimp, or not at all.
Covet doesn’t just want what it sees.
It wants what it shouldn’t.
It wants what belongs to someone else.
It wants to ruin.
And the worst part?
It knows you’ll let it.
This story appears as part of Seven Deadly Sins, a PUNK NOIR Magazine series, originally published July 2025.
Bio
Charles Carter grew up in Virginia reading noir. He read the greats: Cain, Chandler, Hammett, Woolrich, and Thompson. He watched those same stories stretch across the screen in the films of Wilder, Lang, Preminger, Huston, and Welles. Despite those early influences, his writing now focuses on historical fiction and children’s literature. His debut novel, The Paper Colony, explores the life and death of Alice Riley, the first woman hanged in the Colony of Georgia, and is now available on Amazon. In the coming months, he will release two illustrated children’s books: Alice and Time Lostand Monster Removalist.
Link to my novel if allowed: https://www.amazon.com/PAPER-COLONY-Story-Alice-Riley-ebook/dp/B0FK6XS8VS
PUNK NOIR, the online literary and arts magazine that looks at the world at its most askew, casting a bloodshot eye over the written word, film, music, television and more.
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I absolutely love this one.
I read it in Matthew McConaughey’s voice