We are very pleased to announce the third place winner of our inaugural New Voices Short Fiction contest.

“Silver Dollars for Silver Tongues” by Emorra Oteca follows a young wife in 1950s America as a charismatic stranger draws her husband toward the promise of easy wealth. It is a tense domestic story about ambition, trust, marriage, and the seductive power of believing in something too good to be true. From a feminist lens, it follows a woman stuck in the patriarchy, who knows best but can’t do anything about it, yet the story still unfolds in a darker way than she could have ever imagined.

We hope you enjoy this gripping noir-ish tale.

“Silver Dollars for Silver Tongues” by Emorra Oteca

 The first time I met Donny was a Tuesday evening in late spring. I was enjoying a moment of peace between cooking dinner, watching the sunset out the window while Junior entertained himself. It was a spectacular sunset, a beautiful array of colors tipped over and spilling together. The golden ochre faded into fierce reds and dainty pinks, all melting into the deep navy blanket of night. Usually Rob watched them with me if he could, but he had called to tell me he would be late, and he would be bringing a friend.

Finally he walked in the door, called my name, and by the time I had pushed through the slatted kitchen doors to greet him, a second man had entered our house. His suit was impeccable, and the leather of his briefcase shone like a newly minted penny.

“This is Donny,” my husband said.

Donny kissed my hand, the picture of politeness, but his eyes looked past me. His hair was slicked back, unlike Rob’s fashionable pompadour. I left to finish setting the table and pull the meatloaf from the oven while Rob poured whiskey. Junior was happily playing with his brand-new Lincoln Logs in the living room, and Donny was crouched in front of him when I returned.

“By Christmas,” Donny said, half to my son, half to my husband, completely ignoring me, “your daddy will be able to get you anything you want.”

Donny was an investor, with a real estate opportunity—cheap land down south. He piled words together like you’d pile ingredients on a sandwich: minimal risk, giant profits, a capitalist’s dream. His voice was an oil spill, shimmering and smooth, and I could tell Rob was smitten with the possibilities.

Out of politeness, I waited until Donny left and Junior was asleep before questioning my husband. Although our country was getting finally back on its feet, this didn’t feel like the best time for an unknown investment, and I told him so.

Rob looked almost angry. “You heard what he said. It’s a great opportunity, basically made in the shade. With ten dollars, Donny says we could have over three hundred in a few weeks—can you imagine? And that’s only the beginning.”

I wasn’t known for my imagination. To me, ten dollars was groceries for the week. Why gamble? He’d just gotten hired at Ford and we were trying to give Junior a sibling. I needed to persuade him this was too risky, but couldn’t decide how.

He smiled as I stayed silent, thinking I’d seen his side.

“Think bigger,” he’d said. “You’re always so hesitant. We’re lucky to be getting in now. A guy like Donny? The people he’s worked with–rumor is he knows the Fords personally, even met President Eisenhower, but he’s too humble to say–this can change our lives.” He spun me around, giddy. “You’ll see, Mary,” he continued, running his hands across my back, then lower. “I’ll be able to take care of us, easily. I’ll give you anything—everything—you want.”

I just want you, I thought as his hands guided me to bed.

That night I lay there with him above me. I couldn’t tell if he was seeing me, or the dollar signs Donny had promised. My teeth clenched as his fingers flexed around my wrists, leaving soft spots that throbbed the next day. He didn’t notice.

###

Throughout the summer, Donny came by intermittently, sometimes with money but always asking for more. I hated it, and I hated Donny.

He hated me too. He knew I was against this, and he did what he could to discredit me. It worked. It hadn’t helped that I was a lone voice, my friends and their husbands under his spell.

But I had to keep trying, especially with Rob. Donny was a shuckster, and I wanted him to split.

Mistress Mary, quite contrary, Donny muttered as I asked to see Rob in the kitchen one night. Donny’d come over and told us he was finishing up the investment, he just had one final purchase to make. I successfully got my husband into the kitchen, but I could tell before I opened my mouth that he wouldn’t listen.

Soon, Rob kept repeating. Soon we’ll have the big windfall. He didn’t even bother arguing anymore. His eyes slid past me as he took our last silver dollars from the emergency jar.

###

The next Wednesday, Rob surprised me with a trip to Marshall Field’s.

“We can’t afford this,” I stuttered as we turned the corner and I saw his destination.

“Of course we can,” he said dismissively. “I told you I’ll take care of you.” I saw the familiar look in his eyes and knew he wasn’t seeing our empty wallet, but the one promised.

Donny swore the first return was coming tomorrow, and it would be close to five hundred dollars—almost two month’s of Rob’s salary earnings. He was almost vibrating as he drove, he was so jazzed up.

The saleswomen fawned over us when they saw the BankAmerica card Donny convinced Rob to get, despite my objections. We spent three hours in the store, Rob looking so proud, and left with three dresses, a pair of shoes, and a small assortment of jewelry.

“My beautiful Mary,” he murmured on the drive home, reaching for my hand.

Whenever he’d held up a new dress, asking if I wanted to try it, I had thought, I just want you. I just want us. But like every other moment when Rob talked about what he could give me, the words never made it past my lips.

But in this moment, it felt like I had us. I squeezed his hand back before he had to shift gears.

###

Thursday, I met my friends at the country club. Rob insisted I wear my new clothes and do my hair. Donny would be over while I was out, and our wallet would finally match the extravagant lifestyle we were pretending to live.

Heads turned, taking in my outfit and the trendy bouffant I had attempted. It made my head feel like it was going to tip over, but the girls lavished me with praise, glad I had finally come into the new decade. I knew if I voiced my concerns they’d be brushed off, spinning the tale back to soft fabrics and rings that were so big they broke apart sunlight.

Sally hung back with me while the girls went to get refreshments. “Still stewing?” she asked quietly. Sally knew me well.

“He says it’s tonight,” I replied. She nodded, and I remembered her husband had also invested.

She gave me a knowing smile. “And then we’ll be rich as gangbusters,” she said as our friends returned.

Rob was in a frenzy when I came home, phone cord wrapped around his waist. The Princess Phone had boasted about its single buttons and cord length, yet right now it was wound so tight it looked like a constricting snake.

“Donny didn’t show,” he barely glanced at me as he dialed another number. “No one knows where he went.”

He slept on the couch, making calls from sunup to sundown. His fingers wore down the zero button as he harassed the operator to connect him to various names. Stubble appeared along his jaw.

Envelopes kept coming; none of them looked good.

After two days, I packed Junior in the car and dropped him with my parents. Even if Rob had let me use the phone my parents didn’t own one, so they were usually fine with unexpected visits. I considered staying there too, but I knew what was necessary of a good wife. I needed to help Rob through this—help him-and-me get back to being us.

###

When I returned to our house, everything was dark. Not even the porch light was on, but I was sure Rob was inside. He’d refused to leave for days, skipping work, skipping everything, just in case Donny appeared.

I turned on lights as I walked through the house, searching. Nothing in the living room, except the phone had been ripped from the wall. It lay on the floor, a misshapen serpent.

The decanter was missing.

Then I heard a clink from the kitchen.

When I pushed through the doors, Rob was at the table, clumsily pouring himself a drink with his left hand. He poured more than two fingers’ worth, and I could tell this wasn’t his first.

Automatically, I took a step back. He’d never been a big drinker, but I knew from my friends what happened when a man became more booze than brain.

He noticed my tiny retreat.

“Sit with me,” he said—commanded, really. Not a request. The way he’d been talking to me these last months.

I sat.

We stared at each other for a few seconds. The fading light from the window—another gorgeous sunset, although I was too stressed to really notice, hadn’t paid attention in weeks—cast slivers of light and dark along his face. They hit along his cheekbone, highlighted the curls that now hung limp over his forehead. He looked like a crossroads, like an unbalanced knife, quivering on the edge.

I wondered what I looked like to him.

“The worst part,” Rob said from nowhere, as if we were in the middle of a conversation, “was that you knew. All those times, you tried to warn me, to tell me what I couldn’t do. I didn’t listen, but you were right.”

He dragged his left hand over his face as if trying to peel off his skin. His fingers left red marks. When he looked at me, his eyes were empty, missing the spark that was there on our wedding day, on the weekend mornings when we used to take Junior to the park to feed the ducks.

Now they held nothing. A void. They were black holes: they sucked away my ability to think, to breathe.

We’ll take care of each other had turned into I’ll take care of you, and it had driven Rob mad. He had invested with Donny, believed him over me, trusted in the small payouts and silky words while handing him all our savings. He’d gotten his friends on board. Now they were all out of money, and fingers were pointing in our direction.

There was no way Rob didn’t feel trapped. That he didn’t feel the walls closing in, from all sides. I knew what desperate animals did in tiny cages.

His hidden right hand moved to the table. Perhaps it shouldn’t have surprised me.

“You were right. I was wrong,” he said, finger curling around the gun’s trigger. “You deserve better—anything you want. The whole world. And I can’t give it to you.” The lingering sunlight allowed me to see the tear escaping down his cheek.

“I just want you,” I stuttered out. After all those months of saying it in my head, I could tell it fell on deaf ears now.

“Mary,” he sighed, lifting his hand, “you were my world.”

The past tense caused the adrenaline swimming through my veins to turn to ice. Even if I’d wanted to, I couldn’t move.

The gun went up, level with my eyes, then continued. Before my brain fully processed this—it’s not me, he’s not pointing it at me—his wrist had turned inward. The barrel had been pressed against his temple.

I screamed.

The gun screamed louder.

Crimson coated the windows, marring the final moments of that magnificent sunset.

“Silver Dollars for Silver Tongues” by Emorra Oteca

Emorra Oteca is a Mexican-American writer from the Midwest. Her work has recently been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Say hi on bluesky: wordsfromemorra.bsky.social

The 2nd New Voices Fiction Award

Our inaugural contest is now biannual. We are running it back and the contest is now open.

Don’t wait and feel free to submit here.