just an ordinary goddess…

Gene said the telescope had picked up a dragon egg, but Maria seriously doubted it. Sure, the Thirty Meter Telescope was, well, big. Yes, its range was remarkable. And one of its purposes was exoplanet discovery and characterization. But the resolution to make out an single egg on a single planet just wasn’t there, let alone finding a planet close enough to determine the mythical provenance of said egg.

Maria wondered if Gene had gone on a serious bender the night before. He’d been drinking way too much since his sister had been killed by a drunk driver three months before and it wasn’t unusual for him to show up at the observatory still feeling the effects from a hard night of drinking. Interventions hadn’t worked – at least not for long. Had he been anyone else, he would’ve been fired long ago. But Gene was one of the best astrophysicists in the southern hemisphere, let alone this remote region of Chile, and Maria couldn’t think of a finer scientist that she had ever worked with.

This whole dragon egg thing, though, was going a little too far, even for a scientist of Gene’s eccentricity level. Skepticism was writ on her face as she turned to face her colleague. His thick eyebrows knit over his bloodshot eyes when he saw her expression.

“Maria, I’m serious. I swear there’s an egg on the surface of this planet and it looks like a dragon egg. Come and see for yourself.”

There is more to this story, but I’m currently hung up on a technical issue. I’ll have to research it (i.e. ask the astrophysicists I work with), but I don’t think I’ll get the answers until next week. Stay tuned…

A big thank you to Jeri, Matt and MWT for their suggestions – there are elements of their suggestions in the story.

Warning: rather longish (for this format) short story ahead. Enjoy!

Again. Yet again. At least this one admits readily to his attraction to you. You don’t have to decipher signals and signs and tell him point blank you’d love to seduce him for him to admit an attraction.

No, this one says to you that he would love to take you to Lake Arrowhead for a weekend, get a little cabin, play in the snow (whatever that may involve). That he would enjoy spending time with you, perhaps even love you as much as he is able. But the chances are you wouldn’t like it much if he wanted to do the same with other women. Because this isn’t the different world he wishes it were. If it were a different world he could be with you and with other women and no one would get hurt. Or if this were that different world, he could be very happy with just you.

This is the only world there is, you tell him. He nods and agrees and says unfortunately people get hurt in this world. And he doesn’t want to hurt you. Or anyone else. Because he’s just looking for a casual relationship and none of the women he’s dated in the last several years – since his ex-girlfriend of many years left, left the state – have been able to handle such a relationship. Or have measured up to the ghost of the ex that he says he’s still in love with. The woman that he’s still friends with. The ex that has someone new.

So he says he really isn’t in the dating scene, that he’s willing to wait until he finds the right woman, the next woman he might want to spend the next twenty years of his life with, perhaps even marry, because it seems to him that women aren’t capable of a casual relationship.

You disagree with him, tell him you’re capable, because you’ve had a couple in the past. That there is a trick to it, that the woman just needs to be with someone who is attractive enough for her to sleep with, but should ideally drive her murderously crazy in one respect so that she knows too much time spent with said guy would be too stressful. As you tell him this – and he interrupts with innuendo that clearly isn’t helping you – you wonder if it would be possible to be that casual relationship for him. Because it’s been a year since you last had sex and you’re mighty horny. And he looks so good, so handsome, sitting across the lunch table from you.

The first time you saw him you couldn’t take your eyes off him during the several hours you were both in that large room, filled with over one hundred people. You spoke to him briefly later in the day, as the meeting attendees had split into brainstorming groups and he happened to lead yours and took e-mail addresses. He figured out what your mish-mash of letters stood for and smiled and you were impressed by his perspicacity. Several months later, when you saw him again at another meeting, you spoke to him briefly a couple of times near the beginning of the day, then, when the long election meeting was over, with most of the crowd gone, you found the courage to walk up to him and congratulate him for being elected. He shook your hand and held it while you talked about why you were there. He encouraged you to check out another meeting the next day and you agreed, all the while looking into his dark eyes, feeling a heart-pounding thrill not even the last person you loved gave you even though you had frequently wanted to jump his bones.

The subsequent meetings, with frequent exchanged glances and occasional swapped grins. The rare phone calls where just listening to his voice got your nipples hard and your underwear wet. Surely you could just spend a weekend or two in bed, pleasuring each other with no strings attached.

But you know yourself too well, know that it’s not just a strong physical attraction. That you admire his passion and compassion, appreciate his humor, enjoy the way you can talk to each other and the way he keeps you on your toes. He can match you joke for joke, quip for quip, and you like the challenge. He’s better at debating than you are, which you also like, and has a memory for detail (if not always names) and an agile mind that excites you. And he knows when to stop and think, that life isn’t always about the quick, easy and perfect answer. You admire that about him as well.

Thing is, he thinks highly of you too. He’s told you so. He thinks you’re beautiful and interesting and intelligent and nice. You’re such a nice person. And that you seem much more of a New Yorker than a person from Los Angeles. The ultimate compliment from a New York boy.

And you know, much as you would like to just fuck like bunnies for as long as you both can stand it, your emotions will just get in the way. You’ll be hurt again and you don’t know if you can take it. Not so soon after the last time. You tell him, while you can and have done casual before – which he doesn’t believe – and are sorely tempted, you know this time you couldn’t do it. Not with him.

He nods and understands, shifts in the booth from his former half-reclining position to leaning forward on the table. You joke with him about how, when reclining, he appeared to be just taking in your words in sort of a “Uh huh” manner. He cocks his head to the side with a slight knitting of the eyebrows, then slides out of the booth, stands up and moves over to your side of the lunch table, slipping in next to you. You’re looking up at him but still leaning forward on the table. He reaches his left hand over and strokes the back of your neck. Your eyes close. He continues to stroke the back of your neck, you head dropping forward, enjoying the attention, relaxing just a little bit, wanting to lean back against him, into the crook of his arm.

“I’m not going to lean back, I’m not going to lean back,” you silently chant, a mantra meant to keep you on the straight and narrow.

It doesn’t work. How can it work when he takes his free right hand and places it against your right shoulder, gently but firmly pressing you back in the booth? Against him. Nestling you in the crook of his arm, where you wanted to be anyway.

You don’t resist. You can’t resist. You can’t resist when his hand moves up into you hair and he caresses your scalp. You can’t resist when his other hand runs along the side of your neck and your jaw. Your head tilts back, your eyes still closed, and you feel his lips brush your eyelids. You melt further into him. Your breath catches and again he graces your eyelids with feather light touches of his mouth.

His face moves away and you open your eyes, look into his, smiling and dark. He looks back at you, into your own dark eyes, his face so close, so close, closer still. And he kisses your lips.

Inevitable really, this long, deep, slow, gentle kiss that you return right there in Greenblatts, facing the front door so that anyone who walks in can see you and him and that sweet lengthy kiss.

Your lips part and you look at each other again. You map out his face with your fingertips as his fingers take a trip across your hair and your neck and your jaw. He takes a moment to taste your fingers every time they venture near his mouth. It’s almost a game – stroke his nose, caress his cheeks, travel near his lips and watch them part and his tongue dart out. Swirl the pads of your fingers around his ear, move them to his strong chin, once again near his lips. Open and dart. You do this a few times, your focus on those lips and that tongue, then you glance up, your eyes lock again and he moves in for another kiss, just as sweet and tender and tantalizing as before.

This time your hand grazes his hair, your sensitive fingers running through the short dark wavy locks. So soft. So soft you’re almost miffed because why isn’t your hair that soft? But you don’t think about that until later. How can you? All higher thought functions have fled, leaving you drowning in his smell and his touch and his taste.

Again, after the brevity of eternity, you part and you look at one another. Four dark eyes searching, studying. Despite the softness in his eyes, their deep intensity, you know that he has not changed his mind about you and him. Thought returns and you wonder aloud why life has to be so complicated. He tenderly replies that he doesn’t know. He moves his head, his breath lightly skipping across your ear, threatening to drive away thought again as he whispers, “I just wanted to prove to you that I wasn’t being distant.”

You nod and say nothing, unsure about what to say, and he leans his head back slightly so that he can look at you again. And you know that he didn’t sit next to you with the intention of kissing you, that it just happened, the natural outcome of being so near one another. You see no regret in his eyes, just that soft intensity that you fall into.

You stay that way, his arm still around you, one hand still lightly resting on your hair while you study his other hand, liking the look and the feel of it – not a large hand, but still strong and manly. You know how gentle it can be. You talk about various subjects, including astrology and stories with psychics. Somehow logic comes up and he says that he had been trying to think about your relationship logically, but for once he decided to go with the flow. And you think to yourself, “Relationship? Huh?” Later you wish you had responded, “Be careful about using the word ‘relationship’ around women who are attracted to you,” but for now you just let it go.

So you sit for a while longer, enjoying just the nearness of him, thinking how wonderful and needed just cuddling is, how you could happily sit like that indefinitely, how sometimes it’s better than sex. Who knows how long you would have stayed like that, chatting and cuddling for all the world to see? If the waitress had not apologetically interrupted you, needing to close out the check so that she could go home, perhaps you would have sat there well into the evening. Perhaps not.

He pulls away, using the hand that had previously been stroking your hair to burrow into his pocket and pull out his wallet. Because you have a fear of appearing to assume men will always pay for you, you ask if he’d like some cash for the check. He waves your offer away, as you suspected he might, but at least you didn’t take him paying for granted.

You still remain seated next to each other for a while longer, talking about who remembers what, no longer touching as you were, and you miss it. Funny how quickly the body grows accustomed to touch, only to feel bereft when that touch is gone, even if the touch is brand new. But his knee is still lightly pressed against yours and you enjoy that little bit left.

Eventually you both look at the time. You swear you’d been there for hours, but in truth perhaps an hour and a half had passed since you sat down. Still, you both have places to be and realize it really is time to get going. So you do.

He asks if he can take you somewhere, to the subway station perhaps, then as you say sure he asks where you live. You tell him the area and he says, “I should drive you home. I should really drive you home.”

“You’re sure?” you ask.

“Yeah. I’ll take you home.” You thank him and he says no problem – after all, the places where he had to go for his errands are closed now (you apologize for keeping him and he says not to worry) and he doesn’t live too far from you.

Soon enough you’re driving over the hill, still talking. Somehow you don’t run out of things to say. About politics – which is pretty much a gimme, considering how you met – his music that is issuing from his stereo after you expressed an interest in it (you realize there’s an excellent reason he’s a professional composer – he’s really, really very good) and strings and sealing wax and other fancy stuff.

He turns on the radio briefly, news reports on NPR telling of political issues that anger the both of you, though he turns the station away for a moment so that he doesn’t get too furious. Then he flips back and you hear about something being pulled by the current administration that truly infuriates you, something that speaks to your childhood experiences as a family on a limited income provided to your father by the government. You rant and rail, relating the reason behind your fury, ending with, “Support the troops, my ass. He doesn’t give a shit.” Then you take a deep breath, splay your fingers in front of you, and tell yourself aloud to calm down.

He repeats your words. “Calm down, it’s okay.” You look at him and smile and nod, then he reaches over and strokes the back of your head. Instantly your eyes close and you lean back into his hand, your back arching like cat, then straightening up, chest out, shoulders back. You think it’ll just be a few strokes, to placate you, but he caresses your hair for at least a minute, if not longer, and like the earlier kissing and caressing and cuddling, you don’t want it to end.

It does end, of course, and you take a deep breath, look at him, smile yet again and say, “I don’t know if I’ve quite calmed down yet.” He returns your smile and says nothing, looking out over the road.

The rest of the all too short ride passes uneventfully enough, except for the stretch Hummer you pass when he accidentally gets on the freeway – he has to go in that direction to get your home anyway, so it doesn’t matter much. You both see the Hummer monstrosity at the same time and make noises of disgust and scorn. An evil grin spreads across his handsome face and he rolls down his window and pulls up alongside the thing. As he passes it slowly (the piece of ostentatious, environment destroying crap is huge – the only way to pass it is slowly), his arm snakes out and he raises his hand. You can’t see what he’s doing with his hand, but knowing as you do that he’s not afraid of confrontation and that he can be rather “in-your-face” at times, you have a pretty good idea.

Part of you thinks it’s a little on the juvenile side, especially for a man at least ten years your senior, but a larger part of you loves it, finds it funny and salutes him for doing what you would love to do, and so you giggle.

The Hummer’s windows are shaded, so you have no idea if there is anyone in the abomination to even see his salute to their idiocy and crassness. As you finally pass the driver you notice that he is looking straight ahead. A little disappointing, perhaps, that his actions may have had no impact, but oh well.

Soon enough you’re off the freeway, listening to one of his compositions, a lovely song done in a traditional Greek fashion. He tells you the story behind the song – it was written for a play – and you love the sound of it, the Greek words which he loosely translates for you, lovely in Greek and even more lovely in English (no, he doesn’t speak Greek, but he wrote the words in English and had them translated for the play). You give him the remaining directions to your place. Less than five minutes later he pulls up in front of your building. You smile at each other, say your goodbyes and see yas as you stifle the urge to reach over and kiss his cheek. Or his lips. Because you both know that you should try to maintain your distance, much as you may not want to.

Instead you gather your belongings, open the car door and get out, shutting the door behind you. You walk off to your apartment and he drives off to go home. You spare a glance at his retreating red taillights, knowing you’ll see him again because of your mutual meetings. Hell, you’ll see him in less than a week. And though you swear to yourself that you’re strong, you’re not going to travel the same road with him that you’ve traveled with others, the same road you traveled fairly recently, you still wonder what the next chapter of your story will be. Because this story isn’t over. Not by a long shot.

I’m tired and for some reason trying to type about something real in my life is too much work, so I’m performing an experiment. I’m just going to write up a story on the fly and see where it takes me. Hopefully it’ll be entertaining.

Hands. She never quite realized before how important hands were to her. Oh, she knew that she liked artistic yet masculine hands. Whenever she saw someone she thought was cute and noticed his hands were strong yet nimble, she felt a little extra thrill, quickly imagining those hands kneading and caressing and lightly thrumming. But she’d always thought it was just a frothy whipped cream frosting on a yummy lemon cake.

Today, though, as she spoke to this very cute guy – the man to whom she spoke everyday regarding work issues over the last few weeks – today she happened to really notice his hands with her quick yet thorough glance. She saw that his hands were not strong, were not all that masculine. Artistic, yes, but far more delicate in appearance then she liked, not possessing of a breadth and strength that called to her inner – and outer – woman. In that moment the excitement of speaking to this handsome man dimmed a bit. The depth of her disappointment, almost palpable, surprised her. This surprise caused her to reconsider the possible truth of her own shallowness.

Just as well her partner in conversation was married.

Go to Parts One and Two for the complete story.

The End

She searched his beautiful eyes for a clue, confusion playing across her pretty features.

“I–” He took a deep breath, tried to steady his desire-shaken voice. “I think we should stop for tonight. It’s not that I don’t want to go further. I do. Believe me, I do.” She smiled, her eyes flicking a glance downward at the outline of his still hard penis. “It’s just, well, I think we should slow down a little.” He drew her close, his lips brushing her hair. “I don’t want to go too fast. Not with you.”

She raised her head, gazed at his attractive face, into the dark eyes that took her breath away. She tried to hide the disappointment she felt, not succeeding as well as she might have hoped. Still she appreciated the sweet sentiment behind his prudence, the genuine affection she saw in those bottomless pools of brown.

“I know. You’re probably right. I can’t say I’m not disappointed, but I’ve certainly rushed into most of my previous relationships and look how those turned out. Maybe going slow would be a good thing. For once.”

He nodded and smiled. “For once.” He pulled her against him again and held her tight, burying his face in her hair once more. She felt safe in his arms, loving the security that he brought.

If only she had known that they would never again be so physically intimate. Years later she wondered if she would have done anything different.

Probably not.

Part 1 is here…

Love Seat

So it was hardly surprising when they next met, they strayed back at her apartment after an evening of film and dinner. Jazz played on the stereo and the meeting of minds on her loveseat turned into a fevered meeting of lips, of flesh. Impassioned, yet still impossibly tender, they took their time, savoring one another’s feel and scent and taste.

They found themselves with nude torsos. She sat on the loveseat, looking down at him as he kneeled between her legs. His strong, gentle fingers caressed her breasts as he took her right nipple in his warm mouth, teasing it with his talented tongue. Back and forth he moved, giving each nipple equal time until shudders ran through her. She realized that he had helped her achieve another best, another first: the first time she climaxed from sensual attentions paid only to her breasts. Though small, the shudders were definitely orgasmic in nature. Wonder blended with, enhanced her climax, for she never knew such a thing was possible. She silently thanked him for his talent.

She pulled him upwards and kissed him with an intensified fervor. He slid back onto the loveseat beside her, never breaking contact. They remained clothed from the waist down, but still they thrilled to the feeling of skin pressing, brushing against skin in the cool night air. Of its own volition her hand found the outline of his penis through his pants, hard and –- of a most respectable size.

He moaned against her lips, enjoying her attentions for a few moments, then he, however reluctantly, pushed her away.

to be continued…

Coffee House

They spoke easily, their flowing e-mail exchanges morphing effortlessly into hours of live conversation, full of smiles and laughter. She wondered why she had been so nervous on the way to the rendezvous, especially since she had convinced herself that they were simply two e-mail buddies finally meeting in person.

The truth was, it wasn’t their first meeting, though it had been years since they had last seen each other. Despite her conscious convictions, the whole evening had a date-like feeling to it.

As the night, and the coffee house, drew to a close, they moved outside. Her car sat in front of the coffee house, standing mute witness to the conversation that didn’t want to end. Finally she checked her watch, noting it was after midnight. She sighed sadly.

“I have to go. I have to be at work tomorrow morning by 9am.”

He nodded, then looked slightly sheepish. “You know, I have to be honest.”

Uh oh, she thought. She looked down at her shoes. How many times in the history of the world have those words heralded good things? Not many, she was willing to wager.

He continued. “I never thought I’d be attracted to a BBW. But I am attracted to you. Very much so.”

Her eyes raised to meet his, her wonder no doubt reflected in their wide dark depths. He stepped closer, moved his lips to hers, and sweetly, gently, gave her the most tantalizing, most exciting first kiss she’d ever had. It was the sort of first kiss that every girl imagined, the sort that haunted a woman’s dreams for years. She had no choice to but to respond in kind. Her arms reached up around his neck as his encircled her waist.

They stood that way for many minutes – holding one another, chatting a bit more, kissing a little longer with ever growing passion. Despite her earlier intentions, she didn’t walk through her front door until sometime after 1am, her fingers lightly touching her still tingling lips as a thrill ran through her entire body. Even more minutes passed before a satiated sleep claimed her.

to be continued…

A little background to this story: it started as an exercise in my writing group over a year ago. In the exercise we were given an opening sentence which would, hopefully, blossom into something good. Or at least non-sucky. Thankfully mine turned out really well. It was a lot of fun to both write and read, and garnered laughs from the group. I fell in love with it. Unfortunately the actual story disappeared over the next few weeks. That seriously bummed me out, because I knew I’d never be able to recreate it.

But today I thought I’d use the premise as a springboard to another story. So, as I sat on the bus, motoring my way to work, the story was reborn. It’s very different, but I still like it.

Gone.

All of them: gone.

The accountants – gone. The secretaries – gone. The assistants and clerks and analysts – gone, gone, gone.

They had previously been disappearing from the meadow. Oh, not so quickly that you’d notice at first. It took most of the cows in the pasture at least a couple of weeks to notice that Ingrid or Arnold or Sunlee had stopped their lunch-time napping on the soft grass under the trees that almost hid the near-by seven story office building from sight.

But she had noticed right away. She was always more observant than the others, which caused a frisson of envy amongst their ranks. But she couldn’t help it. That was just the type of cow that she was.

But last week something so unheard of had happened that even the others had noticed immediately. Last week the office workers had stopped coming. None of them had seen any suited humans take their usual breaks for at least five days. The lack of people scared the cows. Even the bulls admitted to being unnerved. All were certain that their way of life, peculiar to the bovines of St. Epistle’s Meadow, would soon be as gone as the humans they had come to rely upon.

There would be no more socks to eat.

Her great-grandmother, a cow of taste and adventure and distinction, was the first to discover the sartorial delicacy. Of course she was initially ridiculed, as were all creatures of vision, but soon her peers saw that her vision – the human foot covering as an unrivaled taste sensation – was, indeed, a thing to be pursued, a desire to be satisfied. For this she was revered, the story of her first sock told over and over until it became almost mythological in scope:



As was her nature, Great-Grandmother wandered away from the other cows, bored of their gossip and passivity. She found herself on the other side of the meadow, close to the trees that rimmed the pasture that she called home. Amidst the music of the woodland creatures she heard a gentle whistle, following by a soft snorting, then another gentle whistle. Great-Grandmother had never heard such sounds in all her – admittedly young – years and was moved to investigate.

She came upon a young human male sitting under a tree, leaning against the trunk. His head drooped to his left, his eyes closed behind the heavy framed glasses and his chest moved up and down, a shallow motion. She thought that maybe this human – of which she had seen few – was sleeping. She didn’t understand how he could sleep comfortably in such a position, but she’d heard from the elders that humans were very strange creatures. It was the reason the elders had escaped from their farms when they were her age. They could take the strangeness and cruelty of the humans no longer.

She knew that she should walk away, warn the others about this male encroaching on their home, but he looked harmless enough. Then her wide wet nose – a nose that was the envy of all the cows because its beauty was unparalleled, desired by all the bulls – her sensitive nose picked up a subtle aroma. She stepped closer, cautious. She lifted her nose, trying to pinpoint the source of the scent. It was definitely coming from the human. Closer still she walked, remembering the tales of the elders, terrified but intrigued in spite of herself.

He slept on, unmindful of the cow now close enough to nudge his head, had she so chosen. The soft sounds continued to issue from his mouth and nose. Her nostrils flared as she moved her huge bovine head down his body.

There! There was the fragrance! Her moist brown eyes, already big as saucers, widened even more when she determined that the perfume was even more heavenly than she originally thought. Off to the side of the male were two shiny strange things with openings and strings. The smell from them were kin to the scent she loved, but too strong, almost over-wheming. No, the aroma that caused her to salivate came from his feet, from the stuff covering them. She was sure the stuff was not actually part of the human, so when she decided that she needed to taste that which gave off the fragrance that was seducing her, she was sure she could do so in such a way that would not harm him. For it was said that, despite her impatience with the others of her kind and her need for adventure, she was the most gentle of bovines in the pasture.

And so, very carefully, so as not to disturb him, she took the floppy tip of one of the coverings between her flat cow teeth and pulled. His foot twitched, but he did not waken. The covering was pulled free of the foot – a pale, wide, ugly thing, disturbingly spare of hair, though she had no way of knowing that the foot was particularly hairy for a human – and the prize dangled from her teeth. She chomped on the fragrant stuff and found the taste even more delectable than the scent.

Soon it was chewed and swallowed and she knew that she had to have the other. And she did, still not waking the male in the process. When that was gone she wanted more, but nothing else about him smelled so wonderful. So she started to walk away, dejected, when the human finally awoke. He stared at his bare feet, wondering what had happened to his foot coverings, and made vaguely upset noises about it.

Then he noticed Great-Grandmother nearby, looked her in the eyes. Somehow she was able to communicate to him with her wide saucer eyes all that had transpired. He seemed scared at first, then angry. She thought he was going to revert to all she had heard humans could be when his mouth stretch wide and he showed his teeth. But rather than looking frightening she thought that maybe, just maybe, he looked pleased. Then he roared. His roar was happy, she had to admit it, and he moved to her, put his slender, fragile hand on her thick neck and stroked it. The roar had subsided, but more happy sounds came from him. He was trying to communicate with her in his human way. She understood none of the noises, but she could sense his positive feelings. And somehow she knew he’d be back.



Of course he was, and over the course of the years he brought others from his seven-story building, who brought others. Never too many people. Just enough. They all knew to bring extra socks – worn, of course. Great-Grandmother convinced her tribe to give the socks a try. They were hesitant, but once tasted the need for worn socks could not be denied. They discovered the difference in tastes and smells that each person imparted to their socks, and how the same human could have different tasting socks from day to day, depending on so many factors that it took Great-Grandmother and Grandmother years to discover and enumerate them. She preferred argyles and women’s trouser socks to the athletic socks that the coarser amongst them seemed to like.

Now it appeared that none of them would enjoy another sock. The humans, many of whom were as close to family as creatures of another species could be, came no more. And within a week she noticed, with the saucer brown eyes and wide moist nose inherited from Great-Grandmother, that the seven-story building was no more. The day before they had all heard a great boom as the ground shook beneath them. They huddled together in fear at the noise. And their fear mounted when she pointed out the red brick building, that had been there as long as any of them could remember, was gone.

For a couple of weeks they milled about, depressed. They didn’t know how to get their humans back. Or their socks. Then she saw a male, big for a human, enter the clearing in the same spot that the first human male was said to be discovered. He was dressed very differently from the people they were used to: a hard yellow thing covered his head, stick and metal things dangled from his waist, and the shoes that usually covered the coveted socks were heavy looking and tan, instead of shiny and delicate and black. She watched him, thrilled that another human finally showed himself, but not sure if this one would be as friendly as the ones they had known.

The rest of the tribe wandered close to her, keeping an eye on him. They observed him as he looked at them, then dropped something on the ground. He stretched his mouth at them, his white teeth flashing in the sunlight, and then he waved, yelling at them, and disappeared.

Apprehensively they stepped closer to the spot where the male had been. The breeze picked up, whipping at the trees, and an enticing perfume lifted on the breeze, whirling around them. They couldn’t believe their noses. Their collective amble turned into a trot and soon they surrounded what had been dropped on the ground. Had they been capable of cheering, they would have.

Socks. Wondrous socks of all types and sizes and smells. Enough for each of them for at least a week.

She lifted her head from the pile of treats and spied the man nearly hidden amongst the trees. His brown eyes were wide behind their heavy-framed glasses and met hers. Silent communication passed between them, and she knew that this human would take care of them, the way his (she knew without knowing why she knew) ancestor took care of Great-Grandmother and her peers.

She dipped her great head at him, he waved in return, and he was gone, like a mirage.

But the socks were still there.

Warm. Bright. Fragrant. Isolated.

Such love she had for this spot, this tiny piece of earth near the trickling stream. Barely enough lush grass for her to stretch out upon, but it was still enough. The trees rose up around her, protecting her haven from the rude, mechanized world in which she lived. A world she had once enjoyed, truth be told, with the bustling energy that swept her up and whirled her around, leaving her breathless, dizzy, unsure, but yearning for more, like the teacups at Disneyland.

But for those times when even she could no longer bear the ruthless pace of the city she had come here. A patch of grass and dirt, a few rocks at the edge of the stream, and the forest, so close to the highway, yet a universe away. None of this ever appeared to be disturbed by human hands, for which she was grateful. She had no idea how the area had managed to elude groping teenagers and littering troglodytes. She tried not to think about it too much, to just enjoy the nature surrounding her for as long as possible.

As she lay on the green turf, the singing of birds and gurgling of water fluttering in her ears, she felt the sun gently wash over her, warming her, soothing her. It had been too long since she felt this simple pleasure, too many years spent in the “real” world. She had almost let him, her memories of him and their shared time, steal her sanctuary. The last time she visited this retreat she brought him with her. It was the last bit of herself left to share with him. And share she did, as they sank to the ground, cushioned by verdant wild flora underneath. They sat and listened to the music of the forest, felt it enter them and swim in their blood, the ever-present warmth of the sun charging them with an erotic languor. Slowly, with a fluid serenity generally uncommon to their encounters, clothes were peeled off and skin was stroked, tongues and lips and limbs entwined and explored, crescendos were reached again and again.

She was happy to share this final piece of herself with him. She felt drunk, with the perfume of the earth and trees and water, with the sounds of nature, with the scent and feel and sounds of him, enveloping her, filling her, a part of her. It felt as though he would be a part of her always.

It was not long until she discovered that always was a nebulous concept at best. Soon after their wondrous time spent in her refuge, no, their refuge, always was ripped from her, wrenched away by a young man with too much alcohol and too little sense. The pain was too great to bear, so it was stuffed down and down until it seemed to disappear, along with recollections of the beauty of their perfect afternoon together along the side of the stream.

Finally not even she could escape the reality of his death. Years later it overwhelmed her, flinging itself at her to be faced, to be dealt with, to be truly accepted before she could heal again. Tears fell until she was dry and numb, then they came again. She was afraid to go to her usual place of peace, terrified of the reminders that might incapacitate her until she dissolved into a puddle of tears and pain and anger.

At last she realized she could stay away no longer. Not if she was going to finally live her life again. And so she entered the place that had once brought her so much contentment, almost surprised to find it exactly as she remembered, happy that humans had not desecrated it. Even more surprising was the pain that she feared so much never materialized. In its place was the peace that used to bring her here. Tinged with sadness, it was true, but somehow fuller for the bittersweet it brought. She sat on the ground as she used to, the light breeze stirring her soft cotton sundress, the sunshine warming her supple pale skin and glinting against her burnished tresses. She thought she could smell his fragrance enfold her, feel his arms embrace her, and the burden she had carried for so many years evaporated in the simple pureness of the landscape and remembrance of his love. The burden would come back, she knew that, but she also knew it would be less than before.

Again she was grateful for this secluded bit of earth. She found that she had been right so long ago, that he would be a part of her always.

And, as she lay down on the thick lush grass, she knew she would never forsake her haven again.

They stood on the shelf, all lined up in an odd little row. Well, as lined up as they could be. Some were straight, others bent in the center and seventeen had tips that were practically frayed with over-use.

And the colors… A pale pine color served as the base for a palette of faded tints of green and red and orange, amongst others. Those with unfrayed points displayed every shade of every color of the rainbow, the halogen lights shining on the acrylic case infusing the fifty objects on display with a peculiar richness and beauty.

At this thought I turned to my host, looked at the strange glint in his huge gray eyes, the unsettling proud smile on his narrow face, then took a quick glance of the bizarre collection, the used toothpicks on parade.

“What are you, fucking nuts?” I asked, running out of the dingy little studio apartment near Santa Monica and Highland as fast as I could, praying he wouldn’t follow me. He didn’t.

Never again would I answer personals from the back of the free weekly.

It may not have been meant as a challenge, but I took it as one. Thanks, Christopher!

My writing group has a new thing these days – a weekly e-mail reminding people of the meeting place (it’s at a different member’s place each week) and a couple of writing prompts: a word and a headline. Since I’m the only member who can’t host a meeting, due to my living location being far too north, I’ve been elected to send out the e-mails. Which is totally cool, since I feel as if I’m contributing to the group more.

This week I wrote a story inspired by this story, which I linked to on Halloween. I dashed it off and I have to say, it’s actually one of my better stories. So I’m going to share it with y’all. It’s rather a departure for me. I’ve done a couple of revisions, but I like the way it turned out. Enjoy!

So there I was, just hanging out with my friends after school. No biggie, we did it all the time. Sylvia was hiding her joint from one of the sisters who was passing by, but her nose, which can usually smell an extinguished ash from five miles away, stopped working or something. Sister Mary Margaret was off to the side and she looked pretty horrified. We all looked over to where she was looking and saw why she didn’t care about the joint all that much.

This young guy was standing there, staring at us girls. We got that all the time. It’s that whole Catholic school-girl thing some guys are totally into. It’s always a little icky, but we learned to shrug it off a long time ago.

This guy was different. It wasn’t just that he was a lot younger than most of the creeps. It wasn’t even that he wasn’t bad looking for a creep.

He wasn’t wearing any pants.

He had on shoes and a coat that came down past his knees, but no pants, even though it was hella cold. I think Sister Mary Margaret was praying that maybe he was wearing shorts under the coat. I guess she prayed in vain because the guy opened his coat and let all us girls see what he had. Well, it was really what he didn’t have. I would’ve laughed if I wasn’t so shocked. I mean, at 15 I’d already seen a lot, you know? That’s what happens when you’re being told that everything is bad and you just had to find out what the big deal was about.

This? This was a new one for me. And from the looks of my friends and the other girls leaving the school, I wasn’t the only one it was new for.

Some wussy girl screamed, I think it was Charlotte. She gets shocked if you look at her wrong. But I couldn’t blame her this time.

And the perv just kept standing there, grinning.

A couple of neighbor guys across the street saw what the asshole was doing, so they ran at him. Pervy wrapped up his coat and started running too. He was too slow, though, and the neighbors knocked him down.

I looked over at Sylvia. She’s been my best friend since kindergarten and I knew she had a lot of things in her childhood that would make this sort of thing hit her pretty hard. She had this really strange expression. She was furious, I could see that, but a really scary smile spread across her face. I mean, fucking scary. The kind of smile you don’t want to come across when you’re in a bad neighborhood alone after dark.

She ran over to the perv and dropped her joint on his face, still burning and all. He flicked his head super fast and it fell off, but you could still see the red mark on his cheek. Then she started kicking him. Hard. Man, all her anger that she had pent up over the years just burst out and bam! A kick in the stomach. Bam! Another kick to the legs. Slam! Right upside the head. Wham! In the gonads. That one was the hardest of all.

The neighbor guys looked at each other. They didn’t know if they should stop Sylvia or let WhackJob go or what. I made up their mind for them. I went up right next to Sylvia and kicked the fuckwad too. I started to beat on him. Sylvia smiled at me, grateful this time, and landed a punch to the kidneys.

The rest of the girls rushed up and the next thing I knew there we all were, just whaling on this freak. All of our anger at the creeps that stared at us or tried stuff we didn’t like or shit with our childhoods and families poured out over his punk-ass. And it felt good. Even Charlotte got a few good licks in. Who knew mousy Charlotte got angry too?

Finally we were stopped, I guess because the neighbors were afraid we’d kill Freakazoid before the cops got there. They finally showed up and talked to all of us. We were kinda scared at first that we’d be taken in, but the cops didn’t even care! Even Sister Mary Margaret was all on our side, smiling at what we did. She didn’t even get her panties in a bunch over Sylvia’s joint.

Turns out the perv had done this all over the city. Turns out we were just meting out a little justice, the first time anyone had actually tried to get back at the piece of shit. After he healed in the hospital he got his ass thrown in jail for a bunch of counts of, quote, harassment, disorderly conduct, open lewdness and corrupting the morals of a minor, unquote.

Sylvia is a little less angry these days. I’m hella happy about that. Justice feels really good.

Writing Exercise – Word: Damp (written on the bus tonight):

The basement smelled old, musty, damp. She hugged the wall, searching for a light switch. G-d, she hoped there was a light switch. She would hate to have to step away from the solid safety of the the wall, blindly reaching up to find a dangling light bulb that might not even have a pull chain attached, not knowing what she might encounter in the thick, black dark that closed in around her.

She started to panic, cursing herself for not bringing a flashlight, a candle, even a stupid book of matches. Who the hell goes into a strange basement without back-up lighting of some kind? And why the hell did he send her down for the wine, knowing her fears?

Images flashed behind her eyes. She saw rats and roaches scurrying across her feet, unseen but definitely felt. She saw the house being shaken apart by a sudden earthquake, even though earthquakes were unheard of in Florida. In her mind the safe walls crumbled like blue cheese around her, the ceiling collapsed on her head and she lay buried in the rubble, stunned but conscious, the unseen rats and roaches making a meal of her.

Breathe deeply, she told herself. Even he wouldn’t send her down to a dank basement if it were unsafe. Sure, he was pretty screwed up, but he knew her horror of the dark, of being buried alive.

G-ddamned Poe stories. Who was the brain trust that decided Poe was appropriate reading for impressionable children? That was some fucked-up shit for a third grader to be forced to read, especially one as preternaturally fearful as she was. Ever since she had read “The Cask of Amontillado” and “Fall of the House of Usher”, she’d been terrified of basements and old houses and the dark. Always the dark. Enveloping her, enfolding her, smothering her in its relentless embrace.

Wait, was that a rustle? It was hard to hear over her ragged breathing, but she was sure she heard some rustling. Was she sharing this space with horrible rodents and insects and maybe even reptiles? Shit oh shit oh shit…

She decided to go back up the stairs, smack him so hard those slightly crossed eyes of his went straight and fell out of his demented skull, when her trembling hands ran across a switch. A light switch. Oh glory, blessed be. Okay, she thought as her fingers flicked the switch upwards, she’ll get the wine. But she was still going to slap him silly for making her do this, the sick fuck.

The light flashed on, momentarily blinding her, and she heard the rustling again, louder than before, this time accompanied by a stomp or two. In the brief instant that it took her eyes to adjust to the bright light, terror spiked through her, rising to her vocal chords. Her scream was lost in the voices bombarding her. “Surprise! Happy birthday, Sam!”

She stared at the familiar faces of her friends and family. The door above creaked open and she looked up into his face with its crazy grin.

She glared at him and spoke, her eyes steely, her tone unforgiving.

“Jeremy, you are so not getting laid tonight.”

Here’s a prime example of the types of pieces I put together for my writing group, inspired by one word:

The paper was gaily festooned with hand-drawn balloons and streamers and wrapped packages, which also depicted gaily festooned hand-drawn wrapping paper with balloon and streamers and wrapped packages. The paper took on an Escher quality in its colorful simplicity. No, not Escher. More like one of those infinity mirrors that seemed so cool back in the Eighties. Now many folks considered those mirrors outdated, but I still found them kind of cool. Maybe I was stuck in the Eighties. Maybe I was just easily fascinated. Who knows?

I looked at the wrapping paper, so carefully drawn by my friend, and tried to follow the little drawings on the little packages as far as I could. I think I counted four distinct patterns until the drawings ran together enough to look like solid colors. So very pretty. I was touched that my friend would take the time to fashion the festive pattern on the fragile pearlescent tissue paper that wrapped the small box.

“Open it!” she demanded, amused at my fascination with her handiwork. I did as she commanded, gently prying the taped ends so as not to disturb the artistic paper. She blew a sigh through her teeth, impatient with my ministrations, but she knew better than to urge me to hurry up. I was a careful un-wrapper even with commercial paper. There was no way I was going to destroy something she had taken so much care to create.

Finally the last of the tape was lifted and the paper fell away from the plain brown box. I removed the top carefully and pulled aside the translucent tissue to reveal a delicate wire picture frame. Glass beads in blue and green and purple adorned the wire frame, which turned this way and that in a maze of copper, looping back to its point of beginning before taking off in a new direction. It was both simple and complicated, like the wrapping paper, like my friend, and I loved it.

Surrounded by the copper wire was a picture of my friend and me from happier times, before her marriage problems and my family problems, when we were both much younger and life seemed so much simpler. As I looked at the younger us, our smiles as big as our futures, tears formed in the corners of my eyes. I knew what she was trying to say with this gift. That life was both as simple and as complicated as the wire frame, but that, no matter what happened, we would still, at heart, be those same girls that looked at the future with such optimism and that we would always be those girls together.

I looked up at her. “Thank you,” I said, nearly breathless. Her knowing eyes smiled back at me.

I should clarify, the above story is completely fictional. My writing group paid me the compliment of thinking it was a true story. Such sweet women!