Microstory A Week

Hit and run

2012-03-07T13:07:00.005-08:00

By Kate Alexander-Kirk

The body lay before her, rigid and lacking any trace of life or personality. Zoë’s most morbid fantasies could never have prepared her for her first encounter with a dead human being. She felt glued to the spot as if she had, in some childish dare, stuck her tongue out on a frozen pole. Terror and panic gurgled in the pit of her stomach as hysteria threatened to engulf her. A fellow pedestrian finally “unstuck” her, guided her to the safety of the pavement, away from the growing crowd. The person tried to comfort her in a quiet, calming fashion, but the words were mere gibberish. Somehow, Zoë managed to tell the person where she lived and who should be contacted to come and retrieve her.

At school the next day all her friends wanted to talk about was the accident that she had witnessed.

“What was it like?” Casey demanded.

“Did you get a good look at the body?” Craig said as he licked his lips.

“Was there a crowd? Was anyone sick? Was the pavement all covered in blood and guts and spew and shit?” Mark grinned, his eyes wide, desperate.

Zoë cringed as she listened to their lurid questions in the playground. Somehow this brush with death lifted her above her peers. She closed her eyes to escape the sight of them but her mind was filled with the image of the young woman sprawled across the road, limbs twisted and tangled like a rag-doll that a child had discarded without care or grace. The left leg was flung at a right angle to the right and the left arm was wrenched by the impact of the vehicle, straight from its socket so that it lay broken and deformed - useless. Zoë’s mind was scarred with the gruesome distortion of the young woman’s features. The blood smeared across what may once have been a beautiful face. The nose smashed beyond repair and the jaw knocked out of line with the rest of her profile. Zoë shuddered at the memory that was now etched in vivid detail.

Her friends’ questions replayed in her mind, even weeks later. She couldn’t understand the cruel, impersonal, voyeuristic nature of their gruesome curiosity. They referred to the victim as “it”.

Zoë grew more distant from them as they had refused to acknowledge that this victim was a real person with relationships that were now shattered. She soon found that she could block out the echo of their thoughtless, unkind jibes. But she could never quite escape the screeching of brakes and the faint odour of rubber from the friction of tyres on asphalt as the driver made their desperate and despicable escape. The crowd of people gawping; astonished and appalled, before the harshest memory of all: the crushing of bones, fragile as egg shells being trampled underfoot.

Copyright ©2012 Kate Alexander-Kirk. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Kate Alexander-Kirk drinks copious amounts of tea as she dreams up weird and wonderful stories that she one day hopes to realise. And she does it all donning her Top Hat at a jaunty angle. Her work has appeared previously in Long Story Short, amphibi.us, Postcard Shorts and is soon to be published in Pure Slush, Negative Suck and Winamop.

**One of my stories, Frostbite the ice pimp, was published on the Erotica Readers & Writers Association website

2012-03-06T04:13:00.001-08:00

Horror/sex/violence readers: one of my longer, for-mature-audiences stories, Frostbite the ice pimp, will be published on the Erotica Readers & Writers Association site until March 30, 2012.

While this blaxploitation-meets-a-violent-holiday-TV-special tale has brief, explicit sex and brutal action elements, it’s more of a "hard" R-rated read, with lots of well-developed characters.

This 6,657-word story, credited to the fictional Chuck Lovepoe, sports influences from Robert Beck (aka Iceberg Slim), Romeo Muller (who created Frosty the Snowman and other TV specials) and Robert Devereaux.

Check it out!

In days of olde ... when knight were absent

2012-02-29T13:19:00.004-08:00

By Sandra Davies

Victoria turned from the turret window, from which the pluming dust of the Crusade-bound cavalcade, led by her liege lord in response to the king’s summons, could now barely be seen. Disbelievingly she regarded what lay on the pewter dish, the canescent globes unappetising in the extreme. One raised eyebrow was sufficient to permit the waiting varlet to speak.

‘My master asseverated that your chastity could only be assured if you ate these especially-selected mushrooms daily – on pain of death I am to make sure.’

Victoria smiled – her lord could hope, but she knew that neither her chastity nor the varlet’s death would be an issue – unless issue became one instead.

Copyright ©2012 Sandra Davies All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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This story was originally published on Sandra's site, lines of communication, on February 10, 2012.

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Sandra Davies is an artist printmaker and recently-emerged writer of fiction, who regards flat estuarine and sea-edged horizons as essential for well-being. Regularly published on MuDSpots, Thinking Ten and Six Sentences, less so Camel Saloon, Pygmy Giant, Pigeon Bike, and currently working on her fifth novel – a romantic detective tale. More writing at lines of communication and prints at Print Universe.

Chickens roosting in the trees

2012-02-22T00:06:00.001-08:00

by Baird Nuckolls

She came to Keystone West in the Cotton Candy Nebula to get away from the routine of her life, the humdrum stress that wore her down like a nearly flat sine wave. She wanted to sit by the pool slathered in sunscreen and sweat, broiled by the fiery blue sun, reading a trashy novel and drinking some sickly-pink concoction that the pool bartender had splashed over frozen helium in a plastic cup. Staring off toward the Cuban archipelago, her eyes pinched against the sharp sun, she could hear the fluted call of Gentian tourists beyond the wrought-iron fence.

She couldn't sleep the first few nights in the sticky heat, but after a few days of no schedule and no real conversation, she slept like the dead, falling into bed as the rowdy young Falindal offspring on their gap-year tour pedaled past on the way to Duval Street for their night of drunken revelry. She woke in the dawn to the crowing of a flexi-cock and found her way down to the dusty street in the lavender half-light. Walking through the empty streets, she looked at the decaying architecture and the aggressively carnivorous vines overgrowing fences. Stopping to read a historical marker that was hidden in an riot of greenery, she discovered four vegan chicken-bots roosting in the trees just inches from her face. They stared at her in alien, transgendered silence, hoping she would move along so they could sleep.

The smell of hot caffeine stereo-isomer drew her down to the waterfront, to a stand frequented by unshaven dock workers and a few bare-footed beach bums, who stood over their steaming dark brew, inhaling brain cells, firing new neurons in the cool damp day.

Later, she wandered further afield, renting a quadricycle to circumnavigate, past faded cera-melt bungalows and shoddily constructed time share communities clinging to the edges of the airport. The strips of crude consumerism gave way to graceful old homes hidden in groves of tall native trees, ceiling fans stirring the porch air, bird-bots calling from the hidden shade.

The abandoned Federal fort was all flat light and crumbling brick, a home to feral feline-reciprocals; the most promising part was the cache of iced H2o for sale in the lobby shop. She understood, standing on the end point of land, looking out of sand bars and shallows filled with waving aquagrass, why Hemingway drank, surrounded by legions of six-toed cats. She'd visited his home once in the original Key West, wandering the grounds and staring at the books behind glass in his study, the deer mounted on the wall over his desk and the descendants of his cats lounging on the wrought iron furniture beside the faded aquamarine pool.

She rode through the oldest part of the habitat, as tour buses rumbled by on the cobbled streets, their garbled narrative announced on the breeze, their aisles filled with off-world visitors stupefied by rum drinks and the heat. From every street corner, young people hawked day trips on giant heliospores, spun their daydreams of jet pack flights, bikinis and umbrella drinks to the crowds. She ignored them all, searching out the secret gardens instead.

The last night of the week, she stood at lands' end and watched the blue sun sink into the ocean, far from the raucous crowd at AltMallory Square. Keystone West had become a private oasis, the heat burning through the fog in her brain, replacing the sharp edges of her toil with the worn down and faded colors of the town. She found herself amused, renewed, content. When it was time to leave, she contemplated slipping the ties of her life and remaining behind, washed up on the silicate beach like so many before her, seduced by the lure of ease.

But it wasn't entirely necessary to leave the ease behind. She packed her sunglasses, along with a few nautilus fossils to remind her of the sound of the foreign sea. The chicken-bots raced across her path and under the porch as she walked away. They would await her return in the cool shade.

Copyright ©2012 Baird Nuckolls. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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If you like this story, check out Baird’s other stories, published on this site: He Preferred Red, Jet lagged and Scarred.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Baird Nuckolls left her heart in Key West one Spring Break and longs to return. She is a writer and editor, living in Northern California.

**One of my mainstream horror microstories, They return - dream?, was published on the Leodegraunce site

2012-02-20T15:12:00.000-08:00

One of my mainstream horror microstories, They return - dream?, will be published on the Leodegraunce site, from February 20 - 26, 2012.

Scenter of baked mysteries: ginger drunge XIII

2012-02-15T00:01:00.002-08:00

(for Dennis Logsdon and dani harris)

By Steve Isaak

Dreamtime night hike, mix of now and twelve years back – my friend, Dennis, and I smoke a heady exhaled bowl, while walking a bike path from the parking lot, where he left his orange cream, engine erratic car, to an outdoor movie theater, its elevated dimly lit screen looming a quarter mile away.

Dennis hums a Celine Michael with Metallica song, “My Faithful Heart Will Roam On”, the theme ballad of the flick we’re going to see, Interview with a Titanic Vampire II: Sleepaway Cruise, where a “hunky” (according to Dennis) Tom DiCaprio has reprised his role of Felissa Baker, a gender-mad fangster.

“Oh, shut up,” I say, smiling. “We only listened to your stupid song thirteen times on the way here. I thought only girls went in for that bullstuff!”

“Twelve,” Dennis insists, laughing, “Learn how to count, hetero-boy!”

One of the other movie-goers, for whatever reason, glares at us: he’s Napoleon Bonaparte-short, bald, hairless, and smells mouth-watering, delicious, like a freshly baked – har! – biscuit with a buttery center, which makes sense, because he appears to be made of such foodstuff.

Biscuit Christ Guy, as I silently name him, begins ranting about the veracity of Intelligent Design theory, how Adam played Fetch with earth-shaking T-Rexes in the Garden (no doubt using the bones of smaller dinosaurs as Fetch-sticks) and how Eve, a properly submissive wife, “cooked pterodactyl eggs and triceratops bacon every morning for her hard-workin' man”.

Dennis and I exchange a red eyed eye roll. Dennis asks Biscuit Christ Guy if he’s really made of biscuit stuff.

Irritated at Dennis’ interruption, Biscuit Christ Guy squints, “Yes.”

Seconds later, we’re atop him, literally ripping his fat, butter splattery head off – his eyeballs taste like Gummy Worms; his tongue tastes like black licorice hard shell candy – while others, intent on scoring better-view lawn chairs at the drive-in, barely spare us glances.

Dennis and I aren’t shocked to discover a butter puddle where Biscuit Christ Guy’s brain should be.

Suddenly, it’s day for night – not that François Truffaut film, but literally – as everything goes blinded-by-a-flashlight bright, and estival heat is whooshed away by the temperature chasm above, leaving only goose bump cold in its wake.

Dennis, pale as I feel, looks at me, then at screaming others around us, “apocalypse!” and “Rapture!” the gists of their logorrheic panic or glee.

When two girls’ faces, huge and giggling in different pitches, peer down at us, fill our sky, I realize:

our final spell
will be romcom
random

Copyright ©2012 Steve Isaak. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

I've published two anthologies, Charge of the scarlet b-sides: microsex stories & poems and Behind the wheel: selected poems. I'm also the editor of this site and Reading & Writing By Pub Light.

My work has appeared on these websites: Erotica Readers & Writers Association, Leodegraunce, Every Night Erotica and others, plus two anthologies: the Richard Labonté-edited Best Gay Romance 2012 and Suite Encounters: Hotel Sex Stories (edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel).

Helen's dilemma

2012-02-08T11:04:00.000-08:00

By MorningAJ

Helen took a deep breath and prepared to explain it again. Her fiancé was looking at her with a strange expression: slightly confused and slightly annoyed.

“This has nothing to do with women’s lib and equality. I’m just not going to take your name when we’re married.

“I refuse to be known as Helen Highwater!”

Copyright ©2012 MorningAJ. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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This story was originally published on the Jobbing Writer site on January 26, 2012.

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If you like this story, check out these other Morning AJ stories, published on this site: Disguise, Earwig and Jetsam.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

MorningAJ is a professional (science PR) writer/rebel who fends off the
restrictions of her paid-for work by creating short stories, poems and
microfiction in her spare time. She’s even managed a novel, thanks to
NaNoWriMo, and is currently working on her second.
She also paints watercolours.
Badly.

**One of my stories, Blasphēmos gamisia, was republished on the Every Night Erotica site

2012-02-06T01:47:00.000-08:00

One of my older – and odder – erotica stories, Blasphēmos gamisia, about playing cards, royal intrigue and bizarre infidelity, was republished on the Every Night Erotica site.

This story was originally published on the Erotica Readers & Writers Association (ERWA) website in October 2009; it was later included on ERWA’s “Treasure Chest” page in January 2010.

Blasphēmos gamisia was later republished in my anthology, Charge of the scarlet b-sides: microsex stories & poems (available at Lulu.com).

Beautify

2012-02-01T11:59:00.000-08:00

By Otis B. Driftwooed

An eerie, expectant hush fell over the sold-out stadium when she, refulgent, princess lovely, cooed the band’s biggest hit, “Grace Kelly Kiss,” before channeling Betty Davis, shatter-glass brittleness when the band whipped into the drum-led guitar slither of “Wicked Eve”. Lighters and reverence were abandoned as the crowd followed that tonal shift, women and men dancing, shouting out their hormonal responses.

These moments, caught on video, would prove to be the band’s most-remembered live Eighties performance, as evidenced by online chat rooms and referenced media clips when she, still beautiful, now a movie star, died in her sleep in her Beverly Hills home more than thirty years later.

“We’ll never experience the likes of her again,” one Tumbling Stone critic wrote in his heartfelt eulogy. “She was unique, multi-talented, endlessly beneficent – in a word, pure.”

Copyright ©2011, 2012 Otis B. Driftwooed. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Otis B. Driftwooed was born in the United States, and lives in the Pacific Northwest. This is his first published story under this name.

Drywall

2012-01-25T14:42:00.000-08:00

By T F Rhoden

Head Coach Patterson leant into the crowbar, heaving his weight against the bar of iron until the drywall loosened slowly before yawing open. Flecks of chalky plaster clouded the stillness of the small, emptied-out bedroom. Wiping the sweat from his brow with the back of his arm, the man ambulated to the window and released the latch to slide open a pane of glass. Patterson looked up from the second floor of his newly bought house to see the stadium of Southern Methodist University. Thoughts of the previous weekend’s soccer game loss were rekindled.

Below a crash, a yell, and laughter sounded through the house. He could hear his wife’s voice reprimanding their two daughters. He laughed as well, wondering what the girls had broken. The sound had reverberated from the kitchen, through the halls, and up to the second floor. The coach hoped they were making him lunch.

Again Patterson doubted whether purchasing the fifty-year-old house was sensible. He liked that he could walk to the locker-room offices now and visit home during the lunch hours, maybe see more of his elementary-aged daughters.

With attempting to save money by making modifications himself, however, his free time was being chiseled away with remodeling. The coach was already regretting promising his wife that he could expand their bedroom. He surveyed the destruction he had wrought thus far. Patterson admitted that he would need to incur the cost of real carpenter at some point—but not today.

The coach could not help looking at the stadium again. The complex appeared more monolithic than it really was, overbearing from his vantage point. On fortuitous weekends, when Patterson was able to command the varsity team toward a win, the architectural tribune of tubular metal and blocked concrete was a welcoming sight. On weekends like the last, the building never escaped his view, suffocating his mood every time he dared turn toward a window. Every glassed orifice of his house offered a perspective onto the terrible structure.

Leaving the window, the coach brandished the hook end of the bar, hovering the iron in the air as if it were a bat. He swung violently at the wall. Bracing his foot against the crumbling plasterboard, he pulled at the crowbar recklessly. Too much leverage caused the man to place his foot through the aged wall. Losing his balance, he fell awkwardly, slipping to the floor. The crowbar, with a sizeable chunk of drywall, fell with him, showering the coach with a thousand snow-white particles of plaster.

Peeved, picking himself up, the man espied his daughters staring at him blankly from the door. The older girl held a bologna sandwich in her hand, the younger cupping a glass of water carefully so as not to drop it.

—Daddy, you’re white! his youngest yelped.

The girls giggled.

Patterson shook his head, shoulders, and body, spattering the room with dried plaster. The girls screamed playfully, running away from the flying specks.

—What are you two laughing at, their mother asked, halting them at the end of the hall and turning them back around to the room.

—Pat, the girls have your lunch. We have one more beer left in the fridge from…

The coach’s wife stopped speaking when she saw her husband. When she started to laugh, the girls followed.

—You look like a black ghost.

Patterson smiled[, mischievous]:

—Honey, I’d love a beer.

Copyright ©2012 T.F. Rhoden. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

An American, T F Rhoden is an avid traveler. He enjoys good lit, cold beer, and learning new languages. Past publications include the literary fiction book called The Village, two languages guides on the Thai and Burmese languages, an edited epistolary account entitled Burmese Refugees: Letters from the Thai-Burma Border, and most recently a travel guidebook entitled Chiang Mai and Northern Thailand (Other Places Travel Guide). Rhoden is currently pursuing a PhD in PoliSci. He can be contacted at www.tfrhoden.com.

New weather

2012-01-18T00:24:00.000-08:00

By Sarah Gamutan

My soul escaped, wanted another blast - a party animal which hailed from a stag party that had happened two nights ago. I guessed married men didn’t exist. I just shrugged, sauntered with Jen as we carried the luggage, brought it to the dresser, locked the closet and breathed deeply after such a day. I had met a man next door who was so laid back.

I just recalled how he brought it up. “Didn’t you ever get sick of it? The fuck- ups?!” he had exclaimed when I threw the wedding ring into the sand that same night I had arrived. He had preached like I hadn’t gone to a counselor in my five years of marriage. I wondered what I had missed.

I’m glad Jenny was here with me, in her party pants and red stilettos. “Here, take your pills. This will make it less painful,” she convicted.

“Thanks, Jen.” I paused, then asked “Is there something fucking wrong with me? I know I was a bit under the weather these past few days, but wouldn’t be it more painful to see your husband slowly going away, getting colder?”

She just sat holding her glass of wine and asked for a light. I made a monkey jump to hand her a lighter.

It was an addictive night, but it didn’t make me better. Though the room was warmed by the fire in the fireplace, a gust of wind from the window made me cold. If I were the mistress, I would be so lucky. I had to argue that sometimes things didn’t work out for the good.

Copyright ©2011, 2012 Sarah Gamutan. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Sarah Gamutan's poems have been published in many online literary journals including Carty's Poetry Journal, Western Australia Poets Inc. , The Beat, Literary Kicks, Haggard and Halloo Publications, The Camel Saloon, Rainbow Rose, Voxpoetica and The Sound of Poetry Review. She lives in Philippines where she works as a Customer Support Associate by night and a poet at heart by day.

**One of my microstories, Magnolia crows, was published on the Leodegraunce site

2012-01-17T11:57:00.000-08:00

One of my older mainstream microstories, Magnolia crows, was published on the Leodegraunce site.

This 121-word story about corvine shapeshifters, love and betrayal will appear on the site from January 16 – 22, 2012 (after that it will be replaced by another microstory - Leodegraunce doesn't archive stories).

Check it out, maybe leave a comment, if you’re so inclined and have the time. Thanks!

**One of my stories, Splatterdays, was published in the Best Gay Romance 2012 anthology

2012-01-17T11:54:00.000-08:00

I just received two copies of the Richard Labonté-edited anthology, Best Gay Romance 2012, which contains one of my stories, Splatterdays. (Splatterdays is about two guys who fall in love at a thrash metal concert.)

Not only am I thrilled to see this story published (and get paid for it), I'm also thrilled to be sharing anthology space with C.C. Williams, whose distinctive work I've continually admired since I read it in the Erotica Readers & Writers Association online writing group! (C.C.'s excellent, tender story is called The Prisoner.)

This anthology is scheduled for January 17, 2012 publication, for those readers who are inclined towards the erotica genre, and arent' (strictly) hetero in their reading habits.

Here (again) is the home site for the anthology, which can also be purchased at Amazon.com.

The crawfish boil

2012-01-11T00:52:00.000-08:00

By Alvin G. Burstein

The sultry south Louisiana afternoon was buffered by the shade of tall pines and oaks that dominated the lot. Scattered under the trees were rough-hewn tables, eight foot long plywood panels supported by sawhorses that elevated them waist high. Clipped to the two holes in the center of each table, and hanging down from it, were black thirty gallon trash bags. Some kind of feast had been carefully anticipated.

People began trickling in, at first in twos and threes, then in larger crowds. The guests were varied: men and women, young and old, some bare-legged in shorts, some in chinos, some in gaily flowered dresses, some bare-headed and some in floppy sun hats. As the crowd increased, the clamor of talk, punctuated by bursts of laughter, got louder and louder. The humid atmosphere got warmer and warmer.

The food arrived, cascade upon cascade of hot boiled crawfish, their mottled red bodies setting off steaming paler red new potatoes, three inch cobs of shiny yellow corn and speckles of gray-green bay leaf, darker allspice and fire alarm red cayenne, all puddled in liquid boil. Bellying up to the tables, the crowd began to grab for the shellfish, twisting off and sucking heads, peeling open the armored bellies, squeezing out gleaming, moist tails, and, ignoring the black dorsal blood lines, fingering the white meat into their mouths. The laughter and talk didn't subside. It became a cacophony, a jangle, punctuated by the sound of fingers sucked, smacking lips and exclamations of approval: "Man, these mudbugs are some good!"

Mounds of spiny, multi-legged shellfish disappeared to be replenished by new cascades, welcomed by gleaming eyes and grasping hands. Mastication clotted, but did not diminish, the increasing clamor. Ejaculations of pleasure, shouted words and eruptions of laughter spiraled into the muggy atmosphere. Liquid boil and fish juices coated snatching fingers, and slathered hands and forearms. Oily stains splashed clothes and besmeared chins.

Suddenly the ground began to rock. Tables spilled their contents. Feasters staggered and fell, screaming. A monstrous basket of metal netting broke through the ground. Scooping up a squirming mass of people and broken debris, it dumped the collection into a huge steaming caldron watched by gigantic crustaceans looking on with expressionless ebony eyes.

Copyright ©2011 Alvin G. Burstein. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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This story was originally published in Dark Valentine magazine in June 2011.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Burstein is a retired psychology professor and psychoanalyst. He currently volunteers at the New Orleans-Birmingham Psychoanalytic Center where he teaches and serves as librarian. He is a member of the Inklings, a group that meets weekly at the local public library to read and critique its members’ writings. He is a committed Francophile, unsurprisingly, a lover of fine cheese and wine, and an unrepentant cruciverbalist.

**One of my stories, Love, Loud as a Bomb, will be published in Suite Encounters: Hotel Sex Stories

2012-01-05T13:20:00.000-08:00

One of my erotica stories, Love, Loud as a Bomb, is getting published in Suite Encounters: Hotel Sex Stories, set for a June 2012 release.

Love, Loud as a Bomb is a light, fast-moving, theme-tasteful story. Its elements include: prescience, a natural disaster and a hetero date. It's fluff, but it still (somewhat) reads like one of my oddball works. I'm looking forward to reading the other authors' stories, as well, especially Remittance Girl's Proof of Desire (hi, Rem!).

Quick correction to the anthology promo site: Love, Loud as a Bomb is not set in Hawaii - a point mentioned in my story.

This anthology was edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel, who’s snipped, expanded and otherwise put together forty-plus other erotica anthologies.

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Rachel Kramer Bussel is offering copies of Suite Encounters: Hotel Sex Stories to you, the reader, for no charge, if you're willing to read and review the anthology on its Amazon page (link below) by June 30, 2012.

Here's the details, from her email to all Suite Encounters contributors:

“The official pub date is June 12th. . . I'm definitely in search of Amazon reviewers (must be in US and must have an Amazon.com account they've made a purchase from) if you know anyone who wants a free book (and a chance to plug your work!). They can just send me their mailing address with "Amazon" in the subject line and they will get a signed copy hot off the press from me, before books are even in stores. I just ask that they review it by June 30th.”

Rachel’s email address: hoteleroticabook@gmail.com

Check it out, and take supportive advantage of Rachel's offer, if you're so inclined - also, per her request, please click the Facebook "like" on the anthology's Amazon page if you find yourself agreeing with that button!

Behind the shed

2012-01-04T01:51:00.000-08:00

By Janet Yung

It would be easy not to tell anybody about what happened behind the shed in the overgrown backyard of the next door neighbor. She was old, should’ve been dead by now the way the kids reckoned and, yet, here she was plodding along scaring everybody even when it wasn’t Halloween.

“Do you think she saw anything?” Jasper asked. Rachel shook her head.

“She’s as blind as a bat,” she said, confident the rumors the old lady had x-ray vision were completely unfounded.

“But are you sure?” His voice quivered slightly at the notion they would be discovered, the news spreading along the block with lightning speed the way most bad news did in the small community.

“Yes,” she laughed and darted away from him, towards her own house where her mother would be putting supper on the table.

“Do you know what the problem is with summer vacation?” her mother constantly asked after the Fourth of July. Rachel never needed to ask “what?” because her mother was quick to reply, “you have too much time on your hands.” A whiff of what had transpired behind the shed would only confirm that long held belief.

“What’s the matter with you?” her mother asked the minute the screen door slammed behind Rachel.

“Nothing,” Rachel smiled, her flushed cheeks causing her mother to quit stirring the contents of the pot simmering on the stove, heating up an already warm kitchen.

“Your face is all red,” her mother stood directly in front of Rachel, eyes boring into her flesh as if she could penetrate the deepest regions of her soul.

“It’s hot outside,” Rachel responded, brushing aside both her mother and her comment.

“Not that hot.” Her mother returned to the stove. “Where are you going?” she asked her daughter’s retreating back.

“To take a shower.” She didn’t bother responding to the admonition not to take too long, dinner being served in twenty minutes.

Cloistered in the confines of the bathroom, Rachel stared at her reflection in the mirror. “You can’t tell anybody.” She barely recognized the image staring back at her. What did it matter anyway? It wasn’t anyone’s business but their own, feeling less confident now within her own four walls. “No one saw anything.”

They’d barely sat down at the kitchen table when the phone rang. “Just ignore it,” her father said, scooping an extra helping of mashed potatoes on his plate as his wife jumped up from the chair, responding to the trilling.

“I see,” Rachel heard her mother’s voice from the hall. A shiver ran up her spine. “Thank you for calling” ended the conversation. Returning to the kitchen, her mother sat down and spread her napkin across her lap.

“Who was it?” her father asked.

“Mrs. Hill.” Her pursed lips didn’t bode well. Without waiting for her husband to inquire “what about” she turned to Rachel. “Is there something you’d like to tell me?”

Rachel wished the floor would open up.

Copyright ©2012 Janet Yung. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Janet Yung lives and writes in St. Louis, MO. Short fiction has appeared in several on-line publications including, Sparkbright, Milk Sugar, and Record Magazine.

**One of my stories, The Woman on the Grass, was republished on the Every Night Erotica site

2012-01-02T12:26:00.000-08:00

One of my older stories, The Woman on the Grass, was republished on the Every Night Erotica site.

This story was originally published on the Erotica Readers & Writers Association website in December 2001 (and later in my anthology Charge of the scarlet b-sides: microsex stories & poems, available through Lulu.com) – Woman is a romantic “strangers in the night” homage to the works of Anaïs Nin.

Check it out, and leave a star rating/comment, if you’re so inclined, and have the time. =)

Ugly duckling

2011-12-28T04:53:00.000-08:00

By Michael A. Kechula

Twenty minutes after Liz ingested the small blue pill, she was thrilled with her new appearance.

"I always wanted to become a beautiful mermaid," she said, peering into a mirror.

Heading to the Pacific Ocean in her rusted Yugo, she couldn't wait to join the mermaid community.

Unfortunately, they rejected her. "To be a member," they said, "you gotta be born in the ocean. You weren't. Get lost."

Fleeing with filthy curse words ringing in her ears, she spotted the Golden Gate Bridge. Climbing to the top, she decided to hurl herself onto the jagged rocks below.

While she tottered on a girder, passersby spotted her. A crowd quickly gathered.

"Look at that weird thing on top of the bridge," a woman yelled. "What the hell is it?"

"Looks like a damn alien to me!" a guy answered. "Jump you freak!"

The growing crowd chanted the guy's words dozens of times.

Liz was only too happy to accommodate them. As closed her eyes and spread her arms, she heard somebody calling. "Hey, up there. What are you?"

Looking below, she saw ten dolphins. One had a megaphone.

"I'm a mermaid. But I used to be a woman. I took a pill I bought through an ad in the Weekly Tattler. It turned me into a mermaid."

"You're very beautiful," the dolphin said. "Why are you jumping?"

"I can't live with humans the way I look. Listen to the nasty names they're calling me. Even the mermaid community rejected me. Nobody wants me. I'm gonna throw myself on the rocks."

"Don't. It'll hurt. And you'll end up a gooey mess. Go to the other side of the bridge. There ain't any rocks there. When you jump, you'll fall into the water. Then you can join us. We swim, and play all day. We're on our way to Hawaii. Then we're off to Tahiti. Come along. We're gonna have lotsa fun."

"You really want me?"

"Yep."

"You don't care that I'm a mermaid who used to be a woman?"

"Nope."

"Okay, I'll join you guys. You won't be sorry for taking me in. I'm a good cook. And I know first aid in case your fins get cut or something. I'm gonna go to the other side of the bridge, then I'll jump. Gimme a couple minutes to switch sides."

Her new friends swam to the other side and waited.

Soon, Liz was atop the highest girder on the opposite side.

"Before I jump, I want everybody to know I was an ugly duckling. Nobody ever loved me. I spent my life savings on a pill to become a beautiful mermaid. I thought once I became one, everybody would love me for sure. That didn't happen. Now I hate everybody. Especially all you bastards down there who want me to jump onto the rocks. People stink! But these wonderful dolphins care!”

She spread her arms and jumped.

Halfway down, she saw ten sharks shedding their dolphin costumes.

Copyright ©2008, 2011 Michael A. Kechula. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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This story was originally published in Clockwise Cat magazine (issue 11) in 2008.

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If you like the above story, check out this Michael Kechula-penned tale, Let's trade, published on this site in October 2011.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Michael A. Kechula’s flash/micro tales have appeared in 143 magazines and 43 anthologies. He's won eighteen writing contests. Four of his books are published as eBooks and paperbacks: A Full Deck of Zombies - 61 Speculative Fiction Tales; The Area 51 Option and 70 More Speculative Fiction Tales; I Never Kissed Judy Garland and Other Tales of Romance; Writing Genre Flash Fiction The Minimalist Way - A Self Study Book. Ebooks at www.BooksForABuck.com. Paperbacks at www.amazon.com.

**Jim Harrington published an interview with me on his Six Questions For. . . site

2011-12-27T09:49:00.000-08:00

Jim Harrington, whose story, The good lie, graced this site, published an interview with me on his Six Questions For. . . site on December 26, 2011.

The interview was in regards to this site.

Here's the link for the interview.

Jim's site is a great resource for working authors. Check it out, if you're inclined and have the time!

Meat, spuds and turnips

2011-12-21T00:14:00.000-08:00

By Rayna Bright

There’s Annie in the basement with the shovel. The six kids are locked outside ˗ left to play in the bare dirt with a splintered cricket bat and a piece of Quartz.

Annie stamps her bare feet on the dirt flattening the small mound. She spits, smiles, and drags planks of wood over it.

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"Supper’s ready," she shouts.

"What is it?" they chorus, their faces reddened by the early evening chill.

"How about meat, spuds and turnips?" she replies, a twinkle in her eye.

"Oooooh, meat," they chime, their eyes round like saucers. They never have meat.

"Where’s Dad?" the youngest one pipes up.

"At the pub."

Their father’s boots are lying near the basement door and Billy kicks them under the table before the younger kids notice. He didn’t believe his Mum’s stories about her black eyes. How could anyone fall down stairs so often?

"Look out for bones," she warns, calmly scooping spoonful’s from the simmering pot onto their tin plates.

"Dad’ll be surprised," the youngest one says to no-one in particular.

"Surprised alright!" She replies, sucking on a bone and brushing a wet strand of hair from her forehead.

Copyright ©2011 Rayna Bright. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Rayna is a keen reader and writer of short fiction with several stories published in Anthologies. She lives on the North coast of NSW with her husband, and finds inspiration for her stories while walking their Labrador on the beach.

Weber-o-lantern

2011-12-14T13:36:00.000-08:00

By Thomas Michael McDade

Weber closed his eyes a moment then began picking apart his dead cigar. “They should have gotten a new stone instead of spackling my name and using the other side for the Vietnam dead.”

“They said they were short of money,” said Pat. “What were you doing out there today, anyway? Not much chance destroying it with a tack hammer and broken chisel.”

“Destroy hell, rebirth! I planned to chisel out the filler in my name and add “Jr.” He’s the hero. That’s why he’s beaming. Two of his victims were Legionnaires! He’s avenged me,” said Weber making a fist in the air.

“Bullshit, Weber, I know him too well to believe that,” said Pat, wiping his brow with his handkerchief.

“You don’t know shit, Pat,” said Weber, enraged. “All you know is what you’ve heard in confessionals and on your talk show phones. Did you know your shitty radio station fades twenty damned miles away? Your world was all talk until June introduced pussy. Did you ever think she might have been a whore in another life, learned all that good fucking in Babylon?”

Pat shot up and kicked Weber in the side. He gasped and curled up on the floor. Pat stood over him. A cop gazed through the bars. “Want a club, Mr. Hunter?”

“Not yet,” answered Pat.

“Better take it, Pat. Sissy Eyetie loafers won’t do the trick.”

“You’re pitiful,” said Pat. I don’t know why I wasted my time.”

Weber held out his rosary cross sword to Pat. “Carve your name in the wall, Father Pat. Everybody’s guilty! Doing time symbolically is better penance in a pinch. Even a name painted many times over will remain. Something of you will stay. It’s the palimpsest advantage. That word might pop up in a crossword someday: “‘Used Papyrus’ will be the clue.”

“Take your pop philosophy and shove it,” said Pat.

“I’m just a parrot, Pat. I learned it from one of your callers. You probably only remember what you say.”

“Didn’t help you, did it, scum?” raged Pat.

“Hey, Father Fuck-my-wife, tell Weber Jr. I’m the proudest daddy alive.”

Pat kicked Weber in the face and was gone. Weber cried for a while. He broke the crucifix off his rosary, made a belt out of the beads. The kick had knocked one of the teeth off his bridge.

“It’s a fucking Weber o’ lantern I am!” he shouted.

“Shut-up, piece o’ shit,” yelled the cop.

Weber tried to remember if he had whisky in his room over the Laundromat. He imagined showing up at his son’s trial in his Army uniform, some fat fuck of a judge on the bench who couldn’t get an ankle in his.

After three tries, he was able to stand. He wanted to pace the night away but he was in too much pain. He held the crucifix up to a fly buzzing the ceiling light and he saw a clear solution. Sitting down at the wall with the least writing, he carved a replica of the Vietnam Monument. He etched Weber Scanlon Jr. on it. He closed his eyes like a graveyard mourner.

In a burst of goodwill, he inscribed June’s name to the left of his version of the Memorial. What the hell, he included Pat, the dead Legionnaires and every Red Sox player he could recall.

Occasionally, he prayed a bead or two on his rosary belt. He truly believed that good works alone could not slip a man through the pearly gates.

Copyright ©2011 Thomas Michael McDade. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Thomas Michael McDade lives in Monroe, CT, married, no kids or pets. A computer programmer in Meriden, CT, he writes and maintains software used in the wholesale / retail plumbing supply field. He served two hitches in the U.S. Navy. He is the author of three poetry chaps: E Pluribus Aluminum, Liquid Paper Press, Austin, TX; Our Wounds, Pitchfork Press, also Austin; and Thrill and Swill, Kendra Steiner Editions, San Antonio, TX.

**The Every Night Erotica site is looking for submissions

2011-12-13T13:33:00.000-08:00

Erotica writers, past, present & future:

Every Night Erotica - its adult content and publishing schedule inherent in its name - is looking for submissions.

Editor Jennifer Case accepts stories that are mainstream-ish and experimental, as long as there's a sexual element to them - judging by some of my quirky stories that the site has published (e.g., Porn buddy booty call). Not only that, Jennifer is easy to work with.

The site pays $3 per 2K-or-less-words story, and often publishes the same authors - like myself - twice a month. I know it's only $3 per story, but it adds up over time, particularly if you're re-peddling old, dust-covered stories and dashing off fun fluff pieces. (Your work being published online automatically makes it a viable work for many higher-paying 'Best of' print anthologies that come out during the year, also, provided your work fits their themes.)

If you're interested in writing and publishing such stories, but uncomfortable using your real name, write under a nom de plume.

As with any site/calls for submissions, make sure you check out the site and its submissions guidelines.

**I will be 'guest editor' on the popular Leodegraunce site for their May 2012 issue

2011-12-13T12:42:00.000-08:00

For the month of May 2012 I will be guest editor on the Leodegraunce site (which pays $5 per accepted story). The writing theme for that month is Cinema, as in: movies.

Associate editor Gary Russell will be reading my 4-5 final selections, to ensure that the stories are exactly that – in short: don’t send scenes, make sure there’s a plot arc in your work(s).

The popular Leodegraunce, normally edited by Jolie Du Pre and Gary (thanks, guys!), publishes 200-words-or-less microfiction. And your work(s) must be 200 words or less (word count doesn’t include title and by-line). Any works, even an excellent 201-word story, will be rejected automatically, due to the high number of submissions the site receives every month.

Note that the site allows authors to submit as many flashers (200 word stories) as they want per theme/month.

Get those stories written and submission-ready – May will be here before we know it - and let your imaginations run riot: anybody who knows me knows I’m open to different ideas, wild, mild or in between as they may be. Make sure you read Leodegraunce's site and guidelines before you submit any stories.

In the meantime, Leodegraunce's theme for their January 2012 issue is freedom; the deadline for this issue is December 31, 2011.

Scarred

2011-12-07T08:23:00.001-08:00

By Baird Nuckolls

I still have the scar. I think about it every year when the weather turns cold and the leaves start to fall. We buy a pumpkin and I help the boys draw spooky faces and cut them out. When they were very small, their dad and I did the work of cutting and sawing through orange shell and paler flesh. They got to scoop out the seeds. Their little hands were good for that and besides, they loved the slimy feel of the seeds in their pulpy webbing.

When they were old enough to hold the knives themselves, I tried to encourage thinking outside the box, to distract them from the knife. How about painting the pumpkins? We could decorate them with feathers and leaves, using the hot glue gun. It never worked. I don't know why that seemed safer to me than knives, but burns are better than blood. Because there can be a lot of blood.

I was four and a half. Old enough to keep a secret. My brother, six, thought he was old enough to carve the pumpkin himself. We were out in the garage; Mom was doing laundry and not paying much attention. Keith got the boning knife from the kitchen drawer. He let me draw the eyes and the nose, but he drew its jagged row of teeth.

I sat, in rapt attention, as he muscled the pumpkin between his bare knees, the black face leering up at him. His arm came up and in a flash, the knife descended, impaled in the middle of one eye. He sawed away, grunting as he turned his hand to make the circle. The knife slid through the flesh easily.

“I want to do one.”

“No, I'm doing this bit.”

I scooted closer, the toes of my Keds nearly touching his leg. I leaned forward, pushing my bangs out of my eyes. He moved on to the second eye. This one was larger; I wasn't good at drawing both eyes the same. Again the arm came high, again the knife was buried in the pumpkin. I imagined the tinny screams of the dying pumpkin, and giggled as he cut out the second eye, then the nose.

When he started on the mouth, I rose onto my knees. “Please, let me try.” I reached for the knife, but he held it above my head.

“Un-uh.”

“I'll tell Mom what you’re doing.” I rose to my feet, pretending I meant to get our mother. I wanted to do the cutting, not get him into trouble. But he didn't know that.

“Okay. But be careful.” He handed me the knife, handle first, and wiped his hands on his shorts.

Filled with my childish power, I bent over the pumpkin that still rested between his knees. I raised the knife over my head, like he did, but when I brought it down, it skittered off the pumpkin, not even scratching the surface.

Keith tried to wrest it from me. “You had a turn.”

I held it away from him. “I'm not done.”

Tongue caught between my teeth, I steadied the pumpkin with one hand and raised the knife again. The knife came down and I felt searing pain in my hand. The knife was buried in the pumpkin between my fingers, but things were not all right. I lifted my left hand to inspect what I'd done.

The knife had bisected my middle finger, down to the bone. I held my palm to my face and saw the white knuckle of the middle joint gleaming in the sea of blood that cascaded from my finger. I screamed. Keith jumped up and ran for Mom. I stood over the pumpkin, dripping blood, still screaming.

Our mother came running. She scooped me up and took me to the bathroom, where she cleaned and bandaged my hand. I don't remember being taken to any doctor for stitches. I don't even remember being punished for attempting to carve the pumpkin without adult supervision. All I remember, when I look at the thin white line crossing my finger like a ring, is the flash of the knife and the blood.

Copyright ©2011 Baird Nuckolls. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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If you like this story, check out Baird’s other stories, published on this site: Chickens roosting in the trees, He Preferred Red and Jet lagged.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Baird Nuckolls continues to cut herself occasionally with sharp knives; it's a known hazard, but it's worth the risk. She lives and writes in Northern California.

A hint of wind

2011-11-30T00:02:00.000-08:00

By Erik Svehaug

The young priest cut the outboard engine half a mile from Horseshoe Bay off the Marin Headlands. He had no fishing pole, no crab pots. He spent most Mondays off from his stagnant ministry in this rowboat.

He tipped the engine up and back, put the oars in their locks, let the blades hang in the water. He waited, bow pointed across open water toward old San Francisco. Outside the mouth of the Bay, the barren Farallons called and the immense Pacific offered to take him. The boat drifted dully.

He closed his eyes. His seminary enthusiasm had met polite tolerance. He just couldn’t engage these natives with roots as old as the Bible. Power-Points were useless.

Small waves licked the side of the boat; the hungrier ones slapped it.

He had to do something physical. Every time he opened his mouth, platitudes came out. Tom, Rosa and the others knew it without saying so. They had learned something key, without schooling. He blushed. He had introduced Peter, the New Testament fisherman, certain the story would resonate with them. So wrong.

Eyes tightly shut, he pulled on one oar and pushed against the other, turning the boat again and again, until he lost internal count. He sat still. Where was he pointed now? Toward the shipping lanes? Toward home? Up toward Angel Island or out through the Golden Gate?

He had to give his mind away and trust his body to learn what these Miwok reflected in their calm, their touch, their eyes. He suddenly saw Jesus and His father Joseph in a new light. God Himself had put aside everything He created: Relativity, photosynthesis, amniotic fluids, angels and souls, to learn woodworking from a human carpenter. Before He ministered, He made furniture; before He gathered His disciples, He sharpened chisels. Joseph had shown the God of the Heavens, the I AM, something central about being fully human.

The priest had discovered that ages ago natives in reed boats had crossed the fog-filled Bay at night without getting lost. Eyes closed, he waited now as though in storm darkness, to sense the pull of the tide and the push of the currents, to differentiate the slap of the wind wave from the shove of the ground swells. Let me get this, he begged. Lead me to Lime Point. Show me.

The incoming tide was slacking. Since he was a quarter mile from the Point, the tide would eddy counter-clockwise. The wind had been out of the Southwest, so that would tend to take him landward. He felt the breeze in his hair and on his jacket, sensed his movement in the water.

He unfurled his tense brows without opening his eyes and rowed with deep strokes. Idiot priest runs into lighthouse, he thought.

After five minutes, he suspended his oars. The sea was trying to turn him from the bow. The wind was at the back of his head. Was that a rebound wave, starboard, off of the cliffs at the point?

He rowed again. His mantra was: Empty Me, Empty Me.

For ten more minutes of dip and pull, he was surrounded by blow, thump and sway. He suddenly stopped, shipped his oars and opened his eyes. He looked left quickly. Not too much open water separated him from a small rocky beach, a cliff, and Lime Point! He caught his breath; his eyes bulged.

He fished his cell phone out, wanting to tell somebody. After many moments, he slipped it back in his pocket. He could think of no one to call.

Copyright ©2011 Erik Svehaug. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Erik Svehaug works a day job at a picturesque Santa Cruz lumberyard and writes when he can seize the time. He loves his wife and two inspiring daughters. He was recently on patrol with Spanish leatherjackets in an anthology called Villainy, in ancient Greece with The 22 Magazine, and soon will be in Qarrtsiluni, Vagabondage Press, 2011 Binnacle UltraShorts, a Hall Brothers series, and on a Tales of Old podcast.

Contact him at esvehaug@gmail.com or eriksvehaug.wordpress.com

**One of my stories, Trust, was republished on the Every Night Erotica site

2011-11-29T22:56:00.000-08:00

Trust, a noir-nasty sex tale inspired by the work of Jim Thompson, was republished on the Every Night Erotica site.

Trust was originally published on the Erotica Readers & Writers Association site in June 2001, under the nom de plume “Qi Fear”. It was later republished under my real name in my 2010 anthology Charge of the scarlet b-sides: microsex stories & poems.

**Richard Cody’s poem, Haunted, was republished on the Phantom Kangaroo site

2011-11-28T15:46:00.000-08:00

Richard Cody, whose microstories – Alice and Lisa - appeared on this site, has republished another powerful poem, Haunted, in issue 13 of Phantom Kangaroo.

This poem was originally published in one of Richard's poetry anthologies, This is Not My Heart.

Check out his work, and these sites, if you’re so inclined and have the time!

The wizard of the airport

2011-11-23T19:53:00.000-08:00

By Matthew Dexter

Ever since we lost our son, my wife won’t let me touch her sexually, so I have to satisfy my urges with pat-down body searches at the airport. Grabbing men’s junk all morning makes the hours pass so fast, like delicate flowers hungry for sunlight; I peel back the layers of each petal, longing for the peak holiday travel season as grown men bitch and moan about not using the metal detector instead. Ever since the TSA implemented these fancy machines that show the contours of the naked body, the number of daily searches has multiplied exponentially. This makes me more than happy to come to work on time.

I’m that creepy guy watching you take off your shoes and place them into a plastic bucket. Don’t forget that watch, I might remind you. TSA is a decent job, with good health benefits and manageable hours. The salary for airport screeners is not great, but I do the full-body searches. My standing is a step above those cretins. Stretch out your arms, I tell them. Advising passengers about the procedures often doesn’t make it any easier. There are rainbows and butterflies between their legs.

Sometimes little boys are a necessary part of my job description. They need to be patted down too. I’m not a pedophile. This doesn’t interest me. Only the older men do. I check under their arms, running my hands against their shoulders and backs. Lower, I creep, my hands upon their ankles, in the waistband of their pants sometimes, always running my palms up their inner thighs and I go nuts when I get the center of paradise.

Those new scans are real bad for your health. The radiation is harmful. My hands are innocuous, always clean and ready to go. I’m a professional. As soon as I snap on those blue rubber gloves, you know I mean business. Those x-ray machines are intrusive, but the person reading your results in that little room can’t touch your scrotum through the computer like I can. Sure, he can see whether a man is circumcised or a woman is menstruating…but so can I.

I’m the airport wizard waiting for you at the airport. My name is invasion of privacy. My name is lonely hardworking man whose wife is recovering slowly. I’m the future of air travel. See you inside.

Copyright ©2011 Matthew Dexter. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Like a nomadic Pericú, Matthew Dexter lives on a hunter-gatherer subsistence diet of shrimp tacos, smoked marlin, cold beer, and warm sunshine. His short fiction has been published in hundreds of literary journals and dozens of anthologies. He lives in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

**One of my erotica stories, Asia’s seasons, was republished on the Every Night Erotica site

2011-11-21T12:47:00.000-08:00

One of my older microfiction-quadrilogy stories, Asia's seasons, was republished on the Every Night Erotica site. It was originally published on the Erotica Readers & Writers Assocation site, May - June 2003.

This sex-heavy, fast-moving, prose-poetic work is about a couple who engage in sexual experimentation, and learn their practical limits – as individuals, and as a couple.

This story also appears in my erotica story/poem antho, Charge of the scarlet b-sides: microsex stories & poems.

Check the story and/or the book out, if you’re so inclined and have the time. =)

**John Flynn’s poem, “Olneyville,” was published on the Gutter Eloquence site, November 2011

2011-11-18T15:04:00.000-08:00

John Flynn, aka Basil Rosa, had one of his poems, Olneyville, published in issue #18 of Gutter Eloquence. (Great job, John!)

John, by-lined as Basil Rosa, also published a story, He held on and she kept saying time to go, on this site in October 2011.

If you have a moment, and are so inclined, check out John’s work!

Big cats

2011-11-16T09:15:00.000-08:00

By Walter Campbell

“Oh please.”

“What, Jason?”

“These mountain lion warning signs. They’re completely useless.”

“How so?” I was digging through my backpack for my lunch. With more than ten miles of hiking left, my hunger was more important than a sign, and even more important than the mountain lions that the sign warned us about.

“Well, first, it’s entirely pointless to tell us there are mountain lions here. These aren’t burglars getting spotted by the neighborhood watch; they’re masters of murder, and if we see one, it’s only because he wants us to. All this sign does is unnecessarily scare us.” I turned back to my bag in an even bigger panic than before because I still couldn’t find my lunch and I had only two zippers left.

“Maybe mountain lions make mistakes. We all make mistakes; why can’t they? And if one does, and we’re on our 'A' game because of this sign and see him early, then the sign worked, right?” I argued. I needed more time to search my pack. Jason sighed heavily.

“No, it didn’t work. First, you’re wrong, they don’t make mistakes. Second, let’s say you’re right, and we catch the Dudley Do-Right of the mountain lion world. Even then, he’s still got us. What does this sign tell us to do? Look big? Don’t run? If attacked, fight back? Are you kidding me?”

“Why? What’s wrong with that?” One zipper had proven to be a bust, but I could feel something in the remaining pouch, and my spirits rose. Jason sighed even more heavily than last time; he refocused his predatory gaze on me, and not the sign.

“Uh, everything. Everything’s wrong with it. First, look big. Really? I’m going to scare a mountain lion by looking big? He has teeth, and claws, and the ability to jump twenty yards in one bound, and me, an overweight twenty-five-year-old white guy from the burbs, is going to scare him by looking a foot taller? No. Second, don’t run? Of course I’m going to run if this thing moves on me; it could kill me. Finally, fight back? That’s a losing battle if I’ve ever heard of one. ‘Oh man, this mountain lion better watch out, I’ve got a mean right cross.’ Please, Cliff, please.”

“I think that’s the point. All the advice is counterintuitive, and that’s why they need to put up the sign. It works even though we think it won’t work, so they have to spell it out for us.” The promising bulge in the last pocket had turned out to be a box of matches and a first aid kit, not lunch.

“I still don’t buy it. These mountain lions are hungry. It’s a dry summer, their food is dying off, and we’re replacement food. This sign’s not going to change that.”

“Well, maybe. But speaking of food, I forgot my lunch, so we should go back. I can’t go another four hours without any food.”

“Yeah, let’s go back,” he agreed a bit too readily. “Oh no…”

“What?” I said, trying to hide my frustration at having forgotten my lunch, and having him give up on our hike so easily.

“A mountain lion, Cliff,” he said, pointing to a spot about 20 yards up the ridge that extended from our trail. “Don’t run. Raise your arms to look bigger. If he comes at us, be ready to fight.”

“Jason, that’s just a bobcat.”

“Just a bobcat, Cliff? Do you have any idea how dangerous bobcats are? Any idea what…” Jason began as my stomach rumbled and the bobcat slunk away.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Walter Campbell is from LA, which you shouldn't hold that against him. He went to college in New England, which you should judge him for. And he currently lives in Philadelphia, and if you can figure out a reaction to that, please let him know, because he's failed to for the last three years. You can find some of his other work in Jersey Devil Press, Static Movement, and amphibi.us.

August at the Fair

2011-11-09T08:54:00.000-08:00

By Natalie McNabb

August limps past the Ferris wheel, a cotton candy wisp stuck to her cheek. She stops, licks her dusty lips with a snow cone-blue tongue while deciding how to spend her sister Summer’s last dollar bill. Ring toss? Animal balloon? She squints at a cloud puff caught between the sky and bronzed hill.

Yes, Mom’ll blame the missing babysitting money on her brother, Patrick.

Or, Dad will.

They always do.

August limps off toward the tent of the two-headed boy instead, and when she sees him peak out from behind the red- and white-striped curtain—first his one head and, then, the other—she knows his parents would never blame anything on him either because they’re still too busy blaming themselves.

Copyright ©2011 Natalie McNabb. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Natalie McNabb lives and writes in Washington State. She loves red—red dragonflies resting on bamboo stakes, red wine in her glass, red flip-flops on her red-toe-nailed feet—and words that caress, tickle, irritate, or beat against her soul. Natalie has been shortlisted for several awards, including The Micro Award and Glass Woman Prize. Her writing appears in Norton’s Hint Fiction anthology and various other literary publications. Please visit her at www.nataliemcnabb.com.

**Several of dani harris' pieces will be published on the Spark site, November 8 - 29, 2011

2011-11-08T00:21:00.001-08:00

dani harris, whose prose-poetic stories have graced the Microstory A Week site, has had two poems, moonlight sonata and passionflower, published on the Spark site recently.

Her verses work in conjunction with Ainsley Allmark's colorful photographs.

If you're inclined, and have the time, check them, and dani's website out!

**One of my stories, Wreck room, was published on the Every Night Erotica site

2011-11-06T12:36:00.000-08:00

One of my less plot-oriented erotica pieces, Wreck room, a trashy, fun tale about a lesbian church quickie, was published on the Every Night Erotica site.

If you’re so inclined and have the time, check it out, and leave a star rating/comment!

The good lie

2011-11-02T11:37:00.000-07:00

By Jim Harrington

My mother sits across from me, a sliver of white slip visible beneath the hem of her wool skirt. She looks out the window of the single room that’s now her home, a question forming in her mind. It’s the same one she always asks.

My answer is the same each time, too. One she struggles to process, but eventually accepts. I can tell her the truth. She won’t remember what I say any longer than she remembers what she eats for lunch. But I don’t. Ignorance is less painful than truth.

I used to regret lying to my mother. Not anymore. The truth might do more damage, like when she shut down after my older sister, Susan, died. I tell mom the truth about Susan, though. A tumor the doctors found too late is more acceptable to a woman of mom’s upbringing than carbon monoxide poisoning, in Germany, in a car, with a married man, while serving in the army.

“Do you know how Kathryn died?” she asks.

I glance at the picture of my other sister, Kathryn, part of a family montage pinned to a corkboard hanging on the wall.

“No, Mom. They never told us what happened.”

I look her straight in the eye, sincere, remorseless, and thank God she’s the way she is.

Copyright ©2011 Jim Harrington. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Jim Harrington discovered flash fiction in 2007, and he’s read, written, studied, and agonized over the form since. His recent stories have appeared in Flashshot, A Twist of Noir, The Short Humour Site, Thrillers, Killers N Chillers, and others. Jim's Six Questions For . . . blog provides editors and publishers a place to “tell it like it is.”

**One of my microstories, Evie, was published on the Erotica Readers & Writers Association site

2011-10-31T15:47:00.000-07:00

One of my more somber 200-word stories, Evie, will be published on the Erotica Readers & Writers Association website for the entire month of November.

While this R-rated, disturbing microstory, which explores childhood memories, death, emerging sexuality and hope, has brief carnal references in it, it isn’t what I, or most people, would call “erotica” – it reads more like a dark mature drama.

If this sounds like something that might interest you, check it out. =)

Let's trade

2011-10-26T08:27:00.000-07:00

By Michael A. Kechula

“Can anybody hear me?”

“Yes!” exclaimed the radio operator for Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, aka SETI. “Who – what – are you?”

“I’m the Emperor of Mars. I need your help. We have more dinosaurs than our planet’s ecosystem can support. Do you need any on your planet? We’d be happy to send you some.”

“Dinosaurs? I don’t think so.”

“Do you have any on your planet now?” asked the Emperor.

“No, they all died out long ago.”

“Then you don’t know what you’re missing. I’d be eternally grateful, if you’d take some off my hands. In fact, I’d be pleased to offer you an all expense paid, wonderful vacation on our planet if you accepted a few. This includes lodging at a suite in our best hotel, which is staffed by our most gorgeous and very friendly females.”

“Hmm. A vacation on Mars sounds fantastic,” SETI said. “What if we make a trade?”

“What do you have to offer?” asked the Emperor.

“Gorgeous rats.”

“What are they?”

“The most delightful creatures on Earth. You’ll love them. They’re quite delicious.”

“Sounds great! We’ll ship our dinosaurs tomorrow.”

The next day, six billion dinosaurs arrived on Earth in flying saucers. The same day, Earth dispatched six billion rats to Mars via UPS.

Earthlings were thrilled with their new, imported dinosaurs—until they discovered Martian dinosaurs had gargantuan appetites. They ate cars, airplanes, people, London, Africa, and everything else in sight. Then they ate each other. In six months, everything on Earth was gone, except for mountains of dinosaur dung.

The Emperor of Mars was ecstatic. He’d conquered Earth without firing a shot. And he’d received enough rats to feed his all his subjects for an entire year.

Copyright ©2011 Michael A. Kechula. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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If you like the above story, check out this Michael Kechula-penned tale, Ugly duckling, published on this site in December 2011.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Michael A. Kechula’s flash/micro tales have appeared in 143 magazines and 43 anthologies. He's won eighteen writing contests. Four of his books are published as eBooks and paperbacks: A Full Deck of Zombies - 61 Speculative Fiction Tales; The Area 51 Option and 70 More Speculative Fiction Tales; I Never Kissed Judy Garland and Other Tales of Romance; Writing Genre Flash Fiction The Minimalist Way - A Self Study Book. Ebooks at www.BooksForABuck.com. Paperbacks at www.amazon.com.

**One of my poems, Our City of Darkness, was published on the Every Day Poets site

2011-10-24T03:33:00.000-07:00

One of my mainstream (but bleak-humored) poems, Our City of Darkness, was published on the Every Day Poets site.

Check it out and leave a comment/star rating, if you're so inclined and have the time. =)

Nothing to be afraid of

2011-10-19T12:59:00.001-07:00

By Cath Barton

It was a long way down. I didn’t dare go to the edge of the cliff like my friend.

“Come on, Sally,” Maggie shouted back to me, her words half-carried away by the wind. “It’s amazing. There must be fifty of them down there.”

A group of walkers coming the other way had told us about the seals down on the beach. There was no way that anyone could get down to that beach from the cliff path, and the seals evidently felt entirely safe. Unlike me. I was terrified. I’d never liked heights, and just the sight of someone else near the cliff edge gave me the jitters.

“There’s nothing to be afraid of.” As Maggie’s words reached me, she disappeared, over the edge. My heart juddered and my head spun.

I sank to the ground, shaking. I lay down and, fingertip by fingertip, dragged myself on my belly towards the point where the world disappeared. It was painful, slow. My body didn’t want to obey the instructions from my brain. I inched toward the edge, my eyes shut.

I have no idea how long it was before I opened my eyes. My blood thudded in my ears, a cold sweat lay on my brow. All the fears of all the worlds were in me.

Something shifted. The shift took the terror with it and I knew that there truly was nothing to be afraid of. The earth, the cliff, the sea and even the sheer drop below me were my friends. I started laughing in relief. Then I rolled, over the edge.

Nothing hurt, and I knew it hadn’t hurt Maggie either.

Copyright ©2011 Cath Barton. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Cath Barton is a singer, writer and photographer who lives in South Wales. Her work is published here and there, notably in Fractured West, the Leaf Books Anthology Pod and 100 Stories for Queensland. You can see her exhibition of photographs of Wales at www.camelsaloonwales.blogspot.com.

**One of Basil Rosa's stories, "Boss Visa," was published in new anthology, A Small Key Opens Big Doors

2011-10-17T17:56:00.000-07:00

One of Basil Rosa's stories, "Boss Visa," was published in a new anthology, A Small Key Opens Big Doors - Volume Three: The Heart of Eurasia.

According to Basil, the anthology, edited by Jay Chen, "focuses on Eurasia, and is one of a four-volume series, with each volume focused on a different part of the globe, all of them celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Peace Corps. Sales of the book go to help fund the work of the Peace Corps in developing nations."

Check it out, if you're so inclined and/or have the time!

If you're interested in more of Basil's work, also check out his website and his haunting story, He held on and she kept saying time to go, published on the Microstory site on October 5, 2011.

guardian angel {sorta}

2011-10-12T02:05:00.000-07:00

By dani harris

Once I was an angel
whose wings were so white
every color could be seen within;
my hair and halo shone gold at night
with lips of pink and eyes of blue ~
I truly was a heavenly sight.
{ahem… well, that’s what I was told.}

#

One day God spoke to me: “I AM SENDING YOU TO EARTH TO BE GUARDIAN ANGEL FOR HUMANITY. YOU ARE NOT TO INTERFERE! MERELY SEND ME QUARTER-CENTURY REPORTS.”

“But Lord,” said I, “Do you really think I’m the right angel for this assignment? After all, I have no experience with humans.” {Peter and I had a thing goin’ on, you know?}

“TAKE THIS ROSE ~ SO LONG AS IT REMAINS PURE WHITE ALL IS GOING ACCORDING TO MY PLANS. IF IT TURNS DARK, I WILL HAVE TO VISIT ANOTHER FLOOD UPON THE EARTH.”

I didn’t even have time to give Peter a proper goodbye.

#

God sent me down to Earth to keep tabs on
…I mean, watch over…
the Earth and humans and all ~
time passed quickly for I had much to discover.

#

One day Peter came to visit but I would have none of it,
feeling he could have come earlier if he really cared a whit.

#

“Rose” said he
looking aghast at me,
“It can’t be true…
is that really you?”
“Whatever do you mean?” I queried innocently.
“Where once your wings were white
they’re now as dark as night;
what’s happened to your golden hair?
I’d suggest a bottle of Loreal hair dye if I dare… (after all, you’re worth it!)
judging by the color of your halo, you’ve fallen short.”
{It was here I couldn’t help but snort!}
“My God, your reputation will be completely shred
if you return to Heaven with lips that red!
Pray tell what happened, my still lovely Rose,
please say that this is not what you chose!”

#

“It’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind.
You said I’m lovely so I know you’re not blind ~
aren’t you attracted to my new earthly charms?
Don’t you want to take me into your arms?”

#

Shaking his head, Peter plucked the now-gray rose from my fingers.

“When Father hears about this, you’ll find no refuge!
Not on Earth or in Heaven or even in Hell.”
Walking away, I whispered “Après moi le déluge.”
{after me, the deluge.}

Copyright ©2011 dani harris. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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This story was originally published on the my heart's love songs site on August 30, 2011.

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If you like this story, check out dani’s other stories, published on this site: Bugged, Camellia and haboob {another creepy tail}.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

dani {not a boy} began writing poetry in January 2010, opened her blog my heart's love songs in February 2010 and is now venturing into prose, though terrified. It seems her terror manifests itself in much of the prose, becoming a short tale with an element of horror or fantasy. Despite her blog's title, Dani does not write only haiku. Her sensual poetry is never too explicit whatever the length.

**One of my microstories, Behind the wheel, 2006, was published on the Leodegraunce site

2011-10-10T18:43:00.001-07:00

One of my mainstream microstories, Behind the wheel, 2006, was published on the Leodegraunce site today. It will be up on the site until next Sunday (10/16/11).

This story is a semi-autobiographical work, about an interstate road trip I took in February 2006.

Check it out, if you have the time and/or are so inclined. =)

He held on and she kept saying time to go

2011-10-05T11:59:00.001-07:00

By Basil Rosa

The burn that is time, how it changes, lifts, empowers and forgives.

Simmering with her, flash after flash filling the sky over his valley, she buckles and creaks and sways with him. He remembers her falling against the best he could offer, the princely stir of his young bones.

She’d said, Hold me tighter, visit these caves within me. Discover what guides my Indians. Let me be, please, because the others, they won’t. If you love me, you’ll let me be.

He remembers holding her in a plague of nightmares. It was her sky that night, her valley home.

So much of her haunts him – the way her eyes filled with lightning at twilight. The way crickets rose in her sheets when she chirped against him. Winter carving them down to skeletal stillness. Spring swells, flood after flood, into their loins.

The times she leaned on him as if he was a staff. A biblical scope to epic tales they imagined together lost in silences found while watching the horizon alter.

Alone now, making the arrangements in his head, his eyes ease down a far slope to a blanket of green unrolling to the next line of spare hills, down a cow path sodden with hoof prints and manure. Through a gate, creaking. Silent line of shadow from a passing hawk. A few crows squawking into panic, fleeing their brown pasture edges.

He seldom knows deer are close until they flee, scenting him first, and this time is no different. How the doe faces him on the path. Young, it’s never been hunted. He faces the doe the way he faced her in the early days of their courtship, both of them in all innocence ready for winter to ice away evening soul in their eyes.

Lovers they were, and lovers they’d remain. Hadn’t a clue she’d be the one taken first, who’d eventually say enough, please, let the doctors set me free.

He lifts the rifle, holds the doe in its sight, recalling the way she held him, shivering in drafts from that window. Flickering rain pelting their tin roof.

I’m here, yes, this does seem a nightmare. But it will end.

Her quiet acceptance, his recalcitrance – dewy cheeks against his beard. What were these memories trying to teach?

He lowers the rifle. The doe bounds away. He hears her again: I have to let you go.

He raises the rifle. She told him one day he’d know pain was good, and necessary . Love is not an incomplete recipe of expectations, impatience, folly and lust. It’s so much simpler than that.

She kept his picture from when he was just a boy. He’d always be a boy.

He squeezes the trigger.

Copyright ©2011 Basil Rosa. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Basil Rosa is the pen name of John Flynn, who has published books of poetry, short stories, and translations from the Romanian of Nicolae Dabija. John's first novel, Heaven Is A City Where Your Language Isn't Spoken, is forthcoming this fall, 2011, from Cervena Barva Press. To read more of John's published work, please vist his web site at www.basilrosa.com.

**One of my stories, Nightwired, was published on the Every Night Erotica site

2011-10-02T13:55:00.001-07:00

One of my erotica/romance fluff pieces, Nightwired, an homage to longtime love and black [occult] metal (specifically King Diamond), was published on the Every Night Erotica site.

Check it out, and, if you feel compelled, leave a star rating/comment!

Socks

2011-09-28T00:26:00.000-07:00

By Jenny Catlin

He always put their socks back on. He found it troubling where they wore stockings, obscene and frustrating. He didn’t read the newspapers but would pass by their front pages at the bus stop sometimes. Those were the photos they favored, a well lit canvas of feet in clean socks. He was proud that he left them with dignity, imagined his father looking down at him and smiling.

He was a quiet man, respectful and kind to those around him. He had clocked in religiously five days a week at the same job for nearly twenty years, mixing paint and matching colors. It never bothered him that people thought him a dullard. He knew that he understood things that they did not. Things about the rapture, about peace. About the vulgarity of sockless feet.

He never bothered with any further clean up. He took precautions to leave no trace of hair or flesh. Fingerprints. Nor did he study the art of others. Each a private gift to be shared with the world in anonymously.

He was glad to perform his own humble work.

Copyright ©2011 Jenny Catlin. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Jenny Catlin is a writer from Colorado. She operates scissorsandspackle.com and can usually be found on any of the dream streets of the Southwest.

Simple sister

2011-09-21T00:07:00.000-07:00

By Kyle Hemmings

When our mama, who resembled Big Cass Eliot, died from food poisoning, my sis, a suspect in anything, took charge of me. Our father, who was always in danger of being swallowed by Big Mama, was always somewhere other than here until he became nothing but a story. My sister's name was Katy as in Katy Did Not and she resented taking care of me because now she was a bass player in some East Village Japanese band called Box Turtle Sex. She had this strange habit of taking me places and leaving me there: the art deco gallery on MacDougall, an S&M shop near Gainsevoort, a bar named Sid Vicious on East 3rd and something, on the laps of strange women at a hair salon that also did hot wax, the Lowe's Movie Theater where we saw The Postman Always Rings Twice three times (I never noticed Katy was gone until the lights went on), and the dry cleaner's. It took me three years to escape from the last one. It turned out to be owned by a white slavery ring specializing in selling children who have this "lost" look about them, like they could be the next Justin Bieber or something. A couple of men whose faces I couldn't see took pictures of me for posters. In strange cities I saw posters of myself, kids trying to imitate me with that hung lip and hungry eye look. Sometimes their older sisters would laugh, but I couldn't understand their language. Eventually, I found my way back to my sister who was now living with some Japanese dude in Chelsea. I had grown three inches taller and had the peach fuzz of a punkster on CD covers. After ringing the buzzard to her apartment building and being told several times that she doesn't know anyone named "Chip," she finally let me up. The door unlocked but the chain remained. One eye inspected me up and down. My God, she said, how you've grown. You look so much like papa. Well, I said, where to next?

Copyright ©2011 Kyle Hemmings. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Kyle Hemmings has been pubbed at Gold Wake Press, Thunderclap Press, Blue Fifth Review, Step Away, and The Other Room. He blogs at http://upatberggasse19.blogspot.com/.

**My new poetry anthology, Behind the wheel, is available for purchase at Lulu.com

2011-09-20T15:46:00.001-07:00

My new mainstream poetry anthology, Behind the wheel: selected poems, is available for $10 (+shipping and handling) at Lulu.com.

The seventy-five dark humored poems in this collection span multiple poetic forms, moods and locations - it details the journey of a man, from youth to middle age, from joy to heartache and back to (relative) joy: interspersed in this road trippy mix are a few nature-appreciation verses.

If you order this anthology before September 23, 2011 and enter the code OKTOBERFEST you can "enjoy 15% off" of your purchase price. =)

Alice

2011-09-14T00:30:00.000-07:00

By Richard Cody

Alice stepped into the room, filling the small space with her presence. Her eyes danced blue and beautiful, like waves crashing on a beach. She was vibrant, vivacious, barely contained energy rippling beneath almost luminous skin.

“I will never love you again,” she whispered, soft as gently falling rain. “I will never love you. . .”

I moved as if to catch her, confusion gripping my mind; my blood, replaced by cold fear, pumping through a heart withering toward oblivion. I needed to touch her, to feel the soft warmth that was Alice . It was too late, I knew. She was gone, forever. The air burned my skin, my eyes, with horrible realization. My heart collapsed in upon itself, forming a black hole of infinite density deep within the middle of me.

“I will always love you,” I muttered, the light of the room beginning to bend toward me. “Always.”

Alice stepped out of the room, leaving it completely empty.

Copyright ©2011 Richard Cody. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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If you like this story, check out Richard’s other story, published on this site: Lisa

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Richard Cody has been known to write poetry and fiction. His work has appeared most recently in Kaleidotrope, Red Fez, Askew Poetry, Daily Love and Eclectic Flash (including their best of 2010 anthology). His books are available at Lulu and Amazon.

**One of my mainstream-ish stories, Night Burn, was republished on the Every Night Erotica site

2011-09-12T13:36:00.000-07:00

One of my brutal, mainstream-ish vampire stories, Night Burn, was republished on the Every Night Erotica site. (It was originally published, in a less developed and shorter form, on the Erotica Readers & Writers Association site in November 2001.)

This 1,984-word story has a brief spot of sex, but it could easily be republished, as is, in any mainstream horror magazine.

Night Burn is not recommended for Stephenie Meyer/Twilight fans. (You were warned, gay boys and sparkly-eyed girls!)

haboob {another creepy tail}

2011-09-07T11:19:00.001-07:00

By dani harris

It was easy to slip across the border from Mexico into Arizona and a haboob was the perfect cover to get into the city undetected. The massive dust storms covered the valley at least once or twice every summer during the monsoon season. One news helicopter photographer caught a few seconds of the two lights moving in at the front edge of the mile-high wall of dust, but it was explained away as airplanes skirting the storm to land at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. People only see what they want to… especially those with neophobia. In today’s political climate, that was just about everybody. Arrangements had been made the week before via email offering a remunerative deal that a local street gang couldn’t refuse. It was just enough to cover what they could make in a month selling weed ~ any more would have made them suspicious. a small bag full of diamonds would be left at the landing site.

The two space ships set down unnoticed in the burnt-out block of South Phoenix where the drug gang had chased off all the addicts and homeless people. By then, everyone who could be was inside anyway. The haboob was an immense sand blaster made by nature with hurricane-force winds. Anybody unlucky enough to be caught unawares was stuck on the side of a road somewhere praying that their car wouldn’t be carried away like Dorothy’s house in the Wizard of Oz.

Ramps came down from both landing craft letting out a strange neon-orange glow. The eight-legged creatures made their way into the rubbish-filled back yard of an abandoned house. A modulated signal beyond human hearing was being broadcast. The haboob would also mask detection by any of the humans’ equipment designed to pick up sounds in that range. In less than a minute a strange scurrying noise could be heard. It seemed to get louder by the second. The creatures from the space ships opened the doors at one end of each of the cases they carried in their two front claws, laying them gently on the ground. In under ten minutes, the containers were being filled by scorpions of every size scrambling over one another to get into the large cases. The {illegal} aliens closed the containers and made their way back into their ships, cooing and clicking to calm their babies within. they had more than enough nurseries onboard the mother ship to allow their descendants plenty of room. All of the subterfuge had been unnecessary when they had made the last trip one hundred years ago. It had been quite a surprise to discover that the city had grown so quickly, invading their hatching grounds. The next brood would have to be laid on a deserted planet in another solar system.

The ramps pulled up and the two ships launched back into the haboob just before the tail end of the dust cloud passed through the area. When they reached South Mountain, the ships suddenly shot straight out of Earth’s atmosphere in the blink of an eye. if there had been any eyes looking.

Video footage of the haboobs always made the network news shows the next day. Only one local station aired a thirty-second segment the following week to report the abrupt disappearance of scorpions in South Phoenix. The residents themselves didn’t question it. They were just grateful to have the scorpions gone since no one in that area could afford an exterminator.

Copyright ©2011 dani harris. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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This story was originally published on my heart's love songs site on August 8, 2011.

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If you like this story, check out dani’s other stories, published on this site: Bugged, Camellia and guardian angel {sorta}.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

dani {not a boy} began writing poetry in January 2010, opened her blog my heart's love songs in February 2010 and is now venturing into prose, though terrified. It seems her terror manifests itself in much of the prose, becoming a short tale with an element of horror or fantasy. Despite her blog's title, Dani does not write only haiku. Her sensual poetry is never too explicit whatever the length.

Disguise

2011-08-31T10:02:00.000-07:00

By MorningAJ

“Perfect disguise”, Amanda said to her reflection in the cheval mirror. “No-one will recognise you.” The wig made her head look like a coconut and the mouth was a delightful touch. She gnashed her teeth and pulled back her lips, gurning at herself to get a better look. Yellow and crooked: what they call ‘English teeth’ in the US. Then, of course, there was the fat suit.

Amanda knew from bitter, adolescent experience that the best way to stop people from seeing you was to be overweight. She had suffered a long time to learn that lesson. All through her teens she had been the butt of the jokes, left out of invitations and spurned by her peers, just because she had a weight problem. Behind the size she was actually quite attractive but they never knew because they never looked. They deemed her invisible. Talk about the elephant in the room!

But when she reached twenty one she inherited some money and used it to change her image and her identity. Not because she was unhappy with herself, but because she realised by then she would have to play by ‘their’ rules to win their game. And she had won. Her face appeared nightly on TV as a respected anchor-woman on a national news programme. Every one of her old tormentors could see her now. She was relishing her triumph and planned to crown it with a visit to each of them to point out the error of their old ways.

Hence the disguise: the wig, the fake teeth and the fat suit made her look exactly like she did at school. That was the point. She wanted to make sure they knew who was responsible as she murdered them, one by one. It was the perfect disguise for the perfect crime. Only the victims could identify her and they did not live to tell tales. She had even been captured on security cameras a few times and earned herself the nickname of The Fat Slasher but no-one linked the obese image with the svelte news reader. She knew she would never be caught. She just had to remember not to laugh when she reported the latest killing to her eager viewers.

Copyright ©2011 MorningAJ. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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This story was originally published on the Jobbing Writer site on August 24, 2011.

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If you like this story, check out these other Morning AJ stories, published on this site: Earwig, Helen's dilemma and Jetsam.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

MorningAJ is a professional (science PR) writer/rebel who fends off the
restrictions of her paid-for work by creating short stories, poems and
microfiction in her spare time. She’s even managed a novel, thanks to
NaNoWriMo, and is currently working on her second.
She also paints watercolours.
Badly.

The sandwich murders

2011-08-24T15:16:00.000-07:00

By Steve isaak

Jacqui the penguin nun waddled out of the address-crossed timespace portal.

Where the heck am I? This isn’t Disneyland –

She saw the eviscerated Sandwich aliens, their loins and bellies mutilated, peanut butter and jelly intestines everywhere.

Aghast, Jacqui dialed her cell phone. “Hello, police?”

#

Using his tweezers, Intergalactic Agent Harrison picked up the brown paper scrap reading “42”.

“Douglas, Adams,” he addressed the uniforms behind him. “Any idea what this number means?”

Douglas snickered. Someone’s stomach growled.

Harrison turned. I hate working with local cops –

He saw the kitchen knife, the murder weapon, in Adams’ hand.

“Adams, stop licking the evidence!”

Copyright ©2006, 2011 Steve Isaak. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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This was originally published in my book Charge of the scarlet b-sides: microsex stories & poems.

Compulsion

2011-08-17T11:50:00.000-07:00

By Anna

Always her OCD got the better of her, always, always ruled her life. He had left her eons ago, moved on to a better place.

She had the clean thing and had this numbers thing – everything had to be repeated ten times; if her compulsion was interrupted she had to begin again

She had seen the earwig crawl across his forehead as he slept his alcohol induced sleep and fearful as she was of them, she had to clean it away, had to get rid of it. She picked up his beer glass and smashed it on his head, once, twice, thrice – he woke up then and began to gesticulate wildly, and she counted in her head four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

He had left her then – for good; left everyone.

Every time she saw an earwig floor or wall crawl in her cell, she thought of him – ten times.

Copyright ©2011 Anna. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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This story originally appeared on the puzzelicious site, on July 13, 2011.

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If you like this story, check out Anna’s other stories, published on this site: Industry and Retribution.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

I'm a mother, friend, nurse, wife and lover! I think I have always been 'creative' drawing, painting, writing stories and poetry from an early age. I am moronically happy as I don't see the point in being miserable and find life - 99% of the time - wonderful.

**3 of my mainstream poems were published in the latest issue of Milk Sugar Literature

2011-08-15T14:49:00.000-07:00

Three of my mainstream poems - Just checking; Z waves on the 1:09 bus; Mailbox stomp 442 - were published in the August/September 2011 issue of Milk Sugar Literature.

If you have a moment, and are inclined toward reading life-true verses, check them out. =)

**One of my stories, Hot Flicks, was republished on the Every Night Erotica site

2011-08-11T14:28:00.000-07:00

One of my adult-content stories, Hot Flicks, was republished on the Every Night Erotica (ENE) site yesterday. (It was originally published, as a shorter version, on the Divine Pleasures website in June 2002.)

This story has more plot, is more mainstream than most sex stories. It also has a background, series-recurring character, Katrina Sirkus, who later appears as an adult in a loosely-linked sequel, Kat and Mirah's Midnight Show (published on the ENE site on March 5, 2011).

If you have a moment, and are inclined toward reading quality erotica, check these stories out. =)

Jet lagged

2011-08-10T12:19:00.002-07:00

By Baird Nuckolls

I slept with my face in your pillow. I wore your sweater. I wandered the apartment, checking the clock. Eight hours difference and it seemed like my soul was out of phase with my body. You called at the strangest times, which pissed me off, but left me yearning for your voice the minute you hung up.

Now you are home, smelling of airports and stale coffee; the cat is hiding, and I keep tripping over your shoes. I need to press my breasts against your wet back in the shower. I want to fall into your kisses, forgetting myself until we are in the same time zone again.

Copyright ©2011 Baird Nuckolls. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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If you like this story, check out Baird’s other stories, published on this site:
Chickens roosting in the trees, He Preferred Red and Scarred.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Baird is a writer, living in Northern California, who has too many stories that want to be written. She multitasks as much as possible.

Alex and the zebra

2011-08-03T12:42:00.000-07:00

By Steve Isaak

(for Eliza Rain Brecheisen)

Alex, six, playing with dolls in her playground, saw the light purple zebra, standing in the plains beyond the high cyclone fence bordering her backyard.

She dropped her dolls and watched the purple zebra.

The zebra appeared to be a colt – a male foal – rubbing noses with his mother, who happily made blowing noises through her loose equine lips.

His mother, like the rest of their herd, was white with black stripes.

He’s different from the others, like me, the adopted Asian girl thought. Why is he different?

Raising their long necks, the ostriches, who’d been grazing near the zebras, hissed warnings: predators approaching.

The birds hightailed it, their brown butterball bellies and wings shaking. Seconds later, the zebras, with accompanying whinnies and loud snorts, followed the ostriches.

Alex ran inside her house to tell her red-haired mother, Stephanie, about what she’d seen.

Stephanie paused in her vegetable cutting to kneel beside her daughter, smiling and pulling Alex close when the little girl, breathless, finished her tale.

“That’s great,” Stephanie said. “Why don’t you draw some pictures of them?”

Thus began Alex’s famous career obsessions: purple zebras and painting them.

She never saw a real live purple zebra again.

Copyright ©2011 Steve Isaak. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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This was originally published on the Reading and Writing By Pub Light site on March 7, 2011.

Bugged

2011-07-27T00:16:00.000-07:00

By dani harris

The first incident occurred when she was eight years old. She got head lice at school. Her hair fell below her waist and the school nurse told her mother it would be best to shave her head as the infestation was so severe. Even months afterward, Marie had nightmares of the lice squirming around on her scalp. She never let her hair get longer than a pixie cut the rest of her life.

When she was ten years old, her family went camping at Yosemite National Park. In less than an hour, Marie stepped into a red ant hill. The ants were swarming over her entire body ~ even her face ~ before her father could wash all of them off. It turned out that Marie was highly allergic to the ants and had to be rushed to the hospital.

Marie was almost fourteen when the small mid-western town she lived in suffered an infestation of grasshoppers. She was walking into the house when a grasshopper jumped into her eye. Not only did it scratch the cornea, her eye became infected. She had to wear a patch over her left eye the entire first month of high school.

A bee sting at her high school graduation picnic caused Marie's face to swell. Since her tongue and throat were also swelling, another trip to the hospital was in order. But not before the entire senior class had seen her disfigurement. The school mailed Marie her diploma.

Marie had a double dorm room to herself throughout college. The university was concerned about being sued for negligence if a roommate were to become ill from inhaling the fumes from the insecticide that Marie was constantly spraying. The janitor added weatherstripping around her door so that the fumes wouldn't escape into the hallway. Some said that living four years in a room full of bug spray caused brain damage.

At the age of 27, Marie was living a comfortable if uneventful life. Despite the insecticide fumes, she was intelligent and healthy. She set up a consulting business from her twenty-first floor apartment. The closest anyone ever came to her were delivery people ~ Federal Express, groceries, pizza, Chinese or Thai Food. You couldn't really count video calls since those were just two-dimensional images. Marie had her clients make electronic funds transfers directly to her bank and she did everything online. She didn't have a boyfriend {or any friends} and certainly did not want a pet. She had not seen so much as a fly the entire time she had lived there.

The newspaper article said that the venomous spider must have been in the soil of the rare orchid sent to the woman in the apartment above. It got into the ventilation system and came down on its thread through the vent above Marie's bed.

Copyright ©2011 dani harris. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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If you like this story, check out dani’s other stories, published on this site: Camellia, guardian angel {sorta} and haboob {another creepy tail}.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

dani {not a boy} began writing poetry in January 2010, opened her blog my heart's love songs in February 2010 and is now venturing into prose, though terrified. It seems her terror manifests itself in much of the prose, becoming a short tale with an element of horror or fantasy. Despite her blog's title, Dani does not write only haiku. Her sensual poetry is never too explicit whatever the length.

Earwig

2011-07-20T02:10:00.001-07:00

By MorningAJ

Prison life really suited Jimmy the Wig because of his habit. Jimmy’s nickname didn’t come from any lack of hair; he had such a thick thatch of black locks that many people thought it was a rug, but no. He got his name from being a natural earwig. He couldn’t stop himself eavesdropping conversations. He was compelled to do it, just like that disease, that obsessive compulsive thing, you know, OCD. So being in prison was just right for him, surrounded by people with nothing better to do than discuss old exploits and plan new jobs for when they got out, and Jimmy became what they call institutionalised. He was happiest behind bars.

His only troubles came from the other side of his compulsion: he felt driven to pass on whatever he overheard. If he thought he was imparting a particularly exciting piece of news he would gesticulate a lot, so it left no-one in any doubt what he was doing. At first it ruffled a few feathers when he chose to reveal something to the hotter heads in clink, but an understanding Governor solved that by putting him in a cell with Clothears Jones: deaf in one ear and didn’t listen with the other. Wig could say anything he liked and Clothears would nod and hum and har occasionally to make Wig think he was paying attention. That went on for years and life looked settled.

Wig had a number of jobs around the prison. They’d tried him on library duty but it made him edgy because no-one was allowed to talk in there, so they swapped him to cleaning the chapel. He loved that because he often overheard juicy confessions about dirty thoughts. So one day when he was polishing the brasswork and Phil Skillett came in to talk to the Padre he thought he was in for a treat. He was; just not the kind of treat he was expecting. Phil’s nickname was ‘Fillet’ and it wasn’t just a play on his name; he was renowned for his knife skills and I don’t mean he was a good cook! Anyhow, him and the Reverend disappeared behind the curtain and Wig could hear the prayer bit as he dusted his way closer to the booth. He was comfortably in place when he heard Fillet admit he was the one who had shanked one of the screws two weeks ago.

Well that was too much for Wig. He dropped his cloth and dashed out to find someone to listen. Give the boy his due, he went looking for Clothears, but as bad luck would have it the cell was empty. Wig turned back just in time to come face to face with a chatty screw and he couldn’t stop himself from telling. He was still talking and waving his arms around when Fillet came back from chapel and saw him. Of course he realised straight away what was going on and Wig’s days were numbered.

They found Jimmy dead in his cell two days later and everyone assumed that Fillet had got to him somehow, even though he had been questioned almost non-stop since the secret was revealed. At the inquest, though, the sawbones reckoned there wasn’t a mark on him and there was no hint of poison. The coroner had no option but to call it natural causes, though I know he was wrong. I know what it should have said on the death certificate. To protect him from Fillet’s attentions the screws had Wig put in solitary confinement. I reckon he died of boredom.

Copyright ©2011 MorningAJ. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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This story was originally published on the Jobbing Writer site on July 12, 2011.

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If you like this story, check out these other Morning AJ stories, published on this site: Disguise, Helen's dilemma and Jetsam.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

MorningAJ is a professional (science PR) writer/rebel who fends off the
restrictions of her paid-for work by creating short stories, poems and
microfiction in her spare time. She’s even managed a novel, thanks to
NaNoWriMo, and is currently working on her second.
She also paints watercolours.
Badly.

**A review of Richard Cody's Darker Corners was published on the Reading site

2011-07-19T15:45:00.000-07:00

I just posted a review of Richard Cody's horror anthology, Darker Corners, on the Reading & Writing By Pub Light site.

Last week, one of Richard's stories, Lisa, was published on this site.

**One of my stories, Periwinkle: Desire's Bloom, was published on the Every Night Erotica site

2011-07-19T13:56:00.001-07:00

The third (and probably final) story in my loosely linked Periwinkle trilogy, Periwinkle: Desire's Bloom, was published on the Every Night Erotica site yesterday.

This story is more plot-heavy, odder than its monster-themed predecessors. It's also the least of the three stories, but I did the best I could with it, so I'm okay with that: we creative types can't nail perfection every time we sit down to create (though we should always try, of course)! =)

Lisa

2011-07-13T07:20:00.000-07:00

By Richard Cody

I came home from work to a dark and quiet house, the front door standing sinister and slightly ajar. With a curious and creeping sense of déjà vu, I entered. Inside, shadows crept over the walls.

“Lisa. . .” my voice echoed through quiet rooms. “Lisa, are you here?”

She moved slow and furtive from swirling shadows, nothing but a vague shape in the murk before my eyes. I groped blindly for the light switch, nervous apprehension thickening my fingers as I fumbled and felt and finally flicked it on, bathing the room in electric light. Shadows fled like roaches into corners and there was Lisa.

She stood silent and still before me, pale blue eyes staring at some vacancy in the middle distance, slender arms hanging limp at her sides. It was then I saw the knife clenched tightly in the curled fist of her right hand, a smooth expanse of silver blade reflecting white light with flashing brilliance. She held it firm and deliberate, knuckles white with the pressure of her grip. I noticed the small scar on the back of her delicate hand, white and jagged even against the ghostly pale of her flesh. In a vivid flash I remembered the previous summer at the lake when she’d cut herself on a broken bottle.

“Lisa,” I ventured cautiously, “give me the knife.”

She remained still, painfully quiet.

“Lisa,” I began again, “give me the knife.”

She moved toward me slow and shambling, her feet dragging over the floor. Then she stopped.

“Lisa,” I commanded, “give me the knife.”

An anxious moment passed, the two of us standing there, waiting. Finally she moved forward . . and gave me the knife.

Copyright ©2011 Richard Cody. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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If you like this story, check out Richard’s other story, published on this site: Alice

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Richard Cody is a native Californian and a writer of poetry and fiction. His work has appeared in many print and virtual publications, most recently Red Fez, Eclectic Flash and a handful of stones. Look for his books, The Jewel in the Moment, This is Not My Heart and Darker Corners at Amazon and his Lulu page.

Retribution

2011-07-06T00:30:00.001-07:00

By Anna

Alex was certain that there was a recessive nerd gene in his parents ancestry, and that he was the unfortunate soul in which the two alleles had paired and produced what he saw in the mirror - pure nerd! He eyed himself with disdain, sticky out ears, goofy teeth, acne and that damned kinky hair permanently charged with static.

He didn't mind having a wonderful mind, but minded very much the way he looked. No wonder he was the butt of jokes and his life was pure misery. That bastard Wilson was the worst - with his athletic good looks, his entourage of hangers on and his constant supply of girlfriends. Bastard!

Wilson had nominated Alex his gofer years ago and Alex had accepted his role as he hadn't the strength of character to resist. His life was sheer hell. The latest prank had seen Wilson dose his drink with methyline blue "Here gofer - a Blue Hawaiian for you!" Alex had drunk it readily hoping at last that he might have been accepted as one of the boys.

Next day had seen Wilson and his cronies follow him into the *bog and crease themselves laughing as blue-green pee gushed forth leaving Alex mortified. Second visit - it seemed like the whole school followed him and the chants, the crushing chants of "Alex! Alex! Mouldy phallus!" reduced him to tears. He had wished the earth to swallow him up.

It was that very afternoon in Greek and the discussion of the death of Socrates that an idea began to germinate in his mind.

That night he received the expected call from Wilson and the order for pizzas. Wilson and his cronies partied nearly every night in his brothers' penthouse; Alex, the manservant for the drunken, stoned bastards.

He already had the pizzas and had doctored them with conium - the little florets vaguely resembling broccoli and added more cheese and seasoning to mask the taste. Upon Wilson's call he had reheated and reboxed them.

They greeted him with derision and snatched the boxes off him. He sat and waited until the ascending paralysis played its game. They found it funny as they fell and were ecstatic about the 'good trip' - and then panic set in. As they fought for breath, one or two of them attempted to phone 999 and with great glee, Alex prevented them.

When they were all dead, Alex picked from his pocket the fat cigar he had bought at the kiosk outside and went out to the roof garden. The cigar made him cough and splutter - but he didn't care.

He flung the cigar stub over the parapet and watched it fall... and then he followed it.

The exhilaration he felt from the adrenaline rush was amazing and he was certain that if he attempted to fly - he could. He didn't want to - he wanted to splat another damn Wilson as he hit terra firma. He knew he would - because the world was full of them.

Copyright ©2011 Anna. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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This story was originally published on the puzzelicious plus site on May 19, 2011.

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If you like this story, check out Anna’s other stories, published on this site: Compulsion and Industry.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

I'm a mother, friend, nurse, wife and lover! I think I have always been 'creative' drawing, painting, writing stories and poetry from an early age. I am moronically happy as I don't see the point in being miserable and find life - 99% of the time - wonderful.

Hit

2011-06-29T01:24:00.000-07:00

By Thingy

I couldn't blame them when they stared at me with gaping mouths and clenched fists. I laugh when something bad happens, and this was very bad.

I didn't see him dart out into traffic. His head was half way in a pot hole, which really had me guffawing. Through my tears, I could see his little shoe blink on and off and like a flip of a switch, there was only the sound of his ragged breaths.

"Breathe, breathe. I will never get into a car again, I will never talk on my cell phone again. Please, little one, just live."

As the reds lights and white noise rounded the corner, I felt the first hit and heard a scream that could only come from the mother of this boy. I lay against the stink of asphalt and saw the rivulets of our blood mingle, the boy's and mine.

Like a bad cartoon that almost got me laughing again, the men in white bundled, folded and spindled the boy into the back of the truck. All I could see now were Jimmy Choo's and dusty Crocs face, then turn away from me.

"Looks like he'll be okay, ma'am. I'll need to get a statement from you."

I was going to ask the shadow if he wanted me to remain in my current prone position, but I was so drunk and tired.

Copyright ©2011 Thingy. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

I am a Midwestern girl, born and raised. Although I've been writing most of my life, I haven't taken my work too seriously, until the last few years. Writing short stories suits me, I think.

Thingy can also be found at her website, Pondering Life.

Jetsam

2011-06-22T01:08:00.000-07:00

By MorningAJ

Eliza was a beachcomber - not that she made a living out of it or anything (nor was she like that weird old man who lived in half a wrecked boat at the shore). She would walk along the sand as the tide went out and pick up the jetsam that was stranded there, imagining how it had been lost.

She never picked up pebbles or a sea shell. She was only interested in the abandoned, manufactured items. She would take her finds back to her tiny flat in the middle of town and arrange them on ledges and bookcases and shelves around the walls. Then she would sit and look happily at her treasures, while she talked to the spirits of their previous owners.

When the building collapsed, the inquest jury agreed that the structure was never intended to hold such a weight of junk and the old woman’s eccentricity had contributed to her death. Her neighbours agreed it was an outrage that no one had done anything about it before.

The old man watched from his half-boat as the merpeople returned to the sea with their recovered possessions, then he headed up to the church on the cliff where he was the only mourner at Eliza’s funeral.

Copyright ©2011 MorningAJ. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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This story was originally published on the Jobbing Writer site on June 15, 2011.

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If you like this story, check out these other Morning AJ stories, published on this site: Disguise, Earwig and Helen's dilemma.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

MorningAJ is a professional (science PR) writer/rebel who fends off the
restrictions of her paid-for work by creating short stories, poems and
microfiction in her spare time. She’s even managed a novel, thanks to
NaNoWriMo, and is currently working on her second.
She also paints watercolours.
Badly.

Tangier

2011-06-15T00:51:00.000-07:00

By Nick Nicholson

On the morning of August 14, 1955, the novelist Vannevar Mann awoke from a dream in which he was spellbound by the tears of a beautiful dark-haired girl, although in the dream it was uncertain whether the tears were of grief or joy. The cryptic vision of the girl haunted Mann. He sensed that there was something important about her, that she possessed a secret truth of some kind. A week later, Mann spied a dark-haired girl darting through the crowded markets of Petit Socco. Convinced that it was the girl from his dream, he followed her. She led him through a maze of back streets and blind intersections, the labyrinth of the medina, constantly slipping in and out of view, always just out of reach. Then she vanished. In the months that followed, Mann became obsessed. The girl continued to infiltrate his dreams. She materialised numerous times and each time, he pursued her through the kaleidoscopic streets of Tangier. Years passed but he never found her. Vannevar Mann died from a heart attack on December 3, 1962. The next day, a local newspaper reported the story of an unidentified dark-haired girl who had drowned in the Bay of Tangier.

© Nick Nicholson 2010, 2011. All rights reserved. Content may not be copied or used in whole or in part without written permission from the author.

------------------------

This is the final part of Nick Nicholson's theme-adventurous, eight-part Travelogue.

• • •

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Throughout his life, Nick Nicholson has pursued a variety of creative vocations: music, photography, painting and, in recent years, writing. He lives in Australia.

**One of my stories, Peak Times, got published on the Every Night Erotica site

2011-06-09T00:05:00.001-07:00

One of my X-rated stories, Peak Times, got published on the Every Night Erotica site.

This only-for-mature-audiences story is about a couple who engage in BDSM play on a commuter train - known as BART to those of us in the East Bay. It's trashy and over-the-top, but I've seen people do worse on BART. =0

Smoldering

2011-06-08T00:29:00.000-07:00

By Michelle Purvis

Of course, I left the T-Shirt on his dresser despite the softness of the fabric and the faint hint of his cologne. It was my version of a pacifier when he was away on his long trips I'd wear it to soothe myself to sleep, but now, like the owner, it was an albatross around my neck. If I kept it, like my secret heart wanted to, the pathway to him would be left open and, like my secret heart also knew, it must be severed absolutely with no way back.

So why was my car parked outside his house on a Friday night?

Was I that self destructive? The answer most emphatically, would be “Yes”. Smoking cigarettes for the past 12 years had proven that my well being was not essentially what motivated me.

I popped the cigarette lighter from the dash and lit another Camel. Breathing in the smoke calmed me and solidified my mission, how else could I be truly at peace unless this relationship ended? Unless he felt the emptiness, the nothingness he left me?

The gas cans were easy to get out of the back of my pickup, I just needed to sit tight for another hour until the lights went off for the night.

Copyright ©2011 Michelle Purvis. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

•

Michelle Purvis is aspiring to get more writing on paper rather than leaving the stories in her head where they cannot be shared. She shares her humble abode with her supportive and caring husband and her love starved dog, The Chomp.

**One of my stories, Winter 2001, got published on the Photograph Prose site

2011-06-06T17:21:00.001-07:00

One of my impromptu/picture-prompt stories, Winter 2001, got published on the Photograph Prose site.

This 126-word, sorrowful and dark work was inspired by CJ Schmit's picture.

If so moved, feel free to read and comment on it. =)

He Preferred Red

2011-06-01T04:48:00.001-07:00

By Baird Nuckolls

Her hair was palest silver, curling in wisps on her head, yet she had it “done” every Friday, without fail. When I came in last week, she asked me to clip her toe nails, too. She said she couldn't reach them any more and they were growing crooked.

With her tiny foot in my lap, I asked her about the dress she was wearing. It was a clear shade of blue, the color of the summer sky.

“I love this color,” she told me. “I wear it all the time.” She twisted the wedding band on her left hand. “Stewart always said he liked it, but I don't think he did.” She leaned forward. “He preferred red.”

I continued to work, rubbing lotion into her heels. Sylvia was silent for a while, then resumed the conversation, as if she had to rest between sentences. It was hard to be nearly a hundred. She told me once that after she turned ninety-five, she wished she was eighty again. Not young, not twenty-five? I asked her. No, she didn't mind being old, but everything hurt less when she was eighty. She liked talking about Stewart. He was her husband for sixty-eight years, until the cancer got him.

“I never liked red. It was too gauche.” She chuckled. “He bought me a red dress once.”

“Just once?” It was the way she said it that made me ask.

“Oh, he knew I didn't like it, but he bought it for my birthday.”

“What did you do?” I put down her right foot and picked up the left. “Did you return it?”

“Oh, no. I wouldn't do that. I wore it once.” She was silent for a long time while I clipped her nails. “Then, I buried my mother in it.”

It was so unexpected, my laugh burst out. She certainly showed him her true feelings.

“Yes, I never had to wear it again.”

Copyright ©2011 Baird Nuckolls. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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If you like this story, check out Baird’s other stories, published on this site:
Chickens roosting in the trees, Jet lagged and Scarred.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Baird lives to write; the rest of the time, she drives around, feeling lost. Eating chocolate helps, but time spent in the middle of a story helps even more.

Industry

2011-05-25T00:11:00.000-07:00

By Anna

Garth shook the bottle in in his hand and the funny little humans - pickled for eternity - were so compacted they hardly moved. He found it hard to comprehend that a species so primitive would be viviparous, thinking that they surely would lay eggs.

His father had given him a passel of the ugly little things for his fifth birthday, and he had watched them develop and multiply in the glass farm that had sat on his bedroom desk, for what seemed the eternity of his childhood. He had found their mode of procreation odd then. But then they were mere insects and intellectually dulled life forms, but yet seemed industrious and he had marvelled at their efforts to achieve betterment, this always thwarted by their predilection for battle.

It was in his late teens that he had considered they might be a food source - a bar snack - and his idea had progressed into that of pickling them in red hot spices. He loved the way they looked in the bottle, reminding him of foetuses bathing gently in amniotic fluid awaiting birth.

"Garth the quondam loser - now the man of the hour," he sighed happily. He picked one out. "Hello son," he grinned as he popped the tender morsel in his beak. Garth you are a genius! he thought. Big taste, bigger bank balance!

Copyright ©2011 Anna. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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This story was originally published on the puzzelicious plus site on May 13, 2011.

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If you like this story, check out Anna’s other stories, published on this site: Compulsion and Retribution.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

I'm a mother, friend, nurse, wife and lover! I think I have always been 'creative' drawing, painting, writing stories and poetry from an early age. I am moronically happy as I don't see the point in being miserable and find life - 99% of the time - wonderful.

**One of my stories, Dis/satisfaction, was republished on the Leodegraunce site

2011-05-23T18:29:00.000-07:00

One of my mainstream, super-short stories, Dis/satisfaction, got republished on the Leodegraunce site. (Be warned there's a female nude/non-sexual picture next to it, not my doing.)

Dis/satisfaction won't be archived - that is, it'll run on the site until Sunday (5/29/11).

Theobromine bitch blues

2011-05-18T12:07:00.000-07:00

By Steve Isaak

Our clock starts ticking the second she arrives “but not this time,” Megan says, her collie features radiant.

Megan strips off her slinky dress, her Lassie-light head a color-perfect blend with her lush human body.

Megan laughs. “My husband, Mr. Eddie Pitbull, was always sniffing, drooling over chocolate that can kill us, and I. . . indulged his curiosity. That son of a bitch is as cold as that bucketed champagne. The money – everything – is ours!”

I go cold, thinking back to a fellow waiter’s warning when he first saw me ogling Megan, three months ago. “Watch out. She’s more than she seems.”

Megan laughs again. “Relax, you know I always get what I want. Now mount me.”

I can’t run – not without telling her that I'm leaving her.

• • •

“Love can be a bone-splintering thing, my dachshund friend,” the shit-breathed pug thug says, as he snaps my other arm. My nerve-endings are white-hot electric, my yelps bouncing off warehouse walls.

“Mr. Pitbull told me to tell you that this is his final tip to you,” the pug chuckles. His breath makes my gorge rise.

Nearby, another pug thug chops up Megan’s bloody body, readied for the incinerator, our final laying place.

Copyright ©2009, 2011 Steve Isaak. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

•

This story was originally published on the Erotica Readers & Writers Association website in 2009.

**Several of dani harris' pieces were published on the Photo Prose site, March - May 2011

2011-05-16T12:31:00.000-07:00

dani harris, whose prose-poetic story, Camellia, graced this site last week, has had several other pieces - two stories and a poem - published on the Photograph Prose site recently.

Here's the links:

A Member of the Family

Promises

Please Exit

**One of my stories, Shagging Oozing Smashing, was republished on the Every Night Erotica site

2011-05-16T11:42:00.000-07:00

Shagging Oozing Smashing, one of my older speculative fiction/erotica stories, was republished on Every Night Erotica: it details what happens when the Supreme Being looks for a hook-up in the Mission District in San Francisco.

As stated before, this is a sexually-explicit/"for mature audiences only" work.

If you're so inclined, check it out and comment on it. =)

Camellia

2011-05-11T00:52:00.000-07:00

By dani harris

between raindrops, a light scent of musk drifted through the air reaching a man sitting alone. as though in a dream, the irresistible scent drew the man to a beautiful tree where dark pink flowers with delicate centers called to him, waiting to be plucked. one blossom stood out, untouched by the rain, glowing as if lit from within. the man held the fragile flower ever-so-gently in his hand with no memory of how it got there.

the man walked back to his cottage, lay down upon his bed and lightly began stroking its petals. he teased the center nibs, feeling them become erect under his fingertips. softly he stroked the deepest center of the bloom. a small sigh caused petals to flutter. the man could not resist licking the deep center with the tip of his tongue. a sweet nectar began to flow and, greedily, he licked every drop.

the man became intoxicated by the heady scent of musk and the ambrosia upon his tongue. closing his eyes for just a moment, the man opened them upon a wondrous sight. next to him lay a beautiful woman. her luscious pink lips smiled at him. they kissed, igniting the fires of a fierce passion. there was no choice but to give themselves over to their desire.

long slow kisses... licking... tasting... nibbling. hungry for more. hands exploring... caressing... stroking... pleasuring one another. their bodies joined. passion grew until it could be contained no longer. an explosion shook their world leaving them spent, content in each other's arms.

the man was awakened by sunlight streaming through the windows. next to him lay a dark pink blossom, wilted but still beautiful.

he smiled.

Copyright ©2011 Dani Harris. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

#

This story originally appeared in poetic form on the my heart's love songs site on April 26, 2011.

#

If you like this story, check out dani’s other stories, published on this site: Bugged, guardian angel {sorta} and haboob {another creepy tail}.

#

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

dani {not a boy} began writing poetry in January 2010, opened her blog my heart's love songs in February 2010 and is now venturing into prose, though terrified. It seems her terror manifests itself in much of the prose, becoming a short tale with an element of horror or fantasy. Despite her blog's title, Dani does not write only haiku. Her sensual poetry is never too explicit whatever the length.

Sydney

2011-05-04T05:12:00.000-07:00

By Nick Nicholson

Michael Robeson was fated to be an outcast when he performed fellatio for the first time on October 10, 1987, at the age of 16. He silently vowed never to do it again but three days later he returned to Kings Cross and quickly found another customer. In a matter of weeks, Robeson had established a reputation around the Cross, his dark, dream-laden eyes earning him the moniker, “Moon Boy”. On July 1, 1989, Moon Boy moved into a small flat in Darlinghurst with “Bianca”, 19, a prostitute he’d befriended three weeks earlier. She and Moon Boy soon became lovers. On lazy afternoons, they would share stories about their clients: the good, the bad, and the lost souls. It was the lost souls (the “heartbreakers”, as Moon Boy and Bianca called them) that they liked the most; there was something about them that got under their skins. On the whole, the relationship proved to be reasonably stable, all things considered, but after three years, Bianca had grown bored with Moon Boy and on November 30, 1992, she left him. Moon Boy was devastated. Five days later, his body was found washed up in a tangle of seaweed on Cronulla Beach.

© Nick Nicholson 2010, 2011. All rights reserved. Content may not be copied or used in whole or in part without written permission from the author.

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This is the seventh part of Nick Nicholson's theme-adventurous, eight-part Travelogue. Subsequent segments will be published here in upcoming months.

Next Travelogue story: Tangier

• • •

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Throughout his life, Nick Nicholson has pursued a variety of creative vocations: music, photography, painting and, in recent years, writing. He lives in Australia.

**One of my stories, Periwinkle: Xenoplumbing, got published on the Every Night Erotica site

2011-05-01T00:30:00.000-07:00

Periwinkle: Xenoplumbing, one of my older science fiction/horror/erotica stories, got published on Every Night Erotica.

This story is a loosely-linked sequel to a piece, Periwinkle, that Every Night Erotica republished on April 9, 2011.

As stated before, this is a sexually-explicit/"for mature audiences only" work.

If you're so inclined, check it out and comment on it. =)

Interfaith Softball League, game one

2011-04-27T14:34:00.000-07:00

By Steve Isaak

It quickly became dangerous.

A Pentecostal Hitter claimed he missed a catch because a member of the opposing team, the Salem Spellbinders, created a “pentagram of chirping finches” in a nearby cyclone fence, to distract him.

The accused Wiccan laughed, scratched a nipply breast (it was a chilly day), catching the male Hitters’ attention. Seeing the female Hitters' glares she said, “What? Why are you looking at me that way?”

The female Hitters continued to glare; the men gawked.

Incidents – tensions – mounted.

The ump, fearing violence, called the game.

Copyright ©2011 Steve Isaak. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

•

Interfaith softball league, Game One was originally published on the Erotica Readers & Writers Association website, under the title Weird County: interfaith softball league, Game One, September 2004.

Santiago

2011-04-20T05:54:00.001-07:00

By Nick Nicholson

Throughout his adolescent years, Miguel Valasco dreamed of becoming a famous poet like his hero, Pablo Neruda, but at the age of 22 he realised that he had little facility with the written word so he turned instead to videotape. Valasco purchased his first video camera in May, 1984, and quickly discovered the endless possibilities afforded by the medium. He videotaped everything for which he had no words: the restless feet of pedestrians rushing along Calle Bandera; a game of chess played by old men on the banks of the Mapocho River; the decomposing body of a cat in an alley. On February 25, 1987, Valasco videotaped a fly crawling on his kitchen window for twelve and a half minutes and in the summer of 1992 he recorded 141 hours of his girlfriend, Maria Salazar, sleeping naked in his bed. After Miguel Valasco was killed in a car accident on March 5, 1994, a collection of 1,217 videotapes, hidden in boxes and organised by date, was discovered in his apartment. Maria Salazar brought the tapes to the attention of a curator who subsequently mounted an exhibition that toured the Americas. The exhibition was entitled: Miguel Valasco, The Poetry of Videotape.

© Nick Nicholson 2010, 2011. All rights reserved. Content may not be copied or used in whole or in part without written permission from the author.

------------------------

This is the sixth part of Nick Nicholson's theme-adventurous, eight-part Travelogue. Subsequent segments will be published here in upcoming months.

Next Travelogue story: Sydney

• • •

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Throughout his life, Nick Nicholson has pursued a variety of creative vocations: music, photography, painting and, in recent years, writing. He lives in Australia.

Slipping away

2011-04-13T12:16:00.000-07:00

(for Ronnie James Dio, 1942-2010)

The road was our home. Fancying ourselves wolfish gypsies, with our women and sunset Supermen notions, we rode strange highways. Dio’s magical meaningful lyrics and acme animated vibrato had further inspired us to put vivid travel verse to murdered trees, real world rhymes to enchanting themes.

My friends and I had been caught between adolescent heavens and hells, our protective devil’s horns pushing against hormonal confusion, and our mob-rule cannibal families. Coffee, heavy metal and powdered suns fueled our night flights, arrogant clever sentences yelled and penned, pedal to literal metal: the rush-intensity of these recorded experiences were the things we hoped would define us.

I settled down when I met her, a roadside rock n’ roll angel. A waitress, she’d cranked up “Holy Diver” near closing, belting out the lyrics with us. Later, with her hair falling across her sapphire stare she’d entranced me; I knew I’d met a stay-true heaven, a blissful slip-away from road lag, cold coffee, flat tires and crabby car mates.

Two decades passed.

The day Dio died, that girl – my wife – pressed her soft curves against me when she saw me mourning.

“I’m not wearing panties,” she promised. “Grab your Dio CDs and we’ll ride.”

Copyright ©2010, 2011 Steve Isaak. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

**One of my stories, Parking Area 51: Venus VI Flames, got republished on Leodegraunce

2011-04-11T12:42:00.001-07:00

Parking Area 51: Venus VI Flames, one of my older/PG-13-rated science fiction stories, got republished on Leodegraunce.

Leodegraunce publishes 4-5 authors a month, (usually) one a week; the site doesn't archive works, so "Venus VI" will be published there until 4/17/11.

If you're so inclined, check it out and comment on it. =)

**One of my stories, Periwinkle, got republished on Every Night Erotica

2011-04-10T16:22:00.000-07:00

Periwinkle, one of my older science fiction/horror/erotica stories, got republished on Every Night Erotica.

As stated before, this is a sexually-explicit/"for mature audiences only" work.

If you're so inclined, check it out and comment on it. =)

Rotterdam

2011-04-06T00:15:00.000-07:00

By Nick Nicholson

In June, 1939, Dutch surrealist Janek Bruhl finished production of his only film, De Wreedheid van Geboorte (The Cruelty of Birth). He was 31. Bruhl’s lover, the actress Clara Leitz, played the lead role of a young woman who descends into a subconscious world of psychosexual madness and perversity, depicted in a series of nightmarishly bizarre scenes that at times bordered on the pornographic. The experience was so grueling for Leitz, physically and mentally, that upon completion of filming, her doctor dispatched her to a sanitarium in Switzerland. Three weeks later, Leitz returned home to Rotterdam but she was never the same. She’d become fragile and prone to uncontrollable bouts of weeping. In March, 1940, Bruhl made some preliminary notes for his next film, Het Ei (The Egg), but not a single frame was ever shot. As fate would have it, Janek Bruhl and Clara Leitz were both killed on May 14, 1940, during the German blitz on their beloved city. In 1947, after a private viewing of De Wreedheid van Geboorte, Spanish director Luis Buñuel is reputed to have said, “After Bruhl, there is nothing.” The last surviving print of Bruhl’s cinematic masterpiece was destroyed by fire in 1961.

© Nick Nicholson 2010, 2011. All rights reserved. Content may not be copied or used in whole or in part without written permission from the author.

------------------------

This is the fifth part of Nick Nicholson's theme-adventurous, eight-part Travelogue. Subsequent segments will be published here in upcoming months.

Next Travelogue story: Santiago

• • •

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Throughout his life, Nick Nicholson has pursued a variety of creative vocations: music, photography, painting and, in recent years, writing. He lives in Australia.

Nikkatsu.

2011-03-30T09:47:00.000-07:00

By G. Russell

Once, a witch put the ghost of a woman inside a tree. The tree stood in the
middle of a forest. It had white limbs and green slender leaves. In summer
it birthed sweet fruits the birds and beasts ate.

There came a woodsman to that part of the forest. He saw the tree and
considered it would make for good firewood. He readied his axe. The woman
shuddered. Tears dripped from the shaking leaves and the woodsman paused.

"There's a spell on this tree," he said. He put down the axe.

The tree sang a lullaby and he fell asleep. When he lay down the ghost-woman
appeared and unwound her obi so she lay naked alongside the asleep man.

How beautiful he is, she said to herself. They curled together, the couple,
warm in the softness of leaves, and with her deep, strong roots she gripped
the heart of the earth, tighter and tighter.

There is a forest. At its heart there are two trees. Their roots tangle and
knit over each other. Their branches are entwined and no living person can
ever separate them. One produces fruit, the other does not.

They have been there forever.

Copyright ©2007, 2011 Gary Russell. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

• • •

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Born in the 60's, Gary Russell gained his considerable reputation whilst living underneath a magical bridge and riddling passers-by for gold dubloons. Whilst interred he was denied access to visitors, writing implements, and sharp metal objects. His present whereabouts, following the explosion that destroyed the facility, remain shrouded in mystery.

• • •

This is Gary's second piece published on this site. Morph. was published here last January.

Isaak’s Fables: the indignant whale, beauty & justice

2011-03-23T09:46:00.000-07:00

By Steve Isaak

Wilma, a middle-aged mother of four-year old twins, watched as her shrieking sons darted in front of other shoppers. They were outside, exiting a crowded megastore.

One of the shoppers, a beautiful blonde with prismatic blue eyes and an equally striking figure – better than the one Wilma had possessed, before booze, kids, depression and couch-living had claimed it – grimaced at Wilma, from three feet away.

Other shoppers muttered as Wilma shrilled at her children: “Clint! George Doub-ya!”

Her children ignored their 290-pound mother, kept "wehhrnn"-airplaning, their arms stuck straight out, in front of ticked-off shoppers.

The twenty-something blonde reminded Wilma of a high school classmate, Cheryl, who’d stolen Wilma’s husband, Earl.

Wilma’s cheeks blazed.

Wilma glared, shrilled at the Cheryl Look-Alike. “Watch where you’re walking, you cross-wearing, hypocritical slut! Those are my kids!”

The screech of braking tires on asphalt was heard – then a woman’s scream.

Clint and George W., who’d dashed across the parking lot pedestrian lane, lay in front of a mini van: blood puddles beneath their flaxen heads.

“Good thing you were paying attention to your kids,” sneered another shopper, shoving Wilma hard in the back.

MORAL: Rise above your personal prejudices.

Copyright ©2010, 2011 Steve Isaak. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

•

This story was originally published on the Erotica Readers & Writers Association website, in May-June 2010. It was later republished in my second anthology, Charge of the Scarlet B-sides: microsex stories & poems.

**Jane Kohut-Bartels' new book, White Cranes, now available for purchase through Lulu.com

2011-03-17T12:34:00.001-07:00

Jane Kohut-Bartels' third book, White Cranes, is available through Lulu (.99 cents for a downloaded version, $27 for a paperback version).

This print version of this classy, image-rich fifty-poem book, which centers around Japanese culture and observance of the seasons, isn't cheap, but it's worth it, if you're a hard copy collector, like myself: White Cranes also has eleven paintings (by the author herself) to accompany her consistently fine writing.

If you're a reader who appreciates nature-centric, quietly dramatic versifying and traditional Japanese painting, you owe it to yourself to check out Jane's work.

If you're curious to read free samples of her work, which is better read in collected anthologies, check out her site, Lady Nyo's Weblog, or her seven-part Metamorphosis series (published on this site).

My Father's Bones

2011-03-16T10:31:00.001-07:00

By Sam Baker

Six years. Six years since I watched them lower the casket into the ground. I was scared I wouldn’t even remember where he was, which one was his. But now I needed him. I needed to feel close. I wanted to feel a connection, something, anything.

I pulled the car over and got out. Memories flooded. I hadn’t realized he was so close to the curb and. . . his neighbors. That bothered me, knowing when people stepped out of their car, maybe they were stepping on his head. That day, there had been a green carpet laid out, covering the ground around him.

I stepped onto the grass. No headstone marked his location – just a dial and a little number. Even after six years. I felt guilty even though I was in no position to feel that way. I shuddered, and looked around. Didn’t anybody know who he was? How great he was? How good he was?

He was more than a number, more than this.

I sunk down to the ground and thrust my hand into the grass with great expectation. Although the sun beat on the back of my neck, the ground was cold and hard.

I gasped in horror. Instead of the warmth, instead of the meaning I needed, it seemed as if the ground was pushing up against me, pushing me away, forbidding me the connection I so desperately sought. I couldn’t even cry.

I sat. Numb.

I thought he would be here.

But he wasn’t.

Only bones.

Copyright ©2011 Sam Baker. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

#

If you like this story, check out Sam’s other story, published on this site: Sick

#

AUTHOR'S BIOGRAPHY

I am just Sam Baker. Cake Usually. Which is odd because I don't like cake. But I do like to create it. And I do like when people like what I create. I've created 3 kids. They are pretty good. Probably better than my cake. I also create stories, but I am far too insecure to say if they are any good. You'll have to decide for yourself about that.

Havana

2011-03-09T01:31:00.000-08:00

By Nick Nicholson

Born on April 2, 1895, to a French mother and Spanish father, Jean-Baptiste Fuentes worked as a street sweeper, barber and smuggler before becoming, in the 1930s, the most successful pimp in Old Havana. Jean-Baptiste’s choice of livelihood was one of pragmatism because in those days Havana was flush with American tourists looking for a good time. “A little passion to forget the shit,” he would say to them. The sentiment resonated deeply so securing business was never difficult. Over the years, more than a few of Jean-Baptiste’s girls fell in love with him but the liaisons never developed into marriage. That some of his girls shared their bodies with him from time to time was enough for Jean-Baptiste. “Better that a tigress live in the jungle than a cage,” he always said with a wistful smile whenever one of his girls pressed him for a more permanent relationship. Jean-Baptiste had been stabbed three times during his life, in street brawls, but his passing on June 12, 1958 was without violence. After playing the seventh tile in a game of dominoes with Ernest Hemingway in the lobby of the Hotel Ambos Mundos, Jean-Baptiste Fuentes simply closed his eyes and died.

------------------------

© Nick Nicholson 2010, 2011. All rights reserved. Content may not be copied or used in whole or in part without written permission from the author.

------------------------

This is the fourth part of Nick Nicholson's theme-adventurous, eight-part Travelogue. Subsequent segments will be published here in upcoming months.

Next Travelogue story: Rotterdam

• • •

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Throughout his life, Nick Nicholson has pursued a variety of creative vocations: music, photography, painting and, in recent years, writing. He lives in Australia.

**One of my stories, Kat & Mirah's midnight show, published on Every Night Erotica site.

2011-03-06T12:24:00.000-08:00

I published a 430-word Rocky Horror-themed/sexually explicit story, Kat and Mirah's midnight show, on the Every Night Erotica site.

Feel free to check it out, and/or comment!

Listing from ‘Natural Drama Digest Weekly,’ issue #32907

2011-03-02T10:18:00.001-08:00

As the Coral Sea Rises – Network: ZNB – weekdays, 3:00 pm: Charley the starfish regenerates his fifth arms after shedding it to escape hungry mugger shrimp; Selinda the seahorse, heartbroken that Thornton, her ex-mate, wasn’t carrying her eggs, but Darlene’s, takes comfort in her morning mating swims with Jack, arousing the deviant desires of Jack’s brother, Jeremy; Coraline, the stressed-out larva-polyp that spawned the hard shell reef, faces two threats: a neoplasmic – cancerous – tumor on one of her branches, and a neighboring reef-building polyp named Olly, whose invasive devouring intentions are all-too-clear; Hanna the shark, after accidentally killing her mate, Marty, during a feeding frenzy, worries that she may like the taste of shark flesh too much.

Copyright ©2007, 2010, 2011 Steve Isaak. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

•

This story was originally published on the Erotica Readers & Writers Association website in May 2007. It was republished last year in my anthology, Charge of the Scarlet B-sides: microsex stories & poems.

Metamorphosis: VII

2011-02-23T10:26:00.001-08:00

By Jane Kohut-Bartels

(For those who haven't read earlier Metamorphosis chapters, Bart and Laura are bats. Specifically, Bart is a large common fruit bat with interests in Shibari and BDSM, and Laura is a middle- aged woman who finds she is transforming into a bat.)

Tap…tap….tap…

"Bart? Whatchadoin'?" Laura yawned, just waking up.

"I'm working on a pathology." His `go away answer'. Back hunched over
the keyboard, typing fast.

"Which one?" Laura blinked, trying to see what Bart was writing.

"Funny. I'm looking at this Gorean website."

"Ah geez, Bart! It's a comic book." Laura's eyes widened at the
picture of a woman on her knees, lips parted seductively, naked, legs
open. She thought of her own knees and knew she could never hold that
position. Plus, she didn't look `cute' naked. Not before, and not
now with these pinkish wings attached to her elbows.

"Hey Bart? Are you serious? How am I to hold that position serving
you on my knees?"

"You could levitate a bit with your wings, take pressure off your
knees. You could use your imagination if you wanted to please me."

"Please him." There it was. Always please the Dom. What did she get
out of it? Seemed like life with her dead husband, Howard, except
with guano.

"Bart? I don't think Gorean Doms wear aprons."

Bart looked down. He forgot to remove it after the dishes. Maybe he
really was a Gorean submissive? Not a good thought.

Copyright ©2007, 2011 Jane Kohut-Bartels. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

• • •

This seven-part flasher-chain was originally published on the Erotica Readers & Writers Association website in 2008.

• • •

AUTHOR'S BIOGRAPHY

Jane Kohut-Bartels, a writer and belly dance teacher, lives in Atlanta, Ga.

She draws from Middle Eastern, Hungarian and Japanese culture for various novels.

She is a member of the Anglo-Japanese Tanka Society in York, England.

She has published A Seasoning of Lust (2009), The Zar Tales (2010) and will soon publish White Cranes of Heaven, 50 seasonal poems, at Lulu.com.

Jane's blog: http://ladynyo.wordpress.com

Her pen name: “Lady Nyo” is from her novel The Kimono.

Tokyo

2011-02-16T07:55:00.000-08:00

By Nick Nicholson

Takashi Masuko, 36, a mid-level executive for a multinational electronics company, fell in love with Kimi Ishiguro, 23, on the evening of February 14, 1994, when he ate sushi off her naked body at a nyotaimori restaurant in Kabukichō, although it would be more accurate to say that he became obsessed with Kimi because he returned to the restaurant frequently over a period of several months, specifically to see her. Strangely, a friendship developed. As Takashi delicately picked up pieces of sushi with his chopsticks from Kimi’s torso and thighs, Kimi would tell him about her extraordinary life: she had been famous, briefly, when she published a book of erotic poems at the age of 17; in 1991 she posed nude for a series of arty pornographic photographs by Nobuyoshi Araki which were subsequently collected by the Tate; and she had travelled to America. By contrast, Takashi’s life amounted to little more than that of a worker bee. He was married, of course, but had no children. Takashi Masuko was last seen on January 11, 1995. He simply, and inexplicably, disappeared. Kimi Ishiguro quickly forgot about Takashi and in 1997 she became the hostess of a popular TV game show.

------------------------

© Nick Nicholson 2010, 2011. All rights reserved. Content may not be copied or used in whole or in part without written permission from the author.

------------------------

This is the third part of Nick Nicholson's theme-adventurous, eight-part Travelogue. Subsequent segments will be published here in upcoming months.

Next Travelogue story: Havana

• • •

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Throughout his life, Nick Nicholson has pursued a variety of creative vocations: music, photography, painting and, in recent years, writing. He lives in Australia.

Sick

2011-02-09T03:49:00.001-08:00

By Sam Baker

With hesitation the door creaked open. She removed the key from the door and placed it back in her pocket. Silently she moved across the living room and placed her bag on the chair. As she did the heavy books inside clunked together and she held her breath.

She listened to see if the noise caused a stir from the back bedroom, but all remained still. The lights were off. Darkness seemed to emerge from the hallway, spilling out to the very corners of the room.

She glanced at the kitchen. Crumbs on the counter and a bag of bread left opened. He had gotten breakfast at least, but he was still sick. Too sick to call her stupid. Too sick to yell. Too sick to leave his finger prints in her arm.

A new lightness filled her heart. She tiptoed to the kitchen and pulled out the chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream.

Another day to celebrate.

Copyright ©2011 Sam Baker. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

#

If you like this story, check out Sam’s other story, published on this site: My Father's Bones.

#

AUTHOR'S BIOGRAPHY

I am just Sam Baker. Cake Usually. Which is odd because I don't like cake. But I do like to create it. And I do like when people like what I create. I've created 3 kids. They are pretty good. Probably better than my cake. I also create stories, but I am far too insecure to say if they are any good. You'll have to decide for yourself about that.

Tragedies Weekly: Homophobic man burns down his own house! (October 13, 2007 issue)

2011-02-02T02:15:00.001-08:00

By Steve Isaak

SAN MARIN, California – A house burned down Thursday when its owner, Patrick Boehner, plugged his vagelectrical car, a Lesbos, into his garage-stored spermbox charge, causing the car to explode.

Boehner was killed instantly, authorities said.

Dan Cleveland, spokesman for Vangine Motors, at a press conference the next afternoon, said, “You can’t change the charge orientation of our vehicles. You don’t run a Lesbos on spermcharge. Use a vagcharge box instead. For a Bisos, use a vermcharge box. Our electrical products are complex creations, like people.”

Reverend Sam Sandler, pastor of San Marin Baptist Church, commented, “I urged Pat to sell that car. His second wife, Evangeline, who bought it, left him for a woman. But he insisted on ‘fixing it.’”

Continued: HOMOPHOBIC / A10

Copyright ©2007, 2011 Steve Isaak. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

•

This story was originally published on the Erotica Readers & Writers Association website, under the nom de plume Nikki Isaak, in October 2007.

Metamorphosis: V - VI

2011-01-26T00:44:00.001-08:00

By Jane Kohut-Bartels

(For those who haven't read earlier Metamorphosis chapters, Bart and Laura are bats. Specifically, Bart is a large common fruit bat with interests in Shibari and BDSM, and Laura is a middle- aged woman who finds she is transforming into a bat.)

V

"Come on, Laura, pick it up! I can't stay up here all day. It's
exhausting."

Bart was suspended in mid air, about ten feet from the roof apex,
twenty feet off the ground.

"I can't, I can't, I can't I can't. What if they don't work?"

Laura, mesmerized by the languid flap of Bart's massive wings, stood
on the top of the roof. She remembered the times he trapped her
small, delicate wings within his and felt the power of his dominance.
Bart had many faults, and a sadistic nature, but his sexual allure
could not be denied. Laura was blossoming like a rose, with little
Japanese beetles buried deep within her petals. She felt Shibari was
helping them bond, though Bart left her too long in the bindings.
Parts of her had turned temporarily blue. She was finding this
`freedom of the ropes' one knot at a time.

"Come on, Laura, I'll catch you. Trust me. Now, run fast and leap.
Your wings should work fine."

Laura did as she was told and hit the air running. She dropped like a
stone.

"Bart! You Fuckerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!"

"Hey, Laura! Next time flap your wings, not your gums."

VI

When Laura fell of the roof she smashed her ankle. It took all of
Bart's Shibari bindings to stabilize her limb and now Laura was making
Bart wait on her, wing and foot. He wasn't too happy with the `fetch'
thing but was puzzled why Laura's wings hadn't worked.

"Bart," Laura whined, "The ice melted in my drink. Make me a fresh
one, darlin'."

Bart came from the kitchen, an apron tied around his middle. He was
pissed being a house-bat but what could he do? A dominant fruit bat,
this apron went against his nature. But the dishes had to be done,
guano shoveled.

Inactivity made Laura horny. She spread her legs, flapped her pinkish
wings alluringly. Bart's eyes gleamed as he climbed between them. He
began to lap at her, but lost his head. Laura was using a new
perfume, "Peaches and Cream".

"Bart! I'm not a cantaloupe. Your teeth are sharp!"

"Sorry, Laura. I'm just following my nature."

All kinds of bats in the world, and I get a fruit bat, thought Laura.

Life is unfair.

But he did look cute in a frilled apron. That big bow on his butt
suited him.

Nature be damned.

Copyright ©2007, 2011 Jane Kohut-Bartels. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

• • •

This seven-part flasher-chain was originally published on the Erotica Readers & Writers Association website in 2008.

The final chapter of this series will be published on this site next month.

• • •

AUTHOR'S BIOGRAPHY

Jane Kohut-Bartels, a writer and belly dance teacher, lives in Atlanta, Ga.

She draws from Middle Eastern, Hungarian and Japanese culture for various novels.

She is a member of the Anglo-Japanese Tanka Society in York, England.

She has published A Seasoning of Lust (2009), The Zar Tales (2010) and will soon publish White Cranes of Heaven, 50 seasonal poems, at Lulu.com.

Jane's blog: http://ladynyo.wordpress.com

Her pen name: “Lady Nyo” is from her novel The Kimono.

Morph.

2011-01-19T09:40:00.001-08:00

By G. Russell

"Can I make love to you in my true form?"

"Baby, yeah!"

"Thank you, my love. This means so much. Close your eyes."

"Okay. They're closed," he said with a wolfish grin.

A modest, yet sensual pause. Then, timidly, "I'm ready."

Spaceman Jones stared.

The huge mucus ball tinkled, "My sexual orifice is here, at the back of my head. Please insert your penis when you're ready, my love."

Dribbling a greyish green mucoid detritus, the salivating opening, winking like a crazed eye glazed with a fiery cataract, beckoned winsomely to the startled astronaunt.

"Um...Okay, Deirdre. I gotta check the coolant pumps first."

"Why are you putting on your spacesuit?" asked the oscillating alien.

"I'll have to go outside. The valve's on the outer hull."

She fell silent, thoughtful.

"You'll come back?"

"...Sure!"

Deirdre quivered with delight.

"I'll be waiting," she said, and added; "I love you!"

© Nov 2003, 2011 Gary Russell. All rights reserved. Content may not be copied or used in whole or in part without written permission from the author.

• • •

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Born in the 60's, Gary Russell gained his considerable reputation whilst living underneath a magical bridge and riddling passers-by for gold dubloons. Whilst interred he was denied access to visitors, writing implements, and sharp metal objects. His present whereabouts, following the explosion that destroyed the facility, remain shrouded in mystery.

New York

2011-01-12T01:25:00.001-08:00

By Nick Nicholson

ON JULY 18, 1953, four weeks after the electrocution of the Rosenbergs, the temperature in New York reached 101 degrees and within the crumbling walls of his apartment, after fucking his girlfriend, Latisha, from behind, Wesley Washington declared, “Damn dog days is a motherfucker,” which subsequently, and famously, became the first line of the first poem he ever wrote. On October 13 of that year, Latisha was murdered, shot. The police conducted an investigation of sorts but the killer was never found. Latisha’s death moved Washington to express his grief in words. He remembered the ferociously hot summer. He remembered lying naked with Latisha beneath the slowly rotating ceiling fan. Then he remembered the line that had sprung from his lips. He wrote it down and thus began Washington’s illustrious poetic career. Washington was prolific. By 1962, he had become a revered underground literary cult figure with a raw, urban voice that spoke to a generation of black youth. His fame eventually declined, however, and on July 4, 1977, Washington was found dead from an overdose of heroin. According to legend, an unfinished poem was discovered in his pocket and the last words he’d written were these: We all dogs.

------------------------

© Nick Nicholson 2010, 2011. All rights reserved. Content may not be copied or used in whole or in part without written permission from the author.

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This is the second part of Nick Nicholson's theme-adventurous, eight-part Travelogue. Subsequent segments will be published here in upcoming months.

Next Travelogue story: Tokyo

• • •

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Throughout his life, Nick Nicholson has pursued a variety of creative vocations: music, photography, painting and, in recent years, writing. He lives in Australia.

A poet & his Pythagorean amour

2011-01-05T13:50:00.001-08:00

By Steve Isaak

Everything, everywhere desperately liquid – especially themselves: Dasex’s peyoetry (peyote-born poetry) creates wall-crawling eddies: eddies melt dark into Reina’s purling whole numericals: “emotions can be broken down into hard rational numbers,” Reina spreads, for Dasex’s flesh-dip into her menstrual chasm: crimson scrims ink their eddying numeric/poetic offspring: ticktocking exploding Dali clock briefly distracts Dasex, drafted for a television desert war: Reina, his kissing akousmatic, returns him to peyoetic strange equation-structured bliss, saving him – for a loveblood-bubbling moment:

Copyright ©2005, 2011 Steve Isaak. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

• • •

This story is loosely based on Jon Dixson's idea. (Thanks, Jon!)

A poet & his Pythagorean amour was posted here to provide a stylistic/thematic counterpoint to a poem, Hyposexual, that I posted on the Reading By Pub Light site.

I also threw this experimental story into the mix to stir further variation into the site. If you have a story, and you think I might like it, send the damn thing already! As long as the piece in question follows the guidelines I've set out, and it's well-written, chances are, it'll get published. :)

Metamorphosis: III - IV

2010-12-29T09:09:00.001-08:00

By Jane Kohut-Bartels

(For those who haven't read Metamorphosis: I-II, Bart and Laura are
bats. Specifically, Bart is a large common fruit bat with interests in Shibari
and BDSM, and Laura is a middle- aged woman who finds she is
transforming into a bat.)

III

Becoming a widow, Laura's life took on different dimensions. The
house now on the market, she decided to travel. She thought of
spelunking, exploring caves, climbing mountains.

Pouring over brochures, she heard a scratching sound. Unlatching the
second story window, in fluttered Bart Batkowski..

"I wish you would use the door like a normal person. You will draw
attention this way."

"Laura, do you forget what I am? Besides a co-conspirator in murder?"

Laura signed. Harold was dead, gone, Bart now sharing her bed. But it
wasn't the bed where the action happened. It was the damn closet and
sex was gymnastic at best. Though Laura had known a transformation,
it wasn't complete. The angle of penetration was off. Bart would
insist on hanging from his heels, and all attempts at necking gave
Laura a stiff one; neck, that is.

Since Bart said his DNA required the closet hang, they compromised
with a vertical 69 position. Bart would embrace her with his wings
wrapped tightly around them, and Laura would get comfortable with her
pubis level at Bart's nose.

It was a strange mating, but when Bart snored it sent Laura to heaven.

IV

Laura twisted in the wind. Well, rotated in the air conditioning.
Bart had a new kick, called `Shibari'. An ancient Japanese practice
of wrapping things. Precisely. With hidden knots. She should have
thought twice when he insisted she strip.

Arms wrapped behind her back, more cloth holding her legs together,
she sighed. She didn't mind hanging upside down, was even getting
used to the headaches.

Bart, however, was having a bit of his own transformation, and Laura
didn't know if she liked this one bit. He was becoming `weirder',
taking up hobbies. Piercing was one, this shibari another. Laura was
seeing Bart in a different light, helped along with her new, nighttime
vision.

Goddamn Japanese! Why can't they stick to wrapping small packages?

Bart told her `shibari' was the ancient art of "wrapping the heart."
She bought it, didn't even mind the bananas, mangos and kiwi he stuck
between the bindings. He was, after all, a common fruit bat.

Up on the roof, Bart had other plans. From under his wings, he drew
out a new black, leather riding crop. He slapped it on his palm,
laughing with glee.

Laura was about to obey.

Copyright ©2007, 2010 Jane Kohut-Bartels. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

• • •

This seven-part flasher-chain was originally published on the Erotica Readers & Writers Association website in 2008.

The remaining chapters of this series will be published here, in segment form, in upcoming months.

• • •

AUTHOR'S BIOGRAPHY

Jane Kohut-Bartels, a writer and belly dance teacher, lives in Atlanta, Ga.

She draws from Middle Eastern, Hungarian and Japanese culture for various novels.

She is a member of the Anglo-Japanese Tanka Society in York, England.

She has published A Seasoning of Lust (2009), The Zar Tales (2010) and will soon publish White Cranes of Heaven, 50 seasonal poems, at Lulu.com.

Jane ‘s blog: http://ladynyo.wordpress.com

Her pen name: “Lady Nyo” is from her novel The Kimono.