Weekly Short Stories Contest and Company! discussion
Weekly Short Story Contests
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Week 109- (Jan 21st-28th) Stories--- Topic: Seduction DONE!
message 51:
by
Kymela
(new)
Jan 24, 2012 09:35PM
I want to join! I wouldn't have many answers, but it'd help.
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Your summary was perfectly circular and fits the story idea well.Yes, my questions are designed for purpose of provoking thinking in my students which in turn helps me to think. And this may sound odd, but I believe in laughter and play in language and thought, and so my classes have plenty of both. Although this is the first time I'll be teaching this, and so I am both excited and a little nervous. Ah, it'll be fun.
Socratic class sounds like fun.Does anyone mind if I make up the word "pranksterous" or do y'all have a good alternative? I think it should be a word, honestly.
Saira, you'd be surprised at the answers you have. Sadly much of the schooling you have taken has, as well as given you some skills and trivia, filled you with the idea that knowledge is outside of your self. So that is the goal of my economics debunked course: to affirm the students' own knowledge that economics does not work very well by providing concrete examples of false logic, ill conceived premises and blatant hypocrisy.
Edward, I like 'pranksterous'. But I am a big fan of Shakespeare, who created more words than any other writer in English. He has inspired me to create words on a regular basis, which makes me a bad judge of neologisms. You will need to defer to someone else to give a second on that word.
If my class becomes semi-popular I may take it on the road as a travelling lecturer! Do you think anyone would pay me help them understand why economic practice is bankrupting the world? Sounds so... well, kind of depressing, futile and perhaps even delusional on my part. Too funny. But I am writing a book because of the course - stayed tuned!
Well ... you could always write a story about a (slightly loony) man who travels giving lectures. To keep up variety, you can make the lectures about other subjects as well. The plot will follow some drama that's a metaphorical parrallel to whatever lecture he's giving at the time.
Okay, I know "unprepossessed" is a word.I also know I'm just kind of jabbering away after everyone else has turned in. Oh, well, y'all can laugh at me come the new morn.
Good night, Edward, and jabberwock away until your slithy toves meet your borogroves. Now it is time for me to kip too.
Alex, that was a mighty-short story! We should have at least a one-word minimum.
I'm about half way through mine. It looks like another one that is build around introducing a charater ...
I'm starting on something with Deni-Emrys. Don't expect it to be any good.
I'm not good at writing fiction in general, but with a topic I know almost nothing about...I've only seen it on the telly and I usually looked away...
Needby Edward Th'ere`se Jr.
Word Count: 2,117
He needed her.
That Monday, her long, thick brown hair, deep enough to drown in, her vast blue eyes, wide enough to get lost in, her plump lips which drew his in like a magnet, her long neck he could trace forever until he reached her shoulders, and every inch of her body where he could draw a moan of pleasure was what he needed.
He needed her.
That Tuesday, her short, closely cropped red hair, providing full access to every crevice of her neck and back, her intense brown eye that booked no compromise, her small, thin lips pressed firmly against every part of him she could reach, and her toned, well defined body pushed up against his was what he needed.
He needed her.
That Wednesday, a slight form, straight brown hair, calculating yet compassionate hazel eyes, crooked smile, and graceful walk was what he needed. Her clothes, surprisingly modest for the bar he frequented and for what she was drawing him away to do, were not what he needed. The hunger rose again, acute and demanding. He needed to be in her room. He needed to tear those garments from her body, to feel her skin on his skin, to be part of her.
Trying not to betray the rapacious appetite which would tear the costume of cool, unshakable aloofness that he used to draw her in, he followed, hardly half a pace behind her, to a beautiful cobalt blue Rolls Royce she parked on the third floor of the empty parking garage that stood two blocks from the bar they met in. The glow, rather than harsh beams, of the yellowish lights gave her an ethereal look, as if his following her was mere farce. She looked to be of the fairy world, a spectral that would disappear to her own world in a flash. As if she could never be his.
Yet she would be. He was well-formed, experienced, charming – to a calculating woman, especially a woman as young as her, no reason existed to refuse him. His costume of unaffected demeanor was specifically chosen to appeal to this woman, who clearly harbored no illusions about their connection lasting more than one night. He would have her, the fairy world be damned.
She chose the moment they arrived at the eighty-year-old car to turn in place and alter the course of the entire evening. She asked, “So, what exactly is your name anyway?”
He had started to pass her to enter on the passenger side. He stopped beside the front end of the car. “Excuse me?”
“I’m asking for your name,” she stated with measured clarity.
He gave her a very subtle smile, just detectable in the low light, and gave a perfectly reasonable response, the kind a woman like her could appreciate. “You don’t need my name for what you,” he put a very slight emphasis on the pronoun, “brought me out here for.”
She also smiled, though he imagined, briefly, that it was more of a smirk. “I guess not. But I’m bringing you into my car – or, more importantly, the car I’m borrowing from a friend; a guy friend. This beauty is my responsibility, and you know how boys can be about their cars. I just need something to make me trust you.”
He stared at her, feeling as those the fairies, in a particularly pranksterous mood, had decided against whisking the wisp of a lady away and instead left her there to torment him, to draw out his pain. He froze for a moment, trying to suppress the pain long enough to maintain his confidence. He needed her.
“You know no name I give you will be true,” he replied, simultaneously reasonable and playful.
The crooked smile grew more crooked, pushing up the left side of her curious face. Now that he saw her without the distorting flashes of light in the aggressive party bar, he could clearly see the sharp awareness etched across her face. It was more than calculation, more than caution. She seemed to know and understand something he couldn’t begin to perceive.
He remembered little from Shakespeare, but the bard did teach him that the two most dangerous things in this hybrid world of the natural and supernatural were love and fairies.
“Well, can you give me a reason to trust you, Patrick Lynch?”
All the cold detatchment he pretended to have drained from him and channeled into her. The significance of his undeclared name escaping her one-sided smirk didn’t elude him. She knew him. Somehow, she sought him out or, rather, drew him in. He thought he played to her desires. She played to his expectations. She stood out, in her modest attire and keen gaze, among all the sluts and one-timers looking to escape their normal life that usually filled the bar. She knew he’d pick her, and she let him think he played her.
Why?
“You can trust him because he can’t afford a bad reputation,” said a new, male voice from behind Lynch. Lynch turned to see a man about the same age as the young woman, standing in the straight-back and set-jaw stance of a soldier. “He needs women to stay alive, though I imagine that wouldn’t be a very alluring reason from the woman’s point of view.”
“You’d have to imagine,” came a third voice, this one less measured. Lynch turned again to see a rather absurd mound of blonde hair bobbing towards them at some five and a half feet off the cement floor. “You ain’t ever practiced on your own, Sep.”
The first man ignored this remark and approached at a much slower and measured pace than his unprepossessed friend. Patrick Lynched looked between the two men and the woman in something approaching terror. The too-knowing look of the lady, the dreadful approach of the man, and the careless attitude of the remainder gave the impression that he had somehow fallen into a game with some inexplicably dangerous people. He moved backwards away from them, but realized his only escape was three-story drop out the window.
“Who are you?”
The question squeaked out of his mouth before his terror could prevent it. As the first male, who seemed to be in charge, answered, the blonde carefully examined the car, checking it over for scrapes and smudges, even though Lynch hadn’t even touched it.
“My name is Septimus Hart. These are my associates: Temperance Austin, you’ve already met, and the deranged one obsessing over the impeccable car is Terry Wrixon. We have another associate nearby, named Cole Martin, whose job is to make sure you can’t successfully cause any trouble. To that end he won’t be joining us out in the open.”
Lynch glance around, but suddenly felt the sharp pain, the obliterating sensation that drove everything else from his mind. Every perception developed from his eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and skin vanished: He could no longer see the strange men and woman, no longer hear their words or the endless stream of cars below, no longer smell the gasoline and asphalt, no longer taste them in the air, no longer even feel the air. All he knew was that hunger, the need.
The spasm passed as the young man, Septimus, was saying, “theatrics, but we had to impress the importance of what we’re asking upon you.”
“What?” Lynch croaked.
“I said I’m sorry for the theatrics, but … are you okay?”
Lynch signaled with his head a bald-faced lie that this Hart saw through immediately. The young woman, however, was the one that asked the impossible question.
“When’s the last time you fed?”
He looked at her. She met his gaze steadily. If eyes were the windows to the soul, then she didn’t fear the horror of his. He thought he saw a glimpse of hers. For a moment, a light that seemed to have no other origin glinted off those hazels, the light of purity. He noticed, with no small amount perplexity, that she now wore, where he didn’t notice earlier, a small silver crucifix around her neck and a chastity ring around her finger.
She never planned to sleep with him, but she didn’t look on him with disdain or distaste.
He fully registered her question. She knew what he was.
He forced the answer past his dry throat. “Yesterday.”
Surprise widened her facial features. She turned to Hart, whose brow had drawn together in confusion. That Wrixon person opened the driver side door of the Rolls Royce and sat down, apparently adjusting the seat settings back to his specifications while maintaining a mutually oblivious mindset between himself and the others.
“I’ve never heard of an infection that bad,” Hart told Lynch with a note of pity.
Temperance sighed slowly, as though forcing control over her emotions. She moved behind Hart and said something quietly, just below Lynch’s range of hearing. Hart nodded, but Lynch continued to stare at Temperance.
Temperance … Temperance … When was the last time he bothered to learn one of their names? He had wandered from bed to bed, prowled every night for another woman like leopard stalks meat. He fed off lust to survive and somewhere along the line forgot that women were more than something for him to handle, to use. Regardless of the necessity of his sins, he should have never let such a view trespass into his mind. He treated Temperance like a piece a meat, because he needed her.
Looking at her now, standing there with less beauty than intelligence and less intelligence than wisdom, and plenty of each, he realized it wasn’t merely the hunger that drove him. He didn’t just need her; he wanted her.
***
“Do you think he’ll be okay?” Temperance asked Septimus as Patrick Lynch stumbled away, holding his head as those a nest of alien eggs were ready to break free, destroying their host in the process.
Septimus considered the question seriously. “People with his condition can usually last weeks past when the pain starts. Even with his accelerated version, I think he’ll find a new mate before any serious damage is done.”
“I still think it sound like a college erotica,” Terry insisted. The other two glanced around to find the eccentric twisted from the front seat in to the back, clearly looking for something in the empty carriage. “Someone whose very survival depends on periodically sleeping with women? Yeah, I imagine college kids would love that.”
“You’d have to imagine,” Septimus retorted dryly. “You’ve never been to college.”
“Okay, I deserved that one.”
Temperance shook her head. “It’s not just sex, Terry. It’s lust. Mere form can be jaded and actual love dilutes the energies they need.”
Terry, far too use to listening to her lectures on human sexuality to really be surprised at her blunt vocabulary, responded, “So he can’t pay for prostitutes or develop a real relationship. And I thought my love life was sad. Although, now that I think about it, no wonder he convinced you to leave the bar. He has a lot of practice making women’s heart melt in the space of an hour.”
“You can be a real brat, Terry Wrixon.”
“I know.”
“I was playing him,” Temperance pointed out, irate. She turned on Septimus. “Speaking of which.”
Septimus nodded slowly, knowing what was coming. Terry finally righted himself and looked between them, utterly nonplussed. His partner seemed to be choosing his words very carefully.
“Okay,” Terry interjected. “This is either going to end in shouting or kissing, so I’m just going to get some beers. Cole!”
***
He stumbled down another street or another alley; he couldn’t tell which. He couldn’t remember when he left the strange trio … or was it quartet? He couldn’t remember a fourth face, but he still thought there were four of them. Why did he leave them? Why did they want him?He didn’t know, and soon he didn’t care. He just felt the starvation begin to cripple him. He needed … he needed.
“Are you okay, honey?”
He looked up to see a large woman dressed in clothing clearly designed to emphasis her body as much as cover it up. He vaguely registered some commotion in the building behind her, but he couldn’t think straight enough to figure out its function. He stared at her intently, taking in every aspect of her wavy black hair, high cheek bones and full cheeks, dark, narrow eyes …
She gave reply to his gaze. “Oh, you’re gorgeous. Hmm … perhaps you should come in.”
Part of his face twitched in annoyance. She was easy. Shallow. Unchallenging. Boring. He didn’t want her.
But he needed her.
In the case of this character, it's actually a disease. Oops, I meant to put a comment in, from Septimus, saying that there wasn't much research into find a cure due, in part, to the fact that many with the disease aren't interested a cure.Where does that fit in ...?
An interesting story, Edward, but one I can’t make heads or tails of. It isn’t clear to me just what Septimus Hart does to Patrick Lynch, what Hart and his associates are in the business of (for want of a better way to put it), or how Lynch is any different at the end of the story from what he is at the beginning. To put it a different way, I can’t identify the conflict on which the story turns. Is it the main character’s capture by Hart? Does Lynch undergo some sort of spiritual transformation? A story that explores lust as a driving compulsion is bound to be interesting, and this one kept my attention. The plot is lost on me, though.
Sorry about the test Al. They tell you what you did wrong, right? Perhaps that'll help you know what to look out for in the next unit.
Yeah ... something got lost in the ending there. I knew where I was heading, but the explanation slipped away in the narrative. I'll try to fix it, but probably not before the contest is over.
SANSKRIT? GIMME! That is, if you have the test and can scan/take a picture of it. I won't be able to translate, but I WANNA SEE IT.BLOODY HELL. I wrote something. Give me a bit. Between Aidan and doing dishes this is going to be difficult to get up here.
Naw, I'm done laughing. Part of my problem with your story is the long list section of dialogue.Yeah, Septimus never got to do what he planned. He was asking Lynch for assistance in a job, but Lynch was too messed up to get anything out of, so they let him go until later. The whole cloak and dagger thing was just to make a point - which he never got around to making.
None of which has anything to do with the plot of the short story. They were there simply because Temperance had to be there.
Eh ... I really should rewrite it. Now that I've read it over, I'm starting to wonder how I forgot to include so much.
Be patient, Alex. I’m reading your story in chunks, and writing my story a slow paragraph at a time, and washing and folding clothes. I’m not very good at writing erotica. I hope no one is shocked by it.
I'm transcribing mine, now. It's disturbing me how I managed it....:S
Here's mine. Short and not much detailed. lol Anara got a mention at the end. XD I am slightly disturbed and highly amazed that I managed this...o.oMary
by Saira
Deniol stared at the girl across the aisle of the bus, ignoring his green-eyed ginger friend's rant about some spell or translation that annoyed her. He had seen her at the stop. Her dark hair and brown eyes reminded him of someone, but he couldn't remember who until the doors open and her strangely familiar scent hit him. Mary.
Emrys couldn't believe how backwards the night had been. It worked out for him, but it had surprised him. He had been about to seduce a young, dark-haired beauty at the pub himself when she came up and stared unblinkingly up at him with those confident blue eyes. She had done a damn good job. Her eyes and hands had done all the talking, with no need for her little red mouth to use words. Any man there tonight, drunk or sober, would have fallen for her charm. He almost wanted to turn her. But that was not the plan tonight.
Some hunters were hot on their trail, and although he and Ludivine had managed to gain two or more extra nights, he didn't plan on staying past nightfall tomorrow. The girl was just a pick-me-up.
He was on top of her in bed in the small room she had rented from the inn above the pub. Their clothes littered the floor at the foot, her corset ripped in two.
She smiled and wiggled, ready for more.
'Something wrong, Will?' she asked.
'No,' he hesitated. He didn't want to ask the question that was racing through his mind, but some how he couldn't stop himself. 'What is your name? Your real name?'
'Almost dawn and you finally ask me? Strange one, you are. It's Mary.' She wiggled some more under him and giggled.
Emrys stared at the wall behind the bed for a moment before lowering himself to her neck. Too late, the girl realised his bite was meant to kill.
As he pulled away again, he looked into her lifeless brown eyes. Mary. He cursed. In most magics around the world, knowing a victim's real name gave you power over them. Knowing his victims' seemed to take it away. And that damned unicorn knew it.
Edward helped me with Loki's story, but this one was edited all on my own. I'm actually quite proud of that despite the content. XD
I shouldn’t have posted this critique, so I’m pulling it. Edward, thank you for having read and commented on it. I really appreciate that!
That's impressive insight, M.... I'm kidding, I couldn't follow any of that. I'm sure it was good, but complex emotions confuse me. In my experience emotions are rather simple. Powerful, annoying, hard to control sometimes, but rather simple.
Of course, I'm barely old enough to vote, so there's not much experience to draw on.
Thanks, Edward! I think you’re very advanced. You don’t give yourself enough credit.I probably shouldn’t have posted that critique. Alex will never speak to me again.
"Advanced" in what way? I'm confused again.
So I guess mine was neither good nor bad. Only Al said anything. Edward, you didn't actually answer....
I’m very slow, Saira. Be patient. I just got finished washing dishes.Poor Alex. I feel awful. I knew I shouldn’t have posted that. Putnam is your most interesting, complex, developed character.
Good story. Better narrative. Not exactly ... affecting.
M wrote: "I’m very slow, Saira. Be patient. I just got finished washing dishes.Poor Alex. I feel awful. I knew I shouldn’t have posted that. Putnam is your most interesting, complex, developed character."
I was actually kind of aiming that more toward my brother. XD
I'm slow, too, I just never know what to say to style. I'm more the grammar nazi who points out every little grammar and spelling error.
I didn’t mean to say the main character is crazy (as in nuts) but that she’s crazy about Frank. Ultimately, she’s never as happy as when she’s in his clutches, though it isn’t supposed to seem that way. At least, that’s how it comes across to me.I hope you haven’t killed him off for good. These are some of the most exciting stories to read!
Ghosts, Need, Sting, and Mary ... That's a lot of single word titles.My last story, Hunted, needs a better title, but I can't think of one.
Edward wrote: "Good story. Better narrative. Not exactly ... affecting."Yeah, I thought that a little too easy. I probably won't finish in time, but it'd still be helpful: any suggestions?
Loved Terry's entrance. XD
Saira, I think the writing in “Mary” is excellent! It’s more a scene than a story, so I can’t get a sense of what’s going on in the big picture, but the description is vivid, the style natural and mature.
I thought there might be something missing. I'm not quite sure why they're running, though...
Do you ever get the feeling your days are numbered?
I can't wait until I can get a better membership on writing.com. Then I can make books, participate in contests and maybe be seen...Going to take a shower, then post all my writing in here.
ohdear....I can't believe I just wrote this XD I hope your expectations of me fall now....this is horrible!I am disappointed with myself....WARNING: MATURE CONTENT! Also, this is part of my NaNo story so there are no contractions and it sounds stupid.
"Rilee, come on! I want to see what your house looks like!" Nathan begged. "We always come to my house. It is getting kinda boring, because I am there for all of my time."
Rilee stared at Nathan. She could not believe that he was begging her to see her house. Her house was old, and rundown, and in places, falling apart.
"Why?" She said, bewilderment creeping into her voice. "My house is so boring, you will be begging to come back here and hang out."
"Nope, I want to see your house, and I will not stop bugging you until you take me there." He sat on the steps leading to his house, and pretended to pout.
Rilee gave in. "Fine, Nathan, I will take you to my house. But you will not like it."
Nathan jumped up in excitement. "YES!" He shouted. "I finally get to see Rilee's house!" He grabbed her hand, and they went up the road.
Twenty minutes later, they stood in front of Rilee's house. The paint was yellowing and peeling away from the house, and the flowers in the pots were dead. The bushes lining the house had grown wild over time, and taken over. You could barely walk up the steps, and even then you had to bat the bush branches away.
Rilee reluctantly opened the door, letting Nathan inside. He marveled at the workmanship of the house.
"Wow, if this house was not falling apart, it would be amazing." He said, looking at Rilee.
Suddenly, Rilee burst into tears. Nathan was bewildered. He did not know why she was crying.
"Rilee? What is wrong?" He asked tentatively.
"My-my dad built this house before he went away to the army. Every time he came back, he would make it nicer, tend to the garden, and stuff....but-but, since he died, my mom has been too heart-broken to continue taking care of the place. She just spends all of her time in her room, on the computer, ignoring life." Rilee blubbered, and sat on the worn out sofa.
"Oh, I am so sorry. I did not mean to offend you in any way." He sat next to her.
"No, it if fine, you did not offend me. It is just, I am worried for my mom. She does not have a job right now, and she is just letting herself go. She had to cancel our counselors, and now, she barely eats anything."
Nathan was silent. "I really am sorry, Rilee. Is there anything I can do?"
Rilee instantly was on the defense. "No. We do not need help. I am looking for a job. When I get one, I will start making the house look nice, and maybe mom will get over it." She stood up, wiping the tears away. "Want to see the rest of the house?"
He nodded, and she led him around, showing him the kitchen, living room, study room, computer room, etc. Everything had a run down look to it, but he imagined that the house once looked beautiful. As they went upstairs, he noticed pictures lining the wall.
"Are these you when you were little?" He asked. Rilee blushed, but nodded yes.
"That is what Ashley was talking about! Her and I used to be best friends when we were little, but I did not remember because she dyed her hair blonde when we were seven! Oh my gosh, I cannot believe that..." She trialed off, remembering what else Ashley had said that night.
"You know what happened. Just like what happened ten years ago. You stole Nathan from me again."
"I, I do not know what you are talking about," she had stuttered, trying to inch around Ashley.
"Yes you do, you backstabber. Ten years ago was when Nathan's mother died. He was my best friend, and you stole him."
"Ashley, I do not know what you are talking about." She made sure she enunciated every single word, trying to get Ashley to understand.
"Fine. Pretend like you do not know. I will get you, though, and Nathan. You will regret ever crossing me a second time."
Rilee shivered, the events from that night still not entirely recovered from. She flexed her wrist, which still had pangs of pain.
"Aw, you looked so cute in kindergarten," Nathan crooned. "And look! I remember you always used to wear that dress!" He said, pointing to her third grade picture. He had not noticed that Rilee had zoned out, and she shook it off.
"Hey, Rilee," he said, almost seductively. "Are you going to show me your room?"
Rilee avidly shook her head. "Nope. Nope. Nope." She said.
"I know where it is," he replied. Then, he bolted past her and up the stairs into the attic. She yelled in indignation, and hurried after him.
She caught up to him, but he had already opened the door. He stood there for a second, then started to laugh.
She placed her hands on her hips. "What is so funny? Huh?" She asked defensively.
"It is just, I did not expect your room to be so girly!" He had trouble saying it because he was laughing so hard.
"Why? I am a girl. Or do I have to prove it?" Rilee asked, moving towards him. She grabbed him by the front of his shirt and guided him to the bed. She shoved him into a sitting position, and sat on his lap, wrapping her legs around his torso. She moved her face closer to his so their noses were touching.
"So?" She questioned, her eyes asking permission to move forward. Nathan answered by grabbing her face with both hands and kissing her. She gasped slightly in surprise, but then melted into him, deepening the kiss, letting her lips part slightly. His tongue traced the outline of her lips, and she shivered with excitement.
Nathan moved his hands from her face to right under her arms, laying down and lifting her up, setting her on top of him. She broke the kiss off and smiled, then resumed. His tongue intruded slightly into her mouth, and she let him in.
She wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him closer, almost as if she were trying to meld their two bodies into one. Her fingers tangled into his hair, pushing their faces closer together. His hands left their place under her arms, and traveled down to her waist, slightly into her pants, and then, up into her shirt. He moved his hands up her back, sending goose bumps over her body.
Meanwhile, her hands traveled down to his pants, and she undid the button and pulled the zipper down. His fingers fumbled with her bra clasp, and she reached her hands back, undoing it for him. Sliding her bra off, she took her shirt off with it. Somehow, his shirt had already come off, and their bodies melted together. His pants fell to the floor, making a soft sound as they landed on her clothes.
She unlocked their lips, and his moved slowly down her jaw line, tracing the bone structure. He laid a trail of soft kisses down her collar bone and along her arm. Her goose bumps rose, and Rilee moaned in pleasure. When his lips found her breast, his tongue played with her nipple, making it harden. Again, she moaned. She moved her hands from the back of his neck, exploring the muscles on his arms, chest and abdomen. Her hips began to rock, and Nathan, taking it as an invitation, inserted himself into her. She gasped, but did not pull away. Instead, she furthered it. Their bodies moved together, as one. He removed his mouth from her breast, and kissed her mouth again. He grasped her shoulders, and they rolled over, so that he was on top of her. His hands felt along her back, the strong but small muscles of her body. Her hips rocked harder, and he moved along with them, like a ship on the turbulent seas. The rocking motion got faster, making the bed rock as well.
Their lips pulled apart, and they gasped for breath. They both smiled, and their hearts beat as one the whole night long.
The morning light shone through the drapes, landing on their faces. Nathan awoke first, and he stared at Rilee for a while, taking in her beauty. Her face was relaxed in sleep, and her body was less tense. She was smiling slightly, and he knew what she was thinking about.
Her eye lashes fluttered open, and she turned to look at Nathan. Her smile deepened. They kissed slightly, and sat up. Their clothes lay in a heap on the floor. Rilee looked at them, back at Nathan, and started laughing. She left her bra on the floor and put her shirt on and grabbed her underwear, sliding them on as well. He grasped his pants and quickly slipped them on. They sat there for a minute, holding hands. Her fingers traces tiny hearts on the back of his hand.
Finally, they got up. He twirled her by her arm, and she willingly spun. Coming back, she landed in his arms, and they wrapped around her. Rilee turned her face to his, and he leaned down to his her neck.
Smiling, she said, "My mother goes to the grocery store every Saturday morning, so I think we had better get you out of here before she comes back."
Nathan nodded, and pulled his shirt on. They quickly ran down the stairs, and he put his jacket on before waving good bye.
Nathan walked home slowly, his hands in his pockets. The cold October breeze nipped at his ears, but he was not paying attention. His mind was in the night before, thinking about how perfect Rilee was. These thoughts occupied his mind the whole walk home, and even when he went to his room to sleep the rest of the active night off.
If you want me to take it down I can.
I'm not going to tell you; it's up to Al. I'm here to support and suggest, not make actual decisions.
Kat, your writing seems very natural and doesn’t choke up when it gets explicit. At end, I’m left wondering whether Rilee’s mother has been there the whole time. Surely she wouldn’t have spent the night at the grocery store.The story I’m working on is flat and amateurish compared to yours. When I wake up in the morning, the first thing I want is coffee, and your story holds the dubious distinction of being the only one on the W.S.S. that I’ve put off making coffee until I read it.
The Old Libraryby M (about 1520 words)
“You’re paying too much attention to her,” Lori remarked casually as, amid a crowd of students, they went down the front steps after class. “She knows she’s got you on the hook. You have to arrange things so that your positions are reversed.”
Roy waved at Gerry Orme, who was coming up the walk from the business school.
“Sailing team practice tomorrow at four!” Gerry called out.
Roy wasn’t sure what Lori had meant. He and Melissa had broken up a two weeks earlier, and his life had a big hole in it. Nothing he had tried had worked to get her back. “You make it sound like a game.”
It was a blue-skied mid-afternoon in May. Unhurriedly, they followed the sidewalk through the shade of oaks. “Well,” Lori looked for words to explain it, “most relationships are based on psychological games, with predictable moves--if you’ve studied them and know what you’re looking at.”
Roy felt the weight of the textbooks in the crook of his arm. “Really?”
“I probably shouldn’t have told you that.” Lori laughed. “If you’re going to write these weird stories of yours, though, it might help you to learn a few of things about how relationships work.” She looked at him playfully. “I notice you’re still working on stories in class, trying to make it look as though you’re taking notes.”
He smiled guiltily. Then his features clouded. “Is it obvious?”
Amused, she shook her head. “What’s the topic in your story group this week?”
“We’re supposed to write a seduction story,” he related. “It can’t be graphic, though.”
Lori arched an eyebrow. “Isn’t most real seduction the art of the implied?”
He shrugged. “You tell me. You’re the psychology major.”
Roy realized he was hardly his old, devil-may-care self, and he didn’t like for Lori to see him that way. He felt as though he were under a spell.
“Do you really want Melissa back,” she asked, “or do you just want to set her up so you can do to her what she did to you?”
The question made Roy churn with conflicting feelings. He looked into Lori’s brown eyes, but what he saw in them was only interest and sympathy.
As they crossed the quadrangle, they approached the old building that had once been a library. For years it had stood empty.
Lori pointed. “There could be ghosts in there.” She had beautiful hands and he noticed she was wearing peach-colored nail polish.
“It does seem the place for them,” he agreed. For an instant, he could imagine her hands on him, and he liked what he imagined. Lori was someone he had met in an art history survey the year before. Their mutual attraction had been instant and they had quickly become friends.
Then Melissa had come along, a haughty, platinum blonde wearing a thousand dollars worth of clothes, and whose daddy had always given her anything she asked for. Roy had met her in the student union cafe. “You look like somebody in an old movie,” was the first thing she had said to him. It became clear that he was something she wanted.
She wanted him every way he could climb onto her, not only in the privacy of her dorm room and his apartment, but against walls in deserted corridors, among the sails in the boat-club shed. She wasn’t always quiet in her ecstasy, and when on a stair landing three floors up in the parking garage she had turned to him with that look in her eyes, there must have been more than one student who had wondered at the echoes.
Sometimes, taking everything off but her heels, she would sit on the edge of the bed, pulling him to her by his zipper, then reaching in. “Does the little lad want to go the circus?” Then she would lie back and lock her feet behind his neck. Recently she had come within inches of putting one of his eyes out with a heel.
“You’re tired of me,” she had confronted him dejectedly. “I’m tired,” was all he could think to reply. That had been the end of it, though he hadn’t known why. Now it was almost two weeks later.
“Everybody knows there’s no such thing as ghosts,” Lori said flatly as they stopped on the walk and gazed at the antiquated building. There was a light breeze, and the shadows cast by the leaves made kaleidoscopic patterns on the mown grass.
Roy cleared his throat. “I’m not so sure I’d want to find out.” He felt an unpleasant thrill as he looked at the high, dark windows.
“Why?” she teased. “It’s a bright day. There are students milling about between buildings.”
With a rasping call, a large black bird sailed overhead and landed on a limb.
He looked at her with a half smile. “Grackles chattering in the oaks.”
As though annoyed with himself for being squeamish, he walked toward the vacant library. Lori followed, and they stopped a few feet away from the building. Some of the windows were screened on the inside by venetian blinds, but in others the cords had rotted and the blinds had fallen or were hanging at odd angles.
Roy glanced back in the direction from which they had come. On the far end of the quadrangle was the English building, the lucarne windows of its attic jaunty in the sunlight. “It’s bright out here,” he reasoned aloud, turning back to the library, “which is why is seems dark in there.”
“As long as you can’t see past the glass,” she said, “you’re likely to imagine all sorts of things that might be in there.”
He walked closer but still couldn’t make out what was inside. In the panes, he saw a wavy reflection of himself and, behind him, as though in a strange, beautiful watercolor of sky and trees, Lori, where she stood in blue jeans and a tailored plaid shirt, her eyes on him, though she quickly looked away. With her creamy skin, her hair the color of black walnut, she could have been a figure in a John Waterhouse painting. He knew she was no longer dating anyone, not since she had caught Craig between the legs of an Alpha Phi girl.
He set down his books and, overcoming a momentary revulsion, put his face against the glass, cupping his hands to block out the daylight. He saw a huge, empty room with plaster walls and a high ceiling. In the wall to the left and in the opposite wall were pedimented double doors. The room didn’t seem dark, but was filled with the sunlight coming in through the windows.
Lori approached him. She put her books down in the cool grass. “What do you see?” There was a tension in the air he recognized, that had been there between them from the first.
He stepped away from the building and turned to face her. “Just a room with nothing in it,” he said blankly. She was standing very close to him. He felt a desire to put his arms around her waist and pull her against him. Then, more to himself than to Lori, he asked, “I wonder why I was afraid to look in there?”
“Make me some coffee?” She looked into his eyes.
Was Lori still interested in him? It seemed too much to hope, after the way he had let Melissa abruptly come between them. Whatever his intuition was picking up on, the antenna receiving the signals seemed to be in his pants. Afraid to look down, he felt his face flush. “The apartment’s an awful mess,” he began hesitantly.
She tossed her head, her hair lustrous in the sun. “I don’t care about that.” She moved closer, and the next thing he knew, his hands were sliding around her and he could taste her, her lips smooth against his. He could feel the thin texture of her cotton shirt under his palms, the warmth of her waist.
As if by magic, his thoughts of Melissa blew away like smoke from a patio grill. The girl in his arms was the only thing he wanted, and what she told him by the way her fingers pulled him against her, the way her lips parted and she kissed him deeply, was that he was still the one for her.
Unspeaking, they picked up their books. As they retraced their steps to the walk, her hand sought his. They had been talking about something, but for the moment he had forgotten what.
Going down a short flight of steps, they waited at the curb for a steam-cleaning van to go by, then crossed the street to the carpet-like lawn of the Egyptian-styled religion building. From there, they followed the sidewalk that cuts a long diagonal to the live oaks shading 6th Street and the terrace of the archives.
“Did you finally work out the problems in that time-travel story you were writing in History of Art?” she asked.
He shook his head, then began laughing. “Do you remember that guy who sat in the front row, who never took a bath?”
Thanks M, Guy and Al :D M, I'll read your story as soon as I get home XD
Thank you, Alex. Yes, it’s amazing what a difference it makes in a class if there’s somebody who never bathes.
