Opened Doors

"Don't you remember you told me you loved me baby."  

She hummed softly to the melody as the song blazed through the room.  Always she kept the stereo just too loud.  When it was just too loud, it drowned out all else. Even thought.  "Said you'd be coming' . . . But this song, reminded her of everything.

Like everyone else, she had heard the stories about the groupies, the women who follow and chase bands and celebrities.  She hadn't been one of those women.  She stretched her back at an awkward angle and continued the task of washing dishes in the sink that was never big enough.  In the kitchen that left her wanting for more, in the house that seemed to never hold enough space to be comfortable.  She stayed because it was hers, and no one else's.

"Baby, baby, ohhh, baby, I love you."

The floral skirt she was wearing dusted the floor, leaving only a sliver of her naked foot barren before toying with the hard tile.  As she swayed to the music it danced with her, gilding her moves like an echo, ruffling the air trying to remain still around.  The black tank she wore was nearly threadbare from repeated washings.  One of those items of clothing she would wear till it fell from her form.  As most of her clothes were.  

The tears came quickly, as they always did, not unexpected, they never were unexpected.  Most days saw at least one outburst of misery from her soul as it cried out the unfair fate that was forcing her to be so very strong.

The heartbreak wasn't a normal one.  She didn't cry from bitterness of being abandoned.  She cried for having tasted just enough joy to make her long for it for the rest of her life. He hadn't lied, never made one false promise.  So the song actually didn't fit her situation.  But it made it all the worse in truth. He hadn't cared enough to tell her pretty lies.  So unimportant to what he desired in the grand scheme of things she had been that he hadn't bothered to tell her anything.  Not a hello, not a goodbye.  No baby this, baby that, one day soons, or when I come back. Not a don't wait for me, we end here, this was a mistake, or never agains.

For six days and seven nights he had filled her with all that he was.  For three of those nights, she had held onto herself, the fourth she pretended that she was still whole, on the fifth she had stopped lying, and the sixth and seventh opened up another door.

As she discovered the real problem with opened doors wasn't in getting them open.  That had been almost too easy.  It was the closing that proved to give the fit.  Silly waitress in a bar was all she had been.  A foolish girl that had no idea of who he was.  No man had ever made her  . . .feel.  That was who he had become.  Nothing more, nothing less.  

More than just touch, words, expressions, the color of his eyes, the length of his hair.  She knew where he was in the room at all times, as he did with her.  The melting promise of joy would hum through her when she knew he was near.  Damn that opened door.

"Long ago. . ."

She didn't count how much time had passed in years, they seemed insufficient when the number was tallied. Instead she felt his absence in moments.  As the sun slid to rest.  Heavy footsteps approaching. The feel of freshly washed sheets.  Morning dew falling from leaves onto her skin.  Phrases that matched his cadence. Catching musky scents in the air.  Accidental contact with a stranger.  Fresh strawberries against her lips.  And songs bemoaning loving an entertainer.

What he had left was possibility without hope.  She didn't wonder if he would come for her, never dared dream that he still even thought of her.  He ruled her waking thoughts and dreaming nights. Soon it became insanity to pretend that this wasn't the case. She knew that this door in her was wide open now and oh so hard to fill.  A few brave had tried, only to be told, "That damned door only seems to be the right size for one man."

". . . .I thought it was you, it was only the radio."

The dishes were done, the kitchen finally clean.  The baby was sound asleep and the song filled the space.  She turned and held up her arms as if holding onto a partner.  With great confidence she began to move slowly to the soft strings of the song playing. Gazing upward fondly she smiled, sweetly, softly beautifully.  "I love being in your arms", she whispered to the sound pulsing air around her.

Those With Sight

Book one of the Life Goes On series Arc One The Artists Book One "Those With Sight" Shuttered Vision

“What are you doing here?”  She snapped.

He smiled at the little beauty, she felt him as soon as he showed up this time.  She was getting better and better at it. He loved her dress.  It looked like it was patched together like a quilt. All those lovely loud and soft colors that did wonders for her dark skin. It fit her like a glove. She was shorter than him by five or six inches.  She wasn’t a very slender woman. Not fat by any means but she wasn’t one of those super slender super model skinny numbers he had gotten used to in Hollywood.  She had full breasts a slim waist, ample hips and thighs.  He was willing to bet the backside was as well thought out as the front. Her blue black hair fell in soft wavy curls to her shoulders thick and full. Those amazing gray eyes were on him.  She was furious.

“Mad at me for the stolen kiss?” he teased her.

“No I was mad at you for interrupting me with my father.”

“Your father, so you were talking to somebody.  Here I thought you were nuts.”

“You’re in my dream, I’m not the one that’s nuts.”

He laughed at the matter of fact way she said it. “How is that possible huh?  I can be in your dream but you can’t be in mine? I think you have that wrong.”

She just stared at him confused.  He tried to imagine her near him again.  It worked all of two seconds and then she stopped and stared at him.

“Stop that. If you want me to come over there, ask don’t demand.”

It was something about the way she said it made him ask instead. “Would you, if I asked?”

“Why don’t you find out?”

Seemed simple enough. “Will you stand closer to me?”

“How much closer, be specific.”

His hands itched, his mouth watered. “Close enough to touch.”

He watched spellbound as she shifted her hips stepping lightly and smoothly walking over to him.  The motion of her hips was distracting him.  She flowed like water, well set music.  He felt himself respond to her.

“Will you listen to what I have to say to you?” she asked.

“Why do women always need to talk, we have nothing to talk about.” He placed his hand on her face cupping her cheek, it felt like the smoothest silk. “Touching, that’s what we need to do.”

She cupped his hand in hers as she looked him in the eye. “Why are you here?”

He stared at her oddly as the question vibrated in his head like an echo.  Her eyes expanded and started to glow a bit.  He saw a part of her, like a shadow or illusion of her shift away from her and fly into him. He could feel her in his head starting to tear around.  His childhood flashed briefly in his mind and was passed on to his first sexual experience.  He was in his bedroom when he was 17, Janet Tully taking him into her hand for the first time.  He has his first realization about Hollywood as two skinny blondes with fake tits offer him cocaine on their exposed breasts.  The strips of his mind peeling away as he started to lose control of his motorfunctionality lying in the middle of his gameroom.

“No.” Colan sat straight up in bed naked sweating, breathing hard.  

He dropped his head into his hands, the dream vivid in his mind.  The feelings of helplessness and vulnerability were stark in his person. He threw himself back down on the bed with a thud, then gave a disgusted look at his sheet tenting over his erect penis.

“Well good to know you still work in moments of crisis.” He muttered.

He couldn’t blame it, she was gorgeous, that creature he had dreamed about constantly for months now.   Really it was the dreams before that had eventually led to her. It had started sometime after his nervous breakdown.  He would be sleeping and have the most horrific nightmares.  He was in hell and all around him were roaming beasts and fire breathing creatures.  And always some new lamb for the slaughter would drop from the sky and be unmercifully eaten.  He had tried to defeat the beasts and they would come back stronger, more evolved.  After months of these dreams he had resorted to trying to escape.  One night he had gotten to the top where people were dropped in and he had heard singing.

He closed his eyes and recalled the dream.  She had been singing Amazing Grace.  Simple lovely and it had actually sounded like salvation.  He had waited till she finished and then pulled himself up and he had been in that odd field.  She hadn’t seen him.  Just continued about her way.  She would lay in that field humming to herself.  She would do such odd things there as if she was somewhere else seeing something else.  It was like this odd form of pantomime. It wasn’t until a couple of weeks ago she had sensed him and now they actually spoke to each other.

He got out of bed to start his day.  It was such a silly foolish thing, his dream woman.  Everything about her was completely different from what he usually looked for in a woman.  She was a dark skinned brunette he usually went for pale blondes.  She didn’t mince words, his women where usually cunningly coy.  She stood up to him, he hadn’t had a women tell him no in a little over a decade.  The oddest part of the whole thing was that every once in awhile he had to work very hard to convince himself that what happened in his dreams wasn’t real.  That she wasn’t real.  He had done all kinds of research on it.  Dreams were just an extension of repressed desires.  Really he wanted something different from what he was and where he was and she represented it.

He stood in the shower letting the hot water fall over him.  He dropped his head and felt it running through his hair down his neck and shoulders. She was an interesting creation he had to admit. She was black from what he could tell, but those eyes and her hair, the black women back home had never looked like that, not women of any of the races he had grown up around.   There were things that were still considered taboo in Oklahoma, especially in the country.  Dating someone not of your same color was one of them.

Honestly he hadn’t ever really thought about it.  His mother hadn’t raised him to care.  But the people surrounding you always ingrained it in your make-up.  White privilege is what it was called by people who studied it.  This whole dichotomy of entitlement and empowerment. He knew about the theories, those with power and all that. He also knew that they were one hundred percent true.  This had been part and parcel to his breakdown.

All his life he had told himself that he wasn’t a racist.  That deep down inside he wanted equal rights for all people.  But the world was the way that it was and nothing could change that.  Such a scapegoat that was created with that one thought.  Colan knew better, he made movies, he created and recreated the world everyday, every week every hour as a new person was exposed to what he was directly responsible for creating.  

The world is not the way that it was because it just was, it was the way the people in power created it to be.  Through all open forms of media, radio, television and film Americans are being told what to do, how to do it and most importantly who to do it too.  It wasn’t too long until books and magazines converted and now you even had to second guess what you read in the newspaper.  Then the internet came along and changed the face of the game.  There was information out there for those willing to look for it about the true face of things in the media and the world.

Colan realized that he had gotten lost in his thoughts but like a well trained automaton had dressed himself, drank his morning health shake and was firmly seated behind the wheel of his jaguar.

Coming June 2015

When Did This Start?

Did you always look at me like that or have I not noticed
Yesterday you looked at my lips as if you felt they needed to be kissed
Did you always smile at me like I was the very reason for it
The other day you flashed it at me like the most entertaining thing in the world was my wit

Did my heart always speed up when I see you or did that just start happening
When it did it last night it felt just so natural like that’s the way it’s always been
Did my mind always drift to you at the most unexpected times or is that new
It struck me a second ago that I don’t seem to think of much else that doesn’t relate to you

Was it before or after we met my ideas on life became drastically different
Now I think the world is beautiful, life is rather nice, and all things are heaven sent
Was it before or after our first conversation that I noticed how underrated talking is
The more I hear your voice, the more of you I discover, the more I wonder when we’ll have our first kiss

Was it before or after I noticed how adorable you are that other men have seemed lacking
I know that it makes me not need their backing
Was it before or after I started to fantasize about us together that I forgot the promises I’d already made before
Just when I thought that every part of my life was determined and set I feel like now you’ve shown me another door
I’m starting to believe that all those changes in me are recent
And I think what I see in you isn’t imagination but a persuasive hint

I’m starting to accept my need to understand you
And I think that you can cope with what you’re starting to feel too
I don’t want to keep on trying to figure out how this started in the past
I just want to concentrate and put my mind to trying to make it last

So I’ll stop sitting around and trying to pinpoint the events by the exact days
I think now I want to set aside the befores and afters and take you by the hand and shoot for always

Character Interview: Tobias Freeman from Charter to Redemption

In your relationship with others, how are you different with family than you are with friends? Why?

Friends and family are given equal loyalty. Once I love, my regard is lifelong. 

How do you fall in love? At first sight? Over a long period?

I don't fall in love easily, bit when I do, it's fast and fiery.

What parts of loving come easy for you? Hard?

The need to protect is easy. Giving up and accepting defeat not to easily done. 

How do you decide if you can trust someone? Experience with others? with this person? First impressions? Intuition? Do you test the person somehow? Or are you just generally disposed to trust or not to trust?

I measure a man by his actions and make a decision on that. 

When you walk into a room, what do you notice first? Second?

I note whether friend or foe. An indentured man learns this, I think. 

When you walk into a room, what do you expect people to notice about you?

Well, my height, for starters. 

Describe yourself to me.

A sharp tongue, a quick wit, and a steady arm. 

Is one sense more highly developed than another? (Are you more visual, or audial, etc, or do you rely on the famous sixth sense?)

Visual. 

Did you turn out the way you expected? The way your parents predicted?

I guess they never expected me to be transported. That's a shock for anyone's Ma. 

What really moves you, or touches you to the soul?

The suffering of the helpless. 

What's the one thing you have always wanted to do but didn't/couldn't/wouldn't? What would happen if you did do it?

I'd like to sail a ship, but I haven't had the opportunity. 

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Not Another Bodice Ripper - The Case for Serious Romance

THE INTRODUCTION
Romance in general has always prescribed to formulas. Ask any literary agent who religiously sticks to what sells, and any aspiring romance novelist that would like to change things up. Romance novel trends seem to hate change more than any other genre. It is ironic then that it is the category of fiction that needs a makeover the most. However not truly in style, just in the context this style is delivered and perceived.

THE ISSUE
Romance has always suffered from a fallacy of perception as the people who don't actually read the genre seem to have the most to say about their inefficiency as a viable form of fiction. Yet in their vaulted wisdom of what is literary genius, and what is the lowest common denomination of literary fair, I must broach some fallacies of logic. Most high brow fiction involves some version of a love affair. The difference is usually how sexual interactions are portrayed if they are even portrayed.

THE COMPETITION
I think of some proverbial heavyweights of fiction such as Charles Dickens, Earnest Hemingway, and even Jane Austen. In their stories they seem to have very austere, pre-described, and idealized versions of love being portrayed. This is in some terms a 'clean' ethereal based love that only leaves a mess of the tongue and not of the person in a literal sense. The characters generate more passion for misplaced ideas than they do for the presence of another. Is it this sense of high dungeon that produces literary excellence?

In some instances in Hemingway's work for example there are clear overtones of a consuming misogyny as women can be easily trapped in a box and label of a mother, or a whore. It's always painfully Freudian when they end up as both, and thus rendered perfect. Yet this somehow manages to always be observed as part of the literary genius. The analogous representation of the purity of story because of the personalization of sexuality that is hardly ever actually realized just theorized.

THE THEORY
In some ways I believe the bias towards romance is a much deeper seated issue of humanity's perception of itself. The baser instincts of mating that romance points out are seen as 'immature' and 'unrefined' for many. Physical desire is usually seen as an indication of a simple beast instead of a hallmark of one in tune with the nature of whom and what it actually is. Human beings are mammals, and in many situations that animal instinct and urge is much more reliable in choosing a mate than a pros and cons list. The feeling is that romance makes absurd assumptions about this level of attraction and magnetism. That this 'animal' urge cannot be the basis to eventually grow into a deep and abiding love because love is something of a human nature, and not an animal one.

People with pets will tell you how well animals know love. Better sometimes than other human beings. They don't go with logic that their love will be returned. They operate on instinct, sometimes presenting themselves to an owner unsolicited on the street. This is how they love. Why is the idea that human love can be similar so seemingly odd? Or maybe they just have issues with the sex.

THE ANSWER
Love is a personal endeavor no matter how universal television commercials would like it to seem. The nature of it is idealized for some, and wide open for others. The truth is when writing about something as profoundly intimate as love, it is really bad form to try and relate love in another voice or fashion other than your own. The truth and charm to a story comes from that bit of truth that is included. That bit of truth is the relatable aspect of any story. This is the core of your own voice as a writer. Regardless of how many people 'understand' your character's plight or not, the truth of the situation will ring forth and give the story just the push it needs to really fly.

With that in mind it is very bad form for generalists to assume that a certain plotline or story premise is in line with any pre-described social agenda. The liberation of women was just that, liberation. Liberation is the right to make choices. A woman can decide if she would like to be a public figure or a private one. A woman can choose to vote, bear children, and get married or not. The claim that the creation of or reading of romance somehow 'tricks' women into believing in self destructive rhetoric is almost more offensive than any other misogynic claim as it actually feeds into the myth that women are incapable of processing thought beyond what they know to be a fictitious account.

In laymen's terms, the claim in essence says that a grown woman is not capable of separating fantasy from reality. This is a claim usually attached to mental illness, and honestly makes light of conditions suffered by those who have legitimate hormonal imbalances, injuries or birth defects that are associated with mental illness. Reading romance is not an illness. Also it no more detracts from feminist prose as it would add to it. With that being said, no romance is the same. Like all forms of entertainment and media there are levels of content. No two books actually read the same.

The romance formula is very easy to follow. Usually two people, and in recent entries sometimes more, have a great potential for a romantic relationship. They must confront each other and often times the results are not initially positive. That is because of individuality. This is an aspect of romance that is explored more than it is in some of its traditional fiction contemporaries. You have the dichotomy of a relationship as opposed to the relationship being a side car to the dichotomy of the story. In the end the essence of the story is to confront relationship boundaries and expose them. This is a very emotional plane of existence that can sometimes hold the same trauma as a tragedy. And it should. Love is a life changing event. Seeking to experience it, and be bound to another person for all time is also a life changing event. As far as I know not a single life changing event has ever gone quietly and without lessons in humility and shame. These are human emotions that bear the weight in most situations. Yet in love they are the core of what this entanglement is about.

The way a writer creates this is wide open. This sense of growing affection and intimacy is developed from one thing and one thing only, seeing the person for who they are and loving them because or despite it. This is a truth that romance novelists understand that is rarely examined in most contemporary literature where relationships seem to be of convenience and not of necessity. Others are forced attachments where the characters are bound by seemingly invisible tendrils of emotion that are strong enough to bond yet not strong enough to carry the story.

To some degree the emergence of more acceptable contemporary popular fiction, and the need to be perceived a certain way by others has taken the blush from the rose as far as sweeping love relationships are concerned. Romance novels have long been the butt of literary jokes and recently in a twisted parody of art imitating life some have even endeavored to live up to this reputation of being incomprehensible smut with bad punctuation and grammar. But what are the far reaching consequences to this? This seeming end to fairytale as it were that now blocks the heart from even seeking some idealized contentment. Is it this lack of 'romance' being taken seriously in day to day life that has enabled a lack of respect for sex, marriage, and all romantic relationships? Has the 'replaceable' mate taken the place of the 'irreplaceable' mate?

Today more than ever in a world of revolving doorlike changes we need the purity of actual romance.

Of Love and Madness

It wasn't desperation, couldn't be desperation that makes me act.
It wasn't confusion, couldn't be confusion that makes me wait.
It wasn't masochism, couldn't be masochism that makes me hold on.

The thoughts swirl and mix.  Chemistry of the brain the scientists will call it.  This gland secretes this fluid, and the reaction is love.  This gland releases this hormone, and the change is lust. This enzyme is allowed to run free in your brain, and it manufactures hate. So very simple is it, in the end the things that power a being to move.  So very simple.

Your brain sends this signal, and your heart rate speeds up.  Your synapses process this change, and respond to make your sweat glands react. This reaction takes away from another, and your mouth goes dry.  This dryness triggers a response that dilates your eyes. The process for fear takes movement from your limbs.  The fluid secreted to minimize your movement and maximize your senses. Your senses expand making everything clearer.  Sense of taste, smell, sensation, hearing, even sight to tell the brain how next to respond.  What fluid to secrete. What enzyme to release. What sense to expand. What action to take next.  It's all a biological process that is easy to explain.  Why you feel the way you do.

Why do I feel the way that I do?  What process triggers that? What fluid is released and secreted? What change has happened to cause this to occur? Where did this start?  Not from a thought, not from a moment, no stimulation on my part.  It was the other one that started this.  What did they do to inject such intensity. Why with a look can the world shift on its axis?

The science explains nothing. Instead just confirms my madness. It's incomplete this definition. Without a proper point of entry.  The big bang theory on love. It just happened without an impetus without a cause. There has to be another place, another wall; a path we haven't seen.  There has to be another channel another space that we can't perceive.

It wasn't desperation, couldn't be desperation
It wasn't confusion, couldn't be confusion
It wasn't masochism, couldn't be masochism

Does the oxygen in the air thin when they arrive?  The levels of carbon dioxide become greater, and takes away from the air quality. Maybe they exude a pheromone that causes my tongue to swell. Perhaps they have altered my gravity setting off an unerring chain reaction in my head; the brain seeks to protect itself from the heightened levels. Too much iron in their blood causing a magnetic response. Water, of course, they have lower or higher levels of water in their system. The hydrogen makes me light headed. It is a volatile element always on the brink of exploding.

Nonsense, foolish tripe, driveling nonsense. The elements don’t react that way.  The human form is not only a body.  It is a body, connected to a controlling conscious mind driven by an unseeable unphantomable force called a spirit. I would reason that while the body is ruled by the mind, and the mind has made itself a slave to reason, this spirit knows nothing of logic.  Logic this construct of man to give reason focus, and to relegate emotion to fantasy.  Something to sometimes indulge, but never take too seriously.  After all it bears no true weight and meaning.  And yet it explains all else that logic can't.

It wasn't desperation
It wasn't confusion
It wasn't masochism

I must call it madness. That's what any sensible human being calls it when it doesn't have a logical explanation.  Only that which is logical is sane.  Correct. . It wasn't...  Correct, logic is the only true answer.  In logic is reason, and reason has justification, reason has . . .  It wasn't . . . has the essence of life.  We have created so much on the back of reason. . .It wasn't ..love is just this fanciful idea. It's a theoretical theological myth. . . It wasn't . . . love doesn't happen this way in an instant.  It is cultivated over time, between two people with a wealth of common goals and interests and they. . . It wasn't  . . love each other because it's practical and beneficial.  That thing was just a chemical response, physiology and such . . . it wasn't. . .love.  It wasn't love, how could it be love. How could it be love?

How could it be anything but love?

When Sandra met Charlotte

Excerpt from Sandra's Social:

“I bet you think you’re too good for me too.” Charlotte had one of those sexpot voices that was hoarse to the point that sometimes parts of words would fade out to only slightly be heard.  When she got angry or excited it would even squeak out in some places.  And always depending on her mood, slightly tinged with a Southern accent.

Sandra side-glanced her. “I don’t even know who you are”.

“Well I know who you are.  You’re one of those women that look at me, and see a fat girl.  You see a woman who isn’t worth your space.”  She began to weep. “A woman whose boyfriend you can take. That worthless piece of donkey dung, how dare he?”

“I’m sorry you’re having a rough time, but I’m not a boyfriend stealer. I do something else entirely.”

“What do you mean?” she muttered out between sobs as she patted dry her running face.

“Can I buy you a shot?”  Sandra offered out of the blue.

While they had been having their shots, Sandra in an effort to console Charlotte, had made her privy to her theory on men and love, and what she meant to do about it.  At the tender age of sixteen Sandra had already scientifically dissected the nature of every boy in a one-mile radius.  At 18 she had graduated with the knowledge of the social preoccupations of men within the country she was in.  By 21 she had entire nations of men charted and hypothesized for good measure.  Then her adventures with Athol had settled it for her.  She had to use this knowledge somehow.  They couldn’t be allowed to get away with it.

“You see Charlotte it’s very simple.”  She downed a beer.  “Men are predisposed to be cheaters.  Men are trained at a very early age to follow their instincts. Their instincts tell them to be fruitful and multiply with as many women as it takes to propagate the species.  This started thousands of years ago before technology made it unnecessary to make enough humans that nature wouldn’t just wipe out the species.”  She glanced up at the bartender, “Two more shots of Patron mon ami.  The problem is that the mental instincts and training has been continually taught because women have been placed somewhere behind cattle since the beginning of time and only what, 70, 80 years ago we actually started minding it, and doing something about it.  We are combating thousands of years of preprogramming in a span of time that it takes a life to gestate into fulfillment.  All of us girls were being told we’re equal, and we deserve the best, and not to be treated beneath cattle.  On the other side of the fence the boys are being told, ‘Don’t mind her boy, she’ll eventually realize where she belongs.’  And the training is continued.”

Charlotte gave Sandra a startled look of understanding.  “They don’t have to be jerks they’re still being taught that we’re beneath them by their fathers and grandfathers.” She toasted with Sandra, and they downed their shots of tequila.  “I never looked at it like that before.”

“Very few of us do, that’s why we’re in this situation.  We’re uninformed.  It’s in all walks of our life.  The trick is that since they can’t legally keep us in our place they find other ways to do it.  Look at our icons and superstars.  Men like Danny Devito are stars while women like Roseanne Barr are constantly trashed for not looking up to snuff.  Our American Hollywood rewards female actresses for playing whores, adulteresses, and loose women.  Think about your last 3 years of female Oscar winners. Male doctors blow off our symptoms as being ‘silly’ and label us ‘hypochondriacs’.  And guys leave decent caring women like yourself for the sake of barely literate eye candy like that whatever he left you for. Yet when a woman satisfies herself, and her sexual needs and desires she’s labeled a whore, and unfit for motherhood and marriage. The only things we are good for by the by.” She paused looking at their empty shot glasses. “Bartender, another round.” “Well I’m not gonna take it anymore. I have decided on a course of action, and it’s called W.A.R.M.”

“Warm?” She held up her shot to meet Sandra’s clank, and simultaneously down.

“Women Assisting the Reclamation of Man.  If we leave it up to them it’s never gonna happen. We have to take this one into our own hands just like we did with our equality. Not every good-looking girl is as dumb as a post.  Most of us have good heads on our shoulders, and know how to use them. If things are going to level out then this training will have to be accomplished by women, and it has to be done in a brutal, harsh, life-altering way to insure that they don’t revert as soon as the lesson is done. My idea is to gather a group of us, and we systematically start retraining men.” She glanced up, “Bartender,” pointing to their empty shot glasses, “Yo!”

“A group; like AA or something?”

“Yeah something like that I suppose.”  Sandra frowned. “I didn’t intend for it to be that big.”

“Why not?”  Charlotte’s odd blue-green eyes started to glint as her mind raced with the tequila, and the possibilities.  “How is this supposed to happen if you keep it on a small scale?  First thing we should do is get a website.”

“Charlotte, I don’t know—”

“Then we can have meetings, and when we get a membership too high for local meetings there will be seminars.”

“Charlotte, I don’t think—”

“And there has to be a fan club. You know for women who support us, but don’t have the balls to get out there and do it.”

“No fan clubs—”

“Whose gonna train all of these women?” She stared at Sandra. “It’s your ideal, so it should be you.  How does a woman reclaim a man anyway?  In a brutal and harsh fashion that is?”

Oddity of Mind

A few year ago I released a memoir style fiction called Perilous Flight. It was a coming of age thing that had a lot more reality in it than I ever wanted to believe.  This weighs on me right now.  Give a read.  Feeling a bit of melancholy, need a little direction or just want to get lost with someone who was.  Perilous Flight is the book you're looking for. It is the culmination of healing a broken heart that begins and ends with understanding what you should and shouldn't be fighting for:

I usually don't indulge in psychic flights of fancy.  I know things, I don't like it, I just do.  But every once in a while I have an awareness issue where it feels all of the world's everything is pouring into me.  So it's a haze, blurring dizzying and out of control and then I focus.  And out of the whirl comes a clear conscious stream.  Within this stream I see everything.  Not just a picture, I see people, what they are thinking, what they are feeling why they've responded the way that they have, the connections in their lives that have made it so.  I see myself through their eyes and still maintain what I'm thinking.  It's almost like watching my life as a spectator.  I remove myself from myself and then just politely, quietly watch. 

Not many people know this except for close personal friends. But I dreamed of Siegfried for years before we met.  Call me nuts, but really what use would it be. Anyway in these dreams he would murder me.  He was a serial killer, and he would come up to me and I would stand there knowing that he wouldn't hurt me, trusting him even though I knew I shouldn't and I would let him cut me down. 

He would start with my limbs slowly hacking away at me.  His face impassive and calm, indifferent.  He wasn't even really enjoying it, or paying attention truly.  He was performing a function.  And I endured it knowing that while I would die in one way, I would be reborn in another.  The sane would say that you stay away from the man that murdered you in your dreams.  I say I'm not sane and this was the path I needed to take.  Pain teaches so much more than pleasure does.  As far as my life up to this date has shown me at least.

Honestly I owe the man I'm divorcing a bit of gratitude.  I am just now becoming the woman I've always wanted to be.  And I never would've done it if he hadn't destroyed me emotionally to the point that I no longer wanted to live.  It made me find a reason to exist and forced me to find value within myself and not as a side car of what other people want from me.  The greatest gift a woman can ever give herself, is herself and herself alone.

And now my dreams are my own.  They are tempered with flirting, anticipation, longing, desire, waiting, anxiety, all of the delicious, delicious sensations that accompany being alive.  And now I'm starting to finish the dream, the one where Siegfried destroys me.  It doesn't end like I thought it did, but I never knew that before.  The pain of what I was enduring was always too much and I would end the dream early, well before he’s done killing me. You see, I always thought that this ended in my death and I always check out of dreams before I die in them.  Too Nightmare on Elm Street for me. But now, that I don’t fear the dying I can finish it, picking up from where he left off.

I watch as he pries out my heart and just holds it staring into my face waiting. Finally I yell at him to leave me alone, cursing at him, hating him.  He calmly tosses away my heart, gets up and leaves me lying there. I lay on the ground, my limbs scattered around me, they are burned and singed from my proximity to hell.  My eyes are closed and I weep, uncontrollable weeping.  But no motion, it hurts too much I can't bear the pain of crying as I normally would because heaving does me no good.  I turn to see tiny red demons with stubby limbs fighting over my heart.

Suddenly, the earth shatters around me and I hear him before he lands.  The sound of his wings ripping away as he falls cuts through my pain and stops my tears. I close my eyes as the lightning strikes, it tears up the sky and hurts to look at. And I can see him in my head, falling backwards through clouds, his black wings being torn from his back by the force of his falling. He folds his arms across his chest and lets himself fall.  His face is obscure because it’s being covered by his whipping hair. And then he's there. 

I can't see him, but I can feel him slowly putting me back together.  He starts with my legs, the putting together is almost more painful than the hacking off had been.  Because I can feel the burned torn flesh, I can feel the skin he peeled away from when Siegfried was pulling me apart.  I can feel the exposed nerves, the aching of my bones as they are being fused back together.  I feel the stranger’s hand at my brow. I want to open my eyes but I’m so afraid to stare into the face of my savior, so afraid to meet the man that will have all of me forever no matter what else is decided. He fell for me, what choice do I have. Not that I would choose anything else.  I feel his lips at my eyes telling me its okay not to look, and I feel him push my heart back into my chest. 

Through my pain I now know what to look forward to in pleasure.  I can feel it pour over me peeling away the marred, burned, sliced, and badly cauterized wounds the one who came before left.  This mystery coming into my life just unzips this heavy carcass of my despair, and carefully pulls me free from it.  Like a snake dropping its skin, my reconstructed form, starting with my feet he slowly pulls every part of me free.  His hands brushing away the debris slowly I feel the warmth of the sun combined with the coolness of water. The smell of burning flesh replaced with the onset of spring honeysuckle and lavender. Without a word, his lips to mine I am reborn.

From Perilous Flight at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Smashwords

That Divine Spark

I dared love once to show me the truth.  Face me head on show me what the mettle of love is and can be.  It starts with the wind.  Always it starts with the wind.  The touch of that which cannot be seen can only be felt. Always it caresses my skin pulling my mind towards you.  I imagine your hands live in that space.  As it ruffles my skirt and pulls at my hair.  I turn towards it like a flower to the sun.  Thirsty for another breath of you on my skin in my hair felt and not seen.  It seems at the oddest times you are in fact always there.

Never dare love to show you its face because it ends up being your own ravaged by tears.  Always tears fall like rain in joy in sadness in grace in pain.  The storms are the best with the drops of rain and the whip of the wind.  The build is where the truth lies. . anticipation.  It brews slowly softly within to break its wrath across this plane.  I feel the rise in me the instinct to meet it.  You can only survive that which you bear yourself to brunt and even then it is merely a mercy that survival is possible. It breaks open, shattered in bolts of lightning across the sky. The sky bleeds, the earth feeds.

Elemental and sublime in the heart of knowledge I remain complete in the hearth of my emptiness I surrender to defeat.  A force of nature that has rend and set asunder all earth, hell and heaven in a calamity of indisposed inevitable unbearable music.  The gnashing of teeth it’s called, the lamenting, the unfulfilled moaning. We forget in chaos the Universe was born.  Only in chaos will such marvels come into being. It lies in the clash. It lives in the fight. The push for solidarity against the desire for union.

The will of destiny is the mating of chance and karma. They dance around each other like pulses of violent intensity with passionate disregard.  They meet and recoil, the joining painful, sweet, yielding, hard, impossible, inevitable. One carries the light, the other bourn by the dark. Its completion that the space calls for.  Meeting of different ends to form a cohesive whole.

What is born lives in the soulful coupling of two never meant to meet but must know each other. The boundaries of commitment unresolved, unrefined, primordial and absolute. As one sees the other hears, as one inhales the other exhales, as one touches the other feels. The answer is not clear, or spoken but felt.  It moves in the subconscious that causes the belly to pull, the heart to skip. A knowing that has nothing to do with logical comprehension matching to identical pairs.  This is the way of nature filling in what was left unfilled. For each open space there is matter to align perfectly to it. Fingers lace, skin meets blends joined.   Separation an improbable and probable instance cursed to join in that moment and walk different planes in all others.

Forever together, forever apart. Bound in the endless dance of existence.

Sacrifice. . Not a Good Idea

Sacrifice

The biggest lie ever told to us that we constantly tell ourselves is that the height of true love is the act of sacrificing your own happiness for another's.  Its sounds so very noble and gallant doesn't it?  Very Christian, for God so loved the world he sacrificed his only son. The truth is that we are not gods; we are mortal beings with finite existences and a limited amount of time to achieve a sense of true self and happiness.

True selflessness doesn't come from sacrifice to another for the sake of love. This is an egotistical idea and is based in an exaggerated sense of self-importance and aggrandization. It is an ego trick that we play on ourselves to attempt to trap another person in our lives. True selflessness comes from existing as you are created, as you are, and being willing to give as much of who you are to the world as possible.  Thus the idea of being without self. 

Mermaid Sacrifice

You are not you, but everyone. Fulfilling your needs is just as important as everyone else's because we are one. Selfless. Please keep in mind that this message is coming from a romance writer. I love the idea of the big sacrifice, but I'm a realist and I believe in love as it is more than the love of a nihilistic ideology fairytales and religion have peppered us with for decades now.

This supposed sacrifice is instead just the opposite of true nobility.  It is not a sacrifice but an attempt at martyrdom to attain some unseen prize that only the person claiming the sacrifice can truly name. But what do they really attain?  Resentment.  When you have sacrificed all that brings you happiness and joy for someone people have unrealistic expectations about what the outcome of that should be.  How is the other person supposed to respond?  Is there any response that is good enough?  Just death right?

Seppuku

I think back to the days of samurai.  They would commit ritual suicide before suffering the humiliation of losing a battle.  How many people died this way without accomplishing anything.  The margin of error is too small and unrealistic. It is something that has always been held as a brave and honorable act to willingly face your own death without flinching when a grave injustice has been done. 

But when the injustice is only to pride and ego, where is the glory gained? This was an act of extreme cowardice.  Instead of learning and growing from a lost battle, these men refused to endure the momentary sting of shame from loss and instead chose to end their lives. They let a simple perception of ego self devalue the entirety of their lives to that point.  I believe people do this in regards to relationships as well and it is equally cowardly.

Resentment

We all know relationships are hard work.  But we as people enjoy work.  What we don't always enjoy is the work that is available to us.  This is where we need to talk about the difference between people who work fueled by passion and people who are passionate about work.  Because there is a reason besides monetary gain that work as an institution exists. We need it.  Our souls, our bodies, our minds need the constant interaction and adjusting.  Our greatest strength is our adaptability. So we must flex this muscle often.

We are different each and every one of us.  Some of us work tirelessly fueled by our passion to work while others are passionate about working. I think most people can be separated into these two quadrants.

People who are fueled by passion for their work are an odd breed.  Artsy, athletic, doers who need to feel like what they are doing carries some importance and weight.  Beyond that they self identify in a lot of ways with what they are doing for a living. Its' not a job its a part of who they are.

Inexplicable Superhero Couple Nightwing and Starfire

When fueled by passion to work the relationships need to embody similar principles or it will not work. They don't have to be identical, however the core beliefs have to center around work being a craft that is constantly growing and changing.  Renewal is very important with these types.  Understanding of temperament and the occasional huff about nothing at all. They need an air of excitement and mystery.  A hint of constant revolution and change. A keen understanding of something not just being done right, but as close to perfect as humanly possible.  

Those with a passion to work can do nearly any job that gives them the basic things they need.  These people are luckier when it comes to relationships because they like the work of being in a relationship as opposed to how the work identifies them. They are truly the love the one you’re with type. They like the structure of someone to come home to.  The idea routine of knowing how the night is going to end and the next day is going to begin.  They enjoy the simple pleasures of life.  Human companionship, warmth and those stresses of day-to-day life because they are service oriented.

The key to understanding what relationships work best for you is understanding what work is best for you.  Often you’ll find people in a dead end job they hate in a relationship that is only slightly better.  Sometimes they have an amazing job and their relationships suffer, or vise versa. But in this work life which shows what people are willing to do for what they need is the key to what they need to be happy in all aspects of their lives.

Avoid resentment and live for yourself.  Understand what you need in a relationship and why it makes you happy.  Compromise is path to self-delusion.  You should always love the work to the point that is doesn’t feel like a job and never settle for something less.  Know that your happiness is worth the wait and whether in a relationship or not, you will have it.

Sacrifice courtesy of https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcTbNWUfjyU5iSu7ppSW6Yehl5IkJB_ZWtn3NXo5nY13l1dyqtqxZhgwh3qv6eXSX2wRKqOhmi4nulVWXSB_g0QPx5X7ri6a6dci_SLgnAEOuwILpylwEY1i6_vSJee85uB2IMgsCM5W8A/s1600/crossman.jpg

Mermaid Sacrifice courtesy of http://digital-art-gallery.com/oid/77/640x419_13593_The_Sacrifice_of_The_Little_Mermaid_2d_fantasy_illustration_mermaid_sea_storm_fairy_tale_shipwreck_picture_image_digital_art.jpg

Resentment courtesy of http://www.sadmuffin.org/pinkforsure/graphics/photography-quotes/resentment.gif

Seppuku courtesy of http://hoffstrizz.typepad.com/.a/6a0128773aba66970c0134854417e4970c-800wi

Inexplicable Superhero couple: Nightwing and Starfire courtesy of http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l3cfjk65tu1qc7r93o1_500.png

A Little Romance courtesy of http://deals.westin.com/uploadedfiles/SOP/Westin_Santa_Fe/romance.jpg

Rewrite and Write Some More

As I'm trying to complete book 3 of the W.A.R.M. Front series I must reread the previous two because of how time intertwined the first three are.  I'll be able to loosen the load some when I tell Rachel's story and we'll get to catch up with all of our happy couples by the time Debbie settles down a few years from the original 2005 date of the first book Sandra's Social.

Our girl Sandy, the one who started this whole mess in the first place.

The only thing harder than trying to tie together the timeline instances that make these three books rebound off of each other is fighting the nearly nihilistic desire to edit the previous two.  Which just means at some point in time I will convince myself to rewrite and re-release this series.

As writers we learn so much about ourselves through our characters.  They built a base for us that has nothing to do with who we see ourselves as in real life.  Then they take on new life and tell you who they are. Its hard to describe that process to someone who doesn't write but I remembered this all too well as I reread this scene that sprang from me practically fully formed as my characters demanded a little fun time give in take in the middle of their intense personality clashes.

Here is one of my favorite excerpts from Sandra's Social:

“You’re drunk lady.” 

His blue eyes looked into hers openly.  She couldn’t place when it had started, but he wasn’t trying to shield his emotions from her anymore.  Instead he lay exposed to her, breathing harder from laughter, eyes glowing with mischief, and an almost catlike curious intensity.  This is what he was like as child she thought suddenly.  This is the person his grandparents had nurtured and created.

Sandra dropped the now useless controller, and her face shifted into a crooked grin that she knew brought out the shallow dimple she had above her left cheek.  The change in him was immediate.  Instantly he reached up, and lightly touched the spot with his finger.  Sitting up onto his elbows he let his lips brush hers for a moment, and then he took her mouth with that super experienced way he had of kissing her.  Sandra felt her head spin, and knew that she was drunk, but not that drunk.  She had never had a man kiss her like this.  The other times with him had been excellent, no doubt about that.  But this one was . . . . different. It was softer and sweeter.  It held more tenderness, and even more affection.  This extraordinary man kissed her like he liked her.  The times before had been curious and expert making them rather tentative in comparison of this intimate exploration. 

The kiss ruled her mouth as he kissed her mouth like she was his.  Languidly his tongue dipped into her, and laved hers.  His mouth tasted her, drunk her in, and then it got hungrier.  The warmth of his palm was against her face. Soft sable brown locks of hair were speared through her fingertips as she cradled his head.  She could feel his ears between her thumb and index fingers.  Without thinking she brushed her fingers over his lobes.  He stopped kissing her instantly, and just stared into her eyes intently.  It lasted for an eternity it seemed because she saw everything in those eyes.  They had darkened to that shade of blue that resembled the sky at midnight.

Sandra mumbled, “Don’t tell me I tickled them.”

That was met with the most genuine smile she had ever been blessed with.

“No, not exactly.” His head fell back onto her lap. “Tell me your name.”

She instantly sobered. “Why?”

Beautiful eyes slid shut.  Somehow she had broken his comfort with the question as he hid himself again she realized.  He only looked away from people when he didn’t want them to be able to read what he couldn’t keep from being in them.  The man was too honest by half.

Swallowing hard he let them slide open slowly revealing that marvelous shade of blue that seemed to contain the secrets of the universe. “I need to know you’re real.”

“Then touch me and see.”

“I told you that ---”

“And I’ll tell you next week.”

In disbelief he stared up at her, and she saw his better judgment warring with what he wanted.

“I’m going to hold you to that.”

With slow deliberation he leaned up, and kissed her again, and it seemed like the oven inside her had been turned on.  The son of a bitch had been holding out on her she believed.  There was nothing in any of the kisses that he had given her before that indicated that this would be the response her body would have to him.  Sandra knew that things were happening inside her very quickly, and she was actually starting to become afraid from the influx of feeling he had placed in this kiss.  And even more afraid of the feelings his kiss sent coursing through her. The warmest curl of desire began to hum in her belly as her breasts tightened, the nipples puckering.  Her legs were rapidly becoming useless.  Even her hair felt hot.  Now he was pushing her to the floor beneath him.  He fit himself between her legs, and braced himself on his elbows as he kissed her at his leisure.

Between biting kisses he started, “You have the best lips, soft, full.” He nipped her. “Kissable. That first night they are what I remember.”

He continued to kiss her, long, soft, sweet, and steadily the aggression built.  Sandra dug her fingers into his hair, and gently tugged when the kiss became too much, and he would ever so slightly reign it in until she had settled enough for him to start again.  But too soon she was lost again in a swirling mass of excitement, desire, fear, and helplessness.

“Tell me what you’re feeling.” The whispered request caused an answering shiver inside her as he began to nibble on her neck.

Sandra thought about the hot demand, and realized that she didn’t like the answer. She felt out of control, and lost in a sea of unknown waters. She had never felt this way with any man. The absolute truth of that settled on her like being dumped in the snow with nothing but her underwear on. And that was a terrible feeling.  She knew because of a rotten practical joke played on her by her cousins one Christmas in New York as they had visited some of her American based Greek family. The true problem was that she knew she couldn’t honor his request as she stiffened beneath him.  Feeling her sudden stiffness he responded by lifting his head, and looking at her questioningly.

“Did I say something wrong?”

“Yes, no,” she stammered. “I’m not used to . . . I don’t . . .”

“Don’t be shy woman, spit it out,” he grated.

 “I’m not a talker,” Sandra blurted trying to reel her hammering heart and libido back in before they got her into serious trouble.

With a raised brow he shrugged. “Okay, then don’t talk.”

“It’s just that if you prefer a talker,” she hesitated. “I just wouldn’t want to disappoint.  I don’t talk. I don’t scream. I usually make very little noise during.”

The insufferable man smirked at her. “My condolences.”

Sandra pushed onto his chest, and he reluctantly sat up.

“Maybe we ought to discuss what we are expecting here?” She was willing to say anything to get his hands off of her so she could think straight again. She was trying to ignore points from Erikson’s theory on Intimacy versus Isolation ringing through her head. I’m not choosing isolation, she raged internally.

All interest with having sex with her left as he stared at her as if she had gone daft.

“Honestly I just expected sex,” frustrated he muttered beneath his breath.

Sandra nodded as she started to scoot away from him. That scent of his was driving her crazy. So were his wet lips, his pounding heart, and the look in his eyes. “Yeah, but what if we aren’t really compatible.  Our likes could totally not suit.”

“There’s only one way to find that out.”

“I just wouldn’t want to waste any time if it appeared—”

Apparently done with her, the man quickly hopped up from the floor. “I’m making myself a drink.”

Sandra made a face to herself, and took a deep breath.  Thank God he had started talking when he did.  She had been well on her way to chucking her project, her principals, whatever else was left, to sleep with him.  Worse yet was the lingering thought that it wouldn’t have been a bad idea.  She took deep breaths to try and slow her heart rate, and to gain some form of composure before he came back. Unfortunately, now he was pissed; she could see it.  She knew from previous experience that he was a real prick when he got mad. God she had been oblivious to all else except for his lips, and that wonderful body pressed to hers.  Right now the body in question was reclined on the chaise staring at the ceiling. 

Sandra looked over at him, and saw his long legs stretched out before him. The black slacks he was wearing were unbuttoned, and she could see his hairline taper from his navel to disappear there.  Appalled she realized that she was salivating when her eyes fixed on his hip, and she could see the line made by the ending of his abdominal muscles, and the beginning of his hipbone.  Letting her eyes drift upward to his muscled and sparsely haired chest, she tried to get control of her raging hormones.  Sandra felt her eyes shift over the long perfectly shaped slabs that were his pectorals.  Enviously she watched the sheen of sweat that gilded his broad and thick shoulders. Thickly muscled arms rested as his left loosely dangled his drink above the floor.  What she wouldn’t give to be the type of woman that would go over, climb on top of him, and lick him from head to toe.  Sensing her silent perusal he turned to look at her, and she saw the perplexed expression on his face.

The gorgeous creature lifted the sifter to his lips, and casually took a drink.

“I’ll have you know, Madame, that engaging in sexual discourse with someone you are very attracted too is never a waste of time.”  He sipped again. “Unless of course you aren’t very attracted to the person you are engaging with.” He frowned. “Am I not engaging?”

Sandra actually laughed out loud.  It was cute really.  His offbeat way of asking if he was attractive caught her completely off guard.  The alcohol had to be talking; he would never voice such a thing were he more aware.  She was in his house; the man had mirrors.

Smiling still she replied, “You ever think that maybe you’re too engaging, and it throws a woman for a loop.”

Not believing a word of it he practically hissed, “Whatever, you can’t be that close to doing . . . it, and just back off unless you don’t want to do . . . . it with the person you’re doing . . . . it with.”

Maybe tonight she was that woman Sandra thought as she found herself straddling his hips and looking into those oh so blue eyes.  With a sly playful look, she took his drink from him, sipped on it herself, and quickly found herself coughing and gasping for air as he patted her back hard.

“Irish whiskey, goes down harsh,” he said deadpan.

Feeling sexy as hell with her eyes watering, her breathing scattered, and her voice sounding like jaded sandpaper, she got out, “I got a little freaked out cause I didn’t think I’d measure up to you.”

With the delicacy of a ram he huffed at her, and took his drink back sipping it with much more success than she had accomplished. He looked at her as his forehead creased thoughtfully, “You really don’t know how beautiful you are.”

Sandra tilted her head at him and smiled sheepishly. “I’m starting to understand how beautiful you think I am.”

“This couldn’t possibly be happening too fast for you?”

Sandra nodded knowing that it was the truth. She wasn’t ready for what happened to her when she was in his arms.  It was too intense and left her much too open and raw to him.  She had accomplished so much in her life, these feelings she had for him confused her because she didn’t know what they were besides very strong.  Strong enough to sweep her away it seemed.

Sipping his whiskey, cool, dark blue eyes regarded her silently.  The emotion behind them intense, but under control.

“What should we do?”

Her mind yelled ‘Run Away’, but she actually managed to shrug casually and suggest, “A break?”

Refusing immediately he shook his head. “You don’t convince yourself to have less of a good thing.”

Sandra conceded that point in her head, and then said, “Who says this is a good thing.”

He let his eyes roam over her, where she was, and he stated rather sharply, “It is apparent that we get on quite well.”

Sandra blushed from what he implied, and then inspiration started taking root inside of her making her hold up her finger. “But who’s to say that the novelty of this unusual arrangement of ours wears off leaving us avoiding each other on the streets.”

“It’s been going on for months now, and if so, so be it.” To emphasize he sat up bringing his face inches from hers. “I’m not a quitter Madame, in any regard.”

Seeing the challenge in his eyes Sandra gave him another sly look.  She leaned against him, and started to whisper in his ear just so she could feel him, making sure her response wasn’t imagined.

“A wager perhaps.”

Intrigued now he leaned back instantly bracing an arm behind himself. “What kind of a wager?  I happen to know that you are a sadist.”

Mocking his slightly British tone exactly, “I beg to differ sir; I believe you have me at a loss.  I am no more a sadist than you are a masochist.”

An arched brow was his response, which caused her to chuckle at the aristocratic nature of the gesture.  Her laughter caused him to respond with his own letting her know that the gesture had been intentional, and for her response.

“I spent a lot of time with my grandfather, and my grandmother does visit the Ancestral home quite a bit which causes me to be there a lot.  Forgive me if my accent slips from time to time.”

“Nothing to forgive, I like the sound of it.  Most people who live in Texas eventually sound like Texans.  Myself included.  It’s nice to hear something different.”

Nodding graciously he asked pointedly, “And that wager?”

She placed her hands onto his shoulders, and pushed him flat again. She leaned over him until she could fold her arms on his chest, and rest her chin on them.

“You’re not gonna believe it.”

Enjoying the way her mind worked, he smiled slowly, and offered her his drink.  She accepted it, and took a cautious sip learning from her previous mistake.

Smooth and deep his words set her senses to trembling as he breathed, “Try me,” over the skin of her fingertips.

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