Showing posts with label Short Stories. Show all posts

In Dreams (part 3)

WARNING - The following story contains both physical and sexual violence. Potential trigger warning. Proceed with caution if you are easily disturbed.



  He dreams of sharpened knives and meat hooks with chains. He felt the coarseness of the rope slide through his hands like sandpaper. The smell of kerosene invaded his nostrils as he looked at his handiwork. A pile of kerosene purchased from different stores over time rested on the far back wall. To the left of the door was a table on which all manor of tools sat longingly, waiting for their purpose to be fulfilled. Above him were hooks - hard points he drilled into the ceiling days before connected to chains that held his prize upright. Sean's hands were held above his head and his feet were bound together with coarse rope. She was treated like a piece of meat. It was only fitting that he do that same.
      He had stripped Sean of his clothes and was beginning to get bored. He wanted his prey to be awake for what was about to happen. Impatiently he paced back and forth holding a knife sharpened to perfection. He fiddled with the point pressed firmly into his thumb, twisting back and forth. Instinctively he withdrew his hand to his mouth. The taste of blood attacked his tongue, filling him with near madness. It wasn't the only blood that would be spilled that night.
     Nearly an hour passed before Sean began to wake.
     "You're awake," he said simply.
     "Wh...where am I?"
     He smiled, walked across the small cabin room and punched Sean in the stomach. "Does that jog your memory?"
     "I just wanted some E..." Another blow to the stomach. "Shit man, what the hell is this?!" he asked, coughing and panting all the while.
     "This," he pondered his answer for a long moment. He walked over to the table, picked up a hatchet, and turned around. "This is justice."
     "Justice? What the fuck does that even mean?"
     He walked slowly towards Sean, hatchet in hand. Sean visibly panicked. He shook his hands as if just now noticing the situation in which he had found himself. This was the part he was most looking forward to - the look of fear and the realization that this was the end.
     "You can't do this. You're fucking crazy man."
     "Maybe," he said. He brought his face directly in front of Sean's. "Or maybe the really crazy thing would be to let a scumbag like you roam free." He kissed Sean on the cheek gently. Sean spit in his face.
     He wiped the spit slowly from his eyes, backing away a few steps. "That wasn't very nice."
     "If I'm going to go its not going to do it like a pussy! You call what you are doing nice?!" Sean screamed aloud for help.
     He laughed to himself, waiting for the scream to leave his victim's voice. He screamed along, quickly losing patience. He walked to Sean, raised his hand high above his head , twisted the hatchet around and struck a hard blow to his face. Sean stopped screaming and looked around as if waking from a deep sleep. Blood flowed freely now from his lips. A few of his teeth were visibly broken. The remaining shards were spewed from his mouth in a small cough.
     He picked up the tooth fragment and got very close to his face. He held up the tooth so that his victim could clearly see it, a peak of enamel and bone on a mountain of blood.
     "One warning...that is all you get."
     "Why me? Why are you doing all of this?
     "As if you don't remember," his voice rose in anger. "Jessica Wise! Do you remember her?"
     "Jessica who? I don't know any Jessica I swear. Please you have to..."
     "Two years ago. A woman. Dark hair, no taller than 5'6". You..." he paused in an effort to contain his madness. "You kidnapped her. You raped her...again and again. You blindfolded her, you...tortured her. You..." Sean started to laugh. "This is funny to you?"
     "I remember her. She was a hottie. How is she by the way?"
     "What a shame, I wanted to hear you scream," he said calmly. "It is clear to me you have no remorse. No guilt for the night terrors, for the trauma you caused an innocent woman."
     He walked to his table, put the hatchet back in its place and picked up a curved knife with a leather handle. The dull side of the blade was twisted like a snake, the blade razor sharp. He nearly leapt the two or three steps from the table to his prize.
     "Hold still," he said with a smile. He hummed to himself while he grabbed his victim's tongue and sliced it clean off in one elegant action. Sean screamed as though he had never screamed before. Blood filled his mouth and gushed down his chin. He wiped the blood with one finger and tasted in. It tasted like vengeance and just a little bit of iron. 
     Two days passed. He looked on at his project with pleasure. There was blood everywhere - on the floor, the walls, and even the ceiling somehow. He had packed away all of his knives only to have a different kind of fun. On the table in front of him was a macabre game of Jenga - a torso with all limbs removed. One arm was piled up next to the remains, while the other was submerged down to the wrist inside of Sean's anus. His penis and testicles had been removed and shoved inside of his mouth, then covered with duct tape. Both legs had long cuts running down the length, done before being removed. Amazing, Sean had survived up to that point. His eyelids had been completely removed in an effort to force him to watch the angel of death do his work.
     He was no doctor, but he was pretty sure that Sean had died of asphyxiation from having his own genitals shoved down his throat. There was glass everywhere, shards of a wine bottle once whole but now broken. In an effort to give Sean a taste of his own medicine, he had shoved the bottle into his anus and broken it while inside. That one got a lovely reaction.
     Now that his playtime was over, it was time to clean up. Using the kerosene bottle, he coated the cabin and everything in it. He wanted to be sure nothing was found but the remains of a life that had ended two years before. He made a small path of kerosene out the door and to a safe distance away. It was nearly midnight.
     He lit a match he had pulled from his pants pocket.The path of fuel lit, slowly at first but soon ran rampant. It flowed to the cabin and, after a brief pause, exploded. Passion is a fire that is dangerously close to conflagration. This had taken so much of his life. He had no idea what to do now. He would make life decisions later, he knew. Right now he stood motionless and awestruck as he watched it all burn away, taking with it the weight he carried on his shoulders every day of his life.
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In Dreams (part 2)

WARNING - The following story contains both physical and sexual violence. Potential trigger warning. Proceed with caution if you are easily disturbed
     The cabin was dark and no larger than a few rooms. The only sounds that could be heard for miles were the sounds of nature - crickets chirping, birds making bird noises, and a gentle stream nearby broken only by tires on gravel road. They would not be disturbed.
     He looked in the back seat as Sean was starting to move. He had been out completely for nearly 8 hours and only barely conscious before. A smile touched his lips. This was one of the moments that define a human life. What happened tonight would forever alter him and rid the world of one less monster.
     He parked the car in front of the cabin, the headlights illuminating the cabin. The rest of the world was darkness. He got out of the car and not-so-gently helped Sean out of the car, letting him fall to the ground under the weight of his own body. He laughed to himself. Who had the power now?
     Sean turned his head to the left then to the right noticing his surroundings for the first time.
     "Where am I?" he asked.
     "Nowhere," he said. "You exist now because of my will."
     He kicked Sean in the stomach to drive home the point. He had all of the power and was keen to let his captive know the hopelessness of the situation. Sean wrenched in pain under the weight of his steel toed boots.
    "Please..." he begged. "Why are you doing this?"
     He laughed aloud. "Why does anyone do anything?" Another kick to the side.
     "Mercy..." he slurred. The pills were wearing off, though his brain was still visibly foggy.
     He bent down and stared at Sean in contemplation. His eyes were filled with sorrow and confusion. He was loving everything but the glimmer of hope in the eyes of his victim. His hands reached out in the darkness and found Sean's neck. He pressed the carotid artery with his thumb, stopping the blood flow to his brain.
     "Did you show mercy when you brutally raped an innocent girl? Did you show mercy when you fucked her over and over again for three days? Where was your mercy then? I didn't show Mercy to your friend, so why should I now? Can you give me one reason?" He let up on the artery to avoid having Sean pass out. He wanted him to be awake for all of this. He wanted him to feel everything that he felt...everything that she felt.
     Tears gathered in Sean's eyes and fell to the dirt. He opened the trunk and pulled out a rope. Sean tried to get up and run but stumbled under the combined influence of the drug and the dizziness caused from the choking. He walked over to his intended and wrapped the rope around his neck. He pulled tight enough to induce fear, but not tight enough to cause a lapse in consciousness. Sean fell to the ground. He dragged him by the neck across the rocks and twigs that led to the cabin. Sean screamed and clawed at the rope.
     He screamed aloud in laughter. "No one will hear you out here."
     When they reached the door he pressed his boots to the back of Sean's neck, using it as leverage to help the rope do its will. Ten seconds is all it takes. He let up some pressure once his arms fell to the dirt.  He stopped to evaluate his handy work and smiled. His heart beat in his brain and he loved every moment of it. His blood was on fire. He had never felt more alive, which was more than he could say for his victim.
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In Dreams (part 1)

WARNING - The following story contains both physical and sexual violence. Potential trigger warning. Proceed with caution if you are easily disturbed.



     He dreams of dark alleys and hidden corners. He is there alone at first, the faint smell of garbage wafting through his nostrils from the nearby dumpsters. He is surrounded by walls on three sides and further alleys on two. He's chosen this corner well. 
     Out of the abyss there is a sound of boots imposing their will on concrete. He's heard this sound before dozens of times, but never through the blood pounding in his ears. His veins were on fire, every sense heightened like an animal. He dreams in cliches.
     Two years prior there was an incident. A girl he knew was attacked. The woman he loved ravaged by three men. She told it to him once in a moment of pure trust and comfort. She came from out of town. Relying on the kindness of strangers, she asked for directions and was led to this this alley. She parked her car as they surrounded her, blocked her inside. From that moment she knew hew time was limited. What they didn't know is that so was theirs. She looked to her left and found a gag in her mouth. To her right was a hood placed over her unwilling head. The fire was alight in the deepest corners of his mind. He could only think of one thing to do.
     She woke up strapped to a table, naked and sweating. There was a dull throbbing inside and out. Her head pounded from the wine she was being force fed. She knew there was no escape. No hope. No way out. They took turns laughing and raping her, violating any pretense she had for innocence. Sometimes they would leave her alone for hours at a time. She screamed until her throat was raw. She heard voices but no one came to help. For three days this lasted. Every night after, she screams in her sleep hoping to be heard. She claws and scratches at her bindings but only finds her skin.
     It took him nearly six months to track down the three men responsible for such an atrocity. One of them was unfortunately dead. Two out of three would have to do. This was one of six different alleys across campus that were used as a drug trafficking point. No one would suspect two silhouetted figures alone in an alley. 
     Tonight was the night. He had planned and set up for this. He rented a cabin on the Olympic peninsula using a credit card taken from his first victim. The first lived alone and did too many drugs to hold a steady job. He would not be missed for a while, nor would he be found.
     Footsteps filled his head. He could smell cigarette smoke mingling with the already malodorous Seattle air. Closer it came and louder was the pounding in his ears.
     A tiny red flare flew through the air as the man flicked his cigarette. It landed on the concrete and splattered into pieces.
     "Hey." The man spoke with a deep voice that betrayed the boyish look on his face, barely visible in the darkness of the alley. "You the guy?"
     "Yes," he said in his most mellifluous tone. "Do you have my money?"
     The man walked up to him and handed him a small stack of hundred dollar bills. The faint smell of alcohol attacked his nose. He handed the man a bag of pills. "Guaranteed to give you the best night of your life," he said to the man.
     "Yeah well...we will see about that. Fucking ripoff man I'm telling you." The man took out a pill an examined it. After verifying that everything checked out he swallowed the pill dry, almost as if the man was trying to impress him.
    He smiled. It took weeks to acquire this much Flunitrazepam. The man turned to walk away, muttering incoherently to himself. He watched the man carefully, waiting for any sign that the roofie had kicked in. Once he saw the man stumble, he knew he had reached the point of no return. Flunitrazepam has a long half life. They had 18 - 26 hours to get better acquainted.
     He feigned concern and made for the man at a gentle run. "Let me help you," he said. "I have a taxi. I'll take you wherever you need to go. No charge."
     The man muttered an address, but he didn't care. The destination had been set long ago. He helped the man into his taxi that was parked just across the street. One person passing by smiled and asked if they needed help.
    "No," he said. "He just had a little too much I think. Lucky his friends had the smarts to call him a cab."
     "That is very kind of you. Have a nice night!" A woman and her boyfriend.  
     How quaint. If only they knew how far love could take you, he thought.
     Hours passed as he drove to the farthest reaches of the Olympic rainforest. No one would disturb them there. Soon vengeance would be in his grasp. The man, Sean, would know what pain truly meant.
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King Street Station

 She speaks, her voice tantalizing my ear. I sit impatiently waiting, watching the Seattle greenery go past and listening to my savior. She is my siren calling to me from across the country. I can hear her song louder in my head as we approach. It reverberates against the walls I've put up around my head, shaking this castle to its very core.

 I see her tying her shoe while trying to hold the phone against her shoulder - standard cell-phone-while-busy position. She is wearing jeans with a black jacket and a yellow-orange scarf. Her hair falls beside her face, framing perfection between the strands. I do not tell her I see her right away. The moment is too perfect so I sit beside her as close as etiquette will allow, possibly a bit closer. I hang up and she doesn't look at me right away. She sits paralyzed by the moment, knowing I am there but unable to speak.

"Hey," I say to her.

"Hi," comes her tentative reply.

Eternities pass in seconds. I know what I want but am afraid she doesn't want the same. I push the thought away and gather the pieces of my heart from my feet to rest them gently on my sleeve.

"I know we are both thinking it, so I'm just going to do it."

I have never been so forward in my life. The risk pays off ten-fold. I gently grab her face and pull myself to her. There are few words that exist in the English language that accurately describe the feeling. My stomach is floating, presumably to gather all of my insecurities. Her lips are soft and warm despite the morning chill. She tastes like promise. She tastes like hope. She tastes like hot chocolate on a cool winter day.

This is my favorite place in Seattle. If I should die tomorrow, do not fret for in this moment I am truly alive.
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December, 4th 2004

I was browsing through my old livejournal, which is more embarrassing than not, and I happened upon this story I wrote in 2004. I like to think my writing has evolved from there. I guess this is throwback Friday?


William paced the room of his cottage over and over, trying to find an answer. He had spent all of this morning and most of tonight thinking about it. He explored and ripped out every crevice of his mind looking for answers.

"Maybe there aren't any", he thought to himself. "No...there has to be something I'm missing."

The cottage was small and dark with only the light of the moon shining into the corner. William had come from a rich background, his mother and father both noblemen of France. This cottage was all he had to escape from that life. With the constant attention and public appearances, he had no time at all to think. This tiny little cottage in the woods was a lot different from the palace in Marseille. There he had servants, extravagant bedroom sets, the finest food and wine, quality clothing. Lately there seemed little meaning for any of it. The wine had lost its taste, the clothing seemed bland, and the expensive silk on his bed seemed excessive.

Being a nobleman himself, he was naturally brought up to be a man of god. A few nights ago, however, his mother was shocked to hear him speaking the way he did. "Where does god come from? Why did he create us? Do you truly believe, mother? Why do we have to live like this? Is that part of god's plan too? How can you be so sure?"

William was perfectly horrified by it all. Ever since the death of his sister he had questioned the existence of god. This night, however, he would find his answer. He spent all night reading through the bible, various historical accounts, and recent scientific writings. He found nothing.

After hours of pacing, he found rest on the floor in the corner where the moon shown through. He looked up at the moon and the stars the way he had never looked at them before. "What reason have you for doing this to me?", he screamed into the night. "WHY?"

He found that life was meaningless. There was no need for rank or class, just the self. Pain, suffering, dying, guilt, money - it was all meaningless. He would never find any answers, even in death. This was absolutely terrifying. He stood up and burst out the door, running through the woods as fast as he could. He didn't know what he had hoped to find, death perhaps. William was in tears now. He refused to believe it, but every option led to the same conclusion. There are no answers in life, there are no answers in death. He would never know. William was breathing very heavily by now. His bones ached, and he collapsed. He remembered seeing something in the wind, a shadow....perhaps a wolf was coming to take him, just before he passed out.

He awoke by a fire. He was lying on a mattress in a small room with no floor, only the ground beneath. There was a fireplace to his right, and to his left a barred window. The room smelled of fine brandy and biscuits. He also noticed a stone staircase directly in front of him. "Where am I?", he thought. He felt a pain througout his body, and a certain numbness that he had never felt before. The pain of his thoughts still lingered like the foul stench of a rotting corpse. "This has to be some sort of dream."

"You are not dreaming", he heard a voice say to him. William was startled. He scanned the room for someone, but found nothing. "Life has no meaning anymore, does it? I've been watching you William. You are a beautiful creature you know."

"Who are you? Why have you brought me here?"

"Do not be alarmed, I'm not going to harm you. I actually have a gift for you."
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Chapter One


Every night before he went to bed, Winston Mansfield filled in the daily crossword puzzle. Winston
liked puzzles. He always said they make your mind sharp and help to combat the effects of old age. Before the crossword, he brushed his teeth with a whitening toothpaste for two minutes exactly, flossed his teeth to perfection, and rinsed his mouth with a fluoride rinse for one minute. His clothes for the next day were chosen from a selection of neutral grays and browns and his shoes, one black and one brown, were shined to perfection. He would fold the lucky chosen neatly on the small black table by his bed, just the way his mother taught him. He showered before that for ten minutes, ate a healthy dinner of no more than six hundred calories before that, and watch the local news the hour before that. Winston liked to be kept up to date on the comings and goings of the world in which he lived. It made him feel involved in life, like he was a part of something grand. He felt like he was participating, even though he never did anything with the information.
Every day after work, Winston Mansfield walked his chocolate lab with the white spots on his feet for exactly forty-five minutes. He called the dog Spot because that was its most dominant feature. He and Spot would walk out of the house, stop to urinate by the mailbox, and continue the route down the sidewalk to the left for one half mile at a brisk pace. First he passed the houses of the rest of the middle class, modest sized, single story homes painted in a variety of colors from white to off-white. Two years ago, a woman and her two children moved to the neighborhood and painted the house across the street a vibrant blue. They were from out of town. Six months later the woman moved. The city repainted the house white after numerous complaints, and all was well again.
Half a  mile down the road, Winston turned left again entering a winding suburb road where the houses grew an entire floor in height. The houses were immaculately painted white with a darker off white trim. Each door was painted in a light color of the occupant's choice, never dark or unseemly. Winston loved to live in such a creative neighborhood with its variety of door coloring. It was an azure sky, the houses forming sharp lined clouds. Left, right, right, left, left he turned down the well paved street until he came to the one dark spot in what had to be the entire city. Three quarters of a mile after the second left turn was a small single story house, a sheep among the gods. The house, if one could call it that, looked like it had been abandoned since the beginning of time. The door was black with red trim and protected by a separate screen door. The roof was red and falling apart, much like the rest of the house. The walls were decayed wood and were at one time painted black. Time and exile had turned the paint a fair gray. The boards on the windows were painted black and the yard was unseemly. More than once had he tried to petition the city to tear down the old house and remove the blemish from the otherwise flawless skin of his life and more than once he was denied, each time citing a section of the city charter preventing historical landmarks from being torn down. No one knew what had happened there that made it a landmark and no one cared to find out. The people avoided the house like white after labor day.
After exactly one half a mile, Winston turned left, walked another half mile past more modest homes, turned left again through another subdivision built for a king, and finally arrived back at his home on Plainsview Drive. The two mile walk took forty-five minutes at a brisk pace.
Every morning, Winston Mansfield woke up at exactly six am. He dressed in the clothes he had laid out the night before, ate his low calorie cereal (one cup with half a cup of soy milk and a piece of toast), read the morning paper, fed Spot, and began the drive in his white hybrid car to the office where he worked. On his way, he stopped at a local coffee shop for his daily morning latte. He arrived at the office at exactly eight am.
Every day at five pm, Winston Mansfield waved goodbye to his coworkers, shut down his computer to conserve electricity, asked the boss about his wife, and drove home from work.
Every day his life was perfect, and Winston Mansfield loved every moment of it.
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Oleander - Chapter 1


“Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”
-Friedrich Nietzche

I wasn't always a monster. I was born to a loving family. I was privileged growing up. I went to a nice college. I did everything a young girl should. It was always going to end in blood. It had to.
My mother use to tell me that I have and old soul. She would look at me from across the table, her eyes bloodshot from the wine on her breath and say to me, "you've done this before." I spent hours in front of the mirror changing my face, trying to see what she saw.
I saw a girl. Just a girl.
There is little to say about my younger school years. I had a normal childhood with normal friends. I was happy then. My father would read to me before bed until I was thirteen. He started with the normal ones about elephants and birds, but when I got restless he would move on to the masters of horror and mystery. The monsters in those stories kept me awake at night, fearful of what was lurking just inside the shadows. He told me I was safe as long as I stayed in bed, under the blanket.
When I was eight years old, my brother and I would play together. It was innocent at first. We played Cowboys and Indians, doctor, Red Rover... all the games young brothers and sisters are supposed to play. Sometimes we would play house. I cooked the plastic food and washed the plastic pots and pans while he took care of our pretend Barbie doll children. At night we went to a very real bed where he performed his very real husbandly duties. He was fourteen at the time and I didn't know what was happening.
My parents didn't believe me.
My mother called me a liar and kept insisting that I'd told this lie before. She hurled insults at me through gulps of wine, the red staining her teeth and lips like an open wound. My father said I read too many stories and couldn't go around telling people such horrid fallacies. Nevertheless, he looked concerned.
He talked with my brother about it the next day, who of course denied everything. Father believed him and I never again spoke a word of it to anyone. That was when I first learned to lie. He came to my bed again that night. He would slide his hand into me, telling me all the while how toxic I was. "Why do you make me do these things to you?" he would ask me. I cried silently, not giving him the satisfaction of an answer. It went on until I was ten and he found a high school crush.
All things considered I had a normal high school experience. I wasn't too damaged by what happened and it never happened again, so I let it go. I had friends but I wasn't terribly popular. My senior year of high school I managed to win the title of Prom Queen. My date was a sweet guy, Dexter. He knew my limits and accepted them without question. I can still see the look of alarm on his face when his name was announced as Prom King. We danced the rest of the night away like normal high school teenagers should. It was beautiful.
That made it all the more bittersweet when we broke up to go to different colleges. I chose a college on the West Coast and he wanted to stay in town. Dexter was very much into tradition and lasting values, which lasted as far as my best friend's skirt. I wasn't too broken up about it.
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Writing Exercise #2

Name: Pella
Location: Church Parking Lot
Dialogue: "What is your problem, Derek?"
Object: Red and Black Plaid Bandana

   It was dark outside. Pella could see the warmth of her own breath drawing nonsensical patterns on the driver’s side window. It was getting colder by the minute. In her right hand, an old flip phone made unconscious circles around her palm. It had been ten minutes since she found the plaid bandana, red and black accentuated with stripper red lipstick and a hint of black eye shadow. She had pulled into the first parking lot she saw. It was a funny coincidence that it happened to be the parking lot of the Holy Trinity Baptist Church.
Her face was lit by the faint glow of the digital clock on the radio. She watched as it changed. Another minute had passed, ticked slowly away and took with it any hope of salvation for her broken marriage. How long would she stay here before deciding on a course of action? She moved her left hand to her mouth and fought back years. She knew she had to call him, but crying would make things worse. She told herself to be strong about it.
Another minute passed in silence. The clock was taunting her now. She had to call him. There was no way around it. They had been married for six years. There was so much between them, so many memories and shared experiences. Experiences Pella couldn’t have with anyone else. No matter what happened tonight, no one could take those away from her. An unexpected pain hit her index finger. She pulled her hand away and saw blood between her first and second knuckle. Pella hadn’t even noticed that she was biting her hand. This had to happen now.
She opened the cell phone and held down the number one. His number showed up on the display. Derek had been first on her speed dial since they met. She had always hated people who use the phrase “love at first sight.” She hated even more the first time she used it to descibe him.
“Hey where are you?” the familiar voice echoed from the cell phone speaker.
She tried her hardest to think of the words “calm” and “collected”.
“Hey. I’m on the way.” Her voice was weaker than she would have liked.
“Is everything ok?”
“Yeah, fine,” she said. “I was just wondering if you wanted me to pick up anything for dinner.”
Be cool, she thought.
“Of course Pell.” His laugh came through the speaker. “I was so worried. I thought something might have happened to you. You’ve been gone for ages.”
She couldn’t help but to laugh.
“Whats so funny?” He asked, laughing along with her.
Calm. Relaxed.
“Nothing I just…I love hearing your voice,” she lied, an ironic smile on her face.
“I love you do you know that?”
Go to your quiet place, she told herself. She thought of all the excuses and lies that must have went into his infidelity and only grew more upset.
Tranquility.
She thought of how often he said ‘I love you’ and wondered when he stopped meaning it. She thought of all the times they made love and wondered how often he was thinking of someone else. What was it about her that made him find comfort in the arms of another woman?
Serenity.
“Are you there?” How long had her leg been moving up and down like that?
“What is your problem, Derek?” The words burst from her mouth like a balloon that had taken too much pressure.
“What?”
So much for calm and collected. “Make sure to tell your girlfriend not to wear lipstick next time.”
“My girlfriend? Pella what the hell are you on about?”
Ah, the part where they feign ignorance. She had nearly forgotten about that part. Now was the time when she provided proof. He would inevitably deny it or make excuses, but in the end he would come clean. “I found your plaid bandana in the car.”
“I must have left it in there, so what?” he asked.
“Did you also leave lipstick on it?” Her voice was full of knives.
“Oh…”
“Yeah.”
For several minutes no one said anything. She could hear the sound of his breath quickening as he struggled for words.
“It’s not what you think,” he managed.
“Oh? Because what I think is that you’re an ass who thinks about no one but himself.” It wasn’t true. Derek had always been considerate. She had referred to him on several occasions as the most wonderful man she had ever met.
“Really Pella, just listen to me,” he said, his voice panicked. She was glad of the sorrow that diluted his voice. It comforted her to know that he was at least hurting too.
“You want me to just sit here and listen to you tell me about how she doesn’t mean anything or how it was just a one time thing,” she said, fighting back the tears she had held off for so long. This game played out for her dozens of times in the past, obviously with men who weren’t Derek. “What is it Derek? Are you having some sort of mid life crisis? Is it about time to trade in for a newer model that runs off of grapes and tequila? Am I not exciting enough for you? Please, I would love to hear this.”
“The lipstick is mine,” he said as soon as she stopped.
Again she laughed. She had to give him points for originality. “Ohh why didn’t I think of that? I should have known that these lipstick stains belong to my husband. Come on Derek. If you’re going to humiliate me, at least don’t insult my intelligence.”
She heard a sudden inhalation of breath followed by a slow exhale.
“Pella I’m serious. I think we need to talk.”
For a moment she sat staring at a man and his dog walking through the parking lot. She must have been yelling because he turned away as soon as they made eye contact. “You’re serious?” She didn’t know what else to say.
“Yes,” he said simply.
“How long?” she couldn’t believe this was happening. She wouldn’t.
“About six months,” he said reluctantly. “I meant to tell you. I swear I did.”
“What do you want for dinner?” she asked.
“What?”
“Dinner. You wanted me to pick up dinner.”
“Can we talk about this?” he asked.
“We’ll talk when I get home,” she replied, almost catatonic.
“I love you.”
“I’ll be home soon.”
She closed the flip phone and turned on the car. There was a cloud of smoke at every exhale, but she didn’t feel cold. Her eyes stayed fixed on the man walking his dog as he turned a corner and vanished from her sight. For several minutes she did nothing, the silence broken only by the gentle hum of the engine. Tears fell silently from her eyes. She adjusted her mirror, wiped her eyes, and turned the gear shift to Drive. She spent the whole ride home wondering what she was going to tell her children.
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Writing Exercise #1

   
 Place: An abandoned fairground
 Dialogue: "They told me it couldn't happen"
 Object: A mug

    Silence is a beautiful thing in small doses. Necessary even. When I’m reading or sleeping or on the toilet, please give me quiet. For the love of god please say something.
“Did you hear me?” I ask him in a choked whisper. My mind contemplates then the horrible things that dwell behind his beautiful sea green eyes. I remember the first time I looked into them. I knew then that I would likely let him go all the way, or at least get to third base. There were times when I could tell exactly what he was thinking from his eyes. They spoke volumes when he never would. It is one of the things that I love about him. Now I see only a faint reflection from the light that illuminates his skin.
He looks around like he is expecting someone else to tell him how to respond. Please say something. Anything.
“I love you,” he says to me, his brows furrowed deeply. I’ve seen similar expressions on the faces of those alien-looking men in weight lifting competitions or when athletes try to come up with witty comebacks. It's not attractive and most definitely not a face that you want to see coupled with the words ‘I love you.’ He sighs then and looks down at his worn converse sneakers. I see the hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth when he sees the note I wrote to him last month on the sides of his soles. The smile vanishes before my heart has a chance to find It's way out of my throat.
“Is that it?” I ask, trying my hardest not to sound irritated. I love you to death Andy, but sometimes you have the emotional range of a dish towel. I don’t say that to him of course. It wouldn’t help anything.
“What else do you want me to say? They told me it couldn’t happen.” He turns and starts walking past the broken down tents toward the abandoned carousel. I pause for a moment before following. In truth I’m not entirely sure what I expect him to say. Maybe a little excitement or support.
“I don’t know,” I say once I’ve caught up to him. I don’t want to put him on guard so I walk beside him. “You could be a little supportive. Who told you it couldn’t happen?”
“My church group.” He stops at a movement in the grass and reaches for something too dark for me to see. I strain my eyes against the darkness to make out the small object in his hands. I see the rubble from the shattered tent. There are stuffed bears and old trinkets all around. It's the sort of place I would imagine to be in a post apocolyptic film with Edward Norton, directed by Michael Bay or the guy that made the movie Hostel. He offers the mug to me and I take it. It's a small ceramic mug, the kind you might get as a prize for popping the most balloons or picking the right duck from a row. It's a black mug with a magnifying glass. Underneath in ornate gray writing are the words Get a Clue. The irony makes me laugh out loud.
“What is it?” he asks with an amused look on his face.
“Why do you like it here so much?” I ask, avoiding his question. Best not to damage his ego too much in one night.
“I don’t know. It's quiet. I like to imagine that where I’m standing could be the happiest memory from someone’s childhood.”
This is why I love him. He isn’t vapid or sanctimonious. He is just himself and he makes no effort to be anything else. It's also what I hate most about him.
“I’m pregnant,” I say to him again, this time avoiding his fierce and uncomprehending stare.
“I heard you,” he says. Nothing else.
“And?” My heart is pounding now. Naturally I assume the worst.
“And I love you.” He smiles.
“You don’t have anything else to say about it?”
“What else do you want me to say?” I don’t know, maybe that you will stay with me or that we can do this together…even some choice insults would be better than whatever it is that I’m getting now. Andy is a doll, but sometimes he’s oblivious. Now is one of those times.
“I don’t know,” I lie. What else can I do? If he doesn’t want to help me raise a baby, no one is going to force him.
“Have you told your mom yet?” he asks.
“No.” The reply is filled with more sobs than I expect. “I don’t know how.”
My mother is Catholic. As far as she knows I don’t even know what sex is, let alone how it feels. When I turned fourteen, my older sister brought her gay friend to my birthday party. My mother couldn’t stop talking about it to all of the other moms. She started by asking my sister’s friend when she decided to become gay and mentioned how appropriate it was that she grew up in Detroit, which is what she imagines hell to look like. It was awkward.
“Make sure to bring plenty of tissues,” he says.
My heart sank. There was so much in that seemingly insignificant statement. That’s it then. He wants me to do this alone. Of course he does. He is only seventeen. What high school boy will volunteer to raise a child with a girl you’ve only slept with four times. We’ve only been dating for five months. I don’t know what I expected. My eyes swelled and stung with salted expectations.
“I will,” I say, trying to sound stronger than I felt. He looks at me and I see sympathy written in decorative letters on his forehead. His eyes are wet too, but he will never mention it. This is it then. We had a good run. Five months in high school is like two years in the real world. It will be good for him in the long run I think.
“I love you,” he says again. There is no irony in his voice and I know that he means it.
“I know.” It's all I can think to say. “I should go.”
“Yeah.” He kisses my forehead.
I look at him for what I know is the last time. He looks at me and smiles a bittersweet smile. I wave at him and remember the old dirty mug that is still in my hand, which are covered with mud from the cup, but I don’t care. I turn away and slowly walk through the wreckage of brightly colored hot dog stands and giant rotating tea cups. I suppose these things happen to everyone, I think as I make my way home, wondering how on earth to tell my mother.
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