Friday Flash Fiction 3/5/2010

I have no idea where this came from, but I got an idea today involving Charlie, one of the characters in my last Friday Flash Fiction story, and the coffee cart boy Ulysses mentions. It's very rough, but I wanted to get the idea on paper, at least, so here it is.

There's nothing graphic here by any stretch of the imagination, but this story does involve homosexual men flirting with each other. If that is not your cup of tea, then you should probably quit reading now...






Here is "Three O'Clock"




Charlie knew he was bouncing with impatience while he waited for the elevator door to open, but he couldn’t force himself to stop. Three o’clock – the very best time of day. Coffee and flirting and maybe an invitation for more if he played his cards right.

The doors opened at last, revealing the coffee cart in the lobby and the handsome barista who operated it. Everything about Mark appealed to Charlie, from the dark spiky hair and lean, slender body to the eyebrow ring and sweet, almost shy smile that Charlie swore Mark saved just for him.

Mark had looked up as soon as the bell dinged the elevator’s arrival, as used to the routine as Charlie by now. Three o’clock. Early enough for Charlie to beat most of the afternoon rush of caffeine hunters, and close enough to the end of Mark’s shift that he was free to talk and play. Charlie admired the snug fit of Mark’s black button down shirt as he approached the cart, his eyes travelling slowly up and down, soaking in every detail. His grin broadened when Mark acknowledged his perusal with a light blush.

“Hey, you,” Mark greeted Charlie. “Triple soy sugar free vanilla latte?”

“Yes, please,” Charlie beamed. He ordered the same thing every day, but it still gave him a little thrill each time Mark remembered his order.

“Anything else?” Mark asked, eyes lowering so he could peek up at Charlie through his eyelashes.

Charlie opened his mouth to reply, but found he had no air to speak or breathe with. Tearing his gaze away from the heat in the sapphire gaze that Mark was careful to keep mostly turned away from him, Charlie managed a low laugh. “Don’t tempt me.”

Oh. Oh, that was a happy smile stretching Mark’s face at Charlie’s words. Damn. Charlie knew he was staring at Mark, completely ensnared by the sight of him steaming soy milk and preparing espresso shots and smiling, but he could not look away. He heard himself babbling on, covering his fascination with too many words, but Mark was used to that by now, too. Mark answered back when he could get a word in edgewise, the movement of his throat jostling the heavy chain that rested along his collar bone.

Oh, God.

There, just above the chain was the dark smudge of a hickey. How on earth had Charlie missed that before? It wasn’t all that large, but it was almost black, edged with red where teeth had worried the flesh, too.

Hot. Even as Charlie mourned the lost opportunity for more than a flirtation with Mark, his body reacted to the sight of the bruise with undeniable enthusiasm. He wanted to touch it, taste it, in the worst way. Mark might even let him, but the person who’d claimed him would almost certainly object.

“Are you going to introduce me to your friend, boy?” came a low rumble from behind Charlie.

Mark’s smile had always been bright and intimate for Charlie, but now he positively glowed. “Oh, yes, Master,” he breathed. “This is Charlie. Charlie, this is Master Byron.”

Master?

Charlie had noticed the chain around Mark’s neck, of course, but he’d never realized it was actually a collar. How had he missed that?

With a shake of his head, Charlie brought himself back to the moment and clasped the hand that Mark’s master had extended. It was huge, warm and strong. The arm attached to it was sized to match, thick muscles rippling under the skin as Charlie’s gaze travelled upwards to meet Master Byron’s eyes.

Oh boy.
***

Flash Friday 2/5/10

This story came out of a challenge in the Writer's Duel on Romance Divas. I had fun writing it, and wanted to show it around one last time.

The prompt guidelines were as follows:

Your hero or heroine (your choice) is a participant in a treasure hunt reality TV show. Their directions have been tampered with. By whom and why? What dangers and consequences are there??

Please include: A facial scar, a partridge in a pear tree, red stiletto shoes, and a skunk.

The original post was supposed to be about 750 words, but I added just a few more back in for this because I just missed them.


Here's the story:



Ulysses P. Rathbone slapped his credit card on the counter, snatched the cell phone out of the sales clerk’s hands and started dialing. He still had no idea why those ducks had dive bombed him at the fountain and sent his Blackberry plunging to the depths of the wishing pool, but he’d finally gotten it replaced. Now he just needed to get a hold of Charlie and have him resend the email with the final Super Search clue.

“Hi, Boss!” came the enthusiastic reply from the other end of the line. Charlie was gay as a maypole and twice as chipper, but he was a genius with computers, so Ulysses put up with the sugar shock.

“You sweet talked that guy at the coffee stand into an extra shot again, didn’t you, Charlie?”

“Maaaaybe,” Charlie giggled.

Sorry he’d asked, Ulysses got down to business. “I need you to send me that email again, the one with the Super Search clue.”

“Tiger, tiger burning bright, you’ll find me in the City of Lights? That one?”

“Yeah, that’s it. Zap it over here pronto.” Ulysses glared impatiently at his phone, but before the email could come through a screech blasted through the speaker.

‘Charlie!” Ulysses shouted to be heard over the noise. “What the hell happened? Where’s my clue?”

“Fatal error, my ass!” Charlie shouted accusingly before explaining, “The computer just died, Boss.”

“Well, you’re the computer queen, so fix it! I need that email!” Ulysses could hear clunks and thunks as Charlie shuffled things around, interspersed with expletives that increased steadily in both inventiveness and pitch.

Almost out of nowhere another scream rocketed through Ulysses' ears, threatening the integrity of his eardrums.

“Oh, my GOD! There’s a MOUSE!” Charlie started hyperventilating, sending the octave of his voice into the stratosphere. “There is a MOUSE and it has been EATING the COMPUTER! The computer’s dead!”

Mice eating the computer, ducks drowning his phone – Ulysses decided he must have slipped into some kind of Animal Planet Twilight Zone. At least he had the most important part of the clue. “Fix the computer and get me that email,” he barked at Charlie before jabbing the End button.

Two hours later, wedged into an airplane seat and headed to Paris, Ulysses chuckled to himself. A mouse, a duck . . . Hell, throw in a skunk and a bird or two and you’d have the whole menagerie of his ex girlfriends.

He didn’t have as much magic as some Hunters, but Ulysses could always recognize a Shifter when he saw one. Of course, finding them wasn’t the dangerous part. He bore long, jagged scars on his face, deep enough to be felt even inside his mouth as a reminder of what happens when a Lioness decides you’re little too cavalier with her affections.

He’d learned his lesson, though. Smaller Shifters, they were the key. Take the Partridge he’d dated once, for example. Met her in a pear tree of all places, in her family’s orchard in California. Sweet little thing. Sure, she’d gotten a little huffy when he moved on to the Turtledove twins on the neighboring ranch, but she hadn’t clawed his eyes out or anything.

Ulysses’ Blackberry pinged an email alert as soon as he landed. Tiger, tiger burning bright, you’ll find me in the City of Lights. No Triumph here, sad tale to tell, but you will find La Tour Eiffel. Charlie had come through - just in time for Ulysses to find out he was in the wrong damned city. Stifling a curse, Ulysses headed back to the ticket counter.

The Super Search sign was still posted when Ulysses pulled up to the Mirage. He burst through the hotel’s double doors and skittered to a halt in front of the host. “Have any other teams made it through?”

The host simply smiled and motioned for the woman standing behind him to come forward. Tiny black dress, Cruella De Vil’s big ass white coat, and red stilettos? No mystery there. “Hello, Sylvia,” Ulysses sneered. “What’s a nice Skunk like you doing in a place like this?”

“Ulysses, darling. You’re right on time,” Sylvia beamed.

More girls drifted over to join Sylvia. Patti, Tonya, Tracy . . . Oh boy.

“What is this, some kind of joke?”

“Not a joke, dear boy. A treasure hunt,” Sylvia replied with a tinkling laugh. “You had to find the treasure, and the girls had to stop you. Wasn’t it fun?”

“Oh, yeah,” Ulysses scoffed, “A real blast.” He knew the answer, but forced himself to ask one more question. “So, there’s no treasure, then?”

“Oh, no, Ulysses, there is a treasure,” Sylvia reassured him. “It’s right in front of you.” Her gaze narrowed as she added, “You didn’t recognize the treasure when you had it, and we’re here to remind you that you will never, EVER have it again.”

Flash Fiction, Friday Jan 8

My Critic has this thing about me writing poetry, or rather the Critic is quick to remind me that I am not great at poetry and thinks I should avoid it at all costs. I'm not entirely convinced the Critic is wrong, but I've decided to continue the practice of forcing myself to post my poems somewhere whenever I happen across them.

So, for Flash Fiction Friday, here is a poem from senior year of high school:

Retreat

Nature's call is a siren's song.
Trees croon lullabyes with creaking limbs.
Grass whispers secrets to the wind, and
the brook's cheerful chatter tells us to hurry
as we fly to nature's retreat.

But we look back.


Jangling phones, shreiking printers,
cranky customers, bosses with razor tongues,
children clamoring for attention,
clanging construction, blaring alarms,
headaches screaming for Excedrin -
These are the tools society uses to
restrain our retreat.

Mother Nature greets you in her backyard,
a barefoot version of Cinderella's fairy godmother
with twigs in her hair and grass stains on her feet.
Her smile shines like the sun in her domain, and
her bower offers respite from the world looming large
behind us. The cheerful brook lip-laps away the headache,
the grass massages stressed muscles, and
the trees rock us into peaceful repose.

Then we go back.

---

I suppose poetry is like anything else - you have to practice to get better. Still, I persist in seeing poetry as something you are born with, not something you learn. I can't imagine ever really getting comfortable with it, but picking at the scab of it every so often seems to be good for me.

I was also reminded of a poem that I'd almost forgotten, but that still gets right inside me. It's Love Song: I and Thou by Alan Dugan, and I have always connected with it. You can read it here.

On another topic, I pulled out some of my very first stories the other day in a fit of nostalgia. I have to apologize to some of my poor characters, because I had completely forgotten about them. I remembered a few as works in progress, but I did have a couple that were completely finished. Very much a sixteen-year-old-girl kind of thing, but not altogether the horror I remembered. I also found a hard copy of one of two fanfiction stories that I'd lost. It's like having an extra warm fuzzy blanket to know that story's in the world somewhere again.

Friday Flash Fiction Dec 11

I was really trying to write something new, and apparently it was just not going to happen tonight. Jason had this major attack of potty mouth, and that was about all I got, lol.

So I'm going to post this little snippet I wrote before Thanksgiving instead. I begged for a prompt on RD chat, and Inez told me to blow something up. This is what came out.


The fuse had been lit. Licks of amber flame circled black pools of darkness, spreading slowly outward until a wide ring of fire blazed.

Lord Jeran smiled at his handiwork. Prince Ming would be pleased.

“Don’t worry, Lord Rogon, I won’t tell a soul,” Jeran assured the man beside him. He hurried to cover his smirk with sympathetic concern as the laser focus of Rogon’s attention returned to him. Heat shimmered in the air, searing Jeran’s skin, and the acrid stench of smoke burned his nostrils and clogged his throat.

A trill of feminine laughter drew Rogon’s eye to the back of the room, and suddenly Jeran could breathe again. The sight of a willowy blonde standing close to a tall, dark-haired man, her arm resting lightly against the emerald velvet of the man’s jacket as she laughed up at him nearly drew an answering giggle from Jeran.

How wonderful! Jeran knew he couldn’t have choreographed the scene more perfectly than the two unwitting participants in this little play had just done. Now all he had to do was stand back and wait for the inevitable explosion.

Flash Friday December 4

I feel like the Flash Friday is supposed to be for original fiction, but that's just not where I'm at today. The only writing of mine that I really wanted to read tonight was an old Highlander story. It's called Public Displays, Private Affections. and it's my favorite Richie/Methos story.



It is m/m slash, so I'm only going to post the link here. In my own Richie/Methos-verse, Richie and Methos got set up on a date for a gay and lesbian edition of the WB show Blind Date. This story is the one year anniversary of that date.



Thank you to Emma, who is still kind enough to host my HL stories for me. Public Displays, Private Affections can be found at: http://www.ithilas.com/chezemma/nikki/hl/public.html



Enjoy!