2015 Writober 5: Werepanties (short story beginning)

It was Thursday night and I was working a double at Ahmed’s Crab and Sugar Shack when Nori, the uber hot Japanese woman who was the hostess and worked the ice cream counter, asked me if I wanted to go back to her place and party.

I know I should’ve asked her what kind of party and who was going to be there, but I was just too excited and blurted out, “of course!” I thought I sounded too eager, but her reaction said I sounded sarcastic.

“You know, Alice, if you don’t want to go, you can just say so.” She flipped her long black hair over her shoulder and glared at me with her caramel eyes.

“No, no, no!” I panted. “That’s just my voice. I’m sorry if I sounded sarcastic.”

She tittered, tracing a delicate finger along my jaw. “You’re lucky you’re so cute!” She turned and walked over to the people who had just come in. “Ahoy, maties! So glad you’ve joined us for our voyage. Would you be wanting to sit astern or aft?”

As always, the people looked confused.

I told myself to move, to stop staring after her like a goon. But my feet refused as my brain kept going over the conversation, trying to figure out if I was still invited.

“Alice!” Jake’s sharp voice brought me out of my revery. “Your table needs something!”

I snapped around and took care of my table.

#

Nori had already left by the time I was cut. I thought about pretending like I didn’t know where she lived, but decided that I’d just say I got the address from one of the other party goers. Truth was, I had been by her place on more than one occasion. The first time, I had been trying to get the nerve up to ask her out. But she was already in her car by the time I got to the parking lot. I thought I’d follow her to whatever bar she was going to. When I realized she had just gone home, I got out of there as fast as I could. But once I know my way to a place, that knowledge doesn’t leave me and I love going on aimless drives. Unfortunately, I kept finding that my aimlessness was aiming me right at her place.

She lived in the lower half of a duplex and it was pretty dark when I got there. I got nervous and almost drove away. But I was determined and talked myself to go up to her door and knock. When I got there, I found that I didn’t need to knock. Taped to her green door was a note that read, “come inside, Alice.” So, I did.

The main room was dark, but off to my left there was a soft light coming from another room. I followed the light. It was her bedroom. There were candles lit all over. Her vanity had a bottle of wine and a glass sitting on it with a note beside it that read, “drink me.”

“Ha, ha,” I said to the room as I poured the wine. “Is it going to make me smaller?” I drank. Nothing happened and Nori didn’t come out. I continued walking around her room.

I noticed that on her nightstand was a piece of dark chocolate with a note that read, “eat me.”

I shook my head and rolled my eyes as I popped the chocolate into my mouth.

I found the light switch, but when I flipped it, nothing happened. I noticed that the walls were a light lavender. I stepped closer to her bed and saw that the sheets were red satin. Laying on the middle of the bed were some black lace panties. On them was a note that read, “wear me.”

“Really?” I asked the room. It was too much. It was too much, and yet… I bit my bottom lip, then strode back over to the vanity and drank a bit more wine. Picking up the panties, I walked through the rest of the place. It was a sweet, cozy little flat. I was puzzled by the fact that none of the light switches worked and, even more so, by the fact that Nori was nowhere to be found. But the wine was good and the chocolate was good and she was obviously expecting me. So I stuck around.

After about half an hour, I went into her bathroom and locked the door. I took off all of my clothes and put on the panties. They were just the right size. As best I could, I looked at my butt in them. It looked very nice.

Something sharp dug into my skin through the elastic. I reached down to adjust it, thinking it must have gotten twisted or there was a weird tag there. As I tried to pull it loose, it seemed to dig in deeper. I yanked at it and all of the elastic drove into my skin. I screamed then blacked out.

2015 Writober 4: From My Novel-in-Progress

Apparently, 2015 Writober is all about ghosts. 

This is a snippet from the novel work I did this morning for 

The Peculiar Predicament of Poppets.

Daniel looked up at the ceiling and let out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding.

“Well this is interesting.” It was the same voice, a woman’s voice, that said, I will. “You’re awake. We never thought you’d wake up.”

His eyes darted about the room trying to see where the voice was coming from. The bed’s headboard was against the wall so she couldn’t be behind him and…

“Let me set your mind at rest, I’m in the doll.”

He tried to look down at the doll cradled between his arm and chest but, not being able to move his head, he found that he could only see the top of the doll's head. She had beautiful black hair.

“Who are you?” He wanted to ask. But the words stayed trapped in his mind.

“We met before, but we never spoke.” She laughed. It was a musical laugh that made Daniel feel warm and happy. “Well, you spoke. I mostly grunted, moaned, and screamed.” She laughed some more.

“Ivy?” He thought. Her laughter stopped abruptly.

“How could you know my name?”

“But how can this be? You were dead when I left you!”

“Yes, yes, I’m dead. When you left my body, my soul somehow latched onto my baby. I don’t know how, I wasn’t really aware at that point. It wasn’t until your sister Rosalind gave Irena the doll that I found awareness by inhabiting this doll.”

“Sister-in-law.” Daniel corrected absently.

“Tch, it makes no matter. What does matter, is how you know my name. This I must know!”

Daniel sighed. He could hear gentle conversation coming from downstairs as his wife and daughter ate breakfast. His stomach growled and he wondered how and what he’d been eating.

“Daniel,” the voice was sharp. “Think about how you learned my name.”

He thought about it, remembering the purse he found strapped to her body and the letter inside. He thought about that morning, sitting at the table and reading it then copying it and hiding the original.

“I was going to try to find your family,” he thought. He could feel a tear on his cheek.

2015 Writober 3: Trick or... trick?

"Impostor!" The words flew over the fence. “Impostoree! Villain! Vile, evil deceiver!”

April stared into the graveyard. She could see nothing. The sun was shining, but even its midday light couldn't penetrate the fog that had settled there. She shifted her mask so she could see better through the eye holes.

“Hello?” She called, turning her head from left to right. “Is there somebody in the graveyard?”

A thrilling cackle of laughter from many mouths cascaded through the fog.

“Oh yes, trickster. There are many someones here.”

April put her green painted fists to her hips and glared into the mist. “Look, whoever you are, you shouldn’t go around calling people names. That’s rude!” She stomped her heavy black boots.

“Oooooooo,” a high-pitched voice imitated April’s childish tones. “Thaaaaat’s ruuuuude!”

“You know what’s rude?” The first voice, a much deeper voice, asked. “Pretending to be something you most definitely are not.” The voice made a grunting noise. “What are you supposed to be anyway?”

“I’m a goblin!” April stated indignantly.

“You are not!” The voice shouted back.

April touched her hair that her mom had sprayed green color on, her warty mask, and the rest of her goblin costume. “But it’s for Halloween!” She whined. “Of course I’m not REALLY a goblin. It’s only pretend.”

“That,” said the first voice with some deep satisfaction, “is exactly what I’ve been saying, fraudster.”

A hesitant voice spoke up. “You sure you’re not trying to be a toad?”

“A what?” Asked April.

“Quiet, Earl!” The rude voice demanded.

“Well,” April said, jutting out her chin. “Who are you?”

The voices seemed to speak all at once until the first voice made a throat clearing sound. They all fell silent.

T“We are, obviously, ghosts. That’s why we’re haunting the cemetery.”

The other voices made grunts agreement.

Just then, a strong breeze stirred the branches of the trees causing multicolored leaves to fall on and around her. The fog was swirling, whipping into a stronger and stronger whirlwind. It spilled out of the graveyard and danced around April until it had picked up enough speed and cycloned away.

Peering over the fence, April at first thought the ghosts had blown away with the fog. But then she noticed little bumps of white. Squatting down, she looked through the bars of the fence and saw what looked like white washcloths on the ground. She reached through and picked one up. Under it was a toad.

“The jig is up!” The large toad exclaimed, frantically hopping away from her reaching hand. All the other pieces of cloth that had been lying still, started bouncing until they fell off the toads they covered. April counted two dozen toads hopping further into the cemetery.

“That was unexpected.” April stated. “I do so love Halloween!”

2015 Writober 2: Ghost on the Shore

The flames burned right through the figure sitting on the shore. The water was lapping through her, boiling in the heat of the fire. She watched the corpses floating, hers was out there too. She scanned the faces, looking for her daughters, but she couldn't find them among all the other bodies. She sat in the sand as the fire burned itself out. The wind kept blowing, but there was no other sound as night fell. She just kept staring out at the bobbing bodies.

At about midnight, she noticed three that were unlike the others. These smaller figures seemed to be pushing through the deceased. She watched them make their way to her.

The air breathed a word. "Mother." The ghost ate the word out of the air. It was her word.

She was mother.

"Daughters?" She whispered.

Two of the dolls bore the faces of her twin daughters while the third one wore her face.

"We're here, Mother." The spirits from within the dolls spoke.

Soaring over to them, she settled into her doll.

"What happens now, Mom?"

"Now, we wait."

2015 Writober 1: A Beginning

My first Writober entry is a poem I'm sending off to be considered for a publication so I won't be showing my work. It's a poem / idea that's been bouncing around in my head since my mother died. Whether or not it gets published, it feels good to have it written.

WRITOBER

After my horrendous FAIL last year and my serious NEGLECT of this blog this year, I was tempted not to try WRITOBER again. But after seeing my artist friends post about Inktober and Drawlloween, I decided to plunge in screaming.

WRITOBER

Here are my rules for myself:

1. WRITE EVERY DAY
2. Post something, if not EVERY DAY, then every other day
3. Decide what to write beforehand...
• Oh, who am I kidding? I'm totally gonna steal at least some of my "topics" from the Drawlloween list & the rest will be figured out as I go along.
4. Nin, if you say, "fuck-it" to everything else & post nothing, still WRITE!!!
5. Have Fun!!!

If you decide to do this, I would LOVE it if you posted a link to your WRITOBER in the comments! It would be so nice not to be alone...

#WRITOBER

#INKTOBER
#DRAWLLOWEEN

Wishing

“I wish I could fly,” sighed the frog on the lily pad. “If I could, I would fly all the time! Why my feet would never touch ground and I’d only be wet when I wanted to. I could eat all the flying things ‘cause none would be out of my reach.”

A passing moth heard his diatribe from beginning to end. Swooping closer, she whispered. “I wish I could hop!”

“You do?” Asked the frog.

“Not really,” said the moth. “I was trying to make you feel like less of a loser. Flying’s AWESOME!”

Moth’s can be such jerks.