by Mayumi-H | Jun 27, 2012 | Short Stories
Week 47’s 100-Word Challenge for Grown-Ups is a picture challenge, of the Teapot Dome Service Station in Zillah, Washington:
Julia says: All you have to do is produce a creative piece of 100 words in length from the emotions / thoughts that this image stir in you.
My head is likely not in the same place as most people’s on this one, but I’ve just begun the process of producing a documentary, so my mind is on editing and video a lot, lately. The following is what I came up with (names have been changed to protect the “innocent”):
“Flirting with Temptation”
Raw footage review is a thankless task. But an editor’s job, as they say, is never done. So he sits in this cramped room the same as he’s done for the last week straight, poring over seemingly endless reels of kitschy novelty attractions, while the world goes on outside the door.
Sitting beside him, equally tired and equally antsy, Emma asks when was the last time he saw his wife.
“When was the last time you saw your husband?” he replies with a snicker.
She doesn’t laugh, though.
“Let’s not talk about that,” she says, just before she kisses him.
Temptation
Don’t ask me why I went there….
by Mayumi-H | Jun 17, 2012 | Fearless, Short Stories
The 100-Word Challenge for Grown-Ups this week (week 45, for those keeping count) was to write an article to fit the headline, there’s a buzz about this place.
I don’t “do” journalism. And I wasn’t going to participate in this week’s challenge because I’m on holiday…but the phrase stuck with me during a particularly long traffic ride, and the following popped into my head, already mostly-formed:
Boys’ Night
The packed club was Niall’s idea. He likely planned the steamy, sweaty bodies, too, those writhing to the thumping beat that prevented coherent thought.
Ross just blinked around him. Then a leggy bird whipped her hair into his face, while another swayed obliviously into his arm, jostling his ale onto his shirt.
He rolled his eyes. Did he really used to enjoy this scene?
It was late when he finally crawled into bed, ears still buzzing.
Amber hummed as he wound his arms about her. “Did you enjoy boys’ night?”
Ross exhaled into her neck, and smiled. “I am, now.”
I used to go clubbing when I was younger, but in my old age once I found my soul mate, I put the heels and fishnets away, and found the excitement in the quieter moments.
Since I didn’t follow the instructions for this past week’s prompt, I’m refraining from submitting it to the 100WCGU page. But I liked it too much to let it sit alone on my hard drive.
For those of you who did follow the rules, I salute you! (As for me, I’ll go back to cuddling with my guy, in my warm and comfy bed.)
by Mayumi-H | Apr 30, 2012 | Excerpts, Fearless
Sometimes, characters are clever enough to come to realisations all on their own:
“I was young,” he began at last, with a short but resigned shrug of one shoulder. “And she was sophisticated, and attractive, and so…confident about everything. Not to say that I was so naïve; I’d had my share of my totty. But this was different,” he said. “It was flattering. I mean, this wealthy, worldly woman said I was handsome, and exciting. Who wouldn’t want to hear that?” And here he did feel a dull pang of something like remorse. Not for Susanna, not for the woman who’d used him. But for the smitten, credulous man-boy he’d been. It had been so pulse-pounding and fantastic to know he could please a woman so, that he couldn’t quite bring himself to hate those memories, even now.
“Every moment with her was full of passion,” he said. “Part of that was because we were trying to keep it a secret, of course,” he admitted, and then he sighed a bit to himself, to recall the stolen kisses and clandestine trysts that had made him feel so virile and powerful and bold. “But I’d still thought that I could be what she wanted. I’d thought I could save her.”
I really like seeing characters face and admit to the ugly parts of themselves. I think that we all have those parts to us; there’s no avoiding them. But knowing our own faults can help us to overcome them – and not make those same mistakes – in the future.
Lovers, by Auguste Rodin [Public domain]
by Mayumi-H | Apr 9, 2012 | Fearless, Process, Short Stories
The product of a ten-minute writing challenge issued to our Art Night group, which theme was “First Kiss.” Because I can’t draw even a stick figure in ten minutes, I stuck with writing. Not surprisingly, mine was the darkest of the group’s pieces. This little drabble is actually one of the earliest attempts at (and inspirations for) what eventually became Fearless.
It’s the aerosol feel of splashing, salty waves against rocks that reminds her of another time like this one, where her husband once sat beside her beneath a shimmering moon and asked if she would always be his. That’s what makes her turn to the boy beside her now.
He’s so very young and so very strong, like her husband was, so long ago. He’s a different kind of handsome, this boy, though it’s a different era, now, isn’t it? Her husband had a gentleman’s part in his already-greying hair, and it was soft and silken, a controlled coif atop chiseled features. The boy’s blond locks – made coarse and dry by too many mornings spent in this salty sea – fall loose around still-full cheeks; he’s got no crow’s feet or laugh lines. He can barely grow a semblance of a beard over his chin.
But the boy is here, where her husband is not. The boy is beside her, and that is perhaps the reason most of all that she speaks to him, now.
“You’re quite cute, you know,” she says with a tickling smile.
He laughs, looking embarrassed as he glances away. But then he turns back again, and that boyish abashment is replaced by a more manly boldness. “You think?” he asks…though it is much more a goad than a mere question.
He isn’t very good at fishing, but she bites anyway – the hunter playing prey – and inclines her head. “I do.”
She lifts her chin again, stretching her neck. Will he bite, this time, she wonders? She thinks he will; he’s that right blend of curious and bashful: a boy looking for…not quite love, but perhaps a boastful notch on his belt (or on that board sitting forgotten beside him).
“It’s been a long time since I was with a man,” she tells him, and that’s truthful enough. “Would you mind very much if I kissed you?”
He blinks, but he doesn’t look away. “Not at all,” he murmurs, his eyes never leaving hers.
She smiles at his answer; she’s still very much a woman, no matter what any of the crones around this small-minded village say. This boy’s needy kiss is proof enough.
Of course, it’s not just one kiss, and it’s not just two. It’s not even just five or ten or twenty, but a brief misjudgment of propriety that becomes sojourns behind the rocks, and made-up excuses, and a shouting match behind tightly-shuttered windows.
And the tears of a grey-haired man.
And a boy’s broken heart.
But she’s still a woman. She’s proven that much, if nothing else. And that’s what matters.
One of the more (in)famous May-December seduction scenes, from "The Graduate"
There’s a lot of taboo around May-December romances, though more often when it’s the woman who’s older. She’s seen as a temptress, a cougar, a sexual predator. This character – who would become the prickly Susanna Braden in the final story – is really not that different, at least from Ross’s point of view. Still, it was interesting to get her perspective on things.
by Mayumi-H | Feb 29, 2012 | Excerpts, Fearless, Process
The prelude to a bit of smuffy sex for my hero, in Chapter 6. What would a romance be, without it?
Ross took her hand with a rippling chuckle, pulling himself to his feet with her as anchor. He stood above her then, their hips and chests touching, and he dropped his head, his mouth seeking and finding hers for a kiss that began as just a delicate brush of lips but then, inevitably, became a heated exchange of passions as they wrapped their arms around each other once more. And while they must have made their way back to the shop, and they must have told Neville something when they arrived, and they must have walked up the rear steps to the eaves loft above the showroom, Ross couldn’t have said later how they did any of it. All he knew was Amber: the eager clutch of her slender fingers, the wanting clasp of her supple lips, and the raring flare of his desire as he held her to him.
Many thanks to those of you who have given these excerpts or the posted draft chapters a read (notably zer0-damage, Shade the Raven, fivereflections, thespooneytoaster, and Electric Monk); your support has been thoughtful, inspiring, and engaging, and I couldn’t have made it even this far without it.
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