Sudden Fiction

Franny was raped on Halloween. Three white high school jocks took turns at her; she was 14.

I ran for help, I got help, but not in time. I brought a black high school jock whose sister had been raped. Everybody’s sister is a good girl, he was often heard to say. Nobody’s sister deserves that.

He called himself the Black Arm of the Law.

When we found her, white jock number three was just finishing up while white jock number two held her down. The Black Arm of the Law descended upon them in righteous fury, for Franny was somebody’s sister. She was somebody’s daughter and would one day be somebody’s mother.

When the white jocks were taken care of and someone was sent to find white jock number one so he could be embraced by the Black Arm of the Law as well, he picked Franny up and carried her toward the infirmary where they would wake the nurse, who might already be awake and dealing with other, less sinister Halloween mischief.

He spoke very softly to her as she cried. “Hey, you’re still a good girl,” he told her. “Listen, you know what? When someone touches you like that, when you don’t want to be touched, that’s not really being touched—you got to believe me. It’s not you they touched when they did that. You understand? You’ve still got you inside you. Nobody’s touched you, not really. You’re still a good girl. You believe that? It’s true. You believe it?”

He walked very fast and that’s all I heard him say as I stumbled along behind carrying my Halloween candy sack and some of Franny’s clothes I picked up off the ground—her socks and shoes, her bra. I didn’t hear what she said to him, if anything, but by the time I caught up with them in the nurse’s presence, she had stopped crying. We told the nurse everything that happened, everything we’d seen, who had done it and exactly what they’d done. But Franny said, “Nobody touched me.”

For a lifetime then, she filed it away as the Halloween night when nobody touched her. She—herself, her true untouched self—would remain so deep within that she would always be untouchable, even when she wanted to be touched, even when she was desperate to be touched. She pushed men away, even the ones she married, even the ones she fell in love with, even the ones she had sex with, she pushed them all away as she clutched and gripped them closer. And as she drove them away from her, their departure left her feeling even more desperate, more worthless and ruined, until she reminded herself that they had not touched her. She was still a good girl.

She came calling one early morning

She showed her crown of thorns

She whispered softly to tell a story

About how she had been wronged

As she lay lifeless he stole her innocence

And this is how she carried on

This is how she carried on

Well I guess she closed her eyes

And just imagined everything's alright

But she could not hide her tears

'Cause they were sent to wash away those years

They were sent to wash away those years

My anger's violent But still I'm silent

When tragedy strikes at home

I know this decadence Is shared by millions

Remember you're not alone

Remember you're not alone

Well if you just close your eyes

And just imagine everything's alright

But do not hide your tears

'Cause they were sent to wash away those years

They were sent to wash away those years

Maybe we can wash away those years

For we have crossed many oceans

And we labor in between

In life there are many quotients

And I hope I find the mean the mean, the mean

Just close your eyes and imagine everything's alright

But do not hide your tears

'Cause they were sent to wash away those years

Maybe we can wash away those years

I hope that you can wash away those years

[You may recognize the story, it was inspired by a scene more brilliantly depicted by John Irving in Hotel New Hampshire. I was so messed up after reading it last night that I had to write it myself, and then, what’s the point of writing something unless you share it with someone? So I’m sharing it with you, even though it’s not completely original. The artwork is by Odile de Schwilgue, a French painter I’ve been very into for quite some time now. And then, of course, the song lyrics are by Creed.]

The erection came from nowhere. So hard, so fast that the 15-year-old boy reflexively grabbed his backpack from the floor and held it on his lap, pretending to dig around inside looking for a pencil or a book or something.

At his age, unexpected wood had become a familiar occurrence, but his boners usually subsided after a couple of minutes. And his dick with a mind of its own usually cooperated enough to lay flat against his belly, pointing due north toward his belly button in an easy-to-conceal fashion. But today, as he sat in the first yearbook committee meeting, preparing to stand up and introduce himself to the committee members, his penis had somehow caught itself in the crease of his underwear and, without a manual adjustment, would continue to grow in proud splendor, creating a pup tent in his loose-fitting dress slacks. At the moment, his erection stubbornly pointed at a 90-degree angle from his body. It wanted to be seen.

He said a prayer. Please God, he pleaded, make it go away—but just this once! Please. As he would discover years later when begging God for the opposite favor (Please God, let me get it up!), God ignores all prayers involving the deflating or inflating of penises. He and his hard-on were on their own.

With a mixture of pride and horror, he realized that what he had in his pants right now was probably the biggest, hardest, longest erection in his young life. Under other circumstances, he would have been quite pleased with it, and even now he felt an insane curiosity driving him to touch it and marvel at its size.

He stared hard at the teacher who was in charge of the yearbook staff; she was, by far, the most unsexy object in the room. He pictured her licking her thin, wrinkly lips and winking her watery yellow eye at him, inviting him to kiss her and taste her dentures. Yes! It seemed to be working. So he pictured Mrs. Krensch unbuttoning her floral polyester blouse and revealing her saggy, floppy D-Cups that draped down across the wrinkled flesh of her abdomen. With a leer, she showed him her lipstick stained teeth before using her gnarled fingertips to pinch her nipples and lift her tits into the air toward him. She gyrated her bony hips and spread her thighs encased in their baggy brown pantyhose.

The images he created in his mind were so powerful, so frightening, that not only did the pup-tent in his pants go away, but he feared his sanity went with it. He felt a wave of actual nausea sweep over him as he imagined Mrs. Krensch straddling him and forcing his face into the stringy gray hair of her crotch. He threw up a little bit in his mouth.
Mrs. Krensch was looking at him now, expectantly, and he understood it was his turn to stand up and introduce himself. He swallowed hard, cleared his throat and mumbled a few words before falling back to his chair with relief.

“Welcome to the yearbook staff,” Mrs. Krensch said to him, her thin red lips pulled tight in a smile. “If there’s anything at all I can do for you,” she dropped a pointed glance to his crotch and winked, “just let me know.”

Sudden Fiction: a visit from the Untouchable

The ringing of my cell phone woke me; it was 2:00 am. From the ringtone I could tell who was calling before I saw his name and face on the phone's display. Why is he calling me?

Answering it seemed like the best way to find out. I was aware of my heart thumping around, tripping over the furniture in my chest. "Hello?"

"I'm sorry to wake you," he said. There was something about his voice. It sounded tense. Tightly packed. Spring-loaded.

"What's wrong?"

"I needed to talk to you."

"Why?"

No answer for three heartbeats.

"I needed you."

"Come here, talk to me then. Where are you? Want me to come to you?"

"Outside your apartment. Down here."

I peeked through the blinds, as he knew I would, and in fact he was sitting on the curb of the street two stories down, beneath my bedroom window. He held his cell phone to his head with one hand and gave a clumsy wave with the other.

"Well come on up, silly."

I peed and brushed my teeth. Splashed some water on my face and tried to remember if he'd ever seen me without make-up. I wore pale boxer shorts and a beater tee-shirt, which glowed in the light of the fat glowing full moon that shone through the window. As I opened the door, my mind was possessed with a strange formality, wondering what I should offer him to drink. I had beer in the fridge. I wondered if perhaps he'd already had too many.

Good manners became moot when our eyes met. Like his voice, there was something tense and urgent about his face, a tightening in his jaw, determination in his eyes that barely concealed the soupy desperation floating beneath it.

His lips twitched an ironic smile before he crossed the threshold and reduced the distance between our faces to zero. Just before his lips took mine, his hand found my hair; it seemed he would stroke it but then he gripped it firmly at the back of my head and tilted my head to the side so that our mouths fit most perfectly together.

This was no "first kiss" kind of first kiss. This was not tender and sweet. This was an all-consuming explosion that burned and blazed as we lost our minds in the intrigue of the other's mystery. I had no time to wonder why this was happening. I had no time to think at all, I could only react, I could barely breathe.

I'm not a fool; I know. Intense the pleasure may be, but the consequences of lying in the arms of a desperate man come drifting in like a heavy fog on the rays of the morning sun. And yet I could no more stop myself than I could stop the beating of my heart.

In spite of that night—probably because of that night, he would never be mine.

But that night, he was mine.

Sudden Fiction

Okay, this "Sudden Fiction" thing seems to be all the rage over on Yahoo 360, so I thought I'd give it a shot. Bear in mind, I don't write much fiction (though I'd like to), so be kind if it sucks. :)

Dewayne rolled the PlayMate out of the shed and onto the new tennis court behind his house. His wife, Pam, had gone already to join her boyfriend for an early dinner. She wouldn't be home tonight.

He plugged it in, then adjusted the knobs on the big green machine before flipping a switch to turn it on. It made a faint hum and, after a few moments, began shooting bright yellow tennis balls out across the sun-drenched court.

He jogged around to the other side of the net. He was in great shape for 40, he thought. The PlayMate made a "Thoop!" sound as it spit tennis balls at him, and Whack! he hit the balls with a satisfying rubbery "pap!" sound against his racket. He hit them hard. Aggressively.

He'd been with Pamela all his adult life.

Thoop...Whack! Too low, hit the net.

In a few months, all of the kids would be gone to college and they'd sell the house and go their separate ways. She'd move in with Julio and he'd...do what?

Thoop...Whack! He gave a soft grunt as he executed a beautiful backhand shot which nobody saw. Thoop...Whack! His forehand was in good form today as well.

For the first time, he considered the second half of his life as a desolate expanse of desert he'd cross alone and then die on the other side.

Thoop...Whack! Ah, that one was just barely in. Thoop...Whack! He had to run and reach for that next one. His shoes squeaked on the new surface of the court.

He'd thought Pamela would be the most permantent thing in his life. They'd grow old together. For all the frustrations and disappointments of married life, he'd thought at least he'd never be alone. He'd loved her. He'd had faith that she'd love him...always.

One final Thoop...Whack! and the PlayMate had coughed out its last tennis ball. It now made a sickly hacking, choking sound as it huffed and spat in vain, searching for another yellow orb to hurl at Dewayne as he crossed the court to turn the machine off.

In tennis, love is nothing.