Thing Nine: Birthday Story...

Reunion Plans.

A Micro Short Story by Sean McGovern.

For: You.  Thank you for giving a damn.

Now it’s dark and I’m alone

But I won’t be afraid

In my room…in my room.

- Brian Wilson.

Here’s a memory – but be warned: memories lie.  On the day I turned twenty-six, I met Death.  No one seemed to notice, but I knew – it was Death.

I had been invited to the Halloween party at the last minute, given just enough time to salvage various elements of costumes to make a serviceable pirate before driving like a mad man to the liquor store and then to Philadelphia where I met up with my sister and her husband and their waiting cab.  From there we went to their friends’ Steve and Lucy’s flat for what I had been told would be a quietly raucous good time (how that worked I couldn’t guess at, but it was my birthday and it beat sitting in my room trying not to drink myself into oblivion in case I wanted to go to the all night diner).

I suppose I should take this moment to say that I only appear to be good around people.  I’m not.  I’m terrible with people, with parties, with anything that takes me out of my comfort zone of being by myself.  I can almost pinpoint where my neuroses come from, but not enough to have a working theory.  I’m not very good at small talk…I’m not very good at talking, really.  I tend to speak in a monolog that other people interrupt, leaving me flummoxed as to what to say next.  So after telling both Steve and Lucy that they had a nice flat, I sidled into the laundry/alcohol room, put one bottle of scotch down for the others, and took the second one, with me as I tried to be human.

It didn’t work.

Even with the fever dream, the sexual, the nightmarish, the ghastly, with the sardine can claustrophobic press of costumed bodies, I was still painfully aware of being a subpar-pirate without a hat.  Everyone thought I was trying to be Shakespeare in a pirate coat.  Was that even an option?  Apparently, and I had stumbled into it nicely.

I kept the bottle with me, and I climbed the stairs to the top floor, and then paused before pushing on to the ceiling.  I put my coat on the ground and sat, opening the bottle of scotch and toasted the sky, the few stars I could see, and the feeling of expansiveness within a metropolis.  Halloween.  My second favorite Holiday, two days removed from my birthday, when the gates were opened and the souls could move about the sunlit lands above.

“Do you mind if I join you,” said the voice.

I squeaked.

“Sorry,” the voice said, “I didn’t mean to startle you.”  I turned to look at the source of the voice.  The Lady was in a hooded coat, a long, black raincoat that she had attached batwings to.  I scooted over and motioned to the other half of the makeshift blanket.  She crouched down on her knees, and took the bottle when I offered it to her.  “It’s pretty packed down there,” she said, and took a swig.  “Death,” she said.

“Guy who pirates Shakespeare’s works,” I said, and we shook hands.  “I’m not a fan of crowds.”

“The noise?”

I looked at her.  The face paint was amazing, the jawbone a perfect off-white and the dark pencil lines denoting teeth were expertly spaced.  “The lulls,” I said.  “I can fake the rest.  For a time, anyway.”  I took out my pack of cigarettes, then paused and looked at her.  “Do you mine?”

“Not if you have an extra,” she said.  I offered her the pack and she took one.  I offered her my lighter and she shook her head, cupping one hand over the end and lighting it.  I lit my own.  “It’s a disgusting habit, but it is enjoyable.  So, you think you aren’t good with people?  I saw you down there.  You seemed to fit in fine.”

“I studied drama in school,” I told her.

“So you’re an actor,” she said.

“Nah,” I said, “I just make faces.”  I laughed – it was a line that I had heard a thousand times, I think it started with Peter Lorre but had never wondered enough to look it up.  “No,” I said, “I left school before finishing.  I used to use all of that stuff, all the acting stuff, when I worked at the mall.  Now, though…no real need for it.   Tonight was a nice change of pace.”

“Good,” she said.  “Happy birthday, by the way.”

“Wha?  Oh.  Thanks,” I said.  “Nicole told you, huh?”

“No, Sean,” the Lady said.  “But it’s a strange day, and it will get stranger.  And since it’s your birthday, I think you’ll understand.”  She leaned back, resting on her palms but keeping her head up, letting the hood rest in place.  “How many people were born on this day?  Will see the madness of it, as the world winds down?”

“What do you mean,” I asked.

“I’ll see you next year, Sean.  And the year after.  And the year after.  But after that…I don’t think I’ll be visiting anymore.”

I was trying to form a question better than “what” but she faded with the wind, a sand sculpture coming apart and vanishing into the skyline.  I sat there, growing colder for a long time.  I went back into the party, and stood, shivering in the hallway, in the light.

Twenty-seven saw a freak ice storm.  I saw Her again, in the mirror.

Twenty-eight was hurricane Sandy.  I went for a walk before it became too fierce, and went to the bridge in my town to see the level of the river.  She was there, on the bank, looking up.  She waved.

I turn twenty-nine tonight.  I’m sitting in my room.  I have a bottle of scotch, a pack of cigarettes, and an eye on the clock.  There’s no call for strange weather.  It looks to be a fine autumn night.  What else can I do, really?

Hi guys.  This is a really simple story, much more simple than the others.  My thanks to Ia Herbaugh, who dressed as Death (see the top picture) when I met her on my actual 26^th birthday, and to the dreams I sometimes get where something (not Ia) wears the outfit and talks to me.  As I said, memories lie, and I've progressed the story a little to give it closure.

As usual, I'm not completely pleased with  the end product - I should have given myself more time, but three false starts...ugh. Displeased. There's potential here, though, so I'm posting it anyway. Plus I said I would so...meh.

Hope you guys have a great day, and, again, thanks for reading.

All the best,

SMcG

Thing Seven: Cynical Thriller...

The Cell.

A Micro Short Story by Sean McGovern

For Kimmi – I hope you like it.

I wasn’t really shocked that they put me in a cell.  It was bound to happen at some point, and having missed my hellion years, they had finally caught up with me at the Taco Bell for reasons they couldn’t explain.  I suppose they had hoped for something a bit more dramatic – a daring raid on my sanctuary in the dead of night, knowing that I’d be wide awake but not wanting the normal folk to see them drag me out, or making my car and I vanish into the back of a trailer on the highway or something.  Not ordering enough food for three people at the local Taco Bell, though.  I mean, who wants to hear about the time you caught your arch nemesis because their server couldn’t remember if they had said soft or hard shells?

“Aren’t you,” one of them, who kind of looked like a cross between Ben Affleck and those breeds of dogs that look like someone’s swatted them in the face with a large dictionary, asked.

“Hungry,” I finished for him.  “Yes,” I said, “yes, I am.”

And then they debated about attacking me in a flash – one of them shouting that they couldn’t draw their guns or the civilians would get wise.  I looked at the civilians, who were looking at the three of them, then back to me, then all over the Formica clad hellhole for hidden cameras or people in very large hats to hide same cameras.  It took the them five minutes before deciding to just use the handcuffs and claim I was a known arsonist, while I stood there, motioning the acne clad douche behind the counter to please hurry up.  I kept saying, “Soft shells, soft shells or I swear to the gods you’ll die a virgin,” under my breath, Pretty convinced that next would come the argument about who’s cuffs to use, but Pug Affleck was finally gaining some competence.  I had finally gotten my box of tacos when they surrounded and cuffed me.

And brought me to here.  Wherever here is.  Or was.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.

I woke on a plank, laying like a cat on the back of a couch – totally at ease with the fact that my arms and legs were hanging over a fairly impressive drop.  The plank was thin enough that if I had shifted in my sleep I would have fallen to my most likely death.  I opened my eyes and peered down, looking into the pitch dark.  The Them were weird, and I was pretty sure they were trying to fuck with my head, so I wouldn’t have put it past them to have put pillows at the bottom of the pit.  I kept still wondering just how in the hell they had gotten me here – like they had had tightrope walkers to deposit me there, or the rest of the floor was retractable…or the pit wasn’t actually that deep.

I sat up slowly, listening for the plank to creak or just snap.  I padded my pockets, just to have something to do – I could already tell that the Them had removed everything that I could have dropped to gauge the depth of the pit.  Padding my pockets just confirmed that they had even taken the change from Taco Bell.  I was ok with that part, really – I hated carting around change, and jingling and figuring out just how damn far the pit under you goes.  Really annoying.

I began scooting back, trusting my jeans to keep the worst of the splinters from my ass.  After a very long moment I reached the stones that signaled safety.  I rose slowly, and brushed myself off while scanning around the gloom. Darkness there, and not much else.  There was enough light to let me see that the walkway I stood on was about a foot wide, and the walls gleamed with some slick substance.  I reached out to it, but could smell the tang before my fingers made contact.  “Motor oil,” I muttered, “what the hell?”  I took the walkway around the circumference of the pit, keeping part of my gaze on the floor in case they had had the forethought to put some of the oil on the ground where I might have done them some good.

I thought of my old maxim, and looked up.  Nobody ever looks up – one simple fact that ends up being more important than you’d imagine until you correct it.  I knew what I’d see up there – whoever Them had hired to build this place was almost following the synopsis to a “t” – if they had been asleep in English class.  With their headphones on.  And had only read the title.

It was a pendulum.  Of course it was a pendulum.  I could make out the dull shine to the brass, and someone had thoughtfully pointed at least one bulb right at the damned thing so it would catch the blade and give a dramatic reveal to its sharpness.

There was a click about me, and a rhombus of light shot through the gloaming, smacking to a stop on the plank before being displaced by the shape of a human head.  “Fall yet,” asked a voice.  I looked up from the former square of light on the board to its point of origin, watching the head lean in and then begin slowly shifting to let the light hit a few different parts of the board.  “Can’t see a damn thing,” the voice said.  “Paul.  Yo, Paul!  Can we turn on the lights in here?”  Oh, no, I thought, I know that voice.  “No, not in here, in here!  The fucking chamber!  Why not?  Well, why the fuck did you not put better lights in it?  ‘Trying to be more green’? For crying out – you goddamned tree hugger, if you wanted it to be more green you could have put in green bulbs!  This is fucking amateur hour, for fuck’s sake!”

“Hey, Shithead,” I called out.

There was a pause.  Finally the head said, “Fuck.”

“Yeah, I thought it was you.  What they hell are you guys trying to pull?”

“We’re going to make you talk,” Shithead said.

“What?  By putting me on a plank?”

Another long pause.  “It’s all part of the presentation,” Shithead said.  “It’s to break you.  To make you talk.”

I heaved a sigh.  I had a lot of stupid people in my life.  Herb had the common sense of a drowning ant, Amanda had no concept of an inside voice, Nate Turla…shit, it was almost a miracle he could tie his own shoes in a basement without falling down a flight of stairs.  But Shithead, once again, took the cake.  That’s a problem with smart people – if they know they’re smart, they tend to think they’re smarter than they are.  A thought which makes me sigh again because I had gotten picked up at a fucking Taco Bell.  But I shrugged it off.  Sometimes, when your brain won’t brain, it’s at the worst possible moment.

“Talk about what,” I hollered up at him.

“You know,” he said.

“Wait, whoa, don’t go mixing Poe with Kafka, Shithead – either tell me or let me go.”  Turla had given Shithead his nickname, which had been funny, since Turla had been nice to Shithead.  Turla was nice to everyone, though, no matter what he thought of people.  He might have been inane, but he was a good spy.  Shithead, though, had been an easy target – genius intellect mixed with an ego the size of Texas that wouldn’t pop no matter what reality tried to do.

“Start the blade!” he called.  I heard s murmur behind him.  Shithead must have missed it, because his “what” wasn’t a bark of command but an actual question.  I heard him conversing with the off-screen Paul, and the head actually vanished from the window.  Hissing voices and barely controlled rage filtered down.

I leaned back against the wall, hearing the squish of the oil against my back, and muttered “fuck” a few times.  I sat on the walkway, and peered down into the darkness of the pit.  I had to glance up and smile when the words coming out of the window became audible.  “Fine!  Fine!  Turn on the lights in the other room, and when I say so, turn on the motor for that one!”  The head of the Shit one returned to the window.  “Back in a tick!” he said, and the window closed.

Shithead should have known that the darkness wouldn’t bother me.  Or the enclosure.  Or the grease.  Apparently he had forgotten everything he knew about me.  One wall came alive with light, and the stones parted, the round edifice coiling back on itself to reveal another stone wall.

I blinked slowly a few times.  “Oh, very impressive.  An oiled wall cleverly hidden behind another oiled wall?  Genius!  Shithead, you have really hit on something – you’re a Bond villain speech away from failing miserably, so start talking.”  The revealed wall began pealing back.  And there was Turla, engulfed in life, hanging upside down.  Whoever had applied the rope had apparently had a mama bear’s sense of safety, because all I could see were his feet at the top and his head at the bottom, and coils of rope in between.  “Turla,” I asked.

The window opened, and Shithead filled it.  “He can’t hear you yet.”

“He’s awake?”

“Yeah.”  He must have made out my expression.  “I’m shocked, too – I mean, all of the blood had to have gone to his head three days ago but he hasn’t passed out yet.  I think it only really hits him when he’s sleeping.”  The head turned, looking over at Turla.  “That’s the only way he could sleep through his snoring.  Ok, Paul, start it.”

Turla began shifting, moving to his forward and my right.

“This is the best you have?” I asked, watching Turla begin to stir.  He looked like he was saying “weeeeeeeeeeeeee!” but I couldn’t be sure.

“We needed a pendulum.” Shithead said.  “For your torture,” he added helpfully.  I pointed up to the large brass blade.  “Uh…yes, that.  Um…well…”

“Well what,” I prompted him.

“It it only move down like that,” he said, and looked back to Turla’s penduluming form.  “And”

“And you made it too bit,” I said.  I started laughing.

“Hey,” Shithead said.  “Hey!  Hey, look, I didn’t draw up the schematics, you bitch!  I’d have made sure it worked!”  I kept laughing.  “Hey, your friend is about to get his head bashed in!”

And I kept laughing – these were the people we were afraid of?  Supposed to be afraid of?  The conspiracy to end all conspiracies, the long whispered of Them, the They who were behind everything.

Turla was still saying “weeeeeeeee!” as he oscillated back and forth.  I heard something go “ping”, and a deadpanned “Aw, crap,” come from Turla’s cell as he plummeted into the pit under him.  This was followed by an “oof” and a “YOMT!”  Shithead and I looked on in numb silence at the cell.  After a long time, Turla stood up, still decked out in the massive ropes.  “Ouch.  Ouch.”

“Oh, Goddamnit,” Shithead said, and closed the window.

“Hi, Nate,” I said.

Turla looked at the clear wall.  I guess he couldn’t see me through the light.  “Mine was full of pillows,” he said, what was yours filled with?”

“Do you know who I am,” I asked.

“Nah, they put in some sound distortion thing in here, fucks up everyone’s voice.  Oh, your jailer’s name is Shithead, trust me on this.”  He smiled.  Turla rarely had an honest smile, but this one seemed pretty sincere.

“I know,” I said, but decided to not say who I was.  “Just have to make it two more days,” I said.

“Why,” Turla asked.

“Because that’s how the story goes,” I said.  “They’re Them – they have to follow the script.”  I looked up at the pendulum, making sure it was still there.  “As close as they can.”

Turla nodded.  “Well,” he said, “what’s the story?”

“The Pit and the Pendulum,” I said.

Turla mimicked my slow blink.  “Man…Wikipedia and Roger Corman fucked these people up,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said.  “It’s…it’s good to see you again.”

“Likewise,” he said, “person behind the mirror with the voice of a MacDonald’s drive through.  Good to see you, too.”

And now…here we are.  Turla has been sleeping on and off for the past day, which is good – he rarely sleeps.  When he’s awake he’s pleasant enough, and doesn’t get frustrated while trying to Houdini his way to freedom.  He said he hopes they didn’t strip him, but then, I have that same hope.  One more day before the Us arrive.  I just hope they follow the script, too – I need a few more moments of useless drama in my life.

Thing Six: Horror

This was supposed to be a story, but it ended up being more of a brief scene.  I finished it in an hour (and it shows), but I think it's enough to put up here.

Wishing Well

A Short Scene by Sean McGovern

For Rebecca.  Be careful what you wish for.

Luke Fallon had been in love.  True, that could have been said for three or four times in his life, but this time…this time it was different.  He knew the him in high school had just had a series of infatuations.  And the college him had been…well, the girls had been willing and he had usually been good enough for them to give him a second go around.  But after all of that he had met Tessa– and, well, he knew that he had been a little boy until them.  All swagger, and nothing really to back it up – but now he wanted to back it up.

And for two years, he had.  For two great years.  She had been everything he could have hoped for – sure, the nagging got to be a bit much towards the end, but that was relationships for you – and he had never hit her.  It was weird to have that as a point of pride, but there it was – he had never hit her.  Even when he had wanted to.  Even when she had said she was going back home.  Even when he knew it was to that loser, Nate, who drank in an obviously secret manner.

So he had gone down to the well.  It was a kids’ thing to do.  He knew that – but he didn’t anyway.  He laughed and shook his head when he tripped along the path to the well, cutting his palm on a rock as he tried, unsuccessfully, to break his fall.  He had pulled the penny out of his pocket, and tossed the blood smeared cent piece into the well and let it sink down, wishing that Tessa would stay with him.  And when he had walked back to his place, and saw the blinking message on his voice mail, he ignored it.  Because he was tired.

And a few months later…

“I made breakfast,” Tessa said.  Her voice was light and sweet, the chipper tones of someone who meant it when they said ‘good morning’.  She was already dressed for the day, looking like a 1950’s house wife, with a sundress under her Kiss the Cook apron and shoes with a slightly raised heel.  The half of her face that was mottled by scar tissue and burns remained still, so the voice only came from the one side of her thin mouth – one blue eye twinkled with the fresh promise of a new day, while the other started out under the charred remains of its brow, bloodshot and shriveled.

Luke winced, but not at the sight of his girlfriend.  He had gotten used to that.  It was his wrist that made his face twitch – the lump of healing bruises that he was still vaguely amazed wasn’t broken when she had gripped and squeezed last night during one of their rougher sessions in bed.  Every night he hoped she would let it pass, that he would be able to drink his ability away.  Her persistence seemed to defy the laws of chemistry and he would find himself bleary and being forced across her, and whatever she gripped would be black and blue in the morning.

He got up, knowing that she wouldn’t be refused the fruits of her labors.  He made it a point to eat everything she made, even the pack lunches for work.  She seemed to know if someone else ate them, or if they ended up in the trash can.  And then there would be hell to pay.  “It smells great,” he lied, “eggs?”  Of course it was eggs; it was always eggs, and toast and something that had once been a pig.  All of it black as tar yet never setting off the fire alarms.  That might have been the worst part of it.  Like everything else, there had been no warning.  Nothing at all about the car crash, or how Tessa would come back from it – how Nate, that bastard friend of hers from back home, would keep trying to get in contact with her, more than her family, and how she was now his.  All his.

Six months of this had been more than enough.  And this cold February morning was just another bullshit day of co-habitation bliss with a woman who should have been bound for a closed casket ceremony on the day she had moved in.  He put on his slippers against the chill of the floor, and stretched, trying not to think about the eggs or the pain in his wrist.

“I hope I didn’t hurt you last night,” she said.  She had said that every morning, right before…there it was.  The simple kiss on the cheek and, “And a good morning to you!”  She took the hand that wasn’t attached to a mass of discolored skin and bones and led him, walking backwards and trying to be as coquettish as possible with half a face that would never heal from a gasoline fire.  “I made your favorite – eggs, bacon, and wheat toast with apple butter,” she added yummy noises.

“Have you eaten,” Luke asked.  Then he bit back a scream as she almost crushed his finger without apparent effort.

“We shouldn’t have one of those days, Luke,” she said, “can’t we have a nice day?  Last week was just so great!  Can’t we have another?”  She looked up to Luke, her mismatched eyes half glistening with tears and half with hate fueled rage.  And Luke knew that she had already decided that it would be a good day – they would all be good days.  This had been what he had wanted after all – finding her waiting for him every morning, breakfast ready after a night of passionate lovemaking.

But after six months…Luke just didn’t care anymore.  “It’ll be fine,” Luke said, “after the charcoal briquette breakfast and” and he screamed almost loud enough to covered the sound of his fingers breaking.  She didn’t let go, just squeezed harder as she pulled him after her.  He realized, dumbly, that she was humming, still cheerful as the multiple bits of bone rattled in her hand.

She brought him to the kitchen and all but threw him into the chair.  She pushed in the chair, and tucked the napkin into the color of his shirt while his mouth moved weakly, trying to form another scream.  “It’s too nice a morning to fight,” she said, still in that sing-song way, as she poured a glass of orange juice.  Luke looked over to the window, where the sky was just starting to lighten.  “And you’ve got to be in the office in an hour.”

“I have to go to a hospital you bitch,” he said.

Her eyes locked to his.  “Please don’t take that tone, Luke,” she said, “I’m just trying to make sure you have your breakfast.”

“I need to call out,” he said, “and I need to call an ambulance!”

“Are you sick,” she asked.  “I can call the office for you.”

“Fine,” he whimpered, and pushed the plate away.

“You still have to eat,” she said.  “Feed a cold, starve a fever.”

“I’ll eat at the hospital,” he said, and tried to get up.  Her hands were on his shoulders, pinning him to the seat.  “No,” he said, “please just,” her hands began to squeeze.  He yelped in pain and would have sworn he heard his bones begin to creak under the strain.  “I just want to go back to bed,” he whispered.

“Eat first,” she said.  And Luke thought, for a second, she was purposefully keeping her burned side to him, the withered eye glaring out, knowing that he was the reason for her being here, like this.  But her voice didn’t change.  “You’ll need your strength.”

“I can’t move my hands.”

“I know,” she said as though a music cue was coming.  She let go of his shoulders and gripped the sides of his head.  Her grip was still intense and painful, and with a weird delicacy, lowered his face into the plate of eggs.  “But I’m here for you,” she said in her sweet, sing-song voice, “just like you wanted.”

Thing Five: Erotica (attempted)...

A Brief Conversation about Cultural Reactions to Sexuality and Gender Roles.

A Micro Short Story by Sean McGovern

For Lexi Johnson, didn’t think I’d do it.

“This is the problem with being a woman in power,” she said, checking the straps around her supplicant’s wrists.  The male had been stripped, shaved, and bathed before being brought in, and now was asleep on the table.  His spread eagle pose revealed all to her, and she nodded.  It was…an acceptable offering to her.  “If I were to do this solely for my own pleasure, then they’d say I was loose, or wanton.  If I was doing this only for my master, then I’d be a whore – using my body in service for another, and not truly owning it.  How sad is it, little Severian, that even here, in my place of power, I still have to consider how those who brought you to me think of what is going to take place here?”  She let her long, tapered fingers run from the strap down Severian’s arm.  It was thin, not the kind the other slaves would trust to protect them from the lash of their wardens or the hands of the freemen.  Down onto his chest, savoring the bones of the ribs and the mussels that twitched and flexed at her caress.  She hummed to herself, tracing the lines of his torso down to his hip and then back to his shoulder.  Down again.  And back up, relishing the pliant strength of the body before her.

She had had men before – enough to have given her some stories that she rarely told others.  They were small stories, secret things, and banding them about in public was for…well, for those that Severian made work with on a daily basis.  No, anyone who lived within a tower, especially one as storied and respected as this, would only talk of such things within their sealed salons.  And she would only do so when she knew the servants were far, far removed.  She had always had respect for the unseen, the staff, be they employed or bound to her service.

She felt him begin to stir, trying to roll over in his sleep.  It had been a fair span of time since she had watched another sleep who wasn’t wracked by illness or screaming in mental torment.  True, he wasn’t really a lover, and would never be in the traditional sense, but she found it relaxing all the same.  She felt a slight smile slowly grow on her face as she observed the sleep of the simple man before her.  “One last pleasant wake up,” she sighed, “that all I can promise you.”  She came around the table, and stood there, pressing her abdominals against his head with only the velvet of her gown separating them.  Her hands flattened across his pectorals and she moved them in what she hope was a delicious slowness down his torso towards his groin, before she brought her fingernails to bear on the twitching skin.  With the same control, she brought her hands back up.  She felt the press of her gown against both their bodies, and the pleasant flush of heat pouring from him.

He felt vital – there was no other word for it.  The smell was a bit off-putting – she preferred a more earthy, animal smell to lead into her couplings, but the perfumes and ointments were a part of the ritual.  She had once met a traveler, a strange looking man who had claimed to come from a land on the far side of burning lands, who had claimed that a woman’s sweat was an aphrodisiac to him, and she had understood him from the reverse.  The oils and petals were fine – maybe even romantic – but for this, it was a bit too much.  She wondered what had happened to Eban, scion of Rikhart, wondered if the ritual would have been better with someone from the far side of the hell sands, or one whom she had wanted to mate with, but who had seemed completely clueless to her advances.

Severian, with his powerful essence, the heat of his life boiling up from the mostly slack mussels – this was a body she knew, the weak portions where he would cringe and smile if nipped and kissed, one leading into the other.  She knew the places to grip on his shoulders that would urge him or force him to slow down.  She spoke a word and kissed her forefinger.  She ran the tip over his lips, feeling the soft lips.  She pressed it within, past his teeth and onto his warm tongue.  She smiled, feeling the tongue wrap and writhe around her digit, taking in the spell.  She removed her finger, and her smile turned wolfish as Severian woke, gasping for air and trying to sit.  “Stay down,” she said, “waking will go easier.”

“Yes, mistress,” Severian gasped.  She watched the spell’s path through his eyes.  Severian shook his head.  “You were saying?”

“I was saying that my situation is precarious – I must enact the ritual.  It really is the only way that I can confront the Elergast, and so save the city – but the ritual’s nature will cause those I save to look down on me.”  She sigh, resting one hand on Severian’s pectorals and making a lazy spiral from its edge towards the nipple, her other hand resting on her hip, knuckles flexed.  “Why is mating the great evil?  If I killed you outright, no one would think of it, just the proper actions of a wicked queen.  That the way of drawing power out of you is pleasurable for both of us?  Suddenly the gods have nineteen pamphlets explaining why I’m bound to the burning sands!  I mean, for all of the things I’ve done,” she reached the nipple and pinched, causing Severian to gasp.  She pivoted, and leaned to repeat the process with Severian’s rippling abs, now with his bellybutton as her target.  “…through her ribs, but give someone an orgasm on an alter to the goddess of death and fucking and that’s what they want to focus on.”

“It…it is strange, mistress,” said Severian, his eyes locked on her pale, thin fingers.  “I recall there being more…oh.”  He said.  “This is the power drain ritual to She-that-lurks-in-the-shadows.”

“Yes,” she said, letting her hand go flat as she passed over Severian’s bellybutton and down his pelvis to her true target.  She let it past her hands between middle and ring fingers, and massaged around the base of his member.  She had to smile at his whimper.  “Think of it, Severian.  Not of my hand…picture if this if roles were reversed.  If it were my frame strapped down here, and your hand upon my mons?  Somehow, that wickedness,” she watched him rise, the object of her attention slowly filling up with lust, “would be more acceptable as it happens in the streets.”  She watched it rise further.  “And they say only women have flowers.”  She sighed, shaking her head.  She drew both hands across his body slowly, tracing the tensing, clenching mussels.  They met at his sternum, and she brought them to her own shoulders.  She took a breath, and lowered the shoulders of her gown.  She straightened her arms, and allowed the gown to fall from her. 

She had always been pleased with her form, having taken care of it with more exercise than those of her status often did.  She wondered blandly if she had reinforced the idea of a beautiful aristocrat or broke down the idea of a hideous witch among the lower classes with her appearance.  Perhaps it was both, or neither.  She wished she didn’t think on it, but she did.  Still, she knew she had was brigands called “curves in all the right places,” with breasts at the slightly small side of full and hips a bit wider than she would have liked.  But she believed it worked fairly well on the others – those who came to her, willing or not.  “Still, all of this is just idle chatter.”  She returned her hands to his frame.  “You know what will happen here?”

“I do, mistress,” he said, polite to the last.  He took a sharp break when cup and squeezed him.  “There are worse ways.”

“True,” she said.  “I wonder if you will think of any when the time comes.”  She slowly raised and lowered her right hand, and gripped the dagger in the other.  “Perhaps it’s best not to worry, and just enjoy the build up.”

Thing Four: Horror

The Skull.

A Micro Short Story by Sean McGovern.

For Sarah Lynn Sutor – who makes noise in a band.

Here’s a memory, one I spent a good deal of time convincing myself that it was a lie.  That was easy, since I was rarely brave, and the thought of my ending up in such a situation was almost inconceivable.  But each town has its stories, and I guess at some point wondering gives way to “fuck it, I’m going to go see for myself”.  And that was how I found myself trudging across the soccer fields behind the elementary school, towards the woods as the world went dark.  There were two ways to get to the Rodgers’ Ranch – one taking the roads from Penndel to Hulmeville, and the other was the woods.  Showing a lack of foresight that probably should have played a larger role in my childhood, I chose the woods.

Now, up to this point, I had never actually been in these woods…well, to tell the truth, at this point in my life (sixteen) I had pretty much established an orbit that involved whatever job I had (book store by that point), school, and the basement of my home where I had made an ersatz apartment where I could find a kind of peace away from anything interesting to other people.  Once a day I took a walk around town.  That bit, the walks, that was how I had heard about Rogers’ Ranch, nestled in the hills of Hulmeville.  It was the town elder – which wasn’t an actual position, but what other phrase could you use for someone who had been old when you were forming your first memories.  The elder’s name was Miss Waits, and she seemed to know everything about the history of the town, and she told me some of them when I took breaks from mowing a few of the lawns down the main street.

“The old Rogers’ place,” she had said, and motioned to the south, “is haunted in its own way.  Not like the Almer’s down on Jefferson.  That’s a proper haunted house.  The Rodgers’, though…that’s not a ghost.”  She said that while stroking her large black dog.  The dog looked like it had just over a touch of the wild to it, and one of its front legs was missing.  It’s funny, but I can never remember which leg it was – just that it was one of the front ones.  “Places get haunted.  People, sometimes, sure, but it always seems to be places.  The side of the road where there was an accident.  Or a house.  Any building, really.”

“And the Rodgers’ place is haunted,” I said, hoping guiltily that this would speed up her story and I could make a more polite escape to my discman and the roar of the mower.

“No,” she said.  “It’s something inside that’s haunted.  Have you ever seen a ghost?”

“Only in movies,” I said.

“Do you believe in them,” she asked.

“Sure,” I said.  And I did.  Why not – I had been raised on a lot of different stories from a lot of different places and eventually everything came back to ghosts.

“What about other things,” she asked.  And that tripped me up – she could have been referring to peanut butter for all I knew.  ‘Evan Richardson, do you believe in toast, cars, and the pacific ocean?’  But I just nodded because there’s something that’s always unsettling about someone who’s most likely age is dead.  “Whatever is in that house isn’t a ghost.  But it is haunted.”

I came out of the woods, and saw the house.  It was still a distance away, but it didn’t look like the standard fare haunted house that I had come to expect from a steady intake from the horror sections of video and/or book stores.  The size was right – three floors up, looking down on a few acres of private land that was slightly over grown – but in the pale light of dusk I could tell that nothing was really out of place.  The crickets and cicadas were signing, and a few birds chipped as they settled in for the night.  I could hear a dog off in the distance, and some kids catching fireflies to the south, down the hill into Hulmeville.  That all was what I heard around the Rodgers’ Ranch – a building with no shattered windows or fence posts, no shingles out of place, and a lawn that looked like it had missed it’s suburbia mandated manicure by maybe two weeks at most.

But there were no lights on.  That was true.  Lights are a talisman in the burbs, the externals and floods go on in the gloom, and the living rooms on timers.  Passing by them, the homes are warm and welcoming and happy.  And watchful.  There was always that – the quiet glow warning away thieves and other, equally unsavory types, by letting them know that those within were awake, and that they should pass by.  Houses running dark, especially at night, looked run down, abandoned and forgotten by the family that should have filled them with laughter and quiet moments of togetherness.  Dark houses felt wrong in the suburbs.

The Rogers’ Ranch felt wrong.  It didn’t matter how well maintained it was, or how picturesque the late summer night was – the house just felt fucking wrong.  And as I said, I was rarely brave.  I was a public coward, always assuming that so long as there was another person, they’d be dumb enough to stick their neck out and deal with whatever was happening.  But alone, when no one was watching…no one but me…then I had to be different.  I could deal with others thinking I was a scared little shit, a runty scarecrow of a boy, but that was because I knew – knew – that every now and then I could do something amazing.

I pulled a grey bandanna out of my back pocket and fixed it, bandit like, to my face.  I pulled my black, unmarked baseball cap lower on my head, and check my pockets for my flashlight and multi-tool.  And then I started walking towards my target, thinking about comic book heroes and old noir pulps and not thinking about horror movies and ghost stories and how the traffic on Main Street died away fast as I got closer to the Rodgers’ Ranch.  Pennsylvania is still a woodland place, and sound breaks are still easy to come by – even on a clear calm night, if you travel half-a-mile from the train tracks the freight liner might as well be in North Carolina for all the noise it made.  And the rest of the noises filled in for the cars – kids whooping in delight as the last of the summer evening spread out before them, music and canned laughter coming from the windows I passed en route to the dark mass down the street, and the seemingly eternal sounds of nature that scurried and chirped, rustled and barked.  There’s always noise – and as much as we might complain about it, it is reassuring.  There’s a life to it, vitality, in rainfall and motor revs and everything.

And I took some comfort in that because the walk seemed to take longer than it should have.  I still will swear up and down that my feet didn’t falter – no so as I’d notice, at any rate – but it took forever for me to reach that damn door.  I had been right – the house looked as though the Rodgers family had just left for vacation and forgotten to set their timers.  No busted glass to clear out and sneak through.  Nothing more than a slight, dewy scent coming from the patio furniture and mingling with the summer smells of honeysuckle, and dying/recovering flower gardens, and grass.  The bugs made noise in a wave with me at the center of their lull, and they went right back to it as I passed them on the white rocks and flagstone path leading from the road to the door.

I stopped.  Only once.

Some houses have faces, you know?  The windows seem to gaze out at you like eyes in a painting, watching you and reflecting you back, so you can see yourself as they do.  Small.  Distant.

The windows of the Rodgers’ Ranch reflected nothing.  But I felt them boring into me, looking and observing and categorizing me.  I don’t know how I knew, so don’t bother asking – maybe the hairs stood up on the back of my neck, or my stomach tightened three coils too tight.  But it was the first time I felt scrutinized by something unseen and unknowable.  It wasn’t the worst of those sensations, but as I’ve learned, you never forget your first time for damn near anything.  And that house…it felt like it was sitting in fucking judgment over me.  I told myself it was all bullshit, and glared back at the house like doing so would accomplish something.

And I stood still, trying to move for a minute.  And after a minute, I did.

I stepped up onto the porch, and crossed it with faked confidence.  I reached out for the doorknob, and then paused again.  Telling myself it wasn’t nerves but rational, I reached into my back pocket and pulled out the brown driving gloves my parents had given me for my sixteenth birthday – it wasn’t a car, but they were damned cool, and made sure I would leave finger prints.

I slipped on the gloves and reached out for the door knob while fishing in my front pocket for the multi-tool.  The knob turned in my hand and the door swung in, not so much as a whisper escaping the hinges.  I paused at this.  No one, but no one, leaves their front doors unlocked.  Not in these three towns.  Not now, and certainly not then.  I steeled myself, and slipped in, quiet as a shadow, and made sure the door was closed behind me before taking out my flashlight.  The flash was a cheap plastic thing with a bulb that was on its last legs, and red cellophane wrapped around the business end so it wouldn’t screw with my night vision or alert anyone on the outside.

The house smelled like dust.  Not mildew or decaying food or rat shit.  Only dust.  Again, thought played through my mind – the house wasn’t abandoned, and at any moment I’d hear footstep and a light would snap on and some bleary-eyed resident would be looking right at me.  I stopped again, listening.  Only the bugs and birdsong.  Only the dog and the kids.  They were muffled and away – while clear and close, I could hear the blood pumping through my body, the first drips of an adrenaline rush making themselves known.  And my light found the end table.

There was nothing on it save for a small, wooden box – lacquered to a dark finish, so the red-light of my flash made it look more like volcanic glass etched to look like wood, with two small silver hinges facing me.  I went over to it, and turned it around.  A clasp, equally small and silver, was on the other side.  My fingers reached out slowly, with a gentleness reserved for handling newborns, and raised the clasp.  I braced both hands on the sides, and opened the box a crack.

The lid slammed back, and my eyes were giving into the dead sockets of a skull as silence boomed out, ripping a whole in my senses and filling in the jagged places.  My eyes locked to the skull as it tilted back on the hinge of its jaw, and the outside world, all of the reassuring noise blasted away.  There was no humming in my ears, no sound of my heart beating in my chest, even the ceaseless chatter of my internal monolog.  I registered the red-light in my hand shattering just before I felt my eyes go bloodshot and I fell to my knees as my guts wrenched and my brain throbbed.  My hands shook furiously as I reached out for the box, the hair and skin on my hands moving in small waves from the force of the void pouring out of the skull’s mouth.  My blood had turned to tar and battery acid, and I was dimly aware of the bandana growing moist.  I gripped the box like a murdered grabbing a throat.

I screamed.  I know I screamed.

I slammed the lid of the box back down, and it closed with thud.  I knelt there, breathing hard, my breath and blood the only noises for a long time.  I reset the latch, the click almost inaudible over the thunder of my body, and the summer noises coming in the shattered windows of the Rodgers Ranch.