She sat in the first row of tables in the smoky basement room in the Village on both evenings I was reciting my poetry. I was a painter really—a portraitist mostly of real life, its sensuality. I was compared—or at least I compared myself when asked—to Whistler or Renoir in my use of rich colors and lush settings to set off the sensuality of the human body....
That's misleading. It should read: 'how to capture a song'. A song is not something you manufacture, it's something that happens, sort of like a little literary fart, seeping out at the most inopportune time. Your literary fart might bubble up while you're in the bath, or driving to work, or perhaps while waking up in the morning. You'll roll over, open your...
There is this house on the corner of my street that does a haunted house every year. Now it's not one of those simple ones with touchy feely guess what's in the container games but one of the ones that could scare the shit out of you. Lucy and her boyfriend Darian were planning to attend her annual work party. Lucy was not looking forward to bobbing for appl...
I love the smell of leather in the morning. Or in the afternoon. Or at night. You might just say I've got a "thing" for leather. It was just a typical day when I walked into the store during my lunch break. What store you ask? The one with studded leather on their mannequins. I love coming here. I'll stand and smell the leather and caress the floggers, longi...
Stephen and I have been friends for a couple of years now. There was a short foray into dating but it didn't work out. The sex was phenomenal but ya can't base a serious relationship on that. (Well, you can, but that is another story for another time.) We have now settled into a comfortable friendship that works for the both of us. So when Stephen called wi...
"Hello? Mr. Brown? Are you busy right now?" The balding man sitting at the old wooden desk, as was his usual practice, didn't even look up as he answered the question, holding up a solitary finger in a very obvious, and very annoying, injunction to wait, "Just a moment, young lady, and I'll be right with you. Why don't you take a seat?" His hand vaguely ind...
This story is about Megan once more. Most of my stories are all related to each other. Characters in one story appear in other stories. I think this is Megan's third appearance, but now her character is developing more. Hopefully you like it. ***** "The big tournament is tomorrow, babe," Megan heard her bf say from the other room. She had just finished sho...
It had been a long and exhausting day and I was so relieved to be home and able to shut the door to the demands of the world, my job, my circumstances. So, I got out of the car, unlocked the front door and stepped inside to the freedom of my sanctuary, my home. I proceeded with my usual habit of leaving all the supplies of work(Blackberry, briefcase, files...
It had been a rough few months, and at the end of them, I felt like I was no good for anyone. My job had fallen apart, and with it, my sobriety. Inside a bottle was the place I always felt safest and so when things started crashing down, I crawled inside one and stayed there. I wasn't an alcoholic, at least that's what I told myself, and if past experience w...
People give me a lot of grief about my job. I hear "nerd" or "bookworm" on a fairly regular basis. It comes with the territory, said territory being one of those smaller mom and pop bookstores. I don't work for one of the big chain bookshops, no coffee shop, DVD, or CD selection. Simply put, it's just a quaint but popular old store in a bustling college town...