Below is an extract from the story that concludes Cool Brass, a Slow Boat Media e-book. Although Marianne Messing predominates throughout the three stories, this interlude features Paz Duarte, Caleb Abercrombie’s casual lover. The whole of Twisty may be read as reactions regarding how perceived outsiders create places in their respective societies as well as within their own skins. Continue reading Twisty
Tag Archives: Paz Duarte
Stretched Bliss
“Stretched Bliss,” the third story from the Slow Boat Media e-book Reveries, begins with Caleb Abercrombie’s interior disquisition on gratification. The professor muses during a late-morning moment of post-lovemaking languor with Paz Duarte.
Long before the sweaty twining of their fevered bodies, mutual satisfaction, apparent exhaustion, and his subsequent daydreaming, they enjoyed a night on the town. Even when the attraction is based on exchanging pleasure, shouldn’t a minuet of sorts be observed?
Hours ahead of sheets getting rumpled and pillows being ruffled in the throes of fulfillment, as well as the random calls and responses of lovers, the pair observed the social component that distinguishes human carnality from lower species’ rutting. It’s the thing that sets both apart. Though just barely. Continue reading Stretched Bliss
Beyond the Classroom
Four brisk entertainments sharing the same theme comprise Reveries.
Caleb Abercrombie dominates the narratives. An untethered academic, the middle-aged Abercrombie fully enjoys the advantages of being a confident male whose vocation fulfills him.
Paz Duarte, Abercrombie’s considerably younger foil, sounding board, and for lack of a better term, though nonetheless apt, serves as his fuck-buddy. They also share another calling. A vertical one.
The excerpt offered by Amazon Kindle dissatisfied me. What the casually curious could’ve read were merely the first pages of the opening story, “Beyond the Classroom.”
A good start? Yup! The sample gave an interesting taste. Like parfait. But further reading rewards with greater flavor. Why, by the last page of Reveries’ concluding story let’s say a creamy fudge ripple has been whipped up.
Those who’ve already read it are probably chuckling at the reference. Good. Continue reading Beyond the Classroom
My Akhmatova
When first creating this forum I intended flogging my ebooks Reveries and Cool Brass. That, and resume some kind of writing discipline by telling stories. Nearly two decades have passed since I last graced a newsroom, and 10 years from any article bearing my real byline.
Writing is easy. Self-promotion is craven. Funny thing is while I’m reticent about myself and my product, I could be P.T. Barnum’s spiritual heir if it came to hawking some loser starving for celebrity or another kind of dog food. Continue reading My Akhmatova
Indirect Objects
A feature inside the last 2011 issue of Intervìu by writer Alberto Gayo called to mind comments received about my compilations Reveries and Cool Brass. The latter especially.
Maybe what Reveries sparked finally ignited in Cool Brass.
The theme behind Gayo’s article: women taking responsive roles in erotica. A focus: Femme Fatale, a photo compendium by Finn Reka Nyari. Apparently Ms. Nyari’s lens exposed more than female forms offered up as living mannequins awaiting domination or mere male regard.
You know. The usual. Continue reading Indirect Objects
Dig A Grave. Lay Down. Bury Yourself.
What was foretold came to pass. Ideally the doors to Mugwump, my former employer, would’ve closed in January 2012. Yet during the summer of 2011 I saw it barely surviving into October. The place staggered and face-planted one week before November.
Awash in cocaine and/or drowning in vodka or THC fogging the remnants of their minds, Loca and Fea lost Mugwump, their patrimony.
Wait. “Lost” isn’t the right word. “Frittered.” Nope. Still doesn’t convey the squander.
“Squatted down and pissed away.” Much better.
Coked out when not blind drunk, the Mugwump sisters squatted down and pissed away their company. In doing so they destroyed in five years what their father Blowhard established after 27. Before carelessly tossing the reins to his flibbertigibbet daughters, Blowhard built Mugwump into a company renown for dependability, reliability and accuracy. Continue reading Dig A Grave. Lay Down. Bury Yourself.
Perdu Is Lost
(*Names changed in order to speak freely.)
My colleague *Perdu is the sort of woman who disturbs dreams. Clever, charming, at times nervy. Unlike women who instigate nightmares, one can lust after Perdu without worrying about a future involving boiled bunnies, knives or elaborately devised revenge schemes against friends and family members.
Nonetheless her adherence to rationality borders on psychosis.
After five years of serving at Mugwump*, our dying place of employ, Perdu’s just come around to acknowledging the daily waste, absurdity, and futility contained within its walls. Her acceptance of survival cynicism has been exciting to behold.
For the longest two hurdles kept Perdu from seeing how our enterprise had become an asylum. Continue reading Perdu Is Lost