Monthly Archives: April 2012

Andrew Ashling, “The Invisible Chains – Part 1: Bonds of Hate” …Abyss

Posted on by

“Deal with all this, live with myself, you mean? I honestly don’t know. I stand often enough at the abyss of my soul, asking that same question, looking down in the dark crevices where the black monsters dwell on the bottom. They gaze up at me, and I look them in the eyes. “This also you are,” they say, and I almost fall into the void.”
“And then?”
Anaxantis shrugged.
“And then? I turn around and go do what needs to be done. What else is there?”

― Andrew Ashling, The Invisible Chains – Part 1: Bonds of Hate

The Egyptian Correspondent

Posted on by

My flat in Cairo was inside the city and in the worst traffic, crime, and lowest price area that would consider renting to foreign service employees; therefore, I could afford quite a respectable place on the per-deim that USGCC gave me. I had always been of the mind that I would rather buy my own housing and cars than have the company pay terrible prices for renting them in the fenced in American getto communities.

The flat I had chosen was two stories, both stories were above the ground so they were –a little– less dusty and a bit safer. Of course the upper floors were also less likely to be over-run with bugs, snakes and weird colored lizards. I actually lived in what we might call a Townhouse in the U.S. with my storage and garage being on the ground level. As I changed countries I would sell everything that I had and usually make a nice profit at the same time as having USGCC per-diem pay well more than any payments I had been making. In Cairo I had a two year old small Mercedes and a ten year old Jeep, which was actually much more useful.

Friday morning started out as it often did, with Bogey at my door at seven o’clock pounding and creating a riot in my hall and head. Being a correspondent usually didn’t entail early hours, but somehow Boge had never held with the lazy morning routine. I pulled on some shorts and dragged over to the door to let in my best friend. We had been at the Club Alex until one in the morning discussing the details of our trip and, already, Bogey had her arms full of guides, newspapers from Alexandria and Cairo, travel brochures from the Company and –Thank God!– my bagel and a pot of fresh brewed coffee.

“Bogey, can’t you see its only seven a.m. and I’m still practically dead?” I said, through stale mouth and crusty eyes. “I don’t understand why your damn clock goes off so early in the morning, why don’t you have it fixed?”

“Well if you weren’t always out until the crack of dawn trying to hustle stories or dark haired boys you’d be better off anyway.” She always said this even though I always spent the entire evening with her. With Boge it just didn’t make any difference, your time was her time and you should just know it. “So I suppose you need an entirely new wardrobe for a week on the Nile?” she said. “I have tons of equipment to round up and need your help all afternoon, so I’m here to help you get your shopping done this morning!”

With a grunt of acceptance, I burned my tongue on my coffee and started scanning the papers for anything interesting. “Hey look at this” Bogey said, “they have Peaches at the market this week for only $1.59 a pound.” God, how I longed for more literate company! Actually, Bogey was the truest friend I’d had since Tim stayed behind at my last post in the states.

He was fabulous in bed, was inked and full of kink, but not the kind of person that could stand dust in his underwear or someone you could count on to have your back in a knife fight. With the damn Egyptian heat and our need to seek out stories, someone who could pull me through a tight spot was probably much more useful to me than someone who had, well you probably get it. So here I was with Bogey, listening to the price of peaches and thinking about my past men.

 

Nathaniel’s Eating Habits

Posted on by

Nathaniel pulled on the round, white buttons that closed the designer silk and lace dress against the feminine curves of her back. He watched with minor interest as the soft expanse of woman appeared from behind the material he wasn’t good enough to touch and Cynthia no longer needed.

After the knife was wiped clean of his frenzied wrath, Nathaniel slid it carefully back into the polished wooden case and replaced the case on the top shelf of her closet. He knew Cynthia would never bother to laugh at his lack of culture, his clothes or his eating habits again. She thought she owned the world, and even more so, him. All she really had was money.

Money to buy her the well-practiced British accent—that Nathaniel thought was so gratingly nasal—to buy her designer dresses that she spray painted on her body, pay for her drooling trainer to tone that same body and, of course, to buy him to keep her entertained.

Just yesterday she had complained that she was not getting her money’s worth out of their little set-up and at least she should have someone sophisticated enough to eat at L’Auberge du Pelican. It had been all he could do to refrain from reaching gently across the table and driving his butter knife into the soft indentation in her—very—exposed neck.

OMG, I forgot!

Posted on by

This morning I was drinking my protein shake for breakfast, minding my own business and reading Zite…or Twitter…or Facebook…something like that. My BF, Paul, comes up behind me and starts bugging at my neck and playing with my hair. I kept rolling my head around, but finally I had to say, somewhat irritably, “What do you want?”

This got him to stop, just long enough to hand me a card, smile, roll his eyes, say “Happy Anniversary” and walk away. How do you think I felt? Well, a little chagrined that I had forgotten our 26th anniversary, needless to say.

Now don’t everybody jump down my throat at once! We take turns with forgetting things. Like, I remembered, way in advance, to order beautiful flowers for Valentine’s Day to be delivered to his office. I did happen to get one of the extra boxes of chocolates that he picked up for his sisters, brother in law, and nephew -__-. I blew off Easter (baskets), but he had a stuffed lamby, caramels, a card and two solid chocolate bunnies (I noticed one was dark chocolate, I don’t  like dark chocolate, guess who does).

Maybe it should have been my turn to remember, so shoot me, I’ll remember something in the future. That’s the way it goes.

And, by the way, he was smiling when he walked away after handing me the card. Did I mention that, sometimes, its nice to know that you remembered something that someone else didn’t? To know that you just made their day? It’s not all about you, sometimes its all about the other person.

#RealRelationshipAdvice

Birthday Suit

Posted on by

“Birthday Suit” by R Scott Tyler

“But Mom,” Tony knew it was starting to sound really whiny. “They aren’t ‘deviant’, lots of stars have them.”

“And that’s supposed to help your argument how?” He knew he had blown it with that train of thought. His mom thought that actors like Clint Eastwood and Ben Stein were a little too middle-leaning and the band, Alabama, had too many racy lyrics in their music.
Laying on his bed, fists clenched, head pushed back into the pillow and heels pumping up and down, Tony’s only retort was “I’m not fourteen anymore!”

“Well then why am I folding your underwear mister…” He felt the pile of laundry, warm still from the dryer, land on his stomach and heard his mom’s steps as she left his bedroom.

“Crap!” he yelled after her as she gently closed the door. He could almost see her smiling as she went down the hall to the living room.

“Okay, here’s what the picture you described looks like to me.” Trenton showed Tony the small drawing of himself, catching an errant drum stick that got away from Paramore’s drummer, Zac Farro, at the first rock concert he had attended. It was finally the afternoon of his 18th birthday, closing in on 4:00 p.m., and he was picking out his first tattoo.

“Yes, that’s completely it. I love it!” Seeing the tattoo Trenton designed from his memory almost made his finger ache again where the drumstick had broken it when hewent wild to catch it.

“Then let’s do this thing. I can have you out of here by 8:00.”

It was a bit after 4:00 when Tony followed Trenton back to the ink stations. The tattoo was going in the classic tramp stamp location because, even though he would be 18, Tony figured that was the place his mom was least likely to see it. He did still have college tuition to worry about.

“Lay face down on the table with your pants off.” Trenton was preparing the colors and the needles, facing the table.

“Really, my pants off?”

“Yeah, I’ve got to be able to move you around at will to get the right angles. You don’t want a fucked up tat, do you?” With a grin he added, “If you’re too much of a priss you can lower them to about mid-thigh.”

Well, he certainly wanted the perfect tattoo. And he had never been a priss before, he thought, taking off his jeans. He sort of wished he’d worn clean underwear, but hell, he had taken the bus over here. No chance of an accident.

He lay down on the table, feeling quite exposed, especially when he looked at Trenton and noticed where his eyes were glued. Flipping his head the other direction, he glanced at the flat screen on the wall playing, what sort of looked like, Japanese anime porno. Great, there was a mirror, too. It was just at the right angle for him to watch as Trenton rested his arm comfortably on his, um, cheeks, and got ready to start. A glance at the clock situated between TV and mirror told him it was 4:30 p.m. It reminded him of the many times his mom told him that his delivery had been difficult –she said this basically every birthday— her labor lasting almost twenty hours, with Tony finally being born at precisely 4:30 in the afternoon.

On the day of his 19th birthday, Tony was working. This was perfect because, he was a lifeguard at South Sandy Point, one of the huge beaches in the Padre Islands of Texas. Here summertime meant girls. Lots of girls with very little clothing. He wore Aussie style swimsuits to guard duty and he rolled them down to make sure his tattoo showed.

“What time are your parents leaving, Tony?” Archer was especially excited about the little party Tony planned on throwing tonight.

“They’ll be gone by the time we get off work, not to worry!” Glancing at the clock he realized he’d been counting down the hours, then minutes, till 4:30. Quitting time. He was hoping that the party wouldn’t turn into a free for all, but if it did, well, who really cared. He had plenty of time to clean up before his parents were back from their Galveston weekend. Not much time left now. It was 4:17 p.m.

When he looked back up from Archer’s distraction and the clock, he noticed some odd activity a hundred yards out and just to the right of center on the horizon. Grabbing his binoculars, he focused on the area and saw two girls in the water, flailing their hands and splashing all over. Like they were being attacked. Shit. He grabbed the megaphone and yelled “Shark! Shark! Everyone out of the water, now!” He hit the siren button and jumped from the top of the tower, grabbing the safety board and running as soon as he hit sand.

The last thing he remembered before his lifeguard training totally took over was glancing around to see the other guards in hot pursuit to help, but all of them, except Archer, were spread up and down the beach and would be a ways behind them.

“Oh man, I was going to be so pissed off if those chicks screwed up your party, dude!”

Sitting on his parents couch, drinking his third beer, Tony just looked at Archer through post-adrenaline tired eyes. He had to admit, he was disappointed also. That little bull shark attack had totally made him loose interest in getting laid. The two girls were going to be fine, they probably wouldn’t even have much scarring, but his mojo was drained from seeing the blood…and of course the fear.

Twenty four hours after the attack he was again –still?—laying in bed. He was sleeping off yesterday’s beers and the excitement that came before them. The feeling started as a tickle in the center of his lower back. He ignored it until it became more of a scratch and then a yelp inducing pinch. The constant pinching made him get out of bed and trot to the bathroom with a scowl. “Must have swam over a jellyfish on the way to those girls…” he thought.

He pulled off his tee shirt, slid his shorts partway down his butt and craned his head around to look at the area where he felt the needles. It only took him a minute to come to terms with the fact that the pain was coming from his tattoo area. And the tattoo seemed to be growing. The pain of the needles kept going as he slumped to the floor in a dead faint.

An hour and a half later he came to. He opened his eyes and he was looking at the tile where it came to meet the bottom of the bathroom sink cabinet. There were loads of curly hairs down here on the floor. Didn’t his mom every clean his bathroom floor? Oh yeah, he forgot. She had stopped cleaning his bathroom the same day she stopped folding his laundry.

As he became more aware, he realized the needles had stopped. Crap though, his lower back felt really sore. Like someone had been poking needles in him for a couple of hours. Getting up, he reached into the second drawer down in his cabinet and grabbed his hand mirror. Closing his eyes, he turned his back to the mirror again. His shorts were still down below his butt. Positioning the mirror about where he thought it should go, he slowly sneaked his eyes back open.

There it was, slightly to the right of his drumstick tattoo, totally integrated into its edges, and about twice its size. One of the most detailed and beautiful tattoos he had ever seen. It was an artistic stylization of a shark attack. He was clearly featured between the shark and two beautiful girls, their eyes wide and mouths open in fear.

His jaw dropped as he immediately began to think about how he should spend the late afternoon of his 20th birthday.

In an effort to lighten things up a bit…

Posted on by

For those of you that don’t know what Grindr is, you may want to simply ignore this post. It’s supposed to poke a little good natured fun at those that use the site. :)

Grindr #fail

If you go looking on Grindr, for candle-lit dinners and romance

I’ll bet you will not finder, since most the guys have no pants

You put your picture out there, saying you’re not hot to trot

Then you hand out stricture, like you’re some ol’ cocky bot

Quit being such an uptight stiff, and send us all a little gif

Then when we see you waggle your tail, we can send you a big fat Grindr #FAIL

.

.

To all the boys on Grindr looking for something different than what they find ;)