Photo by: D Sharon Pruitt

Pink, purple and yellow chiffon was everywhere.  Pink and purple balloons tied to every fence post.  And that was just near the main house.  Corianne’s father had the lawn boy and his friends tie pink and purple bows on each of the posts around all two hundred acres when they did the rushed trim job after the rainstorm.  And every horse in the paddock had pink and purple ribbons braided into their tails and manes.  Corianne hadn’t asked for it.  But birthdays were special to her father, so one day out of the year, he was overindulgent.

Huddled in one corner were all the mothers, cocktails in hand, occasionally calling out to their children to stop that or do this or take that.  Corianne’s mother was pressed up against her father feeding him bits of celery and cherry tomatoes from her own plate.  Her father had his arm around her waist and kept calling out to Corianne for help between bites.  Corianne giggled, baring perfect white teeth and adorable dimples.

“Mommy! You’re gonna kill Daddy with vegetables! Leave him be!” she exclaimed, good-naturedly, before spinning back to her friends.  “Aren’t they funny?”

“They’re in love, stupid.  I wish my parents were.  All they do is fight.  Look! My mom’s over there talking to Mrs. Brackwith.  Probably about how much of an asshole my father is.  And my dad’s too busy ogling your mom to notice.”  Jenny Prat’s parents were on the verge of divorce.  Everyone was talking about it.

Corianne didn’t know what a divorce was.  She was afraid to ask because Jenny Prat ran away any time anyone mentioned it.  So instead, she studied her parents as they continued to flirt back and forth.

“Okay, Celia.  We should probably tend to our guests.”  Corianne’s father said just loud enough for her to hear.  “Besides… we have a spy.”

Corianne rolled her eyes. “Daddy,” she groaned.  “I am not a spy.”

He laughed and closed the distance between them.  He squatted down to be eye level with his daughter.  “Corianne Winters, P.I.”  he quipped as he wrapped his hands around Cori’s waist and lifted her high above his head.

Cori squealed with delight and screamed, “Down! Put me down!”

Her father spun to the left, “Who said that?”

“Daddy!”

He swung to face her mother.  “Celia? Did you hear something? I thought I heard Cori say my name.”  Read more…

Last night, while watching season two of Chuck with Master, I suddenly had direction for a plot Master has suggested a time or two.  So I snatched up a notebook and wrote.  This is not erotica.  Though I’m sure there are some extreme masochists who would enjoy having a pen knife stabbed through their wrist, this story’s meant to be scary, not sexy.  Though some of it will, without a doubt, be sexy.  Constructive criticism is welcome, and appreciated.

Without further adieu, meet Corianne…

“What’s that? Oh yeah.  You can’t talk, can you? Pity.  I did so want to hear you scream.  Maybe later, I suppose.  Oh… don’t cry.  Not yet.  You’ll spoil the ending.”

The voice was full of sugary sweet warmth.  Almost concern.  And a finger gently wiped a tear from his face.

“Aw.  You’re not scared are you? Come on.  It’ll only hurt for a little while.  You can handle it.”

She ran her fingers through his prematurely thinning hair.

“So what were you doing that day at the park? The girl you were with? She was so pretty! How did a man like you get a girl like that?”

Her tinkling laugh filled the air as he began to struggle.  “Don’t worry, darling.  She’s safe.  I have no interest in females.  Just rich, corporate boys, like you.  Y’all are right tasty.”  For just a moment, her southern twang slipped.  But she caught herself.  “So let’s get started, shall we?”

Her hand slid from his head to his waist.  She unbuckled the golden buckle.  And as she reached for his silk waistline, the man began to sob softly.

“Oh, come, now.”  she tutted.  “What’s wrong? Are you afraid I’m not as pretty? Here.”  She leaned forward nestling his face between her silk-clad breasts and grinned as he, for a split second, relaxed into the warm fragrance of her favorite perfume.  She untied the silk scarf and dropped it to the floor.  Then she stepped back and studied him for a moment while he stared at her.

“Do you like what you see?” She spun in place to let him admire the view.

Her hair was long and straight, cut straight across her back.  She had a pretty face and was a bit on the plump side.  She was barely dressed, in her barely-there teal camisole.  Her legs were bare and her nipples hardly covered.  The man’s mouth fell as open as a gagged mouth can.

“I’ll take that as a yes.  I hope the scarves aren’t too tight.  I hear most everything else leaves marks.  Marks lead to the cops finding the restraints, which leads to fingerprints or fiber testing.  And then the whole thing gets messy.  Messy could be bad for me.”

She walked to a nearby table and picked up a pen knife.  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw his eyes widen.

“Oh, come, now.  It’ll be fun!”

She retook her position in front of the chair.  As she reached toward his tailored shirt, he began to hyperventilate.  When she slipped the tip of the knife between the button and the fabric, he started making this strange whistling sound through his nose.  She giggled softly as the soft snick of thread being cut announced the button’s removal, and her hand dropped to the next.  When she got to his waist, she tugged the tails out and unbuttoned the last two.  Then she finished what she started with his pants.

“Lift your tushy up, honey.  Just a little bit so I can get your stuff out of the way.”

He whimpered but didn’t move.  Read more…

“You’re listenin’ with Jimmy Jive and that was Duke Ellington on WKIT FM.  Comin’ up after the break we got Louis and Dizzy, in that order so keep your dial right where it is, folks. WKIT.”

Jerry rolled her eyes as the reel of commercials played for the third time that night.  She rifled through her purse with her right hand to find a pack of Marlboros and slid one out.  After tucking it between her lips, she pushed the lighter in and waited impatiently for it to pop back out again.  Nothing was moving fast enough to suit her.

Louis’s gravelly voice blared from the speakers of her red Trans Am as she blew through the intersection.  Her eyes didn’t even flick to the light.  Her foot felt like lead as she rushed to the hospital to find out how Ariana was.

There was a sudden jerk as the car skidded seemingly of its own accord into the left lane.  As if in slow motion, Jerry turned her head to the right just in time to see a man explode through the windshield of a Hummer. She watched in awe as his body tumbled over the roof of her car.

“Oh my god.  Oh my god!” Jerry screamed as her head hit the steering wheel and the lights went out.

_______

“Caleb, I said green.  No! Andie hates red.  It has to be green.  I don’t care what you have to do to make it green.  You should have ordered the green one to begin with.  What the hell am I…”

All of a sudden, Pacey was thrown through the windshield.  As he tumbled over the top of what looked like a red Trans Am, he began to scream.  He put his arms over his head, hoping to protect his neck, and tried not to fight his body’s momentum.

Whatever he did, it worked.  Pacey was alive when it was over.  In a lot of pain, but alive.

“Help me! Somebody call nine-one-one! Holy fuck.  Help me! Oh fuck.  It hurts.  It fucking hurts, man. Somebody help me!” Read more…

She walked around the house picking up one empty pack after another, sometimes the same one more than once, and shaking it, listening carefully for the telltale rattle of one last overlooked cigarette. He watched silently with his hands folded before him as the look on her face got meaner and meaner.

“Where’re mah smokes, boy?” Her thick southern drawl mixed with her toothless gums sometimes made it difficult to understand her. “You gettin’ inta mah smokes again, boy?”

“Now, Mama. You know I don’t smoke.”

“That never stopped ya when you were a chil’.”

“Mama, I told you. I never stole none of your cigarettes. It was Brand.”

A smile broke on her face. It was like sweet morning sunshine after a week of rain. Suddenly, the face worn so roughly from years of gardening, drugs and alcohol dropped twenty years. He swore, in those rare moments, she was an angel.

“Brand. My angel. Where is he?” Read more…

She crushed the heels of her hands to the backs of her eyelids. A single tear ran down each wrist, one dripping off to land on a bare breast and the other tickling the crook of her elbow. An attempt to sniffle quietly went unnoticed as she tried to put her thoughts in the filing cabinet that was her mind.

It was locked, this file of negative emotions. She never allowed it to open longer than the time it took to add the newest thought and shove everything back inside. She was too afraid. Afraid the tiny trickle that came with opening the drawer would lead to the downpour that took her places she hadn’t been in years. And she couldn’t explain it. The reason behind keeping her mouth shut and her emotions hidden. She just knew it was better this way.

She’d progressed in her ability to hide. Once upon a time, she had to leave the room. Before that, she had to lock herself in the bathroom. Now she just remained silent and fought the tears she’d been trained to show. And when her silence was misunderstood, she allowed it to remain that way. Better to keep the real reason locked away in the file of negative emotion.

She knew the vicious cycle that was her life had come full circle. The names and faces had changed. So had the situation. But the reality was everything else was the same. And as she sat in the seat she had chosen quietly fighting the urge to run, she knew that everyone around her was oblivious to the war trying to force a scream from her throat.

A loose thread in the upholstery of the chair caught her attention and she began to fiddle with it. A nervous habit that had cost her more than one expensive piece of clothing. Back and forth, back and forth, and then she pinched it between long red nails hoping to sever it where thread met cloth. When that didn’t work, she began to saw at it. Read more…