Tricky Cindy

 

Cindy was a mild mannered, mostly jovial and self-described positive person. But one should never bring up the Lidman brothers in front of her. To this day, no one knows what trespasses Steve and Adam committed against her, but their sin must have been mortal because Cindy wanted nothing less than their destruction.

Over the course of a few weeks, she devised what she thought was a pretty good plan. She put it in motion by chatting them both up on a messenger over the internet. She started with small talk and light flirting that escalated to more raunchy conversation. The lewd chats led to exchanging nude photos. The culmination; dates were set for sexual encounters to take place.

When she was with Adam, she told him she was on the pill so they didn’t need to use protection. With Steve, she insisted on using condoms. Given that both men were engaged to be married, their secrecy was secured, even from one another. The affairs went on for three months until she acquired exactly what she wanted, a baby.

She told both men they were the father. They had mixed feelings about the news. On one hand, both were ecstatic they made life. They were both deeply religious men and to them all life was precious, especially life that they brought into existence. On the other hand, this could make their lives turbulent, to say the least and the guilt of betrayal was overwhelming. Neither professed love for Cindy, but both promised to provide for their new offspring.

Given that she was having unprotected sex with Adam, she knew he was the father, but she convinced Steve that he was the only man she had been with recently and furthermore, it was statistically possible to get pregnant even using condoms. He figured a DNA test would make waves and rock the boat of his otherwise dull and stable life. He gave her the benefit of the doubt. With the trap set, she was ready to spring it.

At the forth month of pregnancy, she went to Adam with grave news. She was going to abort his baby and move far away. The news devastated Adam. Besides this being one of the worst sins to his faith, he felt a piece of him was going to die as well. Cindy took extreme pleasure in watching him grovel and beg not to go through with it. She left him a heaping mess and drove off.

Now she set her sights on Steve. She was really going to have to move far away so Adam would believe the abortion story. She moved in with an Aunt in Florida under the guise that she would help the lonely elder woman and in turn receive help during her pregnancy.

She had the baby and made arrangements with Steve for gargantuan child support payments. They were sealed into a contract. The trap was sprung. She got her revenge on the Lidman brothers. Adam believed his unborn son was murdered, though he was actually alive and thriving and Steve was paying a small fortune every month for a child that was not his.

The Hill Climb

Mary came home from a long day of work and immediately changed into her running gear. It was a hard day so she really wanted a challenge. She decided to take the shorter, but very steeply inclined route behind her apartment complex. The route was a dark, 3 KM hill climb that she liked to push herself up, than coast back home with her heart pounding and thighs pumped.

She passed the guard shack at the entrance of her complex and gave a thumbs up which was in turn, returned. She rounded the perimeter wall and entered into the darkness which was the welcome mat of her challenging route. She passed a few houses and waved to the people on the porches.

There was one small obstacle, an outdoor bar she hated passing due to the drunken hoots and hollers she received as she went by. As she climbed the first incline, the Christmas lights strung on rusty poles came into view. She had already switched sides of the street to give a wider berth. She wished she could momentarily become invisible.

As she braced herself for being in full view of the bar and within earshot of the drunken grossness, she was relieved to see only two patrons at a rickety, makeshift table and the barman. She even briefly fantasized they hadn’t seen her at all.

That fantasy was shattered when she heard “Damn, dinner is fast tonight!” followed by, “Why don’t you get over here and meet the man of your dreams and sit on his face?”

Though she was skeeved out, she had heard worse. She blew by the pickled trio and forgot about them. About ten minutes later, on the second steepest incline, she heard foot steps behind her. They were far, but apparently close enough to be audible. She was worried that she was worried. Although rare, she has seen other runners on this route but something was making the hairs on her arms stand up. Her instincts were telling her something.

Mary tried to run faster but didn’t have it in the gas tank. Her lungs were burning. She had been climbing for most of the run. The plodding footsteps behind her were getting closer. She looked back and saw nothing but stumbled when she looked forward again. Fear and fatigue were making her clumsy.

Wild thoughts made the tips of her fingers tremble. Her thighs started to weaken. She starting giving into the idea that she was going to be raped, murdered and thrown into the sugar cane only to be found after the harvest.

Her heart froze over when she heard a “Hey” followed by quickening footsteps. She looked around for a weapon but found none. She thought of running into the cane but it was too thick to get far and besides, the leaves hanging from the stalks would cut her to shreds.

She resolved to be a difficult victim. She imagined that when the news spoke of her attacker, they would mention how mauled he had been by his victim. She stopped dead in her tracks and faced the approaching footsteps.

As the owner of the footsteps approached it was made apparent it was one of the patrons from the bar. She recognized him immediately as the one who called her “dinner”. His tee-shirt was drenched in sweat and his face was tomato red.

“Hey” he called again.

“What do you want?” Mary shrieked.

“Just wait” he called back, huffing and puffing.

“I’ll wait” she thought “and claw your fucking eyes out and bite your balls off”

As he came closer Mary saw he had a wild look in his eyes. He was breathing so heavy; Mary thought he might throw up. At least she had that going for her.

“Ma’am” huff, huff, huff, “You dropped your license in front of the bar”

“What?” Mary shrieked with her shaking hands making a pathetic attempt at a defensive guard.

“Shit, I ain’t run that far since high school, I might puke!” The man said “I saw your license fall from your shorts. I done lost mine once; it was a pain in the dick to replace it”

Mary slowly put her hands down. She felt the area around the small of her back, where she usually tucked her license into her compression shorts, it was gone.

“Oh my god, I don’t know what to say” she stammered. “Sorry”

“Huh?” he said, perplexed.

“I mean, thank you! Thank you so much”

“No problem, little lady. I’m gone crawl back to the bar now”

“Here, take a twenty and buy a round for your troubles” Mary offered.

“I couldn’t, wouldn’t and won’t” he refused “And sorry for hasslin’ you when you run by. We’re bored. We don’t get many people going by. We’re just joshing” he might have been blushing but it was impossible to tell, his face was burning hotter than the sun from the run.

“Oh, it’s ok” she said and offered her hand.

As he took it he looked into her eyes and said “You take care on this here hill. The world is full of crazy ass folk”

 

Tonight’s the Night!

 

 

[NSFW] *Note from the author: This story is a little raunchy. If you have delicate sensibilities, it may be wise to move on, otherwise, please enjoy.

 

Tonight was the night Stan had been waiting for since he signed himself up as a participant months ago on Facebook. The event billed itself as the largest orgy North Dakota has ever seen. Stan’s interest in orgies peaked when he saw some graphic videos at the tender age of thirteen.

Stan had no plans for the day, until 8:00pm, the start time. He figured he’d need his stamina so he decided to take an early run before breakfast. On his run, Stan saw a pair of the most beautiful women in spandex leggings. He ran behind them for an extra mile as to not lose his privileged view, even though it meant him going out of his way to do so.

This stimulation was too much for Stan. Upon arrival in his home, he immediately ran to the upstairs bathroom and released his sticky tension into the sink while thinking about those two bodacious bouncing butts that he dutifully trailed. He figured he’d be ok, the event wasn’t for hours and besides, “taking a bullet out of the chamber” would help him last longer, later.

Stan finished his breakfast and thought about how he could kill more than ten hours. He knew he’d have to be careful about getting excited. He needed to save his virility for the orgy.

He went to his room to play video games. He scored a touchdown in a college football game. Cartoon cheerleaders flashed on the screen with exaggerated sensuality and even more exaggerated proportions. This got Stan thinking about the orgy. Before he knew what he was doing, his shorts were down and he was depositing more DNA into a tissue, though considerably less than the first time. That’s ok, he thought, he had hours to recuperate.

After lunch, he got a text from a girl he was flirting with in his Economics class. She said her parents were out of the house and asked if he would like to come over. After a hard fought mental debate with himself, he agreed.

Almost as soon as he arrived he realized he wasn’t there to talk about the finer points of Adam Smith’s invisible hand. She led him to the hot tub, already running, on the back porch, clad in a bikini. They made out for a while and then she slid her hand under the bubbles. She was surprised to find him softer than a cone of ice cream in the hot July sun. He told her he was nervous because he found her so attractive and he had been dreaming of this moment and he couldn’t believe it was coming true. After some serious coaxing, she was able to get him just stiff enough for entrance, where in turn he immediately orgasmed.

He apologized to his disappointed lover and went home. He was a little worried at this point. There were only a few hours until the orgy and he had already had three orgasms that day; the last one being embarrassingly unimpressive.

He took a nap and upon awakening, reached for his cell phone. He flipped through Facebook and Instagram. He came across one of his favorite fitness models and lurked her page for a while. Without consciously realizing it, he was rubbing himself.

As if on some kind of pervert autopilot, he had already clicked over to a porn site and was going to town on his barely erect self. He caught himself in mid-stroke when he thought, “What am I doing? The orgy is tonight!” He couldn’t help himself, though. Stopping at this point would be like taking a steak from the jaws of a famished pit-bull. He finished with a dribble and lamented over it for a while.

As 8:00pm neared, Stan agonized over how he was going to perform after what he had done over the course of the day. Furthermore, he was quite drained and didn’t even feel like going. 8:00 struck and Stan made up his mind. He wasn’t going if it was just to make a fool of himself.

He watched a movie and decided to go to bed. He brushed his teeth and lay down. He looked at Facebook for some time and realized he wasn’t all that sleepy. There was one thing he could do in this situation. He went to his “go to” porn site and typed “orgy”. As the video loaded all he could think was “What is wrong with me?”

 

 

 

Brotherly Love

Frank and Al were competitive brothers. In fact, they were so competitive with one another that one of them would probably not be here hadn´t it been for the intervention of their dear mother on various occasions. A strange twist to their rivalry was that they could never use the same strategy the other used to succeed. It was an unspoken rule, but followed to the letter.

In high school when Frank started to excel in football, on the offensive side of the ball, Al went on to become the best defensive player. When Al took up and had success in boxing, Frank became all state in wrestling. When Frank excelled in the exact sciences, Al became the best student in the school in the liberal arts.

Their paths converged when they became adults. Both found their way into the toy business and both became the best in the industry. Frank ran the most prestigious toy company making high end luxury toys. Al led a toy company with a name no one would recognize but just about every house in the US had at least three of his products. His toys were cheap and ubiquitous.

Frank looked at Al as a junk peddler who inundated the US market with cheap Chinese trinkets. Al looked at Frank as a fraud who overcharged dopey rich people out of their money for nothing more than mere status symbols worth a fraction of the price charged.

Secretly, both wanted a little of what the other had. Frank wanted to move a little more volume and Al wanted a little more prestige for his company. Neither had the humility to ask the other for advice.

At the same time, almost to the day, both came up with what they thought was a unique, genius idea. They would send corporate spies to the other´s company to pick up a tip or two. Within a few months, both got wind of what the other was doing.

What hurt each one the most was the thought that the other copied their idea. This was a betrayal of the highest level, even though it was not true. They did in fact come up with the idea individually.

Again, both had another strike of coincidental genius at the same exact moment. They were going to have the other killed. Frank wanted Al´s killing to look like a car accident and Al wanted Frank´s killing to look like a botched robbery. Both put their unstoppable plans in motion.

A few weeks later Al´s car was ran off a cliff. The car rolled for almost a quarter mile before stopping, only to go up in flames. Frank was shot in the forehead while he withdrew money from an ATM late in the night. Miraculously, both survived.

Due to a request from their mother, their motionless bodies laid next to one another in the intensive care unit .Although their bodies were without activity, their brains were not. There was only one single thought churning through both heads: “I´m going to recover so much better than that jerk over there”

Violence A Weapon

 

Brad put his ear buds in as he boarded the subway for his daily commute home. He was lucky this day. There was a seat for the forty minute ride out to the suburbs. This was rare so he felt pretty good about himself. Among the usual commuters there was a group of young men speaking very loudly making the other passengers uncomfortable. He saw they were passing around a bottle and were taking turns looking up from the conversation they were engulfed in. They seemed to be looking over the passengers. Something about them made Brad feel uneasy.

After ten minutes into his podcast Brad had practically forgot about the young men. He was so involved in his program he barely noticed one of them standing right in front of him with his back to him. The youth turned around and motioned for him to take out an ear bud.

Brad obliged. “Yeah?” he asked.

“You got the time?” The youth asked.

With an icy feeling in his stomach Brad looked at his watch. “5:45” he answered.

“That´s a nice watch, man. You don´t worry about anyone taking from you?” the youth asked.

“Not a bit” Brad answered feeling negative electricity in the air. He was being honest. Brad was an amateur fighter with at least ten fights under his belt and endless hours of sparring with trained athletes.

Brad went to put the ear bud back into his ear when the youth said “Not so fast, man. I´m not done talking to you”

“Well, I´m done talking to you” Brad said as he continued to put the ear bud back into his aural cavity.

The youth smacked the hand sending the ear bud flying as far as the cable would allow. Brad instantly stood up. The youth was considerably bigger than him. “I don´t want any problems. I am just trying to get home” Brad said.

“I don´t want any problems either” the youth said. “Just that watch”

Brad was a small man. He looked like an easy target to intimidate, especially in his work attire which was a button shirt with a sweater pulled over and some khaki Dockers. The youth was banking on the fact he could scare the watch off of Brad’s arm.

“Please, buddy, just go back to your friends. We can pretend this never happened” Brad said almost whispering as to let the youth save face.

The youth dropped his right arm and Brad instinctively knew what was coming. It did. A very sloppy right hand slowly made its way towards his face. Brad easily avoided it by barely slipping it and followed the movement with a short elbow to the youth’s neck. This dropped the kid on the crowded train forcing people to cram to the sides to avoid the hulking, falling body. Brad remembered the friends. How would he handle them was his only thought. The kid was down and probably out of the fight because the wind was completely knocked out of him.

As he saw the youth on the floor of the train struggling to breath he made a decision. Passengers were on their phones frantically calling the police. Brad promptly mounted the youth´s chest and started pounding his face into a pulp with an avalanche of elbows. He looked towards the kid’s friends and realized his plan was working. They were paralyzed with fear. They saw his technical ferocity and did not want any of it. Thankfully the train came to a stop and the doors opened.

As the terrified passengers flooded out of the car, a mix of police and subway security burst in. It was a horrible sight. A scrawny business man was on top of a thugged out kid whose face was not even recognizable as human. The police cuffed a protesting Brad. “Tell it to the judge” was their only retort as they read him his rights.

Because it was Friday night, Brad had to spend the weekend in jail. He could only see the judge on Monday. Due to the severity and violence involved, Brad was kept in a cell to himself. He was without human contact, save the brief moments a tray of food was passed through the door.

Monday finally came and Brad was led down the corridor to see the judge. He was disoriented and disheveled. His sweater was thrown over his arm and crunchy with the dried blood of the youth he had beaten.

As he stood in front of the judge he asked what he was being held for.

“For now, attempted murder, possibly murder. The kid is not doing so well” the judge informed him. “Tell me your side of the story”

Brad told him every minute detail. The judge nodded the whole time.

“Well, I tend to believe you, son. Two others in that kid’s group ripped off a couple of wallets. One even smacked an old lady because she had nothing to hand over. I just have one question. Why did you beat the kid so badly?”

“Your honor, I was afraid of his friends attacking me. I felt if I scared them it would keep them at bay. It did. I saw the terror in their eyes and it kept them back” Brad answered. “The same way the kid tried to use fear to get my watch, I used fear to protect myself from his friends”

“Fair enough” the judge said. “You´ll have to go to court regardless”

“I understand” Brad said as his heart sank.

A few months later Brad had his trial. He hired a good lawyer. The charge was manslaughter. The youth did not make it. After a highly publicized trial Brad was exonerated of any wrong doing. It was ruled self defense. After the trial Brad decided to take his life savings and start a martial arts gym. It specialized in self defense.

 

Attack of the Killer Imagination!

“I wish he could talk to me” Ben told his mother. He was referring to his favorite teddy bear Chase.

“If you use your imagination, Ben, he can” his mother answered, barely paying attention to the boy.

Ben´s eyes lit up with the possibilities. His mother´s words echoed in his head, “If you use your imagination…..”

A few moments passed and Ben snapped out of his trance. He grabbed his teddy bear off the floor and told his mother he was going to his room.

Once in his room, Ben sat the teddy bear at the head of the bed as if the bear needed to relax. He went into his closet. He took a shoe lace from one of his sneakers. He proceeded to tie it around the bears neck.

“You´re gonna talk and you´re gonna talk now” Ben said.

The bear just looked at him with his plastic eyes reflecting Ben´s angry face.

“You´re gonna be a hero, huh?” and with that Ben tightened the shoe lace.

Still, the teddy bear gave no satisfaction to Ben. Ben wound up an elbow and struck it across the bear´s face. “Talk!” he said. He struck the bear a few more times.

“Okay, okay!” the bear finally said. “What do you want to know?”

“I knew you weren´t so tough!” Ben said, triumphantly. “I want to know what Mom got me for Christmas and I want to know now!”

“How the fuck should I know?” the bear answered.

“Hey, watch your mouth!” Ben said.

“It´s your imagination who is doing the talking, pal” the bear answered defiantly.

“Yeah, you right. But back to the subject. What did Mom get me for Christmas?” Ben asked again.

“I don´t know!” Either I am with you or I am in your room. It´s not like I can just get up and walk around the house you know!” the bear said.

Ben thought quickly. If imagining gets the bear to talk, then maybe imagining can get him to move. “You´re gonna figure it out for me one way or another” Ben said.

“Fuck you” the bear said.

“I said stop that!” Ben complained.

“Again, you are in charge here….Hello?!” the bear said in a snarky tone.

“True. But anyway, tonight, when my mom is asleep, I´m gonna want you to go into her room and look in her closet. I need to know what I´m getting” Ben said.

“That´s a stupid fucking idea. You know your mom is a light sleeper” the bear said.

Ben was furious at the bear´s foul mouth. He let it go this time. He simply said, “You´ll make it work. I´ll use my imagination”

Later that night when the house was quite and still, the alarm Ben set on his cell phone went off. He looked over at Chase the Bear´s chair but he was not there. With his legs still on the mattress he leaned off the side of the bed and had a look under. Nothing. He was sure he had put Chase in his chair before nodding off to sleep.

The he felt as if a small animal had jumped on the other side of the bed. He jumped up. There were no pets in the house since his beloved cat died three months earlier. Then he felt a weight on his chest and something fury forcing its way into his mouth. It was Chase!

“I am so sick and tired of you kid” Chase said as he shoved his arm into Ben´s mouth and covered his nose with the other.

Ben couldn´t make a sound. He felt powerless against the otherwise weightless bear. The more he wanted to struggle the more he could not. Tears were streaming down his eyes.

“This is just your imagination, kid” Chase said. “You´re in control here”

All Ben could do was cry. His head started to feel light. He couldn´t hear much. His desperation was rounding the curve and turning into an eerie calm. Then, he felt a vibration by his side. Then he heard a familiar music start to play. Softly at first, gradually getting louder.

All of a sudden he felt sweet air fill his lungs. He looked around. His face was dry. No tears had fallen. He looked to his side. Chase was sitting there just as he had left him there.

That day Ben decided to think twice before using his imagination.

Pot Apocalypse Part 2

Please read Part 1 before indulging in this episode: Pot Apocalypse Part 1

Slim left the house hungry. He figured that when he got back, his mother would be there and then she would be able to serve him. As he made his way to the store to buy a lighter, he noticed that there were very few people on the streets. Businesses were closed. There were not very few people on the street. There were no people on the street.

As he walked up to the store and pulled on the door, he noticed it was locked. “What the…..” he thought to himself. He pulled out his cell phone. There was no signal. He tried to call his friend, Dean but there was no service. He started to get a little worried but he remembered he was high and that was enough to calm him down. “Must be the weed buggin me out” he thought. He decided to walk to Dean´s house. There was another store on the way and it was only a fifteen minute walk.

As he made his way to Dean´s he noticed the other store, a 24 hour convenient store, was closed as well. He decided to pick up his pace a little. Now he was coming down a little but still feeling a little paranoid. Now he was starting to worry.

He finally got to Dean´s house and banged on the door. The door opened just enough, with the chain still attached, for Dean to yell out “Who is it?”

“It´s Slim, let me in”

“Ok” Dean said. He closed the door so he could undo the chain. The door swung open and Dean grabbed slim by the arm and pulled him in.

“What the fuck is going on man?” Dean asked Slim.

“What are you talking about?” Slim asked, his paranoia increasing tenfold.

“Nobody´s around, man! They all disappeared. Haven´t you noticed?” Dean asked before putting his mouth to a medium sized bong and ripping a hit.

“Yeah, I noticed that something is weird. All the stores are closed” Slim said as he reached for the bong. “Let me hit it, yo”  of course Dean obliged.

“Does you cell phone work?” Dean asked.

“No” Slim answered as a billow of smoke left his mouth.

“Let´s go to Be´s house to see if he´s ok. You´re the first person I saw all day. I´m kind of freaked here, man” Dean said.

The two burned the rest of the contents in the comically large bowl and started off for their friend Be´s house.  Not before sitting around for some time though.

Pot Apocalypse Part 1

It was 11:00am. Slim’s cell phone barely wretched him out of his cannabis induced slumber. Without even opening his eyes, he reached over to the nightstand and felt for his bong. Splash!

“Damn!” Slim said, now wide awake. Sitting up, he could see the mess he had just made. There was dirty bong water on the carpet and the smell was terrible. “Mom is gonna kill me” he muttered to himself.

He made his way downstairs to get some paper towels and carpet cleaner. He tried his best to avoid his parents. His father would be easy to avoid. He had gone off to work over four hours ago. His mother would be tougher. She was probably in the kitchen making the pre-preparations for tonight´s dinner.

He snuck around the corner and peeked his head into the kitchen. No one was there. He felt relieved. He grabbed what he needed from under the sink and as quickly and deftly as he could, which was not very after years of constantly being under the effects of marijuana, he made his way to his room.

As he entered his room, he was hit with the awful smell of the bong water. He thought to himself that there was no way his mother wouldn´t smell this. He was about to attack his problem when he realized something. He hadn´t smoked yet. For Slim, the most satisfying smoke was the one after he had just woken up. He forgot about the smell, the worry that his mom would find out and about everything for that matter. What he needed at that moment was to get high. So he did.

He carefully picked the buds out of the carpet that had fallen out of the bowl of the bong and put them back to where they once were. He went to the bathroom to replace the water that was now staining the carpet. He was all ready. He went to put fire to the bowl and click…No flame. Click…no flame. “Awwww!” Slim said aloud. His lighter was out of fluid. He got on his hands and knees and looked under the bed for his emergency matches. “There they are” he said to himself, or out loud. At this point, Slim´s internal dialog sometimes made its way out of his mouth.

He struck the match and a beautiful flame danced on the tip of the small piece of wood. Slim marveled at it too long and it burned down to his finger tips rendering the match useless to light the bong. He struck another, this time putting it directly on the marijuana and sucking on the bong. After three massive hits from the bong he felt that familiar tightening behind his eyes.

Everything slowed down to the speed Slim liked to operate at. Concentrating on one thing was no longer easy and that was comfortable to him. Now that he had that familiar feeling, he was ready to go about cleaning the mess. But Slim felt the urge to use the bathroom so he grabbed his cell phone and went. Slim was so engrossed in a video game that he forgot about the mess and his legs had fallen asleep. He looked at the clock. He had been on the toilet for an hour. In that time, he had smoked the other half of a joint he must have started yesterday. Or another day. He really didn´t know. But he was baked. That he was sure of.

He went back into his room to put some clothes on. He was so high, not only did he forget about the mess, he did not notice the putrid smell of bong water and failed to see the cleaning supplies he had left on the floor next to the mess. He did see the lighter on the bed and remembered that he had to go to the store to buy another one.

He got dressed and went downstairs calling for his mother the whole way down. He was hungry and wanted breakfast. There was no response. It was a little odd, his mother usually did not leave to do her errands without having given Slim, a 29 year old unemployed man-child, his breakfast. But, if she had something really important to do, she would leave cereal in a bowl on the table with the right amount milk needed in a Pyrex pitcher off to the side.

Neither the bowl, nor the pitcher where on the table. That was odd. Now Slim was curious. “Guess I´ll have to get that lighter on an empty stomach, then” he said, out loud. And with that he left the house, forgetting to lock the door behind him.

(To be continued)

Pot Apocalypse Part 2 

Dirty Work

“It´s hard to pay the bills sometimes” Sheila said as she nervously puffed a cigarette and stared out of the window at nothing and everything at the same time. “You got to do what you got to do sometimes”

“Aren´t you ashamed of yourself?” Beth asked. She had just found out Sheila´s secret font of income.

“No!” Sheila said turning her head and fixing her gaze at Beth. “Not for one second”

“Calm down, Sheila. I am not saying that you should be. I am just asking as a friend”

“Well, stop asking. I don´t want to talk about it” Sheila said as she freed another cigarette from the pack and lit it with the burning filter of the last one. “What the fuck were you doing there in the first place?”

“I go there sometimes. That´s all” Beth said, now feeling the spot light of shame shining on her. “Listen, we all do things for money that we are not proud of sometimes. It´s ok.”

“No, we don´t! There are many people in this world that do not even have to do anything to get stuff. They were just born with stuff. They do not have to humiliate themselves ever and they even get to live better than those who do!” Sheila said now crying.

“Listen, Sheila, that´s life. Some people are born with everything, some are born with nothing. Some are born healthy, some are born dead! That´s just the way it goes. It is what it is” Beth stopped when she realized she sounded like a cliché reproducing robot.

“Well I was not born to greet people as they come into Wal-mart!” Sheila said, her eyes now furiously pouring tears.

 

Liquid Werewolf

 

For Rick, reality seemed as slippery as a bar of soap in a prison shower. It didn´t help that Rick was altering his consciousness on a daily basis. He would celebrate good occurrences by “going deep”, as he put it. He would escape the bad movements by “tuning out”, as he put it. But this had to change when he met Pamela. He was in love with her and Pamela did not approve of such behavior. He loved the feeling she gave him more than that of the substances, at least for now. Of course that feeling will fade and the sudden urgent hit of the substances will call him back. Not to mention the high will be increased by his abstinence making it harder to say no. But for now he is towing the line.

On a rainy Sunday afternoon while lying in bed after a hardy fast food lunch that made them sleepy, Pamela hit Rick with some shocking news.

“Rick, what do you think about kids?” she asked.

“They are great. Far from me” he answered. His words felt like a well placed punch in Pamela´s stomach.  “Why?” he asked.

“No reason” she said, trying to hide her real emotions.

Over the course of the next few months, Pamela did everything she could to hide her ever growing belly from Rick. Besides what he said on that rainy afternoon when she tried to tell him the news, deep down she knew he´d be a lousy father. He was 35 years old and living in a room in an old woman´s house. Their deal was, he´d keep the grass cut and the rent would be cheap.  The grass was knee high.

Pamela´s belly got to the point that no garment would hide it. She was nervous. She had a strange attachment to Rick even though she knew she could do much better. In her heart she knew she had to do better for herself and her unborn child. She wanted to have a dialog with Rick and she thought that maybe a few beers would loosen him up so she picked up a 12 pack on her way to Rick´s house.

When she arrived she offered him a beer. A wave of fear washed through Rick´s stomach. It was as if a self aware werewolf saw the first sliver of a full moon.

“Oh, I shouldn´t dear, I just took a Tylenol and that´s not good for the liver” he said, proud of his own quick thinking.

“Just one, hun. I´ll have one with you” she insisted.

“Just one” he said.

That first beer went down his throat as if it were honey descending a silk lined golden tube. It tasted so good. The slight alteration in mood felt so familiar. The air smelled better. The future seemed to not matter yet so much brighter at the same time. If one beer made him feel this way, another would make him feel that much better.

“Pass me another on, hun, that hit the spot” he said. He was careful to form the words perfectly. He did not want his tongue to defy him. He knew that it was already becoming a little rebellious.

“Sure” she said as she past him another.

He drank it down even more greedily than the first. The bright warm feeling starting to turn a little dark with this beer. The future seemed to matter even a little less, though the brightness was gone. The switch was thrown.

“We really need to talk” Pamela said not knowing that the chemistry of Rick´s brain was changing like a hot summer afternoon with a storm rolling in.

“Sure, babe, pass another beer” he said.

“Ok, but take it easy, you don´t want to get drunk, do you?” she said jokingly.

He didn´t pick up on the playfulness in her words and said “What is it to you if I get drunk. We are together for a few months and you already want to control me?” he felt an old anger that has been with him for years. “I want a cigarette”.

“You smoke?” Pamela asked with a shocked expression on her face.

“Sometimes” he said as he reached passed her and pulled the third beer from the box.

“I didn´t know that” she said.

“Yeah? Well, there are a lot of things you don´t know about me” he said with a face that was not hiding the sourness he felt in his soul. He chugged the beer without even taking a breath. He reached for the fourth.

“What´s going on here?” Pamela asked.

“You told me to” he answered. This really confused Pamela.

“I have to go” Pamela gathered her things and went for the box of beer when a hand grabbed her wrist and pulled it away.

“You can leave that” Rick said.

“Ok” she said with tears in her eyes.

That night Rick went on a bender that ended three days later. When he finally passed out in a burned out house on a pissed stained mattress in the seedy part of town, Pamela had already crossed the country to lay her head on the silk pillow in the luxurious guest room of her sister´s home.