…… at last!
(12 Speak Without interruption)
Minnette Coleman, Robert Ellal, Tony Flynn, Steve Gratner, Prentiss Gray, Charles Huxton, John Joss, Mel Nicolai, Paul Perry, Tim Roux, Stephen Sangirardi and Norton Taylor
Published by Night Publishing, Smashwords edition
Each story or poem remains the copyright of the author or of his / her assigns and appears here by kind permission of the copyright holder.
ISBN: 978-1-4523-7185-6
Thank you for downloading this free e-book. You are welcome to share it with your friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form.
Fun, shocking, exhilarating, comic and sometimes graphic real-life short stories and poems with a hint (or more) of sex from 12 of the sharpest contributors to the online international writers’ magazine.
Introduction
I have a thing about sex, and maybe not the same thing as you have.
I know that intellectualising about sex is about as useful as trying to levitate the balance in your bank account, but sex, as they say, is all in the head.
Well, maybe they don’t all say it, or maybe it depends on what they mean by ‘head’.
Sex is responsible for the production of every living creature on the planet. There are a variety of ways of doing it, but it does have to be done. It also has a variety of follow-ups. Some smoke, some snore, some snarl and some just eat their partners.
Whatever your personal preference, sex is freely available (except when you are looking for it), omnipresent (even if you cannot always see it happening on your eyelids) and a well-trodden path (especially within landscapes that remain ruggedly natural and yet are easily accessed by car).
However, for something which is so prevalent, so necessary to life and so motivational, the details (even the purely emotional ones) of people’s experiences remain surprisingly proprietary. You would think that Coca-Cola owned the patent. It doesn’t (according to my Google of two minutes ago it is owned by one of the following: a cigarette brand, Gucci, or Sarah Palin of the US Republican Party – wuff!), but sex is still far from an open secret even if many complain that they cannot get away from it wherever they look nowadays. That’s congenital nano-vision for you.
Out there in the world (as against in there in the tantric yoga class) you have pornography (which is sex without the relationships), artistic sex (which delivers an orgasm every time, if only in the audience) and sex education (which tells you the shape and size of everything and nothing about the value of flowers, and of copious amounts of insincere flattery and alcohol).
Our guess is that if you are starting out on your quest, it is always useful to have a map even if it is badly crumpled and only tells you where not to go. If, on the other hand, you are a seasoned traveller, maybe you would like to be reminded of where you have been and to be reassured that your behaviour wasn’t too weird. The forces of social propriety have learnt how to pump sexual guilt directly into our veins at an early age and to keep applying the boosters.
The starting point for this compilation of short stories and poems was a joke challenge to the writers who contribute to the international open online magazine Speak Without Interruption (where you can publish directly onto the site anything vaguely literary of your own making you wish). The challenge was to ‘describe your first sexual experience’. Some responded by doing just that and some others responded by saying that they did not want to be associated with such filth. So we now have our patent remedy against all evangelical door-knockers. You may wish to keep a copy of this book by your front door. It is whippy enough to swat flies and it has a proven track record in warding off other pests.
From that inspiring firing gun we broadened the theme to accepting any short story which was true and which reflected on the human sexual condition in some way. We have tried to balance off the tell-it-as-it-is detailed reportage with fun and comedy; we have tried to balance off the comedy with some chilling moments; and we have tried to balance off the fun with poetry.
Actually, the poems comprise many of my favourite pieces. So do the short stories. Speak Without Interruption is a meeting place for some very raw, passionate and skilled writers who are well worth a nibble. If you are a writer yourself, come join us. There will be worse to come. If you are a reader, come join us too and maybe we can cajole you into writing.
Anyway, with regard to this particular book, we encourage you to phone a friend and tell him / her how disgusting it probably is but you have to at least check it out to form an educated and informed opinion, to tuck up warm, to turn on the side light, and to suck it and see.
Tim Roux, editor – October 2009
a
babe on the subway – Paul Perry
she
has the hottest legs
golden brown skin
a body that seems to
have been truly molded by god himself
and she stands about 2 feet
from where i sit
she is reading an instruction manual of some
sort
and is wearing a short blue skirt and white high heel
pumps.
her toes are perfectly proportioned so that every toe
descends in perfection
and every now and then
she turns
slightly to show me some more of what she has to offer some lucky
shmuck.
i sit
trying to read my bukowski book
but
i cannot concentrate
(sorry charles)
meanwhile the subway gets
more and more crowded
and so i lose sight of the only beautiful
thing to look at down here.
she now stands behind a
small mass of hanging bodies,
as suddenly the seat next to me
clears
and somehow,
as if out of a dream,
she appears from
behind the wall of drawn fabric
and sits down by my side.
she sits next to
me for a couple of stations
finally i get up the nerve to say
something to her
i turn to her and say
“you got great
legs.”
she gives me a strange look,
gets up
and walks
away.
2. Missing – Steve Sangirardi
For
the past ten years my wife’s been missing…
mysteriously she
has disappeared
not like some thief who runs off with your
things,
not like a starlet who craves a career.
Kidnapping,
too, is out of the question
or the police would have been called
by now.
But she might as well be held for ransom
for this is
not the wife who took that vow
although she lives here, even
shares my bed.
I would go so far as to proudly swear
that since
she has known me she’s known no men
and doesn’t rue a single
wedded year.
But the past ten years I have not seen her
whom I
see each day and can even hear.
3. Kindness: A Budding – Mel Nicolai
If I can trust my memory (and experience advises a degree of caution here), my first sexual experience—or, at any rate, the first in which I had the pleasure of a partner—occurred when I was in the third grade; a seven-year-old of otherwise implacable innocence.
When looking back on some of my other later sexual experiences, I am gratified to be able to say that my first partner in love was not in any way coerced into (or paid for) her services. Her name was Miriam Ching, the only Asian student in our school. Miriam was an exceptional student and I remember our teacher explaining to the class that the reason Miriam was so smart was because all the smart Chinese were leaving China for a better life in the U.S.. This was rather typical of the 50’s mind-set, but at seven years old, I was still too young, or too dull-witted, for my perceptions to be mangled by politics or racism. To me Miriam was just another kid, albeit a somewhat mysterious and beautiful one.
What led to our tryst was a badly skinned knee, mine, acquired during recess, and serious enough to warrant minor first aid. When the teacher got out the First Aid Kit, Miriam, for reasons I can only guess at, asked the teacher for permission to administer the antiseptic and Band-Aid. I don’t know if Miriam actually liked me, or if she was just getting some early medical experience, (were the Chinese as ambitious as they were smart?) or, who knows, maybe her enthusiasm was the product of some exotic oriental kinkiness just beginning to emerge from her prepubescent psyche. At any rate, I had no objection to her doing the honors and the two us retired to the back of the classroom. Kneeling on my good knee, I pulled up my pant’s leg, exposing the injury, and did what I could to prepare myself for the inevitable antiseptic sting.
But that’s not what happened. Using a cotton-tipped swab, Miriam applied the medicine with such gentle precision, such unbounded solicitude, that I was instantly overcome by something I had never before experienced, or even suspected possible. A strange tingling warmth originating somewhere in my lower abdominal region began to radiate, like gentle electricity, spreading through my entire body. As Miriam, with delicately excruciating exactitude, continued to dab my knee, the feeling intensified, finally reaching my head, at which point I collapsed. I just toppled over sideways.
I had no idea what had happened, but it was the most amazing sensation I’d ever experienced. I was so mystified by it, I couldn’t wait for the next day when I asked the teacher to allow Miriam to play doctor again. Miriam was inscrutably willing, and again, I can only guess why.
4. The End Of Innocence – Minnette Coleman
It was the first month of my first year of Catholic high school. There was so much new going on in my life I thought my 14 year old heart would burst. I had new friends who had gone to the other all black Catholic grade school across town. I didn’t have to wear a uniform so mama had taken me to buy brand new clothes that made me look like an adult. Best of all there was a young man in the senior class that caught my fancy and he smiled at me. I was in heaven at the possibility of a romance with an older man, although I would have been lost at what to do with one.
The year was 1965 and young women, especially young women in Catholic school in the South, knew less about sex than children of today. My parents were always affectionate kissing in front of us but nothing like the full exchange of body fluids you get on today’s videos. We didn’t know a lot about sex unless we got it on the street. The nuns and priests had passed on the church’s position that sex was between two married people (the word consenting did not enter their explanation) for the sole purpose of procreation. Although we accepted the teaching we knew there was more to sex and waited for the right person to ask about what, where and how. But back in September of 1965 I had no one to ask. The only knowledge I possessed was what my mother told me: don’t be alone with men, keep your skirt down, and don’t let men touch you. She was smart enough to realize that the blanks would be filled in with street tales and gossip. That’s how sex had been taught for generations.
There wasn’t much I needed to know to meet my mother after work that last week of September and go for my school year doctor’s appointment. The problem was I would be going with my siblings, two younger sisters and a three year old brother. I didn’t really want to be seen with them, it made me feel like a little kid. Why couldn’t I go to the doctor on my own? But my mother needed me to wrangle my baby brother and placate my little sister. So I dressed like a lady that day because I didn’t want anyone getting the idea that I was a little girl like the children I was escorting.
For two years I had been the owner of breasts too large for my limited imagination. There was no Victoria’s Secret in Georgia in those days and girls ‘blessed’ with large bosoms wore bras that lifted and separated, but also made your chest look even more enormous than it actually was. When I wished upon a star, as I often did before I said my prayers and went to bed (I wanted to touch base with all my areas of superstition) I wished that my breasts would grow no more. I had already outgrown most of my tops and dresses and those that my mother loaned me often fit like a glove. The culture of that time led me to believe I was trying to imitate Marilyn Monroe in all her buxom glory. It wasn’t that popular a cause since being reed thin like the model Twiggy was in. In truth I wouldn’t have minded except I was 14 and had seen that movie “Niagara” in which Monroe played a vixen so sexy she ended up getting killed by her jealous husband. Her tops were always snug. On an adult woman it was considered sexy and more than a little Catholic School girl could fathom. I was not prepared for the association between having tits and giving up ass.
Visits to the dear old doctor always ended with a trip to Yates & Milton Drug Store and the treats we got at their little counter. Mama always had tea, my sisters a scoop of vanilla ice cream and I’d have chocolate. We’d sit at the little bistro tables with matching chairs that looked like they came out of a kitchen and wait for my father to finish at the paper and take us home. Everyone knew us in the area. I had spent many weekends at the newspaper down the street trying to learn my dad’s trade and running errands for some of the reporters and staff. It felt safe like everything else that surrounded us.
My mother asked me to do the ordering and I left the tables which were empty at the hour save for my family, passed the rotating racks of birthday, anniversary and sympathy cards and sat down on one of the red vinyl stools at the counter. My pencil cut skirt wasn’t so tight that I couldn’t sit but had I been older and from a different era I wouldn’t have dreamed of having ice cream in a skirt so form-fitting it could show every flaw. I was young and wasn’t sure I had any yet.
It was one of those warm Georgia days at a time when there were few buildings with air conditioning. My dark green skirt was complemented by a light green sleeveless top that my mother gave me. My hair was pulled back into a ponytail and I wore no jewelry since my father didn’t want us to get our ears pierced. While waiting on the portly woman behind the counter to take our order I contemplated whether I should be an adult and have tea like my mother but decided against it since it was too hot. No one I went to high school with was going to find me at this soda counter eating ice cream so I decided to enjoy my treat.
At the end of the counter a man had his back to me. He was talking to a woman whose body language and soft speech could only mean she was angry with him. Once I placed the order I went back to my mother and siblings, my brother had his truck on the table and my little sister was whining that she wanted a new book. My other sister, the sweet calm one, found a book in her satchel and started reading a story. My brother crawled into mama’s lap as I went to check on the order. I knew it would take two trips to get it all to the table and I knew that if my little brother didn’t get his tiny bowl first there would be hell to pay.
I could smell grilled cheese and burgers cooking as I walked to the counter and wished that’s what we were having for dinner instead of left-overs. My mind was so clogged with thoughts of food that I almost didn’t hear a voice say: “Well ain’t we a nice little piece of pie.”
At first I didn’t think the voice was directed at me. I was standing at the counter with my hands folded as the man approached me. Out of the corner of my eye I could see his loud colored suit. His aroma arrived before he did accompanied by far too much after shave. Taking a seat next to me he smiled at me and uttered a friendly but far from harmless “Hello.”
Always the polite dark southern belle I responded to him, my elder in kind.
“Now that’s more like it. How you doing?” Seemed like a harmless question but something about the way he said it frightened me. Mama’s words about men were starting to haunt me.
“Fine” was all I was supposed to say. The woman was still working on the burgers and the porcelain dishes were empty of ice cream.
“You know you look good enough to eat, all nice and brown. Yum, yum.”
I could feel his breath on my arm and was scared to turn in his direction. I couldn’t just move to my left because there was a stool there. While I was trying to plan a polite way out of the area of his breathing he did something bizarre. He licked my arm. Not just a quick touch of his tongue to my skin. He started at my elbow and moved all the way up to my shoulder on my bare arm.
I was frozen with fear because no man had ever touched me this way before and I was sure this man, at least 20 years my senior, wasn’t supposed to be doing it either.
The woman behind the counter looked up and saw what he was doing. “Leave that child alone” she said and moved towards us trying to keep her voice low.
“Child?” He said and sat back. “That ain’t no child built like that. She a full grown woman with that figure.”
“She may look like she older but she just 14 and you best leave her alone cause her daddy edits the paper down the street and I’m sure he don’t want you touching his daughter.”
At the mention of my age the man lost his taste for me and moved down two stools, back to his iced tea and looking out the window at the women walking down the street. The woman patted my hand and then said: “I’ll fix your cream now. ‘fore I was waiting for the water to get hot for you mama’s tea. You go sit and I’ll bring it so you don’t have to be around this riff raff.”
I told her I was fine and I would wait, even though I wasn’t. Had I gone to sit, my mother would have wanted to know why I was making that woman work so hard when I had two good legs to help her. I had no idea what had happened to me but I knew I had been violated. A man touched me and that wasn’t supposed to happen. Was he supposed to ask me first or was it all right that he as an adult could have his way with my arm and perhaps in some other instance with the rest of me.
Trying to remain steady on my feet I got the treats to the table and as it seemed they took forever to eat. It was the most uncomfortable I had ever been in my life. I knew this was something that I couldn’t tell my parents because I felt I had done something wrong. It was the way women were looked at then. A man only made a move because you let him.
But I didn’t let him. I just didn’t know how to explain it.
After that day I started watching the things I did and the things men said with a new level of care. I asked my mother for tops that had longer sleeves and skirts that weren’t so tight. Finally I talked to my new friends about what happened. The first thing I learned was it wasn’t my fault. The second thing I learned was to tell men to back off.
I never told my mother or my father. In a few years it was the beginning of the sexual revolution and things changed. But that day I lost my innocence. It wasn’t the most horrific thing but every loss is sad. Sadder still when you don’t understand why.
5. Car #1: a tale of sex and fuel – Prentiss Gray
It was, coincidentally, spring. A time when a boy’s fancy turns to cars and girls, mine certainly did. Having just lost my own vehicle, due to the refusal of my parents to pay for any more repairs, I turned to my father’s; specifically his station car.
A station car is used to commute to the railroad station every day, where it’s parked until the return trip home. Other than that, it only gets trotted out for short trips on weekends. It seemed a sad life for such an excellent automobile; a 1970 Toyota Corolla, SR5. It had screwed-on fender expansions, a zippy paint job and 1600 CCs of “Baby, color me gone!”
Seeking the rescue of this sad prisoner, I began to borrow the SR5 every day by volunteering to drive my father to the station. It gave us time to commune as father and son, discussing important events of the times. He would say things like “3000 RPM! Jesus Christ, Prentiss, I used to take my plane off at that RPM! Slow down, for Christ’s sake, you’re going to kill us all!” To which I would reply “Did you get that old just by standing around, or did you have to take a special course?”
All was mostly blissfully normal for us, except the thing that nagged at me. Well, two things actually. One, this wonderful car was clearly not as fast as it looked, and two, I couldn’t figure out how to get laid. The first I had a plan for, the second was someone else’s plan. When I look back on it, both plans were strangely similar, all about getting one thing into another.
I don’t really know all the details of her plan, but I can tell you mine; it involved nitromethane. Nitromethane is the simplest organic nitro compound; drag racers use it as a fuel, as in “Top fuel drag racing.” Nitromethane produces 2.3 times the energy of regular gasoline, mostly because you can put a lot more in the cylinder. It needs less oxygen to burn. The connection and need was obvious to me. What I wasn’t sure of was, where could I get nitromethane?
What I am pretty sure of, is that her name was Paula, and she was a student at the high school I attended after my triumphant expulsion from the Millbrook School. That’s another story, mostly about mercury fulminate, but duller, because there’s a whole lot less good sex in it. For reasons totally unknown to me, Paula found me attractive. Perhaps it was the mystery of a new student, a potential “bad boy”, or possibly just because I was an available senior. But the news was, I was suddenly attractive to her. That’s not a bad thing for a young man, which is why I gave her a ride that day. Well, that, and she had breasts.
Luckily, like Paula, nitromethane is also freely available, although, only as a fuel for gas-powered models. Ever since my father and I had successfully launched my replica Spitfire from his caring hands, and I completed a bold, beautiful circle around the field and directly back to the seat of his pants, I was completely enamored with gas-powered models. You never know what you have until you check the label.
So, now I had some, the trick was to somehow get the nitromethane into the engine in a controlled fashion. A problem I thought I solved by building on a small tank under the hood which had a valve controlled by a pull-knob attached to the gear shift. Pull the knob, and the nitro flowed. But, just not very well. The almost stagnant drip, drip, drip, that the system delivered into the carburetor made almost no difference at all to the overall velocity of the car. Bummer.
I had an epiphany late one night, probably while practicing for my intended career in masturbation, about pressurizing the nitro for a better overall delivery. I would create a second reservoir with a one-way valve. Attach it to the exhaust manifold, where the nitromethane could collect and be heated. The resulting pressure would deliver the entire contents of the second reservoir into the carburetor in one bold stroke. First click of the knob loads the heated resevoir, the second releases it into the engine.
I was just putting the final touches to it in the school parking lot, when Paula put her hand up my shirt, and stroked my back.
“Have you ever just looked at someone, and known you wanted to kiss them?” she said.
“Uh…….Burlamba..lam…ba…lam..ba (not clever rock and roll here, just surprised blithering) Someone…like me?” I quipped cleverly (in my best high squeaky voice).
This was our first conversation, and at the best of times, I often need to warm up a bit, before talking.
“Yes,” she retorted smoothly. “I’ve been wondering what it would be like to kiss you for a long time.”
“Wow………” I drooled, trailing off to silence as my pants mysteriously began to tighten.
Paula was a junior, slightly shorter than me, with short brown hair and a cute figure. Of course more importantly she had breasts, which to a young man of my ilk, would have made a balding, tobacco chewing, woman with the dimensions of an ocean tugboat quite acceptable. Up until that time, I had spent most of my life in boarding schools, where breasts were sadly few and far between.
While I was considering her elfin smile, bright eyes and glorious “breastage”, I hoped that the conversation was over and either the wild love making could begin, or I could go off somewhere and work on my career. Then, she spoke again.
“I live in Port Washington. Can you give me a ride home? It’s on your way, isn’t it?”
With breasts, as far as I was concerned, Sumatra was on my way.