Joan's First Time

Joan awoke in her roommate’s bed. Her head ached while she tried to navigate her confusion. Her roommate left town a few nights ago to visit her parents.

Joan threw a party last night to celebrate the end of midterms. It occurred to her, about a week prior, that she never socialized with any of her college classmates. She faced her senior year in half a semester. She wanted to enjoy at least one party.

She invited everyone from three of her classes. More than half of them arrived. Most of them brought beer.

Her head continued to throb, though she knew she only nursed a single, plastic cup of Rolling Stone.

Why couldn’t she recall the second half of her party?

She tried to sit up, and a worse pain corkscrewed through her lower body. She yanked aside her sheets and gasped. A slick sheet of blood covered the sheets.

She stared.

Her period synched with her roommate’s over a year ago. It wouldn’t arrive for couple days. Did her cycle start early?

She forced herself out of bed, winced at the pain. Her cycle never hurt this much. Should she see a doctor?

A used condom sat inside the trashcan by her nightstand.

That made no sense. She didn’t sleep around. She never experienced sex . . . so long as blowjobs didn’t count.

The pieces slowly took hideous form in her fuzzy mind. She recalled the countless times she set down her drink, walked away from it. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

Her knees shook. What should she do? She could call the cops and give them the condom. Couldn’t they get DNA off it?

If she involved the police, her parents might discover what happened to her. Her father would kill her. She promised: no parties, no beer, no boys.

Who did this to her? Could a guest reasonably slip something into her drink, carry her nearly unconscious body onto her roommate’s bedroom, and . . . and screw her without the notice of anyone else at the party?

Impossible. At least a couple of her classmates watched it happen, did nothing to save her.

What if more than one of them did this to her? What if someone literally watched the whole thing? What if someone recorded it, put it online?

. . . She sat in class, tried to stare at her returned midterm exam (A+).

“Great party, last night,” a black-haired guy said as he passed her desk.

Ice coated her bones. Did the black-haired guy mean it in innocent fashion, or did something sinister slither within the remark?

She watched the guy take his seat. She tried to decipher any hidden message in his comment.

Her eyes glided across the room, scrutinized every look that every student paid her. Which one raped her? Did any of the other students know?

She raced from the classroom so abruptly that she didn’t even grab her bag.

She reached the women’s restroom, entered a stall, crashed onto her knees, and puked across the side of a toilet.

She blinked back tears, couldn’t find the strength to stand.

. . . She couldn’t force herself to return to class. Ever. She couldn’t sit amongst those students and wonder.

She sat, at the moment, in her bathroom, stared at the pregnancy test strip in her hand.

The plus sign felt sarcastically positive.

. . . She stumbled from the abortion clinic, shocked at how much the procedure hurt.

Her insides ached as if someone rooted around inside her with a garden instrument.

She felt outsmarted, made the butt of a cruel joke, and she too dumb to even know who played it upon her. Did her attacker even remember her name?

Her family raised her to believe that abortion equaled murder. She couldn’t support a child, though. She certainly couldn’t show her father a swollen belly.

A small crowd with picket signs screamed at her from across the street. They called her a bitch and a slut and a sinner and worse worse worse.

. . . She lost her scholarship due to an entire semester left incomplete. How could she explain her absences?

She wondered if she could ever enjoy sex with her future husband, or if she sat doomed to always fake her orgasms, never experience the real thing.

. . . A member from the crowd at the abortion clinic used his cellphone to record her while she drove from the parking lot. He used her license plate to identify her. Put the video on Youtube with her name attached. He even called her parents.

Her father called, demanded to know the truth.

She burst into tears, confessed to the abortion, to the loss of her scholarship. She admitted nothing more. Couldn’t.

. . . She sat, decades later, at her father’s funeral. She tried to recall the good memories, but she remembered only those words to her all those years ago, over the phone.

You don’t deserve God’s love, and you don’t deserve mine.

Thanks for reading.

You probably noticed that I went about a week without a blog entry. I apologize for that. The creation of the prototype for my card game, Duelists of Darkwana (based on my novel series, Diaries of Darkwana), managed to eat up a lot of my time.

I also need to explain, on that note, where the heck the third novel for that series went. It sits done and ready to publish on Kindle.

At the moment, my wonderful cover artist deals with a few distractions. I promise that as soon as I get the completed cover art from her (if not sooner), I shall publish the third novel in my series.

I publish my blogs as follows:

Sundays: Movie reviews at moviesmartinwolt.blogspot.com

Mondays: Short stories at martinwolt.blogspot.com

Tuesdays: A look at the politics of the entertainment world at EntertainmentMicroscope.blogspot.com.

Wednesdays: An inside look at my novels (such as Daughters of Darkwana, which you can now find on Kindle) at Darkwana.blogspot.com

Thursdays: Tips to improve your fiction at FictionFormula.blogspot.com

What Happened at Dreamy Studios Theme Park

He needed this contract.

He hated his current job. He hated phone conferences that resembled the one he currently shared.

Anderson, his cellphone wedged between his shoulder and face, bent over in his screened-in, back porch and tried to coax his one-year-old to accept another spoonful of yellow, baby gunk.

His one-year-old, Patrick, wouldn’t comply. He kept his lips shut tight and his head turned away from the offered spoon.

Anderson’s pool reeked of chlorine. His family always wanted a pool, and he felt content that he provided one.

A flat screen TV hung from one of the back porch’s brick walls. A foursome of brightly colored beaver-things danced around the screen and sang, “This Old Man.”  Dreamy Studios produced the show, which Anderson put on for Patrick’s benefit.

Anderson’s future rested with Dreamy Studios. He could quit the career he hated and start the one he always wanted if Dreamy agreed to run a pilot for Anderson’s children’s show. He already wrote the scripts for the first season.

Anderson loved kids. He considered them geniuses. They always spoke their minds, they did what felt good, and they always asked, “Why?” It stuck him as a shame that adulthood would turn them into idiots.

Idiots like Anderson’s current boss, Harvey, whose voice echoed from Anderson’s cellphone. “We can’t afford to keep the airline, Anderson. We never could compete with those big-name carriers.”

Anderson didn’t bother to remind Harvey that no one but Harvey ever considered the purchase of a small airline a good idea.

“We’ll just make up our losses with a few more transcontinental bus routes,” Harvey said the way someone says, I’ll just make some toast.

Anderson stirred the bottle of yellow, baby gunk. “From where will we get new busses?”

“We’ll just make them from the airplanes we no longer need.”

Anderson felt the seed of a headache behind his right eye. “You can’t turn airplanes into busses. They’re not Transformers.”

“Sure I can,” Harvey said. “Busses. Planes. They’re both machines. Just take one apart and build the other.”

“You’re thinking of Legos,” Anderson said.

His attention returned to the flat screen. The beaver-things now sang “London Bridge” while it rained marshmallows with goofy eyes in their silly, Dreamy Studios world.

He thanks God that Dreamy Studios agreed to review his scripts. The company seemed interested. They sent his family free tickets to Dreamy Studios Theme Park in Orlando, Florida.

Anderson, too busy with the job he hated, stayed home to watch Patrick.

His wife, Beverly, took their two daughters, Tanya and Bee, ages ten and seven. He imagined that the three of them currently stood in line for a ride or overpriced snack.

*                      *                      *

Bee giggled. “Mommy passed out.”

Tanya chewed her eight-dollar, soft pretzel while Mom snored on a park bench.

Tanya’s eyes slid towards Dreamy Studios Castle, where (their ticket-taker told them) Dreamy’s famous cartoon characters lived.

Guests at the theme park couldn’t enter the castle. They could only admire it from the outside. Tanya and Bee both wanted to sneak in, but, of course, Mom wouldn’t allow it.

Mom continued to snore, her sunglasses askew across her face.

A door, painted to appear as part of the surrounding wall, creaked open from the castle’s side, as if in invitation.

Tanya and Bee exchanged excited expressions. They glanced about themselves. No one seemed to notice the open door.

They hurried through the door, which slammed shut behind them.

They discovered themselves within a wide, frosted, blue-glass hall. They walked, hand-in-hand, down its length.

The hall branched ahead of them. Tanya glanced over her shoulder as she and her sister neared the fork. The wall (hidden door concealed somewhere within it) stood farther away from them than she expected.

Footsteps drew her attention forward. Bee squealed with delight while her favorite cartoon character, Poe Bear, rounded the corner ahead of them and spread his arms wide.

Tanya and Bee halted with twin gasps of glee—and Poe Bear changed.

Half his face melted as an orange wad of goop. Silver metal winked beneath it. A robotic eye narrowed around its red iris. Serrated claws sprouted from his fingertips.

His muzzle opened, and, amongst a spray of maggots and drool, he screeched with fury.

Tanya and Bee screamed, turned, and fled. Poe chased them. His thick feet shook the glass hall. His screeches grew louder, less human.

The girls reached the wall, frantically searched for its hidden door. They couldn’t find it.

Tanya, tears in her eyes, turned to watch Poe slow to a stop, squat, and, with an explosion of flatulence, crap no fewer than six hundred spiders made from blood-soaked, finger bones.

The spiders scurried across the hall. They covered its floor, walls, and ceiling, closed upon the terrified sisters—when the hidden door behind them opened to reveal not the Theme Park they left, but a mountainous land of fire, lava, and freshly eviscerated, multi-headed clowns.

One pool of lava hiccupped before a figure erratically jerked free from its depths. The creature--a mostly hairless, seven-foot-tall rat with copious facial and genital piercings--grinned at them. His copper fangs dripped.

*                      *                      *

Anderson completed his phone conference in time to notice his daughters on TV.

He stared, slack-jawed, while a hideous, demonic version of Marty Mouse lifted Tanya and Bee, both wrapped in spiked chains and padlocks.

A throat cleared behind Anderson, who spun to witness a man in a business suit.

The stranger carried a briefcase. Green, ghostly light pulsed from the crack between the case’s lips.

The TV shut off with a cough of smoke.

The stranger produced, from the inner pocket of his jacket, a rolled sheet of paper. “I represent Dreamy Studios.” He handed the paper to Anderson, who realized he held not paper, but dried skin.

Anderson, dazed, unrolled the skin, stared at the contract printed across it.

All rights to his children’s show . . . in exchange for the return of his daughters.

“I would sign it,” the stranger said.

Anderson cleared his throat, reached for his pen.

“In blood, please.” The stranger handed Anderson a small knife decorated with Marty Mouse’s manically happy, cartoonish grin.

Anderson hesitated before he set the contract on a table and ran the blade across his palm. Blood pooled. He, with a wince, dipped his finger into the pool.

He signed the contract, returned it to the stranger (who vanished in a cloud of feathers), and watched in horror as his daughters, each hacked into several chunks, floated up from the bottom of his pool.

His pool water, now the color of cheery Kool-Aid, overflowed, slurped at his ankles, and bubbled with contentment.

(Thanks for reading. You might notice below that I changed the schedule for my blogs. I will now, because of the number of projects on my plate, only produce a short story for this blog on Mondays. Fiction Formula will switch from Fridays to Thursdays. I apologize for any inconvenience, though I . . . doubt this will rock anyone's existence. Thanks again!)

I (now) publish my blogs as follows:

Sundays: Movie reviews at moviesmartinwolt.blogspot.com

Mondays: Short stories at martinwolt.blogspot.com

Tuesdays: A look at the politics of the entertainment world at EntertainmentMicroscope.blogspot.com.

Wednesdays: An inside look at my novels (such as Daughters of Darkwana, which you can now find on Kindle) at Darkwana.blogspot.com

Thursdays: Tips to improve your fiction at FictionFormula.blogspot.com

NextLife.gov

Taylor still felt sick from the teleportation. He tried to count backwards from fifty-four. That sometimes helped. The fact that he rarely acquired more than four hours of sleep did not.

He sat in the waiting room of Next Life (NextLife.gov).

Another man sat across from him. The stranger read a digital copy of Entertainment magazine. “Looks as if Hollywood’s gonna release another Friday the Thirteenth reboot.”

Taylor realized that the stranger spoke to him. “Pardon?”

“To celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of the original,” the stranger explained.

“Oh.” Taylor stared at his callused hands. His knees ached. His head felt as if filled with cotton. He wondered who found the time to see a movie these days.

“I never understood the title, though,” said the stranger. “I mean, Friday the Thirteenth’s the least lucky day of the year, right?”

Taylor shrugged. “It might come more than once a year. I think.”

“Yet,” said the stranger, “everyone in the movie gets lucky. Don’t you find that odd?”

“They’re also getting killed,” Taylor pointed out.

“Yeah, but doing what they love.” The stranger produced a couple hip thrusts, lest Taylor not catch his drift.”

Taylor rubbed his eyes. Where do these people come from?

“Mister Ka?” someone said.

Taylor removed his hands to see a young woman in a business suit.

She offered her hand. “Kate. Shall we head to my office?”

Taylor shook her hand. “Lead the way, please.”

He stood and forced his tired legs to follow the young woman to her corner office with frosted glass walls. She sat behind her wide walnut desk. Taylor seated himself in the dangerously comfortable chair in front of it.

Don’t pass out. Don’t pass out. If you do, for the love of God, don’t snore.

Kate tented together her fingertips. “Mister Ka, here at Next Life, we stand committed to ensuring you the best next life that money can buy.”

She punched a few “buttons” on her touchscreen-desk. Holographic, green numbers scrolled across the wall behind her.

“As you can see, Mister Ka, your last monthly payment came late by over three days. At eight hundred dollars a day plus a two thousand reconnection fee—”

Taylor raised his hands. “What’s the bottom line?”

“Taking interest into account, we’ll have to raise your monthly rate by twenty percent to make up the difference.”

He rubbed his forehead. He already worked ninety hours a week. How could he hope to raise his income by another twenty percent? He would have to tighten his belt somehow, lower his expenses. How?

He cleared his throat. “Could we transfer my account to a cheaper program?”

She frowned. “Mister Ka, your current program only permits you, upon death, reincarnation into the first world. If I lower your payments one level, you’ll spend your next life in the third world. If you think this life proved difficult—”

“Right. Right.” Taylor sighed. “What happens if I die before I make the final payment for my current program?”

“In that likelihood,” Kate said, “you would receive a new life equal to the amount of money you paid by that point--minus the transfer fee."

Her fingers tapped some more virtual buttons. More green data spilled across her wall.

“As you can see—” she pointed at the data “—given your current debts, you can afford, at this point, reincarnation into a frog.”

“And how,” Taylor asked, “as a frog, could I afford to pay for a better life after that one?”

Her expression turned grave. “You couldn’t. That’s why it proves so very very important to always get reincarnated into the first world. Once you lose that, you’re lost, likely to return as a tree or slug after every death you experience thereafter.”

He rested his head in his hands. “I work so hard, already.”

Kate smiled. “Keep at it, Mister Ka. If you do, you can eventually purchase a new life as a member of the privileged. That’s what I apparently did in my last life.”

“All I can ever afford is the same life over and over again. How can I make the jump to the next level?”

She spread her arms. “Sir. I sit here as living proof. Work hard. Follow the rules. Your time will arrive.”

The rules. Taylor groaned. Next Life created a lot of rules that screwed people after death.

One of Taylors seventeen roommates, Jim, who shared his studio apartment with him, paid every month for a slightly better, next life. Unfortunately, a jeep hit Jim, killed the seventy-two-year-old before he could make his final three payments.

Next Life charged Jim a massive fee to transfer his account to another program. Only about half the money remained after that fee. Jim’s soul ended up in a skunk.

Taylor shook Kate’s smooth hand. He rose on weary legs and shuffled off to work.

(Thanks for reading. You might notice below that I changed the schedule for my blogs. I will, because of the number of projects on my plate, only produce a short story for this blog on Mondays. Fiction Formula will switch from Fridays to Thursdays. I apologize for any inconvenience, though I . . . doubt this will rock anyone's existence. Thanks again!)

I publish my blogs as follows:

Sundays: Movie reviews at moviesmartinwolt.blogspot.com

Mondays: Short stories at martinwolt.blogspot.com

Tuesdays: A look at the politics of the entertainment world at EntertainmentMicroscope.blogspot.com.

Wednesdays: An inside look at my novels (such as Daughters of Darkwana, which you can now find on Kindle) at Darkwana.blogspot.com

Thursdays: Tips to improve your fiction at FictionFormula.blogspot.com