Once A Week - Ended Aug. 29

[Stardust]

I'm going to submit mine now so I can see what everyone thinks of it.  I'm not used to writing something like this, but I think it turned out pretty good. :thumb:

Spoiler

I'm not what you'd call handsome.  I'm not the smart one, either.  In a group of people, I'm just there.  I help when I can, but I think I hurt more than help.  I was happy to become the janitor at the local business office.  I could watch all the successful people come in and out, and although I knew I would never be one, I was happy to make friends with them.  Most of them stopped for a quick conversation before heading off to their jobs, but there were some that were just too busy to talk to the janitor.

I was hoping she wasn't one of them.  Someone recommended a restaurant a few blocks down that had good food and wasn't expensive.  I went there during my lunch break and ordered a cheeseburger and french fries.  I looked around, like I always do, and one woman caught my eye.  She was in the middle of a story with all her friends leaning in.  She was beautiful, far out of my league, but her voice was entrancing.

“I told him I wasn't interested, but he still insisted on buying me a drink.”

“What did you do?” one of her friends asked.

“I eventually managed to shoo him away, but I could feel his eyes watching me as I drank.  I told the bartender what was happening, and he spread the word to the bouncers.  I was tired anyway – it was late.  I stood up to leave and the guy started following me out.”

A second friend gasped.

“I passed the bouncers, and they nodded.  When the guy came up to them, they stopped him and asked for his identification.”

“Can they do that if you're leaving?” the first friend asked.

“If they think you managed to sneak in, they can check.  It's the bars rules, so he couldn't say no.  Anyway, while the guy was distracted, I ran to my car without being too obvious.  He was still arguing with the bouncer when I drove by.”  Her and her friends started laughing.

“Sir, did you order a cheeseburger?”  I turned around and the waitress was placing my plate in front of me.

“Yes, thank you.”  I began to eat, but I was still listening to the woman's story.  The food was good, but her stories were better.

I went there every day after that, listening to the ladies' conversations.  Their lives were interesting and full of life, a sharp contrast from mopping floors.  I became familiar with all of them.  The first woman, who seemed to be the leader of the group, was named Cathy.  Her friends were Christina, Alexis, and the silent one, Caitlin.  Cathy's stories were by far the best, and I enjoyed watching her face detail every reaction.  Her or her friends caught me watching on quite a few occasions, but I calmly glanced around as if I was scanning the restaurant.  I didn't know what she thought of me.  Her boyfriends were always the handsome types, from the ones that came in every now and then, and they seemed to change every week or so.  I debated asking her out, but I didn't think she'd be interested in someone like me.

A couple of weeks ago, she told her friends that she was moving within the next few days.  I didn't want her to leave, and I wondered if my expression was worse than the reactions from her friends.  I didn't want her to disappear, so I built up the courage to talk to her.  I stood in front of the table and their conversation died down within a few seconds.  I looked straight at Cathy.

“Would y-you like to go to the movies with me tonight?”

“Yea-no.”  Her friends laughed.  I struggled to find a new sentence, and it came much slower than usual.

“W-why not?”

“Because I don't date losers!”  Her friends grew louder, and the whole restaurant turned to look at me, standing there with my mouth moving to the inaudible words.  I don't know how long that lasted.

“You should sit back down,” Caitlin told me.  I thanked them for their time and rushed back over to my seat.  My hands and legs were shaking uncontrollably, which made walking and then eating a difficulty.  The group departed earlier than usual, and the food made me calmer with each bite.

“Don't listen to them,” the woman next to me said after they had left.  I nodded slowly, pushing another bite of food into my mouth.  “I'm Sarah,” she said, still watching me.

“Thank you,” I said, finishing my last bite.  I pushed the plate away and got up, wanting to get out of the horrible memories.

I've never gone back to that restaurant again.  I walk by every now and then on my way to other restaurants, and I can't help but take a quick glance at it.  The group had departed a few days after that incident.  Apparently, Cathy was the one holding the other three to the place, just like she had been holding me there.  Sarah, the one who tried to comfort me, sat in her same spot every day.  I hadn't noticed her before, but I remember seeing her there every few days.  I guess she decided to go to that restaurant more often.  Maybe Cathy was too loud for her before.  She ate slowly, glancing at the door every few minutes.  I wonder who she's waiting for.

 

[Despain]

okay overall i like what you're trying to do. i actually really like the premise here. but i think that everything here needs to be built up more. cut some stuf and focus on the other.

for one, just the entire beginning. the first couple of paragraphs are absolutely nothing and don't add much to the story. if anything, they only add a little bit about the narrator's personality, which is something that should come up in his voice anyway as he narrates the story itself. i'd start it off with him watching cathy's story in the restaraunt. all of the janitor stuff doesn't need to be there at all, and it only holds back rom the main action.

also you really need to build this up. you TELL US THAT her stories are engaging and all that, but you don't really SHOW us. what keeps our narrator coming back for more? you only show us one of the stories that she tells, and it's not particularly interesting, either. there needs to be SOMETHING that makes her stories stand out, and it has to be in the way that she tells them. maybe she gets really animated and makes gestures and does the voices for all the people she talks about. as it is currently, i can't imagine why her stories would be so captivating.

you say that the narrator spends time getting to know these people, but WE DON'T. maybe take a paragraph or two building them up, showing us HOW he gets to know them and that kind of thing. especially cathy and her little friends. also i think adding in some details about her personal life would bring out the creepiness-yet-sweetness of the observer-type character. for example, show that over time he learned all sorts of little details, like she grew up with two stepsisters but was an only child rom her mother, and that she works next door as a travel agent and comes to this place evry day for lunch with the girls she works with. and that every monday she orders the fish sandwich, and every tuesday she orders the ranch saland, and every wednesday she orders pasta...

also you TOTALLY need to build up the ASK OUT scene. this is BIG for this guy, and what actually TRIGGERS IT. After months of just watching her, something needs to snap that makes him get up and actually try to ask her out. and when he's doing it, what's he feeling? what does he DO to show the way that he's feeling? it's all about the IN THE MOMENT DETAILS. maybe he's holding a french fry and absently puts it into his shirt pocket next to his pen

lastly i think that sarah needs a LOT more of a presence. make her visible from much earlier on, and maybe have your narrator comment on her being someone else captivated by cathy's conversations. i LOVE what you're doing with the character of sarah at the end (how the theme is turned around from the narrator onto sarah), but there was so little depth to it that it was hard to really get a grip on it. she needs to really matter more and have much more of a presence, and it can be made very strongly i think if she becomes a focal point of sorts ("ater a week or so, i noticed someone else trying to get in on my routine. this small-looking girl with red hair would always sit in this table not far from mine, and i just knew that she was listening to cathy's stories as well. she'd show up every day, just like me.") or something.

lastly lastly, there was one section that REALLY BOTHERED me.

“Yea-no.â€

 

[e]

actually, her stories could be boring for us for all we care; what matters is the narrator finds them interesting. What'd be even better (and i think this is the case) is that the narrator finds her boring stories so fucking interesting, simply because she's the opposite of himself: friends, beautiful, etc.

Maybe she's none of that, for all we know; its written in first person, so its biased. I liked it overall, the ending too.

 

[Despain]

okay here's mine. i'm pretty happy with most of it, but as usual i had a hard time getting the ending just right. look forward to feedback.

Spoiler: my story, "Safeword"

"Rape me."

Her neck seemed almost too thin as I wrapped my fingers around it. My thumb reached around and felt like it nearly touched the tip of my middle finger. I held her for a moment in one hand, letting her relish the feeling of helplessness, and threw her naked body backwards onto the bed. With her hands tied behind her back and her feet bound together, she looked like a dead fish flopping around in its own blood as she wriggled atop the red comforter.

"Rape me," she begged.

I wouldn't give her the pleasure. She loved to be teased like this, and I was more than happy to oblige. I sat down on the edge of the bed, taking my time as I pulled off my shoes and socks. I could feel her writhing behind me, but I wouldn't turn to look at her. My jacket came off slowly, and I got up to hang it neatly before returning to my seat and gently undoing my necktie. I could hear her whimpers behind me as she desperately tried to get off on her own.

It wasn't going to happen. She needed me.

"Aaargh, fuck!"

Fire in my eyes. I was blinded. More pain in my stomach, in my balls. I bent over and fell to my knees. I heard my legs crack as my jeans dug into the rough concrete and it jolted me back to reality. I heard footsteps pounding the pavement as she ran away from me. Little bitch had a can of that damn spray.

I let my body rock back and forth on the cold ground for a few moments while my vision slowly returned. An empty white paper bag was stuck behind the green dumpster and wedged up against the brick wall. It was a good focal point. This had happened to me a couple of times before, and I'd figured out that having someting to focus on made the process much easier. She must not have scored a direct hit; it didn't take too much time before my eyes were working again. I couldn't say the same about the kick to the nuts, though.

By the time I stood up again, she was long gone. She wasn't going to call the police or tell anybody; they never did. Nobody bothers to report an attempted serial rape. It only ever means anything if there's penetration, or at least if the rapist gets far enough to see skin. I took my time on the long walk back to my apartment. No need to rush. There never was. In a week, I doubt this girl would even remember that I'd tried it.

I've been trying this every weekend for two months now, and not a single success. Janey'd be disappointed in me. Even after all those times where I pretended with her, I'd never be a real rapist. Maybe it's something in my genes.

The next weekend was the three-month anniversary of Janey's death. I took it off and spent the time masturbating to rape porn on the internet. I found a gallery of pictures of a tiny woman with brown hair who looked a lot like my Janey when I squinted my eyes. Unfortunately there was no video. The night was slightly more satisfying than getting my eyes burned with pepper spray. After I finished, I held her photograph and cried myself to sleep.

It wasn't enough, though. It never was. I missed the noises she made, the way she pretended that she was scared of me. I missed the way her hands felt when she gave up pretending and clawed my back. I missed the way we would fall asleep afterwards and not even bother to take off the restraints, and she'd be late to work the next morning.

One time one of her students saw that she had a bruise on her shoulder, and reported it to her boss, thinking that I might have hit her. She laughed when she told me about the way she had to explain it to the principal, and about the look on his chubby red face when he told her to make sure to cover up that kind of "evidence" with makeup. I didn't get the joke. Janey always said that I'd never be able to hit her for real. That's why she felt safe playing those rough games with me. If it ever got out of hand she knew she could take me down...

I know that I'm not really the strongest guy out there, but I didn't think I was laughable. At least not until my string of failed attempts to recapture Janey's excitement.

The next weekend came and I braced myself for another failure. I needed to feel something again, and even though it was pretty much certain that I was going to get beaten up by another girl, it was a risk that I had to take. Because if I succeeded, if I was able to feel Janey just one more time, if I was able to properly say goodbye to her...

The park was about a twenty-minute drive from my apartment, and a few years back it was a really nice place. Nowadays it was pretty dirty and shady. The kind of place where people went for drug deals and that kind of thing. When it was dark but not too late, there'd be teenaged couples out in the bushes or under the trees, trying to do whatever they could without getting caught by their parents. Usually they'd split up and the girl would be walking on her own through the park. I've gone after two girls with this approach before. Both of them beat me pretty badly.

I hid in the treeline for a few hours, watching the silhouettes of two teenagers move up and down in a steady rythym that I hadn't been able to match in twenty years. Eventually the guy took his leave, swaggering past me with a look of total nonchalant pride. As he left my range of vision, I saw him pull a cell phone out of his pocket. To brag to his buddies about his latest conquest, I'm sure.

But his latest conquest would soon be mine. Hopefully.

She was talking on a cell phone too when she emerged from the brush. She was skinny, like my Janey, but she was a bit taller and she had short black hair, styled like a boy's. She was a lot younger than I'd prefer, but at this point beggers can't be choosers. Luckily for me, she flipped the phone shut just as she was passing my hiding spot. One thing I learned early on was that cell phones weren't good news for guys like me, and when I leapt out at her I made sure to knock it out of her hands right away.

She screamed.

She screamed and kicked and protested, but I knew she was just pretending. Her pale body moved against mine so she could get the most sensation out of each of my thrusts. I lost my hands in her tangle of golden hair just as she seemed to lose her voice in sexual ecstacy. I thrust as hard as I could, trying to ignore the pain in my ankles from holding this position for too long. Janey was enjoying herself and I didn't want to ruin it for her.

Her arms were locked around me. Somehow she'd gotten them around my back, but they were still bound tight. Her eyes were closed, so I watched her lips. It was simultaneously arousing and insulting the way she grinded her teeth together with each of my weak thrusts, as if she had to make an effort to enjoy me. It took a long time for her to get where she wanted to be, and in the back of my mind I couldn't help but think that she was faking even as she screamed and bucked underneath me.

"I love you!" she yelled. At least I knew that part was real.

"I love you too, Janey." The restraints were off, and she was purring in my arms, drifting on the edge of sleep. The red comforter was pulled over us, but it was our bodies that kept each other warm. I felt happy, for the first time in over three months, as she rubbed her face against my chest.

"Why did you leave me?" I didn't want to ask her, but I had to. I had to know.

"I never left you."

"Then why aren't you here any more?"

"I am. Can't you feel me?"

"I feel someone. Is that you, Janey?"

"No!" She shrieked in response to my question. Her voice was different now, and she was laying on the grass in that park where the kids make drug deals at night. For some reason, Janey looked a lot younger now. Her hair was black and cut like a boy's. Her shirt was ripped open, and her breasts were smaller than I remembered. On the grass next to her was her jean skirt. There wasn't any underwear in sight. From her torn shirt to her black socks and tennis shoes, she was bare.

I was on top of her.

"Janey, is that you?"

"Get off of me! Get off of me!" She kept repeating herself. She tried to swing at me, tried to hit me. But I knew she was pretending. She wanted it. She loved it when we played this game. "You fucking monster! I'll kill you! I'll kill you!" I pinned her wrists down next to her head. There were tears in her eyes.

I wanted to hold back. I never wanted to hurt her. But I knew Janey, and if she didn't say the safeword then she didn't want me to stop. She was really getting into it this time. She struggled more than usual as I tied her hands together and forced her arms behind her back. I tried to kiss her, but she turned her head away from me. I didn't like that, but it was just her getting into character. It's been oer three months. I couldn't blame her for wanting to take it really far.

"Beg for it," I told her, my lips against her ear. "Tell me you want it."

"Don't hurt me." She wasn't yelling anymore. She was begging. But she was begging for the wrong thing. Janey never asked me not to hurt her. She usually told me how to hurt her.

I started to unzip my pants. "Beg for it!" I yelled at her. "You want it! You want me to rape you!" She said nothing. Stared blankly to the side with tears in her eyes.

I pulled myself out of my pants and rubbed against her spot without much result.

"Fuck! Dammit! Not again."

I started rubbing myself. Sometimes it just takes time. "Talk to me, Janey. Come on, help me out here." She said nothing to me. Pretended I wasn't even there. "Come on! I'm okay. I can do it. Just help me get started, Janey." Nothing. "At least look at me, baby. Let me see those sexy eyes." Nothing. I sat on top of her, working for a good ten minutes to try and get somewhere.

Eventually I had to give up.

I sat back. Janey started to move away from me. She slowly picked herself up and stood on wobbly legs. I couldn't bring myself to look at her. "I'm sorry... I'm so sorry... I tried." She backed away from me. She took one step, then another, before turning and breaking into a run.

I was exhausted. Hopeully Janey would give me another chance. Maybe tomorrow night. Maybe another time. But for now I couldn't live with myself. I just wanted to go to sleep and forget it had happened. Closed my eyes and let my body fall back onto that soft red comforter.

Cracked my head on a rock.

 

[e]

Pretty nice. I liked the beginning, and how you shift back and forth from reality. The ending was alright, I guess; unnecessary, I think, but I'm not one to judge these things. There's some grammatical errors (I think; I'm no English teacher), and typos, I guess, but it's well written. Not too lyrical or dramatic, and just brutal and realistic enough.

Only suggestion I can make is that maybe you could've made the psychotic passages (were he drifts off from reality in a universe where Janey is still alive (or maybe she really still is, who knows)) more lyrical, more poetic, just to further enhance this feeling of unreality and estrangement, making the violent, brutally realistic passages, were there is a girl being raped, hurt, etc. even more shocking, give it more of a "crashing down" feel.

Or maybe you wanted the line to be blurred at all times.

Nice job anyhow.

 

[Venetia]

One part:
"I found a gallery of pictures of a tiny woman with brown hair who looked a lot like my Janey when I squinted my eyes."
When paired with:
"I lost my hands in her tangle of golden hair just as she seemed to lose her voice in sexual ecstacy."

Threw me off. I realize that you didn't actually say Janey had brown hair in the first passage, but since "brown hair" was the only descriptor that likened Janey to the girl on the internet, the reader may be momentarily confused when it's suddenly thrown in that Janey has golden (blonde) hair.

I think I would have liked your piece better without the last two paragraphs (the summary didn't feel right, considering how disconnected the character's mind is), and actually I didn't really like the very first line. It feels hackneyed to start off with a shocking quote. The second sentence is just as shocking but is FAR more powerful on a visual level and far less amateurish.

Lastly, he was thrusting against Janey in the middle of the "act" on the boyish girl in the park, but he hadn't pulled his manhood out yet? That also threw me off.

Very cool take on the unrequited love subject though.

 

[Despain]

One part:
"I found a gallery of pictures of a tiny woman with brown hair who looked a lot like my Janey when I squinted my eyes."
When paired with:
"I lost my hands in her tangle of golden hair just as she seemed to lose her voice in sexual ecstacy."

Threw me off. I realize that you didn't actually say Janey had brown hair in the first passage, but since "brown hair" was the only descriptor that likened Janey to the girl on the internet, the reader may be momentarily confused when it's suddenly thrown in that Janey has golden (blonde) hair.

yeah i just fucked up on that one. i didn't really have a decisive picture of her on my mind (although i had a pretty vivid one of the pathetic narrator)

Lastly, he was thrusting against Janey in the middle of the "act" on the boyish girl in the park, but he hadn't pulled his manhood out yet? That also threw me off.

when he's having sex with janey in his mind its his way of blocking out the nonsexual violent part of the assault. in other words he imagines himself having sex with janey while he's wrestling the girl to the grass and ripping off her clothes. thats why when he "comes back" to reality she's alrady disrobed and he's on top of her

 

[Venetia]

Ohhh, I see. For some reason that didn't "click" the first time I read it.

 

[Stardust]

I took most of Despain's advice and revised my story.  The only thing I didn't change was her stories because, as etheon said, they weren't really as exciting as the character finds them.

Spoiler: Version 2

Someone recommended a restaurant a few blocks away from my job that had good food and wasn't expensive.  I didn't go there at first because I usually preferred to bring my own lunch, but one day, I forgot to bring something, so I went there during my lunch break.  I ordered my meal and began looking around the room, like I always do, and one woman caught my eye.  She was in the middle of a story with all her friends leaning in.  She was beautiful, far out of my league, but her voice was entrancing.

“I told him I wasn't interested, but he still insisted on buying me a drink.â€

 

[Despain]

definitely improvement, but i still think you have a long way to go.

one thing that i really noticed is that you still have a lot of telling. the best example here is the conversation where she tells her friends that she's moving. your narrator recaps this to us. why not show us? use dialogue and make it into a scene.

i look forward to next week

also hey TREG WHERE'S YOURS IT WAS YOUR IDEA BUCKO

 

[Stardust]

I didn't use dialogue for that because he's kind of in his own little world at that moment.  He's talking to himself in his head and the conversation is slowly filtering in.  I guess I could have done it better, though.  I'll make sure I look out for that in the future.

And why are we the only two posting stories?  I know this forum is slow, but we've had a number of people show interest in it.  Treg?  Gratheo?  Wumpi?  serrated_colon?  etheon?

 

[Venetia]

yeah i wanted to read more story's
you ppl who said you'd particiupate anfd didn't are fags.
;(
(for the reconrd i never said i'd participate so i let no one down!!!!!!!)

 

[Venetia]

Nevermind, I decided to write a quick something anyway :3

Spoiler: Red Dots

He realized, She was more woman now than ever. The kind of woman who chewed you up and didn't even spit you out--no, rather, you'd stick in Her molar, an annoying little nib, a shred, a nothing. That's what all women did, they'd allure you, and love you, and leave you.

Were She really a woman, She'd have been gorgeous. Hair the color of an oil slick drifting on the water: black, and yet somehow ethereal, iridescent. Eyes that would open wide even at nothing, and irises the color of huddled, threatening clouds in the skies. And the curves, you'd better believe there'd be curves. Perfect and svelte, not a dimple to be found. He'd imagine those thick, seductive lips. Those kind of lips that'll actually draw your eye quicker than Her tits, or Her ass, which were both equally as perfect. But the ruby red lipstick on them was some kind of magic; no matter how much She'd kiss you, no matter how hard She'd buck while mouthing your downtown subway, it'd stay, like a stain. A liquid, rippling stain, smooth like satin, wet like the vodka you'd down, trying fruitlessly to forget Her.

Red lipstick, his mind paused there.

Red.

Curious.

A little red dot, hovering. Stuck in space, no further than an inch from his only open eye.

What was strange was not so much the hovering, but the incredibly fourescent vermilion quality to it. Vermilionity. Ha, like one of those ladies' perfumes they sling at Dillard's. "If you liked Sexy in the Summer, you'll LOVE Vermilionity." They all had those slogans emblazoned on the sides, like pompous little unpaid advertisements. His mother loved those cheap aerosol perfumes. He always thought they smelled exactly the same: like powder and alcohol. The smell reminded him of being in the hospital when he had the mumps as a kid. Some nurse was always slathered in it.

Have to stay focused, he thought, your mind starts wandering, next thing you know, you'll wander straight off the page.

Vision of his hand scrawling a note so fast, the red pen tip jitters onto the desk.

Red ink.

Red dot.

I loved you, you know. He pretended that message was sent, telepathically, out into the dark, where She'd hear it. But She didn't care and She wasn't listening.

Why didn't She help him, like before? He was invincible under the light of Her love. She surrounded him, cottled him, told him where to go, what to do, how to be. She was better than a mother, better than a lover. Every morning he'd wake up and stare down at Her, through his bedroom window. The dawn's light shining down on Her, glowing, casting rays that'd reflect and bounce and dance, that no one else could see except the man who looked hard enough to find them.

When he was hurt, She always somehow knew. She'd send someone, every time. No matter how far off the path he'd wander, She'd know, She'd care, She'd send the help he needed.

But why! Why abandon me now! Now, when I need you more than ever!

His single open eye refused to focus. Everything was bleared and smudged, like when you swipe a greasy palm over a dewy window.

Red dots.

There were more?

One. Two. … Five. Seven?

Were they duplicating?

Multiplying, everything bad always multiplied. It'd always start out small. Just a little gang. Just a couple of thugs, robbing some prick outside Imperial Garden. That den that smelled like Chinese food, plus … Something else. Never was really clear until he walked in the back and saw the shit in the sink. The chicken'd go sour, and the motherfucker would just soak it all in a bath of bleach. Dice it up, slather on some sweet & sour, no one'd know the difference.

"Do you have any idea how many times I probably ate that shit?" He'd asked Rob. Rob laughed at him with that New Englander inflection. That nasally little upturn. He liked Rob, but he really hated that accent. It was almost as bad as that twangy brown language they'd spew down south.

Arthur was begging and pleading, staring with his slitted, chinky eyes through the sweat, tears, and blood. Arthur, what kind of name was that for a chink who owned a Chinese restaurant, anyway? Dick was probably only a halfie. Dad probably tapped the first milky round thing he saw off the boat.

Arthur never paid him, so he had to go. And that was the catalyst. Right there. The second he pressed that silencer to Arthur's narrow left eyebrow, and let his brain fly across the brick wall like so much fried egg, the multiplication had begun. The days of women walking around smelling like Vermilionity were over, it was all about the boys. The men. They clung to him. He picked them up like flies on shit, he couldn't lose them. They saw the blood he painted with his footsteps, and they fell in line.

Blood.

Bloody red.

And that's when I lost your touch, he cried telepathically into the bleary darkness. He was probably crying, because his right eye stung like a bitch. The socket, anyway. When you lose an eye, is the hole where it used to be still considered an eye? Arthur's eye was still there after his brains were six feet behind him, but it was all queer and pointed upwards, kinda flat, like a tire with no air. Red like the dots. Fucking multiplying dots.

It was getting harder to focus. His mind had always been like a filing cabinet. You make a memo, slam on a red stamp, shuffle it away under the right letter. But whoever he'd hired as secretary had made a real fucking mess of the office, and you can't just pick up and refile when half of it's gone to the shredder.

The grit on his palms felt like needles. His arms were shaking, he couldn't hold himself up much longer. How silly he must have looked. So weak. So helpless. So alone.

He was borne in Her. He'd grown up in Her. He'd lived and breathed in Her, and, he had loved Her. Sure, he couldn't hold Her the way She embraced him, but he'd made the foolish decision to never leave Her, even after it became apparent that She had lost all interest in him.

He would die in Her.

He was going to die, in Her.

The red dots kept getting blurrier and blurrier, but he could see them ripple with the humid slap of his failing breath.

His shaking arms gave out. The red dots suddenly grew large, and then he couldn't see them anymore.

Please, he begged, please, you don't have to come back to me. I … I'm too far gone! He telepathed out at the void, past the red dots pressing so hard on his face it hurt.

Just forgive me.

Loud noises roared behind him. Tinny and somehow musical, crescendoing. Also something like grit, like something huge scraping against gravel. Rolling. It was so familiar, but he couldn't place it. He'd lost that file from his cabinets. So few remained.

Something about perfume. Or a long "v" word he'd learned in grade school. He liked that word, but what was it now? Where did it go?

Footsteps, now. He knew that sound. Hard leather soles scraping on grit. Someone was running at him.

Did you … He telepathed again, but it came out slow and deep, like a cassette tape wearing out on rewind. You came back to me. My love. My city.

And then suddenly, as if She had allowed him to live just long enough to send out that final grasping brainwave, there was nothing.

Only a few hours' work but it was kind of fun piecing it together.

 

[Grathea]

Ven: It's interesting, but I don't really get an 'unrequited love' vibe from it. It's certainly pretty cool, though. The voice is interesting, but the constant reference to She and Her is really annoying to read through.

Anyways, Guardian, I ran into a few issues, but I should have my story up in an hour or so.

 

[Venetia]

yeah i thought it would be cool to capitalize the first letter to place more emphasis on the subject's importance but it did turn out a little annoying, i agree.

anywya the love is unrequited because how can a city love you back the way you love it? i was gonna do a sadder ending bu then i realized it'd end strangely the way i was picturing :\

 

[Venetia]

I read yours (revised version), Guardian. It's kind of a cute story, actually

There's definitely some very sophomoric things about it, though ... The idea of a man nearly breaking down from nervousness at asking out a woman, the fact that he CRIED afterward (he'd have to have severe mental/emotional problems for that, and it was never really demonstrated that he had either of those things).

It was incredibly unlikely that there would ever be a woman so much like him, who became just as enraptured with the flock of women as he did, and who also ended up at that same diner. It's also incredibly unlikely that, in a gossiping gaggle of women, that they would continue going to the same place everyday, even after one of them noticed that there was some weird dude who always happened to be there, too.

The Sarah character is also conflicting in another way: even if it were possible for someone like her to end up in the same gravitational pull as the janitor around this flock of women, she would also share his EXTREME social anxiety, and would likely NEVER approach some weird crying dude, much less, console him.

Everything really reeks of highschool. A homely little janitor looking up at a flock of pretty popular women.

Outside that, there's the simple fact that attractive women typically don't make regular hang-out spots at diners which serve cheeseburgers and fries. If they did, they wouldn't be attractive anymore, lol.

And it seems to me that it would take a little more than 1 overheard story to become so enraptured with someone. And how'd he magically know that they went there everyday after only seeing them there once?

But like I said, it was cute. There were a few redundant sentences and things, but overall it was grammatically sound and it flowed easily.

 

[So fist]

It's not done 

But I wanted to get something in before saturday.  I'll be sure to post a final version when I finish this short story, but time has been a problem lately with all this early school year job hunting.

Spoiler

“Then why don't you?â€

 

[Neverplayd]

@ The Great Terror: I like what you've written so far. The amount of detail stands out the most. But some sentences were oddly worded or punctuated which disrupted the flow of reading it. Also, it would be better if you didn't start the story with dialogue. You could try starting with something prior to the girl's statement or moving/removing her statement. But those are just minor errors I could think of. Great story, imo.
Alright, here is my story:
Edit: Meh, I'm removing my story since it was too hastily written.  :dead:

 

[So fist]

Des, I liked safeword a lot.  Like Hemingway you achieve a lot of depth in simple language.  I also like his rape habits as an attempt to live in the past.  I think if you find some more ways to invest us in Janey a bit more you can make that dimension of loss and perhaps regret all the more powerful.  Why is she worth all of this?  That's all I can think of to possibly tweak it.

Ven, beautifully written the descriptive passages in the beginning are very powerful as is the build up to his demise at the end.  The narrative becomes very nebulous in the middle.  I was lost as to who was who and even considered the main character was an extremely self effacing Arthur berrating the last moments of his miserable existence in Imperial Garden.  I think some more context would help this piece in the sense of establishing some more connection to the city.  Why does he love the city?  How does he love it?  All I see is a guy who was shot/beat up/killed on the streets of a city that doesn't care about him.  Establishing that context would really strengthen the unrequited love theme with the city.

 

[Grathea]

OK, here's mine. A tad late, but whatever, it's still technically on time.

Spoiler: Swish

I met Sean on my first day at the new school. My family'd just moved there, and I didn't know anyone yet. He was the first guy to talk to me. Well, sort of.
Picture a roughly five six blur of grungy t-shirts, jeans, and black hair, and a giant smile permanently plastered over his face. Now picture said blur running at you and hugging you, before you even realize that he's there.

...It was a little of a surprise, but that's Sean. He gives so many hugs, to everyone. After that he more formally welcomed me to the school.
Turns out he had a friend - Jan was his name. Nice guy. Transfer student from the Phillipines or something, but he spoke perfect English. Really fucking smart, too. Great guy. Dressed in band t-shirts and tight jeans that would have looked really hot on a chick.

In a couple months, we grew pretty close. They were great guys, even if they weren't exactly the popular in-crowd.
Mostly, we hung around my place and played basketball. Oh, and cooked. Jan was a fucking incredible cook, and he made Sean and I join in as well. Sean said cooking was 'women's work', but I think he was joking. He seemed to like baking even more than Jan or I did.

Those days, shooting hoops and baking cookies were great, and I loved every minute of it. Sean and I sometimes went over to Jan's place, or we went to Sean's, but most of the time my place was where we were. Eventually, Sean got a summer job, working for his parents or some shit like that.
So it was just me and Jan. Not that I minded, Jan was really nice. Sleepovers and late-night movie marathons dominated the summer.

Actually, it was after just one of those sleepovers my dad came up to me.
"Hey, James?" he asked. He seemed a little nervous.
"Uh, yeah?" Noncommitically.
"...You and Jan... you're close, right?"
"Yeah. Why d'you ask?"
He breathed in, a hiss through his lightly clenched teeth.
"Err... how close, exactly?"
"I still don't get what you mean, dad."
Quickly, almost as one word: "Are you and Jan having sex?'
I stared at him. If my jaw could have dropped any further, it probably would have.
"WHAT? Dad! Jan's not like that, we're not... Fucking God! Why the hell would you even think that!"
Apologetically, my dad raised his arms in an 'okay, okay...!' pose. "I was just asking. Sorry, son."
"Well, jeez, no fucking kidding, dad."

I couldn't believe him. The nerve! I wasn't gay. Not some kinda fucking faggot.
God.

The next day, though, I almost managed to forget all about that stupid conversation with dad. Sean had the day off work or something, so we all got together, and hung out at my place, and shot hoops like the good old days. I just couldn't get that nagging doubt out of my head, though.

Gay. I knew the word, of course. And a couple other synonyms. Isn't high school fun?
Up to that point, though, I hadn't really thought about it as ..well, real. I didn't know you really could be gay.

The basketball bounced off of my head.
"Hey, James? You alright there, man?"
I snapped out of it, in time to get a pass from Sean and lay it up for an easy two points. Swish.

Sean hugged me tightly, like he usually did, but I couldn't help myself - the word 'gay' was echoing around in my head. A young man hugging me tightly was just too much. Sean must have noticed something was off, because he stopped hugging me, and his face was full of concern.
"Are you OK, James?"
"...What? Oh, yeah, I'm fine. Just got some shit on my mind, you know."
He seemed hesitant.
"Alright, I guess. You just don't seem yourself today, is all."
"Nah, it's nothing. Let's keep playing, OK?"

Sean and Jan looked at each other. Jan spoke, unusually - he was normally quite shy and reserved, and always very soft-spoken.
"James, it's obviously not nothing. Something's bothering you. You can tell us, we're your friends."
I bounced the ball, made a shot. Swish. Passed it to Jan.
"Well, it was yesterday, after Jan left. My dad came up to me, said he wanted to talk." Jan nodded, then made a shot. The ball swished through the hoop effortlessly.
"Well, he thought I was sleeping with you! I mean, can you imagine it? He thought I was some kinda fucking homo! The nerve!"
The ball clattered off the backboard, and rolled to the side, forgotten.
Jan looked almost like he'd been slapped in the face. Ashen, he turned to me.
"I have to leave now. I should be heading home."
He ran off until he was just a speck in the distance. His bike was still leaning against the wall.
I turned to Sean.
"Jeez, what's his fucking problem, huh?"
Sean turned to me.
"You broke his heart, you bitch. He's been pining after you since day one, even though it was obvious you weren't interested and didn't want him like I did.
Thanks a whole fucking lot.
When Sean left, he took his bike.

That was a week ago. I haven't seen Sean or Jan since, although Jan's mom dropped by to pick up his bike a couple days ago.
I'm isolated, cut off from my friends. All alone in the driveway, bouncing that old, faded basketball.
Dribble. Pivot. Swish.

OK, text wrapping's a little odd. I'll fix it, no worries. FIXED