Tagged: double-dip

“Soap Poisoning?”

It’s New Year’s Eve! What better excuse for another joint writing prompt? Unfortunately the most famous traditional song for this particular holiday has very few lyrics that anyone would recognize, and half of those are in Scottish. So we went another way with our inspiration. Can you guess it?

Once again, Jen goes first with Kent batting cleanup.

Next week we’ll return to our usual schedule of one prompt each. Happy New Year!

  • all is quiet
  • world in white
  • with you night and day
  • nothing changes
  • be with you again
  • under a blood red
  • crowd has gathered
  • arms entwined
  • newspaper says it’s true
  • torn in two

Tune in next time part 453 & 454      Click Here for Earlier Installments

“Soap poisoning?” I felt queasy. “Drinking soap wouldn’t be good for you, but surely it isn’t fatal.” I hoped.

“I’m just telling you what the autopsies show,” said YoYo. “And don’t call me Shirley.”

I belched again, releasing a fusillade of bubbles. Not wanting to take a chance with something so dire, I ran to my luxurious ensuite and made myself vomit into the alabaster commode. I rinsed my mouth and returned to my bedchamber where YoYo stood, looking puzzled.

“I think my Ovaltine was tainted,” I said. “It disagreed with me.”

YoYo pressed her ear against my stomach for a few seconds. “All is quiet now, General,” she said.

“I think that’s a good sign. Assuming I survive the night, what further duties might I be expected to perform?” I was beginning to wonder if the rank of general was purely ceremonial, and if I would be tasked next with parading around the world in white shoes or something equally meaningful.

“The Royal Contrarian Mountain Police will arrive this evening in their sled pulled by mountain goats. They will work with you night and day to determine who it was who poisoned your predecessors.” She crinkled her nose and shook her head. “But don’t get your hopes up for actual justice. These investigations are all for show, and nothing changes no matter what they uncover.”

I crossed the room to my wardrobe and began a perusal of the many uniforms it held. Which one should I wear for my first meeting with the RCMP and their goats? Contrarian tradition is very particular.

YoYo cleared her throat.

“Dismissed,” I said.

“But General,” she simpered. “They won’t arrive for several hours. There’s time for me to be with you again so that you can learn to love me like the cards said.”

“Thanks for reminding me,” I said over my shoulder. “Take those cards with you.” She looked crestfallen. But, much as I enjoyed YoYo physically I couldn’t afford to indulge her outlandishly romanticized ideas about us. I turned to face her. “Take those cards with you, and that’s an order.”

I stared imperiously until she complied, then turned back to the selection of military finery in my closet. Maybe I should have tried to bargain with YoYo for advice about the proper uniform for the occasion, but it was too late now. I was on my own, so I decided to wear the one with the indigo vest under a blood red tail coat. It looked both pompous and outdated, so it probably projected a great deal of authority in Contrarian culture.

There were so many epaulettes and sashes and ribbons and medals and sock garters, it took the better part of half an hour for me to dress myself. Once fully decorated, I left my quarters and attempted to retrace my steps to the courtyard. Along the way I met the yeoman yodeler who had brought me my soapy beverage. He looked quite surprised at my appearance, and I snagged him by the collar and placed him under arrest. Perhaps the RCMP would not be needed after all.

I shouted orders and a military tribunal was quickly convened. “The crowd has gathered samples of soap from every corner of this fortress,” I said. “We’ll see which matches the residue in my Ovaltine glass.”

The glass had been sent down to the fortress’s basement laboratory, along with all the soapy samples. When the analysis was complete, the results were brought to the hall of tribunal by a cadre of alchemists who entered the hall in ascending order of height — arms entwined — until the final member of the retinue had to duck to pass through the door.

“Tell us,” I declaimed, “what you have ascertained about this vile assassination attempt!”

The alchemists began to sing in four-part harmony. They started with ‘Sweet Adeline,’ as per tradition, and eventually came around to the results of their analysis: the soap was unlike any found in the fortress, and was in fact Svenborgian in origin.

“Arlo,” I muttered. “That dick.” He must be making another play for Fleur.

While the alchemists continued their concert, I had the yeoman yodeler thrown in the brig, then telegrammed my wife at home in Funkistan, warning her of the Viscount’s treachery.

Her reply was, “I won’t believe it until the newspaper says it’s true.”

I sent another message, a long rant about her blindness to Arlo’s nefariousness. The telegrapher’s wrist was aching by the time he sent the whole thing. Then, of course, per Contrarian security protocols the entire message had to be calligraphed as well, for the express purpose of being torn in two so that each piece could be burned separately to ensure it didn’t fall into enemy hands.

Reformation of Contrarian military comms procedures suddenly leapt to the forefront of my goals for how to use my influence. But, later. I had other things to tend to first.

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“And in Conclusion”

Happy belated Solstice!

For this year’s Skelleyverse Holiday Extravaganza On Ice, we’ve decided to combine forces and gift you with one bonus-size edition of our chain story, instead of the usual two smaller entries. Our prompt phrases this time all come from a single source: beloved movie A Christmas Story.

Jen will start. She’ll write until she works in the first phrase, then hand the keyboard over to Kent. We’ll alternate until we get to the end of the list.

Have a joyful season, however you choose to celebrate.

  • I can’t put my arms down
  • Only I didn’t say “fudge”
  • Not a finger!
  • you’ll shoot your eye out
  • this thing in the stock which tells time
  • Be sure to drink your Ovaltine.
  • soft glow of electric sex
  • It’s a major award!
  • I triple-dog-dare you!
  • It was… soap poisoning

Tune in next time part 451 & 452      Click Here for Earlier Installments

“And in conclusion,” YoYo said, “That’s how I know that ‘twins’ are merely a trick done with mirrors.”

“That’s preposterous,” I said. “I myself am a twin.”

YoYo made an elaborate show of looking around the room, lifting the blankets to peer under them, craning her neck all around. “I see only one of you.”

“Jason’s not here,” I said. “We’re identical, not conjoined. He’s off somewhere causing trouble, no doubt.”

YoYo sighed sadly. “I had hoped that you would see things my way and that I would be able to finally stop this endless struggle and lay my weapons aside, but I can’t put my arms down yet. Not so long as people like you are out there denying the truth of yetis and lying about the existence of twins.”

“All I can tell you is, I have never seen a yeti but I have seen lots of twins.” Arguing about this was making my head feel soft. “Maybe we just need to accept each other’s differing views, and move on.”

YoYo pointed to her tarot spread. “You denied this, too. You told me I don’t love you, despite the clear message in these infallible instruments of prophecy!”

“Oh, fudge,” I said. Only I didn’t say “fudge” — what I said was a word in Olde High Contrarian that doesn’t really translate but sounds just like “fudge” and means, basically, “please drop this tedious conversational topic, put your clothes on, and give me a few minutes alone to think.”

“It’s like that, is it?” said YoYo. “Fine, General. Have it your way.” She stood and whipped the blankets out from under the tarot cards like a magician denuding a dining table, leaving the intricate card configuration undisturbed upon the mattress. She gathered the blankets around herself like a robe and gave me a particular kind of salute that used only a single finger. Not a finger! How insubordinate!

“I hope that’s not your trigger finger,” I quipped. “Cuz you’ll shoot your eye out on the target range if it is.”

YoYo flounced from the room in a swirl of bedding. I wondered how she would feel about twins after giving birth to some.

Exhausted from my afternoon’s sweaty exertions, I fell asleep. I was awakened sometime later by the fortress’s dinner bell. I was starving. As I rolled out of bed, I noticed that the tarot cards had been shuffled about by my naptime thrashing (my legs tend to be quite restless). Maybe their new message would dissuade YoYo from the ridiculous notion that she was in love with me. I barely had time to put my pants on before the door swung open and a soldier entered, bearing my meal on a tray. It was a simple meal, merely a small loaf of bread and a bowl of thin soup. I prodded the soup with my spoon and discovered this thing in the stock which tells time. That is to say, a pocket watch. Who could have slipped such an item into my dinner. And why?

I was so hungry that I ate the soup anyway. As I dipped the bread to soften it and then gnawed the soggy loaf, I took a shot at decoding the disarrayed tarot cards on the bed. To my amazement there seemed to be something there, if I treated it as an instance of the soothsayer’s code. B… E… S… U… Maybe I was mistaken about it being meaningful, but I plowed on, spiraling into the center of the chaotic spread. R… E… T… O… And eventually, I had a complete phrase.

“Be sure to drink your Ovaltine.”

Just then came another knock on my door, and a soldier entered bearing a glass of what looked like rich, creamy, chocolate milk.

At this point I became unsure that anything from the past several hours had actually happened. Perhaps those mushrooms hadn’t been aphrodisiac purple rangers. Perhaps they had instead been hallucinogenic purple paladins. But the soft glow of electric sex emanating from my groin told me that at least some of the events had indeed occurred.

“Do you ever have one of those days?” I asked the soldier. “I feel like I’m losing my mind.”

“You should apply for the Lost Marbles. It’s a major award! Only the most tragically insane have a shot at winning, but from what the rumor mill is saying about you, General, I think you should enter.”

I surged to my feet in outrage as the yeoman yodeler said, “Enter the contest, General. I triple-dog-dare you!”

The presumptuous soldier quickly set down the glass and darted backwards from my quarters, pulling the door shut behind him. I retrieved the beverage and raised it to my lips, but something about its aroma halted me before sipping. I swirled the drink and took another whiff of the odd bouquet, trying to identify it. The salty broth of my soup, after so much perspiration earlier, had left me quite parched. Whatever type of smoothie the concoction was, it didn’t seem very thirst-quenching, but it was probably better than nothing.

I pinched my nose and chugged it.

There came yet another knock on my door. I burped and said, “Enter.”

It was YoYo. I was very surprised by her return, so soon after our rancorous conversation. She said, “I forgot to tell you this earlier. As I’m sure you know, the last four generals who ran Enigma Fortress died mysteriously.” I did not know this. “The autopsy results have finally come back.” As she spoke, she dug in her pocket and then squinted at a crumpled paper scrap to read it. “It was… soap poisoning.”

I burped again, emitting three tiny bubbles into the room.

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Part 300 – or – They Grow Up So Fast

Defying all logic, our chain story is still going strong three years later. Any pretense of a coherent backstory is long-forgotten. We find it difficult to even adhere to a single genre. No matter! The whole point of these exercises is to keep the creative juices flowing, and to keep the fingers nimble. That’s especially useful for us in times like these, when we’re at the point in our novels’ lifecycles when we’re not actively writing any novels.

Kent sometimes thinks that he’d like to wrap the chain story up and get back to a freer time when the writing prompts didn’t even need to pretend to continue an ongoing story, but so far we haven’t figured out how to give something like this an ending. Or at least a satisfying ending.

And so we soldier on, into ever more ridiculous storylines.

As you may have gathered from previous Friday Collaboration posts, Jen and Kent are learning Russian. To celebrate today’s big chain story milestone, we’ve pulled some phrases from an old Russian/English phrasebook that’s been sitting around the Writing Cave for years. We picked it up at a used book sale forever ago, and it is beyond amazing. It’s a dinky little pocket-size thing from 1951, and such a bizarre snapshot of its time. Out of all the things you could possibly want to say while staying in the Soviet Union during the Cold War, these are, apparently, among the most important. We think they’ll make for a stilted and hilarious 300th entry in Tune In Next Time. In other words, they’ll blend right in.

As these things usually go, Jen will start off the writing – after she includes the first trigger phrase she’ll hand the keyboard over to Kent. He’ll write until he works the next phrase in, and we’ll go back and forth to the end. Just like how we write our novels!

  • These pajamas are badly ironed.
  • She dances very well.
  • Three handkerchiefs are missing.
  • I should like to go wolf hunting.
  • Have you any records with Gypsy singing?
  • There are snipers behind these rocks.
  • Slower, please!
  • Will you take an X-ray?
  • What did you get those decorations for?
  • This wrestler is very strong.

Tune in next time parts 299 & 300      Click Here for Earlier Installments

John looked at a ball of silky fabric he’d pulled from the duffle bag. With a scowl, he said, “These pajamas are badly ironed.”

Was that a hint for me? Years ago we’d known a certain woman who, despite her lack of a tiara, we both deemed trustworthy. Her favored slumbering attire was a belly-dancing costume not much bigger than the rumpled little square in John’s hand. I hope she still dances. She dances very well.

John tossed the pajamas over his shoulder and dug deeper into the duffle. As he kept up his distraction, I worked on decoding his sniff message. I thought I had it. His snuffling was a clue that he was using the Haberdasher’s Code.  I would know I was right if the next thing he said was a complaint about his hankies.

With great despair he said, “Three handkerchiefs are missing.”

Try not to lay it on too thick, I thought. The message was starting to take shape in my mind, but I needed to verify what order he’d sniffed the toes on my left foot, without tipping off Tessa or Jason. So I said, as if to no one in particular, “I should like to go wolf hunting.”

“I love wolf hunting!” Jason enthused. “Do you think there are any wolves on this island?”

John muttered, “Maybe the handkerchiefs are in the pajamas.” As he ooched naked across the floor to where they lay he passed close to me and resniffed my left foot, confirming my translation.

“Those pajamas remind of Fatima, and how she danced so beautifully to the songs of her Romani brethren.” I sighed as if lost in memory. “Have you any records with Gypsy singing?” That wasn’t code for anything. I just wanted John to know I’d understood him and he didn’t need to make another pass past my tootsies.

Nevertheless, he lavished further attention on them. The tableau was indistinguishable from a performance art piece wherein a nude man plays a feet-shaped harmonica with his nostrils.

By now I knew his message had something to do with rocks, and I knew where these rocks were located. These rocks are dangerous. There are snipers behind these rocks. There are landmines in front of them. And something important perched on top.

I flexed my toes against John’s nose, telling him, “Slower, please!”

“For Pete’s sake, do you think you’re going to figure out what’s wrong with him by the way his feet smell?” Tessa demanded. “Is your nose some kind of medical instrument? Like a stink MRI? Will you take an X-ray? A stink X-ray?”

I was very disappointed in Tessa. Not that I wanted her to know the message John was passing to me, but I at least expected her to realize that we were passing a message. I thought of her as I’d seen her the evening before graduation, nude but for her Academy sash with its plethora of merit badges, and I wondered Damn girl! What did you get those decorations for?

John wriggled his naked way back to the duffle bag. He reached inside it and said, “It must be in here somewhere.” Tessa and Jason asked him what he was looking for, but he only grunted at them.

While he kept them preoccupied, I did my best to determine what it was that was so well protected in that lethal, rocky place. Perhaps knowing where to go was enough, really. Everything else would become clear in the moment. But if John devoted so much effort to imparting this detail, I owed it to him to do my best to work it out.

He finally withdrew his hand from the bag, holding aloft a colorful full-face mask made of satin. Splaying his fingers to unfurl it for better presentation, he told us all, “This wrestler is very strong.”

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Special Bonus Double Installment!

Our chain story has been wobbling drunkenly along for close to two years now, lurching from one exotic location to another, and expanding our unnamed protagonist’s bizarre circle of friends and family. Just like we did with part 100, we’re celebrating part 200 by writing it together!

The list of prompt phrases is twice as long as usual, and has, for the first time ever, been drawn exclusively from our own published novels. We think this ups the challenge significantly because we both have the novels pretty much memorized and it will be difficult to put these phrases in an unfamiliar context.

Jen will go first, and as soon as she incorporates the first prompt phrase she’ll hand the keyboard over to Kent. He’ll work until the second snippet is incorporated and then hand it back. And so on. Hopefully we will not come to blows.

  • I know how to break
  • dominated coffeehouse debate
  • bordering on smarmy
  • jocularity and baggy shorts
  • “Enough fucking football metaphors
  • drinking way too much Mountain Dew
  • grinding more than rocking
  • rather large, rather ugly
  • intricate designs along her spine
  • slumped over with wheezing laughter

Tune in next time parts 199 & 200                      Click Here for Earlier Installments

I made it back to Dr Belladonna’s bedroom before I heard any sign of pursuit, and I got the door closed and locked just in time. Jem and Jem stood outside, debating loudly about the proper technique for picking the lock. I know how to break through most hypnotic trances, so I decided to take a chance and let the girls in. I’d be much better off if I could get them on my side and away from Jim.

The soft click when I unlocked the door was enough to shush my sisters. I stepped back, prepping my trance-breaking routine. Theirs could be any of three different forms of hypnosis, each with different weaknesses. The best way to rouse someone from a trance had dominated coffeehouse debate at the academy my junior year, so I had lots of ideas to try out. I just didn’t know how much time I’d have to try them.

“We know you’re up to something, big brother.” Jemma’s voice was unctuous, bordering on smarmy.

“And we know what it is,” added Jemima, brazen confidence in her voice.

“So come at me, sis,” I said playfully. The two common elements in all my anti-hypnosis tactics were jocularity and baggy shorts. Too late, I remembered what I was wearing.

I hurtled across the room like David Beckham, hoping to get to the closet before my sisters took me up on my offer. There had to be some baggy shorts in there somewhere, and if I could get them on quickly enough I could save the day like a goalkeeper stopping a game-winning ball.

“Enough fucking football metaphors!” I grumbled to myself. “I’m not even English!”

A pair of Dr Belladonna’s bloomers would have to suffice. I hauled them on over my pants just as Jem (or Jem) thrust the door open. “You look like you’ve been drinking way too much Mountain Dew!” I declared in what I have to say were surpassingly jocular tones. The girls were unaffected, which meant I’d guessed wrong about the nature of the trance.

They entered the room, moving with the uncanny choreography of twins, even though they were triplets. Their hips swayed in unison, grinding more than rocking, which gave me the vital clue: Jim was using some sort of mind-control drug on them. Something other than Mountain Dew.

Jemma stationed herself in front of me in a feline crouch while Jemima went over to the nightstand and hefted the rather large, rather ugly vase. She squinted at me, lining up her throw.

I timed my move just right. When Jemima hurled the vase, I leapt up and grabbed the chandelier. The hefty piece of porcelain flew right beneath my feet, strewing roses, and hit Jemma square in the chest. She toppled, swearing. The water from the vase quickly saturated her white t-shirt, displaying the intricate designs along her spine and ribcage, the tattoos she’d been given as a child to mark her as the youngest female in our family, and therefore the one promised to the Guild of Fire Eaters.

I pumped my legs to get the chandelier swinging. Jemima looked around for something else to throw at me, and Jemma sprang to her feet, dripping. I timed my next move a bit less perfectly, letting go of the chandelier too soon. Rather than clearing the bed, I landed on it and bounced, my momentum sending me sprawling against the wall to slide down head-first onto the floor. Jem and Jem slumped over with wheezing laughter. My less-than-perfect timing had been perfect after all.

Before they regained their composure, I seized the now-empty nightstand and used it to bash the knob off the door. Darting out, I pulled it shut behind me, trapping them in Absinthia’s boudoir.

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Part 100!

r-avatarIt’s been just over a year since we started our chain story, creatively titled Tune In Next Time. To celebrate part 100, we’re going to write this one together! We’ll also use a longer list of prompt phrases, just to make it fun.

Jen will start things off and she’ll hand the keyboard over to Kent as soon as she incorporates the first prompt phrase. He’ll hand it back after he includes a prompt snippet. And so on.

This is not actually how we write our novels, at least not so far. But if it works well today, who knows?

  • punches a screwdriver into the paper
  • agreed that she could “take other lovers”
  • clutching his free hand
  • not managed to untie the convoluted ribbon
  • I can imitate any kind of a bird or beast
  • kind of a lingerie feeling
  • (who’s also probably looking at porn)
  • you wave the red flag
  • I just don’t have enough middle fingers
  • pressed her thumb against her lips

Tune in next time part 100                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

“How long do I need to keep this up?” I panted to Fleur, wiping my sore and sweaty hands on my embroidered trousers. John was even worse off than I was, confined as he was inside the furry and constrictive rabbit costume.

My wife waved vaguely at a large, colorful piñata hanging from one of the pillars. “You will stop when my father punches a screwdriver into the paper effigy of the hare. If candy spills out, it means that we succeeded and I am pregnant.”

As the pyroclastic yams accumulated in pots of water around the battleground, I wondered about my wife. We’d spent very little time together, going our separate ways immediately after the honeymoon when I agreed that she could “take other lovers,” mildly amused at her insistence that I make air quotes when I said it.

She never made air quotes when she said it about me, but she generally didn’t seem jealous. Would things change if she was indeed now pregnant? Would I be expected to stay in Contraria and play a part in the child’s life?

As I ran around the perimeter of the courtyard with a flaming tuber, I looked at Fleur, trying to imagine her with a baby. She stood beside her father who held a large screwdriver, Fleur was clutching his free hand which I saw now was wrapped up like a mummy’s in a bright blue ribbon.

The ribbon’s color seemed significant, but try as I might I couldn’t recall whether Contrarian custom associated blue with boys or girls. Did my warlord-in-law foster the stereotypical hopes for male issue, or was he hoping for the next generation to emulate his formidable daughter? John began another frenzied lap with his next yam, bunny mask askew and fluffy tail darkened by soot and dirt. How would all these exertions matter, if the piñata determined the outcome? Then I saw the second hare-shaped paper sculpture, discreetly poised for substitution. I poured on a burst of speed, realizing my victory relied on Fleur having not managed to untie the convoluted ribbon from her father’s hand.

Needing to gain an advantage over my cunicular foe, I let loose the shriek of the Himalayan Snowcock. John has had a deep-rooted terror of that bird ever since his childhood misadventures in the Tibetan monastery. John dropped his flaming yam and clapped his smoldering paws over his ears (the human ones, not those of his fanciful costume). Fleur looked at me agape as I snatched up John’s root vegetable from the dust and dunked both it and my own into the ceremonial pot, quenching them in a hiss of steam.

I smiled and said, “Something you may not know about me is that I can imitate any kind of a bird or beast.” And then, just to be a dick, I did the Snowcock cry again and watched John flounder on the ground. It took him several minutes to fully recuperate, time I used to extend my lead.

The blue ribbon now trailed almost to the ground between my wife and her father, the two of them smiling smugly at one another. If they were pleased, that was a good sign for me. I hoped.

I lapped John again, feeling regretful for exploiting his weakness when he was already encumbered. “Gotta be miserable in that suit,” I muttered as I passed.

“Eh, it’s not so bad,” he panted. “Has a nice lining, silky, kind of a lingerie feeling.” I sped up so I couldn’t hear the rest of his explanation.

Fleur’s father waved his now benuded hand in the air and shot a look at the scorekeeper, the rotund man who wore a flowing silken caftan, the man who held my future in his hands, the man who was keeping tally of our yams on his ipad (who’s also probably looking at porn). The rotund man nodded slightly.

By now the water in all the pots was boiling from the residual heat of the incendiary root vegetables piling up in them. I watched the rotund man, barely paying any attention to where I was running. I stared at him, willing him to end this before all the blisters on my hands burst open. You’re my favorite person right now, I thought, because when you wave the red flag I can stop doing this.

But there was no red flag. Instead, my father-in-law strode across the temple courtyard and stabbed his enormous screwdriver straight into the heart of the rabbit piñata. He awkwardly worked his middle fingers into the resulting hole, enlarging it.

“Who made this damn thing?” he bellowed. “I just don’t have enough middle fingers to make the hole big enough!”

Fleur scampered over to him and plunged her own impudent digits into the paper maché rodent, and suddenly the ground was covered with brightly colored gummy babies, the only Contrarian export.

A blare of trumpets rang out from all around the walls, in honor of the good news. Fleur scooped up handfuls of the sticky candy and skipped over to where I had slumped in the dirt. I spotted John hopping away. My father-in-law raised his arms in triumph. I smiled up at Fleur.

I began to speak, but she leaned down and put one of the dusty gummy babies in my mouth. She pressed her pinky against my lips, and pressed her thumb against her lips, and made puckery little noises at me. I was too tired to ask what it meant, and too grateful that the ordeal was over to even care.

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Archibald Raised Each One

  • each one of his middle fingers
  • between that and the black pearls
  • She does not want a husband
  • I want to examine them
  • you have been honored twice
  • squared his shoulders
  • as hungry as wolves

Archibald raised each one of his middle fingers at Hubert, and said, “You have been honored twice. Now move aside.”

Hubert squared his shoulders, displaying the fine beadwork of his dickie. Between that and the black pearls in his earlobes, Hubert cut quite a figure. He said, “I know this is about Consuela, but it’s all for sham. She does not want a husband who wears lacy petticoats any more than she wants one adorned with beads and pearls.”

At this, Archibald canted his hips self-consciously.

“Wait,” Hubert added. “Your fingernails, I want to examine them.” He studied Archibald’s still upraised fingertips with eyes as hungry as wolves.

“It was Consuela’s idea. Each one shows a different wonder of the ancient world. I think you’re wrong about her, and if you shift your prissy ass I’m off to prove it!”

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from the comments, Kent has another take on the same prompt:

Roderick squared his shoulders and drove each one of his middle fingers, as hungry as wolves, at his opponent’s eyes. But her helm’s full visor protected her, its obsidian inlay inimical and depthless. Between that and the black pearls adorning her breastplate, she struck a mysterious and sinister figure, but a fetching one.

She does not want a husband, Roderick mused, but she possesses undeniable feminine charms and I want to examine them.

The dark lady slashed at him with her broadsword, and Roderick rolled away, his own blade still embedded in a tree trunk some paces to his left. From this low vantage he spotted the tattoos on the female warrior’s ankles.

“You have been honored twice!” he exclaimed.

When My Brother Arrived

  • nothing that would offend meby jen
  • My manservant read to him
  • decorated with red leather stitching
  • and another with lust
  • with a rueful chuckle
  • He abuses your trust
  • annoyed and proud at once

When my brother arrived for his visit he wore the boots decorated with red leather stitching that were his inheritance from our father. He was annoyed and proud at once, for those boots were Father’s most prized possessions, yet were worth very little monetarily when compared to the family estate which was left to me.

My manservant read to him two stories, as he requested, one with daring deeds and another with lust. “But,” my brother said with a rueful chuckle, “nothing that would offend me.”

Once my brother was asleep, my manservant came to me and said, “He abuses your trust. Those are not, in fact, the boots of your father.”

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from the comments, Jen has another take on the same prompt:

“I want to hear a story,” the old priest demanded. “But nothing that would offend me, if you please.”

His request made me feel both annoyed and proud at once, so I had my manservant read to him from the big black book decorated with red leather stitching that has been in my family for countless generations.

Afterwards the priest took me aside to gossip about my manservant. “He abuses your trust,” he said with a rueful chuckle. “I smelled alcohol on his breath. He read one story with vice in it, and another with lust.”

I nodded, secretly pleased that my manservant had done just as I told him.