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Kama Sutra for Beginners
December 2, 2006 in 299 Words, Books, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Literature, novels, Poetry, reading, Short stories, Stories, Very Short Novels, Writing | Tags: Epiphany, Eye Contact, Love, Sex | by davidbdale | 43 comments
I stayed inside her for a very long time. Propped on my elbows, I slowed my rhythm, listened to our breath like bending trees, stopped counting my heartbeats, and felt my heart stop counting as well. I wanted to exist in the exclusively now, as the book put it. The past had nothing for me. I was inside her, and it didn’t matter how long I had been. But the future, well, the future was dangling god-affirming ecstasy, or the little death of need, and maybe a nibble on the neck. All good things. I knew if I so much as twitched my hips, the future would suck me straight to the afterglow. I found my balance and sought her eyes. I wanted her to see my unique love for her as her destiny. She’d seen this look from me before, this forcing-an-epiphany look. She flipped below me like a dolphin in a tank and gave me a look of her own. She rocked me off my elbows and pulled me back like a magnet, rocked me, pulled me. I couldn’t breathe. I wondered what animal pose we were doing. Silly boy, she was thinking, or so I thought, epiphanies are cheap. She growled. I found a rhythm that wasn’t metaphorical and harmonized with her to make something wild and furry we could share. And there it was, she was, when I quit striving for insight: the multifaced feminine deity of my personal pantheon: lips of former girlfriends and a schoolgirl skirt, variably breasted, numerously thighed, arms and legs enough to hold the important bits together: all the women I ever worshiped in a single apparition. I don’t know what hybridized figment she was concocting, but we made what we needed. and we saw that it was good.
Copyright © December 1, 2006
Tips for Better Golf
November 29, 2006 in 299 Words, Books, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Literature, novels, Poetry, reading, Short stories, Stories, Very Short Novels, Writing | Tags: Class, Status | by davidbdale | 3 comments
Long before the godsend that is the golf cart, the caddies were on borrowed time. Their insinuations on topics irrelevant to our game rubbed us the wrong way. Yet, we might be employing them still if we hadn’t discovered Tips for Better Golf, a cheap pamphlet, badly written and sloppily typed, repeatedly xeroxed until it was barely legible, apparently distributed from caddy to caddy by hand, presumably a joke. Its advice to golfers includes the following: Caddies work for tips, not for hearty handshakes, your warm thanks, or advice on how to write a college application. No, it’s not your imagination: the courses you prefer are not congenial to cultural minorities. At most clubs, you will encounter the ethnic “other” only at curbside, at tableside, or in the parking lot. At the more exclusive courses, an attendant may wash your clubs at the end of your heroic round. Do not take it personally if he polishes your club heads by spitting on them. Empty your mind of conscious thought as you address the ball: it will not improve your game to consider the hundreds of acres of virgin timber the developer bulldozed to produce this grassy diorama with its little flags. The golf course is as much a nature preserve as your home aquarium is the sea. Don’t fool yourself that you’re getting any exercise. It is also bad form to complain to people who do real work about any injuries you may sustain. While it’s true that what you paid for your round could feed a Polynesian family for weeks, it’s unlikely they would have gotten the money anyway. If you are lucky enough to find your balls on the fairway, be thankful you still have them. Pick them up and go home. Remember to tip your caddy.
Copyright ©1999
Very Short Novels 