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My Only Darling B—

You can’t imagine how a woman of substance has changed this ranch and all your boys, me included. Our Dulce. Billy brought her, thinking she was his, but all your sons have found reasons to cherish her: soft voice, sharp eye, curves in certain light, each one a feature of you that they must be reminiscing. They think their affection is genuine, but they’ve fallen in love with their mother, or parts of you. Merciful God, I’m sorry, B! I should never have dragged you to a pitiless frontier expecting shelter from this omniscient sky. A man in love has given away half his brain and all of his decency!  When I watch the boys looking at Dulce, I understand where I went wrong. I was defeated by your eyes. Yes, I mean your ass. There, I’ve made you laugh. Since I saw you at that table alone in the café near your school, with my bag of blueprints for building a future far from home and nothing but bankruptcies behind me, any confidence I needed I took from those eyes of yours that did me in. Again, I mean that ass. You ridiculed my pickup line without mercy. But when I called your face expressive, I meant it as a warning that I could tell you would follow me anywhere I wandered to. I should have left you sheltered in a town full of friends, married to whoever you wanted. You could have had anyone, been anyone, instead of disintegrating here on acres of powdered grief, raising boys like livestock, and being The Colonel’s wife. I wish you were here to see her, B—. The boys will have a hard time keeping her from me. I see it in her eyes.

Love, Your Colonel.

Original Copyright © March 13, 2007
Revised Copyright © March 13, 2026

You are all women to me; that, as I understand it, is the nature of marriage. You tolerate me with grace, as all women do, more or less, so wear the pink pants for me, if you don’t mind, the pants I’d have all women wear, and all of you please walk up ahead and climb the stairs, but do turn back to look at me with your billion eyes, and make a silhouette of one or two breasts each, and in return I’ll do whatever, whenever you tell me. And lose the shirts, please, if that’s okay. You wanted the vote, I know, you made that clear, you marched for that. And you appear to want to be consulted, not merely informed, on issues that don’t concern you, which puzzles me, but tell me anyway, while you’re in those pants, of course, and I’ll consult you. Anything more complicated than that confuses me. For example, you seem, and by you I mean your plural most delectable selves, you seem to support contradictory viewpoints, when what I’m listening for is a single clear word of unambiguous longing, longing for me. Otherwise I’m paralyzed by doubt. I’ve taken a poll, the only way I know how, by asking you the same questions relentlessly since the day we met. The results, as they say, are in. By a small margin, women agree I’m a reasonable if not an overwhelming candidate for serious coupling, not entirely unattractive, to some degree a provider. And that’s supposed to satisfy me. On balance, if I had my life to live over on that basis, I just, I wouldn’t do it. I wouldn’t put myself through it. According to the same poll, the countless men I represent approve of me. If my opinion counts for anything.

Original Copyright © February 05, 2007
Revised Copyright © February 04, 2026

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Behind the Pseudonym

The pen name davidbdale honors my mother Beatrice (Bea) and my father Dale

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