New Creative Nonfiction Piece Appears at Camroc!

My recently penned A Sort of Homecoming has been accepted at Camroc Press Review. (It should be stated that the editor there is great!) I’m especially excited that this story is up for the holidays. Something about the timing feels right to me. So thanks Barry, for your editorial eye and thanks Grandma H, for still being with us.

Eleanor Shagwell

Eleanor Shagwell speared a diced Portabella with her fork.

“I can’t believe you’re even considering this again!” Sarah said, tossing her napkin on the table.

The clock over the bar read 1:35, which meant Eleanor would only have to endure her younger sister’s tedious rant for approximately twenty more minutes. Fixing Sarah with her biggest smile Eleanor explained.

“But it’s so much fun, Sar. And you’re the person who said I should get out more and have some good times.”

“I meant go out with the girls.”

Where’s the fun in that? Eleanor wondered but she noticed Sarah’s gritting teeth and decided to keep it to herself. No sense in goading her sister into true hysteria.

Sarah dropped her voice. “What about Henry? How can you do this to him?”

Eleanor rolled her eyes. “Hen’s fine, Sarah.”

“Sure he’s fine now. But what if he figures out what you’re up to. How fine will he be then?”

“Unless someone—say my younger sister—mentions it, I don’t think there’s much to worry about. I’m being very discreet.”

Sarah smiled that infuriating I’m-oh-so-much-worldlier-than-you smile. “So you think you can count on the guy you’ve been seeing, Alistair of whatever his name is, to keep your dirty little secret.”

“Alistair?” Eleanor let out a humph of scorn. “He’s ancient history.”

Her sister gaped across the table. “Then who the hell are you meeting today?”

“I think he said his name was Brad.”

“Brad?”

“As in short for Bradley. He’s a policeman.”

“You’re not serious.”

Eleanor’s eyes flashed mischievously. “I wanted to do it in the patrol car, but he said that was too risky—he did promise to bring his cuffs.” She popped another mushroom into her mouth with relish, knowing Sarah couldn’t tell if she was serious or not.

“I think you need professional help.”

Eleanor snorted. “Look at me. I’m as fit as I was at 25.” She caught Sarah’s jealous glance at her newly restored figure but let it pass without comment. “Henry and I have a solid marriage. The children are happy. He’s happy. I’m happy. What about that requires professional help?”

“If you’re so god-damned happy why are you fucking other men?”

“I’ve always liked sex.” Eleanor shrugged. “And I’m currently enjoying the variety aspect of it. It’s something new and different for me.”

“It was your own choice to marry your first boyfriend.”

“Henry wasn’t my first boyfriend.”

“Well practically. Anyway, it’s a lame excuse for sleeping around and you know it.”

Sarah’s face expressed an odd mixture of anger, concern and envy. For a moment Eleanor paused, wondering if things really had gone too far; then a wave of anticipation washed over her. Just a few more minutes till her afternoon rendezvous. Calm and confidence returned.

“Really, Sarah, I’m fine. This is fine. I promise you, no one is going to get hurt. Don’t worry so much.”

“I’m not even supposed to be the worrier,” Sarah pouted, her nose wrinkling just like it had when she was ten. “That’s your job.”

***

Eleanor gazed at herself in the mirror. Sarah was right. It had always been Eleanor’s job to worry, to take care of things and people. And she could always be counted on to do the right thing. When Sarah wanted the affection and security of a family, where did she come? To hang out with Nora and Hen. When their father needed a place to stay after his divorce, who’d welcomed him, comforted him, and got him back on his feet? Nora. Eleanor tackled PTA meetings, community yard sales, holiday meals and all the rest of a stay-at-home-soccer-mom’s requisite dull duties with a mixture of super-human efficiency, good-humor and grace.

That hasn’t changed, she thought smoothing her eyebrow with a fingertip. I haven’t dropped any of those balls, so much as tossed a new one into the juggling act. One about pursuing my own desires, for a change.

She was already tucked under the duvet when Henry slipped into bed.

“Thought I caught a come hither look earlier,” he murmured into her ear. “Was that a secret message for me or are you too tired?”

Eleanor couldn’t recall ever having been too tired. He could have roused her from a deep sleep and found her none too resistant. She sighed. Her husband’s thoughtfulness was sweet, but occasionally demanding and aggressive would be so much more stimulating.

Like earlier that afternoon. No cuddling, no consideration. Just some heated grabbing and forceful kisses. Then before she knew it, Brad had cuffed her to the bed. Between Brad’s expertly handled sex toy and the real thing she’d already enjoyed a double for the day.

“Well, why not go for the triple,” she thought pulling her husband’s familiar body close.

***

Eleanor fiddled with the black lace drawn taut across her breasts, still disbelieving that she was about to walk into a restaurant wearing a dress so sheer you could actually see her nipples. Shaking her recently dyed blue black hair, she took a deep breath. “Just remember, tonight you’re not you—you’re Eva,” she told herself. “And a dress like this is old hat to Eva.”

She strode, head high and shoulders back, across the hotel lounge toward the beach-side bistro, ignoring the flutter of butterflies in her stomach and the eyes she imagined leveled at her bust line. All of her previous trysts had been easy to slip away for—neither her children nor Henry were home on weekdays. But arranging this weekend getaway with Eric made things far more complicated. And deceptive.

Eleanor recalled with a twinge of guilt the unconvinced look on her mother’s face when she’d asked if the children could spend the weekend.

“You’re going to the beach on your own?” her mother asked over cups of tepid coffee.

“Henry has to be out-of-town anyway,” Eleanor had explained. “So it seemed like the perfect chance for me to escape. Have a little quiet time to myself.”

Mom made no attempt to hide her skepticism. “You’ve never needed any time to yourself before.”

But the look on Eric’s face made it all worthwhile. Politely rising from the table when he saw her, a delicious expression of appreciation glittered in his eyes.

“You are stunning,” he said. And Eleanor believed him.

***

Henry would be home by three Sunday afternoon, so a quick stop at the grocery store meant Eleanor would arrive after him, but at least she could prepare something special for dinner. As she pulled into the tree lined driveway, her heart-rate quickened. What’s Sara doing here, she wondered, afraid she already knew.

Eleanor drug four canvas grocery bags inside and plunked them on the kitchen floor, more interested in the somber faces directing their eyes at her than the melting ice cream.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

Her sister and husband both watched her.

“I had to tell him,” Sarah said. Her voice sounded loud and overly confident. “When mom mentioned you’d gone off for the weekend, I….” Sarah trailed off, as if her reasoning no longer made sense.

Eleanor looked at Henry. Shaking his head he gave her a small smile.

“It was your idea, Nora. You explain.” He turned and exited the kitchen, calling over his shoulder, “I promised the kids some soccer at the park. We’ll be home in time for dinner.”

“Explain what?” Sarah sounded shocked.

Eleanor knew her sister would be furious with her, but she couldn’t help dissolving into giggles.

***

“We have to stop, you know,” Henry placed his hands on Eleanor’s shoulders and squeezed affectionately.

Eleanor nodded. She’d been sitting alone on the patio, watching dusk fall over the delicate Siberian Iris blooms.

“I didn’t tell her I was having affairs just to be mean,” Eleanor explained. “She overheard me calling you Alistair, during one of our naughty phone conversations and it was such a rush….”

She focused on her flower beds, wishing she felt a bit more contrite. It sounded like such a nasty thing to have done—letting her sister believe that she’d been sleeping with every willing man in town—but there was just something about Sarah that made it impossible to resist. Deep down, Eleanor suspected her meanness stemmed from the realization that Sarah was not so much worried about them as she was concerned about herself. If Eleanor’s life deteriorated into some TV miniseries who would be left to take care of needy little Sarah?

“I can understand the temptation, Nora.” Henry chuckled. “But even so…”

“I know,” Eleanor brushed a tiny tearlet from her eye. “It was fun, wasn’t it?” she said turning to face her husband. “You had fun too, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.” He grinned at her, not in a shy or embarrassed way like she expected. For a moment he looked like an intriguing stranger, then the familiar Henry returned. “You should have seen yourself in that dress last night,  as Eva or whatever your fantasy name was.” He shook himself slightly. “I’ve never spent so much on food I was too distracted to eat before.”

Eleanor giggled and snuggled her head against his chest. “Wait till you see the bill for the dress.”

Henry snorted and caressed her brownish hair, the temporary black dye had lightened considerably with only two showers.

“What do we do now?” she whispered. “Go back to being a boring old married couple?”

“I have a present for you,” Henry said, placing a rectangular package wrapped in gold foil on her lap. “I picked it up on my way home from the park.”

She slid a nail under the tape and pulled off the paper, revealing a slim book.

“Tantric Practice for Couples?”

“Mmhm,” Henry said nuzzling her neck. “You be Nora and I’ll be Henry and we’ll see how things go from there.”

A Children’s Tale

One of the cool things  (perhaps the only cool thing)  about having a hard-drive fail catastrophically  is that it  forces you to sort files. And in my sorting I found some children’s stories written years and years ago–back when my Will was a baby. To my surprise they’re quite fun, so I thought I’d share a few.

Shagmar Makes a Friend

Shagmar liked to play outside. Sometimes, he played that knights were charging up the hill to his fort. Sometimes, he played that he was a famous explorer beast making his way through the dark woods. Sometimes, he walked across the meadow and through the woods looking for birds and animals.

The only time that Shagmar didn’t like to be outside was at night. He was afraid of the funny sounds. He was afraid of the funny shadows. He was afraid of the dark.

One night the Beasty family decided to visit Grandma and Grandpa. Mama told the little beasties to get into the beastimobile. Shagmar was excited. He loved to visit his Grandpa and Grandma. He forgot to be afraid. He sat in the beastimobile waiting.

Fuzzimodo had an idea. He would trick his big brother. He stood by the door and made spooky howling noises. He knew it would scare Shagmar.

Shagmar soon came running back into the hole. “Mama, Papa,” he cried, “there is something outside. I think it’s a monster.”

Mama and Papa went out with Shagmar. Fuzzimodo and Wildebeast went too. Fuzzimodo was laughing. He thought his trick was very funny. But soon he stopped laughing.

Somewhere in the darkness something cried. It did not sound mean. It did not sound scary. It sounded sad.

Shagmar thought he saw something moving in the moonlight. He moved slowly and quietly toward the shape. He made friendly noises and held out his big paw. To his surprise a large creature rubbed up against his leg. He patted it gently. Then it followed him back to the hole entrance where his family stood watching.

From the light of the hole they could see that it was a cat.

It was the biggest cat any of them had ever seen. It was bigger than Wildebeast. The cat had a short stubby tail and long tufts on his ears. His fur was fluffy gray and white.

“That’s a wild cat!,” said Papa.

“He’s purring,” said Mama.

“I want to pet him too,” said Fuzzimodo, reaching out and stroking the huge cat.

The cat rubbed his head against Fuzzimodo’s hand but he did not move from Shagmar’s side.

“Shagmar,” Papa smiled, “I think you have a friend.”

“Can we keep him, can we?” cried Fuzzimodo.

“If he wants to stay,” replied Mama. “What should we call him?”

The family stood thinking for a minute. Then Shagmar answered.

“Itty Kitty.”

Athena Rants

“Do you have a light?”

It was a feminine voice. I turned toward an attractive woman in her late twenties, with short dark hair, wearing a well tailored wool suit. She looked like a lawyer. Her eyes caught mine. Gray eyes, frightening and beautiful.

“A light.”

It sounded like an order. I fumbled a lighter out of my bag and lit her cigarette.

“You’re waiting for Telemakhos too, I see,” she checked her watch. “It’ll be a few minutes.”

“Who?”

“Telemakhos. Odysseus’s son. You know The Odyssey.” She smiled and inhaled deeply on the cigarette, “Let’s get this clear right from the start — it’s the same old story, the one about Ulysses or Odysseus or whatever you want to call him, traipsing all over the place so he didn’t have to go home.”

She paused for a moment, scanning my face.

“You won’t mind if I vent,” she concluded with evident satisfaction. “First you need to appreciate how clever Odysseus is, smarter than the average ancient Greek by far. Honestly, it’s not even a fair comparison. And he’s a very sexy guy — thick chest covered in golden hair, broad shoulders, strong arms, not too tall. He has a striking face, sad smile, and distant eyes. The kind of man that sucks women right in. Oh, and the fact that he can be quite charming doesn’t hurt.

It’s also important to mention that he had real problems with his mother. She was one of those women who had much better things to do than pay attention to her son, at least when she was alive. When he found her in the underworld it was an entirely different matter, but that’s another story. Even so, she expected him to be perfect in every way. Naturally he developed quite a complex toward women. A typical seek their approval then use-um-and-lose-um cycle. Come to think of it, he isn’t very good at keeping male friends either. Consider his crew—speared like fish, eaten alive, fried by a thunderbolt, it was gruesome.”

“Ultimately, you just have to come to terms with the fact that Odysseus is an ass. A discouraging realization, I understand, him being an archetypal hero and all. But believe me, I know,” she tossed the butt into the grass and ground it viciously with the bottom of her black pump.

“In fact, I probably know him better than anyone. And I admit being a bit smitten myself. But I was feeling vulnerable after that whole Paris and the Three Golden Apples fiasco. Even sensible goddesses are entitled to crushes every now and then. Anyway, given my personal interests, I took it upon myself to help Odysseus along. Maybe I actually started out thinking I could help him do the right thing. Or maybe I was just bored and horny. Either way pretty soon me and Odysseus had become regular participants in each others lives. Not that we see each other often. I tend to show up when he’s in over his head. God only knows why.

I’m not, nor have I ever been, the primary focus of his life. Odysseus is the primary focus of Odysseus’ life, and not a wife, a son, friends, wars, lovers, or deities can change that. Really, he always gets much better than he deserves—but I guess I’m partially to blame for that. Probably I should have done western culture a favor and let him drown. But saving him seemed like a good idea at the time. And that’s the thing about Odysseus, he gets under your skin. His ultimate power lies in his hurt eyes and the way, in a moment of truth, he bares his sorry soul and lets you see that nothing can ever fill it up. Funny isn’t it, his greatest strength is being so damn pathetic.”

She pulled a new cigarette out of the pack, off-handedly offering me one. I lit hers first, she smiled a thank you. It was a very unsettling smile.

“Even though I understood it was bound to happen, I’m not particularly good at dealing with rejection. You know he’s never made a pass at me. He doesn’t even flirt. Not once. Can you believe it? I’m sure he’d say it’s some form of respect. ‘Cause you certainly couldn’t be attracted to someone you admire or revere. It’s enough to make you feel sorry for the women he’s been involved with. He’s had some great ones. And he didn’t deserve a damn one of them. The fact that he managed to, uh…” she seemed to be considering her next words carefully, “fuck Cierce into giving up her favorite sport, never ceases to amaze me. She turned men into animals you know; sometimes wolves or lions but mostly pigs. Apropos isn’t it. She was thousands of years ahead of her time.”

“And Penelope. The crap she’s put up with while Odysseus had his manly adventures with monsters and witches. Just once I’d like to change the story so that Penelope got to choose her revenge. Have you ever wondered what it would be? I mean, what would you do to him?”

She crossed her arms and waited expectantly, gray eyes boring deep into my subconscious. Clearly, this was not a rhetorical question. Killing him while he ate was too Clytemnestra.  Murdering his children too Medea. Killing myself too cliché. Then it struck me.

“Odysseus might have made a good eunuch.”

For the first time the stranger’s face broke into a broad grin. “Wouldn’t that be hilarious? Mr. Heroic reduced to singing soprano forever.”

She chuckled to herself for a few moments while finishing the cigarette. Then she shook her head. “But that’s not the way it works. Odysseus rescues Penelope and the kid. With more than a little help from me,” she tossed the second butt and nodded in the direction of a beautiful young man walking up the path. “Here he comes.”

And suddenly we were sitting on a large rock along the edge of a stormy green sea. Telemakhos rinsed his hands in the foam. The woman beside me rose and as she moved, her smooth pale skin wrinkled and stained, coarse robes now clothed her bent and withering frame and a thinning white beard sprouted from her chin. Only the startling gray eyes remained, glancing at me from a distance as she spoke consolingly to Telemakhos. “The son is rare who measures with his father, and one in a thousand is a better man….”

*******************************

This is an old piece that I still like quite a bit. Back in the spring of 2007, it placed 2nd  in Litopia.com’s Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time writing contest and was featured in their inaugural podcast.

A Storylet

I’m not sure yet where this little piece is headed, but the idea has been rolling around in the back of my mind for several years now. Nameless’ voice has been clear all along, but I’ve never quite managed to figure out what she wants to say. Maybe this will help.
***********

Nameless

Nameless waits in Limbo. She doesn’t want to be here. It’s monotonous. And gray. Always gray. A dim, half-light—day and night, night and day. She thinks she’d have liked starlight, but who can really say? Nameless has no form. As a fetus, her physical self was not fully developed. In a world of wispy spirits, less than human and less than dead, Nameless is less of both than the others.

Something New: There is a Light

There is a Light

They made love for the first time in the dusty grass on the cliff’s edge, a marvelously intense exchange unaffected by their mutual tipsiness or typical first date nerves. Afterwards, they stretched shoulder to shoulder, staring wide-eyed into the stars. Somehow, despite the immenseness of infinity they had found each other and the night breeze whispered endless possibilities in their ears.

On the way up, he’d cursed himself for forgetting a flashlight; but now, as he led her along the path it seemed irrelevant. He knew the way and their eyes had long ago adjusted to the darkness. He brushed against prickly needles from the large gnarled pine that squeezed its twisted limbs through cracks in the surrounding boulders and automatically stepped closer to it, away from the loose rocks and the sheer drop to the river below.

Just a half pace behind him, she stepped away from spiky branches, secure in the strength of the strong hand entwined with hers and the perfect peace of the night. Suddenly she was flying.

The warmth of her hand as it slipped from his fingers would stay with him forever.

New Work at Ink Sweat & Tears

Check out a brand new proem (that’s prosey poem or poemy prose) In Unison posted at Ink Sweat and Tears.  My short poem Proxy is there too!!!

.Cent Magazine

Just got my copy of .Cent Magazine in the post.

It is the coolest!

Full color throughout, slipcover, great layouts, funky graphics, interesting writing and my poem Definiens headlining the Layers section (page 25 if you happen to purchase one)! So this is what success feels like….

Unexpected Surprise!!

My nightly, pre-bed email check yielded the unexpected last night–Full of Crow not only accepted my story The Martyr’s Daughter, it’s posted and ready to read. Very cool!

Leaving: A new poem posted at Camroc

Once again I have the honor of being published at Camroc Press Review. Many thanks to Barry for this great little journal! The poem that’s featured was a result of my recent transatlantic transition. It’s called Leaving