Profane Comics: "Puckadoodle Dandy" Comicbook, Pg 1!

Page 1, Click to Enlarge!

Let's start this off! In which the King confronts Puck about his excessive revelry.
Page 2 should be up Wednesday. If not, then definetly Saturday! Hope you enjoy! <3

Profane Tales Comics: Gelding in the Fairlands (pg 1 of 9)

Gelding in the Fairlands: Prelude (page 1)

A/N: What do you all think of the comic "borders?" I am thinking of doing the next like an illuminated manuscript. Pg 2 coming soon! Also click HERE for the comic previous to this one.

Exit the Briars: LB's "Veil" on Opening Line!

Check out LB's short story "Lifting the Veil" in the online The Opening Line magazine's October Supernatural edition.

A short creep tale. A sister relates her brother's decline into obsession over a mysterious woman wearing a veil. Read but not if you're planning any sleep tonight.

Expect an update Wednesday. A new short story just for the winter. And here. Have some art I made or the winter and in the vein of "Lifting the Veil." Though I believe this is the Ghost of Christmas Future and not the character in the short story~ <3

Ode to Joy-10.3: Izzy

10. Teatime Travesty

ii. Izzy

“WHERE IS THE BEAUTIOUS QUEEN OF DENMARK!”

The voice woke the earl from his sleep.

The first horror that struck him was the thought of his mother ranting and raving.

He saw that the sun was quite down and lit a lamp to navigate the halls. That voice had come from downstairs.

“Mother!” he called out.

The royal red of the hallway revealed itself as his lamp light chased the shadows. His deep voice carried through the mansion.

He reached the spiraling staircase but halfway down a shaky singing voice raced up. This is when Orion slowed his step and his voice sped slightly. A maid?

No, the maids were quiet. They went about unseen. And this voice was clear and certainly not modest.

“Oh, what an unquiet grave!

What an unquiet grave!

Unquiet grave!

Unquiet!

Grave!

Grave!

Grave!”

At last his lantern showed him the person ascending the stairs as he descended.

The words to his own poem-- stashed away in private, vowed never to be published—sung to him by a strange voice. The light revealed the face of a woman. They met at the middle of the stairs. When the light revealed her in the full he saw that she was wearing a pair of rat ears on her head, her hair flaxen white. Her body was donned in a fur suit that lessened at the chest to  peak at her cleavage. Her arms bare and her legs in long pink stockings. And in her hand she held a giant rat tail that trailed from her bottom.

“My favorite poem I read!” she exclaimed in a clear voice. “You are quite a poet. But a tad depressing. Perhaps a sarcastic ode to one of your abusers would be nice.”

Orion blinked at the woman. Her eyes looked almost red in the darkness.

“Can I help you, miss? Perhaps if we work this out I won’t even ask why you’re dressed as a giant rat.”

She gave a small squeak, “I am a rat! It’s me! Izzy.”

She did not look like anyone he knew. “Is this a silly joke of Brigid’s?”

“I am not a joke, my lord. I’ll have you note I am very sensitive. Just like you. So you best not make jokes at my expense.”

There was even that garish pink bow on her head.

“I see the beauteous queen of Denmark looks sleepy. So I put your mother to bed for you.”

“What?” Orion jumped into action, pushing past the strange woman.

He was on the ground floor and rushing to his mother’s room. The door opened easily and the image of his mother sleeping peacefully in her bed was the only thing that kept Orion from reacting violently to the strange girl on the stairs. Deanna lay with her black hair obscuring her face. The gray at the roots were hardly clear in Orion’s lamp light. He swiped the hair from her face and tucked it behind her ear. The earl leaned down and kissed his sleeping mother’s forehead.

When he returned to the stairs the girl had her long nails in her own teeth, biting, shaking. “I did good?”

“Izzy?”

“Yes,” she answered, batting her eyes.

“Go back to the pet room and in the morning you will not be five feet tall. This is one of my fits…Goddamn it.” He pushed past her and stomped up the stairs.

“Why don’t you love me!” Izzy called after him.

“Because you are a figment of a deranged mind.”

He could hear swift footsteps following him. Izzy slipped in front of his path and held out her hands. “Is this about the pellets? I could not find any other place to go. I know it’s very unbecoming,” she gestured daintily and pulled at her own tail in anxiety. “Will you forgive me?”

“You are a rat. You make pellets. There is no need for apology. Now kindly let me alone.”

“But you will need me soon…” she gave a soft sigh as he walked past.

“I’m not entertaining this. Tomorrow the new medicine goes.”

“She hasn’t much time, Orion…” Izzy gave a sad noise. “Deanna…”

When Orion turned he saw that there were tears in the woman’s eyes.

“She has wished a guardian for you.”

“…How dare you speak of her so simply and…” he stopped himself. He needed to stop speaking to a figment of his imagination.

“I am your puca,” Izzy giggled.

Orion turned away. His studies in University had leaned heavily on Demonology. He needed no definition of a puca. When he turned around to see the woman again there was darkness where she had stood. A large white rat crawled over his shoe and scurried off into the hall.

“A new way to lose my mind…” he spoke to the empty hallway.

Ode to Joy-10.2: Maids Seem to Run

10. Teatime Travesty

ii.     Maids Seem to Run

Orion seated himself across from the maid and his wife. He was this once willing to hire a woman on the spot simply because he dreaded meeting a stranger’s eyes. After the fiasco with Amadeus surely the whole county was talking. Though the virtue of the maid who ran away, Bri reminded him, was fair and she would likely not gossip of her last employer’s home for this would ruin chances employment elsewhere.

Bri always showed him the practical side of things.

Another practical reason to live with her.

But Bri was aloof in the conversation, allowing Orion to interview the new woman with improvised questions.

“Of course we trust you with the baby. We would just prefer she remain in Julia’s watch most of the time. She is still so tiny. I do not even joke. Her head is about this big.” He picked up a tea cup.

That was when he saw it.

The tiny white creature crawling on the floor, standing up like a person to stare at them. Instead of screaming, Orion nudged Bri.

She gave her sudden laugh and this made the maid jump.

Orion felt his insides coil into a knot. They would not flex even as Bri’s words repeated to him in his head.

“She laughs at everything,” he told the maid.

Lately Bri and Orion had become more forthcoming to their staff, especially about Bri’s bizarre laugh.

“Oh yes. I apologize. It’s quite strange but sometimes I laugh for no reason at all, dear.”

Orion folded the napkin on the table into origami as the women spoke and the large rat ran about the room as though it were her own. Her little pink bow was her crown. He saw tiny pellets left in Isolde’s trail. Orion flicked his origami rat under Bri’s nose.

“That’s adorable, muffin. You’re very talented. Isn’t he just darling?” Bri asked the maid.

To Orion’s surprise the young woman seemed charmed. “It’s a mouse, isn’t it?”

“A rat,” Orion corrected with purpose. “We get them in these parts. The size of cats. Legend has it they can grow to be the size of a baby horse in Dartmoor.”

“Yes, Dartmoor is frightfully haunted,” the maid fueled the fire without knowing.

At last Bri’s large eyes widened and she seemed to see the rat at the door as it scurried out.

“Pardon me, dears.”

Orion watched his wife exit. She did seem rushed and so he made an excuse for her, “Probably maternal instinct.”

The maid nodded, a pleasant smile on her face.

Orion liked her. He gave her a smile back. At this moment his stomach had coiled and knotted and his heart was speeding from the earlier panic he felt but with no more purpose. The thoughts had left and yet his body was reeling from the unpleasant experience. “Well, Miss Summers. I am pleased to welcome you on board here. We like to communicate with our staff and we do prefer you to be comfortable. And…”

He felt the tension reach its peak.

“Excuse me.”

He lifted his tea cup, pinky up and lost the contents of his stomach in it. When he thought it was finished he closed his eyes. But another wave hit him and the water and tea of the day spilled into the tea cup.

Orion picked up a napkin and cleaned as best he could.

“I apologize, miss. It’s not contagious.”

He lifted the whole tray from the table. “My wife will get you a fresh tray.”

The woman’s face was frozen, unable to give a reaction.

“Make sure my mother gets put to bed on time,” Orion reminded Bri.

He was lying in bed while his wife felt his forehead.

“Teatime Sick. Orion’s own recipe. If you were feeling ill, why did you not tell me?” Bri grumbled.

“I certainly did not know I was going to vomit into my tea cup, dear.”

“You need to rest. Take your sleep aid.”

“I cannot. The new doctor told me to avoid anything that wakes me or sedates me.”

Bri blinked at her husband for a long time. “That makes no sense. Half the time the problem is you cannot rest. Without those things, what control do you have?”

“I do not know. Did you catch that horrid monster?”

“No,” Bri spoke tearfully. “Poor Izzy. She’s going to be smashed by someone’s foot or eaten by a cat. She’s a pure blood domestic. Imported from Scotland. Never been wild in her life. Little princess.”

“Princess Rat. I remember that tale. The Brothers Grimm told it.”

“Really?”

“Yes. She gets eaten.”

Bri frowned and swatted at Orion with a wet rag that she set on his head. “In a few hours you should eat if you can. Settle your stomach. I will make sure Deanna is taken care of, do not worry.”

“Sometimes she hides in places they cannot find her…” Orion called to his wife as she left the room.

He lay back down in bed and looked to the opium pipe Bri had left on the nightstand. After five days of purging it felt as though he would be trashing his suffering simply to go back to the opiate. But his addiction called to him. And he had been chasing sleep off and on for the past few days. Such purging had made little difference.

And so Orion gave in to his oldest enemy and friend.

ODE TO JOY: Part 1-3: Madness in the Blood

3.     Madness in the Blood

Hiring a wetnurse had been an interview left to the earl. Something he would have felt deadly afraid of doing were it not for his apathy toward breasts. Yet every woman who he interviewed seemed uncomfortable that it was a man who rushed these questions out. Bri had written the questions on the back of a calling card, in the tiniest finest print Orion had ever seen.

To hell if he could read it.

“You should not corn…” he spoke to one of the women in a calm voice, hiding the fact that he was reading off of this card religiously.

“Corn?” the young woman bit her lip.

Where was her child? If she was producing milk then surely the baby should be near her. Orion did not know, nor did he understand the instruction that his wife had written out.

“I am not sure I understand your meaning, my lord.”

Orion laughed suddenly, covering his face.

Shame and guilt flowered in his stomach.

Fantastic. Now I’ve scared this one off.

The laugh had been so sudden and manic that the woman stiffened in her chair. He shook his head. “I apologize. It is my wife’s handwriting. I am unsure what it means myself.”

He gambled to show the woman the back of the card. She leaned forward in a stiff and demur way.

“Scorn…” she read off. “I believe she means ‘scold.’ As in, don’t fuss the baby…”

Orion blinked at the young woman and then nodded, his demeanor smoothed into the cold and stoic front he usually wore for strangers. “Quite. Don’t do that. That is a no in her book. It is a no in mine too but…I’m a man. I will not tell a woman how to raise her children. Though, if you scolded the child, you would most likely be fired. What was your name again?” he stopped himself from rambling.

His thoughts were speeding to the point of being useless, his eyes circled darkly by his fatigue. That fatigue that would not relieve itself by letting him rest.

“I do not believe in punishing babies, my lord…” the tough young woman replied.

Orion offered a sincere smile. “That is good. There is really no need for that. Life  becomes hard the moment we are conscience of our actions.”

The woman nodded in a way that told Orion the tables had turned. Now she was inspecting him.

She knows! She knows I am mad and now she will spread that rumor all about town. The mad earl’s son is his father’s boy for sure!

“You’ve done very well, dear. Next!” he announced with his baritone.

He fixed his invisible shield as best he could. He needed that cold front. It was a necessary weapon on days like these. Bri was counting on him to find a suitable woman to nurse their child. What could be more important? Already little Drusilla had confined Bri to the nursery.

A sad older woman stepped into the room after the nervous girl, who seemed to literally run away from the strange earl.

“Good morning,” she spoke with a soft voice.

The voice was important to Orion. He noted it as a positive. She was gentle and had an air of sadness about her that he had yet to see in the other women.

“Good morning,” he greeted with a nod. “What is your name, miss?”

“Julia. Julia Frost.”

He noted with mild interest that she was surely lactating. Her breasts were swollen to a point of looking painful. Orion made a physical effort not to mention something so inappropriate. But how was that so inappropriate? She was interviewing to be a wetnurse. Her breast milk was the most important part, was it not?

“Lord Hookwell, Miss Julia. It is a pleasure. You have lovely eyes,” he told her in truth.

They were tired eyes but they shined with life. “Thank you, my lord.”

“Hm, well. I have my wife’s notes here. I will be perfectly honest…I think I have frightened the last few women. I know this is inappropriate. A man interviewing for a wetnurse but my wife is ill. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”

“Not at all, my lord. I expected many.”

“Good. My wife was expecting too,” he let out a light laugh, somehow stopping it before it swelled into madness.

To his surprise Julia laughed. “Puns. Very good.”

“Hm, well,” he cleared his throat. “We try. Where is your little one?”

Orion wrote on the card of her gentleness and of her experience in being a mother. She had two children and was around Brigid’s age.

Following Julia’s departure, the butler handed him a stack of mail that made his heart race with anxiety.  He handed them back to the butler. “Are there any that aren’t bad news right now?”

“Well…let’s see…” the butler cleared his throat and thumbed through. “Ah, here we are.”

Orion took the envelope from the man with shifting eyes.

“This isn’t sarcasm, is it?”

“My lord, I would not be sarcastic with you. I would like to remain alive.”

“What was that?”

“Nothing, my lord.”

When Orion read the swirling handwriting on the envelope he recognized it so quickly that he choked on air.

The butler cleared his throat. “My lord, may I make a suggestion?”

“Confine myself to my room until this passes?”

“Precisely.”

“There are things to do. And this…” Orion shook the envelope. “This is troubling, by the way.”

“The Arteberrys are not lawyers or witch doctors. Nor are they mad-doctors.”

The earl eyed the man down, hurt by the bluntness of his words.

“I am sorry,” the older man apologized. “I only meant they are your friends…”

In the safety on his own room Orion tore the envelope open. A beautiful sketch of a bird began the congratulations letter. It was signed by Lucinda Arteberry, the lovely innkeeper in Dartmoor. To Orion’s surprise it was also signed by her husband Captain Charles Arteberry.

“So we speak again, Charles?” Orion spoke to the sailor who was not there. He put his face in his hands and took a deep breath.

When a hand landed on his shoulder he started.

“Oh! I’m sorry!” Bri’s voice announced her a few seconds too late.

“Brigid!” he raised his voice. “Don’t! Do! That!”

“I’m sorry, muffin. Who is it from?” she peaked over his shoulder.

Her hair was tumbling down free and she was in a nightgown. She showed little care for propriety when it came to being clothed in the house. Something Orion did not mind. However, he did mind being spooked as he had a tendency to jump higher than a startled cat.

“The Arteberrys. It’s from the Arteberrys.”

“Oh and Charles signed it? Good. I suppose he’s not angry at you anymore.”

“Or Lucy put a gun to his head. Probably the latter.”

“Muffin. You’re doing it again.”

“Doing what?” he snapped.

“Assuming.”

“Brigid, I have a splitting headache.”

Brigid’s eyes narrowed and she stepped back. “Fine. Did you find a good wetnurse?”

“Yes. Her name is Julia. She’s very kind,” he rushed the words, almost stumbling over them.

“What is the matter?”

“I want to die!” he exclaimed, his voice broke into something like a scream.

Brigid grimaced and turned from him, stomping from the room.

“Brigid!” he called out instantly after. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean…”

“Sorry? You say that often, Rion,” she snapped back and slammed the door behind her.

Orion set his head on the desk and fought tears.

poem: Maiden Leaves the Tower

Maiden Leaves the Tower

"I love you too much for you to know
I cut your tongue to save you from your stupid woes
I lock the tower for your own protection, waif.
The world would pluck your petals off
In games of chance and you will not
Survive the battery. Better you remain behind the gate."

I hear your voice in my ear
In empty rooms and dreams
I feel your dagger twist
And the shadows strike
My heart, they know
They know to catch the blood that drips

"Stupid Coward Child Foolish Traitor Vile Ungrateful Dumb wench.
Stupid Coward Child Foolish Traitor Vile Ungrateful Dumb wench.
Stupid Child!"

"Ungrateful wench, all I've fought for you
You owe me all and tears are due.
How dare you think love is unconditional;
I set the rules!
You signed a contract in your virgin blood
I stitched the wounds and cleaned the mud
Fashion a rope to leave
and you will meet the ugliness of the world!"

Lines of the contract read in my sleep
As I forget to laugh and live
I break into bite-sized bits
Sing to myself
I shall never be sane and fixed.

"Stupid Coward Child FoolishTraitor Vile Ungrateful Dumb wench.
Stupid Coward Child Foolish Traitor Vile Ungrateful Dumb wench.
Stupid Child!"

"You owe me, little girl
You owe me tears!
You owe me, little girl
Without me you are weak!
You owe me, little girl.
You think you can survive
without me, little girl?"

I hear my defeats so clear
In empty rooms and dreams
I feel your dagger twist
Shadows pick at scabs

"Stupid Coward Child Foolish Traitor Vile Ungrateful Dumb wench.
Stupid! Coward! Child! Foolish! TRAITOR! VILE! UNGRATEFUL! DUMB WENCH!
Stupid Child!"

...I hear your voice in my ear
In empty rooms and dreams
I hear your voice in my ear
In empty rooms and dreams
I hear your voice in my ear
In empty rooms  and dreams.
I hear your voice in my ear
In a empty rooms and screams!

short story- (1/2) Hallow's Eve

“Yeah, well, if you get any wild ideas in your head, you better not go running off like an idiot to solve things all alone,” Derrick had commanded, slurring loudly even over Amelia’s vegetating body. “You call the cops, pronto!”

“Derrick, keep your voice down!” Sarah had commanded him.

“She can’t hear us!” Derrick had nearly laughed, but not quite.

The half-laugh lingered in Sarah’s ears, along with the image of Amelia’s shattered face, propped uselessly with breathing devices and equipment. Those labored, rattling breaths stayed with her as well.

At nightfall, the two-story residence in the woods surprised her. She wasn’t normally skittish, but in this view, where branches opened sublimely for her to see Willy’s house, Sarah shuttered. Toilet paper littered the roof, swaying in the autumn breeze like ghost decorations. It was only timing, Sarah reminded herself. American culture had made October 31 the token “scary” night. There was nothing to fear but fear itself. And being discovered.

Sarah took in the setting, stifling the natural urges that compelled her to leave this place. Amelia’s little skull-and-cross bone diary was in there. Tonight was the safest time to permeate Willy’s “club” without detection.

She parked her aunt’s ancient beetle car on the outskirts of the forest, near a pick-up truck and a ratty smaller vehicle. When her cell phone vibrated against her thigh, she shuddered, “Shit! Derrick!”

Sure enough, her older brother’s name read across the brightening screen. In the lack of urban lights, the cell phone’s glow suddenly irked her. But she answered, her own tiny voice doing nothing to calm her. “What?”

“You better be at your little boyfriend’s house and not playing Nancy Drew or some shit!”

“Will you get off my ass! I’m just trick or treating.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Okay, I’m smoking pot!” She offered a more realistic, 15-year-old lie. “You happy?”

“I don’t care if you’re snorting crack off a dead bum’s ass, but you better not visit Amelia’s friends. They’re a bunch of stoners. And that Will guy is”

“I don’t even know where they are,” she lied, Amelia’s stolen phonebook on the passenger seat. “Besides, you don’t care if I’m doing lines of coke but you do care if I’m hanging out with coke heads?”

“Don’t be a stupid bitch, Sarah. Look what it did to Amelia.”

“Fuck yourself, Derrick!” she fought her urge to throw the phone and simply hung up.

She was refueled to disobey him. By the car’s dim light, she found her robe and Star Wars Yoda mask. She pulled out of her schoolbag one pair of iron knuckles. “Stupid,” she mumbled to herself. Equipped with a flashlight and guised in her costume, she cautiously took to the forest.

The night noises again warned that Sarah turn around, pick up her cell phone, and voice her suspicions to the police. But what would the authorities do? Rattle Willy and his cronies up enough to make them realize every possession Amelia had left in the camp house needed to be disposed of. No, only two days later they wouldn’t have realized this yet. Now was the best time.

Though reaching the house in the itchy, hot costume was taking longer than Sarah had expected. Following the sound of stereo music on high aided her through the white noise to the source of human-made harmony.

A couple now lay on the porch swing. Two teenagers around Amelia’s age, separated only by their clothing. To Sarah’s relief, she saw that the boy was in a poor guise of some Star Trek character. Star Wars and Star Trek, they were all the same to Sarah.

“Is that Gaven!” the girl declared, her glassy eyes suddenly on Sarah. “Hey, Gaven!”

“Yoda’s so overdone!” the trekkie rolled his eyes.

Sarah kept her silence, but even through the mask caught the scent of smoke. Both pot and tobacco, salting the air. Last year, it had been an open-house party, but what if things had changed?

On the doorbell, a smashed mosquito had spilled its juices across the yellow neon light. It was then, as Sarah pushed the button, that she realized she may have overcompensated for the holiday. She had cut her nails for the occasion, but the house was free of any Halloween decorations, saved for the toilet paper that ran from the roof.

The girl who answered Sarah’s ring peered down at her from eyes as green as her own, or as Derrick’s, or even as Amelia’s. For a moment, Sarah felt a surreal relief, which sank all too quickly. This girl could be Amelia’s twin.

“Yoda, huh?” the raven-haired beauty gave a wide, white smile. “Come on in.”

This must be the Lili of Amelia’s stories. The girl with the nose rings and the unbecoming dark style, but the face of a porcelain doll.

“Hey, everyone! Yoda’s here!” Lili exclaimed, and Sarah’s heart sank.

She began immediately to count the reasons why Derrick’s advise had been wise.

But eyes did not scrutinize her. On the contrary, most eyes in the room were busily rolled back into the heads of their owners. If there had been pot on the premises, or even cocaine, Sarah could see no more of it. The party guests, mostly female, were caught in the sway of each other, and every now and then of the things they placed on one another’s tongues.

Sarah crossed the room nearly on tiptoe. Her attention was drawn to the chaos on the nearby coach. A man, fully dressed save for the necessary area, was atop a woman, fully nude where she lay, nonchalant as he noted Sarah’s presence. Willy did not cease thrusting even as he nodded to acknowledge the new guest, and Sarah was startled by the energy of his vacant eyes.

Sarah gasped for breath, immerging from the mask safely behind the bathroom’s locked door. She quietly rummaged through the medicine cabinet. It wouldn’t be the type of place for Amelia to hide a diary. But the two lived-in bedrooms of the first floor had turned up no diary. Granted, the search was a sticky, migraine-inducing task behind the Yoda mask. The speed of Sarah’s heartbeat was not helping either. The sound of rampant footfalls outside the bathroom door signaled a drunken chase, high giggles and noise included. The toilet had rings within it.

My god. It’s not just a party house anymore, Sarah realized, noting a grungy hairbrush by the sink. I think these kids live here.

She sat on the toilet lid for a moment, mentally tracing her next steps through the house.

She was leaving, and that was for sure. This had been a suicidal idea, snooping into the lair of a group she had always known would plummet into madness. She at last checked the blank screen of her cell phone. She pressed down on the power button until the screen relit. The phone had hardly any battery power left, so she pressed down again on the power button. Better to save the last of the energy for later.

Willy’s eyes had replaced the image of Amelia’s ravaged face in Sarah’s memory. His mud brown eyes, she recalled were in more than one of her memories. As she examined her own watering green eyes in the mirror, she recalled this day a year ago, when she had in fact met Willy in this house. She had stood alongside her sister Amelia at a costume party, before Amelia had begun to disappear sporadically for months. Willy had towered guru-like over Amelia, just as he did with the others tonight. Only then, the living room had looked hotel-worthy, and this bathroom like one in a styled brochure. Even then, the energy in his eyes had been too much for Sarah to accept as pure. Something else charged it, just as something vacant charged the energy of this sloppy party. Outside the yellowing bathroom, the living room had taken on the appearance of a classic frat house. And Willy’s eyes had been all the more charged.

Leaving the smarmy heat of the bathroom, whose vent was left running for no apparent reason, Sarah met again with the ventilated air of the hallway. Only then, as the hallway stretched out before her, did she fathom how long a drive it was back to the city. Only as one of the many high girls ran past her giggling did she begin to recollect how she had seen only two other cars on the outskirts of the forest.

Slash his tires, she thought to herself. If push comes to shove…

Willy was standing in the doorway, dominating the space like an actor on stage. The girls around him were attentive, wide-eyed, some still swaying. He was conversing, with grand sweeping gestures, to the only other male in sight. Bidding him farewell, casually.

Sarah turned, her narrowed vision running up the white walls and down to the red, stained carpet. A glimpse of ugly, kitchen-looking tile appeared at the other end of the hall. Sarah gambled to find the back door.

But the couple from outside had relocated, directly in Sarah’s path to that door. She could not bring herself to step over the naked teenagers, because she could not stand to get close to the noisy act. The boy’s rhythmic breaths troubled her. For the first time that night, the stairway appealed to her, with its peeling, stained red carpet.

She took her ascent patiently; step-by-step as though the modern stairs would creak beneath her tiny weight. When a form’s warm mass pushed against her from behind, her shriek was so high that it was inaudible. Long, feminine nails ran down her robbed frame and cupped her buttocks.

“You’re not Gaven,” Lili whispered, winking. “You’re a girl.”

The maddeningly bright smile and crinkled nose left Sarah speechless. She collected the trailing part of Yoda’s robe and hurried upstairs. Lili did not follow, at least not immediately. Sarah darted into a darkened bedroom and eased the door shut. After locking it, she switched on the lights.

This time her gasp was quite audible.

A girl lay in the king-sized bed, her straight black hair fanning out across white sheets. She opened her dark, disoriented eyes and smiled, giggling. The young girl sat up straight, “Where’s Willy, Yoda?”

“Downstairs,” Sarah heard herself answer.

She would be caught. There was no doubt in her mind. The question now was how would she fight.

This disoriented teen sat straight up in her long white t-shirt. Perhaps she was the girl Willy was with earlier. She seemed highly sexed, the nipples beneath her t-shirt jutting out.

“Can you tell him to come up here, girl?” the stranger stretched out, her large breasts nearly tumbling from the shirt. When she stood, Sarah saw that this girl was fully naked save for the t-shirt.

“I think he’s busy,” Sarah deepened her voice as best she could. It probably sounded closer to Yoda than a person.

“I guess I’ll go get him. You wanna come, Amelia?”

Sarah surprised herself when she did not faint at the sound of the name. “No thanks.”

With that the stranger fluttered from the room, leaving Sarah to its security alone. She locked the door, and choked back deep sobs. What had she been expecting to retrieve here tonight? Amelia’s life force? If Willy had raped and beaten her into a coma, what difference would it make who caught him for it?

She dragged herself to the sweat-stained bed where she reached her wit’s end. Her weeping made the bed creak, a sound that triggered more than memories of this dizzy night. Among the strangest memory was hearing Derrick’s voice chide Amelia in a yell, “Geez! Will you keep it down with that in there! The rest of us like to sleep sometimes!”

“Oh, shut up!” Amelia had yelled back, making Sarah smile where she lay in her own room. She knew that Amelia was only moving her mattress to retrieve her hidden diary beneath it.

Before Sarah could collect her thoughts, her own hands were fishing beneath the heavy king-sized mattress of this bed. When her fingers scanted the binding of a cheap notebook, with skull-and-cross bone cover, her heart skipped several beats again.

©2009-2011 Luz Briar. Stealing is morally repugnant.

Draining the Humor- artwork & link

(click to enlarge. Nothing stupendous. I’ve done better, this is just a doodle. I love how their facial expressions came out though. In order from left to right; Charles, Orion, with Mini Muffin and Bri.)

If you have yet to read the story, click HERE to see it from the start.

There is another story following this one. But I’m not releasing any details yet as it isn’t even written. Check back for more if you like Orion and Bri.

(More Starving Artists coming soon.)

© 2011 Luz Briar.

Draining the Humor- Epilogue

Epilogue

Orion followed Bri into the parlor. There was a heavy April shower outside and the falling was pattering the roof, but peaceful.

Charles, Lucy and Amadeus were playing cards at the table. Charles was cursing in good humor, challenging something his wife had said. Meanwhile, Lucy chattered back while laughing, her red dress blending with the table cloth. Amadeus took a swallow of his wine and then turned in Orion’s direction and smiled.

Bri’s manner had softened toward the sailor. She now understood Charles method toward Orion. Like mad-doctor, Charles had needed to drain the bad humors from his ex-lover, to force him to heal. For that Bri was grateful.

Bri smirked and pulled her husband by his sleeve. For once he did not seem afraid of their company and for that, she was immensely grateful to Amadeus. The two got along smashingly. Bri sat opposite her man and he claimed a chair beside Amadeus.

The five continued laying the cards down among idle chitchat and Bri watched Orion smile up at Amadeus with innocence. She could tell his hand must be on the bigger man’s thigh. The other night, she heard her husband give in, letting himself go and offering himself up to Amadeus. In the room beside hers, she heard them make love all night and she tried not to laugh, with fodder to tease her husband the next day and with relief. Orion had released himself from restriction.

“Happy birthday, Muffin,” Bri told him, managing to whisper. Her laugh popped up and Orion laughed.

“Are you ready, dear?”

She nodded and Orion stood.

“The real reason we called you here was because we have an announcement to make.”

Lucy covered her mouth, crystal eyes widening. Charles cocked a brow and Amadeus looked on with his usual intensity.

“Brigid and I are expecting.”

Lucy squeaked and Charles gave Orion a generous nod. “Well done, Orion. Well done.”

Lucy stood, breaking the general eloquence and threw her arms around Bri. It was that moment she realized she loved the Arteberrys and their friend Amadeus.

“Brigid, congratulations, darling!”

Charles raised his glass and it was understood. The others did as well.

“To the Hookwell’s healthy infant. The fourth earl of Constance, perhaps.”

When the giddiness wore off, and the wine was taking its effect, Bri climbed the stairs to the largest room on the first floor. She threw open the balcony doors to breathe in the fresh air. From this location, the view was perfect for the pond. Bri watched the swans and leaned on the stone banister. There was a light drizzle that wet her, but the air was hot and the stickiness was womblike. She herself had never met her mother. She remembered a baby of her own once, long ago, the product of a terrible intrusion on her body. How she had wanted to keep the infant, but how she knew she would have to give it up to people who could care for it.

“It’s a beautiful view,” Orion’s voice found her.

“Like you,” she half-teased, but her sincerity was right beneath her skin. She felt tears welling up.

Yesterday her husband had told her all at last. She was still coming to terms with how someone could betray such a gentle creature as Orion. At the end of the broken heart, there was the worst fate, being locked in a madhouse in an attempt to get him out of the way. The fact that he escaped and functioned in society was a miracle in itself.

“Like you,” Orion took her face in his hands. “Thank you, Bri.”

She noticed that Orion had brought company. Mini Muffin, the baby swan with the bad wing.

“I told you I was right. You feel better now, don’t you?” she said, petting the swan.

“Holding it in was…rottenness. It festered. The older I had gotten, the harder it would have been to tell you. I am glad we did before the baby,” he stopped himself. His voice had caught.

Bri took his face now and stood on tiptoe to kiss him. “You’re going to be a father.”

“I know, Bri. Thank you, Bri. You set me free.”

“I think Mini Muffin is well,” he announced.

“Darling, his wing is deformed.”

Orion smirked and let the baby swan go, it flapped its good wings and flew from the balcony to join its family. Bri gaped at Orion.

They embraced as the drizzle fell heavier.

© 2011 Luz Briar. All Rights Reserved.