Writing Exercise: Love Story

[StillStunned]

Sorry.

I got carried away.

Just make sure you have a backup in case the mods decide to enforce the rules.

 

[Lifestyle66]

Just make sure you have a backup in case the mods decide to enforce the rules.

I edited my previous post from 905 to now just 354 words.

Hopefully they'll allow the extra 4.

(Wow, that was like paring down a story to 750-words!)

 

[pink_silk_glove]

She pushed open the door and walked into the dank heat of the bar to see the usual patrons hunched over their drinks or over a cue stick at a pool table. The same rumbly classic rock throbbed from the speakers, drowning out the idle chatter, with spikes of billiard balls knocking about poking through the droning. The bartender looked up to see her, then dismissively returned to his taps.

Between the tables, she picked her way until she spotted him in a booth at the back, his hair a mess and a couple of days' stubble on his jaw, dark patches sunken beneath his eyes and his hand loosely gripping his beer, his sullen gaze as empty as the bottles before him.

"I figured that I'd find you here," she said. He didn't respond but the wince in his pride was obvious, at least to her. "Come on," she offered tenderly. "Come home."

"I'm not going anywhere," he huffed in drunken lethargy.

"Come on. It's okay," she assured him. He paused, then shifted his eyes even further away.

"You don't want me to come home."

"Yes," she said, sniffing a tear. "Yes, I do."

"Why the fuck you want me to come home?"

"Because I love you."

"You shouldn't. If you know what's good for you."

"But I do love you."

"Tff," he shrugged. "Why?"

"I'm not here to judge," she said. "Just to love."

There was a cheer and a laugh from one of the pool tables as he finished the last swallow from his beer and reluctantly added it to the small forest of empties.

"Come," she said, and with a touch as soft as her voice, she picked up his hand to lead him home.

 

[shelleycat1]

She pushed open the door and walked into the dank heat of the bar...

I hated it when I first read it. It felt spiky, like touching a cactus lightly. It's too close to emotions that are uncomfortable to me for family reasons, personal reasons, and even because of the idea, which I subscribe to, that people should not be abused. But it's well written to evoke all that.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

I hated it when I first read it. It felt spiky, like touching a cactus lightly. It's too close to emotions that are uncomfortable to me for family reasons, personal reasons, and even because of the idea, which I subscribe to, that people should not be abused. But it's well written to evoke all that.

Thanks. I get a fair amount of that. But then again I'm a shit writer since my scores all suck and that's all that matters. At least that's what I've been told directly on a few occasions by folks around here. ; )

 

[TarnishedPenny]

From my Trust in the Time of St. Valentine:

I realized that there were two ways I could take this. The first is that he had used me, toyed with my shyness and modesty to inflate his own ego in a bizarre perversion of very concept of affection. The other was that he'd gone to immense trouble to provide me with an astonishingly loving, sensual experience on the day of romance, something I would treasure for the rest of my life. With some men, I would have instantly been sure it was Door Number One, but I saw the love in his eyes and was suddenly overwhelmed with gratitude.

"Thank you," I said, smiling. "It's been wonderful."

 

[madelinemasoch]

This was productive and expresses the themes of my vision.

A light hung over the tomb otherwise black and cold from a gap in the stony ceiling illuminating Castilla Sableheart standing over a pool of black waters. A body lay dead at the bottom. Long brown hair obscured its ghastly face, thin with the cheeks sunken in. Its ribcage was visible, its pale skin almost gray through the black water, thin and nearly translucent through to the organs, its sex organs lifeless and limp and shriveled and miniscule as well.
With skin as cold as springtime mist, with eyes as sharp as daggers, with blood as cold as oceans frozen over, Castilla stood over the pool as living death. Night and day coexisted within the same black tomb. A lifetime came to pass over when she reached into the pool and touched the corpse, pale and lifeless, thin and morbid, lost and without breath. She pulled it up to the surface so its face was free and no longer submerged within the waters’ depth, sending ripples all across the pool. Such was the only water in the world warm enough that her skin would not freeze it all over again.
Castilla leant over the body. Her hand went over the dead skin and brushed the hair sopping wet from the face so she could see clearly once more. Old wounds now scabbed over in scars painted its wrists and poxed its neck in subtle shades of white and crimson red. She pressed her lips against the lips of the body in one long fateful kiss. Its hazel eyes opened and Melisande resumed to breathe.
Their lips unlatched carefully but neither of their eyes blinked once they looked into each other’s undead souls. “My faithful, my nightshade, my slave,” Castilla said. “Not even death could tear us apart. We are bonded eternally, now, then, and forevermore.”
“Yes, Mistress,” Melisande said. “Now, then, and forevermore.”
“From now on, you are forbade to die, and under the care of my supremacy, you will be free,” Castilla revealed. “Now, kiss me again.”
Melisande leant up in her grasp and their lips coalesced with passion.

 

[BearNextDoor]

He lay next to her in the soft morning light, wrapped around her. Holding her close. Breathing her in. Still naked and glowing, dozing, half aware.

Gently, begrudgingly, she escaped his warm embrace. Looking down at him, she brushed the hair from his face. She bent and kissed his cheek.

Finally, she said those words he longed to hear.

"You stay here. I'll make pancakes."