2008-10-30
Well, it’s over. Thank goodness! I had a lot of fun and writing a chapter a day and posting every day for two months was quite a little exercise. A wee stretch of the mind and I’ll admit that sometimes I really had no idea what the heck I was gonna write, but it’s good practice and not something I’d want to do all the time.
I got some emails, one reader suggest I stop at a hundred chapters and then start "Mixed Bag Two" …Ummmm…Are you insane??? Heh!
I probably rushed the end a little bit and astute readers will no doubt be aware of that or maybe it’s just me. I really could have used another chapter for Priss, for sure, and probably an additional chapter for Sex Brat, just to explain that story better. But they’re okay, I think. This collection was never really serious, it was a fun thing and escapist entertainment and there weren’t a whole lot of secret messages. A few here and there, in Priss and certainly Imaginary Man was opinionated, I suppose. But in the main, t was really just intended to give us something to read every day for two months and just relax with and enjoy.
The last chapter of Tina, was a tough one for me. The hardest chapter to write and so it was the last one I did. I’m not an action/adventure writer, obviously. I don’t feel comfortable trying to write exciting scenes of physical confrontation. That’s why the story, the desert canyon scene, is what it is. I’m not ready to really try and push myself too far with it. I need to find some stories and read them and understand how the elements come together, because I just don’t really get it yet.
I deliberately with a graphic rape scene, the flashback that Mike relates to Tina. I think it was necessary and it should have been shocking and disturbing, I didn’t really want to try and excite anyone with it, obviously. But it is what the story is about, the vehicle that brings everyone and everything else together and so I think it had to be scene and it had to be as terrible as it could be or it would have been too abstract, too anti-climatic. Not having a big shootout at the canyon, the rape becomes the climax of the action.
After that, I decided to downplay the reunion of Tina and Emily for a variety of reasons. The biggest was simply that I didn’t want to end with too much sugar, or in a frivolous, storybook ending. I wanted Emily to be strong and a match for Tina, actually and kind of switch the two women where Emily actually comforts the Texas Ranger. Neither of them is weak, but they needed that balance, that relationship of equality and it alludes to their happy ending.
So those were my thoughts on Tina, which I just finished proofing 2 minutes ago, so it’s fresh.
The final chapter, which is really just a rant and not a story at all, I was going to post on the 31st for Halloween and end the collection with it, but it isn’t a strong contribution and I’d rather end with Tina than the story of Jack L. …I’m just going to put it in my blog and call it the rant that it is and let it go.
Okay? Thanks for reading and for all the great emails. A few people don’t like the format, but I got a lot of feedback from people who did enjoy it. That was rewarding for me and I think everyone who took the time to drop me their thoughts and encouragement. It was a long strange trip and now that it’s over I can get to work on the stuff I’ve been neglecting. Girl Fag is top of my list…I’ll be looking at that seriously after a brief retreat. I wanna grow my fingernails out again and do some karaoke.
Best always!
rache
Adults Only
Mixed Bag - Chapter 666
The Lonesome Death of Jack L.
By rache
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Story Codes: M/Solo, Mast, Angst
Author's Note: This is a fictional story dedicated to the person who called me 'Culturally Barren' whom I have named Jack L. and any resemblance to any other persons, events, or locations is purely coincidental. No animals were harmed during the writing of this story.
In the words of my old friend Jules, "Are you finished? Yeah? Well, allow me to retort…" -rr
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The mornings were the worst. The surprise of it. Waking up as himself again, as if he'd had a good reason to believe he wouldn't. Jack L…Jack Lazarus rising from the dead. Not reincarnated at all. He'd been dreaming of his father again.
"Do you know what disappointment is, Jackie Lad?" His father always called him that. "It's when you see your kid grow a personality that you don't much care for." His father was fading fast with the sunrise. "That's real disappointment."
Jack sits on the toilet. Not because he needs to, but it gives him an excuse to read his book. He rubs his eyes, feeling the little flecks and bits of morning sleep like grains of sand across his tired face. He opens the book at random. It was his doctor's idea. His therapist, a real head shrinker. Jack L. for Lobotomy.
"Take this book and read a little every morning, Jack. Just read a page or two, not much, and think about it." He'd thrust a skinny paperback into Jack's unprepared hands. It was called 'The Lazy Man's Guide to Self-Help.'
Jack read it aloud, but softly, and his voice echoed off the porcelain and tiles and glass in his bathroom so that there were many voices and many Jack's and they talked all at once.
"Everyone is special. Everyone is unique. I am special and unique. I am a Listener. When I am listening to another person, I am proving my self-worth. It is a shared experience and builds a better world around me. It elevates and…" Jack read for five minutes and then stood, pulling up his boxers and flushing the toilet out of habit, rather than necessity.
"The best part of you ran down your mama's legs." Jack looks around, but the voice is gone. Nobody here but Jack L. "L for Lochia, don'tcha know!" The voice laughs and Jack looks at his book, frowning.
He replaces the book in the small wicker basket on the floor, alongside his old weather beaten copies of Hustler and Penthouse that he's thrown away several times, but always rescues later. They are his guides to self-help too, but he doesn't read them aloud. And they really don't help all that much either.
"She's special. She's unique. I'm special and unique and she wouldn't give me the time of day. I'm a Looker. When I'm looking at her, I'm worthless and immaterial. There is no experience, no world we could share. When I look at her, it lowers me…"
Jack licks his lips and puts his magazines out of his mind.
Jack stands in front of the mirror now. He isn't an ugly man. Nor is he particularly handsome. He is bland and mediocre and eminently forgettable. He stares at himself, memorizing his face and practicing his smiles, again on good advice from his doctor. He has a smile for almost any occasion now. Good news, greetings, and jokes that aren't particularly funny. "Hey Jack, what has four legs and gives blowjobs? You and your mother! Ha-ha-ha!" He has smiles for birthdays, weddings, and funerals, and even when he needs to be patronizing. He is particularly good at patronizing people with a smile and it's strikingly similar to his self-deprecating smile. That's the one he uses most.
Once his face is properly exercised he opens the medicine cabinet and reaches for his toothbrush, but it's the gun that draws his gaze. He isn't supposed to have it, he knows, but there it is all the same. Jack ignores his toothbrush and lifts the weapon carefully, massaging it in his hands. He closes the medicine chest so he can see himself holding the gun.
Sometimes Jack strikes poses with it.
"Jack L." he might say with his best British accent. "Jack License! Licensed to kill!" and he'll point the weapon this way and that, glancing at himself from the corner of his eye.
Other times he'll step back and look at the mirror. "Are you talking to me?" Jack shakes his head and tries again, wetting his fingers under the faucet and shoving them up his nose so he'll sound stuffed up. "Are you talking to me?" He looks around, arching his brows when he turns back to the mirror. "You talking to me? You must be talking to me, there ain't nobody else here!" and he pulls his gun up fast and grins at his reflection.
But today, he just holds it, looking at it. It feels good in his hands, molded just right for his fingers. He rubs it across his crotch and wishes his penis would get hard, just once.
"What's the matter, Jackie Boy? Can't get it up?" The voices echo, bouncing around the tiny room and converging in his head.
"What?" Jack looks around, blinking his eyes.
"You're a real specimen, lover. Homo Non-Erectus!" Her voice now and Jack covers his ears, pressing the gun painfully to his head.
"Jack L. Jack Love! Licensed to thrill." Jack strikes a pose against the woman's laughter, but his penis is limp and he frowns at it like a little boy.
"Get yourself some help, Jack," she says, with no small pleasure. "Get them cut off or something." Jack L…Jack Lobectomy, "Free at last," she giggles and Jack sighs and looks away for a moment.
"Do you know what you are?" Jack's reflection is smiling.
"Omnipotent." Jack holds up his gun, pointing it at the ceiling so his mirrored self can see it and admire its symbolic authority.
But the mirror isn't impressed and the smile changes, from good natured to cruel with just a slight pull of the upper lip. Jack has practiced this many times, knowing its effect on people. "No Jack, that's not right," the mirror chides him like a simple school boy. "You're just impotent, not omni at all."
"Sorry lover, its still 50 bucks." *POP* She's chewing bubblegum and Jack can smell the sugar. He hides his head under the pillow.
"That's okay, buddy," the man shrugs. "It can happy to anybody. You're still a great piece of ass." The door closes softly and Jack rolls over reaching for his pillow and wincing.
"Maybe girls like me aren't your thing." Jack stares at her Adam's apple, bobbing up and down as she talks. "I appreciate the blow job though. You're a real sweetie."
"Daddy?" His little girl waking up, feeling Jack's shadow under her nightgown. "Your little thingy tickles!" Jack slips out without a sound.
"On your knees, bitch!" Jack's Mistress is cruel and domineering, but she can't make his penis hard no matter how hard she hits it.
"You can hurt me if you want, Master." She's begging for it now, bound and helpless and willing. Jack rubs his penis frantically, but it hangs there. Not omni at all, even for someone eager to believe.
"Suck the gun, Jackie Lad!" The voices, bouncing around him, refracting around him now. "Go on, you've tried everything else. Don't be afraid…Suck the gun, laddie!"
And Jack has tried everything. But he never tried sucking the gun.
Jack looks at it, still in his hand. "Jack L." He looks into the mirror. "Jack Loaded. Jack loaded for Lust. Jack loaded but Lacking. Jack loaded and Lame. Jack Lost to everything and everyone." Jack Laughs.
He opens his eyes as wide as his mouth, staring at himself as he pushes the odd shape of the weapon between his teeth. "Just a pull now, Jackie Lad! Don't disappoint me again."
Jack sighs around the barrel and closes his eyes. Impotent meets Omnipotent for a drink. "How's it hangin'?" Omnipotent says with a smirk. "You should know," Impotent replies with a well practiced smile. And while Jack thinks of that, he pulls the trigger.
*SQWACK*
*SPWAT*
*GAHK*
Jack's head jerks backward and he yanks the gun from his lips, cutting the roof of his mouth with the sight. He barely notices the sensation though, or even the small taste of blood. He's choking loudly, trying to cough and regurgitate the piece of plastic lodged in his throat. The rubber suction cup at the tip of the dart is way down in his airway, blocking it and bringing his bland body to sudden life. His lungs flex, heaving for air, and Jack drops the orange plastic pistol to the floor as he tries uselessly to give himself the Heimlich Maneuver.
Jack bounces off walls, crashing into little framed pictures of flowers and tea pots and kittens that his ex-wife loved and Jack hated. He breaks a towel rod and sends the aluminum clattering across the tiles. He spins around, clutching at his throat and catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror: The self-deprecating smile of a man about to die a most inglorious death.
But his penis is hard now, finally jutting upright and proud and unnoticed even as Jack collapses. He's blue faced and sweating and staring at his toy gun, watching it grow dim until there's nothing left to see.
end
