Fence-sitting
October/November 1995, Brighn

Red:

I met Christopher on a sunny June day, during my lunch break.

I like to go sit on a bench on the lakeshore and watch the boats
idly on the water.  I had a ham and Swiss cheese sandwich on
toasted white bread, a red delicious apple, and a can of Coke. 
It was Wednesday; that was what I packed on Wednesdays.

He was jogging.  I'd seen him before, jogging past, his wild
hair either whipping in the breeze off the lake or glued to his
forehead from sweat.  I'd watched him moving, his toned muscles
shifting and shocking and absorbing as appropriate.  He wore a
tanktop and a pair of sweatpants and a sweatband, the last in a
vain attempt to hold his hair in some semblance of order.  I
wasn't sure if he saw me watching him.  There were other joggers
on the lakeshore, of course, although only a few nearly as
attractive and attention-getting as him.

On this particular Wednesday, though, instead of jogging past,
Christopher stopped near my bench, leaned over to catch his
breath, and flopped down on the other end of the bench.  He
stared out at the lake, absently brushing his fingers through
his hair and wiping the sweat on his pants.

Suddenly, he seemed aware of me, and caught my staring eyes up
in his.  They were a spell-binding grey-brown, pools that caught
hold of me and dragged me into them.  He smiled at me.  I was
vaguely aware of smiling back.  

Something fluttered in the air for a moment between us, then
settled on the bench.  It may have been a leaf, or a piece of
paper, or even a small bird.  I wasn't quite sure.  I barely
noticed it, caught up in his warm gaze.

"Hi," he said at least, holding out a hand in greeting.  "Chris,
Christopher Hill."

I shook his hand, hoping my nervousness was not as apparent as I
felt it to be.  "Steve.  Stephen Jones."

He smiled again.  "Sorry to be so abrupt about things, but I've
noticed you out here quite a bit and thought it was about time
we met."  His eyes scanned my body briefly.  "Considering how
much you've been watching me."

I felt myself blush as I looked out at the lake.  "I watch most
of the joggers pass."  I took a small bite of my sandwich and
worked it gently.

"Yes, I imagine you do."  I could feel his eyes watching my
face.  "But I don't imagine you watch them with such...
intensity... as you do me."

I blushed deeper, knowing that in so doing I was giving the
impurity of my thoughts away.  I tried to be interested in the
details of my sandwich, staring down at the pattern of air
pockets.  I sat quiet.

"Hey, it's all right, Steve," he said with a soft laugh that
made my heart tingle.  "I've been watching you, myself.  That's
why I sat down, after all."  He reached out and touched my
shoulder with one of his large, tender hands.  "I thought maybe
we could be friends, or..."

I swallowed hard, my heart pounding in my ears.  Why was I so
nervous?  I felt like a silly schoolboy again, asking Jill
McCabe for a date back in the fifth grade.  "Or what?"

I looked over at him, becoming entranced in his eyes again as I
did so.  He shrugged and smiled.  "You shouldn't have to ask. 
Maybe I'm being too bold."  He pulled his hand back.  "I just
thought, you know, with the way you've been watching me..."  He
sighed and looked suddenly very fragile and self-conscious. 
"Maybe I had you pegged wrong."

This time I reached out to him, as he curled into a frightened
ball.  "No, you didn't have me pegged wrong at all.  What are
you doing Friday night?"

He brightened instantly.  "Going out somewhere with you, I
imagine."  He giggled.

I laughed myself, the tension having been shattered on the
sidewalk before us.

We hit it off well.  We chatted for the rest of my lunch break,
or nearly; he had to get back to work himself, so he jogged off
at high speed.  We met again on Thursday, and again on Friday,
during lunch break.  Each day we sat a bit closer to each other,
coming close to nestling but ever aware of how public we were.



Orange:

Constance McGraw came into the library every Monday and every
Friday at 1:35, spent twenty minutes in the new fiction section,
and checked out two new books, having returned two others.  I
was never sure if she'd finished both of the books or not; it
seemed more of a habit than a need.  Once in a while I had been
tempted to ask her about the contents of this novel or that,
especially those that I was interested in reading myself, but I
felt that would be too much like quizzing, and certainly outside
my role as librarian.

The Monday after my first date with Christopher, she struck up a
conversation.  This surprised me somewhat, but I responded
pleasantly.  It was not as if I hadn't noticed her before.  She
had a gentle body, plump in the right places.  She was not
sexually intoxicating as much as she was seductively cuddly,
carrying with her an aura of warmth and a sense of home.  Part
of this, I'm sure, was her clothing -- sweet floral prints,
sundresses that flowed around her legs like a constant cascade
of water.  She had dimples when she smiled, which she did fairly
often, especially when our eyes met.  But she was a patron and I
a librarian; there are certain social walls that I feel at work.
 There are no rules about watching, however, and I had
familiarized myself with every curve of Constance McGraw's body.

She put Stephen King and Elmore Leonard -- typical of her
choices, constantly mainstream yet  diverse -- down on the
counter, her library card set on top of them.  Specifically
according to ritual.  I ran the card under the reader and
prepped the books for scanning.

"You know," she said, "I've been coming in here now for three
months, twice a week, and I have yet to say anything more than a
hello or a thank you to you.  How odd."

I looked up, our eyes meeting.  Her eyes sparkled a brilliant
green, a green that I had become securely accustomed to after
months of visits.  "Pardon?"

"Well, if you think about it, our society is so regulated.  In
the old days, people knew each other and talked as they went
about their daily business.  Nowadays, you can see someone on a
regular basis but because of social norms you never talk to
them, never get to know them.  Honestly, I don't even know your
name."

"Steve," I said automatically.

"Well," she said, somewhat self-satisfied.  "Hello, Steve.  I'm
Connie."  She held out her hand assertively.

"Yes, I know.  Constance McGraw."  I pointed down at the library
card.

There was a silence then, a silence that hung thick in the air
for a stale moment.  I looked into her eyes, my hand helplessly
fiddling with the books.  She looked back, her frozen smile
dangling like an ironic frown.

"Listen, I have to go back to work.  But I feel odd coming in
here week after week without knowing anything about the man who
checks out my books."

I shrugged, and the tension fell away, shards of thin,
crystalline ice collapsing to the floor.  "I check out books,
what else is there to know about me?"

"You check out books, you stare at the pretty patrons, yes, what
else is there?"  She smiled impishly, letting the challenge
hover before me in the air.

I felt myself blushing red.  How obvious had I been?  First
Christopher and now Connie.  I shook the dust out of my head and
shrugged again.  It was certainly too late to feign innocence;
my reaction had been too pronounced.  "Yes," I repeated, "what
else is there?"

She smiled another impish smile.  "I'm sure quite a lot is left
to be learned.  If you're free Wednesday night, I might take a
chance at finding out."

I was silent for a while, and distractedly scanned and stamped
the books.  I handed her the books, her card set on top.  "You
said you needed to get back to work, Connie."

"Oh, dear, I'm being too forward.  How typical of me."  She
nodded distractedly.  "Ah, well, nice to know your name, anyway,
Steve."  She took the books politely and wandered to the door. 
I thought about calling out after her, but hesitantly let her
go, my tongue locked in its place.

I was frozen for a few minutes, until another patron who had
snuck up to the counter coughed loudly.  I turned my head at the
noise, smiled sheepishly, and checked out the books that were on
the counter in front of me.

A few hours later, I rifled through the patron records,  found
Constance McGraw's personal information and copied down her
phone number.

That evening, I called.  She was still free on Wednesday.



Yellow:

My first few dates with Chris were pleasant enough.  The first
time, we met at an Italian restaurant downtown, The Pasta Plate,
I think it was.  We went out strolling amidst the streetlights
afterward, walking down the main plaza downtown, the Friday
night crowds clustered around the bars.  We talked and laughed
and the time passed much too quickly.  At two, he walked me back
to my car, and that was that.

The next week, he picked me up at my place and took me out to an
American restaurant.  The food was rather boring, but the
conversation more than made up for it.  We were supposed to go
out dancing, afterwards, but we wound up just sitting in the
restaurant and talking.  We never seemed to run out of things to
say to each other, and even when we did, the pauses dwindled in
a warm pleasance,  not the uncomfortable weight that so often
went with such things.  By now we were getting to know each
other quite well:  he  told me about his marriage, to a lovely
woman whom he cared about deeply, but whom he  could never love
in the way that he felt she needed to be loved... early in the
marriage, when he had still been in denial, he had tried to be
physical with her, but it  just hadn't worked.  He  told me
about his drinking problem, which he had gotten past just months
ago.  He told me about his job, and his family, and those sorts
of details, and I shared the same details about myself.  He
drove me home, after the restaurant closed, and we sat and
talked some more in his car, parked on the street outside my
apartment.  I felt so comfortable with him, his warmth exuding
from his aura.  At some point, though, I went in and he went
home.

On the third Friday, he came over with movies, and we ordered
pizza and popped up some popcorn in the microwave.  I forget
what the movies were; some steamy  romantic pieces,  I seem to
recall; not cheap porno,  but not mainstream material either --
rather, they were some low-budget well-written romantic
soft-core tableaux.  We only watched part of one, anyway.

He arrived a little past 6:30.  We called for pizza right away,
and settled down.  He complained about work; it had been a rough
day for him.  My day had gone passably well, so I sat on the
couch next to him, watching his sweet eyes and stroking his hair
as he recounted all the stressful details.  After a while, he
relaxed, and we just sat there quietly, snuggled together on the
couch, waiting for the pizza to arrive.

We put the movie on, eating pizza and giggling like
schoolchildren at the mess we were  making.  The food was
wonderfully hot,  but the toppings kept sliding off.  Our
fingers were covered with sauce, as were the napkins on the
coffee table.

I started to lick the sauce off of my fingers when I saw a glint
in his eye.  He smiled impishly, and pulled my hand towards him,
licking slowly on my fingers as I melted into his touch.  One by
one, he pulled my fingers into his mouth, at first sucking and
then nibbling, until he had left me a quivering mass on the
couch.  He eyes aglow, he did the same thing with my other hand,
until I felt I could  bear the passion welling up inside of me
no longer.

He finished the other hand, set it lightly down on my lap, and
with a self-satisfied grin, he asked, "So, you like?"

I kissed him then, a long deep kiss that sent with it the waves
of lust that had grown inside my chest.  Our tongues mingled
together, and the light taste of sauce on his lips made me want
him even more than I had.

I was overflowing with passion, as I pressed up close to him. 
He returned my kiss, rubbing my back as he pulled my shirt up. 
It was as if some great, concrete dam had burst, and two weeks
of ever-increasing sexual tension came flowing forth in a
desperate, overwhelming moment.

My  head was swirling with ecstasy at his touch.  I sighed
heavily, leaning back on the couch and letting him do as he
pleased with me.  He pulled my shirt up over my head, ignoring
the buttons.  He traced a path of kisses down my chest, biting
and licking at my nipples before continuing downward,  each kiss
sending me farther up into the heavens...

At some point, we moved from the couch to the bed, leaving the
movie to play to itself, and to an empty room.  The popcorn went
stale;  the last pieces of pizza turned cold on the coffee
table.  But we didn't care.  We were oblivious to the real world
for two, three, four hours... 

I'm not sure when we went to sleep.  I don't remember going to
sleep, I just remember a swirl of lust and love, of anticipation
and satisfaction, of heat and tingling, of raw eroticism and
subtle romance.  The taste of his skin, the feel of his muscles,
the firm stiffness of his member, the desperate relaxation of
our bodies, pressed close, pressing against one another,
pressing into one another.

At some point, after both of our energies and our bodies had
been spent, we feel asleep, nestled into each other's arms.  In
the morning, I made some eggs, and after a quick but
affectionate breakfast, he kissed me sweetly and left, promising
to return, as ever, on Friday next.



Green:

Connie and I got together for coffee that Wednesday, as we had
planned.  Our eyes met occasionally, nervously.  It had been a
while since I had done the mating dance, and quite suddenly I
found myself doing it with two people.  Chris I was completely
comfortable around, but Connie had an odd mystery to her,
something she was hiding.  I wasn't sure what it was, but it
made me nervous.

At the same time, though, it intrigued me, and as much as I
wanted several times to politely curtail the evening, on some
paltry excuse or other, I just couldn't seem to do it.  There
was something deep in her eyes, some tremor in her voice, that
kept pulling me deeper.  Something familiar, yet foreign.  Chris
was like a well-worn pair of loafers or bedroom slippers, cool
and comfortable; Connie was like a new pair of  padded tennis
shoes -- that mixed feeling of comfort and alienation.

Nonetheless, we arranged to meet again the next Wednesday, and
that went better.  Connie jumped from subject to subject with
the agility of a  jackrabbit, and it made it at times hard to
follow, at other times exhilarating.  This time, we grabbed some
hamburgers at a bar downtown, and sat in one of the parks
chatting under the glow of a streetlamp.  Connie moved her arms
animatedly when she talked, dominating the conversation and yet
somehow not seeming greedy with time or attention.  She told me
about her life, about her marriage to a man who she cared for
deeply, but who just couldn't fulfill her needs... it wasn't his
fault, she insisted, that was just the way life went from time
to time.  She told me about her job, which she enjoyed despite
of or perhaps because of its simplicity, she was never sure
which.  She told me about her family, and her childhood, and her
interests, and dozens of other things until details merged into
details and tangents branched around in my head like a creeping
vine.

She was enigmatic, she was amusing, she was exhilarating, she
was frustrating, she was deliciously complicated and absurdly
simple.  I found my trepidation turning to desire, as I watched
her animated eyes, her fervent gesticulations.

The next Wednesday, and then the next, we continued our merry
dance, as I felt her growing into my heart.  I would go over to
her place, and she'd wok something up and serve it with red wine
and pieces of bread,  and we'd talk into the late hours.

That's where we were the fifth date, the fourth time I'd been to
her apartment.  We were sitting on the couch, the remnants of
dinner growing cold in the wok.  We'd been talking about some
recent news story or other, laughing in that superior way about
the idiocy of man and gloating in out greatness.   We finished
the topic with a laugh and a sigh, and silence set in.

She looked thoughtful for a moment, then asked, "Do you think
I'm sexy, Steve?"

It was a sort of bemused question, like it had been on her mind
for a while but it wasn't upsetting so much as it was confusing
her.

I looked at her, a deal of concentration in my gaze.  I looked
at her dimples and her cascading hair and laughed softly.  "Odd
question."

She shrugged.  "I was just curious.  Sometimes, when I look at
you, I see fire in your eyes, other times I'm not so sure...
maybe it's my imagination, a glint of the light.  And these
evenings  together, well..."  She looked away, a distance in her
eyes.

I turned her head towards me, guiding her chin with my hand, and
looked deeply into her eyes.  There was a moment when I tried to
speak, to explain my shyness and my intimidation, my  fear of
crossing barriers, but I finally just kissed her.

It started as a light kiss on the lips, but she put her arms
around my shoulders and pulled me close.  I could tell she'd
been waiting for this for weeks, probably even before she'd
hazarded to talk to me.  The kiss become larger and larger, the
passion of it feeding itself...  I felt her breasts, pressed up
against me, her soft hair tickling my neck, her arms massaging
my shoulders.

I undressed her, and she undressed me, as we punctuated the lust
with kisses and moans.  I admired her body, laid bare before me,
as we lay on the floor, the coffee table and the lamp pushed
indifferently out of the way.

And then we moved close together again, moans turning to gasps
and cries.  I had no idea how long it had been since she'd been
with a man, but the obvious torment had built up within her. 
She squirmed in ecstasy as I ran my fingers along her naked
body, her supple skin tingling at my touch.  I kissed her over
and over, finding each crevice, every curve of her body.  My
hands moved over her, pressing and stroking and sliding wherever
appropriate, everything gauged to match her own body's movements.

We made slow love on the floor of her apartment, her moans and
screams echoing my own.  We screamed in unison as we climaxed
together.

I fell asleep by her side.  We slept there, on the floor, 
letting the hours pass away until morning.  In the morning, we
showered together, and grudgingly separated to go to  work.



Blue:

Making love to Chris and making love to Connie were two
different things.

With Chris, there was consistent, predictable passion.  We were
pure, awe-inspiring lust together, a core heat that crept down
into our centers and sent shivering reverberations throughout my
apartment.  With Connie, there was unpredictability... she was
an enigma, and sex ranged from core passion to playful oddities;
she was a Manx, hopping in moods and desires around the spectrum.

Chris and I met every Friday night at first, and then started
getting together on Mondays as well.  Connie and I met on
Wednesdays, and then Saturdays.  Both of the romance whirled
around in my head, and I wondered how long I could keep either
of them up, let alone both.  I had been alone, without a date at
all, for months, and now I found myself with someone four nights
out of seven.  I was becoming overwhelmed.

And it wasn't the sex; it had never been just the sex.  It was
the conversation, the attention, the love, the support... but I
was torn.  I found myself falling in love with both of them, and
I felt I had to do something about  it.

I was sitting on my couch, lovingly looking down at Chris.  He
was spent, exhausted and falling asleep, his naked body still
glowing slightly, his sweet  taste still on my tongue.  He
looked up at me and smiled.

"I love you," he said suddenly.  The words surprised me,
although I knew the truth of the statement and understood the
inevitability of the emotions.  I sighed.

He sat up, suddenly concerned.  "What's wrong, dear?" he asked. 
I shrugged and looked  away.  The words were too true.  I loved
him, but I loved Connie too.  I had to break one of their
hearts, and doing so would break my own.  And which heart would
I break?

"It's... nothing," I smiled weakly and unconvincingly.  I leaned
over and kissed him.  I looked into his eyes, the words
lingering on my lips for a long, pregnant moment before they
slipped out, past my guards:  "I love you too.  I'm just feeling
overwhelmed, that's all."

He smiled and kissed me back.  "There's more to it, I can tell. 
But if you don't want to talk about it, that's all right.  Just
being with you is wonderful."

I smiled, a little more convincingly.  We sat in silence again,
Chris lying down again and contemplating the ceiling.

"You know," I mused.  "I've never asked you this.  Does your
wife know about your activities... your  orientation?"

Chris looked up at the ceiling and shrugged.  "Yeah, of course. 
I tell her everything.  It's not fair to her not to know.  After
all, I do care about her, I'm just not interested in... those
needs."

"What would you do if she were..." I struggled with the tact. 
"If she were with another man?"

He looked at me oddly, somewhat amusedly.  "Why are you asking
these questions?"

I shrugged, looking away.  "I'm just curious, I suppose."

He nodded and sat up again, his arm draped across one knee, his
other leg stretched out.  He looked like a sculpture there, his
perfect chest, his flaccid member lolling deliciously, his
graceful hand, his beautiful hair...  I caught myself staring at
him yet again.

I could tell from his eyes that he was deep in contemplation. 
"What time is it?" he asked.

I looked at the clock on the wall.  "12:30."

He nodded and strode over to the phone.  I watched him with some
confusion, trying to figure out what was going on but still
finding my eyes entranced by his back, his legs, his beautiful
buttocks...

He dialed a number, and waited impatiently as it rang.  Finally,
someone on the other end picked the line, and Chris became
lively and excited, if trepidous.  "Hi, honey, it's me." (pause)
"I'm over at Steve's." (pause) "Half-past midnight." (pause) "I
think he's getting confused and upset, I think it's time."
(pause) "Yeah, yeah, I know, honey, but he's really torn
here..." (pause) "All right, I'll let you talk to him."

He stretched the phone cord out and offered the phone to me. 
"You wanted to know my wife's opinions, well, here she is."

I looked at the phone with a concerned panic, as if it were some
foreign object I had never seen before, some invention of evil
that had been conjured up to destroy me.  He offered the phone
to me again, and I trepidously took it.

I put it to my ear, cleared my throat nervously, and squeaked
out a quiet "Hello?"

"Hello, Steve," a familiar voice said.  "It's Connie."



Purple:

I was sitting on the couch in their apartment, watching the ever
silent bookcase opposite me.  They didn't have a television;
they didn't feel like they needed one.

I was sitting between Connie and Chris in one of the several
uncomfortable silences that had passed between us.  

The clock was ticking somewhere in another room; the bedroom, I
think, though I hadn't really noticed before.  The clock's
ticking was simply a part of their apartment's aura, its being. 
It wasn't an unpleasant noise to speak of, rather, most of the
time it was a comforting sound, the steady beat of a metronome
patiently beating out meaningless time.

Tonight, it droned on like the click-clack of goosesteppers in
leather boots.

It was a little past two.

We'd tried to talk on the phone, Connie and I, but it just felt
so... strange, having half a conversation with Chris' eyes
watching me, wanting to know at every step what was going on,
how things were going, and so on.

Connie was the explainer.  It seemed so simple.  Connie and
Chris loved each other, very much, but not in the ways that they
both needed.  They worried that if they had affairs, either one
of them might fall for someone else, and that would complicate
matters too much.  So it was simple:  just have affairs with the
same person.  There would still be risks, of course, but they
would be different risks and at any rate more bearable ones.

Faced with this simplicity, I had no obvious rebuttal.  Why was
I in a weird state of shock, then?  Here they were, the two
people who had both suddenly fallen out of the woodwork and
descended upon me; I should have seen it happening to me.  The
clues were all there.  And yet, it never occurred to me, I never
made the most obvious conclusions...

Then again, I hadn't thought about too much the last few months.

Connie broke the silence.  "Do you love me, Steve?"

I thought for a second.  "Yes.  Yes I do, I love you."

"And do you love Chris?"

I looked over at Chris, who smiled at me, his eyes aglow.  "Yes,
I love Chris."

"So," Connie reasoned, "what's the problem?  Where's the
difference between now and two hours ago?  The only difference I
see is that you know that both of us has the other's
blessings..."

I nodded, and thought quietly.  After a while, I decided that
she was right, and that I was thinking too much.

I leaned over and kissed Connie.  She mrfed in surprise but
returned the kiss, my tongue lingering on her lips.  The
passion, the heat, the spontaneity, it was all there, it was all
the same as it had always been.

I leaned over and kissed Chris.  He was expecting it, and
wrapped his arms around me, melting into my touch.  The lust,
the power, the animalism, it was all there, it was all the same
as it had always been.

My feelings of being used and manipulated, of being nothing more
than a sex toy, eroded away as I moved from Connie to Chris,
kissing and hugging.

They lay me down on the floor and undressed me, and, smiling
into each other's eyes, they ravaged me, taking turns on my
various body parts until we all three, spent and exhausted, fell
asleep together, Connie in my right arm, Chris in my left.

We spent the weekend together, hanging out and going places: 
the park, the zoo, the lakefront... and all was well with the
world.


(Annoying little copyright notice:  (c) 1995 Brighn al-Ya'alina,
a/k/a Paul Kershaw, all rights reserved, if you want copies of 
this, ask me, don't just make them, and keep a disclaimer like
this with all copies made.  Unauthorized duplication and plagiarism
are both against the law; don't cause me to lose faith in humanity
by breaking the law.  Thanks.  :)

51 responses total.

Could you send it to me brighn?
My attention is open to all writers in this world, so, if you
scratch my back, I'll scratch yours and you'll get a story by me.
(Which in fact, you can read in the writers cf under the titlke
a horny cat and her mate)
My e-mail is: R.Vermunt@ubvu.vu.nl

Nice theme, this story, I like it.

A nice twist! Bravo, Brighn! Another poignant, powerful piece of writing. 

Clees>  I'll try to remember to, though I'm dopey about remembering such things

Orwell>  Thanks.  :)

<birdy is *still* giving her standing ovation>  You would not *believe* how
far my eyes bugged out when I saw that Connie was Chris's wife!!!  =)
Bravo, brighn!

<picking jaw of floor> I like! Copy please? <hug> Good job Brighn! <I'm 
also speechless>

        <Selena smiles quietly, standing behind the gathering admirers,
thinking how wonderful it is to be one whom Brighn loves..>

<Brighn catches Selena's eye and smiles back>

Speaking of remembering things, brighn...

What, bjorn?
Did I forget something else?
*whine*

I think so, but it has nothing at all to do with this conference.

Oh, yeah, SORRY!... *slaps himself*
I'll go check to see if i put it in dos

fabulous!  

Really great brighn, i would really like a copy if I could have one too:)

Saw it coming, but nicely done!

Lovellovely, dear. THanks for directing me here.  The rainbow section-heading
works on a number of levels, although at first I thought it was just going
to be three sections- a traffic light.  Of course, I saw the twist coming
a bit ahead, but that allowed anticipation of how the main character would
deal.  And you chose what, at least to me, is the natural solution.  I
suppose they'll move in together before long...

I like it brighn.  I'd go on, but I'm non verbal right now.
<val applauds quietly from the corner>
This is wonderful.

<huggle val>

Yeah, actually, Otter and Kami, it wasn't supposed to be a *twist* ending
the way the other stories I've posted here have been, since I always stop
stories very near to their twists, and this had a whole nother section to
go...  The only reason for mentioning that the characters were married,
after all, was foreshadoing...  *wanders off to contemplate the nature of
reader responses*  

Thanks, guys, all these kind words help me motivate myself to putting some
of these damn stories in envelopes and sending to publishers... not that
this story would pay anything more than contribuotr's copies, but hey, it
deserves to be in print.  :)

You guys are all so wonderful
*your maitre d' is in a flaky, warm-fuzzy mood...*

I am completely mesmerized by your story..I would like to write but I could
never write like that.....beautiful brighn

Hello, I want to talk

<chuckle>

Then  SPEAK   Chris!!

        <Selena walks over, and gives brighn a long loving hug, and
whispers her congratulations in his ear..>

Aw, thanks, love of mine...  

        you are welcome.. to that and far more..

>EXCELENT< I definately wan't a copy!!

This is your not so subtle reminder: MAIL IT TO A PUBLISHER!, have I made
my point sweetie?

I'm working on it, dear....

        And..?

And right now, it's sitting on a mailer envelope waiting for a trip to 
the post office to get mailed and sent.  It's all addressed...
*brighn wonders if his wives will stop nagging him about it... :) *

As soon as it is mailed we will stop nagging you :)

No!  Don't!  I haveother stuff that needs mailing to.
*giggle*

you of course mean..maleing...right?

*giggle*  All right, it's in the mail... !  :)

I thought so.....Stormy smiles sweetly*

of course its in the mail ..i put there myself!!

YEAH VAL!!!!!!!!!!!

        Leave NOTHING to chance!

Of couse Selena love I'd leave nothing to chance, or a piece might sit for
monthes before Brighn mails it!!

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss