Welcome to Flash Fiction Friday. Come write a 250-word story (erotic? tgi oriented?). Start any time Friday, finish by 6pm PDT Saturday. Post the link to your story in the comments below or on Twitter (@caseydamnmorgan). Try to include the wildcards.
Thanks this week to @PapaTomLA and @WorldofRafi (ha ha)
Spread the word, and have fun!
I saw you every morning at the track last week. You taught at the soccer camp installed on the AstroTurf. I was the girl with the dogs – yes, those dogs.
Your accent struck me as Glasgow softened by a proper education. Fit, brown hair, six two and change, you commanded those six-year-olds with the most charming sense of fun.
“Fishy-fishy-fishy come and play in our sea. Sharky-sharky-sharky, you can’t catch me!” How did you lead them and never patronize, encourage without sing-song? You had the touch, the reflexes to hold them in your thrall without ever revealing the extent of your power. I’m like that, too, in the classroom. It takes nerve, concentration, and a kind of love.
I rather fancy that pirate ship game: “Climb the ropes! Spyglasses out! Climb back down! Captain on deck!” See, that’s where it could get interesting, if a stowaway were discovered. Too young for the Cat, you’d have to find other methods of correction, and instruction.
Or maybe something closer to home: you a gifted Captain of Games, me a weedy 4th former who’s never played proper football. You’d make me love it, and never let me slack – somehow.
So few people know how to play, from instinct, with generosity and conviction. So few people are a natural, with a crowd of kids, or a recalcitrant project. Don’t go back to Scotland yet. Let me make you pizza while you play with my dogs. Let’s see what other games eventuate.
Check out other missed connections this week:
Welcome to Midweek Missed Connections! Optional setting this week: the track
What is MMC? Finish anytime Wednesday and post the link here or on Twitter (@caseydamnmorgan). Spread the word and have fun!
—Four o’clock, is it?
—That’s what it says here.
—Well, it was inevitable, wasn’t it? Had the cane before? …What, never?
—It isn’t exactly my fault!
—No one’s said it is… Ri-ight. Eyes front, listen to me… Listening?
—Yes.
—Do sport beforehand. Eight or nine circuits as fast as you can take.
—Why?
—Nerves. Two: look smart. Shower, comb your hair, polish those shoes, make sure there’s a crease in those trousers.
—You make it sound like going to church.
—Don’t mock. Three: It sometimes helps to count backwards in your head. Only four more to go. Etcetera.
—What if you’re told to count them out?
—Then disregard, obv!
—Obv.
—Where was I? Oh, yes: Be on time. Unless you want to go for extras, which I don’t recommend first time out.
—No fear.
—Five: Don’t clench. Makes it hurt more. Trust me. Try breathing in when you hear the swish.
—What if… ?
—What?
—What if you can’t stay down?
—Hold onto something, rail of the chair, your ankles, anything. Do not get up until told to. Like I said, don’t go for extras.
—What if…
—You can take it. Believe me. It’s bad, but not as bad as you think.
—Ha.
—Oh yes, six: When you’re told to stand up, don’t forget the thank you.
—Check.
—Cheek under duress. There’s hope for you yet. Right then, off you go.
—Thanks.
—You’re welcome. See you at four.
The Rector had dug up a friend of Uncle Maurice, but after ten minutes with Mr. “Call-Me-Frank” Carson, Casey knew that her godfather could never have liked the man. Call-Me-Frank worked in “the arts”, wore a turquoise necktie, and certainly played for Uncle Maurice’s team. He was probably one of those tragic, bearded hangers-on Uncle Maurice always described so witheringly.
After a headache-inducing lunch and three improving hours in the museum, Casey thought she’d faint from the strain of politeness. Every ironic remark eluded Call-Me-Frank. Her attempt at wandering off only elicited suffocating concern and his sweaty palms cupping her cheeks. At least they’d hitched onto a tour led by a fanciable young man, the kind Maurice would have had eating out of his hand in five minutes. Call-Me-Frank was standing embarrassingly close to the guide and showing off with words like “hagiography,” “polemics,” and “problematize.”
She wanted to rip the ugly paintings off the wall and kick them in. She wanted to show off her age-inappropriate vocabulary and embarrass Call-Me-Frank into the ground. She wanted to punch people.
Uncle Maurice would have let her walk a knife-edge of cheek all day, then afterwards put her across his knee, firmly but genially. There would be ice-cream. Her father always criticized Uncle Maurice for “swanning off” to his next destination. She thought she’d suffer a month of Call-Me-Franks if it would make Uncle Maurice swan back.
She hated people. All people. They didn’t swan. They didn’t do anything at all.
What is Flash Fiction Friday?
Read other folks writing this week:
Welcome to Flash Fiction Friday. Come write a 250-word story (erotic? tgi oriented?). Start any time Friday, finish by 6pm PDT Saturday. Post the link to your story in the comments below or on Twitter (@caseydamnmorgan). Try to include the wildcards.
Thanks this week to @PapaTomLA and @travisking
Spread the word, and have fun!
I saw you reading a magazine, your sleeves rolled up, waiting for the allergy shots to take, or whatever it is that they do. You wore black, your hair held off your face with sunglasses, cross visible when I looked too far down your top. You almost scowled at your reading, as is your fashion, even for glossy girl mags. Your skirt came just below the knee. I wanted to lift it, expose those legs of yours, and touch that bottom. Allergy jabs in the arm are tosh, as I’ve always said. A girl Casey’s age ought to have them in her bottom, and when it was time to have it looked at, the nurse would lift her skirt right there in the waiting room, and only return her knickers when everything was clear.
I saw you waiting at that Japanese massage place. Is that spot in your lower back still putting off enough heat to fry an egg? Oh, I know, you’re not tense; you’ve been carrying a heavy bag. 
Those girls can walk on your back all day long, but we both know something different is required to correct the holding in.
I saw you in the waiting room on that day you want to forget, waiting for that tosser of a social worker to stop diddling you about. I saw you even then. I see you even now. Don’t worry, Sweetheart, really…truly… Has anyone ever mentioned that you have the most beautiful nose?
Come write your own missed connection – real or fantasy, who will know? Post the link today (Wednesday) here or on Twitter (@caseydamnmorgan). What is Midweek Missed Connections?
Check out other missed connections this week:
Welcome to Midweek Missed Connections! The (optional) setting this week: the waiting room
What is MMC? Finish anytime Wednesday and post the link here or on Twitter (@caseydamnmorgan). Spread the word and have fun!
— Farmboy, move that planter over here for me.
— As you wish.
— And those crates, farmboy, take them down the cellar.
— As you wish.
* * *
— Farmboy? Do you see the table and chairs down there? Bring them up and set them up in the garden.
— As you wish.
* * *
— Finished are you, farmboy? Then go to the pump and wash yourself, thoroughly.
— As you wish.
* * *
— Leave your shirt there, farmboy, and fetch me that riding crop… Now bend over that, there, and count these out for me.
— As you wish.
* * *
— Stand up, farmboy, and look at me. I want you to wait here until the clock tolls the hour. Then put on your shirt and come into the house. There you will find a girl who has been impertinent. Deal with her as her father would, if he were here. Please.
— As you wish…
Microfantasy Monday is the brainchild of Sweltering Celt. The theme this week was heavy lifting.
He sat in the wing-chair, window open, admitting the sounds of assassin croquet. A timid rap on the door announced his second-eldest.
“Justin said you had a question?” Her tone conveyed mistrust of her younger brother, in this and everything.
He gestured to the footstool. She approached but did not sit.
“What?” she demanded, injured innocence.
“I’m wondering,” he said idly, “whom you are texting in the middle of the night.”
She crossed her arms. “No one. And if Justin says different, then you should talk to him about lying.”
“Differently,” he correctly. “Do you mean to say you aren’t texting after bedtime?”
“I’m not stupid, Dad.” Her voice exasperated, and so very plausible, as usual.
She’d talked him into the unlimited plan, promising to pay for it herself with earnings from her job at The Sno-Kone, and having agreed she would not violate her bedtime. He’d agreed, unwisely he saw now. He’d never been through this with his eldest daughter, who was too busy with her violin in Aspen this summer to be tempted by technology. His soon-to-be tenth grader, however…
“This plan is excellent,” he said. “You can’t exceed the limit, so we can avoid the run-ins that plagued us last year.”
She blushed and scowled. “That was the point, Dad.”
He reached for a paper on his desk. “Also, they provide the most helpful itemized bills, date, time and source of each text.” She blanched, and then burst into tears. “I think you’d better go cut a switch,” he said, setting the gas bill back on his desk.
What is Flash Fiction Friday?
Read other folks writing this week:
