Blog

Flash: Jail Break

Erin Penn

Rating: Mature

Rare sunlight filtered through the bars into the dungeon, highlighting the paleness of Dagonet’s skin. Prison life did not suit a noble of his stature. He was a knight and heir to a County. Other lesser warriors and nobles could expect to wait in the dank, dark reaches of their enemy’s castle for ransom to be paid. Those like him, heroes on the battlefield and nobles baptized in the same waters as princes, are housed in locked towers with full bedchambers or allowed the dignity of parole.

He had been offered neither parole nor politeness. The lordling’s anger seethed deep; these affronts will not be left unanswered.

Heavy doors opening and closing echoed to his cell. Clinking keys jiggling. During the nine days since his deposit in this stygian hole, his captors inadequately provided his needs through one girl. They hadn’t even honored his prowess with guards, bored or abusive.

Small slippered feet were the first to be seen on the stone steps, then the hem of servant garments. A covered basket emerged from one sleeve and oversized keys from the other, the hands completely concealed by the ill-fitting sleeves. Eventually the blonde chit’s pleasant face became visible.

“Good after the noon, Sir Weckheim.”

His eyes narrowed as she approached, not returning the greeting to one so below his status. Undeterred by his disregard, she confidently opened the cell door and brought the food in. She left the door ajar with no fear of his escape, his chains were heavy and cumbersome and would take an ogre to break, and she was not allowed to carry the keys to them.

The young woman gracefully kneeled, putting the keys to one side and her basket to the other.

“The cook sent the normal slop, the stuff given to the beggars.” She pulled a half-full bowl out of the basket of vegetables in chicken broth. Then she sent him a shy look, keeping her head appropriately bowed. “But today the staff had sausages, and I managed to sneak a few out.”

Dagonet’s stomach growled as the girl laid out three thick rolls of spiced meat longer than his hand. He had not had solid meat since the morning before his capture on the battlefield. Hearing the sound, her head snapped up and her face went from a mask concentrating on her duty to a sweet smile.

It transformed her.

Kneeing in a golden pool of sun, the first light to grace the cell in days, her grey linen dress tight across her legs and breasts, the oversized sleeves pushed up to her elbows, the female became for an instant the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.  Her hands were elegant, nimble in movement, leaving dust particles shimmering in their wake as she pulled another item from her basket of bounty.

Dagonet didn’t process it, he was transfixed by other attractions.

Her smiling lips were rich and plump as berries. The light changed her eyes into blue orbs of cool water.

Already seated, he found it easier to fall onto his hands and crawled to her. His chained clinked menacingly as he approached. He watched her breasts rise and fall as she inhaled, the cloth confining them clearly showing her arousal as her nipples hardened.

“And … and … the cellar had a bottle of wine go bad.” She stammered, licking her lips. “It’s vinegary, but with the sugar and cloves I added it should be better than…”

She stopped talking as he drew up in front of her. He took the bottle from her loose grip and placed it beside the meat and stew.

“Later.” The knight whispered his first word spoken at or to the servant, before taking her face in his hands and pulling her in for a kiss.

She tasted of fennel and garlic, her skin as soft as down.  Dragonet slid his right hand to grasp her breast, the girl’s mouth opened in a moan and he plundered freely. His left hand ceased controlling her head and moved to press her willing body closer to him.

Her nimble, uncallused fingers danced over his bare chest. His captors had removed his armor, stripped his clothes to bind his wounds, and never gave him new garments. Much bolder than ladies of his rank, the woman’s hands quickly found their way into his braies to beguile his manhood.

He pulled away slightly, her lips waiting until the last minute to break away. Panting rapidly, he unlaced her kirtle. Before he could cup her breasts, she pushed him onto the cut stone floor.

“Oh, no, my lord, I want to see what I am mounting first.” Her saucy glee nearly made him laugh, but she removed his drawers and was stroking his prick before his laugh escaped. A moan replaced it. Her sly look came back, “Now this looks like a much better sausage than what be served at my master’s table.” After the declaration, she took his cock wholly into her mouth and swallowed.

No woman had ever taken him in such a fashion. He nearly released from the sensation.

Her tongue darted along his hardening length. Then she took him by his tip and drew her sweet berry lips tight around him, and slowly, like drawing juice from a peach, sucked him until she reached his root. How she did not gag he could not fathom, for he had never been so hard or long before.

“If you are going to mount me woman, do it now, or I will ride you, mouth and pussy, until you cannot use neither.”

The blonde released his cock with a pop. Climbing over his legs, she drew her skirts high and slid onto him, like a sheathe accepting its favorite sword. She drew up on her knees until he was nearly outside her channel then fell again, going deeper.

It still was not deep enough to please him. He rolled them over with his hands holding her thighs, he kneeled and settled his weight heavily between her legs, pinning the wench. Moving the chains so they held the skirts down, he then pushed her legs high and hooked them over his shoulders. Grasping her fleshy ass, he lifted with hands he used to control raging warhorses, and impaled her with his complete length. Holding her ass steady, he drove into her again and again.

Her shrieks echoed each slap of flesh, growing louder and louder. Dagonet moaned counter to each thrust. Eventually the wench screamed. The echo bouncing from the dungeon to the countryside. Dagonet held on through gritted teeth as the woman’s womb tried to milk his seed.

He remained kneeling, holding her ass high and her legs over his shoulders as pants and moans continued to come from the incoherent female. He held a 24-hour vigil on his knees without food or drink, he certainly could wait until the wench was ready again.

When her spasming sheath slowed its pulsing, he pulled his rigid cock partially out. Then plowed it in again, harder and faster than before. Less than two strokes later she screamed again. He kept pounding into her, until a third scream – deeper, longer than the earlier two tore from her lips. Finally he released, pumping her chamber full until he had no more to give.

Nearly unconscious, the knight collapsed onto the female, her legs sliding down his arms and back. He slid lower until his head rested on the belly his seed had filled and drifted off.

(words 1,251 – originally appearing at Breathless Press 9/19/2013 for the 5/27/12 Sunday Fun – See the picture that inspired the story! – As I do not know the copyright permissions, I have not copied it here; republished new blog format 7/14/2019)

Publication of Three Losses

Erin Penn

A competition caught my eye last Friday (7/5/2019) – write a flash in 24-hours this Sunday (theme to be announced). The website looked rather new, and I’m not sure the e-zine has been published yet, but I thought, why not? If I have time. The time would be weird because the host for the competition was clearly overseas (prices for other competitions listed in pounds instead of dollars, though this prize was just publication).

On Saturday a little afternoon, I say the theme pop by “Loss”. Ugh. I rolled my eyes. Ten thousand people writing about death and hurts. Well, count me out. A little later my brain said, what if … you don’t focus on depression. Can you make it an action-packed Urban Fantasy? Suuuuure, why not stick all that in only 500 words? Well, you were just talking to someone about your “Archaeology is the Best Major” for it’s creep factor and thinking about creating a new series for Martini Martinez, an Urban Fantasy Monster Hunter – and that boyo from Archaeology is a monster in human form. Nah, that would be … well, maybe. And I went to sleep, playing with the idea.

Sunday morning I wrote the untitled story and it came out to 683 words. The flash, including the title, for entry had a 500 word max. So I chopped out some of the backstory for the series for Martini and her Intern Brandon. Then I chopped character actions and streamlined and hacked some more. Finally I had 495 words and I titled it “Three Losses”.

I placed – didn’t win. That went to Mermaids and Monsters, a flash close to what I expected most submitters would be putting forth. I broke the rules – although all three of the characters of Three Losses lost their battle after a fashion – so I’m not surprised I wasn’t number one. I was surprised to place in the “runner-up” category with five other writers. There had been 37 entries.

So “Thee Losses” is published in the July E-Zine “Dare to Write It” ) put out by All For Writers. I will publish the flash sometime next year as part of my normal Sunday materials.

It’s a sequel to Archaeology is the Best Major. Let me know if you want the third installment. By the way Martini Martinez, as the name kind-of indicates, is meant to have a humorous story approach. I do not know why she showed up here. This is much more a Younger type of story.

Editing Rant: Chekhov’s Gun

Erin Penn

Photo by Vladimir Palyanov on Unsplash

I’ve talked before about Permanence of Object. Part of that concept includes Chekhov’s Gun – a “dramatic principle that states every element in a story must be necessary, and irrelevant elements should be removed, elements should not appear to make ‘false promises’ by never coming into play.” (Wikipedia, Chekhov’s Gun entry) The supreme example of this is a rifle is hanging on the wall in a play’s first act, it should be used by the last act.

The reverse is also true – if an object is used in the last act, it should appear before its use.

But the bare-bones dramatic principal can be taken too far. I recently read a novel where if something is introduced, I knew it would be used. While the Chekhov’s Gun principal is the gold standard for short stories and plays, which need to be trimmed to the basics, novels should wander a bit, introducing non-essential side stories as red herrings, especially if the main plotline is a mystery. In this particular manuscript, every little side bit glared like the Gun on the Wall. Scuba gear in the admiral’s office, the spy was about to be sent somewhere he needed scuba gear. A book, needed to be read.

Not a single wander off the trail – straight shooting the whole way. Nothing felt woven, like a rich plot, the whole book felt like a string of beads, one after the other. Every “aside” I read propelled the story forward full-steam. The side trips feed into the main plot. No emotional subplot, not growth subplot.

Sure, no White Box issues. But only because when I (as the reader) walked into a room, there would be one object which would be relevant to the story and described. Otherwise, the POV character I was following wouldn’t have gone into the room.

The novel felt similar to a video game where the developers didn’t provide any side-quests, nor the opportunity to go off-script for a fail. A choose-your-own adventure with only one option at the end of each page.

I mean, yeah, that is actually the case of how a novel really is. But it shouldn’t FEEL that way.

When writing be sure to describe more than just the things needed for the main plot if writing in a longer form. Play a game of Clue with your reader – will the gun, the knife, or the candlestick be important to the plot? And which is the symbol of the inner angst the main character needs to resolve in their emotional growth?

Flash: Cleansing Team (Part 1) – Target Down

Erin Penn

Photo from freedigitalphotos.net

Silence reverberated in Andros’ abused ears. He blinked rapidly to clear the spots from his vision. His team had thrown everything short of a nuclear bomb at the Unnatural, and if one included the rail-gun Parker carried which required the two-day output of a plant to charge, a fission bomb just might count. Maker bless the Taurusian energy technology.

Mortar and structural building pieces dropped with dull thuds onto the rubble from the destroyed walls and floors that used to make up the 33rd to 38th floors, churning dust clouds that tried to force their way past his lips. Andros refused to breathe, because the plaster bits would set him coughing. His broken ribs couldn’t take much more. He wanted to reach for the emergency oxy mask in his backpack, but that would require taking a hand off his projectile gun and neither hand would leave the overheated weapon. His lizard brain was not yet assured of the Unnatural’s death.

He cautiously sidestepped through the debris, keeping his team and the broken body of the young woman in sight. She was the youngest Unnatural they had ever fought, and, strangely, the most experienced. The cleansing team had been on her as soon as she was sighted emerging–less than six hours from alarm to annulation. They chased her from a sprawling boarding school where the wealthy and powerful trusted their children to the soaring ‘scrapers of Trade Landing nearly three hundred miles from the point of origin, leaving four team members behind, dying or disabled. They never let her heal, never let her think. They knew what was needed to get it done. She was their fourteenth kill in three years. Not the most heavily active cleansing team, but not an inactive agricultural planet team either. They were sharp without burnout.

The clatter of the ejected cartridge sounded tinny, but clearer. He could need to retrieve the mildly radioactive container later; heavy metal from expended uranium was not easy to come by and their accountant would have his hide. He snapped the replacement into his right hand, the independent-minded extremity willing to move for a reload. It had its priorities in order, breathing second, killing first.

Andros’ eyes were drawn to the blood running down her arm. The bright red artery and nearly blue vein liquids traced rivulets from a shattered shoulder, where brilliant white bones poked out through torn skin and muscle, pooling at the indents along her knuckles, creating an interwoven tribal tattoo like Dreanna wore. Still more than fifty feet away, the swirling dust eddies fooled his eyes into thinking her hand twitched. Once down, Unnaturals never got up again.

The fingers stretched and gripped a stone on the rubble pile she had landed on, a light glow emanating from the hand. Andros heard a whine start. His mind knew he was too far from his teammates for his damaged ears to hear, but refused to acknowledge the whimpering was coming from him. Cooking flesh battered his nose as he started shoving the ammo into the still too hot gun.

(words 513; first published 4/1/2014; republished new blog format 7/7/2019)