Category: Flash

Flash: Wounds

Erin Penn

Image courtesy of vvadyab at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The beeping grated. So many different beeps all going at different rhythms. You think by the sawbones wouldn’t need that crap in the twenty-second century. Or was it the twenty-third now? How long had he been gone? The mission started just before the end of the True year–

A new, louder beep joined the clamor.

“He’s conscious.”

“Well fix it.” Squishy noises sounded far too close to his ears. “I’m busy.”

Wait, no…

***

Less beeping. Only one. A nice rhythm. I wonder if that is my heart?

Laser bolts flying by me, flying through me as I scramble-jump-fall down the cliff outside the Torrent science labs.

The rhythm picked up.

“Sergeant,” a pleasant female voice, supported by graphene strength overcame the beeping, “please stop that before I put you to sleep again.”

Sorry, doc. I try to say, but the mouth didn’t move. I try again and whisper grunts result. Liquid, blessed and burning, shoots in the mouth. More sound results thereafter, mostly coughing.

“Gentle. Sip.” A tube is placed between my lips. I sip. “Sip.” I sip. “Sip.” I sip.

I feel like a backback, repeating the activity every time she gives me the instruction, until the woman finally removes the tube.

Fourth time’s the charm. “Sorry, doc” croaks out.

“It’s okay.”

I like the smile in the voice. Does the face match the voice? I crack open the eyes. The left one opens, but the right one is gummed up. The strong, pleasant voice and smile matches the face bending over me. A moist sponge touches my right check carefully cleaning around the eye until I am able to pry it open.

“Isn’t that better?” she asks.

I don’t know about you sweetheart, but opening my eyes took all my energy. “Yeah, it is.” I whisper back.

Standing up, she waves her hands about eye level before asking, “Do you know where you are?”

Typical orientation questions. Got to go down the list before she will answer any of mine. Doctors.

“Hospital.”

“And what is your name?”

“Hold on.” She may be typical but I am not. Got to show off for the pretty woman. Doesn’t matter she can bench press me with one finger right now and outsmart me any day of the year. “Want to guess which one. You are in Devil’s Brother gear, so I’m still in the Torrent system but the gravity is light.” I was able to lift my eyelids after all. I try to turn my head to the side for another sip of liquid.

I guess she saw the twitch because she moves the tube back into my mouth. We repeat the slow “Sip”, I sip, routine. I almost close my eyes when we are done but power through.

“Two stations.”

“Two stations?” she prompts.

“Apple and Snake. Apple built first. Medical moved to Snake when built.” I crack my lips in an attempt to smile triumphantly. “I’m on Snake station above Torrent.”

“Very good, Mr. …”

Pushy doctor. Got to go through her checklist. “Boucicaut Mali. Gamma-one-six-five-nine-phi-tau-niner. Sergeant Specialist Third, Devil’s Brother Division, True Empire Army.”

She waves the hands, lower this time, less obvious. “And the day?”

Shaking the head doesn’t work. Do they have it in a vice? “Not a clue.”

“True year two thousand two hundred and one, first month, nineteenth day.”

“Got it right.” I croak out.

“What right, Sergant?” She smiles gently at me, her hands moving. I hear a hum from one of the machines change.

“Thought the year had….” I was asleep before finishing the sentence because doctors cheat. I wanted to ask some questions myself.

***

“I wanted to ask some questions.” I said as soon as I was awake again and the tube-sip routine competed.

The much younger person hovering over my bedside eyes darted toward the opening without making a verbal response. The room was smaller. Barely space for my bed and the corpsman. Significantly less equipment than my last wake cycle; the beep finally removed. The room looked like it doubled for a lifeboat. Two jump seats tucked up against the wall the corpsman bumped against.

I moved my head … hey, I can move my head … verifying my bed pushed against two other jump seats. The controls would be under my feet. I frown. Not good if med-staff was sticking people into life pods. Danced away from speculating how crowded the main station modules had to be. What has Torrent done to my folks? Just because the True Empire is forcing you to join is no reason to be rude.

Except it kind-of is a good reason.

Wished my planet had had the guts.

I take that thought and push it to the very, very back of the head behind all the training I got to fight torture and drug inquisitions.

“You have some questions?” Doctor pleasant smile, steel voice had returned.

I hadn’t tracked her switching places with the corpsman. Thank the Emperor’s Heirs I wasn’t in the field. “Hey, doc.”

“Hey yourself, Sergeant Mali.”

Her head had been reshaved, leaving a gleaming ebony expanse I longed to run my hands over. Horny is good right? Sign of body recovery. Remembering things, I try to glance down at my body parts. Ouch. I wait for the spots to go away. Head moves side to side, but not up and down.

“Am I still white?” Torrent ain’t got votes for sun, so got settled by Caucasians. Coming from the mixed planet of Waai, I got volunteen-told to infiltrate since I only needed skin lightening and not a full facial reconstruction most of the Devil’s Brothers would need to look local. We drew heavily from the Western arc of the Empire, with nearly half of our people from Rafiki, Imani, Paki, and Subira. General Yoh should have tapped Satan’s Own for a couple of their division specialists. Then one of them could be here instead of me.

“We’ve been concentrating on other things.”

Oh, well. I still got moves whatever my skin color. Once I can move again. “Those other things. What’s the damage, doc?”

Her head tilted sideway and she hand-waved a few things I couldn’t see, before stepping into the room and pressing the iris closed.

“Are you sure you are up to this?”

“I’m betting you think I am since you just closed the door.” I move my chin to the side to point at the closed airlock. I miss my hands. Moving my left increased the local gravity from the typical one-third level of the space station to six-gee. My right didn’t even acknowledge the attempt.

The doc made a frustrated sound. “How have you not been tapped for officer training?” Ah, she noticed my … brains.

“My specialty.” She had my medical records. She had to know my specialty even if it never showed in my normal records. I’ve been pumped with some electoral-level shit for some of my missions.

She decided to ignore the elephantasaurous in the room, since it didn’t fit anyway. “You were shot five times.”

“Really, five? I had only counted four.”

“First time, point blank through the chest. The hole was small and the exit aperture barely larger than the entrance.”

I tried to nod the head, but the pain of the vertical motion reminded me what a bad idea that was after the fact. “Yeah. I remember that one well.”

“Hit a lung but no major veins. Lungs are easy to rebuild, we shoved in the scaffolding during surgery with the stem cells and it was fully functional before you woke up. The muscles and ribs are being built now. We’ve immobilized your torso until the repair is complete. We have two more stem cell applications, which hopefully will fix everything without incident.”

“And what if there is an incident, doc?”

Her face hardened into non-expression. “Then you get to go home immediately.”

“Here’s to not having an incident.” The only way to leave the Division while it’s activated is in a body or cryo bag. Cyro means they can’t fix you on the front lines, body means they plain can’t fix you. “What else?”

“You took a tight laser across the tush. We scraped the hole and sewed it back together.” The doctor’s face lightened up again. “You now got a cute dimple on your pale ass.”

“Yeah, it won’t be pale for long.” I growled.

“Shall I make a note to fix the scar tissue as well when they reverse the skin?”

I know she is playing with me. The Division is obligated to put my skin back since I really need it back on Waai. The star my home world circled threw radiation like a democracy threw money. The dimple, on the other hand, had been fixed as far as they were concerned. “Sure. How about the arm?”

I know I got hit in the right arm. I remember that part. And walking. And holding the slim-jim like my life depended on it with my left while falling and walking and falling and walking.

Purple-eyes darted above my head. Oh, they do have equipment which doesn’t beep. Good to know.

“We cut it off.”

There’s that. My stomach hollowed out, but I calmed down. “More.”

“All three other shots were in the right arm. We might have been able to fix the lower ones, but the top one burned through an artery. When you stumbled across the patrol, everything below the wound hadn’t received blood in over two days.” She shrugged an apology. “Necrosis.”

She stared at the panel above my head and made a few taps on her invisible screen.

I waited.

She squirmed in the silence until she broke it. “Your new arm has been attached. We had three sessions of establishing nerves and energy connections while you were out. Tomorrow we will be releasing the torso restriction so you can begin therapy.”

“So I am a cyborg now.” I want to look at the arm, but the slight chin drop reminded me of the pain waiting. I can learn.

The doc smiled. “As are we all.”

A quick hand motion closed whatever screen they had wired into her head. Doctors and officer types get all the special wetware, us grunt aren’t worth the cost. Until they break us.

If they break us after we are fully trained that is. Still at boot, you get sent home broken. Trained and moved to the front, fixing is cheaper. The Empire knows how to keep money on the throne world unlike the democracy which had come before it.

Unlike the democracy my world had before the Empire came knocking when I was two.

“How long?” I ask as she opens the door. I can hear moans and beeps beyond.

“Therapy will cycle you down in two days.”

A solider got to sleep when he can, so I close my eyes, ignoring the cliff face asking me to tumble down it through laser fire, refusing to feel the arm no longer there, and pushed all the way back to my grandmother crooning French lullabies before she fought against the annexation.

Ainsi font, font, font, les petites marionettes.

(Words 1863 – first published 7/29/2018)

Writing Exercise: Driven by Wants

Erin Penn

Image courtesy of Theeradech Sanin at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

People don’t move out of their comfort zone unless they have a Want. Neither do characters. Maybe it’s just to get away from the pain, but in those cases, usually the character doesn’t move further than the next room – away from the pain. Close door, forget the trouble, like they are a baby who hasn’t master the permanency of object. 

To get a character to move and keep moving, they need to have a deep Want. In romances, it could be finding and then being with that special person. In Urban Fantasy, they may Want to save the world – more likely, they Want to save their favorite pizza joint who delivers, saving the world as a by-product.

If a story has stalled out, if the characters are just looking and talking and not doing much, maybe a huge glass of Want needs to be added.

Edmund Schubert went into this in the magical word post “The Importance of Wanting in Fiction”, and a huge light bulb went off in my head. Next time my story stalls out, instead of just blowing something up (which a lot of writers recommend), I’m going to see what my characters want. What is driving them. More details can be found here (and be sure to read the comments): (11/3/2023 – They have finally taken down the magicalwords.net.)

Want is also agency, or, more accurately, the ability to pursue and make choices to get what one wants. Want is very important to a character.

WRITING EXERCISE: For your current work-in-progress (WIP), write down what all the characters want by the end of the story. For a scene giving you trouble, write down what each character wants (1) in the next 10 years – their driving life plan; (2) by the end of the book – about a week out; (3) right now – by the end of the scene. Is the scene Want going to met (ending the scene) or change (also ending the scene, but now the character has a different driving Want)?

WRITING EXERCISE 2: Let’s play mad-libs for a moment. Think of a “noun”. Now a “person”. Okay, this is a person and their Want. Write a flash on it.

***

(my example added 11/15/2019) “Three” and “Editor”. 

An Editor Counts to Three

One, two … One, two … No matter how many times Janey counted, she couldn’t make it three manuscripts. She had put out a discount call on her website and Facebook. Three manuscripts would pay for her week’s bills, even if the final one was discounted by 20%. Only two would mean something would have to give.

Food most likely. She wasn’t sure about giving up dinner for a week again. Last time she started getting dizzy about Wednesday.

Maybe she should email blast her publisher friends to see if they have things, but most of them pay when the product gets published, not on delivery of an edit. Small presses suck for income; people who work for small presses are in an even bigger bind.

Nothing doing, except by the doing. Janey winged off the blast hoping against hope and sat down to complete the edits on the second manuscript. She had already sent the first one back hoping a third would come in while she worked on the first. When she started the second, she had done her “flash sale” to no effect.

Style sheet, cover sheet, and annotated manuscript number two appended to an email. Clicking sent, Janey moved to close Outlook when a ping sounded. In the lower left corner of her screen a little blurb of an incoming email flashed, “Greenman@EarthColony.US – manuscript available – Dear Janey Curtpatrick, I saw your flash sale. I have a four-book epic fantasy in need of …”

She quickly clicked on the black box before it went away and it opened to the full message. “…editing, but before I make such a large investment, I would like to meet in person and get a feel. I notice your website says you operate out of Riverside. By lucky coincidence, I flew in from the West for a conference this week. I’m available tonight at the Hilton, could you drop by? I’m sorry for any inconvenience and will pay for dinner. Would seven work? – Sincerally, Mr. John Greenman.”

A four-book epic fantasy!?! That is some serious cash. 

While she usually bumped into new clients at cons, Janey didn’t see much danger in meeting a new client at a hotel. Especially if he would feed her. Lunch had been skipped getting the last edit out. Hopefully he would be on a expense account, and she could pick up enough food to get a couple days worth of doggie bags. Even if things don’t work out for the fantasy series, and she hoped it did, she could still end up with enough food for this week.

She typed out a quick reply before rushing to get ready. (words 450, first published 11/15/2019)

Flash: Arousal 2

Erin Penn

freedigitalphotos.net

Rating: Mature

The unknown man loomed over Roberta, and for an instant, recognition darted out of her memory. Someone from her husband’s work. A dinner party before the recession had cut the sales’ income, someone high up. Senior.

His skilled lips, recently attending to her breasts, claimed her mouth. His tongue demanded entrance even as his solid shaft continued to rock inside her slick channel. She tried to regain control over her arousal, but a quick squeeze of a tit had her opening her mouth in a moan. Once inside her mouth the tongue danced along her teeth. He drew back for a nip on her bottom lip and returned for seconds, or thirds. Roberta was losing count.

Lighting flowed through her, sending shivers through every bone. Her hands clutched at the man’s shoulders desperate for support. Panting with thrust after thrust, sensation took her. Multi-syllable words like husband and fidelity slipped from her vocabulary.

Instead, “Fuck me, fuck me,” was whispered into sweaty shoulder. Finally a scream started at the base of her spine and surged out. This time the man followed her over the edge, her inner muscles milking him dry as orgasm after orgasm gripped her.

They collapsed together, exhaustive sleep claiming her.

Languor weighed her limbs in the morning. Sheets tangled about her and the male. Unable to move she prodded her sluggish mind for his identity.

Samuel. Best salesman two years running. Her husband said he was brutal. Stealing customers from competitors and colleagues alike. A client list longer than her arm and the only person last year with positive sales growth. He had hit on her a couple of times, but then most of her husband’s associates did. Salespeople were always selling something, sex included.

How had he got in? The door had been locked. Key.

“How did you get the key?”

“Tom.” Samuel’s hand started playing with her nape.

Untangling her limbs from the cloth binding her, Roberta stated, “Thomas would do no such thing.”

“Call him yourself.” Leaning against the sleigh bed’s headboard, Samuel smirked.

Pulling the white cover about her, Roberta grabbed her phone and sat up. Scrolling through her recently called list with her back towards the intruder, the blonde quickly found her husband’s number. Five days had passed since the last time they talked. Typical when he was at a convention, but a little scary under the present circumstances. She waited while the phone rang.

“Hey beautiful.”

“Hey yourself.” Roberta replied. “I’ve got Samuel here.”

Thomas broke in fast. “Right, just do whatever he asks and I will explain it when I get home.”

“No, Thomas,” death dripped from her tones, “you will explain now.”

“Er.” Roberta could almost see her husband rubbing his hand over his balding head, like someone polishing a brass lamp hoping for a genie to appear. “Sam’s leaving the company and the industry, and put his list up for bid. I won.”

“Won how?”

“Oh, come on, don’t be this way sweetheart. We are hip deep in debt and the credit collectors pounding down the door. If I don’t do something, we will lose the house.” He inhaled deeply. “All he wanted was some time with you, a couple dates. Listen, it will take me a month to establish myself. Contact all the clients and set up new connections. Just keep him happy until then and we will be back on easy street.”

Roberta turned to look at the man in her bed. A smug face beamed back at her. “A month?” she growled.

“Only a month,” her husband promised the same time Samuel said, “To start.” Roberta shivered, unsure if it was fear or anticipation. Samuel pushed back the blankets displaying an erection larger than any she had ever seen. Part of her voted anticipation. Her pussy contracted in memory.

“Only a month,” Thomas continued. “Just do whatever he asks.”

“He wants to fuck me.” Roberta declared, testing how far this would go.

“Very observant.” Samuel said reaching a hand out to stroke her thigh with the other slowly pumped his shaft. Each pass brushed her lower curls, teasing. Her cream flowed out to wet the pubic hair.

A couple of curses came over the phone. Roberta ruthlessly suppressed a moan when Samuel’s fingers started looking for her clit.

“Yeah, I kind-of figured that.” Thomas wheeled, trying to handle her like a client. “I’m sorry, really I am.”

“You sold me.” She gasped as Samuel found the nerve bundle. She could have moved away. She should step away. Instead, when Samuel’s hand put pressure on her hip to draw her closer, she went.

“No, no. I am doing this for us, beautiful. The man’s list is gold, pure gold. Just keep him happy.” Roberta heard his tone change like it always did when he went for the close. “Love, honor, and obey. Don’t forget the obey part. Do this and I promise we won’t have to worry about money ever again.”

Samuel slid down to lie flat. Then he guided her until her slit was over his mouth. His hands pushed her lower lips apart. His wonderful tongue darted out touching her most sensitive part.

“Oh, oh.” She hoped the sounds would be interpreted as sobs, which in one respect they were. Roberta was positive her husband wouldn’t recognized them as sobs of passion. He hadn’t given her an orgasm in years. Her voice shaking, she needed to get off the phone before he heard something that would make him rethink the situation. “Right, money. I’ll do this. Bye.” She pressed the red button hard and verified the call had disconnected before throwing it across the room. Her hands freed, she braced them against the headboard.

Later, later she would think. Now was not the time.

(words 962 – originally appearing at Breathless Press 6/24/13 for the 8/12/12 Sunday Fun; republished in new blog format 7/22/2018)

Flash: Arousal

Erin Penn

freedigitalphotos.net

Rating: Mature

A hand trailed down her back leaving a light trail of fire behind. Roberta suppressed her reaction. Her tormentor quenched the fire with a trail of kisses. Roberta continued to pretend to sleep.

The hand slid along her side, lightly touching her waist with a sensation half laughter half sin. She wished she wasn’t so ticklish. The hand continued to her front and splayed across her stomach. It slowly inched up to cup her breast. The thumb rubbed circles just under her areola.

The bed dipped as the other person moved closer to her. Unintentionally she rolled into full body contact. The person behind had some incentive to continue if what she was feeling prodding her back was any indication.

A tongue darted out to lick her nape. Breath dried the wetness sending shivers down her body. The stiff body part settled between her butt checks during the movement. She shifted a little more so the thumb started flicking her nipple.

The intruder suckled the nape of her neck, sending a shot of electricity to her pussy. She felt herself become instantly wet. A moan escaped her lips. The lips behind her switched to her ears and started nibbling. Roberta arched into the hand on her breast.

The body behind her shifted and a second hand started stroking her ass and thigh in slow circles. The hand changed breast and started brushing her other nipple, with unexpected pinches driving things to a higher pitch. When she was ready to snatch the hand dancing around her nether reaches and put it in the proper location, it dived there on its own volition.

Her panting belied her pretense of sleeping. She was curling her hands deeper in her pillow to keep from turning and grabbing the man. One finger slid into her slit. It circled, testing readiness and quickly was joined by a partner. A third was added to the team and then the group started moving in and out.

Without realizing what happened, Roberta turned from her side to her back to give the teaser better access. A mouth immediate claimed hers and demanded entrance. An especially intense combination of Team Nether, where the three fingers entered her vagina the same time the benched thumb stroked her clit, made gasp giving the mouth full access.

The tongue that had beset her nape stroked her mouth in time with the lower fingers. Roberta’s heels started digging into the mattress as her body arched upward.

Still refusing her eyes, she felt her bed partner move over her. Strong hands quit stroking to support his new position. Instead a different body part was working its entrance to her womb while the mouth continued the rhythm previously implemented.

The dick entering her was larger than she expected. Much larger. It immediately hit THE SPOT, and her hands grabbed the man for support as her initial organism lifted her completely off the bed.

He stilled so the storm within her was all she felt. Once she drifted back down, he started the slow stroking, building her up again. The mouth quickly nipped down to taunt one breast then the other. Because of the tilt of the male’s back, her hands slid down the shoulder into the thick hair.

Wait. This wasn’t her husband come back early from his trip.

Roberta’s eyes burst opened.

(words 557; First published 4/24/2013; republished new blog format 7/15/18)

Flash: Decanting

Erin Penn

Rating: Mature

Carrying the last of the missing scientists from the burning facility, the mystery man dumped him with the others next to the arriving ambulances. I am concerned. I don’t recognize half of the labcoats or the man who knew the facility well enough to get them out. As security chief for Morning Star Enterprises, I should know everyone from that facility. At least three of the labcoats had names not on the list I keep.

I checked off Anderson; he was the only one left on the list I did have who hadn’t answered his phone or been taken away by the EMTs. Anderson was a chief researcher investigating drugs to maximize human potential. His team recently had their new antibiotic go into human testing.

I walk over to the mystery man. His skin was blackened from the fire and who know what other chemicals are being released from the facility. Everyone else arriving on site is wearing haz-mat suits complete with oxygen masks. A medical worker is trying to steer him to an ambulance without success.

I see some black strips fall off the man. I hope they are from burned cloth, but the man seems to be completely naked. One of his ass-checks bubbles with second-degree burn blisters. The other side black from an oily substance. Other than these two issues, it is the finest butt I have ever seen.

“Hello, I’m Jophiel Caster.” I introduce myself. “I need to ask you a few questions.”

The man turns his deep blue eyes on me. The pain nearly makes me miss the arrival of a couple black sedans. The police detectives have arrived. So far the on-site police have just been directing traffic. Rules and priorities were about to change. I hope Lucette, the CEO, arrives soon before the media circus begins.

Unable to keep eye contact, my eyes drop to his generous lips which I note are twisted in distrust. A feeling I share. Not with the man, but with the situation. I just realized Lucette had been keeping me away from the Indian Land Facility for months now. Something tells me that today’s fire, this man, and three scientists whom I haven’t done background checks on are just the beginning.

I fade out in personal anger, barely seeing the hairless sculptured chest in front of my nose. Sure we were opening our first out-of-state facilities, but I should have noticed the shell game Lucette was pulling. I always had to keep an eye on everything he did from a security standpoint. Lucette was a little too obsessed about research; his passion made him a great CEO. People were willing to risk millions on his beliefs.

Refocusing on the man in front of me, I notice his dick standing proud. Hair curls around it waiting to be touched. The black oil substance has begun to run down his legs leaving his skin clean. The man never responded to my introduction and turns away from the police line blocking the road. As he walks toward the landscaped woods, I notice the butt no longer is burned. The bubbles have disappeared under the oily substance and the other side is rapidly clearing showing tanned skin. Unless the man was always a nudist, this was very bad.

Oh God, is this the genetic creation I have tried to talk Lucette out of? Fuck. He speculated about it five months ago. I told him never in America. The next month he started the expansion. I thought that meant five or six years to get big enough to be in a country without America’s ethics, and also out of my watch as I would quit before dealing with resplicing human DNA on the level Lucette wanted to experiment with.

Shit. Lucette did go forward with it. Scrambling after the creature, I hiss, “B.O.T.I.S., wait”

My world gets reordered when the man freezes. Basic Organism Test of Ideal System. Fuck, fuck, fuck. He responded. Maximum of four months old, of course he follows orders. Probably not successful on the first try, so likely younger than that.

I grab his wrist and drag him to my car. Stuffing him in I say, “I don’t know how much you understand at this point, but I am going to get you someplace safe.”

He holds onto my wrist. “I understand. The man we need to avoid will be here in four minutes. Give an officer your information and get us out of here.” He then grabs my oxygen tube and rips it out. “An excuse to leave.”

Four minute exposure to the chemical soup. I run to where the detectives are located. Why did they have to be where the smoke was pouring out the heaviest?

They accept my clipboard, checklist, card, and explanation one of the scientists spasmed earlier damaging my mask and it finally broke. I escaped as the first of the news vans pull up, demanding all the police to hold them back. None of the reporters have hazard material gear.

In my car, I find Botis in the passenger side wearing the jogging suit I keep in the trunk. The top, thanks to my generous breasts, was big enough for him. The bottom emphasized a prominent feature I should have no interest in. The thing beside me wasn’t human.

Once we were on the road, his hand rested on my nape. “You will need to pick up everything you need from your house and empty your bank account. We will not be able to use anything traceable.”

“Stop touching me.” I say through gritted teeth.

“I must,” replied the male. “I was only decanted nine hours ago and don’t know how to talk yet. I am just glad you will be my mate.”

I realize I never heard his voice, tenor or bass. Fuck, fuck fuck.  My breast swell as he continues to massage my neck. Oh, fuck to infinity.

(Words 987 – originally appearing at Sunday Fun on Breathless Press 3/17/2013 – See the picture that inspired the story! – As I do not know the copyright permissions, I have not copied it here; Republished in new blog format 7/8/2018)