TAG LINE: Horus Grant and Mrs. Rachel Markham, black and white, love at first sight; one is fading into the mars black night, while the other brings the light…but, is it too late…

BLURB: The fireworks are about to begin as the sexual adventure of Rachel and Burt Markham continues. Small business owners and a happily married couple of 20+ years, they live in the small town of Four Corners, Kansas. The year before, with the permission and encouragement of her husband, Rachel had the freedom to explore the depth of her sensuality through having her first Bull. After saying farewell to her Bull, Rachel and Burt settle back into the routine of small town life. Then, African-American frustrated artist and new fireworks territory sales manager Horus Grant arrives in Four Corners. He is searching for new sales territory for the Missouri-based company, and he decides to open a fireworks stand next to Rachel and Burt’s seed and feed store. Outwardly friendly and personable, he is plagued by hidden demons. Though based in near-by Wichita, Horus finds himself returning to Four Corners again and again, and not because of the fireworks stand. Rachel is also drawn to him and soon realizes she may hold the key to Horus’s slim chance of defeating his demons, of healing, and learning to live again.

EXCERPT:…They looked at one another. Burt leaned back in the chair and Rachel looped strands of hair around her fingers. She smiled, blew him a kiss, and slipped out the door.
Burt locked his fingers behind his head and stared at the ceiling. He wasn’t going through the soul searching and anticipation he did in the days before and on the day of Rachel’s first play date with Nate. He wondered why.
The afternoon dragged unmercifully, but at last it was 4:00 PM. He called it quits and walked home.
“Rachel?” he called from the foyer. The house was silent except for the cuckoo clock, classical music coming from the living room TV, and the chakra chimes from outside. A delicious smell of cooking food wafted through the house.
Burt found Rachel naked, seated on the bench before her cherry wood vanity, applying makeup. Her long hair was gathered in a thick ponytail draped over a shoulder.
On the bed lay a yellow off-shoulder bodysuit, very short blue denim jean shorts with narrow cuffs, and a thong. That was her dinner attire. Next to the clothing was her after-dinner attire: a sheer white corset with straps, dark thigh highs with a seam in back, and a red G-string, and black high heels laying on the rug. The lingerie ensemble was from a slut shopping trip for meeting Nate. He pushed the brown recliner over by the vanity.
“You’re looking good,” he said and kissed her on the back of her shoulder. She smelled freshly bathed; an exciting scent of patchouli perfume with a hint of roses hovered about her. “But then, you always do.”
“Thank you,” she smiled at him in the mirror.
“You usually don’t wear makeup for your art dates with Horus, do you?”
“No. He prefers a natural look.” She turned around on the bench and opened her legs. “I thought about trimming my pubic hair. What do you think?”
Burt looked at the thick dark triangle that graced her pussy. He sniffed at her faint, yet distinctive scent—she was already becoming excited. His eyes followed the line of her hips and legs; the toe nails were painted bright red as were the stiletto nails. Sometimes she trimmed her bikini line, but usually she let her hair grow wild because he liked it that way.
“You always look fine to me. Horus can take it or leave it.”
She smiled and examined herself again. “Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
“All right.” She turned back to the mirrors and continued applying her makeup.
Sometimes Burt was still surprised at the level of their relationship. His wife just asked his opinion whether or not to trim her pubic hair because she was preparing to fuck a new bull.
After she finished her makeup they went to the kitchen, she remaining barefoot, where she poured a glass of wine for herself and he plucked a beer out of the refrigerator. He saw a big bowl of freshly cut fruit. They sat on the couch in the living room, listening to classical music.
A little while later Maggie barked, Burt kissed Rachel on the cheek, and went to let Horus in.
“Hi,” he greeted Rachel, looking her up and down. “You look very nice.”
“Thank you,” she smiled and patted the couch next to her. “Let’s see the latest drawings. I can’t wait.”
Burt handed a beer to Horus and stood behind the couch, looking over their shoulders. The pastel drawings included her in the cornfield, reclining on the steps in the pool, standing by the living room window facing the cornfield, sitting in the recliner by the fireplace, and several more drawings from beside the lake. All were full figure drawings accompanied by larger ones of her head and shoulders.
“Beautiful, very beautiful,” she said, and raised her index finger to her lips. “Are you sure I really look like that?”
“Thanks,” Horus beamed. “And yes, you absolutely do look like that.”
Rachel patted his hand appreciatively, then looked over her shoulder at the kitchen. “We’re having vegetable soup, a big salad, and ham sandwiches for dinner. Nothing fancy.”
“That’s fine,” Horus replied and carefully put the drawings in a large presentation box.
The dinner conversation was small talk—business at the feed store and preparation for distributing fireworks to the fireworks stands.
Burt let Rachel and Horus do most of the talking. A couple of times she looked at him, but the timing didn’t feel right to him. After dinner, fresh wine and beers in hand, they went out to the west porch to watch the sun descend toward the horizon.
Rachel curled up against Burt on the porch swing, a hand resting on his thigh, his arm across her shoulders, while Horus sat in a lawn chair against the side of the house. She gave his thigh an encouraging squeeze.
He took a deep breath, then a gulp of beer. How the hell do you come out of left field to ask a guy you barely know if he wants to fuck your wife? The whole thing last year with New Passions and Nate was a process that everyone had a part in. Horus was still an unknown entity and they were winging it.
“Horus,” Burt finally said after she squeezed his thigh again.
“Yeah?”
“Something Rachel and I haven’t told you.”
A puzzled look crossed Horus’s face. “Yeah?”
“We’re into an alternative lifestyle.” Inwardly Burt cringed; his words sounded like a stereotypical line from a bad movie rather than a real conversation.
“Alternative?”
“Yeah. For about a year now, we agreed that Rachel, when she wants, can have a bull, or lover, or boyfriend, whatever, from time to time.”
Horus’s eyes widened. He looked at Burt, at Rachel, then Burt again.
“Uhhh, oh.”
Burt almost grinned. Horus looked as confused as Burt felt when he first suggested that he and Rachel do something sexually kinky to break the monotony of an endless routine.
“It’s actually worked for us. I mean, there’s no jealousy on my part. We love one another, we’re committed to each other and to our marriage. Thing is, I have to be present when Rachel meets her bull, and I take photos that we put into private photo albums. The ultimate souvenirs, I guess you’d call it.”
Horus was almost looking at them from the corners of his eyes. “Okay.”
“What Burt is trying to say,” Rachel cut in, “is that I want to have sex with you.”
Horus looked at her, then at Burt, then her again.
“Oh.”
Now Burt was puzzled. Horus’s reaction wasn’t what he was expecting. Any man would jump at the chance to fuck Rachel.
She sat up. “You can have the guest room when you come up for the Wednesday breakfasts, or whenever we have an art date.”
Horus slowly nodded.
“Okay.” He looked at Burt. “You’re not jealous at all?”
“Well, a little, but that’s okay. It doesn’t get out of control and it’s not a threat to my love for Rachel or to our marriage. I know it sounds strange, but it’s true.”
Horus nodded again. “The two of you seem so normal and in love after so many years of marriage.”
Burt and Rachel laughed, a spontaneous laugh that thawed the puzzled chill in the air.
“Thanks,” Burt grinned. “We are normal. Pretty much that is.”
“Okay, so, let me get this straight. Rachel, you want to have sex with me? Burt, you’re okay with this? And the two of you want photographs of Rachel and I having sex? For your souvenir photo albums?”
“Yeah,” he nodded.
“Yes,” she replied.
Horus exhaled forcefully. “I see.”
He looked at the setting sun. Except for the breeze in the trees, the chakra chimes, and the awakening insect chorus, the night was silent. A few fireflies emerged from the shadows.
Rachel glanced at Burt and he shrugged.
“You two don’t consider this cheating?”
“No,” Rachel replied. “Last year this all sounded and felt very strange, but it really isn’t. My having a bull is the new normal for us. Besides, what is the harm if no one is hurt by this? Honestly, fucking is wonderful and energizing, and fucking is not the same as lovemaking. I fuck a bull, but make love to my husband.”
Horus’s lips became a thin line.
“Okay.” He looked at Rachel. “You said you’re from Atlanta. This isn’t some black bull fantasy or black breeding fantasy?”
She giggled and shook her head. “No. I’ve never been with a black man because I never encountered one I liked enough. This has nothing to do with curiosity about your package. And we have two grown daughters. No more babies for us.”
“Then what does it have to do with?”
Rachel said, “This has to do with my being attracted to you as an artist, a man, and attracted to your personality, who you are. It has to do with my being attracted to Horus Charles Grant and wanting to have sex with you.”
Burt glanced at her. Rachel didn’t mention that she wanted to help soothe the pain that Horus lived with. He supposed such a remark, like she pitied him, might turn him off.
“Okay, thank you. I’m flattered, believe me. I’ve got to think this over. I think I’ll go to the guest room and do some more drawings. Thank you for dinner. It was great. Good night.”
He rose, patted Maggie on her head, and disappeared around the corner.
Burt and Rachel sat silently, rocking the porch swing, listening to his fading footsteps. The insects continued their discordant chorus, the chakra wind chimes tinkled merrily, and the evening breeze blew through the trees.
“What the fuck?” Rachel finally said.
Burt was surprised. She usually didn’t swear. He didn’t know what to say. Horus’s reaction was nothing like what he expected. Not even in the same ballpark.
“Yeah,” he said, just as puzzled as Rachel though with less emotion.
“What the fuck?” Rachel repeated later as they lay in bed; he was watching TV, pillows propped behind his back. She lay on her back with arms folded, legs crossed at the ankles, staring at the ceiling. He reached over and reassuringly patted her hand. “What the fuck?”

EXCERPT: The solitary gaslight swayed in the strong, wintry wind. Snowflakes spun through the cone of light that swung back and forth across the sidewalk to the side of a wood framed hotel that saw better days. Large snowflakes stuck to a window for long seconds before reluctantly losing their shape and becoming thin rivulets that trickled downward.
Within the dark room the feeble light filtered through curtains that also saw better days. The solitary room was warmer than the winter night outside, but not by much.
“Why this place?” a masculine voice asked. “Why a seedy, dirty little place like this?”
His answer was the squeak of the bed as a feminine form outlined by the curtained window light giggled and crawled forward. The woman turned at the head of the bed and lowered her hips.
“Taste me,” she whispered and tilted her head forward so that her long hair dangled back and forth across his hips. A deep, masculine groan answered her, and beefy hands rubbed and squeezed her hips, then her ass cheeks. She giggled again and lowered her hips further. The groan became muffled. “Do you like my scent,” she asked and reached between the man’s legs. The excited reply was muffled as she rolled her hips back and forth, and her head rose and dipped in a slow rhythm. The man groaned again.
After a few moments she stopped and rose on her knees. His voice rose in protest.
She turned and straddled his chest. The light barely lit the long face framed by long dark hair and decorated with a bushy mustache. His hands resumed their rubbing of her hips and ass cheeks.
“You like?”
“Always have,” he replied in a low voice and squeezed, hard. “You were the best. Especially your first time. That belly dancing in Egypt did wonders for you.”
The woman leaned forward and kissed his forehead. He slipped a hand between her thighs. She gasped and sighed.
“I know.”
“I should have married you back then,” he added.
“I know.”
“You should have married me when we met in London.”
“Really?” A hint of sarcasm was in her voice.
“Yes.”
“But then, we wouldn’t be here.”
She reached behind the pillows, between the headboard and the end of the sheet covered mattress.
“What are you doing?”
“Sshhhh,” the woman replied and placed a finger against his lips.
He chuckled and trailed thick fingers through her pubic hair while he curled her long hair around his other hand.
She pulled her hair free and sat on his stomach. The light from the window shone briefly on a polished, thin round stiletto blade. The woman clapped a strong hand across his mouth and the blade disappeared into the shadow of his left temple. His eyes opened wide, the whites easily visible in the near darkness. A less than lustful gasp and groan filtered through her fingers. His body jerked, his feet kicked, and then he went limp though his limbs shuddered spasmodically.
The woman sighed, placed a pillow against the side of his head and withdrew the stiletto, now darkly stained and dripping.
She remained seated on his stomach, slowly tilting her head from side to side as if studying the now motionless body. She turned the head so that his lifeless eyes gazed at her.
“I wasn’t sure I could do this,” the woman told him in an emotionless voice. “But, it was so easy.”
The window rattled from a strong gust of wind.
“Everything could have been so different,” she said later in a matter-of-fact voice while standing by the bed, shrouded in a winter cloak, and pulling on a pair of gloves. “I’m glad things worked out the way they have.” She paused at the door and listened. At that time of the morning no one was up. Odds were, even the night clerk was asleep. The woman cast a final look at the body followed by a whispered, “Someone really should have told you, hell hath no fury like a girl scorned…or…ill-used.”
The gas lamp lit hallway decorated with a faded, frayed carpet, was empty. She hurried to a door at the rear of the hotel and plunged into the frigid night. Only a horse carriage, and a hissing steam carriage were out and about. With a final look up and down the street, she left the hotel grounds and disappeared into the snowy darkness that was Pennsylvania Avenue.

EXCERPT:
“We isn’t in fuckin’ Kansas no more,” Sergeant First Class Robert “Chief” Nottingham, a half-Cheyenne Indian, chuckled from behind his dark ballistic eyeglasses and a puff of sulfurous smelling cigarette smoke, as Sergeant Caleb Justus staggered up the steep trail. Caleb stopped when he saw the rolling, rocky landscape of a thin forest with broken and splintered trees. Visible beyond the trees was a ruined village nestled below a low gray rise littered with skeletal trees. A chill wind moaned across the rugged, haunting landscape.

Behind them, such a deep contrast to the land before them, the valley they emerged from was a lush garden of green grass, brush, and trees.

“No shit,” Caleb, who usually didn’t swear, gasped as sweat, mingled with the cold thin drizzle that fell from gray clouds, trickled down his face. The platoon spread out and eyed an ancient narrow trail that wound through the trees to a wide, rutted path that led to the village.

As the soldiers slipped through the trees, Caleb thought they resembled unearthly creatures moving through a blighted medieval landscape; each wore a camouflaged Kevlar helmet, Individual Body Armor weighted down with heavy ammunition magazines, first aid kits and combat knives, and grayish-green Army Combat Uniforms with dark elbow and knee pads. Each wore the trademark dark ballistic eyeglasses that hid the eyes and gave the impression of emotionless, less than human faces. They carried M4 Carbines with Close Combat Opticals, M249 Light Machine Guns, and M203s, a 40mm grenade launcher mounted under an M4.

He knew that in their minds, and in reality, they were the meanest SOBs in the valley, or any valley. He felt safe in their presence. It was a much needed feeling after almost being killed by an Improvised Explosive Device three days before.

“Don’t know how much drawing you’ll get done on a shitty day like this,” Chief commented as he ground the cigarette under his boot heel.

“That’s why I brought my Nikon,” Caleb patted a black bag nestled against the side of his IBA and first aid kit. His drawing kit dangled against his right hip, just above his holstered 9mm pistol. “If I have to I’ll take photos, maybe do some color pencil drawings…”

An Appointment in the Village Bazaar

EXCERPT:
A deafening chorus of high pitched chirping echoed through the blackness and gave way to a frantic fluttering of wings as if a great host of sparrows took flight. The chirping mingled with the beating of wings became a savage rhythmic music that became a haunting unearthly music accompanied by a sensual feminine voice that penetrated the soul with an incalculable sadness. The music grew louder and louder…
#
“Oscar?”
Oscar Bailey’s eyes snapped open; an involuntary shudder ran through him as the music faded. He sat up in the oversized, cushioned conference table chair and rubbed his forehead.
“Sorry. I haven’t been sleeping well lately.”
“None of us have,” replied his analytical Assistant Director Dr. Anatoli Sokolov, as he clasped his hands together as if about to pray, above the folders spread before him.
“Amen to that,” added Dr. Matthew Peters, Information Technology & Communications Director.
“So,” Oscar summed up the hours long meeting in his richly decorated office, “we are alone.”
“Very much so,” Anatoli said. “The last supply ships will enter orbit in three days time. They will be the last for the foreseeable future.”
“How about forever?” Matthew responded in a barely controlled voice. “Shanghai has fallen silent. Mumbai, Moscow, Mexico City, New York City, London, and Cairo, have all gone silent.”
“We are alone,” Oscar repeated. He still heard the frantic fluttering of the sparrows; if God knew of the death of even one sparrow, maybe He was overwhelmed by the death of an entire world of sparrows. How else to explain his disappearance? “How is everyone responding?”
“Depression,” Anatoli shrugged.
“An overwhelming sense of doom and gloom among some, denial among others,” said Matthew as he gave his detached, analytical colleague an irritated look. “I wouldn’t rule out suicides in the near future.”
“Possible,” Anatoli said, “however please leave that analysis to me. Your forte is Information Technology and Communications.”
“And you’re an astronomer!”
“Gentlemen,” Oscar held up a weary hand. We cannot escape reality. Our self-imposed quarantine is in place. It’s unnecessary because there are no more visitors, nonetheless… We have contingency plans that include food and supply rationing. We’ll expand the hydroponic gardens. Waste recycling and water and oxygen mining will keep us going indefinitely. As long as the sun doesn’t go nova…”
The Mumbai Malaise

BLURB:
Used to be, a back door lover was a man sneaking an affair with a married woman and a staple character in Blues music. Not anymore. Now, it’s code for anal sex and you know what? Anyone can bend over. Boyfriends, girlfriends, wives, husbands, straight or queer, it doesn’t matter. And Back Door Lover presents it all.

EXCERPT:
The most revered shrines are those long abandoned, where little remains beyond crumbling ruins wreathed in nature’s leafy green. Only the rustling of trees, grass swaying in the wind, and birdsong disturbed its silence. There, a middle-aged man followed a long abandoned walkway to the shrine of his youth, shaded by moss-draped live oaks, beneath an arch of huge southern live oaks from which hung draperies of Spanish moss.

But the Meridian Motel, once so characteristic in colonial Spanish-style with its wooden verandah and timber pillars, was a charred ruin. Its lusty companion, the Storyville Saloon, famous for its wild women and a well-beaten path to the Merdian Motel, stood quietly abandoned as well.

The man stood near the tall grass at the cobblestone courtyard entrance, the sun beating down on him. The gutted office and the motel rooms, many without doors, faced the courtyard like a ghostly court awaiting the return of a worshipper. He limped across the loose cobblestones to a corner room. Its marred door hung precariously from rusted hinges and leaves layered its floor. Inside, a shaft of sunlight from a gaping hole in the ceiling illuminated its Holy of Holies: a large bed, void of all but its bedsprings.

He leaned against the door jam and stared at the bedsprings, a rush of memories flooding him. Had decades really passed since he last visited the Meridian Motel? Was he once really so young? Was this all that remained of that time?

When his knees weren’t shaking, Tyler Gordon walked on air as he and a buxom woman followed the flagstone path from the noisy Storyville Saloon to the quieter Meridian Motel. The light of the flashing neon sign, the body-shaking throb of music, and the wild laughter of inebriated customers faded into the moonlit darkness, replaced by the solitary click of high heels. Flashing green and yellow fireflies fluttered through the warm, humid spring night.

“You didn’t ask how much,” Kimmi ‘Without-A-Last-Name’ said, lighting a cigarette. Her long red fingernails glimmered in the flare of the lighter.

Kimmi was in her late twenties, a couple inches taller than Tyler with shoulder-length black hair parted in the middle with neatly trimmed bangs. Small breasted and a little wide in the hips…

The Meridian Motel