Cherry Blossom Girls Box Set

by Harmon Cooper

  Chapter Twenty-Four: Sex Scenes with Luke

  Last night was wrong on so many levels, I thought when I awoke the next morning. I was in Veronique’s bed, sandwiched between two warm bodies.

  Two bodies?

  Sure enough, Veronique was curled up on one side, nude, and Dorian on the other, in sleeveless shirt and panties. I was actually cuddling Dorian, which would have taken me by surprise if not for all that had gone down over the last twenty-four hours.

  Rather than say anything or wake them, I stayed there, tracing Dorian’s new cherry blossom tattoo with my eyes.

  It was early; the sun was hardly up and most of the house was still asleep. Which was good, because I wanted to write.

  I always wanted to write, but lately, real life was a touch more interesting than anything I could conjure up.

  Dorian turned to me and blinked her eyes open.

  “I was cold,” she purred. “And you’re warm.”

  “Fine by me,” I said, my hand on her waist.

  She stared at me. “Are you happy?” she whispered.

  “With what?”

  “Life.”

  “Yeah, I’m happy. I mean, I’d like a little stability, but this life is way better than my former one. It’s addicting, in a way.”

  “Is it because you’re surrounded by beautiful women who could easily kill you, yet have taken a liking to you?”

  I smiled at her. “That’s definitely a part of it.”

  She grabbed one of my hands and brought it to her breast, cupping it. “Well, as long as you’re happy,” she said, a soft melody to her voice.

  “What about you? Are you happy?”

  “I’m glad I didn’t kill you, I’ll say that.”

  “That’s almost a Veronique joke.”

  “What?” Veronique mumbled.

  I felt a wave of tension wash over me and quickly subside.

  “You two are up early.” Veronique yawned, not at all concerned that Dorian was in bed with us.

  “I’m going to make some coffee and try to work.” I unlatched myself from Dorian’s soft flesh. “What time is it in Calgary? I should give Luke a call and tell him I’m giving him access to the info on Ken’s files.”

  “Bring me a cup when it’s ready,” Veronique said, turning away again.

  “Coffee in bed, huh?” Dorian asked. “That’s not a bad idea. Bring me some too.”

  “Anything else, ladies?” I asked as I got off the bed. “Perhaps a croissant?”

  “No, that’s all,” Veronique said to Dorian’s laughter. “Unless you want to teleport to the nearest town for me and bring someone back for this one to feed on.” Now it was Veronique’s turn to laugh, a stilted, almost forced chuckle.

  “I’ve heard enough.” I found my pants and slipped into them. My phone was in the pocket, and once I pulled it out, I discovered a couple of emails from my readers, one asking about the possibilities of an audiobook.

  People wanted the third installment. I was feeling pressure to get it finished, but it’s been hard finishing the third book!

  And an audiobook … it hadn’t even occurred to me. Many writers I knew, more successful guys like Luke, already had audiobooks. I wanted to do a royalty split with a narrator for an audiobook of How Heavy This Axe?, and I’d even received an audition from a nasally sounding guy, but he wanted an additional thousand plus a split, which even I knew was a bad deal.

  I’ll have to ask the EBAYmazon guy about an audiobook, I thought as I headed downstairs. “And you need to mail the contract,” I reminded myself aloud.

  “Yes, Gideon,” I responded. “You got your first contract and you’ve legitimately been too busy to sign it and mail it.”

  “Oh, that’s what you call last night – busy?” came my reply.

  Rather than continue a dialogue with my stupid self, I pulled up Luke’s image on my phone and pressed it, calling him instantly. “I hope it’s not too early,” I said when he picked up.

  Luke had his headset on, the glow of his computer screen reflecting off his eyes.

  “No, it’s fine. I got up early to play Starfall. Heard of this game? It’s fucking great, man.”

  “Starfall?” I recalled some of the preview videos I’d watched on TwitchTubeRed. From what I could recall, it looked pretty badass.

  “You always up this early to play games?”

  “It helps me get in the mood to write. And besides, games are a tax write-off for me because I write game-based books.”

  “I never thought of doing that,” I said, setting the phone down on the kitchen island. “I usually play after, as a reward. Damn, it’s been weeks since I played a video game. Well, not quite weeks but, definitely a week or more. The girls were playing Street Fighter upstairs. I’d be all about that. I’m pretty sure I could open up at least a few cans of whoop-ass, especially when I bust out a V-Trigger.”

  “Is that so?” Luke laughed. “Your new thing is beating teenage girls at Street Fighter?”

  “Hey, we all have our hobbies. What’s on the writing docket for this morning?”

  Luke frowned. “I have a sex scene I need to write, and it’s on my mind.”

  “Oh? Who does it involve?”

  “It involves the Main Character from Star Defacer and these two alien women he encounters. Of course, they’re going to trick the MC later, and I think one may try to cut off his penis. At least, that’s an idea floating in my mind.”

  “So you’re asking for threesome ideas? A threesome that ends in tragedy?”

  “Yeah, I mean, I want it to be believable. And both of the alien women have powers.”

  “Do they have tentacles? Because that’s totally a thing for some people.”

  “No, nothing like that.”

  “I hate writing sex scenes,” I told him as I poured water into the coffee machine.

  It wasn’t a difficult coffee maker to figure out. Most weren’t, but there were a lot of buttons on the front as opposed to just a plain Mr. Coffee machine.

  I guess rich people want more options.

  For a second, I thought I noticed the coffee filter move when I focused on it but figured I was seeing things.

  “Yeah, they’re not always easy to write,” Luke continued. “And sci-fi readers don’t really like them; well, I think some secretly do, but then they get picky as to if they’re written well or not. But this scene needs to happen. It comes back to haunt him later when one of the alien women releases a hormone that makes him her slave.”

  Luke was still playing his game, evident in the way he spazzed for a second when something shot at him. “Dammit! I have to start over now. Okay, I’ll wait till we’re finished talking. I’ve been trying to beat this one part since yesterday evening.”

  I watched the coffee maker start up, the dark liquid dripping into the empty glass pot. “Well if you’re asking for sex scene ideas, I can’t help you there. The ones that come to mind generally involve superpowered individuals, if you get my drift, and I think you do.”

  “Oh? How’s that going?”

  “I would write a book about it, but it’d get classified as erotica and then I’d get put in the erotica dungeon. And if I’m in the erotica dungeon on EBAYmazon, people can’t find my book on the webstore – you know, adult content and whatnot. You see my dilemma here? Plus I’m not one to kiss and tell; well I’m rarely one to kiss. But I don’t want to jinx myself in any way by writing a tell-all.”

  “Fair enough, but you should still consider having them sign an NDA because that’s what an American would do.”

  “Is it?”

  He nodded. “I had a book misclassified once as a cozy mystery. The reviewers bombed the shit out of it. There are some very salty fuckers out there.”

  I watched the coffee brew as Luke explained what was going into his sex scene. It seemed somewhat believable, although I didn’t understand the threat to the main character.

  “Why do they want to cut his dick off again?” I asked. The coffee
aroma met my nostrils; it smelled incredible, likely some super expensive stuff. I checked out the bag to find the words ‘Kopi Luwak’ coffee scrawled across the front. “Also, isn’t Kopi Luwak coffee the stuff that’s first digested by a raccoon or something?”

  I heard Luke’s fingers peck at the keyboard as he did a quick search. “No, it’s digested by a civet.”

  “A civet?”

  “Yep, why?”

  “That’s what I’m about to drink.”

  “You’re drinking asshole coffee.”

  “It’s still coffee, though,” I reminded him.

  “True. But back to the castration question. I don’t know how it should happen, actually, but I want it to be something serious.”

  Rather than think about the literal shit coffee I was brewing, I turned to Luke’s dilemma. “If you ask me, I’d just have them seduce him with the threat they’ll fillet him or something. Or feed him his dick. Wait, that sounds bad. There are other dangerous female tropes you could touch on. Just do a GoogleFace search for tropes. Maybe reading about what others have done will spark some response.”

  “Maybe I shouldn’t have a threat involved. Just a little sexy time.”

  “God knows we all need that. Okay, I have to bring this coffee to the ladies in bed.”

  “Say that again?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “That’s it!” Luke pumped his fist in the air. “They seduce him using pheromones and if he doesn’t pleasure them, he becomes their slave. And I’m not just talking about coffee in bed. Something weird. Violent, maybe.”

  “That’s what you got from me saying I was bringing them coffee in bed? Everyone loves violence, and most people love coffee, so readers will dig that for sure. Especially if the alien babes are drinking a hot liquid and use it as one of their torturing options.”

  “Hmmm … Okay, I’ll get to plotting consequences later. Talk soon, Gideon.”

  “Sure.”

  “Also, is everything all right? You don’t seem to be in the middle of handling a crisis, as you normally are.”

  “It could be the calm before the storm. Can’t tell just yet. I’ll let you know.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five: Two Sheets to the Wind

  Rather than bore you with the next three hours of painstaking manuscript surgery (a time in which I, a self-described ‘shitty writer,’ cracked out some serious pages, reorganized them, and regurgitated them into a product that will eventually go to market), I’ll move on to the breakfast scene, a scene which ended rather abruptly after I made enough pancakes to supply an IHOP.

  Hot damn, did the supers love pancakes. I guess this was a common thing; the author of Super Sales on Superheroes was right all along!

  The plans for the day were simple: train, and train some more. I had an idea of how we could do that, but before they got started, I wanted to mess around with Fiona’s abilities. So while the rest of the supers relaxed in the living room, and Dorian and Stella retired to their rooms upstairs, the aquatic teen lay on one of the couches, Yours Truly crouched next to her like a paramedic as I plugged into her neck.

  She didn’t have an Overdrive, which made her different from the other two who used elemental powers. This gave me more tweaking options, but as before, turning up one ability generally turned down another.

  “Yep, Hydrokinetic Flight will allow you to fly using water vapors. Are you interested?”

  “Are you asking me if I’m interested in flying?” Fiona asked.

  “I am.”

  Michelle zipped into the room. “Everyone wants to fly!” She was gone before Fiona could agree with her.

  “Great, I’ll adjust that one. As to your questions yesterday, some of these abilities will already be familiar to you. For example, Water Vortex Creation allows you to create things out of water. Like a tornado of water. Can you do that?”

  She turned her palm around and a swirl of water took shape. “Like this?”

  “Exactly that. It’s sort of like Tidal Wave Generation, another of your abilities, but I’ll bring that one down a bit because I think Vortex Creation is more important. You were asking about Viscosity Manipulation. That’s just a cool way to say you can affect other bodies of water. Like … Veronique, can you bring your cup of coffee in here?”

  Veronique, who had been sitting at the bar in the kitchen, came in with her coffee.

  “You can play around with it, right? Without making a mess?” I asked Fiona.

  “Or burning me,” Veronique added.

  Fiona nodded. The brownish liquid lifted from the cup and formed a ring. Another sliver of piping hot liquid leaped up through the ring and dropped back into the cup.

  “Good work. Let me tinker a bit.”

  By the time I was done tweaking her abilities, they looked like this:

  Main: Aquakinesis

  Hydrokinetic Flight: 4

  Water Vortex Creation: 3

  Viscosity Manipulation:7

  Tidal Wave Generation: 1

  Aquatic Adaptation: 5

  Water Pressure Generation: 6

  Motor-Skill Manipulation: 3

  Water Negation: 4

  Morph Speed: 9

  Aquatic Adaptation allowed her to survive in underwater environments, so I didn’t want to mess with that, nor did I want to adjust her morph speed, which was what allowed her to change forms so easily. By far the most interesting, in my opinion, was the Motor-Skill Manipulation, which allowed her to adjust fluid levels in a person’s body.

  “With your Motor-Skill Manipulation ability, you can basically make someone feel drunk,” I told her.

  “Drunk?” she asked, cocking her head.

  Grace, will you download all she needs to know about drunkenness into her head? I thought.

  Her voice came back to me: Certainly, or you could do it. Part of my powers are still with you. You know, from last night.

  Wait, what?

  I looked down at my hands and then glanced around the room. Did I really have some of Grace’s power? I remembered thinking that the coffee filter had moved slightly while I was making coffee this morning.

  You really gave me some power, didn’t you? I thought back to Grace.

  I figured I’d store some with you for tonight.

  Thanks?

  Calling on the spirit of Mark Hamill, I curled my fingers at a magazine on the table. Sure enough, it lifted a few inches into the air, its pages fluttering.

  “Whoa. You’re magic?” Fiona asked, turning her head toward the magazine.

  “No, it’s Grace’s power.” I flexed my fingers, feeling determined. “Now close your eyes, and let me transfer some info to you.”

  Fiona closed her eyes. Her brows lifted once I began thinking about being drunk and what it felt like. I don’t know how long we were quiet, but it was definitely a bonding moment between us.

  “Do you understand?” I asked.

  “I think …”

  “Good. You can make someone feel this way using your Motor-Skill Manipulation ability. There are other fluid levels you can adjust, such as the chemicals that induce terror, but that’s probably too advanced for the time being. So … drunk time. Who wants to be the guinea pig?”

  Michelle appeared. “Me!”

  “Not you.”

  “I’ll let her test it on me,” said Stella. “How long will I be drunk for?”

  “I want to get drunk,” Veronique said, her eyes locked on the television. Another property show? Nope. This time, they were watching a cartoon.

  “No, no,” I told Veronique. “I remember what happened last time you got drunk.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Exactly.”

  “She can test it on me.” Dorian had appeared in the middle of the living room. “Sorry, Grace updated me on what was going on, so I figured I’d volunteer. Anyway, she can test it on me; I can hold my liquor.”

  “Actually, that’s not a bad idea,” I said. “Okay then, make her feel drunk.”


  I unplugged from Fiona’s neck and stepped aside. The thin teen sat up and turned to Dorian, an innocent smile forming on her face. Suddenly, a blast of water knocked Dorian backward. The teleporter flashed away before she could slam into the television.

  “You destroyed the TV,” Veronique said in a monotone voice, looking from the idiot box to the young water wielder.

  “Sorry!”

  Dorian popped up to my right, sopping wet.

  “We should have done that outside,” I said, not sure if I should laugh at what had just happened or keep my mouth shut.

  I chose the latter.

  “Everyone outside,” Dorian said, a dark look in her eyes.

  “Sorry, Dorian! Please don’t hate me!”

  “It’s not your fault, Fiona,” Dorian said, turning to the back door.

  “Whose fault is it then?” Michelle asked, confused.

  “No one’s fault. Well, maybe my fault.” I followed them out. “Sorry. There are plenty of TVs upstairs. I’ll bring one down and hook it up later.”

  “Promise?” Veronique asked. Her hand flickered red and I knew instantly the threat she was making.

  In response, I flared my eyes white at her. At least that’s what I tried to do.

  “That’s a weird way to stare at me?”

  “Sorry, Grace transferred some of her power to me – cool, huh? – and I’m trying to figure out my limitations.”

  “Careful, Writer Gideon,” she said in a mocking tone as she stepped past me.

  Once everyone was outside, including Grace, who had heard the commotion from upstairs, Fiona again turned her attention to Dorian. It was a nice day out but a bit chilly, not unlike a spring day in New England.

  Dorian stared intently at Fiona, who raised a shaky hand toward the teleporter, her eyes clenched shut.

  “Feel it,” Grace said suddenly. “Don’t force it.”

  Fiona bit her lip, took a deep breath, and cast her hand in Dorian’s direction.

  “Did something happen?” Michelle asked, looking wide-eyed from Grace to me.

  Dorian staggered a bit, her eyes softening. “Damn,” she murmured.

  I moved just in time and caught her as she started to lean sideways.