“You are not alone,” a voice called out from the darkness.
“Hello?” Tian replied not sure if he heard the voice or just thought it.
The rustling ahead of him stopped. Tian knew that whoever it was was waiting for Tian to find him. “I’m sorry, where are you?” Tian asked. But the voice didn’t call back.
Tian didn’t really need the directions. What he wanted was the reassurance that he hadn’t imagined it. Tian took comfort in what he thought he had heard. He also felt relief that his bad dream had finally ended and that his real life was about to begin.
Tian continued forward and entered what seemed to be a clearing. Standing directly in front of him was a man no taller than his own six feet four inches. But what Tian found unnerving was that the man barely seemed to be there. His blank look neither denoted welcome nor disagreement. His demeanor stripped Tian of the reassurance that the words had given him. And in the worst of all possible options his loneliness remained in spite of the fact that he knew that he wasn’t alone.
The moment of silence before either of them spoke drew out. Tian didn’t know what to say while the man seemed content to stand there for hours saying nothing. ‘What am I doing here?’ Tian thought. ‘What was I expecting? Something’s definitely missing. This isn’t like it was before.’
“Can you help me? I think I’m lost,” finally rolled out of Tian’s mouth.
“Where is it that you wanted to go?” The man answered back.
A dread filled Tian’s body. He didn’t think that he would have to know. Through all of the years and dreams, through all of the failures and successes, he was never quite sure where it was that he wanted to go. And now at the end of his dream, he woke up and the first question he was asked was for the answer that he never knew.
“I don’t know.”
“Ok.”
In a few more moments of silence, both men disappeared.
* * * * *
Enjoy this romantic comedy excerpt from:
Excerpt: Fixing Cupid
Chapter 1
‘Is she or isn’t she?’ Ben wondered. Ben looked over at the 33-year-old, elegantly dressed woman who sat nervously across the table. ‘She’s such a delight,’ Ben thought. ‘In 10 years, when all of the other wives are secretly blaming their husbands for the last 10 pounds that they can’t get rid of, Sherry will still be sitting across from me in her pearls. Assuming the manufacturer doesn’t run out, she will still have her shiny blonde hair. She will still be wearing it in a tightly wound bun, and she will still have a stomach tight enough to bounce a quarter off.’
Ben, 37, was just a little older than Sherry, but in lifestyles they were worlds apart. Ben could be content to spend every night at home on the couch. He was the type that didn’t immediately take off his suit when he got home from the law firm. In fact, if Sherry was stuck at the gym, Ben sometimes took off his tie, and then put it back on when he knew she was coming home. The tie wasn’t necessary to complete the ensemble, but he always felt that it had the magical ability to make his butt look more taught, and who didn’t want that?
With her pearls and yoga body, Sherry was the perfect bookend. She wasn’t the professional that Ben was, but she was driven, and where she drove herself most was at the gym.
Sometimes she would come home so sore that she could barely walk straight. Her tightly quaffed bun would be slightly askew, and she would have a look in her eyes that if it wasn’t for the pearls, would make Ben think she had a libido. But he knew Sherry; she didn’t. Women didn’t have libidos in the 1950s and that is clearly where Sherry was from. And if she wasn’t technically from there, her stylist certainly was.
Ben sipped slowly on the last of the red wine. He looked over at his girlfriend who had just prepared a three course meal fit for a king, and like the queen that she was, she had prepared all of his favorite things.
“Well, that was a nice surprise,” Ben said, wondering if the next course included sex.
“Did you like everything?” Sherry asked with the tense look on her face that usually accompanied Sherry’s unique brand of uptight, 1950s housewife sex.
‘Sexy,’ Ben thought. “No, everything was perfect. You cooked all of my favorite things. You're perfect. I don't deserve you.”
Sherry clenched her jaw in that nervous way that she did whenever Ben would make his moves on her. When Ben saw that, crossing his legs was the only thing that he could do to not take her right then and there.
She looked down at her watch.
‘She can’t wait,’ Ben thought. “What's the matter, Sherry? You keep looking at your watch,” he said seductively.
This was only a formality. He knew what was up. He knew the tie he had worn was always her favorite. He remembered all of the times she would slither up to him and say, “Oh baby, that’s one sexy tie. You know what you can do with that tie?”
Yeah, Ben knew alright. He would then hang it up on the tie slat he removed it from and make love to her like an animal. That’s right, he would do it missionary style. And do you know why he would do it missionary style? Because that was really the only style that he knew.
But Ben knew that knowing more wasn’t necessary because she liked it. All 105 pounds of her liked it, every part of her, from her perfectly manicured feet to her Stepford Wife hairdo. And Ben knew that what they made every other Tuesday (except when she had spin class), was wasp love at its finest.
Ben stared at Sherry and decided that he was ready to go, and he wasn’t necessarily talking about round one of Wimbledon as they would call it (mostly because of the pair’s evenly paced grunting). No, Ben was thinking about taking home the trophy. He was thinking about asking Sherry to be his doubles partner, always and forever more.
Sherry looked around the room almost distracted. ‘Is there another course?’ Ben wondered. If so, he couldn’t eat another bite.
“Ben, do you know that feeling when you meet someone and you just know you want to spend the rest of your life with them?”
‘This is amazing,’ Ben thought. ‘Our thoughts are one.’ “Yeah,” Ben said, looking back with a satisfied smile.
“You do?” Sherry replied with relief. “And when that happens, you know that you want the rest of your life to start immediately?”
Ben felt a warm feeling come over him as Sherry spoke. “Ah huh.”
“Oh good. Because that's why I want you to move out.”
Ben looked at her knowing that her pale, sexy body couldn’t have resisted him much longer.
“Wait, what?” he asked, just realizing that she hadn’t asked him to take her bra off with his teeth.
Ben was thrown back in his chair. The light around him seemed to lower and somewhere in the back of his mind appeared a memory. In that memory a 25-year-old Ben stood in the front row of a rock concert. He wore a leather jacket with fringe hanging from the sleeves and tight leather pants. In other words, he was stylin’.
He bopped along looking at the band, and then turned to Bonnie, the sultry 25-year-old brunette with him. Ben leaned over to Bonnie and yelled at the top of his lungs into her ear. “Aren't these seats great?”
Bonnie, who couldn’t hear Ben, turned to him excitedly. “Oh my god. OH MY GOD! The lead singer just signaled me to go back stage. OH MY GOD!”
Without another word, Bonnie dashed away. Ben then looked up at the lead singer who was looking down at him. Ben gave him a look that said, ‘Dude, I was about to hit that.’
The 37-year-old Ben then left that memory and settled on another. This time the 15-year-old Ben was sitting in the basement in a circle with a group of 15-year-old boys and girls. They were playing ‘Spin the Bottle.’
Jennifer, with the 18-year-old body and the can-do attitude, took hold of the bottle. “Ok, I'm gonna spend seven minutes in heaven with...”
All of the boys held their breath because they knew that anything that happened in that closet would allow their 15-year-old bodies credit. And that extra credit caused by Jenn
ifer’s 15-to-18-year-old-body-to-physical-age-ratio would pay off in college when they would be able to skip all of the awkward fumbling and move right to the advanced classes.
Ben watched as the bottle slowed down and pointed towards him. His Clearasil caked face cracked a smile. The railway full of braces he showed said, ‘the train is in baby, and it’s time for you to get on board.’ At least that was what they were saying as he hit the ground.
From the floor Ben looked up at Michael. Michael was the boy that had bumped him out of the way so hard that Ben had to subtly untangle the love train out of the shag carpet. Apparently, Michael took his advanced classes very seriously.
“Michael,” Jennifer said with a smile and an eager exit toward the closet.
Free from his long time nemesis, 80’s shag, Ben shot the excited Michael a look which said, "Dude! I was about to hit that."
The 37-year-old Ben was then transported in thought to his preschool classroom. Ben handed the 4-year-old girl next to him a picture. The picture was a Picasso inspired rendition that he had drawn of the two of them.
The little girl looked at the picture and laughed. She was the vixen of Ben’s preschool class, and in full vixen mode she flipped her hair back and uttered the words that every 4-year-old boy yearned to hear.
“You’re a poopy head,” she said.
But before Ben got out what everyone around the sandbox said was the traditional mating response, he was thwarted.
“You’re a poopy head,” the boy on the other side of the girl announced, confirming her assessment.
The girl then turned to the boy and gave him the look that Ben had yearned to see. It was the look that either said, “You, big boy, are the one that I want to share my cookies with.” Or it said, “I need to be changed.” Whichever one it was, it rightfully belonged to Ben, and that preschool pamper-rider was a cuckold for stealing it.
But now, on the outside of this once glorious love triangle, Ben shot the boy a look. Then with the boy’s eyes locked with his, Ben pointed the boy’s gaze at the Barbie that Ben held in his other hand. And with his hand still tightly latched on Barbie’s hair, he then turned back to the boy and shot him a look. The look said, “Dude, I was about to hit that.”
“I can’t believe this. You cheated on me?” the 37-year-old Ben asked in a daze.
“No Ben. I would never do that,” Sherry replied defensively. “I like you too much for that. That's why you have to go.”
“What? Right now?” Ben asked, stunned.
Sherry looked at her watch anxiously. “Yes Ben, right now.”
“Then, what was all this? The romantic lighting? All my favorite things?”
Sherry shrugged her shoulders and gave Ben a look that said, "What do you think it was?"
The realization hit Ben like a wet wick hitting water. “This was my last meal.”
* * * * *
Enjoy this adult humor excerpt from:
Excerpt: Happiness May Vary
Chapter 1
What does the word ‘adage’ mean? If you look it up in the dictionary you might find the definition as follows: a traditional saying that expresses something considered to be a general truth. But I don’t think that’s it. The word takes on a whole new meaning when you consider its Latin root ‘bondage,’ which in Latin means: ye twisted game where thou betrothed dost dawn the highly shined skin of land beast and attaches said betrothed to thou’st bed posts and precedes to lash thou betrothed body until both are writhing with pleasure. See when you consider the Latin root of a word the word always takes on a whole new meaning. That’s why Latin used to be taught in school and resulted in smarter students.
No, the word adage has a much more insidious origin. It’s rooted in twisted games of power that may or may not include the use of patent leather. It is a word meant to subjugate and humiliate. It is a word meant to create two classes of people where one is enslaved to the other. It was a word that Hitler used many times during his most famous speech to the German people. Only people don’t realize it because he said it in German and in German the meaning is different.
No, the word adage is not a friend to us, or to society, or to humans as a species. It is a word that mocks us in its existence. It laughs at us every time we foolishly utter the word again. And every time a folksy person slips the word ‘adage’ into a sentence to make himself seem a little smarter, he chips away at the chains that hold back the doors of hell. Aren’t the fire breathing demons that constantly bang on the doors enough for the chains to handle? Must we add to our eventual demise by chipping away at the chains ourselves? I say we should avoid it at all costs, but hey, ‘you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.’
Since I probably can’t get those types to stop using adages, I would like to throw out a few random examples of why adages destroy the foundations of life as we know it. Do you know the adage that says that the size of a man’s penis is directly related to his height? How about the adage that says that the size of a man’s penis is directly related to the size of his feet? And here’s another one: the size of a man’s penis is directly related to the size of the man’s hands with the thickness of his thumb being related to his penis’ thickness. And of course, there is the adage that black men have large penises.
Now these are just random examples and I could have chosen any of millions. But let’s be honest, if these adages were real, as a six foot six black man with size 14 shoes and hands large enough to palm a basketball, my penis would be so large that it would stretch down my pant leg and I would trip over it as I walked around. If adages were true I would need to tuck the head of my penis into my shoes. And when old Mrs. Fey drove her walker by me as I walked to work, I would have to tell her that I keep a dead snake in my pants.
The head of my penis would probably be all black and blue from it being dragged across the ground. And when women ask me about it I would be all like “no baby no. These are love scars that I got because I was dreaming about you and my penis kept scraping the ceiling.” She’d be all like “oh baby, you so sweet. I want you to push it all the way in me.” And I’d be like “you know it baby.” And then I would pass out as all of the blood rushed out of my body to fill my penis. And then, passed out, I would rock her world. And in a few hours after I came to (“came,” get it?), she would beg me for more.
But that’s not how it goes. Instead, I wake up in the morning and go to take a piss and sometimes when I reach down I find something missing. I start to scream the manliest high pitched scream you ever heard because I think my penis is gone. Yeah I find it. Sometimes it takes two hands to pull it out like a calf out of a cow, but it’s there.
After I take my morning piss I turn on the shower, get naked and do my best not to look at myself in the mirror. And if I do catch a glimpse I try to keep it above the waist. If I’m looking into the mirror I usually take the opportunity to check my hairline to make sure it’s all still there. And then I check my teeth to see if any of last night’s dinner still remains. And if I’m feeling very adventurous I keep looking down at my chest and then my stomach. And then if I’m feeling lucky I look further down, hoping that I won’t find him looking back at me. But he always is.
“What, you starin’ at me?” he usually says.
I look away but I know how the rest of the morning is gonna go.
“You got a problem with me? You got a fuckin’ problem? Bring your ass around here and I’ll show you a fuckin’ problem.”
“I don’t have a problem,” I sometimes say back.
“Well it seems like you do. It seems like your little shit for brains has a problem with me.”
I usually do my best to ignore him by turning on the shower and going about my business. I pull out my toothbrush, paste it up and get to work. But once he gets started there’s no stopping him.
“When you think you’re man enough to look me in the eye then you look back down. You hear me talking to you? What, you think you could ignore me? You can’
t ignore me bitch. I own you. You hear me? I own your sorry punk ass. Your sweet punk ass is mine.”
That is usually where the seduction begins.
“Why don’t you take your sweet ass into the shower. I said get into the shower, bitch.”
I know that if I don’t do it he’s just going to get angrier, so I do.
“Yeah that’s right. Why don’t you bring your fine self down here and let me feel your fine looking fingers. Oh yeah, that’s right. Why don’t you tell me whose bitch you is.”
“I’m your bitch.”
“I want you to scream it bitch. Tell everyone listening whose bitch you is.”
“I’m your bitch,” I scream, knowing that if I don’t all of this will just get worse.
“You damn right you my bitch. Now work those fingers bitch. That’s right pull it back. Make me feel it bitch. Make me feel it. Work the soap bitch. Oh yeah! That’s right. Make me feel it bitch. Oh yeah, ho! That’s right! Oh yeah! Right now. Right now! Ahhhhh! Zzzzzzz.”
And then my day can begin.
* * * * *
Follow the author Cristian YoungMiller on twitter @RateABull_guy
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