November Snow -  August 1999
pending publication in Dancing Skinless 2000

                November took the last drag of her clove
                cigarette and ground the butt out on the
                heliotrope flesh of her inner arm, next to the
                chickenscratch-scar of some boy's initials, that
                she could no longer remember the name of.
                The pain was exquisite. . .  She crushed the
                heater slowly, taking deliberate pleasure in that
                one square centimeter of agony, wanting to
                expand the experience so it blotted out all
                other thoughts.  All her nerve endings seared in
                an onslaught of delirious sensation,
                mind-warping, explosive.  Her mind was
                crystalline, free from obstructions and she
                realized that she lived for moments like these,
                when the prosaic routine of life evaporated into
                the keen revelation of one shear, blinding
                climax of consciousness.
 

            Addiction 2000
            pending publication
 

I wrap him in my embrace and lead him out through the throng of warm bodies.  I can feel the heat from him like steam rising into my cold hard body, the rapid pulse at his neck as I rub my lips against him and tongue
his jaw, taste his soft boy-stubble and the shiver of excitement that rushes through him like an underwatercurrent.  His hair is clean and smells of cloves and his jaw is firm clenched with anticipation.  He leans against me, intoxicated from too much drink and the rapture he has fallen under.

The night is brisk and clear and tastes of rain.  He shivers and I hold him closer against me, stealing his warmth.  Above, the moon lays hidden behind the clouds, but I can sense it, feel it pulling the liquids inside of him, tugging the blood to the surface of his skin, feel the thunder of his veins filling and aching to spill.

        Sacrificial  Blood -  2000
           pending publication

                I first heard the movement, a sweeping rhythm
                of fabric whispering, the soft shuffle of bare feet
                across the wooden floor, the metallic chiming of
                bracelets, then the sweet spicy aroma of
                sandlewood embraced me.  I saw her shadow
                looming above, long hair as dark as a raven's
                wing, the folds of her heliotrope robes quivering
                and fluttering open like vagina lips.  I caught a
                glimpse of a rose-bud nipple, smooth
                moon-skin, soft woman-curves, luminous eyes
                like pools of dark water.  Then the beautiful
                face, so darkly angelic and filled with wicked
                innoncense so I could scarcely believe she was
                capable of such atrocities, yet fully understood
                that she was.
 

            Darkness Within - 1999
            published in Earwig Flesh Factory - Issue 1 - 1999

                There was doll-house where I once lived, a green-peeling
                paint-chipped doll-house with creaking floors and dark
                closets full of bones, an attic cob-webbed and insulated
                with dark-scribbled paper-words, beetles
                scamp-scurrying through the garden, moving like a
                lucid night terror amidst the tiny gravestones.  The
                walls were papered with dusty moth-wings, moon-white
                and iridescent, stuck with the glue of my own blood.  I
                kept this house in the back woods, behind the shed,
                where fragmented patches of light beamed like Jacob's
                Ladders down through the trees. My
                hide-away-from-the-world.

                It was there I collected dead things to play with: little
                sparrows with streaks of brown through their lovely
                decay, limp feathered bodies black-taped to the pelvis
                and legs of broken barbies.  I  found a old doll's head
                once, the eyes poked out like maggot-holes, the hair
                ratty tangles, and I filled it full of earthworms that
                looked like wiggling squirming brains.  It is amazing
                how you cut worms into so many thick writhing
                segments and they manage to stay alive.  Sometimes I
                would hear them screaming inside my head as they
                inched together, trying to attach the pieces of their
                severed bodies.
 

        A Deeper Shade of Grey  - 1999
           pending publication

                I squeezed my eyes tight to fight back tears.
                What had I done?  Scenes flashed behind my
                eyes.  Drinking warm, red wine and kissing
                warm, red lips.  Soft woman-skin that smelled
                of beach and driftwood and rain.  Drunk on
                passion, on the mysteries of female flesh.  Had
                I really done all that?  It felt like a faraway
                dream and the more I tried to think about last
                night, about the texture of her skin and the
                mewling sounds she made when she came, the
                more I wanted to forget.  I rolled onto my belly
                and smothered my face into the pillow but
                could not escape the scent of sex and the ghosts
                of evening past.
 

 
        The Garden of Earthly Delights - 2000
           pending publication

I sat opposite Pia on a patio of mosaic tiles that overlooked the hanging garden; a multi-tiered assortment of terraces and balconies that spilled a floral orgy of bloody devouring flowers down into the courtyard and beyond that to the sea.  I was filled with drink and the heady intoxication of violent perfumes that filled the humid night breeze.  Earlier that evening she had escorted me on a tour through her expansive vineyards, then later down into her cellar were she had chosen a rare vintage to share with our evening meal.

We had dined at dusk; the sunset blazing like a passionate inferno, then fading to the evening purple steeped with vast shadows.  The color had finally sank out of the sky and the twilight turned a deep-grey drifting with phantasmagorias that stirred the shadows.  Then suddenly, the moon arose beyond the dark landscape of the horizon, flooding the terrace and lighting each trembling vulvoid cluster down to the tranquil water so they quivered in orgasmic delight.

I sat entranced, watching the movement of her succulent mouth still stained by the juice of strawberries as they formed the words she spoke of so passionately.  Words about life and death and love.

        The Hands of Fate - 2000
           published Venus or Vixen - 2000

                Daemien looked like a fallen angel, his smooth
                sculptured features, small cherub lips, a halo of
                blond curls around his head.  He was a perfect
                Michelangelo—but that was his great
                deception—for beneath that placid face lay a
                great brooding darkness.  He wore it all too
                well.  His head was slightly tilted, pale curls
                spilling over his eyes, his jaw muscles clenched
                in contemplation and slightly twitching.  I
                could have stood there and watched him
                forever.

                And then she kissed him on the lips and Jaiden
                pulled her down on top of him as he fell to the
                sand.  He was so eager to taste her, to devour
                her.  Their mouths were wet and soft and
                all-encompassing.  Their tongues touched and
                Aaleigha was suddenly aware of their bodies
                pressing close, of the smell of him like
                horse-flesh and scented oils, the rough stubble
                of his jaw and his musky male odor.  She could
                feel every hard inch of his body pressing
                against her, yet she felt the need to be so much
                closer, to swallow him, to melt into his flesh, to
                be one.

                His hands were gentle as they wandered over
                her body, touching her intimately, gliding along
                the length of her legs, up her hip to the curve
                of her waist, up to feel the swell of her breast.
                Jaiden rolled on top of her and kissed her
                throat, running his hot tongue down her skin.
                It seemed she could not grasp any air and yet
                the last thing she cared about was the ability
                to breathe.  Her belly was alive with a
                pleasurable fluttering, as if a cage inside of her
                had been unlocked and one hundred birds set
                free to swoop and soar and beat their wings in
                all her hollow spaces.  She could feel a hard
                bulge against her thigh as he rubbed against
                her and she longed to feel his hardness enter
                her and engulf her at once.
 
 

            The Festival of the Snake - 1999
            published Scarlet Letters - The Living Canvas - Fall 1999
 

                The snakes slithered over Alethea's flesh,
                curling around her neck, between her legs.
                They slithered over the tattoo, their colors
                becoming one with it.  One glided through her
                hair and curled in front of her forehead to turn
                and look her directly in the eye.  She felt no
                fear now.  Only the power of the Goddess
                protecting her and rushing in her veins.  The
                snake's tongue flicked out to taste her and she
                slipped her tongue out to meet it.

                The music became feverish with finger-drums
                and flutes and tambourines.  The crowd began
                to chant along with the Daughters of the Moon
                and the Priestess' prayers rose to a passionate
                pitch.  Alethea could no longer hear the words
                of the Priestess, only chanted singing, the wild
                barbaric clashing of cymbals, droning horns,
                thundering drums, and screaming flutes.  The
                people undulated to the erratic rhythm lost in
                an ecstatic frenzy of worship.