Skeeter
I had the pleasure of channeling one of Odessa’s old friends today. He was a tall and wiry black man who went by the nickname of Skeeter. He didn’t tell me his real name because he said, “Miss Dess don’t know me by nothing else.”
He took care of Odessa’s lawn and later her swimming pool from the late 1960′s through just before he crossed in early 1980. “Helped them build that pool,” he says. “Made sure they did right by Mr. Graham and kept them boys in line round Miss Dess.”
His daughter was a cleaning lady at the hospital where Carmella worked as a nurse in the ER. When Carmella started working as a mid-wife she taught Milly how to be her assistant and paid her good. “That Carmella was one fine woman,” he says. “Pretty and smart and so good to my family, she was.”
Odessa tells me Skeeter was a bit sweet on Carmella.
“Not than anything ever come of it,” he adds. “Carmella too good a woman for the likes of me.”
One hot summer day in 1971 Odessa was out splashing around in her pool, and according to Skeeter, “not looking after that that little girl of hers. Carmella always asked me to keep an eye on that baby. Amalie would have been about three months away from turning two, so Dess probably shouldn’t of had her on a floatie in the pool.
“Anyways, after I done cleaned up her yard she asked me if I wanna go swimming with em,” he says. “I told her I made whole lot of them pools, but I ain’t ever gone swimming outside the bay and sides I had to get home to my grand babies cause Millie supposed to go help Carmella birth a baby any time now. She told me to go home and get them so’s they can go swimming too. I told her that be right nice of her, but we ain’t got no proper swimsuits and besides we don’t want to get in her way.”
“Miss Dessie, she hop right out of that pool and say she gonna go buy us all swimsuits. Asking what size the girls wear. She wasn’t having me tell her no. She go in get in that fancy convertible of hers, just leave her baby a floating.”
“That Dessie, she sweet as can be, but someone’s I don’t think she right in the head. She sure did love her snakes.”
“Skeeter,” she always say, “Don’t you bother my snakes. Come get me and I’ll get them out of your way while you cut the grass.”
“Went and got Carmella and she got the baby and told me to go on home and get Millie and the grand babies cause if Miss Dess wants us to go a swimming, we better just go along and swim with her.”
“We gets back and Miss Dessie done bought them both pretty yellow bathing suits and big old beach towels with daisy’s all over them. Them girls had a ball, splashing round with Miss Dessie. Carmella made us all mater sandwiches and we had tater chips and soda pop. Had ourselves a right fine party.”
“Miss Dessie was pretty as could be when she smiled and laughed. She told me to bring the girls every time I cut the grass so’s they can swim with her and that baby.”
“I just wanted them to watch Amalie,” Dess says, like it was no big deal.
Both Millie’s daughter went on to nursing school thanks to Carmella’s encouragement and help in paying their tuition.
Book Lovers Buffet
Introducing the Book Lovers’ Buffet. Load up, you won’t gain a pound!
The Buffet’s “Bouquet of Books” sale will be open May 1-3. More than 175 ebooks, all reduced in price to just 99 cents. Save in categories such as Young Adult, Contemporary, Paranormal, Suspense, Erotic Romance, and more!
PLUS, visit the website to win gift cards to your choice of online retailers. $400 in gift cards up for grabs!
Titles from popular authors such as:
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Hosted by Indie Romance Ink.
Under My Skin is part of the sale under the Erotica category for only .99 cents.
Comfort Zones
Thanks to Carmella, Odessa has been put in Spirit Guide time out. Carmella seems to believe that Dess overindulges and encourages my weaknesses and tendencies of escapism. What got us in trouble was a very large bottle of Kinky liqueur disappearing in one weekend. Dess and I totally have that whole empath thing going on and she was an alcoholic in her previous incarnation. When Dess tells me a story I often feel her exact emotions as if I were living them myself. Not in of itself a bad thing, but, apparently Carmella believes that Odessa is indulging her love of liquor through me. So, Carmella went to the head honcho master guide for her own brand of intervention. Upon her recommendation, Iam has placed Dess in time out and put Carmella in charge.
Spirit Guide 101: The alpha guide (until now, Dess) is the one who lets other spirits come through. They control the gateway to the other side. This guide has the remote, so to speak.
Carmella is now the operator allowing spirit to communicate with me. Dess has always been a very possessive alpha guide. She doesn’t like to share my attention with any spirits who don’t have some type of connection to her. Carmella is much more open and wants to push my boundaries as a medium.
A new Spirit came to me in my dreams Monday night. Her name is Claire and I know she died from cancer. She was a lesbian in love with a married woman named Annalise. Claire wants me to share her last visit with Annalise in a story. A very literary and highly erotic story.
Claire is pushing me way out of my comfort zone. So much so that I am typing this instead of working on her story. Maybe I need to spend a little more time with her, get to know her better, before I attempt to tell her story.
Carmella says that is not what needs to happen. She says I don’t have to get so attached to these Spirits. They come to me to have their story told. I don’t have to embrace them. I don’t have to make their pain mine.
I know I will never have a connection and divine bond with any other spirits as I have with Odessa. That’s okay, Carmella says. That is how it’s supposed to be.
There is a lesson in this in developing my skills as a medium. I have to learn to step back and give the character free rein to tell their story on their terms. I am not their censor. I do not judge them. I do not need to get so emotionally attached to them. It is their story to tell and not mine.
Those words that get put on the page, Carmella says, they are not of you. Spirit is speaking through you. It’s your gift to embrace, not the Spirit.
I have to learn to complete disconnect and let Spirit do all the work. I am only there to take dictation. Their stories are not mine.
The Loss of Innocence – Farmboy to Playboy
Normally I wouldn’t post such a negative review, but The Loss of Innocence – Farmboy to Playboy by Deven Michaels is an embarrassment to the wrestling business.
This guy is his own biggest mark and comes across as a horrible human being with no respect for women. The only thing this book really has to do about the wrestling business is that Jake Roberts conned him out of 2 grand to supposedly train him.
The formatting is horrible, the grammar is even worse, and the self-delusion is over the top. This poor guy claims to be well-read, yet he doesn’t know the difference between chic and chick, setting and sitting, ahead and a head, whole and hole, and on and on an on. Dare I even mention all the LOLs from the author.
If you can overlook the bad writing, the story is decent if you want to read about a total screw up of a man’s life. I feel horrible for his wife and another other women (or as he not so kindly refers to them all as whores) that gave him the time of day. Guys that go around boasting about the size of their penis usually don’t really have all that much to brag about. Do you hear Robert Fuller going around talking about the size of his penis? Nope, and his happens to be of legendary proportions.
This book has next to nothing to do about the real world of pro wrestling and shouldn’t be priced at more than .99 cents.
Fear
I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see it’s path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.
~ Litany Against Fear from Frank Herbert’s classic Dune series.
I must not fear rejection.
Fear of rejection is the dream-killer.
Fear of rejection is the little-death of a promising career.
I will face my fear of rejection.
Neither agents, nor editors, nor reviewers, nor readers will stop me.
Their critical words will pass over me with no effect.
And when the fear of rejection is gone, I shall be a strong writer.
~ Writer’s Litany Against Rejection by Kyle White
Why?
Instead of spending my lunch break toiling away on one of many various WIPs, I find myself asking the big question… Why?
I mean, does the world really need another smutty little short story?
Okay, then why am I writing a story that doesn’t concern any of my Voices?
I don’t know, maybe to try to sell something. But, is selling something selling out to my true self?
I never started out with the intention of writing erotica. I didn’t even know it would be labeled erotic. I just sat down and told a story. Okay about a zillion times in about a zillion different ways. But, it was my story, or more accurately my characters story. I just wrote what they told me.
So, there you have what evolved into Hexed.
I’ve been told the characters aren’t likable. Okay, Rowan kills people. She’s not supposed to be likable. Interesting… I thought so… A train wreck? Yeah, I won’t deny that.
My heroes seem to have a problem with keeping their dicks in their pants. I adore Billy Dalton. He fucks around. That’s what men do. Billy is very loosely based on the first guy I ever loved. Guess what? He probably scored more pussy than most of the other wrestlers combined. Did I love him less for it? Absolutely not.
What you do with one person is not always connected or even based on your feelings for another person.
I don’t get this whole love thing. It’s complex. You know, kinda like life.
I don’t write love stories. I write life stories.
No offense to anyone, but I cringe at the thought of being labeled a romance writer. I don’t read that genre and I sure as hell don’t want people thinking I write it. But, like I said, no offense intended if you do.
I hate labels.
So, why the hell to I keep going with this writing thing?
Sometimes I really don’t know… I mean I like for my stuff to be read. I really dig when someone gets what I do. I’d be a liar if I didn’t admit selling a story is kinda cool too.
Maybe I write because I have these Voices inside my head demanding their stories be told. I can’t confine them to a genre. I can’t play by anyone else’s rules. I have to write what they tell me.
My characters fuck around. Sorry if that offends you. No, really, I’m not.
The Voices amuse me. The Voices fascinate me. The Voices are my friends.
I love them and I want their stories told.
I would hope that others find them as fascinating as I do. Like anyone else, maybe the Voices do want to be understood by someone other than me. Maybe they are just happy being whoever the hell they are, or were. I seriously doubt the Spirit we call Roger ever really gave a flying flipping fuck about what others thought of him. He was in this thing for himself, and truth be told, I kinda admire him for that.
Does that make me a traditional publisher’s worst nightmare?
I don’t know if I’ll finish the short story. If I do, I do…
I can only do what the Voices tell me to do.
Maybe, just maybe, that’s why I write…
There you have it.
I write to give the Voices their voice.
Temptation
If it had been Odessa instead of Eve in the Garden of Eden I believe she would have passed on the apple and decided to kiss the snake instead.
The results of my recent blood work have me wishing I had Odessa’s complete emotional detachment from food. I am an emotional eater. When I’m happy I eat. When I’m sad I eat. When I’m bored I eat.
Food has always been my comfort and solstice. When the doctor was going over the results of my daddy’s first unsuccessful surgery to stop his cancer, all I could think about was how much I wanted some ice cream. A heaping bowl of Chocolate Mouse Royale… Mint Chocolate Chip… Cookies-n-Cream… Anything to numb the pain.
Odessa enjoyed the decadence of Roger feeding her a strawberry dipped in melted in chocolate, but she didn’t go out of her way to seek sweets, or any other food for that matter. If someone bought her chocolate she ate it and appreciated its flavor. For her it stopped there. Food never had any control over her.
Graham would have to get Carmella to go grocery shopping for Odessa just to make sure there was food in the house for their daughter, Amalie. Dess was perfectly content to wander out into the back garden to graze on home grown strawberries, grapes, or an occasional plum. She never, in her words, consumed any food product that once had a soul.
If Carmella cooked vegetables, baked bread, or made pasta with tomato sauce, Odessa would sometimes be coaxed into taking a couple of bites. Very rarely, usually at the insistence of Graham, would she sit down at the table and eat an actual meal.
The last five years or so of both their lives, Odessa and Graham were both guilty of alcohol induced liquid lunches. She got to the point were she wouldn’t eat at all if he didn’t peel her an apple. slice up a pineapple or coax her into having a taste of chocolate. It wasn’t that she had any issues with her weight or food obsessions, it was more that she just forgot to eat. Food held absolutely no interest to her.
I was thinking how incredibly liberating that must have been, not to base your life around craving your next meal. I was jealous of her willowy five-ten eternally slender body. At least until she gave me a glimpse of her last year or so among the living.
Odessa’s health started to deteriorate when Carmella became ill with breast cancer in 1984. Being an empath, Odessa picked up on her best friend’s suffering to the point where that was a huge factor in Carmella decision to move back to her family home in NC to live out her last days. Carmella had always been Odessa life line to sanity and normalcy. If Carmella had still been with her in that December of 1985, I doubt Odessa would have let Roger get inside her head enough to have given Graham that horrible ultimatum that eventually cost both their lives.
A part of Odessa died right along with Graham that January morning. He was her everything. Without him she didn’t want air to breath, much less food to eat.
After Graham’s death, his wife immediately sent word through Roger that she wanted Odessa out of that house. The one thing Graham hadn’t considered was the implications of the house being deeded in only his name. For a man who supposedly killed himself, he left no provisions for Odessa or their daughter in his will. Knowing his devotion to Odessa and his acute business sense, this is proof positive that there is no way his death happened by his own hands.
Odessa didn’t want to stay in the house anyway. She couldn’t have handled the memories and went back to home she owned in Raleigh. The home Roger bought her back in the early 1960s and where her sister had lived since she moved to Florida in 1963. Within a month of being back in Raleigh, Olivia was arrested in a major drug bust. Olivia being imprisoned left Amalie on her own in handling a teenage pregnancy. Odessa was too brokenhearted to even notice there was anything wrong with her daughter. For once in her life, Odessa was totally on her own with no one there to look out for her when she needed looking after the most.
Roger made one trip up from Florida to see her in June of that summer. He saw the toll Graham’s death had taken on her. She was dangerously frail, already hovering at around 100 lbs. A dangerously thin weight for a woman of her height. This was his only visit where she didn’t have the interest or the desire to even want to have sex with him. Instead of getting her the help she desperately needed he went home to his family and never saw or spoke with her again.
Odessa had basically stopped eating weeks before Amalie died in childbirth. It wasn’t really alcohol poisoning from that bottle of absinthe that killed her. A heartbroken Odessa died from starvation.
Read An Ebook Week
Several of my titles are on sale during Smashwords Read An Ebook Week. Check out my author profile and click through the titles to find the freebies amid the discounted prices.
Mine and Odessa’s latest release ~ Give It To Your Guide: How To Connect With And Accept Help From Spirit ~ is 25% off it’s usual price of $2.99. If you’ve ever wanted to learn about Spirit Guides we think you’ll find this book to be very informative.
If you like a little smut, The Lady Is a Tramp is 25% off it’s usual price of $1.99.
If you prefer a little romance with your smut, Desire is 75% off the usual price of $3.99
If you like strong female heroines, Vexed is 75% off the usual price of $3.99.
If you like a little murder and meyham, Hexed is absolutely free.
If you’re in the mood for a ghost story, Infinity is free.
And if you’re up for some naughty fun, Wanton is a freebie, too.
Young Love
This photo kinda reminded me of a late 20 something version of Odessa. She would have been paler, taller and even skinnier, but I can see her like this on the beach seeking solstice with her snakes.
I’m in the process of outlining her relationship with the man we’ll call Roger. It’s left me wondering why their affair fizzled from it’s original passion and languished for several years before they reconnected. Both of them have been in my ear with insight on the state of them.
When they first met Odessa was only sixteen. Roger had recently turned forty and was about to embark on the most intense years of his career with an exhausting travel schedule. As much as he adored his young daughter, he resented not being the center of attention in his marriage. During this time his days at home were few and far between. A young and willing Odessa was his out. She had no ties, nothing to stop her from being there when and where he wanted her.
The initial attraction was purely physical. Odessa was stunningly gorgeous and the tall, long legged redhead made the perfect accessory. She made him feel like a God and he relished her adoration.
Odessa kept him sated sexually and took care of him in ways that no other woman could ever image. She was a empath to her lovers, feeling his pain and taking it from him. At this point in his career, the ring and the grueling travel were starting to take a toll on his health. She was there to tend to his wounds, take care of his gear, and her quirky personality made her an interesting travel companion.
His being gone for long stretches had both it’s positives and negatives. Those same traits he found so endearing in small doses would have probably grated on his nerves if he’d been around her every day. The snakes, her picky eating habits, volatile mood swings and later her drinking did take their toll on the relationship.
They were both furiously possessive of the other. While he met all her financial needs, she got incredibly lonely and jealous when he was on the road without her. That’s why she turned to the man we’ll call Graham.
Roger didn’t share his toys and Odessa was his living doll. Despite being married himself, he was devastated by her dalliances with Graham. She was the one woman he couldn’t bend to his will.
Odessa also had a sadistic streak that Roger refused to indulge. He made love to her. Graham fucked her brains out. She loved his roughness and embraced his demons. She catered to his dark side and let it envelop her in a dangerous way.
If not for Graham, Roger would have have made Odessa his third wife. He was planning a divorce when he learned of her betrayal. We’ll never know what might have happened had she not given in to Graham.
Odessa calls Graham her Beloved and they were soul mates.
Still, Roger always kept a silver her heart all to himself.
Peel Me A Grape
I was just thinking about how I wish I had someone to buy me grapes. It would be so nice not to have to stop at the grocery store on the way home from work.
Then I remembered an episode from my past that made me realize it might be best to be thankful for where I am and just go by my own damn grapes.
Cue dramatic soap opera music…
I’ve just gotten home from a week in the hospital with colitis. I am still randomly squirting blood out of my ass and have not had solid food in over a week. I think the one thing I might be able to stomach might just be a chicken pot pie from KFC.
Yeah, this was way before I was diagnosed with Celiac Disease and still ate normal people food.
The psycho ex is sent on a quest to get my the chicken pot pie.
He returns much later with a partially eaten cup of mashed potatoes. According to him, the chicken pot pie was too expensive.
Fast food is too expense for someone you supposedly love. Someone who has been hospitalized and on a morphine drip for days. Someone who was denied any food or water for most of those days in case there was a need for emergency surgery.
I want my damn morphine drip back.
It’s a freaking chicken pot pie from KFC.
I didn’t ask for filet mignon. I didn’t even ask for Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream.
It’s not lobster… It’s chicken.
I’m not worth an obviously high end item on the KFC menu?
And, he wonders why I sent his sorry ass packing…
Excuse me?
Don’t ever let a man convince you that you’re not worth something that can be bought from a drive thru window.
Yeah, I’ll trudge to Kroger and buy my own damn grapes. Thank you very much.
