Microfiction Monday : For Fulani

In April, I posted a contest that promised the winner(s) a MFM entry based on their list of three things they'd like to see me put into a short story. Now that MFMs are back after such a long break (shame, shame, Mad!) I am finally going to make good on my promise.

Winner number one is the marvelous Fulani who, despite the unfortunate use of a Whartenburg wheel and a feather for an avatar (two of the most despicable things to ever have stumbled upon creation) is a kinky smutter of no small talent for Excite and Pink Flamingo. Really, you should check it out!

This entry actually inspired a 7000-word paranormal D/s story that I just finished. The MFM story below is purely fictional wishful thinking on my part about its first beta reading.

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A Raw Onion, A Book, and a Green and Purple Dream

Kel got the spanish onion from the freezer. On top of being a fantastic practice dummy for all my rope bondage inventions, she was a font of such wisdoms as “freeze an onion for thirty minutes and it won't make you cry.” I, on the other hand, stick to only one wisdom—surrounding myself with friends who can make me look smart so I don't actually have to be.

Sure enough, the onion was sliced tearlessly. I was supposed to be re-braiding Kel's waist piece, but mostly I was watching her dance around the kitchen as she prepared our lunch. She was wearing the black leotard she always wore to my “brainstorming over her body” sessions, and shiny white nylon rope was still coiled around her wrists and ankles, and crisscrossed over her black spandex-shrouded torso. Gift wrapped. The problem with working with such a delicious-looking practice partner was that I always wanted to unwrap and play with her before we were done.

There was a twirl, a wiggle, a flourish and a mandatory moment of me cheering and applauding as her lunch creation was revealed. Despite the fact that the accolades were for her performance and not the food, lunch was pretty fabulous. She'd taken ground turkey, feta cheese, kalmata olives and spices and turned them into burger art. Served on a ciabatta bun with thick onion slices, spinach leaves and—because I'm only capable of straying so far from familiarity—ketchup, they were beyond a doubt the tastiest burgers I'd ever tasted.

Kel snatched the file folder from the table in between our place settings with an excited “ooooh, is this it?”

I answered with a glare and pointed at my mouth which was full of burgery goodness. She took the hint and started to read the first few pages of the story to herself.

Yet another of Kel's sundry talents was that she was a phenomenal beta reader—she had a perfectionist's eye for typos and grammatical errors, and always knew how to couch the more...constructive...criticisms with encouraging praise. When she volunteered to help me copyedit my short stories, I promised her that the tenth one she read would have a protagonist based on her. This was story number ten, and all she knew about it was that “her” character's name was Colleen, and that she was somehow supernatural.

She was on page four by the time I'd finished lunch.

“Okay, I have to know: this cool superpower I have in the dream sequence, the one that lets me sense people's emotions as colours and, you know, taste them and stuff—do I get to keep that when I wake up?”

I grinned. “Forever and ever, bay-bee.”

“Neat. So, this guy here, he's all purple. What does that mean?”

“Purple's spite. Tastes like slightly fermented plums.”

“Ah. And green is envy, I suppose?”

“Please. Give me credit for not being that cliché. I didn't actually use green, but in my mind it's not envy, it's hope. Probably tastes like pesto or something.”

“You and your worlds you create. I bet you've got a whole mental rainbow catalogue of colour and flavour combinations that don't appear anywhere in your story.”

I held up my hands in self-defense. “I plead the whatever-it-is we have instead of a fifth amendment.” Stupid Law and Order ensuring that the entire Canadian population know more about American law than our own.

“Alright, fine. If you won't answer that one at least tell me what my character is, for crying out loud! I'm on page five and you still haven't revealed it. Is she a psionic, a robot, a witch, a vampire, what?”

“Nope, none of those.”

I stretched out the pause with a grin. “She's a were-coyote.”

“A were-coyote?”

Kel paused to give that adequate consideration, then she nodded.

“Sexy. I like it!”

I fucking love my friends.