Swamped

Excerpt

“What do you have for me?” he asked as soon as Richard answered the phone.

“Hi, Eteo. What do you mean? I haven’t heard anything since we talked earlier today”

“That’s what I was afraid of, Richard. Think about it. They would have been on the phone day or night if they had any news. It tells me they lost the hole, that’s what it tells me.”

Richard was silent for a few seconds. Finally, he reacted, almost shouting.

“You always think negative, Eteo. Look, as soon as I have something, I’ll call you.”

“I talked to the middleman, Richard,” Eteo replied. “He confirmed it. They lost the hole.”

“Why didn’t the assholes answer my calls then?”

With that, Richard put the phone down, leaving Eteo with a broad smile on his face. At least he wouldn’t hear anything more from him for a while.

Just as he was getting ready to go out to meet Mario for lunch, Helena rang to say Frances was there again to see him. She came in, closed the door, and without any words, embraced Eteo, and put her lips to his. After a long, sensual kiss, she handed her card to Eteo, said, “Later today. Don’t say no,” turned, and left. Eteo looked at the card. She had added her home address in purple ink. She lived in an apartment block on West Georgia just south of the Bayshore Inn Hotel.

Eteo went for lunch with Mario, and as soon as they finished, around two thirty, Eteo rang Frances’s doorbell. The door was unlocked at once, and as soon as he exited the elevator, he saw her standing by her open door. Below her short blonde hair and blue eyes, her plush breasts and delicate body trembled in a light robe that felt very soft to Eteo’s hands. She quickly made it clear there was an erotic fire in her body that wanted nothing else but Eteo inside it. And he did indeed let himself be guided by the sexual hunger of the young blonde woman with her roots somewhere in Wales. She was still a true Brit but now with extra North American zest and bodily exuberance.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08WP3LMPX

Water in the Wilderness

Excerpt

As the others tried to hide their smiles, Morley bit his lip to hold back the laughter. “No, we have to wait for Auntie Tyne.”
“Hymmph,” Bobby mumbled as he stopped chewing, his little cheeks puffed out like a squirrel.
This time no one could disguise their amusement.
The weekend passed too quickly, the late summer days perfect for long walks around the farm and picnicking at Emblem Lake. On Sunday morning Tyne went alone to the Catholic Church while Morley took their guests and the children to his church on the outskirts of Emblem. The night before, as she helped the young ones prepare for bed, Tyne had asked Rachael if her family attended Sunday morning service.
“Nope,” Rachael said briefly as she pulled her pajamas on.
“Then would you like to go to church with Uncle Morley and the Halls tomorrow?”
Rachael shrugged as if it didn’t make any difference to her one way or another. But Bobby jumped up and down and demanded to know where they were going and if they could get ice cream like they had at the lake that afternoon.
Tyne recruited Morley to explain it to the children, and left him sitting on Bobby’s little cot in the room the boy shared with his sister, in serious conversation with the two of them. As she returned to the porch to rejoin their guests, she felt sad that these revelations had to come from a virtual stranger rather than from the children’s own parents. But, at the same time, she felt thankful that she and Morley had the privilege of sharing these things with them even for this short time.
On Sunday afternoon the children were playing outside, and the men had gone to have a last walk around the farm before Moe and Ken had to leave for home. Tyne sat with her friend on the porch, looking out at the cosmos and snapdragons growing in profusion in the shade of a large maple in the front yard.
“It’s been wonderful, Tyne,” Moe said, “I hate to leave. And it’s been good for Ken to get away from the city. He takes work far too seriously and the bosses take advantage of him.”

https://www.amazon.com/dp/192676319X

Fragment for Yorick

Must Continue


Barefoot I walk up the ivory tower.
The ebony steps caress my soles;
and what awaits you up there?
A mess left by the previous occupant.
Paper basket full of crumpled manuscripts.
Not to be smooth over them, but must continue
what has been interrupted unexpectedly.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763645