(Remember Agrefena from the dream? Well she’s back!)
First Draft alternate beginning 2
Suddenly there was dim light and soft jazz illuminating the mahogany paneled lounge. Suited men and women sat talking business swirling ice and amber liquor in crystal tumblers. On center table, a blue art glass bowl mounded with snow cooling six vodka glasses.
Thomas looked up from the vodka at a Russian beauty so hot he feared the vodka would ignite as it passed her lips. Pulling a glass from the snow mound he downed it. “Your turn Agrafena.” He said pushing the glass upside down into the mound.
Smiling, she tossed her silky black hair back reached for a glass tilting it just enough so the viscous booze slid oyster-like over her lips—eyes closed—savoring as she swallowed. His eyes stroked the descent of her cleavage down the plunge of her black dress. Quickly the ascent of his glance met with her ice colored eyes as she pushed the empty glass upside down into the mound. “Good vodka.” She sighed in a viscous Russian accent.
“What should we drink to?” Thomas asked smiling. Looking upward she paused, licking her lips and smiling back, “My body. . .” she whispered dipping two fingers into the icy vodka and slipping them into her mouth “. . . let’s drink to my body.”
“My hand will not tremble.” He replied plucking a second glass from the ice. “Your body.” Lifting the glass he drank tossing his head back. Agrafena pulled a glass from the ice, raising it, “My body.” She said pouring the vodka slowly into her mouth. Her face was cool glowing ecstasy as she swallowed, and he fixed on her eyes. She drinks like porno. He thought. Her tongue made a slow orbit around the empty glass’s rim, and she pushed it into the snow. His heart began to race.
“Darling, I have bottle in room, why don’t we have drink up there?” She asked. “I’d love to.” He said choking a bit on the words. Cooly he stood, pulling a thick roll of bills from his pocket, he peeled off a hundred dollar bill laying it on the table. She looked up smiling taking his offered hand. She stood, and they walked across the room to the elevator. As they walked he noticed that every man in the bar was staring at her. This isn’t right . . . he thought, . . .my wife. But as she walked her curvy sway iced his scruple colder than the vodka.
They stepped into the open elevator, and the promise of ascent. The doors closed, and she bent pressing the sixth floor button. She rose turning, and kissed him deeply. His hands moved up her waist . . . “Not yet love, wait for room.” She whispered. The elevator doors opened, and they stepped into the hall in front of her room. She fumbled with the key while he kissed her neck.
Opening the door, she led him into the room his mouth still attached to her neck. She turned and they kissed. He ran his fingers up her bare arms. Her skin danced to his stroke, and he slipped the straps of her dress over her shoulders.
“Mmm, I like. . .” her eyes flashed approval, “. . . but what about drink?”
“Forget it.” He whispered into her ear.
“Darling, third drink makes me naughty girl.” She smiled pushing him away.
“Now go get ice in hall for drinks. Take bucket.”
She handed him the ice bucket and pushed him toward the door. “Go quickly! My need is great for you!”
He grabbed the bucket and stepped into the hall. He ran toward the ice machine at its end. Naughty? I can’t argue with naughty. He thought pushing the ice machine button over and over. “Come on . . . Come on . . . her desire is great!” He said impatiently. The bucket full he ran back to the room. Pausing at the door he composed himself, then stepped in. Agrafena was standing before him in a pool of ice blue light. She had removed her dress and wore only a black push-up bra and thong. In her hands were two empty glasses. “My God!” He gasped in his native Czech, stunned by her erotic symmetry. “What took you?” She said smiling placing the glasses on the table. She took the ice bucket from him, but as she did he seized her waist pulling her against him.
“Slowdown . . .slowdown, We have all night for the pleasure.” Agrafena said pushing him away. “Go in bathroom. Get towel. Take off shirt and tie. I will pour drinks.” Reluctantly releasing the death-grip on her waist he stepped into the bathroom. Looking into the mirror he removed his shirt and tie throwing them on the floor. Good thing I’ve been working out. He thought searching for flaws and the signs of age. Not bad . . . not bad at all. He removed his shoes and socks kicking them under the basin. He carefully arranged the towel over his shoulders concealing his naked torso, and stepped into the room.
Agrafena stood waiting holding a vodka on the rocks in each hand. “Finally love . . .” holding up the two glasses next to her ice colored eyes. She stepped up to Thomas handing him one. “What should we drink to? He asked taking the glass from her. “Your body.” She replied, toasting him while brushing her breasts against his naked torso. She downed her drink with no foreplay this time. Thomas followed and they set their empty glasses on the table. “Bitter . . .” he said “. . . not as good as in the bar.” He felt warm and reckless inside as he pulled her into him. Her skin glowed and was hot against his. He bent to kiss her lips. She stopped him with her hand. “No my love kiss my neck first. It drives me crazy.” She said in perfect Czech. Obeying he kissed her neck pulling her bra strap off her shoulder with his teeth. “Yes love just like that.” She moaned her approval again in Czech.
As he moved to the other shoulder he felt dizzy. He tried to mouth the other strap but could not. He straightened. “Vodka’s going to my head.” He slurred swaying trying to grab her bra strap with his hand. “I can’t . . .ge . . .get it.” Eyeing him coldly she pushed back. “She keeps moving. Must remove bra! I am not drunk, just dizzy. Give me a . . .just give me.” Suddenly, the room filled with fluorescent light as she took a full step away from him. Her expression clinical. “Not back! . . .not back!. . .no! . . . I mus . . . I mus . . . have it!” She smiled pulling her bra strap up over her shoulder. “Closure my darling.” She said in a thick Russian accent, and everything went blacker than her push-up bra.
Thomas opened his eyes. His head was burning pain. The angry fluorescent light hurt his eyes. He could not feel his lower body. His stinging eyes shifting rapidly side-to-side desperately trying to orient himself. He first found his hands. They were cold, wet, and the fingernails were blue. Waves of cold pain hit his consciousness. He was submerged in an ice bath in the tub. He struggled to sit up but could not. Looking down the water and ice were pink, and a large bloody gauze bandage was duct taped to his torso. The sharp ice bit into his skin. An intravenous tube was duct tapped to his arm. Fear and dread overcame him, and he begin to panic. He looked around desperately focusing on the chair. On the seat was a cell phone, a syringe, and a note duct taped to the back. It read.
Darling,
You are dying my love.
Sorry but business before pleasure.
You are donor match, so some doctor friends and I remove part of your liver.
It will be sold to rich client who needs transplant.
It is too bad, I would have been naughty girl for you . . .but instead I am naughty rich girl!
Love
Agrafena
P.S.
If you try to get up you will be dead before you walk out of bathroom.
Dial 911 on cell phone. You are in St. Elijah Hotel, sixth floor, first room.
If pain comes stick morphine syringe in tube and press. You won’t feel pain after.
Agrafena signed her name with his blood. Rage and frustration suddenly welled up within him. He fumbled for the cell phone with his numb hands. He tried to think what excuse he could tell his wife. “I didn’t even sleep with her and she took my liver!” NOOOOO! He screamed.
Thomas sat up in bed gasping in a sweat clutching his cell phone. The sun was just piercing the room. That dream again. Always at the end of a project. He thought swinging his feet on to the floor.
“She drinks like porno” is the new “She walks in beauty like the night.”
My favorite parts are iced scruples and erotic symmetry.
“Everything went blacker than her pushup bra” is straight-up Raymond Chandler.
I also like that she uses a businesspeak term like “closure” there at the end. Hammers home the connection between herself and the projects that pull Thomas away from his wife.
This isn’t right . . . he thought, . . .my wife.
See, I think you should stop right after that, and then continue with Why is my wife acting like this?
AMDG
First time as tragedy, second time as farce.
Janet
Thomas is dreaming. Agrafena is not his wife. She is a woman who appears to him in his dreams. Thomas’s wife is an equally attractive All-American blonde sleeping next to him. Right now there are about 30K words that follow this opening. Agrafena will appear perhaps a couple more times to him in dreams. The last time she comes to him in a dream is as a wholesome young woman, and he is young again, and their interaction is ordered and beautiful.
Yes, I know. That was supposed to be funny. I will go back to my cage now.
AMDG
Please don’t go. I thought maybe it was offensive to you.
Well, I was only going to take a nap.
I’m old and I love Percy, and, therefore, not too easily offended by things like this.
AMDG
I am glad you liked those lines. Webb’s story was so similar that I had to post this. I love quirky twists. “The ritual scaring of the Tiv.” I keep laughing about it all day. Then she stole something from him too. His Juju.
Thanks to Duffy I know about the manosphere or whatever it is called. There is so much low hanging fruit of idiocy its like shooting fish in barrel.
!!!!!
The contrast between this ‘couple’ (and their surroundings), and the husband and wife from that other excerpt, making tea from a clay stove while nature awakes and their child sleeps, is effective.
If I ever recover from this excerpt, I’ll try to think of something more useful to say about it. (I do think that the ‘violence’ opening is a little more elementally powerful than this one, but that might be a mere matter of personal taste.)
Anyhow, thank you, Cubeland Mystic. Please keep at it.
Thanks Angelico. All these scenes are part of the same story. It is all about truth beauty and goodness.
I like both of Thomas’s dreams. He will eventually wake up. Thomas and his wife are a bit disordered with no love. Emmanuel and his wife are not. They are lovely people who love greatly.
That was splendid. Thanks.
I would have seen that coming, but too late to escape.
It fits better in the context the story. It is set at the time of that urban legend, and it was before Snopes.
So, being a poor reader, here I thought Webb was returning to the muse – (DAMN WEBB RETURN TO THE EFFING MUSE, YOU BIMP!) and only about half way through (the half where I said, “Wait a minute! Who’s writing this?” as I downed the last of my refrigerator temperature corned beek on wheat with jalepeno mustard) and then I realized – Cubeland, you son of a burch, you’re writing something approaching littyachur!
I swear by the glandular gods of puberty, I wished I was 18 again and was glad I wasn’t
I can think of few higher moments of comedy than Thomas’s frustration played out in the ice machine – the self-giving as it were – and the corresponding irony which left him with the same ice…
Rich.
JOB
“Beek” of course is how you say “beef” after manymanymanymany Irish Whiskae.
So.
JOB
Wow. Can’t argue with naughty.
Amen, alas.
I especially that she tells him to go into the bathroom to get undressed.
Especially like, that is.
I mean, he does half the prep work himself! I suppose she could have said, “Oh, and shave the hair next to your belly button—that really turns me on!”
Great work, Cube.
Good thing they didn’t go for my liver. Or maybe it’s too bad they didn’t.
“After the surgeon inserted the forceps into the incision, Finnegan stirred, blinked his eyes several times before opening them, and turned his head. As the surgeon pulled what appeared to be a raisin out of the gash, now bleeding profusely, Finnegan let his head fall back against the tile and said, “Ha ha! Look who’s screwed now!”
There was a poor bastard named Quin
Who was eager to strip down and sin
The payoff he’d give her!
He’d be sure to de-liver!
But his ruddiness stopped at the skin.
Nice! Champion rhymes, sir.
Quin’s departing defiance was jaunty,
But the client just smiled at the taunt. He
Had waited and waited
To taste marinated
Sauerleber, with beans and Chianti.
This will haunt me.
“Zat ees okaye,” said Agrafena, appearing in the doorway. “Already vee take zee more important part …”
“Wha?” said Finnegan, shaking his head with the question. “What … more important?”
“Yes, yes” answered Agrafena. “How doo yoo say eet? “Zee, yoo know, колбаса …”
“The ko-what?” asked Finnegan, thinking he must be dreaming.
“Zee …” began Agrafena, before falling silent. At length she lowered her eyes, shrugging her shoulders as she pointed downward with her nose.
Quin followed that glance and saw ice piled high across his pelvis. Even as a fire alarm began sounding inside his skull, he couldn’t help but notice it was the same kind of ice she teased him with earlier, down in the bar.
“Nnnoooooooo!!!” screamed Quin, trying to match the siren he heard within. Or tried to. He felt himself passing out from the effort and lowered the volume to a pathetic whimper.
The surgeon, still kneeling beside the tub, palpated his arm and quickly administered another shot. The tears streaming down Finnegan’s face connected several drops of blood that must have spattered upward during the procedure. It was a messy business.
“Vrum what I saw,” said Agrafena, shrugging and turning the corners of her mouth downward in the Russian style. “Zer ees not zo much to cry about.”
“You … bitch!” said Finnegan, fighting his way through a cloud of phenobarbital and mustering some anger out of a few shards of grief.
“Da,” said Agrafena. “So who is screwed now?”
“You should be thankful we packed you in ice,” said the surgeon.
“Why didn’t you just kill me?” asked Finnegan in a spasm of tears.
“Da,” said Agrafena. “Vee are not murderers, after all …”
“Why …” asked Finnegan again.
“Maybe you have … you know … operation now,” said Agrafena, adjusting her décolletage with pronounced shimmer. “Da, you like getting screwed so much!”
“Okay, that was just mean,” said the surgeon.
“Why?” said Finnegan between a pair of heaving sobs. “Why, oh why didn’t I make better use of my genitals when I had them?!”
This will haunt me.
A randy old bugger named Finnegan
Thought sure that he was in like Flynn again.
But despite what he’d planned
He wound up quite unmanned
And now, he never can sin again.
You all are going to be in so much trouble when Nurse Ratched gets back….
Thank you everyone for commenting. I appreciate it. I wish I could comment more but I had a super busy weekend, and unfortunately a super busy week coming. I awake behind schedule.
Quinn, this is super funny. Kielbasa is great. Betty can use our stuff for her book on literature from the manosphere. I can’t believe I am already behind schedule.
Some fine fictive moves here, Cube. Nice companion to Webb’s piece. I found it to be sort of a let down that it was all a dream. I can see how it would work nicely in a realistic novel — as a dream — but it could be a great James Bondish nightmare Kafkaesque sort of fable in its own right, sans dream frame. Look out Flannery O!
Thanks Jonathan
I wasn’t going to post it, but it neatly fit in with Webb’s story. It is a dream and kind of comic relief since there are more serious aspects of the story. The dream takes place at the turn of the century and Thomas works with technology and got one of those chain emails that were floating around at the time warning about drinking with strange women. Thomas (Tomas) is Czech btw, and a defector right after Prague Spring. The Kafka reference is appropriate, and there is that element in it. Thomas is kind of a dick, and likes his stuff. His wife is not Russian she is an American barbie doll. He didn’t defect for freedom he wanted money and power. He would have been fine staying if thought he could make it in the party, but his dad did something to make that impossible. Emmanuel is the more gooder character in the story. That blurb about him and his family I posted and pulled. That is more serious stuff and I am less inclined to show it.