A blogger I enjoy posted a note saying that she was fighting writer’s block and asked for suggestions. The excerpt below was my suggestion, but, since I don’t think she is going to use it, I have taken it back and decided to make a go of it….
Your sister’s best friend’s mother died during a freak accident while performing in a traveling Romanian circus the same weekend you are visiting your sister. You are invited to the funeral along with your sister, her hunky boyfriend, and have been asked to “comfort” the grieving family consisting of two beautiful twin sisters, a handsome brother with no hair, and mismatched eye color, and their father who, as the local priest, has a bit of reputation among the town folk of the village.Based on your history as a student of Yoga and baby oil, you are in instant celebrity, but expectations are high as you approach the family’s home after the funeral….~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Here is my version of what happens next…
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The telegram was simple enough to translate once I got to the right dictionary.
“Rope Broke, Nicoli Missed, Mom Dead, Please Come.”
I couldn’t believe it. Mrs. Jensel was dead. I had grown up with Jezebel Jensel, and unfortunate name born of two divorces and the misguided arrow of Cupid’s love. She was the neighborhood mom that every kid in the projects wanted to adopt as their own. She was forever clowning around, doing magic, climbing their high back fence, and leaping down with such grace that we all thought she had been kidnapped from a circus as a child.
We were right, in a way, but we had it backwards, the circus was about to kidnap her.
It was summer of 2002 when Circe de Soliel came in to town and stole Jezebel and her mom; forever, according to the telegram that lay on my kitchen table. Ms. Jensel bought us all tickets, me, my sister Alyssa, Jezebel, and Tommy, Jezebel’s first love and high school sweetheart. Ms. Jensel thought she was doing us a favor that night, introducing us to the sights and sounds of the French circus, but it was her who sat spellbound. They were in town for five nights and she bought tickets for everyone.
Jezebel was increasingly worried as the week wore on, telling me that her mom was becoming obsessed and had started climbing and dancing and cartweeling all over the house. But, what disturbed her most, was the sewing. Strange mannequin costumes of red, green and bronze. Spandex suits with purple tassels, Velcro hearts, and detachable harnesses of indeterminate use. She stayed up all night stitching and cutting and trimming and hemming, all the while spouting bon mots about circus life, the adventures of the road, and the call of the stage.
Several days later I picked up the phone and heard a teary-eyed Jezebel on the other end, begging me go come over to the house as quickly as possible. I made my excuses to my mother and dashed out the door. 3 blocks later, out of breath and breaking a sweat, I saw her crying in Tommy’s arms. She broke free and ran to me, held me tight, and broke the news.
“Mom’s running away to join the circus! Can you believe this? Can you believe this witch, this psycho, is actually taking me with her?”
“What?” This couldn’t be real. Let Mr. Jensel go, let her fly off the handle and join my dad in the loony bin, but taking Jezzie was out of the question. I felt tears pour down my cheek as I repeated “No no no no no.”
I called my mom, was soon locked in a heated debate over a kitchen table full of half-finished hats and a box full of fuzzy ball tassels. Jezzie, Tommy, and I sat in the yard and listened, helpless, as my mother stepped out on to the porch, rubbed her red and swollen eyes, and shook her head.
She took Jezzie by the hand and had her stand, and gave her a big hug.
“Take lots of pictures, protect you mom, and write everything down.” She hugged tighter, “It’s going to make a hell of a book when you get home.”
“No! No! No! No!” I screamed, yelling at my mom to get back inside and “DO SOMETHING!”
“She’s made up her mind,” my mom said with resignation, “They leave in the morning.”
Mom left us alone on the porch as the June bugs flittered around the light, taunting us with their freedom.
Tommy got up to leave and kissed Jezzie deeply. “I’ll send e-mails every day.” He lied, kissed her, and held her tight.
Their kisses became more passionate and I turned to walk away, giving them room to say good-bye. I stepped over their flower patch by the mailbox and stared at the full moon, thinking that a full moon was appropriate for a night as crazy as this.
“Kati,” my friend’s voice called out quietly, “You can come back now.”
I turned to see them still in a deep embrace and she reached out her hand to me. I took her hand and she pulled me in tight, and kissed me on the cheek.
Jezzie and I had kissed before, many times as friends, many times to “practice”, and lately, as tentative lovers, exploring what it meant to be 18 and curious.
Her lips moved from my cheek to my mouth and I took her in, surprised at how little I cared that Tommy’s arms were around us both. I felt the love and pain and fear and comfort of our relationship in every kiss and my body craved her arms, her smell, and warmth.
Unseen from the outside of our three-way hug, lit by only the 60-watt bulb on the porch, I felt her hands move to my chest, caressing with gentle urgency. She lifted the soft cotton of my t-shirt and revealed my small chest to the intimacy of our circle. I kissed her fiercely as she pinched my hardened buds and then gasped as I felt a larger, rougher, hand join her softness.
Tommy and I had gotten along well as the two of them started dating; none of the normal jealousies arose because I knew that we both helped Jezzie be happy. Now, I could feel things changing.
Jezebel’s lips left mine and she kissed my cheek, gently nudging my face to Tommy’s. I was confused but compliant and let Jezzie take the lead. Tommy’s lips were larger, drier, and his upper lip prickled with a three day beard. His approach was tender, inviting, not demanding, and I accepted and kissed him with encouragement from his girlfriend.
As Tommy’s hands moved across my chest I felt Jezzie’s move lower, unbuttoning and opening my pants to her touch. Her hand slipped under the waistband of my panties and between my legs as I gasped and opened my thighs to give her entrance. The pleasure was alarming and I could make neither heads nor tails of my feelings. I knew we were in transition; I was being passed from one to another, as a gift, a remembrance, as a link between two lovers.
Jezebel’s free hand slipped down the back of my panties and found the same wetness as the first. She circled her fingers inside me, her long nails clicking as the touched and moved within my walls. My hands reached out for her, but she guided me to his chest, his strength, his hips, his pants, his hardness.
Like she did to me, I opened his zipper and touched him, as she was touching me. Within the house, through the flimsy screen door, we heard movement and froze. I felt Tommy’s heart beating through my hands. It was silent except for the circling bugs and the interstate through the trees.
The porch light turned off and Ms. Jensel went to bed for the last time in our little town.
Engulfed by night, we returned to our passion and Jezzie grew bolder. She withdrew her hand from me and placed it over mine on his hard and swollen head. With one hand on my lower back, she guided my hips to his. Unsure, I began to kneel, to give him the pleasure I knew he loved from Jezebel’s many stories, but she stopped me.
Using her hands to guide us, she pressed him lower and leaned him against the house wall and pressed me on to him. As he and I positioned ourselves, Jezzie lowered my pants to allow me to straddle him. She leaned up against my back and wrapped her hands around from behind and held my lips open, using her thumb to caress and tease my clit as he slipped on the condom that was surely meant for my best friend.
She held my lips wide and caressed us both as he penetrated me for the first time. “You are his now,” she whispered, “Please take good care of him.” She held me tight while he lifted his hips up and into me, filling me, and making me swoon.
As he pace increased and his urgency mounted, Jezebel touched me in the ways she loved so much, gently on the breasts, aggressive on the nipples, soft and tender on my belly, and then she moved downward and spread my cheeks wide. We had never done this before and I was unsure of her intentions. I felt her tickle my backside, gathering wetness from his cock as he continued to pump steadily in and out. When she judged herself ready she pressed in and I felt a new sensation, and my climax engulfed me.
I know that somewhere in the next unknown segment of time he exploded with orgasm within me as well. I have vague, distant memories of him swelling and pressing and cumming and though I learned to know it well in the months to come, that of that night I remember only her hands, her fingers, my clit, my ass, my climax, my cum, my orgasm at the hand of my very best friend, who was being kidnapped to run away to the circus.
Completed, spent, and emotionally drained, we dressed and hugged and cried while Tommy held us quietly on the porch of 253 Birch Place.
The harsh whistle on my tea kettle shook me out of my memories and I shook my head, and felt a tear running down my face. I sensed motion and pleasure, and looked down and realized that I was gently rocking my pelvis against the corner of our large oak table.
I dropped the telegram and called upstairs where my sister was watching TV with her latest boy-toy.
“Janice! Start packing, we are going to a funeral.”