I stare wide-eyed at my invitation. As if I wasn’t already the breaker of a thousand diets.
I do not need any more temptation in my life. My fingers stomp on the keys like an over-weight middle-aged woman taking out the trash in which she’s concealed the evidence of her failure to stick to salad.
It’s virtual, a celebration for us girls, the ones who can only dream of those lithe bodies with which they once entwined.
Virtual chocolate cake? What’s the good of that?
Are you sure I can’t tempt you? Go on. See how many hits you get.
Author’s note: I was so taken with Violet Lentz’s response to this same challenge that this is what I found myself compelled to write. It’s also a little experiment about the magical pull of lust and chocolate!
Evening swells across the veld. Invigorated by its welcome sustenance, the two men rise to follow the San Man. Beneath their feet the dusty soil gives way to barren rock as they silently traverse the wide and empty landscape. With the last of the daylight, the breeze quickens. Gusts of scorched sun-baked air swirl down from the smudge-blue mountains and roll away across the veld towards the faraway koppie.
The ground is steeper now. Step after step the San Man leads them onwards. Walking among the ghostly moonbeams, their feet trace the tracks of long-ago water-carved pathways. Memories of gushing streams and bubbling springs are gouged into the parched rock. The foothills are aching for the water’s soft caress.
Back on the koppie the mountain breeze plays over the mouth of the cave. The maiden lifts her head and breathes the scent of the returning soul. The young man stirs, eyelid fluttering, his mind bursting with the memory of his long flight home.
He raises his head as the maiden kneels at his side. She offers herself to him and under the eyes of the ancestors they become one.
The maiden cries out, her triumphant ululation echoes across the empty veld; high up, among the lonely peaks of smudge-blue mountains, a force awakens. A rock splits, then another. Fragments fall, spilling and spiralling downwards. The San Man raises his spear-stick in salute and the rain-bull, glimmering in the moon-bright night, rises from his slumber and lifts his great head heavenward.
– You know, my Big Red Button. The important one! I want one like everyone else.
– Everyone else, Prime Minister?
– Yes, Putin’s got one, Trump’s got one, that slitty-eyed fellow in North Korea, even Monsieur Whatshisname in France has one.
– You mean the MAD button, Prime Minister?
– Oh no, this isn’t mad, it’s actually quite serious.
– MAD stands for Mutually Assured Destruction, it’s a mnemonic, Prime Minister.
– Never mind how it works, Humphrey, get me the person in charge of our Big Red Button.
– That would be the Chief of Defence, Prime Minister.
– All right then, get the army chappie over here and tell him to bring me my Button.
Later that day.
– The Chief of Defence is here to see you Prime Minister.
A man dressed in uniform with lots of gold braid enters the PM’s office. He places a metal briefcase on the desk and opens it. The Prime Minister rubs his hands together.
– Excellent. Now show me how it works
– Once all the protocols have been agreed, Prime Minister, you simply push that button in the centre of the control mechanism.
– Oh, that one? It’s not very big, is it? And it’s not very red.
– Nevertheless Prime Minister, that is Britain’s Big Red Button. Only to be used in the most dire of emergencies.
– But I’m the one who gets to push the Button?
– Yes, Prime Minister.
– Golly, isn’t politics exciting!
Sir Humphrey shows the Chief of Defence out, closing the door behind them both.
– Tell me that’s not the real thing, Nick?
– Good heavens no, Humphrey! We wouldn’t want something like that in the hands of a politician.
– Does it actually do anything?
– Well, it is armed. Otherwise it wouldn’t look authentic.
– Armed? Good Lord. What might he set off?
– Oh, nothing serious, just a few fireworks in the shrubbery.
With sincerest apologies to everyone who was involved in that great BBC institution, the TV series ‘Yes, Prime Minister’. For anyone who’s never seen it, here’s a little taster:
‘I do like this new cover, Ms Hall.’ Cynthia opens the book and riffles the pages in front of her. ‘And I love the smell of a brand new book!’ She holds it out in a finely manicured hand and examines the cover again. ‘It conveys an air of romance, but without all those bulging biceps and bosoms like so many of the genre.’
Connor frowns. ‘I’d never really thought of it as a romance novel per se; it’s more gritty and down to earth, but with the elements of mystery and fantasy cleverly woven in.’
‘Oh, but Connor, it’s full of romance, right from the start. When Pierre sweeps Lucy off her feet… But you’re right; it has much more substance to it than a typical romance.’
For a moment I bathe in my characters’ praise.
Connor hands me a cup of tea, then picks up the whisky bottle from the sideboard and waves it in my direction. I shake my head. Connor shrugs and returns it to its place. ‘I hear you’re running another promotion*, Ms Hall; riding on the wave of Valentine’s month, so to speak.’
‘Romance Reading Month!’ exclaims Cynthia clapping her hands together so that the fine bracelet on her wrist jingles. I haven’t seen that before. ‘Charming idea.’
‘And you have a couple of interviews lined up, I gather,’ Connor continues. ‘You know, my few days at the Edinburgh book festival last year made such a difference.’ Connor sips his whisky-enhanced tea. ‘My agent’s got me an advance for another slim volume of my poems on the back of an interview I did.’
Okay, so my poet’s doing better than me. I did give him the agent though. And the gig at the book festival.
The Queen gazed out of the window as a team of paramedics, flanked by dark-suited security men, slid the stretcher into the ambulance. Its occupant, whose face was covered, had been pronounced dead at the scene, slumped over his dinner at the top table in the Long Library. It had only been by great good fortune that the contents of the glass he’d been holding had missed her spangled evening gown. White silk was a devil to clean, apparently.
Standing by the back of her chair, her butler coughed discretely. The Queen turned to him and gave a conspiratorial wink. ‘Don’t worry, Watkins. You were only acting under orders.’ The Queen smiled serenely. ‘And I am monarch and above the law.’
‘Very good, ma-am.’
‘Worked a treat, didn’t it?’ she giggled. ‘Something Philip was given on a State visit. I knew it would come in handy one day.’
‘Indeed, ma-am. If I might be permitted to say, the poisoning was entirely justified. Not that one’s Royal Highness would need to.’
‘He might have been the Leader of the Free World, but in all my years as Queen, I have never, ever come across such an odious man.’
‘He actually asked for a Coca-Cola when Blenheim has such a wonderful wine cellar!’
They both glanced at the portrait hanging over the fireplace. ‘I’m not sure what Mr Churchill would have made of him, or his own current successor.’
The Queen raised her glass to the portrait. ‘He’s a problem for another day.’
It’s my birthday today and if we all shared a physical work-space I’d be getting the cakes in! Since we’re not, I’m running a birthday giveaway of ‘The Silver Locket’ which you can download free from Amazon today and tomorrow (7th and 8th February).
It’s a second edition, and I’m pretty certain that the few annoying typo wrinkles have all been ironed out. Of course, this means that if you have one of the original paperbacks, you now have a collector’s item (well, maybe one day).
If you happen to live in South Africa, I can post you a signed first edition for R175,00 (price includes postage). If you stay here, you know that’s a bargain!
You may just notice a little box up on the top of the side bar: The Silver Locket is up for a reader’s choice award. If you’d like to lend me your support, just click on the pic.
February is also Valentine month and I have another offer running. My second novel, You’ll Never Walk Alone: a special valentine edition todownload for just 99c / 99p.
Well, I have to go, it’s birthday time and I’m going to spend my royalties on a lovely pink rosebush for my garden! Have a lovely weekend everyone 🙂
Kitty Katz stared intently into Marvin’s special StudioSpyScope. Two men were gazing at a wide screen monitor. On the desk in front of them was her publicity file which her agent had recently distributed to his industry contacts.
‘Pretty little thing,’ said the first man, licking his lips lasciviously.
‘She sure is,’ the second man agreed, stroking the photograph which pictured Kitty posing coyly on a pink chaise-longue.
‘She’s very young; good for a few years before the sparkle wears off.’ The first man leered at the monitor where Kitty’s first screen test was playing. ‘I wouldn’t mind giving her the once over.’
‘Or the twice over,’ said the second man rubbing his thigh.
Kitty cringed and snapped the petals of the StudioSpyScope closed. She looked up at Marvin, with horrified eyes.
‘Well, Kitty,’ said Marvin, scratching his ragged ear with his back leg, ‘that’s the movie industry for you. D’you still want to be a part of that?’
Kitty screwed up her eyes. ‘I do not.’
‘Good call, Kitty!’ Marvin smiled kindly at her. ‘In any case, it’s not as if you don’t have other talents.’
Kitty’s cellphone beeped. Her whiskers twitched with excitement as she listened.
‘The news you were waiting for?’
Before Kitty had the chance to answer her cellphone beeped again. Marvin waited patiently for her to finish.
‘No, thank you, Jed, I don’t want to be a movie star. My publisher’s got me a large advance and a three book deal on my ‘Kitty Tails.’
The breeze-caressed veld sways, sending parched waves to break on a distant shore. The two men sleep on. Under the gaze of their eagle totem, they dream of the great herds of springbok, eland and kudu which once stalked the land; and of the zebra and wildebeest, hunted by prides and tribes.
Back on the koppie, strong arms carry the young man’s trance-cast body into the cool darkness of the cave, where the ancestor paintings will watch over him. The new maiden emerges to stand on the threshold, proud and tall in that powerful place between hearth and wilderness.
Everywhere between, the veld bakes. Shimmers of hot air rise above the rocks and whirlwind dust-devils dance over bare earth, rising up to be scorched into stillness.
Later, as the tendril fingers of the thorn-tree’s shadow reach out towards the smudge-blue mountains, the San Man appears out of the jagged heat haze. A hide pouch is slung across his bony barrel chest; he carries the carcass of a small, furred animal. At his approach, the two men stir. The eagle bows, locking its keen eye with that of the returned hunter, before taking flight on strong, silent wings which will carry him back to the beckoning maiden who stands on the threshold of the night.
Still entranced by the dream-world of the ancestors, the two men look on as the San Man conjures fire. As the thin flames crackle, he offers them water which is cool, sweet and laced with magic.
luna's on line 