Tag: Culture (Greek)

Flash: Bumping into Dorian

Erin Penn

freedigitalphotos.net

 

I recognized him. Oh god, why did I have to bump into him? “I’m so sorry.” I dropped my eyes as he steadied me by holding my shoulders.

 

At six foot and a bit, he stood out even more for his perfect build, great abs, wide shoulders, tapered waist, strong legs, and great abs. Did I mention great abs? I was staring at them right now through the thin layer of cotton of his shirt. I could do my wash on those abs. My hand wash. All day. My hands all day on those abs. Wow, what a suit of Teflon armor will hide.

 

“It’s all right.” He smiled down. I felt the smile. Never thought the Revenger could smile, especially at me, the Ice Queen. “The museum is crowded today with the opening.”

 

I wanted to look up and smile back. Smile into those green eyes I glimpsed for just a second. Eyes normally hid by red goggles, at least any time our paths crossed before. A part of me really wanted to look back up into those eyes and drown in them.

 

Not good, not good, not good at all.

 

His hands slipped down a bit, just past the capped sleeves of my summer dress as he pushed me back a step, touching my flesh, before he dropped them all together. Electric shocks went through me and I caught a name, the name he thought of himself by. Just like my mother said would happen.

 

So not good.

 

Dorian. I really like the name. It suits him.

 

“Thanks.” I said, keeping my blue eyes firmly on his perfect, mouth-watering abs. Meeting his eyes right now would be beyond not good.

 

I still had bruises from our battle last week. Well, skirmish. Okay, he tossed me through a window to get at the Overbearer and I flew away like bat out of hell once I was outside the building. But, I had bruises, big purple, green, and yellow ones.

 

I, for one, am not build for hand-to-hand. At five foot flat footed, five-six in the ridiculous heels I wear with my barely there fur, crystals, and silver chain mail outfit, I don’t have a chance … physically … against someone like the Revenger. One of the reason I am not a costumed hero.

 

Magically, psychically, I can go toe-to-toe with the best. With a great deal of preparation.

 

I hide the psychic part. Just like the layer of skin-tight white silk covering every inch of me under the fur and simulated diamonds hides my skin from the casual brushes when my psych is at full throttle. I limit the magic to just cold and water magic. At least all overt magic. Most think I just have a ice machine tucked in somewhere; best speculation by the press was the boobs were fake, disguising the power pack. My twins aren’t fake. But I ain’t telling. I ain’t telling about the magic or mind reading either.

 

A girl has to keep her secrets.

 

Especially from a hero like the Revenger.

 

Secrets that should not come between soul mates.

 

Oh, this is so not good.

 

The abs moved away from my sight. I swallow hard before going back to pickpocketing my way through the crowd, getting this week’s spending cash. Once I had enough wallets tucked into my roaring twenties style clutch purse, beaded of course, which was much bigger on the inside thanks to a little dimensional folding, I debated cutting my losses rather than run into the Revenger again, Dorian again. He of the green eyes to drown in and the abs for my hand wash.

 

But I had actually come to the museum to see the new exhibit, ancient Russia glass. I love historic pieces, especially glass, which carried special magics I could tap into. Covering the week’s grocery and light bill was only a bonus.

 

Just one pass through the special exhibit hall. Who knows when I will have another chance.


(words 663; first published 4/9/14; republished new blog format 8/11/19)

Flash: Sisyphus Duties

Erin Penn

From Unsplash: Boulder Photo by Peter Gonzalez (unsplash link no longer available) / Woman Photo by terricks noah
Cropped and merged by Erin Penn

All she had to do was push the stone to the top of the hill just once before sunset. Once. Some days she nearly made it by inches, some days she only got half-way.

Today she didn’t even try. Just standing took all her strength. She leaned against her nemesis, the boulder, slapping it a couple of times like a good dog by her side.

Exhaustion.

Back before this mission, an eternity ago, she had similar missions. Get through this pile of paperwork. Pay the rent again. Take care of the student loan. Put food on the table. Smile at the spouse. A spouse she never saw, rent for a home she never was in, a loan for an education she never used, food for children she couldn’t raise. All to push paperwork off her desk until it returned the next day. Phone call, computer files, interviews. Push, push, push.

As things went, pushing a boulder up the hill was a breeze. If she started now, she may make it about half-way. She shrugged, having found her millionth wind, and started pushing. She wasn’t sure if she was in hell or purgatory or still alive on earth. The boulder started moving for the day.

(Words 204; first published 6/16/19)

Flash: Thebe is Sultry (Attempt Four)

Erin Penn

Rating: Mature

“Excellent pout,” the photographer explained. “Now go for sultry”.

Thebe tilted her head towards the camera, endeavoring to put steam behind her hazel eyes.  Feathers from the mask tickled her ears, chin and neck. They also brushed her generous breasts, the sensation tightening her nipples. Thebe’s eyes darted to the Master of Ceremonies, the lead Satyr for the Nymphs and Satyrs club. One of the few men in the world who could make her seem small and dainty. Her eyes drifted down to his most prominent feature.

Some of the women would be intimidated by what lay in his mass of curls. Thebe couldn’t wait to rub against it for the photoshoot.

“Sultry down!”

Thebe eyes darted back to the photographer.

“Now tempting. Come on my nympho. Tempt me. Make me want to be a satyr.”

(words 136 – originally appearing at Breathless Press 6/30/2013 for the 6/3/12 Sunday Fun – See the picture that inspired the story! – As I do not know the copyright permissions, I have not copied it here; republished in new blog format 3/10/2019)

***

Blog comment on Flash: The flash did not want to be. After my fourth attempt, I have given up. The other 2,000 or so words give good background – Thebe in competing in  a contest hosted by Nymphs and Satyrs à la Big Brother (provided to viewers through an on-line subscription). I kept trying to find the point at which to begin this flash and have it end with Thebe wearing the big feathered mask – each story began later and later in the competition. I know the above is more like a scene than a flash, and actually only part of a scene. I’m giving up wrestling with this picture for now.

I only have 21 more Sunday Flash pictures from the old format for the Breathless Press blog. Sometime in November these will all be done. And end of an era.

Previous Thebe Flashes (dates provided are the republished dates): Thebe at Nymphs and Satyrs (12/18/16), Thebe gets her Nymph Mask (12/25/16), Thebe Fired (republished 3/3/19)

Flash: Thebe Loses Day Job (attempt 3)

Erin Penn

Image courtesy of Ambro at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Surviving the first three days of the Nymphs and Satyr club’s Halloween competition meant Thebe needed to call her day employer and beg for time off. She hadn’t expect it to go well, and she was right. Bryson fired her.

Fortunately the $3,000 she had already pocketed from making it this far would easily cover her until she found another retail position. Her night job had given her a week’s vacation before signing in, so she had something if she was kicked out tonight.

Thebe wished she could talk to Rhene, her best friend who dragged her into this mess. But since Rhene had pulled a blue and white domino and Thebe’s mask was the green and black of forest, her confidant was on a different team. Celestial to her team of Nature nymphs. Their two teams, plus Fire and Water, made the four-way competition. No contact or collusion between teams except during head-to-head matches.

She really could use an ally. The competition was not only between teams, but also had one winner. Each day saw another woman kicked off each team. Thebe still wasn’t sure how her two hundred and forty pound ass had gotten this far. Sure her six foot frame distributed the weight so she wasn’t a butterball like Cristina on the Fire team who weighed the same but was an entire foot shorter, but Thebe knew her teammates hated her chunky butt. The mix of team and individual results drove paranoia within and without the teams. The high-scoring Water team was pulling away from the pack in more ways than one. Thebe gave them one more day before self-destructing.

Having used up her one personal call for the competition, and her daily break from one-way mirrors and web-cameras, Thebe returned to her team’s room for a quick shower as the rest of the girls got their daily privacy break.

Thebe played it up for the camera as water sluiced over her. She was pretty sure she had gotten a following on the members-only website. No way her teammates hadn’t put her head on the chopping block. Yes, Daisy had been a no-brainer the first day, but since then … According to the other girls, who have actually watched this competition on the web, ejection votes were only part of the mix. The winning team gets to “immunize” one member from each of the other teams. The object is to weaken their chances by forcing the other nymphs to keep weak players.

The balance of the decision came from audience. People could pay up to $100, $10 per each keep vote. Anyone making it five days gets to take home 10% of their supporter’s payments as a bonus. So Thebe soaped up her D-cups, trying to find the balance between titillating and tawdry. 

Meryl was tawdry and had come screaming in the room yesterday. Once during the week each competitor can find out how the vote work – she could find out how everyone voted on every team for that day only, or she could find out how her team voted that particular day plus her standings for every day before. … Meryl’s slutty and superior behavior was playing well for the hard-porn audience the competition catered to, but not her team. After Meryl’s initial rant about how many ugly and fat girls were in the competition this year, including but not limited to Cristina and Thebe, Thebe hadn’t changed her eject vote once.

Heavy breathing echoed through the speakers signaling the next competition. Thebe wrapped a towel around her and rushed into the main room.

A photo shoot, each girl dressing up as the winner. The Nymph Mistress to a Satyr Master. The shoot would be in the Elemental mask and nothing else.

Seeing no reason to dress , Thebe followed the other women into “magic” room. Today it was a …

(and this again is too much for a simple flash I am aiming for)

(word count 643; first published 3/3/2019)

Flash: The Archer (Part 1) – The Action

Erin Penn

Image from freedigitalphotos.net

 

The archer stopped just past the bus’ commuter card swipe. So this is what humanity has come to. They who challenged the gods. They who ripped deity from Olympus and claimed equality.

 

They who discovered the great burden divinity carries. To be responsible for oneself and others. Not a single face carried joy. Those by the dirty windows watched the grey world with defeat. Those in the middle seats fixed their eyes on the floor and bore holes to Hades’ realm. Reaching back to pull two arrows from his quiver, he compared what he saw with Charon’s passengers. Charon’s clients appeared more animated.

 

He had toyed with the thought of not following through with Lachesis’ request. After all, humans had pushed them away. But the Fate was right, even when the worshippers leave their gods, their gods cannot forsake their worshippers.

 

“I have a chance to add some brilliant color to the tapestry.” The Moirai had said when she had tracked him down in the marble halls. “If these two threads can just be twisted together, they will brighten a whole segment.”

 

She had played with the strands until they would be side-by-side for a moment and asked him if he could fix them together. He had agreed … for a favor. A favor from a being older than the Titians is something to be seized whenever possible.

 

The male Lachesis had manipulated came beside the empty bus seat and turned his head to examine the window seat occupant. The arrow’s shaft rested against the ash wood for only a second before its whistling release. No one noticed the missile’s flight or its piercing of the man’s back.

 

The archer had asked Lachesis what would happen if he did not bond the threads. With her typical pragmatic temperament, “Together the brown threads take on the Iris’ hues and bring attention to the colors around them. But separately … brown threads abound. My sister will need to cut one shortly, likely both.”

 

The seated woman raised her head from something the man was asking. A miracle as far as the archer was concerned. No one on the conveyance looked anyone else in the eye and his magic required eye contact.

 

Eros quickly loosed his second arrow and watched in satisfaction as it buried itself in the woman’s heart. Everything else is up to the would-be-gods. May they and others like them return the gift one day.

 

(words 405; first published 12/5/2012; republished 2/3/2019)