Creative Friday

I have to confess, I’ve been a little scattered this week. There was so much going on that sometimes I felt like I was running in place. It wasn’t just getting my office organized and starting school, I also went to the poetry group meeting on Tuesday night and then the public reading last night. It’s been all I could do to keep up with my blog posting. :-)

Today’s not shaping up to be much better. In a few minutes I have to take the daughter to a doctor’s appointment in Peterborough and hopefully get home in time for school. Then after school I have about an hour to catch my breath before I get to go to the bowling banquet for the husband’s bowling league. Bad news is, I can’t take my lap top with me. Good news is, I get to see my shopping buddy and we’re having a book exchange in the parking lot.

I’m hoping I can find the time this weekend to apply some of the time management techniques I’m learning in school to the rest of my life. In the meantime, for this week’s creative offering I give you another excerpt from my WIP Magic.

Just a reminder about the story-line . . . Annalisse has had a run of bad luck culminating in being evicted from her apartment. She moves into her grandmother’s cabin out in the woods and begins having a run of increasingly erotic dreams. Oh, and please keep in mind this is still in the first draft stage. :-)

* * * * * * * * * *
Annalisse woke and stretched, almost purring like a cat. Who’d have thought a walk in the woods would have led to the best sex of her life? She reached for Lance and frowned. Opening her eyes, she sat up and looked around. Her jaw dropped.

She was back in her own bedroom, in her own bed. And she was dressed in the over sized tee shirt she normally wore to bed.

“No,” she said. “No-no-no-no-no! This can’t be happening! This can’t be another bloody dream!”

Throwing back the covers she jumped out of bed and checked her closet. The outfit she wore yesterday was there, no sign that she’d ever fallen into the swamp.

“That doesn’t mean anything,” she muttered. “I washed those clothes at Lance’s. They just cleaned up real good, that’s all.”

She pulled some clothes on and headed to the door. Her shoes were a little weather beaten, but not covered with goo like they should have been if they’d been in the swamp. Gritting her teeth she pulled them on and let the door slam behind her as she headed down to the water.

“This is the place, I know it is,” she said, fifteen minutes later when she’d reached the edge of the swamp.

It was boggy and leaf filled, but there was no indication that anyone had slipped off the bank, nor could she find the path she and Lance had taken to his cabin. She followed the edge for a few hundred yards, but the woods were the same as they always were. No mysterious path, no sexy forest ranger.

“I can’t believe it,” she said. “It was so real!”

The unfairness of it all welled up inside her until Annalisse did the only thing left to her. She plopped down on a moss-covered rock and burst into tears.

* * * * * * * * * *

“I think I’m going crazy Mags,” she said in a small voice. After she finished her cry she went back to the cabin and gave her friend a call.

“You’re not going crazy toots.”

“It was just so real . . .”

“You’re just suffering from an over active imagination and maybe a touch of cabin fever. You said it was pretty isolated out there. Maybe you just need to be around people more.”

“I don’t think it’s that simple Mags.”

She could hear Maggie moving around her apartment. “Maybe your grandmother’s bed is haunted.”

“What?” Annalisse sat down in one of the chairs in front of the fireplace.

“Well, think about it. It’s big and old, and this keeps happening to you when you’re asleep. Maybe that’s why your grandmother still goes up there, for the thrills.”

“Maggie!”

“Just sayin’, toots. Look, has anything really bad happened as a result of these dreams?”

“Not unless you count sexual frustration when I wake up alone,” Annalisse muttered.

“Well, you and Brad were pretty hot and heavy and you haven’t been with anyone since . . . this might just be a way to scratch an itch.”

“I just need to know. . .” Her voice trailed off. “I guess I need to know why this is happening to me.”

“Here’s a thought. Why don’t you give lucid dreaming a try?”

“What’s that?”

“It’s where you consciously try to direct your dream.”

“What’ll that prove?”

“Well, if your able to direct your dream you could ask whoever shows up what’s going on.”

Annalisse pulled the phone away from her ear and stared at it. Giving her head a shake she held it up in time to hear Maggie continue. “– cool to talk to someone I dreamed about. What do you think?”

“I think you’re crazier than I am.”

“No, really, think about it. Isn’t there some larger than life character you’d love to meet?”

“You mean like Captain Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Carribean?”

“Ooo, good choice!”

“Only I’d want him taller,” Annalisse said, trying to get into the spirit of things. “And sober. Maybe a little cleaner looking too.” She could practically hear Maggie rolling her eyes at her. “But definitely a pirate.”

“So tonight, when you go to bed, think about your pirate captain and see what happens.”

“Okay Mags. I’ll give it a try.”

They chatted for a few minutes longer before Maggie had to leave to go to work. After hanging up the phone, Annalisse got up and put the kettle on for some tea.

“I really would love to hook up with a pirate,” she mused. “A tall, dark, swarthy buccaneer to sweep me off my feet and ravage me.”

She smiled and shook her head at her fancies. Taking her tea with her, she went outside to contemplate life from the adirondack chair on the porch.