Susan’s deep-rooted body image issues meant that social nudity – and with it, group sex – was out of the question. When Nick asked her to accompany him to a swingers’ party she agreed, though she was terrified.

This is my first attempt at Flash Fiction Friday. Thanks to Tame for suggesting – or did she insist? – that we take part this week. I found this meme a challenge thanks to the 208-word maximum. While I was eventually able to craft a pretty lean and to-the-point Flash Fiction Friday story, telling a complete, coherent tale with such a limitation was a daunting task. I attempted to tell three different stories based on the picture prompt. The first one is the story of the self-conscious wife at a swingers’ party which you just read; however, my first attempt resulted in an opening paragraph that was more than one hundred words. The second story concerned an overprotective forty-something mother who rigorously auditions her daughter’s dates before letting them have sex under her watchful eye. Like the first story, I was unable to properly convey this at a reasonable length. The third idea I had concerned a woman who has experienced so many emotional highs and lows during her life that she doesn’t raise an eyebrow when a man and woman begin having sex beside her. At this point I lost all hope of bringing my Flash Fiction Friday story in under the 208-word limit, and this idea evolved into a thrilling, 971-word-long assassins-for-hire story that climaxed both figuratively and literally at a sex party in Amsterdam’s Rosse Buurt. As this story was way too long, and not quite as sexy as I had hoped, I quickly gave the first idea another shot, and the result is the story that I posted.

I might have found Flash Fiction Friday less stressful had I realized that each week’s prompt is posted on Monday or Tuesday. Knowing this would have given me several days to plan and write my story rather than the approximately six hours I gave myself.

If you want to take part in Flash Fiction Friday, check out Erotic Flash Fiction for instructions.

A while back, at the entrance of a gym, there was a picture of a very thin and beautiful woman. The caption was “This summer, do you want to be a mermaid or a whale?”

The story goes, a woman (of clothing size unknown) answered the following way:

“Dear people, whales are always surrounded by friends (dolphins, seals, curious humans), they are sexually active and raise their children with great tenderness.

They entertain like crazy with dolphins and eat lots of prawns. They swim all day and travel to fantastic places like Patagonia, the Barents Sea or the coral reefs of Polynesia.

They sing incredibly well and sometimes even are on cds. They are impressive and dearly loved animals, which everyone defend and admires.

Mermaids do not exist.

But if they existed, they would line up to see a psychologist because of a problem of split personality: woman or fish?

They would have no sex life and could not bear children.

Yes, they would be lovely, but lonely and sad.

And, who wants a girl that smells like fish by his side?

Without a doubt, I’d rather be a whale.

At a time when the media tells us that only thin is beautiful, I prefer to eat ice cream with my kids, to have dinner with my husband, to eat and drink and have fun with my friends.

We women, we gain weight because we accumulate so much wisdom and knowledge that there isn’t enough space in our heads, and it spreads all over our bodies.

We are not fat, we are greatly cultivated.

Every time I see my curves in the mirror, I tell myself: “How amazing am I ?! “

(The girl on the picture is French model Tara Lynn)

Jack’s Answers

I’d say the worst reason was given me by someone I went out with in college. One night we went on a date and after dinner but before sex, the person in question told me that our Zodiac signs weren’t compatible. Now, I’m not one to ridicule one’s beliefs, and I understand that this sort of thing is a deal-breaker to some people, but at the time I was probably twenty years old, and could think of many more sensible reasons for a woman to consider me undateable than some abstract system of divisions in the celestial plane: I didn’t have a lot of money. I didn’t drive an expensive car. I was probably pretty awkward. I still lived with my parents. I could go on. But I was an upstanding and idealistic guy who worked hard and was capable of treating a woman with respect one minute, and giving her sexual pleasure the likes she’d never imagined the next. (Actually, I’ve always thought that giving a shit about a woman’s pleasure was in fact a show of respect.) I found the idea that she’d rather have potentially dated some unemployed burnout (remember, this was the mid-nineties, when American jobs were plentiful) who might have been prone to domestic violence but who happened to be more astrologically compatible a bit of a joke. Additionally, the fact that she broke up with me after dinner rather than after sex was a blow to my ego, as I was under the impression that she liked sex with me.

I think all, or at least most of, my reasons for breaking up with someone have been very valid. In my single days, I tried my hardest to be honest while not unnecessarily trampling someone’s feelings. However, I once told someone that I was “too busy” to have a relationship with her. To my credit, it was during a period of my life where I actually was extremely busy with work, school, friends and family, and I didn’t have much time to also incorporate the sort of things that come with a relationship. In other words, if I could have continued to fuck this person without having to ever meet or speak to her parents, hang out at her house and watch TV, drive her to work or school, or spend time with her while clothed, that would have been ideal. However, I really just wasn’t into this person, and I might have suffered through the added stress of a relationship if she was more interesting, more exciting, or otherwise worth it.

Yes. In my twenties I briefly dated a divorced woman who had a young son. Although I didn’t feel much of a romantic or sexual connection to her, I liked her, and I liked her family as well. As this wasn’t enough justification to keep dating her, I sought the end of the relationship but knowing that she had feelings for me, I didn’t want to be the one to break it off. Though my behavior didn’t really change, i.e. I didn’t go from being a good guy to being an asshole, I did distance myself emotionally with the intention of driving her away. It worked, and while I occasionally feel guilty for not ending it responsibly, I take comfort in the likelihood that she’s happier alone or with a different partner than she ever would have been with me.

Despite the example in #3, I have generally been pretty good about ending a relationship that’s going nowhere. However, in my much younger days I stayed with someone I knew wasn’t right for me, but not exactly because I couldn’t bear to end it, i.e. not because I was concerned for her feelings, exactly. She had serious mental issues including (I think) bipolar disorder, and I was terrified by the idea of her reacting violently to my attempts to break up with her. Without exactly coming up with a timeframe, I decided to stick it out while I gathered up my courage and got my affairs in order just in case. Before long she left me for some other guy, and I remember being very relieved.

For some reason, friends come to me for relationship advice. I have no idea why this is, but I have listened to, and/or counseled more than a few of my friends on their relationships, and not just friends who know each other so it’s not like one friend told another friend, who told another friend. These are people who, in some cases, have never spoken. I have no real qualifications to give this sort of advice; I’m pretty sure my relationship resume reads pretty much like anyone else’s. But according to relationship expert and soon-to-be-best-thing-on-MTV Dan Savage, a master’s degree is not necessary: “You don’t need qualifications to give advice, someone just has to ask you for your advice to qualify.” So I’ll gladly give my opinion when asked, and try not to second-guess myself after the fact. Most of my friends who seek advice don’t have life-changing problems, and I’d like to think that if they did they’d ask someone whose opinion might carry a bit more weight than my own. Having said that, yes, I did once encourage a friend to dump the guy she was dating. Well, actually that’s not true. I didn’t encourage her, I merely told her that if I was in her shoes I would end the relationship, as they both had vastly different agendas. While she liked the sexual aspect of the relationship what she really wanted was a boyfriend, whereas the guy just wanted a regular piece of ass he could hit without much of an investment. He once very matter-of-factly told her that he was never going to be what she wanted him to be. He told her this on her birthday. Look, I’m all for being honest with significant others and random hookups, but it seemed like this guy was taking advantage of an emotionally-vulnerable person who was willing to have sex with him. I know this because, having been in a similar situation as a younger man, I did more or less the same thing. Ultimately it was my friend’s choice to stay – and she did, for a couple months after this revelation occurred – but his timing illuminated the sort of guy that he was.

As in, was I the outsider who broke up a couple? I’m guessing this question isn’t referring to one of my own relationships. I’m going to say probably, as I have had sex with women who were in pre-existing relationships. For the record, I was not acquainted with these women’s significant others. For the sake of self-preservation and a dislike of drama, my idealistic younger self swore he would never get involved with a woman who was attached. My realistic self, however, liked to get laid (still does!) and frequently recognized an opportunity when one presented itself. My rationalization was that a woman who wanted to stray was going to do so, whether or not it was with me, and as long as I didn’t know the guy I figured no harm done. I suppose this was a reprehensible attitude to take, but the sex was usually quite good, so I have no regrets. Again, I have no evidence to suggest that I contributed to the end of these relationships, or that the relationships even ended. In fact, I know that at least one of these women stayed with her significant other long after we stopped having sex.

Jill’s Answers

In my mid-twenties, I was dating a guy and he told me that we should get married so he could get his green card. He said that we could see other people, and after five years we could get an amicable divorce! When I refused, he broke up with me. Pretty lousy reason, though obviously if he hadn’t broken it off, I would have.

I don’t have a lot of weird reasons for breaking up with somebody. When I would break off a relationship, I would usually give the standard “It’s not working out”, which happened to be the truth.

I was dating a guy, and a couple months into the relationship I realized that I really didn’t like him all that much. He was kind of a jerk. One night we went to a party, and he went out for alcohol, leaving me behind. Despite the fact that he knew I didn’t like Jack Daniels (or maybe because he knew), that’s all he brought back to the party. I still wanted to drink, so I made myself a Jack and Coke. As though he was trying to bait me, he said, “I thought you don’t drink Jack Daniels.” I was so pissed off at him that, when his friend made a pass at me, I made out with him. The guy I was dating didn’t see, and after the party I met the other guy for sex. Later someone told the first guy that I made out with the second. The first guy suggested that he and I see other people. I said, “I already am.”

No. I have a pretty good track record of ending relationships when it’s clear that they’ve run out of steam.

No. While I have given my opinion on friends’ relationships when asked, I would never encourage someone to leave a relationship that he or she is not ready to leave.

Yes, though indirectly. When I was in my twenties, I had sex with a boyfriend while his roommate watched and masturbated. The roommate was dating a friend of mine. When he told her that he’d watched us, she broke up with him.

How to play TMI Tuesday: Copy the above TMI Tuesday questions to your webspace (i.e., a blog). Answer the questions there, then leave a comment below, on this blog post, so we’ll all know where to read your responses. Please don’t forget to link to tmituesdayblog from your website!

Happy TMI Tuesday!

Jack at Eighteen

After our night class

We parked, did what you’d expect,

And I drove her back

22. What color eyes do you have? Hazel

This week’s TMI Tuesday questions were the idea of blogger Virtual Sin.

Jack’s Answers

a. I’d like to think of my stock character type as a lantern-jawed action movie hero, but if I’m being honest I’d have to go with the scrappy underdog that the audience comes to respect, and perhaps even root for. If I may quote Vince Vaughn in Swingers: “I don’t want you to be the guy in the PG-13 movie everyone’s really hoping makes it happen. I want you to be like the guy in the rated R movie, you know, the guy you’re not sure whether or not you like yet. You’re not sure where he’s coming from. Okay You’re a bad man. You’re a bad man. You’re a bad man, bad man.”

b. Depends on what point in my life we’re talking about. For scenes in which I am a child, I insist that Hollywood return Haley Joel Osment, Benjamin Button-style, to age nine and cast him. When he looked up at Bruce Willis and, almost shamefully, revealed that he could see dead people, it was deja vu. I said the exact same thing with the exact same tone and inflection three different times when I was nine. I suppose that Haley Joel Osment can be re-aged in order to play me as a teenager/young adult, but truthfully I would much rather perform these scenes myself. For that very unusual and awkward phase I went through in my twenties, may I suggest Cameron Diaz? Jack in his thirties will be played by Edward Norton. Middle-aged Jack will be played by George Clooney. (Sorry, but it’s true. The guy’s middle aged.) Elderly Jack will be once again played by Edward Norton using a combination of CGI and prosthetics. However, all dialogue for this period must be recorded by Haley Joel Osment. Ancient Jack will be played by Clint Eastwood, but not until he’s at least ninety.

Again, this has varied through the years. My early childhood was much like a Pixar movie, full of anthropomorphic talking toys, fish, insects, monsters, cars and superheroes. (No floating houses though.) My adolescence was akin to a 1980s movie featuring a bunch of kids going on an adventure to save the world, their crummy poor neighborhood, or their parents’ marriage. (I was the smart-alecky one who, at twelve, thought he was God’s gift to women and a pioneer in cool. Basically, if my life was The Goonies, I was the Corey Feldman character.) My twenties were a screwball comedy with a hint of action and danger. At that point, my life was a movie in which a bunch of guys take a road trip to Las Vegas and various wacky hi-jinks ensue, but by the following morning everything is back to normal. (You immediately thought of The Hangover; I was thinking Doug Liman’s 1999 film Go.) At present my life is a quirky independent feature with a cast of unknowns, and one down-on-his-or-her-luck B-level star to give the whole thing a teaspoonful of credibility. Ironic considering that, at the moment, my life is more stable than it’s ever been. As such you’d think I’d liken it to something more mainstream, with a bigger budget. In fifteen years I will be fifty years old. My life will be one of John Waters’ more outlandish early-’70s works, or something really over-the-top like Jodorowsky’s El Topo.

I’m all for love scenes, so of these four choices I would go with b. However, I don’t want to do a ridiculously bland Hollywood love scene. Yes, I can be on top for part of the scene, but I insist that we change positions at least once, to one or more of the following: (a) doggy style (b) cowgirl. My co-star(s) will take an active role in the sex and will not be disinterested, shy, silent, or inexperienced. If they insist on showing my co-star(s) and I lying in bed after sex is over, we will not be covered, as we just finished having sex and there is no reason for modesty. If we must cover up for some reason, i.e. the sex occurred in the back of a pickup truck, it’s cold out and for some reason our clothing is inaccessible, we will not use those special movie sheets/blankets that only go up to a man’s waist while somehow completely covering a woman’s breasts. If I am able to choose a scene other than the ones on the list, I would choose the scene in which the police suddenly realize that the killer knows where the key witness is being held for his or her protection, and they rush right over only to find that they are too late. I want to play the killer.

There have been occasions when everything goes perfectly for me: I wake up before my alarm clock sounds, completely rested. There’s no frost on my windshield as I leave the house. Traffic on the freeway is nonexistent. The radio is playing music I like and has forgotten to play crap I don’t like, or even many commercials. I get to my destination and don’t have to put up with annoying bureaucratic bullshit: I’m able to complete my business quickly and continue on with my day. At times like this, my extensive movie-viewing leads me to believe that, since everything has gone perfectly, I am going to die in the next half hour.

Humphrey Bogart as Rick Blaine in Casablanca. Frank Sinatra’s Danny Ocean in Ocean’s 11. Jack Butler (Michael Keaton) in Mr. Mom. King Kong. Whoever Peter North plays in any given movie.

Homemade porn, most definitely. Not much to tell, just various depraved sex acts filmed with a number of video-recording devices from an old-school VHS camcorder to a Mini-DV camera to a point-and-shoot digital camera to any number of cell phones. No, none of it is on YouTube. Sorry, ladies.

Jill’s Answers

a. Despite Jack’s suggestion that my character be the strong, sexy professional type, I think I’m more of the best friend. I’m not always comfortable being the center of attention, and would much rather be a major supporting character.

b. I’ve always liked Lauren Bacall. However, Jack tells me that she’s almost ninety so I guess she’s probably retired. If Kathleen Turner still looked like she did when she made Body Heat, I would choose her. Since she most certainly does not, I’m going with Katherine Heigl.

Romantic comedy, though at times it bears more than a passing resemblance to a porn film with a really good story, dialogue and production values.

I’m going with the car chase. If I could pick two, I’ll pick the love scene next, because I get the feeling that driving really fast would get me hot.

As a new mom, I was once the target of my baby daughter’s projectile vomiting, and I remember feeling like I was in some sort of gross-out comedy.

As a teacher, some days, I feel like Michelle Pfeiffer in Dangerous Minds.

See Jack’s answer.

How to play TMI Tuesday: Copy the above TMI Tuesday questions to your webspace (i.e., a blog). Answer the questions there, then leave a comment below, on this blog post, so we’ll all know where to read your responses. Please don’t forget to link to tmituesdayblog from your website!

Happy TMI Tuesday!

Editorial Note: With this entry, we break our previous record for most entries in a single month, fourteen, set in October 2008. As you may have guessed, we’re glad to be back.

Jack’s Answers

A. Age: 35

B. Bed size: Queen

C. Chore that you hate: Washing the bathroom floor. I much prefer watching Jill do it.

D. Dogs: None currently. Had a couple when I was a kid.

E. Essential start to your day: Sex, even if by myself.

F. Favorite color: Blue

G. Gold or Silver: Gold

H. Height: Five-something

I. Instruments you play: Acoustic guitar

J. Job title: Self-employed

K. Kids: Just one

L. Live: Yes I do!

M. Mother’s name: Ma

N. Nicknames: Captain

O. Overnight hospital stays: None for myself, though I did stay a couple nights when Jill was giving birth.

P. Pet peeve: Thoughtless people, people who refuse to think for themselves, and pretzel M&Ms. Jill says I should say, “When I meet a woman and we’re not having sex within twenty minutes.” I will state for the record that we technically do not have an open relationship and that she is full of shit. Okay, maybe it still pisses me off, but I no longer expect it.

Q. Quote from a movie: “The dude abides”, from The Big Lebowski, and “Do or do not. There is no try”, from The Empire Strikes Back (as long as George Lucas didn’t change that line for the Blu-Rays).

R. Right or left handed: Correct – I mean, right-handed.

S. Siblings: None by birth, but plenty of siblings-in-law.

T. Time you wake up: Anywhere between five-thirty and eight. In a given week, no two mornings are the same.

U. Underwear: Boxers. I like my boys to hang free.

V. Vegetable you hate: Cauliflower? I’ll eat it, but it’s quite possibly my least favorite.

W. What makes you run late: Masturbation

X. X-Rays you’ve had: Too many to list. My most recent was a chest X-ray.

Y. Yummy food that you make: My signature dish is a pork roast.

Z. Zoo animal: Primates. Any will do, as long as they’re only jerking off, and not hurling shit at me and my family.

Jill’s Answers

A. Age: 40

B. Bed size: Big enough for three, or four if we get creative.

C. Chore that you hate: Vacuuming

D. Dogs: We don’t have any. Nothing against dogs. We love them. When I was younger my family had a dog, but it bit a neighbor kid so we had to get rid of him. Years later, a dog followed my brothers home from school. It stayed with us for about a year then moved on, presumably to win the love of some other family and then stomp on their hearts as it did ours.

E. Essential start to your day: Coffee

F. Favorite color: Green and purple

G. Gold or Silver: Gold, but I prefer white over yellow

H. Height: Five feet, three inches

I. Instruments you play: I’d say the skin flute, but that’s way too easy

J. Job title: Educator and shaper of young minds

K. Kids: One

L. Live: California

M. Mother’s name: Mom

N. Nicknames: Princess Jill

O. Overnight hospital stays: Gall bladder and pregnancy

P. Pet peeve: People who blow spit bubbles. Spit is generally gross, and I do not want to see it in any form

Q. Quote from a movie: A tie between “There’s no crying in baseball”, from A League of Their Own, and “That was a very expensive vase, you bitch,” from The Secret of My Success

R. Right or left handed: Left

S. Siblings: Many

T. Time you wake up: 4:45 AM on most days

U. Underwear: Thong, or none if I’m wearing a skirt or dress

V. Vegetable you hate: Brussels sprouts

W. What makes you run late: Can’t find my keys

X. X-Rays you’ve had: Gall bladder

Y. Yummy food that you make: Chicken cordon bleu

Z. Zoo animal: Giraffe

We enjoyed writing this installment of Sunday Stealing, but there’s a possibility that we won’t do it again, as next week we’re planning to launch our own ongoing Sunday meme. We’ll see.