Fun Monday-A Bedtime Story

Mommywizdom is this week’s host, and boy, did she give us a cool challenge! She asked us to suggest random themes and words. She then chose three of the themes, ten of the words and five wild card words we must use to write a story, song or poem. Here are the details.

Themes to choose from:

A visit by your mother in law

Bedtime Stories

Raising a Teenager

The words: Ostrich, goosebumps, magazines, soup, cats, lethargic, noodles, tequila, doorknob, biscuit

Wild card words: prehistoric, Jedi Knight, cactus, periscope, humor

Your job is to write a story (true or made-up), poem, song, letter... whatever strikes you ABOUT one of the three themes. You must INCLUDE all 10 words. Wild cards words may be used in addition to or in place of the main 10 words.

A couple of tricks to this are: If you get stuck on a word use it as a title for something or a name. You may use any derivation of the word or put words together. Your imagination is the limit.

Ooh, this is fun. I’ve chosen the bedtime story theme but I doubt this is exactly what mommywizdom meant when she said bedtime story. It's about bed time, and it's for grown-ups. Kind of a Sex & The City story. Normally this site is G-rated, but today we’re going a little NC-17, just to shake things up a bit. Actually, it's just the way my mind wandered when I started writing this. I can't explain it. May I suggest a chocolate martini and the prettiest reading glasses you have for this one?

THE BLIND DATE

by Hula Girl

Susan slowly opened her eyes and immediately winced. Her thick tongue tasted of Virginia Slims and tequila, six shots of it, tossed back the night before in a desperate effort to forget a very bad day. Her head pounded relentlessly. It would take hours to get rid of this hangover and even longer to get over her breakup with Sean. After months of wild sex and even wilder fights, he had torn out of her life yesterday morning with a swift turn of the doorknob and a slam of the apartment door. She was single. Again.

She honed in on a stack of magazines in the floor in an effort to bring her eyes into focus. Chicken Soup for the Single Girl, a gift from her best friend Rae, lay on top of the stack. How many times had she read that from cover to cover, she wondered? She could hear her heart pounding in her head, the blood chugging through her veins in a lethargic effort to push the Quervo Gold out of her system. She lay near the edge of the bed, sucking in deep breaths to calm her rolling stomach. Her arms and legs felt like limp noodles, tangled in the sheets. The sound of her breathing was mixed with another sound, a light snore coming from the other side of the bed. She froze with the sudden knowledge that she was not alone. As quietly and softly as she could, she rolled over so as not to disturb the sleeping figure beside her. She found herself facing the back of a perfectly shaped head with dark, tousled curls. The curls kissed the top of his tanned shoulders, forcing her eyes down the long, sexy curve of his spine. “Damn. What have I done now,” she thought.

The fog in her head began to clear, and the events of the night before rushed back to her in pieces. There was Rae’s phone call, urging her to drag herself out of her pajamas and hurry down to the theater on 22nd Street. Something about tickets to a new play, the hottest thing since Cats and a cast party afterward with costumes. She remembered a cab ride to the party, a cheap mask thrust into her hands and a room full of loud music. And tequila. And dancing, lots of dancing. She remembered swaying in the middle of the crowd with bodies pressed against her and the thump of the driving music turning her hurt from the morning’s fight with Sean into anger. She had felt wild. And reckless. Reckless enough to grab onto the waist of the man with dark curls and piercing eyes who sidled up next to her as she danced. A full mask hid his face, but his eyes revealed a lust that grabbed her insides and sucked her under his spell. She remembered his firm body pressed again hers and a longing that made goosebumps ripple all the way down to her ostrich skin Jimmy Choos. There was more tequila and a cab ride back to her apartment. Laughter over some clever comment she found humorous and the rattle of keys as they opened the front door and rushed inside.

A few more snippets flashed through her mind. The masks had come off at some point, but she struggled to remember when. His face, what was it about his face that had become so important in the tangle of their rush to the bedroom? The teliqua fog that blocked her memory held tight to the image she tried to recall.

Suddenly, the form next to her flinched and moved. He rolled over. The fog cleared and the realization of just how big of a mess Susan was in became clear as she came face to face with her neighbor from down the hall. It was going to take more than a couple of aspirin to fix this headache.