Guest Writer

Clown Show by Gary Beck

(Ed. Note: We are pleased to welcome back playwright Gary Beck–LA, DWB)

(Mr. Barker leads in two performers to do a clown show.)

Mr. Barker: You can get ready here, but put make up on in the bathroom. No smoking.

Koko: We don’t smoke.

Mr. Barker: No drinking.

Pipi: We don’t drink. We’re clowns! (Barker shrugs.) Like in the circus.

Mr. Barker: There’s no circus anymore.

Koko: Of course there is.

Mr. Barker: It closed over a year ago. (Koko and Pipi look at each other.) Don’t you watch the news on TV?

Pipi: What about the elephants?

Mr. Barker: They got rid of them. Probably sold them for dog food. (Koko and Pipi react. Exit Mr. Barker.)

Pipi: If there’s no circus, where do the parents take their kids?

Koko: To a museum?

Pipi: That’s no fun.

Koko: A movie?

Pipi: They watch Cable TV all the time. They need to see live shows.

Koko: Like us.

Pipi: We’re lucky that they still come to see us.

Koko: Let’s hope they like us.

Pipi: You know we’ll make them like us.

Koko: I worry that they’ll stop wanting to see clowns. What will we do then?

Pipi: There’ll always be people who want to see us.

Koko: Don’t be too sure.

Pipi: Am too.

Koko: Am not.

Pipi: Am too. (They laugh.)

(Enter Mr. Barker.)

Mr. Barker: The parents and kids are coming in now.

Koko: How old are they?

Mr. Barker A lot of younger ones today. Mostly four and five year olds. But there are older ones, eight and nine.

Koko: That’s not good.

Mr. Barker: Why not?

Koko: They’ll try to be cool in front of the younger kids and they’ll sit with their iPhones, texting with their friends.

Mr. Barker: We usually have singers or storytellers here. This is the first time we’ve had clowns, and only because our regular singer, the blue jay lady, got sick. Tell you the truth, I wanted to cancel today. I don’t think much of clowns.

Pipi: You’ll think a lot better of clowns once you see us perform.

Mr. Barker: I hope so. Let me know if you need anything.

(Exit Mr. Barker)

Koko: So here we are again, getting ready to do our show for kids who’d rather be playing video games.

Pipi: They’ll love us.

Koko: You say that every time.

Pipi: It’s our job.

Koko: It would have been easier if I was born a princess.

Pipi: Why?

Koko: Then I’d have a palace and we could invite all the kids and parents and they’d be impressed and love us.

Pipi: That’s sweet.

Koko: I can be sweet.

Pipi: I know… We’ll make them love us.

(Enter Mr. Barker)

Mr. Barker: You two better get a move on. The kids’ll start getting restless if they sit too long.

Koko: We’re preparing our mindsets.

Mr. Barker: (Suspiciously) What’s a mindset?

Pipi: It’s our way of preparing to perform.

Mr. Barker: This is getting weird. It’s bad enough that grown women should make fools of themselves clowning around….

Pipi: There’s a long tradition of women clowns.

Mr. Barker: I don’t know about that. Now get ready to go out there or you won’t get paid.

Koko: We have a contract.

Mr. Barker: Then sue me. Get moving or else.

Koko: That’s not the state to put us in just before a show.

Mr. Barker: Do you believe these girls? If you’re not ready to go in ten minutes you can do your next show in Alaska.

(Exit Mr. Barker)

Koko: (To his back.) That’s not the state I meant.

Pipi: What did you mean?

Koko: That we’re a sovereign state.

Pipi: I don’t understand.

Koko: We’re bounded on five sides by air and on one side by terrestrial matter. (Pipi looks confused.) I’ll explain.

Pipi: I’m all ears.

Koko: We are in front, back, both sides and on top, surrounded by air.

Pipi: Ah.

Koko: And our feet rest on the ground.

Pipi: Ah.

Koko: Thus! We exist before aforementioned points, a principality.

Pipi: Ah. Then we must always fear invasion.

Koko: Why?

Pipi: Well, neighbors being neighbors, we’ll always… How shall I say it? Poach?

Koko: Ah.

Pipi: Seek territorial expansion at the expense of others.

Koko: A perspicuous comment.

Pipi: You’re so clever.

Koko: Besides. We shouldn’t fear our neighbors.

Pipi: Then what?

Koko: Ask who?

Pipi: Well?

Koko: Say it.

Pipi: You’re so stubborn sometimes. (Koko is impatient). All right, all right. Who?

Koko: A president who does bad things.

Pipi: What can we do about the president?

Koko: Another perspicuous comment.

Pipi: What does perspicuous mean?

Koko: That you’re smart.

Pipi: I always knew you recognized my intelligence. (Smart song and dance.)

(Enter Mr. Barker)

Mr. Barker: I thought I told you clowns to stop fooling around and get ready.

Pipi: We are.

Mr. Barker: If you’re not out there in 5 minutes, I’ll cancel the show and give you what’s coming to you. (Starts to exit.)

Koko: We’d like to give you what’s coming to you. (Mr. Barker turns back.)

Mr. Barker: What did you say?

Pipi: Koko said you’ll appreciate the coming show.

Mr. Barker: Yeah. Right. Now get going.

Pipi: We’ll be ready in a minute or two.

Mr. Barker: You better be.

(Exit Mr. Barker)

Koko: Once again we’re being ordered around by a bully who doesn’t understand us.

Pipi: It’s only temporary.

Koko: So’s life… I’m so tired of disguising myself in order to hide from so many horrors.

Pipi: But we still please so many people, especially children.

Koko: Pleasure is fleeting. So is everything else.

Pipi: So what’s left?

Koko: Enduring until the end.

Pipi: That doesn’t sound very promising.

Koko: Promises are always broken.

Pipi: No they’re not! When I was six Mom promised to take me to the movies if I was good.

Koko: And?

Pipi: She did. She did. That proves promises aren’t always broken.

Koko: What’s a promise made to a child? Everything’s collapsing around us, despite the promises of the president to make things better. Yet we still paint our faces and put on costumes to try to stem the tide of despair.

Pipi: It’s not that bad.

Koko: It is. It is. Will our suffering never end? But no matter what, we go out there and entertain.

Pipi: It’s our job.

Koko: We should quit.

Pipi: You don’t mean that?

Koko: Why not?

Pipi: Who would make people laugh?

Koko: They’ll find somebody.

Pipi: What if they don’t?

Koko: They will.

Pipi: What if they don’t?

Koko: They’ll get along without laughter.

Pipi: They can’t!

Koko: Of course they can. Laughter’s not that important.

Pipi: You don’t mean that.

Koko: I do.

Pipi: We can’t get along without people. We need them.

(Enter Mr. Barker)

Mr. Barker: This is your last warning.

Pipi: We’ll just be a moment. (Pipi and Koko stand, put on costumes, hat, while Mr. Barker waits. To Koko:) Remember….

Koko: Laugh, clown laugh.

Pipi: Just don’t forget we’re silent clowns.

(Exit all)

Gary Beck

Where I’d Rather Be by Shontay Luna

I already live where I want to. I’m already at

where I want to be in terms to placement and

residing. A ten, fifteen minute walk down the

street I once lived. Several blocks west. A few

blocks feeling like an entire planet away; and

that’s a good thing. I’ve returned; after a twelve

month jaunt in Hyde Park. God returned me to

the neighborhood where I’ve been for the last

thirty years; but on the other side. In a space

nicer than I could ever dream of. After several

nights of opening my eyes in the darkness and

forgetting where I was, a formation of months

tinged in hurt and transformation, I can finally

say I’m at the place I’d most rather be. For that,

I’m both happy and grateful.

Shontay Luna

I Felt Fine by Shontay Luna

(Today and tomorrow we are pleased to present Shontay Luna. You can call her work a prose poem or a microfiction, any way you think about her writing, it conveys her own POV–the Eds.)

I felt fine, then he called me. He called me every other day.

In my bliss-filled day of not hearing from him, I heard from him.

For every day he didn’t call I knew he’d do it the next day. If I

knew how to set my watch, I could do so by the punctuality of

him trying to invite me to breakfast while I sat peacefully in my

own apartment. Or other offerings of things or excursions as

methods of him trying to win me back. Conveniently bypassing

the elephant sized infidelity in the room. After turning him down

yet again, he switches tactics. Telling me that I shouldn’t be mad

anymore. Which I’m not; I felt fine before the call. But like clockwork,

I cried after talking to him. And I knew he was where I once lived,

near his phone. Smirking. The wound still fresh, the scab not

completely covered. I cried, but I don’t know why. I wasn’t angry

anymore, just tired. My soul compacting itself against me. How does

a soul compact? I don’t know, but mine did. Like an over-torturous

form of shrinking. An unconscious drilling of a matte-colored soul that

once shined. The words and names that tortured me at that residence

no longer having any hold since my exodus. As I consider if now I should

avoid him completely. But he’s their father. Whatever family event they’ll

be – birthdays, holidays, he’ll be there also. At the cost of being able to

see our kids and grands, his presence is a sacrifice I’m willing to tolerate

– for now.

Shontay Luna

He’s So Quiet by Christopher J Ananias

(Images by Christopher J Ananias)

It wasn’t a big deal or was it? Keifer stared at the baby for a long time. Archie was sleeping, right? He put the slobbery dog toy, next to Archie’s little red ear, SQUEAK-SQUEAK-SQUEAK. Archie didn’t move—not even an eyelash.

Better than his stupid fucking crying, thought Keifer. “Good boy.” Like Archie was the dog. Who always ran, like a chocolate streak, for the bedroom when Keifer trounced down the hall in his shiny paratrooper boots. It was rough being a dad when you’re seventeen.

It was hot, but after he jacked-off—all sweaty. Keifer preheated the oven to 425 degrees for a Tombstone Pizza. He sat on the couch, eating a thick slice with hot cheese and red sauce dripping on his olive green PTSD T-shirt, watching WAR movies.

The explosions, helicopters flattening the elephant grass, M-60 machine gunfire, were so loud, people walking by the dirty white bungalow, with big yellow dandelions sticking up, ducked for a second, thinking an active shooter was on the loose.

If the baby had been crying, Keifer couldn’t hear it, anyway.

CJA

(Ed note–CJA is also a great photographer and we would like to refresh the readerships’ memory with a few of our favorites by him–Leila and Dale)

and

CHRIS ANANIAS

and

and

CHRIS ANANIAS

Some Girls story by Adam Kluger and Artwork by Dreck (Adult Advisory: If You Are Offended by Sex and Language, Put on a Disney Video Instead)

The Trekkie

Taylor was from a farmhouse in the Midwest and she was pretty with strawberry blonde hair but very shy and mousy. She looked like Chloe Sevigny and she hung out with the nerd patrol in the TV room and watched Star Trek with the brainiacs almost every night.

Long Island raised Jewish Princess Fern didn’t know what compelled her to sit next to Taylor. But the lights were pretty dark in the TV room. Fern was feeling frisky after a long night of partying at the campus pub. She let his hand fall on top of Taylor’s. No one could see. Taylor didn’t say a word as she grabbed Fern’s hand.

It was thrilling. No one else in the room knew what they were doing. When Fern tapped Taylor’s leg to follow her out of the TV room as she got up, Taylor didn’t make a move.

Not until Fern left the TV room and went up the stairs toward Taylor’s hallway. Five minutes later Taylor followed.

Taylor looked Fern in her green eyes, smiled widely and slowly opened the door to her own room on the girl’s hallway—and they didn’t say a word.

Fern ran her hands over Taylor and slowly kissed her.

Taylor seemed frightened at first but then quickly and hungrily made out with Fern, tasting the beer and cigarettes on her breath. They were both so naughty now and Taylor loved it.

Fern felt Taylor’s perky tits and cupped her tight ass.

Taylor started to get undressed quickly and before Fern knew it, they were fucking on a fluffy blue rug on the dorm room floor.

Licking each other’s wet, candy-flavored pussies. They still had not said one word to each other.

But Taylor moaned loudly and scratched Fern’s arms and back as she came.

Taylor was a real hellcat in the sack and the coolest part was they never said one word to each other…they didn’t have to.

When they saw each other the next day in the TV room they ignored each other. But later that night, they repeated the previous night’s ritual. As Fern left, she noticed Taylor’s nerdy friend Paula smiling. Obviously, their secret was out of the bag. The later sessions would never match that first time…which was like the first Star Trek…far superior to later incarnations.

The Publicist:

Brad met Brandi, the publicist with wavy, blonde hair at a music event and then took her to Cirque du Soleil. Brandi was a divorcee and she loved to be told what to do. Brad treated her like his own personal fuck slave and she loved it. He would make Brandi beg for him to fuck her in the ass and then he would tell Brandi how her female co-workers would like to join in. He ordered Brandi to lick their pussies and assholes. Brandi loved the dirty talk and Brad loved smoking some doobie before she came over.

“Get on the bed now and pull down those pants so I can fuck your ass like the little bitch whore you know you are…”

“Yes master, thank you…”

”Shut up and get those pants down bitch.”

Brad’s cock was never harder than when he would go through these B&D scenarios with the publicist. They engaged in phone sex all the time and Brad discovered that a lot of women love to be humiliated. Even though he revered and respected women… when it came to hot and dirty sex…why not? They were both adults… and the dirtier he talked to Brandi the more she loved it.

”That’s right…your girlfriends are all watching me fuck you in the ass you little whore…now they’re turning around so you can stick your nose in their ass cracks and lick their assholes…you’d like that wouldn’t you?”

“Oh yes master, you know I would…”

“Of course I know you would…get to it”

Brad usually just fucked Brandi in the ass…while he did it she would finger her clit. When she left to go back to San Francisco …Brad would miss her. Brandi was a cool chick and a great fuck…and as publicists go…she was one that Brad could actually tolerate…

”Next time my crew wants an exclusive interview…you better fucking make it happen or I’m going to make you suck their cocks while I pound your ass…you understand what I’m saying you stupid fucking publicist whore?”

“…yes master…you’ll get the first interview every time…”

“You’re damn fucking right I will! Now take it in your ass you little bitch…”

“Oh yes…oh my god… yesss”

“Take it you bitch…”

“Oh yesssssss, thank you.”

“That’s right, thank me for it you fucking publicist cunt.”

“Oh yes, master I’m a stupid fucking whore.”

”I know you are, bitch…take it up your ass …that’s right just like that…”

It would go on like that every time until they both came and then they would laugh and smoke a joint and then Brandi usually went home.

The cosmetics executive:

Once Stephan got a taste for the B&D games he found there was no shortage of women that liked to take part. Cindi, the cosmetics executive with the short black hair and pale complexion, was a friend of that hot co-worker Shelly who worked in the women’s dept.

Cindi was a set-up and she was totally game to be told what to do. Stephan made Cindi agree that if she was going to stay over at his apartment that she would follow his orders and do what he said.

There would be a safe word and he tied Cindi’s legs and hands up with a robe belt and tie.

Then he blindfolded Cindi, kissed her beautiful naked body and then put plastic laundry clips on her nipples.

Cindi’s pussy was slick and she was moaning like a woman possessed.

Stephan looked down, took another toke of a joint and admired the beautiful, writhing executive stretched across his sheets…he slid a vibrator onto Cindi’s pussy and she started to moan even louder…

”That’s right you’re such a good little slave that I’m going to make you come…but I want you to remember that your pussy and asshole and mouth are my property…”

”Yes, they are master”, Cindi moaned.

Stephan was glad Cindi remembered that she was supposed to always refer to him as “master.” The candle was originally there to drip on her…but instead he dipped it in the jar of Vaseline and slid the wick end slowly and wickedly up Cindi’s inviting asshole.

“That’s right you little slave bitch…suck on that candle with your asshole like you’re sucking on a lollypop…and don’t you dare let it slide out of your asshole.”

“oooooh….ahhhhh…ooooohh…oops…I’m sooo sorry master…it slipped out of my asshole by accident, Cindi gasped apologetically.

“SMACK!!!…now, don’t let it happen again slut…now, slide it right back in…” her pale white asscheek now had a bright pink handmark.

“oooooh, yessssss, master…thank you so much.”

Stephan jerked off on her back after Cindi came from the vibrator and that was the first of their many “play dates.”

After a while Cindi wanted a relationship and Stephan wasn’t the guy for that. But he always kept a candle and laundry clips in his kitchen drawer in case Cindi would occasionally decide to reach out for an impromptu booty-call.

The Blonde:

Porsche was blonde and she had been introduced to Ben by Manfred. There was some instant chemistry…but Ben didn’t act on it until months later when he used the aspiring actress for a TV modeling segment.

Manfred had said he had fooled around with her, but Ben doubted it and Porsche confirmed that too.

She was Italian and she looked like that blonde from Raging Bull…Kathy Moriarty…Ben discovered that her thing was getting spanked and phone sex. Ben was glad to oblige…

”Porsche I know you are in the bathroom right now…let me hear you…I want to hear you go to the bathroom…that’s good…now wipe yourself off and go into your bedroom and pull out that dildo I told you to buy earlier…did you remember to tell the clerk that you needed a big dildo so your master could fuck you in the ass for being such a nasty little slut?”

“…yes master,” Porsche replied.”

”You’re lying you little bitch I can tell by your voice”

“…no master I told him…I have the dildo right here”

“…you are a lying bitch…and you know what happens to lying bitches don’t you?”

“No master, what?”

“…they get fucked in front of all their co-workers…next time I call you in the office,I want you to finger yourself under your desk…do you understand me?”

“…yes master I do”

“…good girl…who owns your mouth, pussy and ass?”

“…you do master “

“…say it then…”

“My mouth, my pussy and my ass belong to you master…”

“Good girl…now stick that dildo in your pussy…”

Porsche started to gasp. Before long she was moaning into the phone…“oooooh…..ahhhhhh.”

”you want to lick your girlfriend’s pussy don’t you?”

“..Yes master..unghhh…oooooh.”

“You are a dirty little lesbian whore aren’t you?”

“..yesssss… master…uhhhhh”

This girl was hot all right…Porsche did play around with her girlfriends on occasion and if Ben hadn’t been seeing someone else at the time he would have really enjoyed fucking Porsche.

They kept meeting at parties and they kept trying to slip away to a private room so Ben could give her the spanking he kept promising her on the phone…but something or someone always seemed to bust it up before Ben could lay a hand on her delicious ass.

The best he could do was give her a pinch.

One time, they were in the elevator going down with other people in the car. Ben asked Porsche to hold his drink as well, then without anyone watching, Ben non-nonchalantly slid his hand between her legs on top of her pussy. She was wearing panties but for twenty seconds she stood there blushing as the other people in the elevator paid no notice. Ben whispered in her ear…”that’s mine… isn’t it…” she whispered back a breathless little “yes.”

Adam Kluger With Artwork by Dreck

The Party by Adam Kluger (Artwork by Dreck)

“His prose?”

“wonderful, piquant”

“Sentence structure, syntax, use of colloquialisms?”

“The entire body…of his work…is chopped…a little hard to digest but deliciously robust narrative nonetheless.”

“You really have been spending a lot of time on your food blog, huh?”

“Platform is everything these days Bascombe. How are plans coming for tonight’s get-together.”

“Oh, you know, the usual drama and complaining, of course. It wouldn’t be a literary circle event if someone wasn’t bitching about someone or sticking the knife in somebody’s back. It’s all part of the fun and games, I suppose. You’re part of the scene long enough and nothing surprises you. These writers though– continue to show even poorer taste if I do say so. This latest one– couldn’t have been any more impertinent really. You shepherd them through “the process”–you offer them immortality and you give them a chance to be sampled by the true arbiters of the literary intelligentsia and do you receive any form of gratitude from them whatsoever–hardly.”

“I know Bascombe- they are truly the basest of all creatures. All ego and no talent. Insecurity and hubris. They grab and cloy and never once realize that they are not special in the slightest. They are simply the current flavor of the month.”

“This new one was the worst I tell you– he thought he was born with a gift of some sort. You know the type. He had no time to “play the game” as he would call it. No time for foolish submission guidelines or petty protocols.”

“Can you imagine?”

“Yes…he really did say that.”

“Didn’t he realize that those submission guidelines and protocols that he mocked were instituted centuries ago to keep out the dreck and the unwashed masses who claim to be writers?”

“If we did not maintain standards or a threshold, then there would be nothing but a giant puddle of dung surrounded by flies.”

“And by flies you mean, of course, aspiring writers”

“Of course.”

“So who shall we expect at tonight’s heavenly soiree?”

“Oh, all the usual suspects- the staff from Creative House including the illustrious Madame B and her devilish young ingénues all dressed in high fashion like Dorothy Parker clones, all the top literary lights, bloggers and buggerers…some glitterati, musical theater friends, a surprise or two –expect the usual standing room only.”

“Lovely, lovely– are they all going to be pulling this new fellow apart to get at him?”

“Mmm…there should be enough of him to go around….when last we spoke he impressed me with his big personality.“

“So how did you handle the particulars?”

“Per usual…he signed his rights over to us for the novel etc, etc..for the standard minor advance.”

“Did you make him jump through hoops?”

“Of course.”

“And dance like a chicken with his head cut off.”

“Naturally”

“And he didn’t read the fine print on the contract?”

” They never do—do they?”

“That’s right, so eager they are for that small advance and for that sweet taste of fame.”

” They never have time for contracts or submission guidelines or petty protocols…”

“They never do.”

” Even when it says very clearly in black and white.”

” Upon the occasion of my death, all rights to my novel revert back to Bascombe Wellington & Associates.”

“Speaking of which…how’s your famous “writer-stew” coming along?”

“Should be the hit of the party –as always.”

“Bascombe, you are a cheeky devil.”

“Thanks, old friend–be a good fellow and pass me a fresh sprig of rosemary will you..and could you toss these left over metacarpals into the incinerator–I have a feeling he won’t be needing them anymore”

“Quite right…. you incorrigible old rascal, you.”