Not here, here.

Fond Farewell and Free Stuff
Well, today’s the day. My novella (almost novella, word count wise?) Tarnished Angel finishes it’s run today at Bam’s place. It’s been a fun eight weeks and everyone’s said such nice things. Even better, those who thought not-nice things kept their mouth shut.

So I thought of a way to say thank you. I’m resurrecting Bam’s writing contest. It seems fitting, considering the contest was the genesis of Tarnished Angel.

The prompt: I wanna see a girl tell a guy what she wants. Sexy, zany, crazy, whatever. I wanna see her pipe up and ask for her heart’s desire.

The word count: 400.

The prize: $50 gift certificate from Amazon.

The deadline: 15 May.

What’re you waiting for? Get writing. Post ‘em here for me (and maybe a minion) to select the finalists.

Thanks again for sharing Tarnished Angel with us, Lorelie!

And the winners are: Brooke #17, WW #28, Julie D #14, Jennybrat #8, and Jambrea #7. You know the drill. Email me and claim your prize!

In honor of the recently released anthology, Eternal Lover featuring Jackie Kessler, Richelle Mead, Hannah Howell, and Lynsay Sands…

You Know You’re A Succubus If…

Your romantic encounters tend to end with your lover:
(A) Unconscious
(B) Damned
(C) Dead

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Bettie Sharpe’s winner is… Deemer. Deemer, you get a copy of Like a Thief in the Night, a brilliant novella that’s part of Samhain’s Strangers in the Night anthology. Email me and claim your prize.

And Stefanie D. wins a copy of Jackie Kessler’s anthology, Eternal Lover which will be released in April. Stefanie, you’ll get your ARC as soon as J.K. gets her author copies. Oh, and email me to give me your info.

I shall be in and out of the Internets these next few days. I’m sick. Stupid bug. I’ll shake it off soon enough, hopefully. By the way, I’ve got this really awesome guest post by Richelle Mead, so I’ll put it up as soon as I can.

And now I’m going to pass out. Kisses.

AMY! With this entry:

“My toupee….what should I do about my toupee?”

“What are you talking about Stan?”

“What I mean Bev, is should I wear the one with the bangs to the side, or the other one?”

“I don’t care; does it really matter at this point? The only other person that sees you besides me is the nurse and she doesn’t care. For heaven’s sake.”

“I hope that’s where I end up.”

“Where, heaven? She laughed. “Heaven? Your worried about that now huh?”

“Yes Bev, I’m worried about that!” He shouted.

Now that got her attention. There was something else in his voice this time that she hadn’t heard before. Maybe it was time to ease up on him.

But they always argued like this. It was just what they did. Even after they had left the doctor’s office that day Bev couldn’t believe Stan had wanted to pick out a suit. “A funeral suit”, he said. He didn’t want anyone accusing him of looking like a bum. He was going to get it now while he was still in his right mind because lord knows what Bev would dress him up in for the viewing. He even made a big fuss about his white paten leather shoes. He complained to the salesman that one of them had a scuff on the heel.

“You’re only going to be exposed from the waist up Stan! Oh, you are something else!”

She looked over and Stan was asleep. He had these episodes where he would be so feisty she just wanted to scream, but lately they were coming few and far between.

“Stan…Stan, wake up. Stanley !”

“Huh?”

“The nurse is here. Are you going to put on your toupee?”

“No, not today.”

“What? Are you sure?”

“Yeah. I had a dream. I was naked. I felt so free. I was at the office and I was naked and nobody cared.”

“The office? You haven’t been to the office in 20 years. Why are you dreaming about the office now?”

“I don’t know Beverly . I just know I love you.”

“What? Oh, I love you too Stanly”

“I’m so tired.”

“Get some rest my love. I’ll be right here.”

“Ok.”

*****

A week later Bev sat at the viewing. It was busier than she thought it would be, that’s for sure. He didn’t have any friends did he? They’re probably just here for the food.

“Aunt Bev, why is the casket closed?”

“Oh, hi Christine. Well, why don’t you go up there and take a little peek.”

“You mean go look in the coffin?”

“Yeah, go ahead. Nobody will notice. They’re just here for the food anyway.”

“Ok.”

She walked slowly through the crowd of guests. Aunt Bev was right. They all had plates in their hands and were engrossed in their own conversations. It was heavy, but she managed to open it a few inches and closed it back really quick.

Bev watched as her niece turned around slowly with a half smile on her faced and mouthed the words….

“He’s naked.”

Please email me your info and we’ll hook you up with the prize. Congratulations!

Only six entries this month. BOOOOOOO! But that’s okay, these ones are pretty frickin’ terrific. Winner to be announced when I return from vacation.

No shill voting. Seriously, I can see your IPs.

Rebyj

I let my thoughts drift as the home health nurse stood by my bed and took my vital signs. The slightly antiseptic odors in my home just didn’t belong. What happened to the normal scents of home? The god awful pot pourri and overpriced scented candles my wife of 22 years kept around the house always irritated me to no end , my teenage son’s stinky shoes and sweaty sports uniforms used to make the entire house reek, my daughters makeup and fingernail polish used to mix with brewing coffee and my wife’s questionable culinary experiments cooking this early in the morning.

My wife returns after walking the nurse out and fusses around with my clothing and bedclothes. I stop her and bring her hand to my face, a small sniff and I notice it too has that sick room antiseptic smell, usually this early she smelled all rumpled and slightly sweaty from bed as she wouldn’t take her shower till she got all of us off for the day.

I grumpily say to her ” Everything smells like cleansers and old man in here, I came home to die and you’ve turned home into a hospital room. And why is it so quiet? I’m not dead yet but I have to fart to hear something so that I can reassure myself of that!”

She looks at me in surprise, it’s the most I’ve spoken since I returned home to die a few days ago, I’m usually so weak that I just answer her questions in one word responses or simply nod.

She said, “Well! We wanted to make sure you were able to rest comfortably !”

She looked into my eyes and I saw her nod as I drifted off to sleep.

With a start I awoke, I lay there reassuring myself that I was still alive before opening my eyes and became aware of noise from the other part of the house, I opened my eyes and exerted the same effort to turn my head towards the door as I used to exert to move a refrigerator and took a moment to focus. What I saw made me feel better than a morphine shot. My kids were fighting over a video game in the living room, their school paraphernalia was spread everywhere, my wife was in shorts and one of my old t shirts frying what smelled like onions and feet and dancing to some 80’s song on the radio, every light in the house was on and candles flickered. My sons bellow of laughter filled the house, he is such a loud fellow that my wife turned to check on me to see if it had woke me and our eyes met.

“Dad’s awake! ” she yelled towards the kids.

The kids tossed their video controllers down and raced each other to the bedroom like they’d done as youngsters and they circled my bed chattering a mile a minute telling me about their day. Shortly we heard a loud intruding intermittent beep and the kids eyes got wide thinking it was some of the equipment I was hooked up to for a moment then both of them yelled ” Dinner’s ready!” realizing it was the familiar sound of the smoke detector set off because of their mom’s cooking.

I felt myself smile, how could I ever have thought these things were irritating? I was home.

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