MrMisery Wrote:
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> Here is an excerpt from the new novel I've been
> working on that I thought I'd go ahead and share
> with you all. It's semi-autobiographical, 100%
> true except for the parts I made up.
>
>
> Came a beautiful fall day, warm and languid,
> palpitant with the hush of the changing season, a
> Virginia Indian summer day, with hazy sun and
> wandering wisps of breeze that did not stir the
> slumber of the air. Filmy purple mists, that were
> not vapors but fabrics woven of color, hid in the
> recesses of the hills. Fairfax lay like a blur of
> smoke upon her heights.
>
> The erasure of summer was at hand. Yet summer
> lingered, fading and fainting among her hills,
> deepening the purple of her valleys, spinning a
> shroud of haze from waning powers and sated
> raptures, dying with the calm content of having
> lived and lived well. And among the hills, on
> their favorite knoll, Miz and Conie sat side by
> side, their heads bent over his iPad, he reading
> aloud from his favorite Fairfax Underground
> threads.
>
> But the reading languished. The spell of passing
> beauty all about them was too strong. The golden
> year was dying as it had lived, a beautiful and
> unrepentant voluptuary, and reminiscent rapture
> and content freighted heavily the air. It entered
> into them, dreamy and languorous, weakening the
> fibers of resolution, suffusing the face of
> morality, or of judgment, with haze and purple
> mist. Misery felt tender and melting, and from
> time to time warm glows passed over him. His head
> was very near to hers, and when wandering phantoms
> of breeze stirred her hair so that it touched his
> face, the monitor swam before his eyes.
>
> “I don’t believe you know a word of what you
> are reading,” she said once when he had lost his
> place.
>
> He looked at her with burning eyes, and was on the
> verge of becoming awkward, when a retort came to
> his lips.
>
> “I don’t believe you know either. What was
> the last post about?”
>
> “I don’t know,” she laughed frankly.
> “I’ve already forgotten. Don’t let us read
> any more. The day is too beautiful.”
>
> “It will be our last in the hills for some
> time,” he announced gravely. “There’s a
> storm gathering out there on the sea-rim.”
>
> The iPad slipped from his hands to the ground, and
> they sat idly and silently. Conie glanced
> sidewise at his neck. She did not lean toward
> him. She was drawn by some force outside of
> herself and stronger than gravitation, strong as
> destiny. It was only an inch to lean, and it was
> accomplished without volition on her part. Her
> shoulder touched his as lightly as a butterfly
> touches a flower, and just as lightly was the
> counter-pressure. She felt his shoulder press
> hers, and a tremor run through him. Then was the
> time for her to draw back. But she had become an
> automaton. Her actions had passed beyond the
> control of her will—she never thought of control
> or will in the delicious madness that was upon
> her. His arm began to steal behind her and around
> her. She waited its slow progress in a torment of
> delight. She waited, she knew not for what,
> panting, with dry, burning lips, a leaping pulse,
> and a fever of expectancy in all her blood. The
> girdling arm lifted higher and drew her toward
> him, drew her slowly and caressingly. She could
> wait no longer. With a tired sigh, and with an
> impulsive movement all her own, unpremeditated,
> spasmodic, she rested her head upon his breast.
> His head bent over swiftly, and, as his lips
> approached, hers flew to meet them.
>
> This must be love, she thought, in the one
> rational moment that was vouchsafed her. If it
> was not love, it was too shameful. It could be
> nothing else than love. She loved the man whose
> arms were around her and whose lips were pressed
> to hers. She pressed more, tightly to him, with a
> snuggling movement of her body. And a moment
> later, tearing herself half out of his embrace,
> suddenly and exultantly she reached up and placed
> both hands upon Mr. Misery's flabby white neck.
> So exquisite was the pang of love and desire
> fulfilled that she uttered a low moan, relaxed her
> hands, and lay half-swooning in his arms.
>
> Not a word had been spoken, and not a word was
> spoken for a long time. Twice he leaned back and
> belched, and each time her body made its happy,
> nestling movement. She clung to him, unable to
> release herself, and he sat, half supporting her
> in his arms, as he gazed with unseeing eyes at the
> blur of the great city. For once there were no
> visions in his brain. Only colors and lights and
> glows pulsed there, warm as the day and warm as
> his love. He bent over her. She was speaking.
>
> “When did you love me?” she whispered.
>
> “From the first, the very first, the first
> moment I laid eye on you. I was mad for love of
> you then, and in all the time that has passed
> since then I have only grown the madder. I am
> maddest, now, dear. I am almost a lunatic, my
> head is so turned with joy.”
>
> “I am glad I am a woman, Misery dear,” she
> said, after a long sigh.
>
> He crushed her in his arms again and again, and
> then asked:-
>
> “And you? When did you first know?”
>
> “Oh, I knew it all the time, almost, from the
> first.”
>
> “And I have been as blind as a bat!” he cried,
> a ring of vexation in his voice. “I never
> dreamed it until just how, when I—when I kissed
> you.”
>
> “I didn’t mean that.” She drew herself
> partly away and looked at him. “I meant I knew
> you loved almost from the first.”
>
> “And you?” he demanded.
>
> “It came to me suddenly.” She was speaking
> very slowly, her eyes warm and fluttery and
> melting, a soft flush on her cheeks that did not
> go away. “I never knew until just now
> when—you put your arms around me. And I never
> expected to marry you, Misery, not until just now.
> How did you make me love you?”
>
> “I don’t know,” he laughed, “unless just
> by loving you, for I loved you hard enough to melt
> the heart of a stone, much less the heart of the
> living, breathing woman you are.”
>
> “This is so different from what I thought love
> would be,” she announced irrelevantly.
>
> “What did you think it would be like?”
>
> “I didn’t think it would be like this.” She
> was looking into his eyes at the moment, but her
> own dropped as she continued, “You see, I
> didn’t know what this was like.”
>
> He offered to draw her toward him again, but it
> was no more than a tentative muscular movement of
> the girdling arm, for he feared that he might be
> greedy. Then he felt her body yielding, and once
> again she was close in his arms and lips were
> pressed on lips.
>
> “What will my people say?” she queried, with
> sudden apprehension, in one of the pauses.
>
> “I don’t know. We can find out very easily
> any time we are so minded.”
>
> “But if mamma objects? I am sure I am afraid to
> tell her.”
>
> “Let me tell her,” he volunteered valiantly.
> “I think your mother does not like me, but I can
> win her around. A fellow who can win you can win
> anything. And if we don’t—”
>
> “Yes?”
>
> “Why, we’ll have each other. But there’s no
> danger not winning your mother to our marriage.
> She loves you too well.”
>
> “I should not like to break her heart,” Conie
> said pensively.
>
> He felt like assuring her that mothers’ hearts
> were not so easily broken, but instead he said,
> “And love is the greatest thing in the
> world.”
>
> “Do you know, Misery, you sometimes frighten me.
> I am frightened now, when I think of you and of
> what you have been. You must be very, very good
> to me. Remember, after all, that I am only a
> child. I never loved before.”
>
> “Nor I. We are both children together. And we
> are fortunate above most, for we have found our
> first love in each other.”
>
> “But that is impossible!” she cried,
> withdrawing herself from his arms with a swift,
> passionate movement. “Impossible for you. You
> have been an onanist, and onanists, I have heard,
> are—are—”
>
> Her voice faltered and died away.
>
> “Are addicted to having a wank in every port?”
> he suggested. “Is that what you mean?”
>
> “Yes,” she answered in a low voice.
>
> “But that is not love.” He spoke
> authoritatively. “I have been in many ports,
> but I never knew a passing touch of love until I
> first saw you. You are my first, my very
> first.”
>
> “And yet you have been a wanker,” she
> objected.
>
> “But that doesn’t prevent me from loving you
> the first.”
>
> “And there have been women—other
> women—oh!”
>
> And to Mr. Misery's supreme surprise, she burst
> into a storm of tears that took more kisses than
> one and many caresses to drive away. There was no
> bar to their marriage. Class difference was the
> only difference, and class was extrinsic. It
> could be shaken off. A slave, he had read, had
> risen to the Roman purple. That being so, then he
> could rise to Conie. Under her purity, and
> saintliness, and culture, and ethereal beauty of
> soul, she was, in things fundamentally human, just
> like any other woman. All that was possible of
> them was possible of her. She could love, and
> hate, maybe have hysterics; and she could
> certainly be jealous, as she was jealous now,
> uttering her last sobs in his arms.
>
> “Besides, I am older than you,” she remarked
> suddenly, opening her eyes and looking up at him,
> “thirty years older.”
>
> “Hush, you are only a child, and I am forty
> years older than you, in experience,” was his
> answer.
>
> In truth, they were children together, so far as
> love was concerned, and they were as naive and
> immature in the expression of their love as a pair
> of children. They sat on through the passing
> glory of the day, talking as lovers are prone to
> talk, marvelling at the wonder of love and at
> destiny that had flung them so strangely together,
> and dogmatically believing that they loved to a
> degree never attained by lovers before. And they
> returned insistently, again and again, to a
> rehearsal of their first impressions of each other
> and to hopeless attempts to analyze just precisely
> what they felt for each other and how much there
> was of it.
>
> The cloud-masses on the western horizon received
> the descending sun, and the circle of the sky
> turned to rose, while the zenith glowed with the
> same warm color. The rosy light was all about
> them, flooding over them, as she sang, “Goodbye,
> Yellow Brick Road.” She sang softly, leaning in
> the cradle of his arm, her hands in his, their
> hearts in each other’s hands.
mizery, i am certain there is some creative genius amongst the text, i know it. but god damn man, you are alienating all those who are visual people. i didnt read this. i dont read books without pictures. im not a child, that is just how my brain works. visuals are most stimulating. you have great "artistic" (i quote because i hate that term) talent. utilize this. apply it.
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