Category Archives: Mature Themes

Dark Humor, Episodes, Love Stories, Mature Themes, Might Want to be Mature, Other Places, Popular, Serial Fiction

The Gravy Canoe of Wild Wyoming – 12

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Steel Brandenburg III felt the presence of a large wild animal as he stood on the back patio of the Gould house. He could hear the animal struggling to breathe. He turned to see her there with a disappointed look on her face.

“Can you please explain what that was all about?” Carrie said to him.

He called himself back to reality. “The guy is a jerk. He’s an a-hole.”

“He’s the pastor of my church, and a guest in my home.” Carrie waved her hand around in the air. “And must you smoke? It’s disgusting.”

Steel turned on her. “Must you eat five-hundred pounds of food every time you sit down at a table!?”

Carrie’s face began to sour, her bottom lip trembled. “Must you always be so cruel to me? Why can’t you just love me?”

Steel laughed. “Love? You’ve lost your marbles.” He pointed with his cigarette hand. “Everyone in there has lost their marbles.”

“Will you please just come back inside? And I want you to apologize for your abhorrent behavior.”

Steel sighed, took one last drag, and tossed the cigarette aside. Part of him wanted to just tell her to ‘fuck off.’ Part of him wanted to just walk away and be done with it all. But then there was a part of him that wanted to see things through for some curiously sick reason he didn’t fully understand. Did he really care about Carrie Gould? How could he? “All right, all right,” he relented. Maybe he just wanted her like an animal. “Just get off my back.”

She half-smiled at him and went to hug him. Her plump body felt good in his arms, Steel thought. She even smelled kind of nice. He moved to kiss her, but she turned away. “Gross. Not until you brush your teeth and use some mouthwash,” she told him.

Once back inside and with apologies made, Steel helped Mother Melba clear the table and clean the dishes. They stood side-by-side at the kitchen sink, quiet at first, with only the clinking of dinnerware and water running forth from the spout to be heard. He stared out the window as he lackadaisically ran a dish towel over a plate. He wanted to run, but at the same time he wanted to stay there forever. She nudged him with her elbow.

“Penny for your thoughts,” she said, and then she chuckled. “I guess these days I better ask for a quarter.”

Steel snarled to himself on the inside. He wanted to punch her in the face or hold her head down in the soapy dishwater. “Do you ever wonder how you get yourself into a particular situation. I mean, even with all the best intentions and planning and trying to do the right thing, you always end up in a bad situation?”

She turned to look at him with a certain degree of concern. “You think you’re in a bad situation?”

“Not this,” he assured her. “But this job I have and this town I find myself living in. How did I end up here if everything I aimed for was the exact opposite of this? How does that happen? How is it I stumble over my own feet so badly?”

“Well, Steel… I believe you were moved by the Holy Spirit, but you’ve been resistant,” Mother Melba said. “I believe the Lord has brought you here for a reason. It was out of your control. You shouldn’t fight it so much. He has plans for you.” She tapped the back of his hand with her wet one. It gave him chills for some reason, and he leaned over and kissed her cheek. She turned her mouth to him and let him kiss her there.

She suddenly pulled away. “Oh, dear,” she said.

“I’m sorry… No, I’m not,” Steel confessed, and he kissed her again.

Mother Melba put her hands on his chest and backed him away. “No, Steel. This isn’t right. You’re Carrie’s fella.”

He pulled her closer to him and put a hand between her legs. “I’m being moved by the Holy Spirit,” he whispered.

Pastor Craig Stikk stood by the large window in the front room of the Gould house. He looked out and sipped at his coffee, his eyes narrow. Carrie was sitting politely in a nearby easy chair. “You know, Carrie. When Jesus was on the cross, you could see his ribs. He was thin.” He turned from the window to look at her. “But it seems to me that you would prefer to eat ribs. I can just imagine the sloppy barbecue sauce all over your face.” He nodded toward her body. “Blubber like that was never part of Christ’s life.”

Carrie gave him a confused look. “Pastor?”

“Look, I saw how you ate at dinner. You probably don’t realize it, but you’re gluttonous… And gluttony is a sin, Carrie.”

She bowed her head in shame. “I know. I’m sorry, pastor. It’s a constant battle for me.”

“And a battle you’re losing… But I could help you with that,” he said with a sly grin and a twinkle in his perverted eyes.

She perked up just as he began to walk over to where she was sitting. He moved around to the back of her chair. He set his coffee cup down on a side table and subtly leaned an arm over her shoulder. His hand lightly landed on one of her large breasts. He kept it there as he continued, rhythmically kneading her like tender bread dough. “I could help you focus on other things. I could help you fight the temptation to stuff yourself… With food, that is.”

Her head whirled around to look up at him. “A Bible diet?”

He laughed. “No. A love diet.”

“A love diet?”

“I could be your sustenance, Carrie. Let me be your everlasting sustenance.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“Then I’ll just come out and say it, Carrie… I’m hungry, too. But I’m hungry for you.” He came around to the front of the chair and knelt before her. He took her hands in his. “He’s not right for you. I’m right for you. We’re right for each other. You deserve to be loved better than how he loves you. I mean, you couldn’t even call it love, what he gives you. Steel’s not dedicated to you, Carrie. I could be dedicated to you.” He suddenly let his head drop down between her legs and he inhaled deeply. “My God, Carrie,” he said in a muffled tone. “I must have you. God has spoken to me, and He has told me that you are my only hope for a proper lust.”

She let her hands go to his head. She played with his hair as she pulled him in closer to her feminine depths. “Yes, pastor,” she mumbled. “Yes, yes, yes.”

TO BE CONTINUED

By

Aaron Echoes August

Dark Humor, Episodes, Fiction, Mature Themes, Religion

Ms. Grundy and the Bone Ghosts (5)

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Mary O’Shea blundered into the house and kicked off her shoes. Her husband, the constable, was sitting in his relaxing chair in the front room and staring out the window while he sipped on a glass with three fingers of Jameson Whiskey inside it. “Where have you been?” he called out without even glancing over at her as she stood in the mysterious shadows.

“Working,” she huffed.

“Working hard?” Harley scoffed.

“I always do,” she replied.

“I bet you do.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” she said, stepping further into the room.

He finally turned to look at her. “How’s Lloyd?”

She shifted nervously. “Lloyd?”

“Lloyd the bartender from The Village Fig. I paid him a visit today.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because he’s up to no good, that’s why. And so are you.” Harley O’Shea sat his glass down on a side table and got up out of his chair. He sauntered over to where she stood and looked her up and down. He sniffed at her. “I can smell him on you,” he said. “You smell like his place. I have a nose like a bloodhound.”

She backed away from him. “And a face like one, too.”

Harley roughly grabbed her by the arm and ran his nose all over her, inhaling her like a vacuum would a dirty carpet.

“What on Earth are you doing!?”

“Inspecting my wife,” he answered. “You do remember you’re my wife, right?”

“I need to shower,” she said, and she started to walk away, but Harley clamped a hand on her shoulder to stop her.

“Wait. Get undressed right here,” he ordered.

Mary protested. “What!? No. I will not.”

He jerked on her arm. “Strip.”

“Harley, you’re hurting me.”

“And I’ll hurt you a lot more if you don’t strip right now… And then I’ll arrest you.”

“For what?” she seethed.

“For adultery,” Harley told her, and he was dead serious.

But she just laughed at him and tore away from his grip. He quickly grabbed her by the back of the neck, but she countered with a quick, hard knee to the groin. Harley stumbled back, clutching his precious jewels. “You bitch,” he hissed.

“Don’t ever put your hands on me again,” Mary said, a stiff finger in the air. “Ever!” She turned away from him and went to take a shower.

It was Lloyd the bartender’s day off and he had decided that what he needed was a good walkabout in the woods. But first, he decided, he wanted to stop off at the church on the edge of town to see if he could get a few minutes of Father Oban’s time.

The church was a small stone relic from another time and that gave Lloyd some peace in his guts for he has always had an appreciation for the warm aesthetics of divine architecture. He pushed on the red door, and it creaked. He was greeted by the scent of burning candles and old stone and old wood and the remnants of funeral incense.

There was a large figure kneeling in one of the front pews and they were looking up at the big cross with ripped up Jesus on it. A head turned when the figure sensed Lloyd’s presence. He motioned at Lloyd to come forward.

Lloyd walked forward and shuffled into the pew and sat down next to Father Oban. “Hello, Father,” he said. “I was hoping I could speak with you.”

Father Oban moved up into a sitting position. “Absolutely,” he said, and he turned to look all around at the empty church. “As you can see, I’m not very busy… Is something troubling you?”

Lloyd took a deep breath and came right out with it. “I think I’m having an affair with a married woman.”

“You think you are?”

“I mean… We’ve been flirtatious. She’s been to my apartment.”

“I think you know exactly what I’m going to say… Do not tread on another man’s land, Lloyd. You must resist temptation.”

“But she’s unhappy with him. I’m sure he’s awful to her,” Lloyd said.

“Lloyd, my advice would be to step back from this situation. They need to resolve it their problems, not you. The outcome, no matter what it is, must be facilitated by them. If I were you, I’d keep my distance… For now, at least.”

“But I’m lonely, Father.”

Father Oban, who was a large man with a golden color, clamped a hand onto Lloyd’s thigh. “I know loneliness as well, Lloyd. We all do at some point in our lives. It’s a constant in the human condition, I’m afraid. But you cannot allow loneliness to be a catalyst for sin. You must find ways to cultivate this loneliness so that something new and green and positive begins to grow.”

Lloyd looked at him as if he didn’t understand anything he just said. “You mean… Like a hobby?”

“Sure, a hobby,” Father Oban replied.

“I have a stamp collection I haven’t touched in years. Maybe I could get back into that.”

“Stamp collecting, huh? Seems like a noble pursuit,” the priest said, and he moved his hand higher up on Lloyd’s thigh.

Lloyd glanced down at it for a moment. He found it to be a strange sensation. “May I ask what you’re doing?”

“Lloyd?”

“Your hand. It seems to be creeping up to somewhere it probably shouldn’t be.”

Father Oban pulled his hand away and embarrassingly smiled. “I’m sorry, Lloyd. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“It must be hard not to be able to be intimate with others.”

Father Oban sighed. “It’s part of my oath, my commitment to God. But yes, it is a struggle.”

Lloyd then reached out and took the priest’s hand and placed it on his thigh like it was before. “It’s okay if you want to,” Lloyd said, and he moved closer to Father Oban and they sat like that together in the empty, quiet church for a long time.

TO BE CONTNUED

By

Aaron Echoes August

Adult, Black Comedy, Creative Writing, Fiction, Mature Themes

The Liquid Lust of an Ordinary Day (2)

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Photo by Pavel Danilyuk on Pexels.com.

Liquid Pablo Pablum worked in an insane asylum. He had his own office in the deepest part of the building where the deepest minds of darkness dwell. There was blue carpeting on the floor and walls. He had a mattress on the floor with a pillow and a thin blanket in case he wanted to sleep. There was a desk with a metal lamp sitting on it. Papers and files were sloppily strewn about. He had been staring at the ceiling light and eating Spree candy when the commotion broke out. It was a screaming and banging kind of commotion and it was coming from the female ward.

He ran out of his office and went to where there were two sets of heavy doors, each with a square window of thick glass. They had somehow gotten through the inner door and were pounding on the outer door. The woman whose face was closest to the glass was yelling that she wanted a knife so she could cut herself. Liquid Pablo Pablum looked at her neck and saw a series of thick, raised scars. Sirens started to wail. Lights began to flash. Deep echoing booms rolled like waves throughout the facility as the inmates pounded on their cages like animals…

Liquid Pablo Pablum suddenly woke to the sound of someone tapping on the driver-side window of his car. It was Rose the CVS clerk. He opened the door and got out. “Wow. Hi. Hey,” he said to her as he worked to pull himself together.

“Are you okay?” Rose asked.

“Yeah… I must have fallen asleep and was having the craziest dream.” He leaned in to kiss her.

“Wait,” she insisted. “How about some mouthwash first.”

“Right. Right. Well, just get in the car.”

A stockboy named Stockdale was in the process of dumping some trash when he noticed Rose climbing into a car that belonged to a man who wasn’t her husband. “Gosh darn it all, Rose,” he mumbled to himself. “Who the hell is that?”

The motor hummed and made Liquid Pablo Pablum’s testicles tingle. “So, what do you feel like doing?”

“I thought we were going to go make out.”

“Right. Do you want to go bowling?”

“Are you sure you’re, okay?”

“Yes, why do you keep asking?”

“You seem different.”

“I may be a bit nervous.”

“You weren’t nervous at all earlier in the day.”

“Look, when we get to the bowling alley let’s just have some mouthwash and make out for a while. I’m sure that will settle me right back down… You look hot, by the way.”

“Hot? I just finished an eight-hour shift and I’m wearing these stupid CVS clothes. I doubt I’m very hot.”

“Oh, you’re hot all right. Can’t wait to taste you.”

Rose was a bit shocked, a bit frightened. “I just realized that I don’t even know your name.”

“It’s Pablo. Pablo Pablum.”

“I’ve never made out with a Pablo.”

“Have you made out with a lot of guys, Rose?” Pablo asked with a wondering grin.

She bowed her head and sighed. “Not really. Not for the last 20 years or so.”

Pablo cocked his head and gave her a shifty look. “Strange answer.”

“What’s so strange about it?”

“It’s like you want me to know something but you don’t want me to know something.” He then noticed the ring on her left hand. He waited for her to tell him.

“Maybe you should take me back to CVS.”

“Why?”

She gathered herself and turned to him. “I’m married, Pablo. M-A-R-R-I-E-D. I shouldn’t be doing this.”

Liquid Pablo Pablum put a hand on her leg and squeezed it through her polyester work pants. “You can’t be that married if you’re with me… On your way to make out in the bowling alley parking lot. Seems kind of sleazy don’t you think?”

“Sleazy!? You think I’m sleazy?”

“No. I don’t. I think you’re lonely, unappreciated, overlooked, undervalued. I think you’re not very happy… What’s his name?”

“Jim. He’s a cop.”

Pablo scoffed, then chuckled. “Great.”

“Don’t worry. He’s not a very good one. He’s a fat, lazy one.” She laughed out loud at last.

“Wow, Rose. Way to lighten up. Don’t worry about it, baby. We’re almost there and Pablo will make you feel good.”

Once in the parking lot of the bowling alley, Liquid Pablo Pablum reached behind his seat for the bottle of Close-Up cinnamon-flavored mouthwash. He screwed off the plastic lid and took a swish. Then he passed it to Rose. He opened his door and spit out the rinse. She did the same.

“Well,” Pablo said. “Come here and give me some Stevia.” He laughed because he thought it was funny that he said Stevia instead of sugar because Stevia is a sugar substitute, and he was sort of a substitute man for Rose. Yadda, yadda, yadda.

Rose leaned closer to him, and they playfully rubbed the tips of their noses before their mouths parted and the kissing was on. The passion went from 0 to 176 in a few furious seconds. They clamped their hands to each other’s faces and kissed and sucked and slurped and licked and smooched and smacked like the end of the world was marching over the horizon. The hands slid from their faces and went to grope crotches and breasts and thighs and ass cheeks, and the windows of the car were steaming up as the kissing went on at a hot and ferocious pace.

Pablo began to undress, and he wanted her to do the same, but she just caught her breath and suddenly refused. “No… Not here. Not now. I’m not ready.”

Pablo panted. “What? Why?”

“I told you. I’m not ready. Just please respect how I feel.”

Pablo slumped back in his seat. “Geez, Rose. Sometimes you can be a real square.” He made an invisible square in the air with his pointer fingers.

“I’m sorry… No. I’m not sorry. It’s how I feel.”

“What if we were to go somewhere private?”

“No. I really all of a sudden want to go bowling. It’s been so damn long, and I used to love to go bowling. Why have I stopped going bowling?”

“My guess is Jim. Huh?”

Rose made a frowny smirk. “Jim. Talk about a square. He’s the king of squares.”

“All right,” Pablo said. “Let’s go bowling. I wanna see how you handle those big, heavy balls.”

TO BE CONTINUED

By

Aaron Echoes August

Experimental, Fiction, Mature Themes, Might Want to be Mature, Popular, Psychological, Serial Fiction

The Morbid Mind Correctional Facility (2)

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white and pink gasoline station near ocean
Photo by Harrison Haines on Pexels.com

What’s going on in the brainwaves this nochy, eh? The world seems sticky in the stars, the vibrations radiating like stove coils of lava red, back there in a white house in Morlockowoc, Wisconsin. It’s that scary warm place, that buttery icicle place, that turmeric pinecone place way up north there. The place where the creeps howl from the blue depths of the gas clothes dryer, and black witch puppets disappear when thrown up in the sky by cousins named Greg or Sally Sue or Mark the Mallrat…  

And the tussled man drives and there is no sound except ambient space music. He dials it up and lets it spin as he motors. The roadway is two lanes, double yellow line down the middle like a golden cock ribbon. Wizard of Oz people peek out from worn apple tree limbs. They throw spiders and hiss. The man is wearing a green sweater, underwear for pants, black socks pulled up to just below his knees, and brown leather sandals that smell like the birth of the Beach Men in Wyoming… Where sand has no meaning. Where rough girls throw orange roses into the fire. Where mountains with snow are lonely in their rocky yet stolid silence.

The man pulls into a scenic overlook lot at the side of the road. It’s a place of sandy, grassy dunes; wind rape; cold water chalice clinks over the grand lake; a sky above full of clouds, like war guts wrapped in gauze. He stares through the windshield for a long while before looking over at the white envelope that sits in the passenger seat. He reaches for it, sniffs it, breaks the seal. He pulls out the note and reads it: I think for Christmas I would like a new office chair. This one is really starting to kill my ass. Love, Fable.

“Fuck you, Fable,” he groans aloud. He’s gasping for a breath. “You’ll get nothing and like it.” He laughs, yawns, and then begins to cry.

Ten minutes later he gets out of the car and snatches a gas can and a yellowed rag from the trunk. He starts walking toward the shore. The wind is cold against his bare legs. He is all alone, there is no one else. Cars rip by on the hidden roadway behind from whence he came.

For some reason he has an erection. He stops and looks down at the little stick straining against his plain old white underwear. “Hello there,” the man says to it in a playful way. “It’s a little late for that now, don’t you think?” His mood quickly changes from lightheartedness to anger. “Where the hell were you when I needed you!? Now fucking Fable is fucking other fucking men!”

He wheezes and coughs. “But don’t you worry,” he says to the little prick. He holds the gas can out and shakes it slightly. “We’re about to take care of you. I’m going to put you to sleep. Forever!”

The man plopped down into a soft sofa of sand. The waves out there before him were at medium. They churned and rolled and fell, the water a dark gray with whipped cream foam on the edges. He uncapped the gas can and tipped some of the flammable liquid into the yellowed rag. He clamped the rag to his mouth and nose and inhaled deeply. This he did a few times until that feeling came on again. That feeling of rock-hard drunkenness on fuel. That heavy, disoriented feeling in his head. His nasal passages and his throat burned. He felt as if he just consumed an oil refinery in nasty ass Texas. He thought about everything and nothing at the same time.

He reclined into the comfort of the sand sofa and looked up at the sky, a slate of blue, chalk clouds in the hands of some god and he was trying to draw hearts, but they all melted and collapsed. The man huffed some more of the gas. He just didn’t care anymore. He was dead end doomed in this life, he concluded.

He was in a deep daze of drudgery when his eyes flickered, and they showed him a vision of a woman the colors of a peacock and a young girl the colors of a raven eating a banana and they were standing above him and looking down.

“Are you okay?” the girl asked. “You look nearly dead.”

The peacock-colored woman who looked like a wild chick cop bent down and touched the man’s shoulder. “Is everything all right. Do you need help?”

He was dosed well and zombified and it was hard for him to speak. He was halfway drooling.

“He’s a mess,” the girl said. She pointed to the gas can and the rag. “He’s been huffing.”

The peacock-colored woman named Magda Balls went erect and looked around. “He sure has,” she said. “We can’t just leave him here. He needs help.”

The banana girl with the raven-colored hair smiled up at her. “You’re such a good person.”

Magda Balls smiled back. “Not all the time, but this situation calls for it I suppose.”

Rosalina turned her head and whispered up to her, “He’s not wearing any pants.”

“I noticed that… He probably just doesn’t care about anything.” She bent down again and touched him once more. “We should probably get you some help.”

The man turned his head slowly and tried to focus on her. “I don’t need any help,” he slurred. “I just need to be…” And then he noticed the semi-automatic rifle slung about her. “Will you just put me out of my misery?”

Magda Balls rose once more, readied her rifle and aimed it at him.

“No!” Rosalina cried out.

The man held his face up and closed his eyes. “Do it,” he said. “Please do it.”

Magda held the rifle on him for a few moments, and in that time, she fully considered shooting him. It would be straight up cold-blooded murder, but at the same time, if he truly was a completely lost and miserable soul, it would be a kind and merciful act. She listened to her pulse as she waited out her own indecision. She turned to look at the girl and her face was struck with fear and sadness. If anything, Magda thought, she could never do it in front of the child. She lowered the rifle and swung it back into place. “Help me get him up,” she said. “He needs to come with us.”

TO BE CONTINUED

By

Aaron Echoes August