Chapter Three!!!

yesterday after coming home from work sick i was very very productive and I finally felt like working on chapter three of the rewrite and getting it all nice and polished to get it posted on author's den. The first chapter is still on the most popular list, though the second isn't getting quite as many hits. but there's lesbian action in chapter three! *sigh* i very much love petra. here's a little excerpt:

Jamie and Petra nearly disappeared. We introduced ourselves as Kitty and Buttercup when we could get away with it. Before long we had shortened it to just Kit and B, occasionally Kathryn and Beatrice when we were asked for full names. Whether they believed us we didn’t care. We were wild and uncaring of anyone but each other. You can still read the story of Buttercup and Kitty in the photos and dozens of full sketch pads that still fill the blue-green case.

Petra had a nose for the travel, for the random cross country movement. She knew which motels would ignore our age in the presence of daddy’s shiny credit card. She knew which gas station attendants would sell us cigarettes, which clubs would let us in and which bartenders would serve us. We didn’t drink much, maybe one cocktail at the beginning of the night, but we weren’t there to get drunk. We were there to dance, and dance we did.

We had rules for when we were in the clubs, lots of them. We never went anywhere apart, ever. No one came to our room and we never went anywhere with anyone. We made friends most nights, and kept to ourselves others. We took pictures and heard our favorite songs and still danced to the ones we hated. The clubs themselves fade into a singular blur of music and motion and flashing colored lights. It was the same with the kitchens we washed dishes in and the street corners where we sat and sang.

Sometimes we’d stay in town a couple days and wait tables during the morning rush at the same gross truck stops where we went to get coffee after dancing all night. Occasionally we skipped dancing when Petra would convince me to play open mike nights. I almost always made good tips those nights, playing the music I knew best; music written by my brother, lyrics written by my best friend. People all over the country heard the genius of Eric and Tommy years before their band would become a common name on radio stations in those same towns.

There is a picture I drew of Petra in the suitcase of a day I don’t need a photo to remind me of. It was a nothing special day in some hot and dry state shortly after we’d turned back from the daunting rockies. We’d decided not to cross and head south instead and. She sat with her legs crossed under her on the folding table. She held Mansfield Park open in her hands and a cigarette burned between her fingers. Our clothes rolled and twisted in their washers and driers around us as she read from the book. I had been reading out bits and pieces to her while she drove, but soon she had been engrossed in the story. She now shared reading duty when we stop. She rarely let me drive.

And here's a link to the authors den page. http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewshortstory.asp?id=47352

i would chat about things, but i gotta clean the kitchen before i go to work cuz i left it a mess after i finished dinner last night. and i still have to get dressed, and list auntie annie's wristers... why can't i stay home and write all day???