The Eternal Thread

Eric's Submission

2008-10-29T21:01:00.000-07:00

OVERHEARD, OFF-CAMERA:

Who said Monte isn’t fun in the off-season? Get me a chocolate! Quick!

To quote the sage Sade: “The rose we remember; the thorns we forget…”

Our editrix has chosen a series of photos. Let’s take a look-e-loo.

The 1890’s:

These men have decided to photograph an “after sex” look. I think we can ascertain who the third of the three-some is. Boys: at least look like you’re trying.

The 1900’s:

Chip and Thom, on the left, are totally together. Roger looks a bit lost in this. Again, boys, at least look like you’re trying.

The 1910’s:

Here we have a pre-sexy get-up. Up on the rooftop, Gauleiter Denton, Gauleiterin Geigh, und Spassmacher Simmons machen Spass. That there are two who are offering a toast to something the third person doesn’t quite get it is relevant here.

I say this because it looks either like you’re the boyfriend of the third or you’ve never met them before. This is what I hear.

The 1920’s:

This is when sitting on a lap meant something. Oh boy! #%^@! Let’s go, indeed! Sex happened soon after this picture was taken.

The 1930’s:

Leonard, far right, is clearly the third man out. Pissed but also disappointed.

Woe are #1 and 2. Oh well! They won’t feel the bullets.

The 1940’s:

It looks like they just had sex and will again once you shutthefuckup. Glenn Miller’s trombone was quite the inspiration.

The 1950’s:

One word: B-E-E-F-C-A-K-E. I am not sure of their sexuality, but they are having sex, Know that.

The 1960’s:

Since it was the early part of the decade, I think there are separate entries.

What We Would Like to Think: Betty and Joanne have boyfriends and, eventually, husbands!

What Actually Happened: Betty and Joanne know their men. Chad likes something else, and that is their boyfriends. He’s looking away because he can.

In the end, this is a stretch for me. I have never participated in a three-way, so my narration may or may not cling to reality.

3, 2, 1, 2, 3

2008-10-29T19:58:00.000-07:00

By BRB

He’s the kind of guy who calls you up just after dawn and says look I wanna tell you something. Sleep-blurry, disoriented, you don’t ask who it is because that’s the one thing you know. Instead you croak, yeah what? And then you hear about how the patent office screwed him again, the conspiracy of those threatened by what he can do, what he can show the world, this world that’s going down the tubes so who needs it anyhow? There’s talk of hell, and handbaskets, and then, inevitably, handmaidens: Linda, or Paulina, or Claire. What does she want now? Everything, you know. Everything. I dunno. What does anyone want? What do you want? What do I want? She wants to destroy me. All of them wanna destroy me. Well, anyway…. and then the click, and then the dial tone. The receiver replaced, your hand is free to wipe your face from crusty eyes to crusty lips. The pale light on the wall opposite the window lets you know that it isn’t worth it to try to get back to sleep. Your hand reaches across the bed but encounters only sheets, layered and blank like soft pages. The pillow beneath the back of your head feels like home, but it’s not.

You up, Chuck? A voice from the other room tells a familiar joke. There’s clinking, which you hope foretells coffee. I’m….awake, you croak before swallowing painfully and slowly opening your eyes again after having shut them equally slowly at some point following the phone call. Sam comes in, smiling, a steaming mug in each hand. My eyes just popped open at five and I couldn’t get back to sleep. Sam sets one mug on the side table with a chipper air that you struggle in vain not to find abrasive. I wanted to let you sleep but I guess the phone had other ideas. You can tell he wants you to tell him who it was without having to ask. The expectation reflexively rankles you, but you also know that he knows who it was already, he just wants confirmation. He just needs you to own up to it, to own it, so he no longer has to. I think I called him once from this phone, that’s how he knows the number. I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking. What are you sorry about? Sam smiles reassuringly and sits on the edge of the bed, making you have to tense your muscles a bit to avoid rolling into him. I told you, I was already up. He reaches a hand to pat your thigh, giving you the type of permission that’s more like a demand; you comply and relax and roll into him.

Heat transfers to your groin through the sheets as you curl gently around Sam’s back, the part he jokingly calls his “lowest back,” a faintly fuzzy expanse between the edge of his tanline to the cleft of his ass that makes him shudder when you draw a line across it with your tongue-tip. Sam absently reaches over and tries to guide the mug of coffee from the side table to your grip without spilling. He’s only partially successful, and a line of small brown dots appears on the sheets, tracing the mug’s flightpath like a series of belated shadows. You smile gratefully to offset the mess and try not to dribble too much down your chin. Sam smiles back, then gets up. Coffee sloshes across your bare chest and onto you arm, hot then quickly cooling. I was going to wash those anyway, he says, and then leans down to lick the coffee from your shoulder before walking again into the other room. You wonder if the phone call will be mentioned again today, maybe at lunch on the phone or after work.

You think back on the machine, the obsessive applications for patents, grants, funding for further development, investors, interlocutors, the endless phone calls, the endless nights of talk and beer and the black stench of burnt coffee in a mug as it grew stale, then cold, then into a thick sienna stain. The Infernal Machine, you called it, first jokingly, then less so. But it was intoxicating to be obsessed, to join an obsession, to have this thing between three people in a room that shimmered above the metal and wires and plastic like a picture of yourself perfected, an angel made of heat and hope. The three of you, arrayed so many times in different combinations in the room, clustering and separating as you collectively pondered the meaning of clustering and separating. You remember chopping carrots into progressively tiny slivers as you wondered if Zeno was really onto something after all, about how things that split could always be split again, that when you keep halving the distance to the far wall you’re not just splitting space but splitting difference itself, splitting time, that a split atom is a split second, that the smallest space within is also an infinite space that takes an infinity to traverse, that the key to everything you want from the world, from each other, from the splitting cells of your brain and skin and the splitting cells of each other, the displacements that constituted breathing and thinking and moving, maybe it was somewhere in this logic loop, this infinite regress, this infinite redress to the injustice of linear time and exclusive space, that maybe somewhere in this loop it turns Möbius, turns every split into a doorway, every atom into a second and every second into just another atom to rearranged, displaced, manipulated, breathed in, breathed out, split again. You remember looking down at the counter and seeing paper-thin carrot discs sliding across a spreading pool of blood from your own finely sliced fingertips, and you remember a hand heavily placing itself on your other arm, the one with the knife. You can tell me your idea on the way to the hospital. His voice was fuller then, less hoarse than his current urgent croak, but the bass notes have remained constant, a lulling roar in the bones that accompanies whatever makes it into the ear. Okay. Okay. And you let yourself be guided from the room, followed by Sam, who hadn’t noticed what had happened until you passed him and now trailed after, full of questions and needs and concerns. In the car you whisper your magic words that could only be heard within the intimate space enclosing driver and passenger, the back seat too far, forgotten. Three two one, it’s the same as one two three. Backwards, forwards, it’s all just a relation. There’s two in three and one in two and one in three but there’s also two in one and three in two and three in one. It’s just a matter of how you split them, slice and dice them. That’s good, that’s good. I see what your saying. That basso rumble, that urgent assurance. And then you remember getting woozy and the darkness that accompanied it, and the sudden slap of the hospital fluorescents, and then the stitches. And in the room as it happened, in the corner, there he was, his hands busy with a sketchbook as he watched, busy busy, busy all the while.

And now you were split from that time and place, a distance both quantifiable yet containing infinities; you live in a space of two and the third has become one. The coffee had turned to whiskey and the rush of obsession into morbidity and stupor. Out of the entropy you salvaged what you could, and it turned out to be Sam, an entity made of concern and good cheer and sanity, a body comfortable where it is, where it’s going, comfortable with directions like forward and up, suspicious of the corkscrew pull of Möbius motion, Möbius desire. Split off and cocooned away from the indulgences and ridiculous excesses of word game philosophy and silly syllogism, you live on while the Infernal Machine lies forgotten, or rather cordoned-off, a crime scene, a primal scene, a dead end that was also a beginning. You live normal lives now, find normal happinesses, and only the phone and the hoarse desperation it carries breaks the barrier anymore, the corkscrew cord to the wall allowing time to overlap upon itself, the present punctured by the past, at least until the click. As you pull on your shirt and look at the wall, you contemplate the only memorial to the past Sam allows, the last group picture of the three, tweedy and green and so, so young. And yet even there you can see the split beginning, you soulful and Sam grinning like an idiot with a secret, and the third, looking off to the side, his bull-head slightly bowed, contemplating a maze he was about to be left within alone. You touch it and for split second your fingers remember the texture of atoms, the voids between them. And then, just as suddenly, it’s smooth again, just glass, faces under glass, faces preserved forever, gone forever.

It’s dinner when Sam brings it up again. What did he want? The dinner is sensible, protein and vegetables balanced on the plate, steak and asparagus curled around each other, yin and yang on white faux-china. Part of a new regime of Sam’s. We’re not getting any younger, you know. You try to focus on what he is saying now. Nothing, you know. He just needs someone to talk to. I just let him talk. I don’t want us to get mixed up in that again. By us you know he means you. The weak one, the one who almost cut himself into atoms contemplating time. The one who’s susceptible to low voices and persuasion, suggestion. Don’t worry, that’s over. He seemed to want to talk more about Claire anyway. I think she’s suing for alimony. Isn’t he broke? Well you know. There’s always something to sue for. What is it with him and all these women anyway? He never used to be like that. I always thought he wanted you, but I must have just been projecting. Who knows what he wants? I don’t think even he knows. How do you like the steak? It’s good. The marinade is good. Good job. Brown juices drip onto the green stalks from the steak-bit that hangs suspended from your fork before your lips as you tell him this, forming a stain that briefly looks like a shadow until you move the fork and it remains where it is.

That night you make him shudder with your tongue-tip, drawing the line up from the cleft of his ass to his tanline, but slowly, slowly, until the tongue-tip is nearly stationary, but not quite. You attempt to savor each tiny hair as your tongue moves over it, try to feel each skin cell as it sloughs off and is replaced by another, try to burrow into the space between each shudder, time wrinkling like a sheet, swelling like the parabola of his ass below your chin and the shallow valley of his spine as it extends up and up, beyond your range of sight. That night you make him shudder, and you feel enclosed there as if time were a pocket lined with the softest fur, enfolded and protected and warm. You slowly close your eyes and concentrate on the feel of the skin beneath your tongue, the taste like salt and cola, the smell like the coppery sea.

And when you lift your head at last and your eyes open, you aren’t surprised by the broadened back and darkened hair, the bull-head as it swivels on the pillow and smiles back at you, the rumble of the voice that reaches your bones before your ears. That’s a new one, where’d you learn that? None of your business. And you smile, and dip your head to do it again. The truth is you don’t remember. Your tongue-tip touches down where the cleft of his ass begins and you draw a line up toward the tanline, but slowly, halving the distance to it, then halving it again, and so on until your tongue is almost stationary, but not quite. You savor it as he shudders to life beneath you. He shudders, and you savor it.

Sadam

2008-10-29T19:15:00.000-07:00

by NAC

Sadam Vagisori was carefree and gay. It was November 1930 and he and best friends, Grayson and Liberty enjoyed the spoiled fruits of family success -fine tweeds, imported shaving oils and male enhancement from The New York Penis Center. The depression would later take a toll on all three, but for now life was exhilarating. Grayson Cockplaster and Liberty Analton were already members of the Stallion club though Sadam had failed the entrance exam. Sadam was small boned and the treatment had not taken. He strapped a copy of the Joy of Cooking to his testicles and kept a jar of frosting in the shower in vain attempts to nourish things along. He modeled himself on Warren Harding, the 29th president and slept in a pair of suspenders.
Years later on his death bed at age of 91 he was diagnosed as bi-polar and put on prescription medicine. Four hours before expiration, he felt relief from 70 years of raging anxiety and inquired about a home gym. In 1961 he had tried an all apple sauce diet but gave it up in favor of San Janeiro style shish kabob.
Sadam wondered what would become of his 20 year old self. Though blessed with an excellent education, he had no skills or ability to concentrate. He favored a life aboard ships- preferably in dry dock where he enjoyed the security of his homeland combined with the excitement of metal toilets. November would be a turning point; Against the advice radio therapists, Sadam took a job with The Finnish Navy as a translator and parlor boy. He remained on the job for 11 years before abandoning ship in Volgograd and joining one of World War II's mobile game shows. It was on tour where he met his wife, Eliza Probofortelingus and convinced her to move back to America where he reunited with Grayson and Liberty and opened the first post-depression Peugot Dealership in Edison, New Jersey. Grayson and Liberty had both been living in soup kitchens were happy to be in business. The enterprise flourished and Sadam learned to drive. He once crashed a race car.
The Vagisoris had three daughters. One left home at age 11 and moved to Salt Lake City. Another grew up to be a a famous journalist who uncovered scandals. The third designed brochures for Holland America. Sadam never joined the Stallion Club and eventually reconciled to his smallness. His loves were not remarkable. He stayed friends with Grayson and Liberty and kept a photo of the three of them in his wallets for 50 years.

Adam's Short Story Entry

2008-10-28T00:00:00.000-07:00

The Green Grass of Time’s Ravaging Gaze, a Memoir[1]

Discovered by Adam Streeter

Be sure to read the footnotes as you read the story.

It was the summer of 59581, and I was running a small popsicle stand in New York City, Japzealandia[2]. Little did I know it, but my life was about to change forever. The things I experienced that summer have left a mark on my life. It is a mark that, good or not, is sure to stay with me forever You see, one of my customers, a small man from Chinafrica[3], had died. I received the news from the district coroner’s office.

“You see, you’re the only person he seems to have known. He left all of his possessions to you,” I was told over the hoverphone[4].

“Really? How odd.” I had never inherited anything before. My own parents never loved me, and when they died, they gave all of their belongings to my bitch sister, Xerxes Von Furstenburg. Some donkey raping shit-eaters might say it had made me a bitter man. I am in no position to judge them, and I’ll defend to the death their right to think what they please.

“Yes, it’s odd indeed. Odder still, in order for you to claim your inheritance, you must win a three-way wrestling match with two other gentlemen.”

“How very strange! Any two gentlemen will do?”

“Oh, heavens no. You must win a three-way wrestling match with the Orman twins.”

“Oh, sweet Djeeziss[5]!” The Orman twins were a pair of tough customers who went undefeated throughout their careers in the Japzealandia Wrestling Federation. They were not actually twins, but they were brothers and life partners[6].

“Yes! And stranger still, the match begins… now.”

All of a sudden, two brawny, hairy, bearded men wearing nothing but thongs slammed into me from both sides. Sandwiched between their sweaty, hairy muscles, their deep grunts and groans getting louder with every second, I struggled to break free from their grip. They overpowered me. I could not compete with their strong arms and ripped hairy chests. Their thick, dark beards tickled my face as they poked me with their boners. But I knew this was not about the boners—this was about wrestling, and the prize was that little man’s inheritance. The boners were meant to distract me from my goal, and, more importantly, my inheritance.

“Yeah, take it! Take it like a man!” one of them grunted aggressively in my ear. His beard tickled my ear as he said it.

“Yeah, boy! You’re going down!” the other growled.

I struggled and struggled, but they pinned me to the ground. I was on my hands and knees. One of the brothers was on top of me, his hairy, muscular chest against my back, his boner poking my butt. The other was below me, his legs wrapped around my neck. I felt his hairy, muscular chest against mine.

“You give up, boy?” he grunted, and squeezed me harder with his legs.

At this moment, it occurred to me that my popsicle stand was going unattended. I peered between the muscle and fur, glistening with sweat, and achieved a view just clear enough to see that a teenage boy had stolen one of my popsicles. That boy owed me 200 credits[7]! He was sucking on it as he watched the struggling pile of hairy flesh.

That’s it, I thought. That’s the key. I can’t beat them with my strength, so I’ll have to beat them with a bit of tenderness. I pulled down the thong of the man beneath me and put his thick, 8-inch penis into my mouth. I had never made love to another man before, but I would be lying if I said the thought had never crossed my mind. I reached back and pulled down my own pants, and guided the second man’s penis into my anus. He shuddered with desire.

“Oh, wow! This guy’s a real he-man!” he said. Overcome with lust, they stopped trying to dominate me physically and began dominating me sexually.

“Yeah, rub my mantugger[8]!” one of them barked at me.

“Yeah, rub mine too!” the other chimed in.

A cock in my ass, a cock in my mouth, and a mantugger in each hand, I was overcome with pleasure. I trembled and moaned, enveloped in hairy muscle, as I succumbed to their every desire. Both of the men began to grunt rapidly, and more loudly. And, just like that, they simultaneously erupted into both ends of me, which caused me to climax as well. The one on top of me rolled over and lay there, naked in the grass. I stood up and lie across him and the other Orman twin.

“One, Two, Three, you’re out!” I called excitedly, as I pounded my palm on the ground.

“What? You tricked us!” one of them grunted masculinely.

“Yeah, that’s not fair!” the other one chimed in.

“Sorry, those are the rules. Hooray!”

My hoverphone rang, and I picked it up excitedly.

“Well done! Your 900,000,000,000,000 credits have been transferred to your new Martian bank account[9].”

“I have a Martian bank account? Yay!”

Just then, the president of Japzealandia walked by.

“Sir, I’d like to buy a popsicle, and I’d like to congratulate you for being the new richest person on Stumbos 9[10]!”

I looked up at the Chrysler building[11], and at that moment, I knew that this really was the best day of my life.

[1] This text was sent to you in a Futuredyne™ Timepod (Patent Pending). Futuredyne takes pride in the accuracy of its footnotes, which have been included to explain references that may be foreign to 21^st Century minds. This text was translated from the Modern Chindi using genuine Futuredyne™ Translapod Technology (Patent Pending).

[2] A large territory formed after the Dr. Pepper/Mr. Pibb wars of 50191. It spans roughly from 20^th Century Florida to 20^th Century Japan.

[3] An even larger territory formed after aforementioned wars spanning roughly from 20^th Century South Africa to 20^th Century Russia.

[4] A phone that hovers.

[5] Not to be confused with Jesus Christ of Nazareth, Djeeziss, born in 2041, was the actual messiah and savior of the world.

[6] The O’Reilly Bill, which decriminalized gay incest worldwide, was passed in 2312.

[7] One Japzealandian credit is worth approximately 1/67 of what one US dollar was in 2008.

[8] A small nub on the taint that men evolved in the 89^th Century. Its only purpose is to enhance the man’s pleasure during sex.

[9] After Mars declared its neutrality during the Iraq War (which lasted from 2003 to 3049) and enjoyed financial and social prosperity, it became a popular place for the wealthy to hold their money.)

[10] The planet on which our story takes place.

[11] Stumbos 9 is really Earth.

Test Post via BRB

2008-10-25T21:22:00.000-07:00

This is from the wonderful (and Canadian!) webcomic, A Softer World.

I felt like a theme had been established, so I went with it. Our hearts belong to Daddies.

Bears!

2008-10-25T20:51:00.000-07:00