Current Challenge

The Challenge is to write a short story, around 5000 words. This first time around the idea is to use the following sentence somewhere in the story:

And the devil smiled, "You know, I couldn't have done better myself?"

The story can be a full blown Gabe and Grace fest, or maybe not... diversity and originality is encouraged. Just remember it must have some kind of link to the GK mythos. Even if it's tenuous, the newsletter people don't care, as long as it's there!

Any stories or questions, just ask the Email ID: gkwriters @Domain: thixo.com.

We are going to keep going with the same sentence for another month, but here is the first "PITW" short story:

Untitled
by Heath Smith

Author's note:

Set about 6 months before 'Sins'. This is parts one and two, parts three and four (the final part) to follow next month.

This is the 'the devil smiled etc' short story, but the line doesn't appear just yet, it's in the fourth bit. Haven't decided on a title yet, those two are all I could think of in a hurry.

That's it, hope you like it.

- Heath.

A warm wet sock, tossed into the tumble dryer. The smell of soap suds, very powerful. Sticky, hot feeling all around - the height of monsoon season in the 'Quarter. Gabriel sat on the washer opposite, closed the door on the last of his clothes, and punched the 10 minute cycle.

The fluorescent lights gave the cold steel around him a green glow.

Or perhaps the machines gave the lights the unearthly tinge. Either way, it was a relaxing vigil. Sitting on the lid, alone amongst the hum of strangers' tumbling laundry, finding patterns in the worn linoleum at his feet.

Sitting on the lid, alone.

He'd come in here half-an-hour earlier with two, now there was just one. No explanation for that. One, gone forever, the other currently being battered into submission against the smooth chrome walls. Staring into the round window, watching that sock tumble helplessly out of control, Gabriel could relate. It's hypnotic circular path was sending a message loud and clear. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Gabriel made a promise. Somewhere else back there, he knew he wouldn't keep it.

A bell tinkered to his right. Another lonely bachelor for the Friday night wash? He offered up his condolences:

"You'll have to wait man, busy night, they're all full...", he said, and he turned.

"Oh, I wasn't gonna be long," she said quietly, blowing her blonde fringe out of her deep set blue eyes as she struggled with a full basket of clothes, "but I guess they can wait 'till tomorrow..."

Gabriel practically flew off the dented washer. "Hey, no problem" he managed hurriedly, taking the basket from her arms, "there's uh, plenty of room in this one." He nodded his head towards his sock, going it solo in the dryer behind him.

"Oh, thanks!" she smiled sweetly as she passed, white floral dress brushing the cuffs of his jeans. He watched her in slow motion as she moved to rest herself atop the machine opposite his, her pale legs exposed for a moment as she slid her youthful, slender frame across the battered steel. He tried his most macho of walks back to his washer, she laughed to herself.

"What's so funny?" he asked as he placed her basket down on the floor, and turned to face her.

"You look like an ad fer those," she giggled, gesturing towards his pants.

Gabriel glanced down at himself. Blue jeans and a white shirt - in a laundromat - she had a point. She was still giggling to herself when he looked up at her sitting on that old washer, and found himself staring into her eyes.

She stopped laughing when she met his gaze, allowing the hum of the machines to slither back into the hot, damp air, their role now to fill the room with the most uncomfortable of silences...

"Do I fit the legend?" he offered, the best line he could think of.

She blushed, glancing away in embarrassment. He studied her face. She was lined, but young, most probably in her early twenties. A shy Cajun girl, probably grew up on the banks helping her daddy, he thought to himself.

Shy and... uncomplicated.

After a moment, she returned his gaze with a sweet smile: "C'mon legend, help me load my stuff."

Gabriel looked over at the dryer, realized his sock had long since finished it's journey. He opened up the machine, and placed the now dry sock back in his basket. He glanced into her pile. A pair of white lace pants lay on top.

"Not a guy's place to be handling a fine lady's private things now, is it?" he asked, her red-nail-painted bare foot dangling close to his face as he bent to inspect the basket. Even through the soap suds, her sweet, rose-like perfume caressed his senses.

"You ain't ever had any sisters, have ya?" She cocked her head to one side, grimacing as if deep in thought. "Okay, I'll help ya."

She slid off the dryer and down to kneel at the plastic basket next to Gabriel. Opening up the little round door to the machine, she grabbed the panties and threw them in. She turned to him.

"Not so hard, is it?" she challenged with a smile. "Your turn."

Gabriel picked up a black blouse from the pile, and was about to do the same when a soft paw sent it flying out of his hand. He watched it hit a coin slot, and come to rest on the cheap lino beside him.

"Not in with the whites!" she sighed, her youthful breasts heaving.

"You boys don't know nothin' bout this, do ya?" She had her hands on her hips, in a playful 'mommy' posture. Gabriel reached away to pick up the blouse, taking a deep breath to compose himself when he knew she couldn’t see him.

He gathered up the blouse. "Guess we don't..." he replied absently as he watched a small, yellow piece of paper fall from somewhere inside the garment.

"What's this?" he asked, knowing full well that by the time he'd said it, he'd be reading whatever blue printing he could see on the other side. The girl - he realized as he scanned the leaflet, that he didn't even know her name - was yokelling on in the background about nightlife in the big city or something.

"Carnival." She said, matter of fact. He’d been in New Orleans all his life, and he’d never heard of a carnival on Friday nights.

"You wanna go, legend?"

"It’s Gabriel."

"I wanna go with you, Gabriel"

And as he reached over to gently stroke her cheek, and as they sank below the aisle’s dusty chrome horizon, the hot night air was once again filled with the steady mechanical thrum of the machines, broken only occasionally by a series of ragged, distinctly human-sounding breaths.

Grace Nakimura, student type, sat on her small, student type sofa in her extra-large Yale t-shirt and white sports socks, spooning a bowl of tofu ice cream into her mouth. She told herself it was good for her, but as she chewed laboriously on a particularly bland piece, she eyed a bowl of rich double-whip vanilla ice cream on the glass coffee table next to her. She really shouldn’t... but it was so damn hot tonight...

Loud barking, right next to her ear. Damnit Buddy!

A confident female voice shouted from Grace’s bedroom: "Just -have- some Grace! It’s not gonna kill you."

"It’s not like my body needs it, it’s just full of sugar and cow fat." She heard herself call back in reply. "Besides, I’m saving myself for tonight."

From her bedroom, a tall red-haired woman in a black sequined evening dress entered the living room of Grace’s small apartment, still fastening an earring as she walked. "I don’t exactly remember those haitch and cee boys as walking hunks of manhood" she offered sarcastically as she strode past Grace with a natural air of regality Grace would never possess. She even managed to look good as she knelt down and picked up her bowl of rich double-whip vanilla ice-cream, patting the ash- blonde border collie now lazing contently against Grace’s leg:

"Thanks Buddy. I know, she doesn’t know what’s good for her." Her mouth full of ice-cream, no less ladylike. "Look at her, she isn’t even dressed yet." Buddy turned his head and looked at Grace with those big black eyes of his, his tongue hanging out happily. He was always so happy. He licked at her bare legs, started pulling off her right sock.

"Buddy, don’t... oh fine, here, knock yourself out." She tore the sock off and threw it across the room. Buddy bounced over the plush carpet, falling over the sock in some kind of strange dog/sock only ritual. Probably sulking, she thought, feeling bad now for talking angry to him.

"Okay Bec, I’ll get dressed." Grace said resignedly as she got up, and walked lazily to her bedroom. "Call me when dinner’s here. What did you order, anyway?"

Yale had been nice enough to hold Grace and Rebecca’s three-month reunion in New Orleans this year, where’d they both been living for the past three months. But it was at a chic bar downtown, and too late for banquets.

"Pizza" the other called back.

"Gee, that’s great! So much for saving myself..." Grace shouted sarcastically from behind her bedroom door. She continued: "I don't know why we're bothering anyway, we never did get along with those guys, Bec."

"Tell me about it" her friend replied, and the doorbell rang. "I’ll get it." she called to no-one in particular, and opened the front door.

"One vegetarian and one spicy mexicana?" said the pizza boy without looking up, hands full with the girls’ orders. Make that pizza -man-, Rebecca noted ­ he was at least twenty, well toned... and he was smartly dressed in a shirt and pants.

"You sure you’re the pizza boy? Not here to rob us? Where's your uniform?" Rebecca asked teasingly.

The pizza delivery guy was shy but intelligent looking. As he glanced up, he was visibly wowed by Rebecca's wall of glamour. "It’s, ah, my last delivery for the night, I just go straight home after this one" he said softly, standing uneasily outside their doorway.

"Oh ok, how much do we owe you?"

"Eleven dollars, thanks."

Rebecca unslung her shoulder purse, rifled through for the required bills, and paid the pizza guy.

"Thanks" he offered politely, handing her the cardboard boxes. He turned, then swung back mid step awkwardly.

"Oh, wait, I nearly forgot" he rushed out. Rebecca hadn't moved, still holding the door open exactly as before. He dove into his right pocket, and came out with a small yellow slip of paper. "Here, complimentary with every purchase." Rebecca took the slip and quickly scanned it.

"Carnival?" she asked him.

"Yeah, tonight I think it said. Down at the marina."

Rebecca took another appreciative look at the guy standing in their doorway. Not really her type, but... glancing over to Grace's closed bedroom door, a thought crossed her mind. And she smiled to herself.

"Your last one huh? So, what're you doing after?" she asked him.

"After?"

"Like, now."

"I... well, nothing I guess." No longer speaking to a customer, he replied in a different, more human tone of voice.

"Good. Then you're coming with us. Grace!" she shouted out her friends name in the little apartment.

"What?" an irritated voice replied in the distance.

"Change of plans, m'dear. Ah..." she stopped, whispered to the guy in the doorway.

"What's your name?"

"Mark." he replied.

"Mark here has graciously provided our means of escape. No more boring dinners, Gracie. We're going to the carnival."

To be concluded in the next issue of Pissing in the Wind.