Oh, geez, Erin. My next submission is going to seem lame compared to yours. Oh, well. May this one (not) bear fruit.

Man Lips! Lips of Man!

He’s so beautiful. Those sleepy, cerulean orbs that beckon to me with every sultry glance across the table. He’s picking up one of the glistening, ripe red strawberries (like his pouty lips) and dipping it into the gooey, chocolaty goodness. My mouth waters, waiting for the touch of either of those exquisite comestibles. I want to pluck them with my lips and enjoy their juicy goodness, feel their wetness melting in my mouth and flowing over my palate, a river of delight for my tongue to swim in. Could any one man be so scrumptious and yummy as he is?

Wow, we're brilliant at the badsex!

The funny thing is, I'm just at the point of the wip where it's building up to the first sex scenes. Which hopefully will be goodsex--all hot without being hokey, and significant and specific to these characters.

A tough enough thing to do without the ghost of one's Baptist grandmother staring over one's shoulder.

129 words, but I kept giggling when I wrote it:

Dear Diary,

It finally happened! After all those nights sneaking out to the cemetery, I finally met HIM. He wouldn’t admit it, but I know he’s a vampire. He’s so brooding and mysterious! And gentlemanly – he kissed my hand and called me ‘delectable’! We talked for hours, until I almost missed the last bus home (and it would have sucked to walk home at three in the morning!)

As soon as Mom & Dad fall asleep tonight, I’m going to meet him. I’m wearing my black lace dress that Mom wanted me to return (but I hid in the back of my closet) and my cape from last year’s Halloween costume. I have to look perfect for my Dark Prince.

I’m going to become a vampire! I can’t wait!

Oh dear, I killed the thread. Sorry!

I only have the opener:

The moon was swollen and yellow in the velvet black of the night sky. The color reminded Patrice of urine. She shook her head as if to shake away the memories of that awful night in Nashville and the ensuing mayhem that resulted from her dog Henry's unfortunate taste for ecstasy, root beer and stale Cheetos.

She could hardly blame Reese for leaving her high and dry after that. Well, high, anyway.

Cash, just borrow some of Jilli's words, she ran over. And you're both talking about night, kinda. It should work, just like a Mad Libs book.

smelted in the furnace of her soul

Do you know, it's really really really really REALLY frellin' nice to have a break from writing angst?

This topic is making me so damned happy...

edit: any bets on who uses the phrase "swooning, half-carried away on the tide of passion" first? Because I may be tapped out on bad for a day or two, over here. That shit is really tricky to write.

The desert lay before him, on the other side of the steering wheel. It was a big desert. Big and empty and dry. Like his heart.

"Good," Jake thought, throwing a cigarette butt out the window into the hot, scorching air of the empty desert. "This desert is the only place I belong right now."

He knew his sensitive soul wouldn't be able to survive in a place teeming with other people's emotions, assaulting him with every breath he took, every thump of his heart. No, he needed this broiling hot vista, because it was empty.

So he drove on.

[[100 words exactly!]]

Teppy, it needs a name.

I'm thinking "Desert."

I'm thinking "Desert."

Heh. That wouldn't be too subtle? I mean, I want people to *feel* the metaphor of the desert, man....