Behold, the writing power of the Bitchery, it knows no limit. I snorted several times as I formatted this entry.
Please post your votes in the comments, and we’ll have a casual round of voting. The top five entries will receive a copy of Brockmann’s book, plus her free guide for writers, and some mad props from yours truly.
Voting ends in 24 hours. Enjoy the happy endings!
Entry #1, by Issek
Jason had had a hard day at the modeling studio. First, the photographer, that bitch Michael, had been a little too free with his hands positioning Jason for the big rugby-striped sleep shirt shoot. Then, Gladys, the make-up girl, had made some comments about crow’s feet that had Jason nearly in tears for the rest of the afternoon. But, he had made it through all that by thinking of coming home to a glass of chardonnay and Geoffrey.
When he arrived there was no wine, no Geoffrey, only a note.
“Jason, chérie, ever since the party we threw for Oscar Wilde’s birthday, I have been thinking that maybe we could use a little space. Frankly, Jase, you’re a little clingy. Sometimes I feel as if you’re right inside my pocket. I’m a free spirit; I can’t be stifled like this. A little time to think, that’s what I need, then we’ll talk.
–Geoffrey.
P.S. Don’t forget to feed Mr. Furrkins.”
Jason sat at the kitchen table, staring at the latest Cosmo ("Cher’s timeless beauty tips"), weeping disconsolately. Suddenly Geoffrey burst through the door grinning that grin of his that made a man think of 600 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets and heaven.
“Jason?”
“Geoffrey?”
“Couldn’t live without you, kiddo.”
“Then, MARRY ME!!!”
“Yes, yes. We can use my frequent flyer miles to get a sleeper flight to Boston tonight.”
“Oh, Geoffrey, I swear I’ll make you happy!”
“You already do, you gorgeous goof, you! Here’s a tissue, your mascara’s running.”
Entry #2, by Quichepup
Helen thought about the day she met Hazel. She was watching her fiance bowling with his friends. Her attention drifted and she found herself watching a group of girls in the next lane. A pretty girl in a plaid skirt captured her attention.
The girl noticed Helen and came toward her. Helen felt embarrassed but soon she and the girl, who introduced herself as Hazel, were talking and laughing.
They became inseparable. Such good friends, everyone said. Helen’s fiance became jealous and accused her of caring more for Hazel than him. He demanded she end the friendship. It surprised everyone when Helen broke off the engagement.
Soon after Hazel and Helen became roommates. They rented an apartment and adopted a stray cat.
Hazel’s mother couldn’t understand why two such pretty girls, both tall, blonde and with straight teeth, couldn’t find husbands.
The girls didn’t care. They enjoyed each other’s company and had a circle of friends, all unmarried girls like themselves. Hazel assured her mother they were happy just the way they were. Hazel’s mother still despaired that they would end up alone and unloved.
Hazel’s mother finally moved to Florida. Helen and Hazel announced to the world they were lovers. The only response came from one of Hazel’s co-workers, who asked if she wanted to add Helen to the company’s insurance plan.
Helen smiled. Today was the 20th anniversary of the day they met. She held a small jewelry box in her hand, a surprise for Hazel.
Entry #3, by Leslie
Final page of Cookies in Bed by Zoe Umpagus
Quiet layers of snow descended upon the house throughout the night as he and Ernie held each other, legs tangled like young lovers. Despite his exhaustion, he could not convince himself that it was finally safe to rest. He simply could not will his tired body to succumb to sleep.
Finally, he opened his eyes. Just one more look was all he needed to quiet his racing mind. Only the loss of Ernie’s taut, terrycloth-wrapped buns could have driven him to the edge of a madness so deep that he would risk everything—his pajama empire, the family fortune, the top-secret designs for the Colorful Stretch Terry Coordinates that had revolutionized the lascivious world of LGBTQ sleepwear—to bring him safely back into his bed. He smiled to himself, assured now that he would have been foolish to ignore his desire for the novice pajama model with black locks that had seemed to him so striking against tanned, almost orange skin. To miss his chance for such a smoldering love: sticky and dark, forbidden like cookies in bed. Who else could promise him a lifetime of pleasure?
Only Ernie, he thought. The love of my life.
“Goodnight Ernie,” he whispered, caressing his lover’s soft cheek with his hand. “My darling pigeon.”
“Goodnight, Burt.”
Entry #4, by Elizabeth
“It’s working! My god, it’s working!” Eric cried softly, clutching his coffee cup.
Jeff gave a sigh of relief. It had been so embarrassing, so heartrending, to see their adoptive daughter Periwinkle run to the arms of other adults after school. For some reason, the poor girl had not been able to recognize her own parents when they came to pick her up, no matter what they did to attract her attention. They had tried cooing adoringly, leaping into the air, even flash dancing, and still she persisted in turning away from the men who loved her, unable to see them. But no more! Periwinkle was finally headed straight for her adoring fathers.
Eric’s cry of delight, however, quickly turned to one of dismay as the poor child hesitated and veered away despite Jeff’s clever plan to wear bloody bumble bee shirts. Desperate, Eric whipped off his pink drawstring pants in a fit of genius, waving them high in the air.
Periwinkle paled, then turned tomato red and raced for the car. As she passed her fathers, she gave an obviously loving cry of “DAAAAAAAAAD!”
Success! Eric, near tears, lovingly placed his left hand in his partner’s pocket and watched their daughter hunch down in the back of the red festiva.
“You’re a genius, my love” Jeff murmured, grinning at their child. Periwinkle ducked away from the window. “You make me complete. You make this family complete.” Eric sipped his Starbucks serenely, pants forgotten, and the happy family headed home.
Entry #5, by Cathleen
“Barbara, I’m home,” called Debbie, as she pulled off her green smock and tossed it to the floor. It was messy, but at least it went well with the orange shag carpet.
“Hi darling,” said Barbara, as she emerged from the kitchen. “Long day?”
“You bet.” Debbie flopped down on their sectional.
“I’m so sorry you have to clerk at the Piggly Wiggly. But my real estate career should be taking off any second.” She sat next to Barbara and combed her fingers through her girlfriend’s sandy blond hair. Even she was faintly disturbed by the fact that their hair looked so alike, only flipping in different directions. Maybe she should get one of those Farrah Fawcett shags.
“It’s alright. You know I’d do anything just to be with you. I love you.” Debbie tucked her head gently into the curve of Barbara’s shoulder.
“I love you too darling.” Their hairstyles didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.
They sat for a moment in quiet contentment, then Debbie spoke up. “Chuck’s having a party tonight. Plenty of the white stuff.”
Barbara tugged softly on Debbie’s floppy tie. “I was thinking we could stay in.”
“I can dig it,” Debbie breathed.
Entry #6, by Traci
“Eddie? I . . . I’m sorry I ran over your dog,” Greg said.
“Mr. Poofy? But that—that was you?” Eddie toyed with the yellow sash on his striped bathrobe, thinking how happy he was that someone had finally done away with his mother’s deathbed gift to him—her annoying yappy pomeranian. Well, as long as they were doing confessions . . . “I’m sorry I poisoned your iguana.”
To his surprise, Greg laughed so hard he snorted coffee through his nose. “I hated that old green beast. I was in bed and he bit me, you know, right . . .” He blushed red enough to match the stripes in his nightshirt.
“Right where?” Eddie had a fair idea from the embarrassed look on his lover’s face.
Greg set down the yellow coffee mug and tugged up his nightshirt. To Eddie’s delight, Greg didn’t have any underwear on, which made his excitement apparent.
Eddie knelt down for a better look, feeling stupid he’d missed it before. “Right here.” Greg pointed to a cluster of pin-sized scars on either side of his shaft. “You can feel them, too.”
“My pleasure,” Eddie said. He ran his tongue over the bumps. Greg shivered. Eddie felt his own cock harden in response. “Did it hurt?”
“Yes.”
“A lot?”
“Yes.” Greg’s eyes glittered with the feral quality Eddie loved.
“Poor thing.” Eddie kissed the tip of Greg’s cock. “Marry me.”
“On one condition.”
“Anything.”
“No lizards.”
“And no yappy dogs.”
Greg smiled. “Yes.”
Entry #7, by Kari
Scarlet gazed longingly across the lunchroom at Eugenia; their argument the previous week still lying heavily in her heart. They had not spoken. Genie barely even glanced at her anymore as she ushered her class into the school library.
Her world was already turned upside down in the wake of their night of passion together. But she could not forget the feel of Genie’s skin against hers. Loving a woman went against everything she had imagined. Genie had wanted to move in, but it was too much, too soon. Or so she had thought.
This morning, when she had seen Genie in the staff room, she had known it was fate. The outfit she wore was not just any outfit. It was the very same outfit that was on the very same page of the JC Penny catalog as the dress and blazer set she was wearing today. There could be no clearer sign from God.
She had formed a plan to lure Genie to the women’s room after classes were out, but such a move suddenly became irrelevant as she saw Genie purposefully striding toward her. Within seconds they stood barely inches apart and they brushed hands as they gazed out at the students.
“I’ve missed you,” Genie whispered.
“And I’ve missed you,” Scarlet whispered back. “I was wrong. I need you in my life. I need you in my bed.”
Genie smiled a secret smile as she twined her fingers with Scarlet’s. She’d already rented the U-Haul.
Entry #8, by Jen C
“Oh Jill, I am so sorry I stole your vial of sperm that night we slept together, and used the turkey baster and then avoided you for ten years while raising the child I made with your purchased sperm, in essence having your secret baby.”
“Oh Sally, she’s darling. I am sorry that I misheard you say “I like girls.” I thought you said “I like pearls” and if I had only asked you for clarification, we could have been together this whole time.”
“Jill, I am sorry that my puppy-hating gay brother tried to kill us both. If only I had contacted the police instead solving the mystery myself, we could have avoided dressing up as seventies divas to draw him out of his evil lair.”
“Don’t worry, Sally, I love the pockets on this polyester vest. Now that I have given up big city living and my fast-paced lawyer job to move to the country, I can wear this vest to take a job at the local Piggly-Wiggly.”
“We do look rather cute, don’t we, with these matching haircuts?”
“No, Sal, but my hair will grow back to its full, glorious length in time.”
“Jill, I love you even though we only reconnected three weeks ago”
“And I always loved you, Sally, even though I slept with nearly every lesbian in the tri-county area. I am glad I took your virginity and you waited patiently for me to return to you.”
“Will you marry me, Jill?”
“Yes, Sally!”*
*Note: Happy ending only applicable in certain areas. May not apply to most of the US.
Entry #9, by Luisa
Chance told himself he should be used to strange outfits. When fighting crime, he wore a black number that blended into shadows.
That costume, though, came with a mask. The world could never know that Athame was eternal student Chance Barrington the third.
The world did know that Chance was slouched in a corner of the Commish’s retro party, wishing he wasn’t wearing a yellow-brown-red striped shirt-dress.
“I used to dress like this when I was a kid,” Aaron, the Dark Crusader, said behind him.
Chance turned. Looking at his partner, he could believe it. Aaron looked disturbingly at ease in his psychedelic vomit shirt.
“Hungry?” Aaron asked, holding out two plates.
“No thanks.”
Thrrng.
Shit. It was the Crusader phone.
“It’s my pocket.” Aaron tipped his head toward the plates. “Would you mind getting it?”
And create a faux intimate scene that, if the Commish saw, would make Mr. Thank-you-for-saving-the-city no-you-can’t-visit-him-in-the-hospital-because-you’re-not-married uneasy? Chance would love to.
He slid his hand into Aaron’s pocket . . . and found a velvet-lined box.
The ringing stopped.
Hand trembling, Chance brought the box out. It opened with a click, revealing a beautiful ring.
“What do you think?” Aaron asked. His voice was so soft, so vulnerable. Chance realized that while Aaron could fight people bent on world domination, it was something else for him to face someone he loved.
“Yes,” Chance said, and smiled. They fought crime. When word of their engagement got out, he suspected they would be fighting off wedding planners.
