Tag Archives: ROMANCE

July 11, 2023 · 5:12 pm

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“Good you came back from the 1/2 world by getting together with Sarah,” Thomasina reviewed. We were back in her old office, the hovel in the Waste, new one in Jasper Falls being redecorated perhaps. “How is Sarah?”

“She’s dead,” Al put it bluntly.

“Good, good,” said Thomasina to this. “Good that the manufactured ones are killed off when their job is done. Metaverse would soon get migh-ty cluttered if we had doppelgangers piling up all over the place.

“We could bring her back,” points out Al. “We have the seed.”

“Indeed we do. But your focus now must remain on Shelley, our Jennifer Lane, author of 38 romance novels to date and still pilling up all over the place. What was the name of her new publisher?”

“Shady Lane,” replied Al. “Just minted.”

“Hmm, we’ll see how it goes.”

Then Al shared some pictures of it.

“This is the beginning of it. Or end,” explained Al to Thomasina, holding this photo. “Notice ‘Lane’ had been cut off of the sign (leaving only ‘Shady’).”

“In-teresting.”

“And… this one indicates that TILE is strong on this road, this lane, this forgotten byway that even the town of Boulder seems to have trouble locating for trash pickup and so on, at least according to that woman I met. And it’s about a block from downtown!”

“No need to shout,” requests Thomasina. “I know this is weird, trust me.”

“And, then this one… a rock. Thought I’d include that– about 1/2 way up the lane. Do you think it has a wielding spell inside? Like that other one we found in that other 1/2 way spot?”

“Swordstone?” offered Thomasina. She nodded while still staring, still contemplating. “Could be.”

“Sorry about the darkness of the picture. Shady in there, you know.”

“Of course.”

“And then this one just looking up the lane from about the location of the TILE symbol on the side of that house. Obviously a TILE enclave–”

“Obviously,” quickly agreed Thomasina. She paused. “Will you go back today?”

“I guess so.”

“Remember to take your walking stick. The one with the eyes.”

“Always.”

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July 6, 2023 · 4:12 pm

00390201

Weird she can see the lower tip of Beatrice from here, she thinks. Where she, in fact, comes from (novel 38; on a white horse). She checks the distance on the inworld map in her, um, mind. Over 200 meters away still, and her draw distance used here is only 64 to reduce lag in an urban area. She thinks again of Constantinople, the *real* thing, and her graphically talented, er, doppelganger. Here incarnated as Myrtle Beech out on the southern tip of *this* island. Another 200 meters or so in the opposite direction.

She moves to the opposite window of the upper floor of her new (!) apartment, important furniture purchase finished. It all revolves around, well, the central affair which is not an affair atall. She smiles at the irony. She can continue with her romance novel 39 and keep the marriage to Arthur intact. She can have her cake and eat it too. She came here, in effect, in 2 boats at once. But what really was this island she now exists on with her others? Constants? Close enough.

Arthur will be home soon from job hunting. Better get back to the interwebs and do some more research before he arrives (she decides). Hogs the whole living room with his applications and such. Great views, but — drawback — small apt. Barely room for the bed upstairs. And what about a kitchen? She’s *not* sharing an oven and a fridge with that big headed dude downstairs (!).

Strange, she think while staring from the couch now (*not* new). The entire Smipsons family shows up at the bottom of the store’s page but no sign of Al or Sarah’s avatar, hmm. Oh, she realizes. No adult content here; she’s not signed in to the Marketplace. And Al and Sarah are certainly adults now after what happened at the Homeless Union last night, away from Cowboy’s still drunk presence. Who cares if he chokes on his own vomit, Sarah thinks while packing her duffle bag for an overnight stay, looking down on him writhing about on the stained bed, murmuring something about Wanda and Gloria giving him 2 rides between snores and incoherent utterances. I bet they did, she thinks with vile, harking back to that afternoon and the beach and the lateness of his appearance and his *appearance* when he arrives. Drunk off his tits. “I bet they did,” she hisses aloud before stomping out, thinking this is at *least* a 2 night absence now. Maybe forever; probably so.

Back to the family…

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June 21, 2023 · 2:06 am

reaching out

Arthur and Edward had an eyefull. “Constantyne, huh?” Arthur, the hubby, finally managed about the creator of the thing. “Queen of the cows, eh?”

“*I’m* queen of the cows,” crowed Jennifer to this, author of 37 romance novels, almost 38. “Or will be. Once my infiltration is complete. This is just step 01 of a 03 or 04 step process.”

“No need to bring zeroes into this.”

“No,” said Shelley, thinking Arthur’s sentence was more compliment than criticism. He was reading into what she said, seeing between the lines. However thin they may be. He looks again, then looks over at Edward doing the same. Might as well be a much thicker line drawn down the center of the room between them, real on his side, irreal or fantasy on the other. Romance novels, pheh. 2 boats in one, hmph. Both 6’5″, both the same size and shape. She *manufactured* him. But then he had a rethink. Both of them? She claimed she was now Jennifer after all. Not Shelley. He questioned further, not persuaded despite all the evidence.

“Will you still work for Al during all this? You said Thomas Boyy — whatever he’s called –.”

“She,” said Jennifer to this. “He’s also a she.”

“Whatever (again). Anyway, you were assigned to Al by him… or her.”

“TOM calls the shots, the male-female synergy at the top of the pyramid that is also the pyramid itself. He/she said to stay in FILE, in the column that is centered upon Constantynople, upon the Temple of TILE there to be specific. Upon the *front door* of the place to be even more specific. Right on the equator. Kenosha is at the top, Tomasina is one down, then Tigger after that.”

Tigger, she thought. Zero Hero! Arthur’s sentence back there was more criticism than complement, she realized. She must return…

She stopped her stands and indicated the filing cabinets in the corner of the 1 room building, a tiny house the owner calls it, neighbor to the Land of the Cows in Tigger as it turns out. The obvious “secret” agent who also owns the body swapping machine Arthur and Edward stumble upon to find out they were one and the same deep down. Thus the logical progression to *here*. “See what you can find in (those cabinets) — probably another clue. I’ll check back, say, tomorrow. Stay *put* until then. Maybe play cards with each other to pass the time, get to *know* each other better. Understand differences as well as sameness. You have your assignment. *Subordinates*.” She took her leave with that.

(to be continued)

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April 7, 2023 · 2:42 am

left is right

“You don’t understand these people, Shelley. They are *powerful*. He’s over there with his new girl, *plotting* things. Things that can’t be stopped.”

“*I’m* his new girl,” said unruffled Shelley to this, assuming a cute pose in her seat opposite Edward. Ben Left Horn and Mona sat across from them in the balcony area. Indeed they were plotting, or at least Ben was plotting and Mona was acting as a sounding board for his ideas. She was good that way. Ben thought she might be a keeper, one of the true harem he was collecting down through the years. And Shelley… perhaps the new queen, he thought. Queen of the cats.

“If you put back on that Crazy Blue outfit you’ll be gone to me, to the world at large,” Edward continued. “This place, this Nightsity, will suck you in.”

“What do you care? Surely,” she thought aloud, “surely not for the benefit of *Arthur* after all you’ve done to him.”

“*You’ve* done to him,” he retaliated, then got back to the main subject. “*Don’t* take the gig, Shelley. You don’t know where it will lead you.”

I want… adventure, she thought, thinking of boring, stuck-in-the-mud Arthur. The Arthur who gasped at every sentence of the draft of her 5th novel, not believing what he was reading. What did he expect? she thought. He was gone *most* of the time these days. It will all come to a Shakesperian end, she surmised, but then quickly forgot — backtracked. Running away from the sunset, running toward the moon, no matter how full and blood red it was, indicating warning. Arthur was still her hubbie, her lubbie wubbie. Edward was just a distraction while he was away on the Omega continent. *Corsica* continent, she then reminded herself, confusing lies with truth again. *I’m* the one involved with Omega, she quickly remembered. Lonelyheart Publishers. They said to *juice* it up a bit — that’s what all those lonely housewives want. An *escape*, and a steamy one at that. So she had to write more detail, each novel becoming more graphic and revealing than the one before. That was the development. She tried to pretend it was deeper characters, twistier plots. But at the bottom she was seeing the writing clear. DEMO. DEMON. Satan at the middle, doing what he does best. Black Lake; starless.

“You know he use to go by Jer,” Edward said to fill the void. “He and his brother switched names, just to confuse the lot of us, the readers I suppose.” He looks for the 4th wall with this, to no avail.

“Horns?” said Shelley.

“Those too.”

(to be continued)

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March 27, 2023 · 3:21 pm

Mr. Chicken

“Inter-resting,” spoke Ruby to begin. “A drawer who is not a drawer. 2 places at once.”

“What does it *mean*?” asks Baker B., shaking as much as the apparition. Not fidgety, then, as much as plain out scared. Shakiest gun in the west. Which meant: on the other side, they were as much ghosts to him as he to them. At least Baker B. was.

“Stop shaking,” requested still pretty calm and cool Ruby Fantasie the soothsayer from Spirit Witch who was more use to these things. “Settle down. Look where the gun is pointing.” She meant to say planchette but let the mistake stand. Channeling.

“At me!”

“At *you*! Pull the trigger. Go ahead (she also spoke to the one on the other side of the veil): pull it. It won’t hurt him. Finish the act of the drawing. Finish it up. End it. Go ahead. Goo aheadd…”

Baker B. couldn’t do it, Ruby Fantasie realized. There would have to be another time on the opposite side of the Great Cycle, as I’m just now calling it. One great cycle = one photo-novel, 37 in a series so far. The 37th is also a romance of a novel thanks to Shelley and her Umbrella Klub funded eyes. Club. And then the manifested magic works its way back from end to beginning. Aloha.

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March 21, 2023 · 1:32 am

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How appropriate, he thinks. A big purple cube-like thingy has manifest just outside my front door since I lasted visited, sign of The Void of course.

Anyway (he turns), this is the last of my stuff, Nautilus continent home cleaned out. Couldn’t afford it, you see, with the upcoming court battle looming and paying for legal fees, etc. But I know who my real foe is now.

It seems like yesterday I was standing on the back porch with Shelley, inviting her to my sand paradise sim. She came to the party with Edward, who was somewhere just below with the rest of the still raucous crowd, even at half past 1. She explained, fairly early on actually, that her husband was away and he didn’t mind Edward taking care of her in his absence — trusted him just as much as he trusted someone named Keith who was a kind of surrogate father to her, I gathered. Also revealed that she was a writer, which interested me greatly. I happened to be a friend of a friend of one of the upper echelon of Lonelyhearts Publishers over on the *Omega* continent — caught her with a lie on that: she claimed Corsica Prime for the location, where her husband was, actually (she then admitted), looking for roles as big as his ambition and ego, she stated. I’d even heard about one or two of her books, although I couldn’t remember her attached nom de plume. “Jennifer,” she said. “Jennifer Lane.”

He turns back from the memory, red handtruck and hauling the final boxes down to the boat in his mind now. 1st pre-hearing at 7:45 tomorrow morning; gotta give about an hour for prep on that as well. He’ll have to do with around 2 hours sleep, he figures. He can catch up with the dreaming this weekend. Information, pure information. When he can interpret it, pheh. Like last night with the avocado.

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March 19, 2023 · 6:04 am

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After 36 successful romance novels about Edward and a lot of others, she was rolling in cash; could literally make herself an angel in the floor with it.  But she was no angel. Demon instead — she knew this deep down in her heart, despite what surrogate father Keith B. told her back at the beginning of section 01. She’d sold her soul; ground angel she was in the end. Worthless.

—–

After waking up and reviewing the dream, she decided there was only one thing to do. Tell Arthur about Edward. No, not the *actual* truth. The reality in the novel, 5th in a series. If she did, maybe she could nip what was coming — blooming — in the future in the bud. She had to pull a Barney Fife.

“There’s someone out there in the dunes — do you see it, Arthur?”

“Mirage,” he waved it off. “I’ve seen it too. Then it disappears if you stare at it enough.”

Sure enough, Shelley watches the illusion fade to wavery nothingness. She turns, tired of facing the huge mountains of sand. She’s in the present. Arthur turns with her.

“We haven’t been to that island over there.”

“No. But I sensed you have a point to make. You hardly touched your dinner.”

“You know I don’t like vegetables.”

“Not the point.” He sighs. Sandman, he thinks. Must ask about Sandman.

“I—” Pause.

“Yess?”

“I… write.”

(to be continued)

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March 15, 2023 · 6:06 pm

but the trees are flaming too

—–

Well I can certainly see why he’s called the Sandman, she thought. Better find Arthur, I mean, ahem, *Lemont*, down at the beach. But first… hair.

—–

“Oh I don’t want it cut,” she spoke upward to the dark, animalistic face hovering over her. “Just washed. I can’t cut my hair. My husband would be so disapproving (!).”

“That’ll be 55 dollars either way,” hissed the stylist. They didn’t click, she knew. Best to cut ties early before more energy drain. She can find another stylist later on. Anyway, Arthur *would* be happy. “Don’t change a thing,” he often speaks about her appearance, always making her cringe inside a bit. He wants stasis; she wants change. Yet he kind of controls her, she admits. She’s aiming to change that. The stylist must be more of his working.

“Credit it to the house,” she said when leaving, which caused even a bit more confusion.

——

“Why don’t you get out of that duck outfit and put on that cute, black bathing suit I bought you a while back.” Or was it purple? he thinks to himself, not being able to clearly picture it in rehearsal for some reason. Dark, anyway, he resolves the issue for now.

“Ohh… you know how easily I burn. I’ll keep these on.” She settles back into her chair, pats her hands on her covered knees to reinforce her staying put point. Eating away at the control. One nibble at a time.

Arthur settles back too, resigned to their current attire. “Soo. Tell me more about this Sandman.”

“Oh he’s rich.”

“Yeah, I gathered.” He looks around. Sand everywhere… at every level. Desert oasis he has here. An oasis from… Second Lyfe.

“We met through Edward. At that party his friends threw. One of those nights you were away. How’s the quest to find the ultimate Shakespearian role going by the by?” She hadn’t asked before on purpose. Arthur trusted Edward, she knew. As much as he trusted Keith with her. They were wedded in his mind. But Edward was certainly different from Keith, despite the friendly neighbor persona. Edward had designs. And she was stringing him along. All for the art mind you, she thought. The newest romance novel. I want to make the 5th different from the 4th which is different from the 3rd, etc., improvements and refinements all along. Edward is my sculpture, my newest muse even. I’m still married to Arthur certainly, she keeps pondering. No change there, whatever happens.

It was here she remembers she was married to Lemont. Not Arthur. He stares over at her, waiting for her next lines. Control.

(to be continued)

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March 14, 2023 · 3:40 pm

alchemical research

Keith let me borrow his beach bungalow while he was out traveling (he said). I caught up with my reading more than my TV watching, since his set was shite — something out of the 50s, or 60s at best. Black and white, even. I could watch reruns of “I Luv Lucifer” or “Gulliver’s Island” (at best), or finish off my stack of romance novels with Satan sometimes at the center of the plotline. Here I am seen choosing the latter; self portrait of course, because I came alone, Lemont still looking for roles on the Omega continent Shakespearian in scope and depth. Good luck! I’ve even started my own novel, or I should say, my 5th novel, the other 4 already published under a pen name by Lonelyhearts Press up in Corsica Prime. I haven’t quite got up the nerve to tell my rather straight laced hubbie about those; kind of r rated and with lots of lovers on the side. This one is projected to start with an innocent enough letter from an imaginary boyfriend and perhaps wannabe husband. ‘Nother one. What is this attraction to the opposite sex I have? Or, better, their attraction to me? I have a Venus in Cancer and a Mars in Leo but that only answers part of it. I must protect myself — that’s what Keith said just before he handed over the keys to the place. “Find yourself here,” he said, boat already warming up at the dock. “Get away from all influences. I’ll give you some spending money.”

“I don’t *need* any spending money,” I protested. “It’s not like Lemont and I have gotten a divorce or anything.”

“Sure you haven’t,” Keith said, and patted my knee, making me wonder. When *is* Lemont coming back? “Edward is right next door if you need anything,” he added while walking off and leaving a couple of hundreds on the table up front. And that’s how we met. He really liked the letter; said it sounded exactly like something he’d penned. I was so pleased that… well, I’ll save it for later in the novel.

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