Street Scene

“Well, that’s a first.” Caren added the last of the bound carpet strips to the furniture piled at the curb.

Todd grunted an answer, but she couldn’t hear him, because he was hunkered behind the sofa, while she stood in front of the recliners. They still needed to flip those up onto the couch in order to fit the whole mountain on the narrow grass stripe between sidewalk and street. These tenants left so much that hauling it and the carpet out took them well into the night.

“We ought to get a management company,” Caren went on. “My back isn’t up for this kind of lifting.”

Todd came around to join her. “Costs more than it’s worth,” he told her. And she thought he was right. Probably.

He stood behind her, and she leaned into him while he slid one hand under her shirt to rub the base of her spine. Above them, the moon waxed heavy and low, some optical illusion driving it down towards the earth.

Caren complained, “I ache.”

“Me too,” Todd agreed. But his voice suggested a different kind of ache entirely from the one caused by lifting too much without a proper dolly.

“You can’t be serious. Here?”

He didn’t answer her with words, but instead pulled their bodies together tight, front to back.

“Here then.”

They tumbled awkwardly over the couch arms and left their clothing on the sidewalk. The chairs in front of the couch and the late hour promised sufficient privacy as long as the tenants didn’t suddenly return wanting their possessions.

They wrapped themselves together, one into the other, coiled so it was hard to see where she ended and he began. They bore down on each other like the earth-driven moon. And that moon. Oh the moon. How it yearned to reach the ground.

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This week, the Trifextra prompt asked us to write a love scene 3 to 333 words long that neither turned Trifextra in to TrifeXXXtra nor used any of the following 33 words:

About jesterqueen:
Jessie Powell is the Jester Queen. She likes to tell you about her dog, her kids, her fiction, and her blog, but not necessarily in that order.

Comments

Street Scene — 38 Comments

  1. I need to find these emotions right now. Painting and fixing and caulking have made me an unattractive cuss today.

    • Yeah, it doesn't make me very beautiful either. It tends to make Scott and I want to hack each other to bits with mud spatulas.

  2. So well written! This almost makes me want to go wake up my hubby who's asleep in the recliner… 😉

  3. Holy…I think you were within an inch of going to xxx territory!

    Very steamy…and it began so innocent too 😉

  4. Perfect for Valentine's Day–what is really important–relationships, not chores. Well done, JQ!

  5. Now that is writing. And yes, I was very drawn into the moon. You did a great job, but, Jesterqueen – you are no jester when it comes to sensuality! Who knew what that ending would be?! Yahoo! I really loved this. Thank you.

    • The fun of my nickname is its multiple meaning. On one level, it's a pun with my husband's last name (Merriman). At another, it's a reference to what the court merry man (aka jester) actually did. It wasn't just that the jester told jokes. The jester was the one person who could tell the truth to the king and have any hope at all of not being beheaded. (And often, they got killed anyway). I love to encompass that speaking of truth.

      Not that I have ever had occasion to actually test outdoor sofas for their privacy ratings. 🙂

  6. oooh, well done. great challenge. I do not like writing love scenes. it's a good thing I write middle grade literature. lol.

    i''m a sucker for a good ending line. and innovative uses of the word moon, because moon language can be cliche. so, bonus!

    • Yay! Thank you. I struggle with these as well. I always feel like I'm going to get things implausible.

  7. The daring of this couple makes it so filled with magic. Some well-placed furniture and a moon-filled night in a not-too-busy spot … hilarious!

    • I wanted the opposite of all those verboten words. So instead of a sexy music filled beach, I went for dirty and exhausted. Thanks so much!

  8. Thanks so much for linking up this weekend. Remember, this weekend’s entries are being judged by the Trifecta community so make sure you visit the site to register your vote! Hope you can join us for Monday’s prompt!

    • Thank you so much! I am so excited that I won. It was bloody HARD not to use any form of "say". I had to edit for "said" four different times.