Snowflakes In Autumn, 3d

Today I conclude the third chapter of Snowflakes In Autumn. Tomorrow, I’ll post the essay I’d originally scheduled for Wednesday but had to postpone due to wanting every minute I could get with Trey before he left for his dad’s summer visitation. It was important to squeeze in every second we could with our little guy before he left home, for unfortunate reasons I’ll elaborate on in Friday’s essay.

As for what’s going to happen here at Coquetting Tarradiddles with the rest of the novel, I’ll go ahead and spill the beans now so that you can prepare yourselves when the installments run dry after next week. As a sort of thank-you for bearing with me while I’ve been plodding around and figuring out how this serialization of my novel will work, I’m dividing Chapter Four into only two installments next week, rather than four or five. I’ll post the first half of the chapter Tuesday and the second half Thursday, which will return the site to its regular posting schedule. After that, I’m switching to an experimental pay model that’s working out pretty nicely for another writer I know. For most of the skinflints who make up my readership, the novel will eventually be fully available for free online, right here at Coquetting Tarradiddles. However, there are those among you with a little human decency in your souls that may recognize the value of someone else’s hard work, and I’m betting that at least some of you might be moved to throw a few shekels my way every now and again in support of what I’m doing. With just a few small contributions from a fraction of a percent of my readers, the novel will keep going and everybody wins.

The deal is this: I’ll set a goal of x-amount of dollars, then slap up some Paypal/Donate/Whatever links. Readers can then contribute however much they want towards the goal. Five bucks, ten bucks, twenty…a dollar – anything you like. Once the goal is met, the next chapter will go online and the counter will be reset to zero. Then, I’ll wait for more donations to come in to meet the goal again, followed by the posting of another chapter. I haven’t settled on the exact amount of each goal yet, but I’ll have those sorts of details worked out by the end of next week.

Until then, enjoy the continuation of Snowflakes In Autumn…

Snowflakes In Autumn
Chapter Three, Part Four

(click here to start at Chapter One, Part One)

By rotating drivers between myself, Wade, and Cathy, we managed to arrive in Orlando later that night. We checked ourselves into a cheap and scary motel, where Cathy spent a solid half-hour involved in a furious examination of our room’s bed linens. Once satisfied with their cleanliness, she stripped them off the bed and threw them to the floor.

“I brought my own,” she said. She opened her suitcase and produced two sheets. They had little yellow flowers on. “We can use these.”

“But you just spent thirty minutes inspecting the sheets that were already on the bed!” I exclaimed.

“Yeah, I know.”

“And then you said they looked clean enough.”

“Yeah, they did. But I know that mine are clean.”

“Ok,” I sighed, accepting defeat in the face of woman-logic. “Did you pack any for them?”

She shook her head. “No,” she said. She turned around and pointed at Wade and Ryan. They were lying on top of their bed’s comforter, both fully dressed from shirt to shoes and fast asleep. Wade was snoring. Ryan was drooling. “I don’t think they mind.”

We put her dainty sheets on the bed and crawled between their cheerful and odious little flowers. She rolled onto her side and traced her forefinger around my chest.

“Thank you again for bringing me here, Connor.”

I put my arm around her and said, “You’re welcome, but you don’t have to keep thanking me, you know. I wanted you to come.”

She pushed herself up to rest her head on her hand and look up at me. “Why is that?” she asked.

“Why? Because I just wanted you to. It wouldn’t be any fun if you weren’t here.”

“Awww. You’re so sweet.”

“Thanks. I try.”

She put her head back down on my chest and we laid in silence, waiting for sleep to come. After several minutes had passed, Cathy began to whisper.

“Connor?” she breathed, almost silently, imperceptibly. “I think I’m falling in love with you.”

At first, I thought about pretending to be asleep or that I just didn’t hear her. Instead, I found myself saying, “Me too, but pick a different word.”

“What? Why?”

“Because I don’t want to fall in love with anybody.”

She sighed and said, “Yeah, me either.”

“So let’s pick a different word. We can use it until we’re ready for the real word.”

“Ok,” she said. “What word should we use?”

I looked around and tried to find inspiration in the darkened shapes of the room and in the shadows that moved across them from the headlights of cars whizzing by on the Interstate. I breathed in a deep sigh and said, “I don’t know. I can’t think of anything.”

“Yeah, me either.”

We sat for a few more minutes, hoping a word would pop into our heads. I tried to think of something that would be special between us, that would only have meaning for the two of us as a couple. Eventually, just when I was about to give up and surrender to sleep, it came to me. I looked down at the absurd and silly sheets that we were snuggling between in this seedy little motel room, and I smiled.

We were lying in a den of filth, but were nestled between two clean sheets. Sheets that Cathy had provided, and that I’d helped her put onto the bed to cover its multitude of suspicious stains. I thought of the bizarre and wonderful juxtaposition between the nicotine-stained walls and sullied linens of the decaying motel room and the crisp, clean sheets that Cathy had provided, even with their offensively cheerful little flowers. The contrast between filth and purity, sin and redemption, lust and love was obvious, and I thought of how lucky I felt. I’d somehow found safe and tranquil waters amid a turgid ocean that had been ripping me apart for years, and now – with Cathy – I was finally at peace. She, with her plain ways and honest disposition, was herself a clean sheet spread over the bed of my own wicked and lust-filled past. She was my new beginning, my fresh start.

I looked down at Cathy’s sweet and simple face, put my hand on her head and, leaning my head down to lightly brush my lips against her cheek, I whispered one word into her ear.

She smiled and looked at me, her eyes dancing in the room’s dim light. “I like that.” She smiled.

And, as she closed her eyes and we snuggled in close together, skin against skin and heart against heart, she repeated the word.

“Flower.”

Continued in Chapter 4

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