LWL Shorts

Welcome To LWL Shorts

Many of our readers have asked us to create shorter reads so they can enjoy them at lunch, or on a break at work or on the ride home. Dick and I always listen to you and so we created LWL Shorts, a limited collection of short stories that you can ourchase for your reading pleasure. With few exceptions most are under thirty pages. We will also be serializing some of our larger works.

As always we welcome and listen to your comments and suggestions and we hope you enjoy reading our shorts.

- Deana Walters

David Rivers was thirsty, too thirsty…

He awakened suddenly from a tortured sleep and tried to get his bearings. Blinking rapidly, trying to focus his steely gray eyes, he realized he was blindfolded. His mouth felt like cotton and his throat was dry. He desperately needed a drink of water. His thoughts turned to the night before and the party. What a blast! The champagne had flowed like a never-ending fountain.

Not one prone to hangovers, a night of drinking should not have produced this fog. His body felt achy and tight as he attempted to remove the blindfold. After repeated attempts at movement he realized he was tied down. Panic welled in his throat and crying out only produced a raspy whisper. He was bound face down and spread eagled with what appeared to be heavy velvet ropes, similar to drapery tiebacks. Now, if he could only figure out where he was, how he got here and what nut case tied him up.

Still under the influence of the champagne, he drifted off. His reverie was disturbed by the sound of a rich contralto voice stating very matter of factly, “you will pay for what you have done!” Before he had a chance to process the new information he heard a sharp crack and felt the intense stinging pain of a lash on his bare buttocks simultaneously. The feel of soft fur being dragged across his now aching posterior followed this. He squirmed against the tethers as the fur criss-crossed over and over again.

Several minutes passed and David thought he was alone once more. His senses were reeling as his mind tried to clear and focus on the events at hand. At this point he feared the worse, whatever that was was yet to be.

“Is someone there?” His squeaky voice was buried in the mattress and barely audible.

“Pay attention! I am not finished with you yet! You will pay for what you have done. Make no mistake about that!”

Lying there bare-assed and exposed to the world, David tried as hard as he could to remember anything he could have said or done that would have pissed someone off enough to kidnap him and hurt him this way. The sound of another crack and the stinging pain of the lash once again meeting his tender flesh interrupted his thoughts. His muffled cries were somewhat soothed by the soft sensual feel of the fur. Confusion began to assert itself like an unwanted guest who refused to leave. As intense as the pain was, so sensual and pleasurable was the soft stroking with the fur. What method of torture was this?

The Attic

Robert Chambers sat in his favorite chair in front of a silent television and thought. The house was quiet except for the occasional and expected chiming of the grandfather clock in the foyer. Like most things in his life, the sound the old clock made was a constant; it was anticipated. He liked things that way. To some it would seem as if he was extremely naïve; after all wasn’t life about being adventurous and taking chances? He sat there in his favorite chair, in his favorite room sipping his favorite scotch. The large cardboard pouch remained unopened. He knew who it was from and he had a good idea of the contents. He turned it over a few times and thought. He thought about what a good and patient person he was. He thought about how kind and selfless he was and he thought about the envelope. He knew he should have ripped it open like a child at Christmas who can’t wait to see what is inside the fancy wrapping paper. There was nothing fancy about the envelope. It was the standard FedEx pouch, the kind every recipient had to sign for in order to make the exchange with the courier. He took another sip of the scotch. He had a headache and heartache and at this point it was difficult to tell which was the more painful of the two. He placed the envelope on his lap, folded his hands and thought.

The light of the day was fading as was the warmth, and he knew it would be dark soon. It would be time to prepare dinner and eventually he supposed it would be time to open the pouch. The noise emanating from his gut determined his priority in the matter, and he stood up from his favorite chair, downed the last of the scotch and placed the pouch on the seat of the chair.

Robert Chambers walked the few feet to the kitchen and began preparing dinner. Tonight would be easy since he would be dining alone. He would prepare a man’s meal – rare red meat, one half of a baked potato and a salad, a real salad; the kind of salad where you rubbed the bowl with a clove of garlic and then lightly tossed real greens - radicchio, endive, baby spinach with a few baby portabella mushrooms and a handful of grape tomatoes added to complete the vegetable medley. He would top it with the dressing of his choice without the noise of feminine protestation.

The dining room table was filled with things that belonged elsewhere, and he casually pushed them aside to make room for his dinner plate and salad bowl. The food quelled the symphony in his stomach but did little to alleviate his other pains. That would come later. For now he was intent on enjoying the meal.

If you want to know more about what was in the pouch and what Robert Chambers does next you can order the entire salacious tale of "The Attic" on CD for $4.50 plus shipping and handling.

The Dryer

GREGORY TEARDON WAS RUNNING LATE. HE HATED Mondays with a passion and this one was off to a hellacious start. The acquisition meeting was in less than two hours and the printer in his home office was on the fritz. Monjay, (SHE gave the dog that stupid name) had managed to eat most of his presentation document and if things weren’t already bad enough, he couldn’t find his favorite shirt.

Along with his shirt, Carol seemed to be MIA also. Under normal circumstances this wouldn’t really trouble him. Talk about elusive, that woman was like a butterfly. Whenever he entered a room, she left the room. If he sat on the sofa she would move to the chair. Finally she moved out of the house and out of his life - sort of. Every Monday morning she would show up to do the laundry. When they were married she always considered it a chore, now she considered it doing him a favor (?). Greg suspected it was her way of checking up on his newly acquired state of bachelorhood. It was now 7:30 a.m., and no project, no printer, no shirt and no Carol.

Greg Teardon was not a slob nor was he a neatnik. When it came to work matters he was the epitome of organization, however, when it came to his closet – well let’s just say that Martha Stewart would be extremely underwhelmed. He had ten or so dress shirts but the pale blue one was his favorite. It was his “dress for success” shirt, and if ever there was a time when he needed luck, today was the day. He thought back to the day he received the shirt.

Carol Teardon was a notorious gift giver. Never one to miss a birthday, anniversary or those greeting card inspired “special days”, she seemed to own stock in the wrapping paper-greeting card business. There were plastic containers in the basement, all neatly labeled as to what holiday their contents represented. There was also the largest index card box Greg had ever seen. The dividers were tabbed to separate the social greeting categories, i.e. birthday, anniversary, Christmas, etc. An inquisitive snooper, Gregory Teardon was the bane of his wife’s gift giving existence, which made hiding places exercises in futility.

The year she gave him the shirt as a birthday present he had come home early and found her in the laundry room. She seemed a little flustered at the time and it wasn’t until later that Greg discovered the reason. He had apparently arrived home just as she was finishing wrapping the shirt. With no place to run, so to speak, she had placed the gift and the paper scraps into the dryer. That occurred two days before she left.

Swearing silently, Greg now considered throwing both the dog and the printer through a window. It was now 8:00 a.m. and apparently for the first time in nine months, Carol was a no show. He would have to find the missing shirt and solve the printer problem on his own. Women! Man could truly not live without them. Of course living with them at times was almost a fate worse than death. The ringing of the telephone distracted him momentarily.

“Greg? I just called to let you know that I won’t be stopping by on Mondays anymore. I have decided to make a life for myself and I don’t think I can do that if I keep returning to the scene of the crime. I hope you understand.”

What Greg understood was that his ex-wife had the timing of a dead turtle. For almost a year she had shown up like clockwork and on the one day he needed her (whoa- was he really thinking that?) she decided never to grace his doorway again. The gods were clearly not in his corner today.

“I’m happy for you Carol and as always I wish you the best. Before you go, would you by chance have any idea where I could find my favorite shirt, you know the blue one you gave me?”

Carol Teardon thought back to the last time she did laundry for Greg. The shirt had been among the others and she remembered how she held it against her face, closed her eyes and sighed as she took in the essence of him. She could smell everything about him in the shirt.

“Yes, actually I do. You wore the shirt a week ago so it should be the second shirt from the bottom in the hamper underneath the laundry chute. I have to run. Have a good life Greg. Bye.”

So that was it! The done deal was now officially done. No more laundry day visits from Carol. Why did God create Mondays? Wasn’t life tough enough?

Gregory Teardon found his favorite shirt right where Carol said it would be. If he hurried he could wash and dry it, somehow fix the printer, not kill Monjay and still make the presentation by 11 a.m.

So now you are scratching something wondering what is so hot about a story about a guy whose dog at his presentation and who can't find his way around the clothes hamper now that his ex is not coming around anymore. Trust me the heat is on -will Carol come back to repair the dryer and do a little work on Greg at the same time? Does Greg just chalk it up and go to a laundromat where he meets a really hot attendant? All of these questions are answered in "The Dryer", a hot short story from the writing team of Lambkin and Walters. Buy it for only $4.95 plus $2.00 shipping and handling. You won't be disappointed!