Snippet from work in progress

[TheWritingGroup]

I got stuck for a while, but now my story is finally progressing again. Here's a little snip from today's work.

"What is bimbo? This video (and my other videos) will teach you how to hide all your smarts, all your skills, all your adulthood. No matter what you look like, no matter your age, you can use this course to become a pretty young girl, who needs lots of help to do anything. You will be constantly confused, always asking for lessons, always wanting a pat on the head. Use these techniques to make your life so much easier. If you're a bimbo, everyone offers to help you. When you're a bimbo, nobody asks you do anything difficult, because they think you can't. Learn from my videos, and you can coast through life, because nobody thinks you're capable of more."

(I don't celebrate Christmas, so for the next couple of days I don't have a lot to do but write.)

-Annie

 

[StillStunned]

Here's a bit I wrote this afternoon, continuing one of my snippets in the Fairy Tales Writing Exercise:

The Princess was intrigued. “What are you?” she asked, rising out of the water. Drops sparkled like diamonds on her skin.

“An Ogle,” the stranger replied, eyes running over her body like a tongue. “And I’m going to eat you.”

“Eat me?” the Princess exclaimed. “That doesn’t seem very clever. I’m not a sweet pastry, or a cream tart. I doubt I’d taste very nice.”

“Oh, you’ll taste just fine.” And indeed the Ogle was licking his lips with his long tongue as if relishing her flavour.

“But what if I don’t want to be eaten?”

“Have you ever been eaten before?”

The Princess considered this for a moment, then said, “No, but I can’t imagine I’d enjoy it. I once ate a meat pie that disagreed with being eaten, and it made its feelings plainly known.”

 

[Rob_Royale]

Good thread.

From the WIP, Passion at the Opera.

As the company gathered in the rehearsal room, the normally stern Ona approached him. There were tears brimming in her eyes. “Do we really have a patron? You didn’t do something foolish like Faust?”

Andre beamed. “Aside from taking a page from our esteemed Alexandre Dumas, I have done nothing untoward.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a silver ladies wallet. Ona’s eyes went wide. The wallet itself was worth a fair sum.

“I am to return this wallet to its owner on the evening of our Valentine’s performance. What’s inside will keep us going and see to the hiring of what we need.” Ona took the wallet as surreptitiously as possible and slipped it into one of the many handsewn pockets in her skirts.

 

[WCSGarland]

From the WIP - Another Door Opens

Shortly after 10 A.M. I received a text message from Jessa with a selfie of both herself and Kat in front of the sign for the Outlet Shoppes. The selfie of them made me chuckle. They both were sticking their tongues out, presumably at me. They looked cute, sexy and happy together. I fervently wished that this would be a friendship that satisfied that portion of Kat that I alone could not satisfy, female companionship that I could not provide that I thought Kat so desperately needed; the kind of friendship that would give her shared secret snickers of knowing non-vocal communications.

 

[NightPorter]

Good Idea for a thread.

From the WIP - Ciaphas Cain and the Golden Panties. A fan fiction set in the Warhammer 40k universe.

≡][≡​

Editorial Note:

It was thanks to my extensive personal association with the late Commissar Cain that I’ve been able to disseminate portions of his unpublished memoirs to a gratifyingly large selection of my inquisitorial colleagues for their perusal. During Cain’s long and very lively career, he fought all manner of humanity’s enemies across the portion of Imperial space known as the Damasus Gulf. His insights offer a considerable and surprising amount of obscure knowledge on the nature of our collective enemies. It is my hope that his life’s work may live on after his death and be of some use to humanity, offering some insight into the machinations of our insidious foes.

Although I must say, there was bound to be fragments of Cain’s narrative that contained little in the way useful information to justify their dispersal among the Inquisition. Or if I’m being completely honest, far too personal to ever consider doing so. My decision to not widely circulate this portion of the archive may seem like an obvious one in retrospect but my decision to edit it at all may seem perplexing to some. Indeed, I’m unsure of who might actually read this, as I have no intention of releasing it to anyone. Nevertheless, even these self-aggrandizing ramblings should be preserved for posterity’s sake, if nothing else. Even if my first instinct upon reading them was to throw them into a plasma reactor.

 

[PennyThompson]

Ooh fun thread idea
Ok, I've got a little snippet from my next chapter that I'm slightly proud of, and that doesn't contain any direct spoilers!

“I think that’s the one,” Penny peered at her map app and then at a two-story craftsman across the street. “Oh gosh, I hate knocking on doors… I wish there was, like, a less aggressive way to let someone know you’re in front of their house. Like texting instead of calling someone. But for doors.”

Mikayla rolled her eyes. “Congratulations Red, I think you just invented The Doorbell.”

 

[NotWise]

Sure, why not. Nick catches Rachel as she's trying to leave work:

“Let me take you to dinner—right now.”

“No, Nick.” She shook her head and adjusted her purse on her shoulder.

I was out of ammunition. I needed to regroup, so I followed her through the door and said, “I talked to Emily this afternoon.”

That made her stop long enough for me to catch up before she started again. “What did Emily tell you?” she asked.

“That you’ve been in a mood.” I thought I could outflank her. “I want to talk. We should have talked last week.”

“Talk about what?” she asked.

My voice was a little loud. “Shallow, meaningless sex.” I took her by surprise.

 

[StillStunned]

From "The Princess and the Ogle", the same WIP as above:

By the bank of the pond she stopped and looked around. The Forest was quiet, apart from the leaves rustling in the trees and the birds singing on their branches. It was empty, besides the sunlight playing on the trunks and the ground and the water before her.

Still, the Princess didn’t take off her dress. She only pulled it up to her knees, then removed her shoes and sat with her feet dangling in the cool water. A fish came up and nibbled at her toes, and she gave a small laugh at the tickling sensation that crept through her.

“It seems I’m to be eaten after all, you bold fish!” she exclaimed. “Perhaps it’s not so bad as I’d feared.”

The fish continued to nibble away, and the Princess lay back on the grass and looked up at the sky through the trees. It was strange, she thought, how such a small sensation in her toes could travel all the way along her foot, and up her leg to her knee, and then her thigh, as if the fish was nibbling at the skin there, which was impossible of course, but maybe she should pull her dress up a little higher in case the material was in the way, and perhaps brush her fingers along her thigh just to make sure there wasn’t really a fish there, and then–

With a jerk she sat up. The feeling of being watched was so strong that she knew she wasn’t alone anymore. “Ogle?”

 

[Blind_Justice]

Here goes. "Flight Of The Red Queen", or at least a tiny snippet of it. Native speakers, did I format the time stamp correctly?

In the skies over Wyoming​

Monday, June 12th, 2023
08:23 hours

“Jeeves, explain that communication device again please,” Toby said. “Or rather, which exact spell I need to invoke to talk to the two F-22's heading my way. They don't seem to be too friendly.”

“We've been over this, young sir. It's called 'open comms' and begins with the phrase 'omnia audit'.”

“Fantastic. What's the Latin for 'supersonic attack aircraft?”

“Once 'open comms' is invoked, the suit will do the rest.”

Toby sighed. “You know, the mixture of autonomous systems and needless micromanagement is kind of unintuitive. How am I supposed to make split-second decision when the freaking manual is taking up half of the goddamn library?”

“You'll get used to it, much like your father and grandfather before you.” The butler sounded slightly amused. “And believe me when I say that they had it much, much worse.”

A threat alarm interrupted their discussion. Both F-22's had painted him with their targeting systems.

“Let's hope this works before they lose their patience,” Toby muttered. “Omnia audit!”

“... I repeat – You have entered restricted air space. Identify yourself, present sufficient clearance or be forcibly removed. We can't be held responsible for your safety in case of noncompliance.”

“This is To... Silver Knight. I have an appointment with Agent Kärcher of S.H.A.D.O.W. at Mother Base in... about six minutes. Don't shoot, I'm a friendly. Authorization three-fiver-niner-two.”

“You don't sound like Silver Knight,” a female voice said over comms. “I've shaken his hand often enough when he came by the office.”

Both fighter craft passed him within less than three hundred meters before banking for another pass. The suit's hover jets canceled the wash and shockwaves without Toby's involvement, leaving him perfectly balanced, hovering at 1200 meters altitude over the endless corn fields.

“Didn't you read the briefing, Yankee Two?” the other pilot asked. “It's the new guy.”

“Aw, right. Totally forgot. Toby Senior had an accident. My condolences, kid.”

“Can I get some comms discipline up there please?” Agent Kärcher's voice cut through the chatter like an icicle through an unprotected windpipe. “Silver Knight – your suit should be picking up a guide signal right... now. Follow it down to the ground. I'll be picking you up.”

“Sure thing,” Toby said. And right on cue, a fresh navigation marker appeared in his vision. He made the gesture to lower overall thrust and descended towards the distant ground below while the fighter jets resumed their patrol overhead.​

 

[onehitwanda]

From my ongoing albatross, The Paladin

“Bring. Her. Back.”

Lilith jerked. She lifted her tear-stained face and stared at me.

The words I'd uttered felt strange, as if a stranger spoke them with my mouth. I swallowed, moved my jaw, my tongue, tried to make my voice sound even remotely like mine.

“Bring her back,” I repeated. “You can, can't you. You're a Power, an Archangel, one of the original Seven. Bring her back. You owe her that. She saved you. She freed you. Bring her back...”

Lilith's gaze was sombre, her cheeks tear-streaked and her eyes infinitely sad.

“I... may not,” she said. “Not like this. Not even Azrael himself may. Val is... no more. She will never...”

“Bring her back!” I screamed. I lunged forward over my love's body and I grabbed Lilith by the worn and tattered folds of her threadbare jacket. “Bring her back to me! Do it! You... you spiteful bitch, you owe her! Give her back to me! I... I need her... I cannot... I can not...”

I felt her arms close around me and she pulled me to her, and she held me and rocked me gently as my hot tears fell onto my love where she lay so cold and still between us.

“Give her back to me,” I whispered at last. “Please...”

 

[NotWise]

Here goes. "Flight Of The Red Queen", or at least a tiny snippet of it. Native speakers, did I format the time stamp correctly?

Timestamp looks OK to me. "Endless cornfields" in Wyoming caught my attention, though.

They have endless rangeland in Wyoming. Farming is relatively limited.

 

[yowser]

From my Pink Orchid piece upcoming:

“So what is it you want Steph? You want a guy? You’ve said over and over that after your first marriage, and even before that, with me, that the entanglements weren’t worth it.”

“No, you’re right again. I don’t want a guy. I am thinking for this birthday, this final birthday on the Cape, that I want a final blast of summer. Not a guy, but guys. Plural.”

Jed put his head back and laughed.

His eyes twinkled when he returned his gaze to Stephanie.

“You’re serious. And ever since I’ve known you there was never one guy who could keep you happy. Unlike work, or any other aspect of your life, you’re like a pogo stick on the romantic level, hopping from one fellow to another, never landing for long.”

“Yep. That’s how it’s gone. And I don’t mind it, for the most part. It’s a feature, not a bug.”

Jed spread his hands. “Okay. That’s fine. But you just said ‘guys’ plural. I can guess what that means, but is that really what you want?”

 

[PennyThompson]

Native speakers, did I format the time stamp correctly?

If you're going for US Military Time, you would usually format it without the colon.
So, "0823 hours."

If you wanted to really be accurate, you could also use a full US Military Date Time Group, which follows a specific format to include exact date, time, and UTC time zone.

For the time and location you mention, that would look like:

"120823Tjun23"

Authorization three-fiver-niner-two

You should say "Three-Five-Niner-Two." Niner is used in radio communications so you don't confuse Five with Nine

And yeah, what NotWise said, in Wyoming think cattle not corn

 

[Comshaw]

From one I've been working on for a bit:

“I do have one question.” The first Officer said, “you said the cargo handlers are a bit rough around the edges. Exactly what did you mean?”

The Captain smiled and replied, “Because they spend most of their career in stasis or at spaceports, the handlers don’t have permanent attachments to other people. As a consequence, they have acquired peculiar tastes. Have you ever visited some of the shops around spaceports?”

“No I’ve never had the opportunity.” Came the reply.

The Captain's grin widened as he said, “You need to walk around and observe when we get to Tortuga. Body mods are a popular thing. Some of the most radical are eyes in the back of the head, a second set of arms, stuff like that. I’ll bet that out of the 40 handlers we have on board, at least 4 or 5 have twins.”

“Twins?” The First Officer looked puzzled.

“Yes. It’s a body mod that got started a few years ago around the spaceport on the planet Frontier. It’s the addition of an extra penis.”

“WHAT?” The first Officer gasped.

“Yes.” The Captain grinned and chuckled, “They have a second penis grafted on.”

“I would have never guessed such things were possible, much less that some people would do that.” The First Officer replied.

A mental picture of his conservative parents popped into his mind and he wondered what their reaction to what they considered deviant behavior would be. He instantly knew he would never tell them about some of the things he was learning.

Comshaw

 

[soflabbwlvr]

From my current project that I am hoping to finish in time for the Pink Orchid event:

"My brother had an electric guitar that he couldn’t play for shit. Most days he was too strung out on heroin to practice, so I picked it up and learned how to play. Sort of. Well, I learned a few chords from this guy I was fucking—actually, he was my brother’s dealer. They would shoot up, fucking useless Jeff would pass out, and his dealer and I would push Jeff onto the floor and fuck in his bed while he slept it off. Afterward we laid there naked while he gave me guitar lessons. After that I just took possession of Jeff’s guitar. He didn’t know where it went. I let him think he had pawned it to buy drugs. He never really missed it."

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

Just a teaser from my next offering;


Paul was driving and that meant I had to behave. Carla, though, we were barely out of the parking lot when she climbed into Hank’s lap and lowered herself onto his raging erection. It was the single most emasculating thing I had ever experienced, yet it was so erotic I couldn’t contain myself.

I reached over and unzipped Paul’s pants, pulling his cock free, and took him in my mouth. Using Carla’s moans and cries as inspiration, I sucked my first cock.

“Fuck this shit. Do you have lube?” Paul gently pulled me off his cock, stopping what I was doing. He had parked in an alley somewhere. Hank was pounding Carla from behind in the back seat. I found my purse and dug out the small bottle, handing it to Paul. While he opened it and slathered the cool liquid on his cock, I slipped my panties to my ankles and hiked my skirt up over my ass, offering it to Paul.

There was no ceremony, no preparation. Paul drove into me with a vengeance, splitting me open as I screamed. Carla’s strap-on was amazing, but there was no substitute for the real thing. The pain of being violated melded with the growing sensation of pleasure I had learned from Carla. It was different, though, more intimate. If you call getting fucked in the ass in the front seat of a Tahoe in the alley behind a 7-11 intimate.

 

[LiterallyLiterate]

A little something from a fan fiction piece I wrote. May end up never posting it, but I liked this passage.

Finally, her inevitable dizziness took over and she stumbled. Arms flailing and laughter ringing, she fell down, her dress bunched up around her waist. It was indeed a black, silky something. A very small, silky something. I was caught off guard by the sudden expanse of flesh and stared shamelessly. Her long, slender legs, skin flawless and tanned, ended in a smooth ass, perfectly rounded and mostly bare.

‘You know,’ she said softly, ‘that’s the most fun I’ve had in a long long time. If the pictures are half as good as I think they are, your reputation is half as good as it should be.’

I reluctantly tore my eyes from her flawless ass and met her eyes. They smoldered with unrestrained, raw sex appeal.

‘I didn’t come here simply to get cute pictures of myself in a field of grass,’ she said, her voice low and throaty. ‘But I wanted to be sure you were as good as they said, before…’

‘Before what?’ I asked, a sudden lump in my throat.

 

[MrPixel]

I keep misreading the title of this thread as "Shipment from work in process." I click on it, but can't find the tracking number anywhere.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

From a different WiP. The character in question has been forcibly drugged, and feels hazy and out of it. She's just said that she's "somewhat coherent" for a person dosed with this drug, and is explaining why:

"Multiple megadoses of ildeslafine HCL over an extended period have undoubtedly modulated the expression of the glutamate transporter gene. As you know, ildeslafine metabolytes are chemically similar to glutamate and cellular uptake is by the same receptors, so I extrapolate that my cells, especially in and adjacent to the limbic system, are sub-average in their reaction to the metabolytes, thus my ability to be somewhat coherent now."

To which the person she's talking to responds, ""Somewhat coherent?!"

Can you tell I'm trying to establish that Liz is a scientist?

-Annie

 

[MillieDynamite]

This is a little piece about a hitwoman. Here's a little taste; hope you don't mind that iron-rich flavor.

Manfred Costner lay on the floor, naked, dazed, confused, and attempting to clear his frazzled mind. He couldn’t quite grasp what was going on. The floor was warm and wet, and liquid spread out from him, ebbing toward the wall. There was a sharp pain a shade below his head in the back of his neck. He’d tried to touch it but couldn’t move his arms.

“I hope you enjoyed your night, sweetheart. Your ex wanted you to have fun… before.”

Costner barely managed to turn his head toward the sound of her voice. He gazed across the sea of red creeping toward her. Robyn had on the sexy dress again. He’d hoped they’d fuck again, though, at that moment, he couldn’t possibly manage it.

“Before what?” he said, oblivious to the fact.

“Manfred, you’re bleeding out, darling.”

“Oh,” he said, still not comprehending that he was dying. “Why can’t I move my arms or legs?”

“Well, baby, I cut your spine at the base of your neck this morning. Then I rolled you off the bed. You landed face down. After that, I stab you four or five times in the liver.”

“Why? I really liked you.”

“Tonya, the ex-Mrs. Costner paid me to kill you.” But before she finished the sentence, his eyes went blank. His mind still a wash in confusion. Removing the burner phone, she snapped a pic and sent it to Tonya Langston.

 

[ChloeTzang]

LOL. A snippet from the start of “Dead Heart: On the Trail of Thylarctos Plummetus”

“Oh god, Steve,” I said, pretty much half an eon later, coz it’d taken me that long for my breathing and my eyesight to get back to normal. “I love you.”

“Love you too, Chloe,” Steve said, nibbling my ear so that I squeaked and giggled and kind of bucked but that didn’t do much coz Steve’s a big guy.

“That’s a nice welcome home,” I sort of purred. “Want to take a shower with me and we can do it in bed. I can unpack in the morning.” Coz Steve had to head in to the office in the morning but I had another couple of days before I was scheduled on again.

“Yeah, well, sort of lucky we made it home at all, Chloe,” Steve said. “I really think maybe we should talk about calling this monster hunting quits. Red was hairy enough, and as for those vampires..." He shivered. "And Dungalaba? Jesus, I’m gonna have nightmares about this trip. I swear I thought he was gonna get you there.”

“You are?” I didn’t think Steve had nightmares about anything. Well, except me kicking him in the balls sparring down at the Taekwondo school but that’d been a total accident and the swelling had gone down after a week. He still flinched when I kicked low, the big silly. I hadn’t done it on purpose, and I’d been sparring for practice, not going full contact. If I had, he’d have needed a transplant, not ice-packs for a week.

Steve gave me the look.

“Chloe. Think about it. It was pretty close ‘n that was just luck that Jawoyn charm thing worked like that.”

“It was?” Jesus, now I was gonna freak coz I’d been so sure Steve had it planned.

“Yeah, it was, Chloe. How about we just stick to the easy stuff. Leave that demon hunting to the professionals.”

“Steve.”

“Yeah.”

“Think about what you just said, Steve. Dungalaba took out a security team and a bunch of professional Aussie monster hunters and half an Aussie SAS troop before we got it. You ‘n me and Zeb ‘n EB ‘n Jason ‘n the others took that demon croc out where those guys failed. We ARE the professionals at this, Steve. I’ve got three messages on my voicemail and we haven’t even told anyone we do this shit. People out there need us, Steve. There’s some bad shit out there and there’s not many people can deal with it. Maybe we should think about quitting the day jobs and just do this professionally for real.”

I smiled. “The money’s good, I mean, we just made six months of our normal income in one week and I like the perks.”

“Perks? Jesus, Chloe. Dying gruesomely’s not a perk.”

I shrugged. “It's a lovely jacket, know any other girls with a jacket made from demon croc hide from the dreamtime, and we took out that demon croc, Steve. Lost a couple of the guys but we took it out. We ARE the professionals, Steve. We’re good at this. Okay, maybe we’re not up there with the company’s that’ve been doing this for years but we’re good. We got a niche here, Steve. We should think about it.”

“Think about it? Jesus, Dungalaba still gives me the shivers, Chloe. He was gonna eat you.”

I giggled. “Steve, everyone wants to eat me.” I batted my eyelids shamelessly. “Don’t you want to eat me, Steve.” I looked down, giggled again. “Maybe we can take a shower together and you can eat me, Steve. I’d like you to eat me.”

We looked at each other. Steve smiled and okay, knew I’d won. This time.

“Come here, Chloe,” he said, rolling onto his back on my werewolf-skin rug in front of the fireplace and stretching lazily and I did enjoy watching him stretch. Every time he did that I wanted to purr and nibble on him.

“Mmmm, sure,” I breathed, sliding over and onto Steve and okay, I was going to have to do some work here before we seriously got started but I knew it’d be worth it in the end. “Do you want to be Red today?” I giggled. “Red Steve, the big bad priapic werewolf, out to eat little Chloe?”

“I know what happened to Red, Chloe.” Steve grinned, coz he did. He’d helped me collect the skin. We were lying on Red right now. “It’s… uh… let’s just say, no, not today, I’d rather do something much more… holiday. That’s it. Holiday. Give me a holiday story, Chloe. Something totally hot. You know, Chinese girl, big gweilo guy, wild sex. Something like that.”

“Oh well, sure,” I said, coz I did like the idea of doing it doggy style because that way I got to bury my face in Red’s fur and the smell of that shaggy coat and remembering that surprised look on Red’s face as I blew his head off always did things for me and that website had said that’s how werewolves did it but I guess. Steve was the one
who had to get it up after all and yeah, well, I could make up a hot story about just about anything as long as there was a Chinese girl involved.

“Holiday,” I said. And then I grinned. “Well, there was this couple lying in front of the fire about to make love and go at it like bunnies and then the phone rang and when the girl answered it, there was this Australian guy on the other end and he asked them if they’d like to visit Australia for a short exciting vacation in the Australian outback…”

“Owwwww!” I squealed, coz Steve’d slapped my butt and his hand was hard. “You big meanie.” But then I had to giggle coz I had been pulling his chain and of course that was how it’d all started….

 

[PennyThompson]

Just getting started on my next chapter, and I felt all warm and tingly and nostalgic after writing this bit

They had pushed their two shitty college dorm twin beds together, making an extremely awkward king-sized monstrosity. It was constantly sliding apart, pillows and plushies getting wedged in the middle, knees getting bruised on the metal bedframe any time the girls got too bouncy.

It was heaven.

 

[MelissaBaby]

I shared this snippet earlier today in another thread, I might as well put it here as well.

I met Mabel Normand once, more than ten years later. It was at a party at Leo McCarey’s house. Someone pointed her out to me. She was sitting by herself in a corner, reading the latest Edith Wharton novel.

I had been in Hollywood for about three years. I had met, acted and slept with some of the biggest stars in the world, but I was nervous as I approached her.

She looked up from her book, and I introduced myself. She smiled, but gave no indication she had any idea who I was.

I told her about seeing Tillie at the state fair, that it was the first movie I ever saw.

When she spoke, her voice was weak. “My god,” she said, “Did I inspire you to come to Hollywood?”

I told her that she had. After a brief coughing fit, she said, “I’m sorry.”

 

[MillieDynamite]

Opening for Amazon Attack, yet another 750-Word story for next month.

I’m not a warrior. I’m Georgios, a tiller of soil. I live in a small village a stone’s throw from Sparta. It is a late spring evening. A thick mist hung in the Grecian night air. She stepped toward me from the swirling fog. In truth, she formed from the vapor, her foot emerging first from the swirling column. The whirling tower became…

Woman.

Tall, muscled, an Amazon warrior stood before me. I should have feared her. Yet my heart leaped for joy. All the buildings, the lights from the homes, and the buildings themselves vanished into the surrounding pea soup.

Leaving only her and I.

 

[Comshaw]

The opening from a story I've been working on for a while:

He gave the throttle a twist, causing the bike to surge forward. The speedometer showed 75 MPH as he shot past the 25 MPH warning sign and leaned into the corner. He felt the edge of his boot sole touch the pavement as the bike screamed into the apex of the curve. A moment later, counter steering, he pushed on the handlebars and leaned opposite the curve, causing the bike to straighten and shoot out of the turn.

As the bike straightened, he was suddenly aware of the two pickup trucks stopped in the middle of the road, one in each lane facing opposite directions. The drivers were leaning out their respective windows, chatting. The time-slowing effect of fear and adrenaline suddenly gripped him. It seemed he had hours to study the vehicles and gauge his actions.

He was sure he didn’t have time to brake and slow down. To the left of the two trucks a rock bank extended down to the edge of the road, blocking any chance of passing on that side. On the right a deep ravine lay next to the road blocking his way. He gauged the space between the two vehicles, unsure if there was room for the bike to pass.

A moment later, decided, he bared his teeth, let out a wild, defiant scream and twisted the throttle wide open, causing the bike to leap forward. The speedometer read 80 MPH as he flashed between the two stationary trucks. A blurred kaleidoscopic impression of pale faces, chrome, mirrors and other vehicle parts assaulted his senses for the microseconds it took him to pass between the two steel walls. He felt a tug on his left arm, then he was passed. A moment later he rounded the next corner and was out of sight of the two vehicles.


Coimshaw