Writing Exercise 9: Hot Stuff

[StillStunned]

Yeah, I can see it now
The distant red neon shivered in the heat
I was feeling like a stranger in a strange land
You know, where people play games with the night
God, it was too hot to sleep
*
Hot town, summer in the city
Back of my neck's getting dirty and gritty...
*
It's hot here at night
Lonely, black and quiet
On a hot summer night
*
I think your nose is peelin'
The sun is hot and clear
The city's fairly steamin'
I can taste your skin from here

Some song lyrics that, I think, capture the idea of sweltering heat of summer. Can we match them? Can we do better? Can we capture that sense of breathless closeness of a summer's night, or the sun hammering down, or the city shimmering in the heat?

Usual rules apply: keep your snippet to 300(-ish) words. It doesn't have to be self-contained, it doesn't have to be the start of a scene or the end. Just write a scene as if you've taken it from one of your stories.

And be respectful of each other's writing when commenting!

 

[StillStunned]

Here's mine:

===
Even with the window open and the curtains drawn back, it was stifling in the loft. The sun had spent the day heating up the air in the small space until it was suffocating.

“It’s hot,” Kat breathed, as if saying it out loud, acknowledging it, would make it better.

“Sorry.” I kicked the covers aside. We wouldn’t be needing it. Already my skin was becoming clammy.

“How do you sleep up here?” The only light came from the moon, swollen and yellow in the thick air outside, too lazy to move. It was enough to show a drop of sweat on her thigh.

I bent down to lick it up. “Mostly I lie awake.”

She didn’t move as my tongue glided over her skin. “What do you think about?”

I glanced up, blinking to clear the sweat from my eyes. Then I grinned. “This.” I kissed further along her thigh, along the inside where the skin was soft and smooth. I encountered another drop of sweat, and licked it up. It was salty on my tongue.

I felt her muscles tense. “I haven’t showered.”

“That’s alright.” My lips continued their slow, careful journey upwards. “I like the scent of your body.”

Slowly she relaxed, as if it was taking a conscious effort. Outside a nightbird cried. My stomach was sticking to the sheet. Taking her thighs in my hands, I parted them gently.

The heat between them was like an oven. The close air, the warmth of her body. She still had on her knickers, and I sensed she wasn’t ready to take them off. So I ran my tongue along the skin of her thighs, seeking out the drops of sweat as they formed on her skin and listening to her quiet gasps.

 

[Voboy]

I couldn’t tell which was worse: the way the air felt dusty as I gagged it in, or the way my clothes clung to my back, a second skin reminding me how much I’d rather be shirtless by the pool. But still, even with all that discomfort, I was able to force myself to focus enough to move the soldering iron where it needed to go, able to hold it still long enough to make the connections, able to remind myself that the work had to get done, and I had to do it… yeah, I was able to keep forcing myself, right up until the sweat got bad enough to roll off my forehead and land on my glasses, the view blurring at once.

And that’s when I flung my glasses aside, tossed the iron in the rack, and stretched my arms high against the unwelcome prickle of the sweat under my arms. “Fuck this.” I needed a cup of coffee. Well. Iced coffee, anyway, or better yet cold brew… and yet? There was none. The freezer had gone wonky two days ago, its frost raining down from the roof while all the ice cream inside turned to milkshakes, then to milk.

But the Telecaster waited, its wiring hanging out like guts, and that needed fixing. So I sighed, more humid air to join with the stuffiness around my workbench, and bent once again over the molten solder. It was only July. August was yet to come. I had no idea how much Gatorade the world could produce to make that tolerable, but I had to try. I reminded myself that tomorrow I should bring a change of clothes to sweat into after the first set got wrecked.

Because the work had to get done, and I had to do it.

***

Voboy hates heat.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Haven’t counted, but it looks about right. From my story It was an Itsy-Bitsy, Teenie-Weenie…

* * * * *

Brazen.

That was the word, Maeve thought, right out of some ancient Greek story like The Odyssey -- a 'brazen' sky. She smiled a little, thinking that her English teacher, Mrs Pensey, would be pleased by her remembering.

Her smile didn't last too long, for this sky was beyond hot. It lay like a low, searing bronze lid over the town, the oven-like temperatures scarcely relieved by the odd feeble twitch of stale, dusty breeze. Air conditioners across the region wheezed in failing attempts to keep up. The demand had become so high that the electrical system was struggling and consumers had been warned of possible rolling service interruptions to avoid a complete collapse. Records weren't being broken - not quite - but the last time it had been this hot for this long had been almost a century ago. People moved noticeably slower outside, speeding up as they neared buildings known to be cool inside. There were reports of families sleeping overnight in their cars to take advantage of vehicle air conditioners and the town council had activated an emergency cooling plan for the poor and elderly, with cots being set up in local gyms and arenas. Tempers were fraying and, after a couple of spectacular brawls in parks and bars, the police had announced an increased presence on the north-east end of town.

Maeve, wearing just panties, groaned in frustration as she tried again to adjust the sweep of the fan sitting on the floor in front of her. Irritatingly, the fan refused to be set to aim in just one direction; it insisted on swinging back and forth, leaving her swaying from side to side in a futile effort to stay in the cooler air stream.

 

[mrs_mackenzie]

“My bollocks have never been so sweaty.”

Darren and Charlie were digging in the garden of 22 Moriston Avenue and it was the hottest day of the year so far. The grass was yellow and wilted and the ground was hard as nails.

Charlie snorted with laughter. He had the relatively easy job of moving earth, while Darren was waist-deep in the hole with a shovel, excavating a faulty power cable.

“It shouldn't be this hot in Scotland. It's not natural.”

“Hi lads. Absolutely scorching today, isn't it? If you want any water, just let yourselves in, kitchen’s on the left. I’m just going out to the gym.”

Both men looked up to see the lady of the house, a Mrs Lyons, walking down the garden path towards the street.

“Will do, thank you,” Darren called back, giving her a wave.

They both paused work to watch her go, encased shoulder to ankle in lycra, ponytail bobbing behind her.

“Fuck me, she's got an arse on her,” Charlie said, when she'd turned the corner. “Mr Lyons must have some right fun with it.”

“I’d nae kick her out of bed, that's for sure,” Charlie replied. “Not much in the chest department, mind.”

“Ach, I don't mind that. More sensitive than great big knockers.”

“Aye; a little pair of tits matches your little dick and all.”

They both laughed, then turned back to work. The sun really was blazing down, and the rest of the day was only getting hotter. Charlie shaded his eyes as he waited for Darren to lift another shovelful of dry soil out of the hole.

“I’m serious though, Charlie, my bollocks really are sweating. It's like a swamp down there.”

“Shut the fuck up, Darren. Hearing about your ball sweat isn't making me feel any cooler.”

 

[StillStunned]

“I’d nae kick her out of bed, that's for sure,” Charlie replied. “Not much in the chest department, mind.”

From my WIP Pandemonium story:

“She’s beautiful.” There was a dreamy look in Thews’s eyes.

“Ha! If I found her in my bed, I wouldn’t kick her out."

 

[Bamagan]

It's high summer in the deep south, and it almost never gets cool. Even in the middle of the night the heat lingers, aimless and sullen. It shuffles back and forth in a breeze that can only stir memories, too weak to lift scraps of paper off the ground. Steam rises from every puddle, loitering on street corners, too brash and insistent to escape without feeling its warm, damp touch. The air is thick, cloyed with sour sweat and sweet blossoms, and drawing breath is like drinking bathwater.
It's a night for jazz.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

The old line up here is, “I wouldn’t throw her out of bed for eating crackers.”

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

My humble offering, and a tribute to our shared muse; @StillStunned. Let me know if you catch it.

===

Oppressive was the only word for it.

Early August heat mixed with the insufferable humidity of the Mississippi delta.

God, I hated New Orleans sometimes. The ceiling fan creaked its lazy circle above the bed, offering no respite from the sticky night. The noises it made were only slightly less intrusive than the thick, tepid air I suffered in my quick shallow breaths. It was too damned hot to breathe. Fuck, I hated this city.

It was my fault. I knew that. I’d left Chicago on a whim. Greener pastures. Bullshit like that. Chasing a dream. New Orleans was the Birthplace of Jazz, after all. Surely my bass and I could find plenty of work. I scrounged enough gigs to pay for the flop I used as a place to sleep–when I could sleep.

Damn this heat, this humidity.

Pools of brine gathered in my neck and the low places on my chest and stomach. Pools that turned into rivulets that would turn into yellow stains on the sticky sheets below me as I fought the night air. I did everything I could not to breathe too deep.

The last thing I wanted to do was start coughing again and wake Amber. She’d worked a double, coming home and collapsing next to me. I smiled when I thought of her. She was the only good thing this cursed city had given me. Her thick ebony body, her smooth skin and easy smile. That and she had a thing for musicians, especially bass players. Even ones that had to scratch and fight for gigs.

I let out a heavy sigh. Damnit. I coughed.

“Davey. You ok?” Amber stirred. Of course, the first thing she thought about was me.

“Yeah, babe. It’s this heat. I can’t sleep.”

“I know. Me either.” The light from the streetlamp outside our window showed me her smile. “Maybe I can help you relax.”

Why not? It just too damned hot not to fuck.

 

[yowser]

All right, a bit over the limit. So sue me. From an early tale in my corpus:

It was beastly hot in Boston. I had begun to wonder why we had made this trip. That summer Melissa and I were working at an Atlantic seaside resort town, her hometown, but had driven in to Boston on a sweltering August Friday afternoon to catch a concert on the city green, Bonnie Raitt along with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. We had bummed a ride from Hal and Erin, vague friends in town and also a couple, and we would be staying at their friend John's flat in Brookline.

On the drive to Boston, windows wide open to catch whatever breeze we could, we saw streams of city dwellers in their cars emptying out of town to the coast, which we had just left. They were far more sensible than us. The roads were clogged with grumpy drivers anxious for some relief away from the city, and the further we got into Boston, the hotter it got, the tall steel and glass buildings reflecting the heat back on to the streets. People walking on the sidewalks looked exhausted and dispirited, their wet clothes sticking to their overheated bodies.

One bank sign we had passed indicated the temperature was 104. Melissa and I looked at each other. No wonder we were sweating like pigs. Boston never got this hot, did it?

Hal and Erin looked just as hot up front in the car. Hal was a skinny surfer-dude type, long dirty-blond hair and slender shoulders and hips. Erin had pale Irish skin and freckles, handsome curly red hair and a big chest for her short size. Flashing eyes and a saucy smile graced her face charmingly and often. The back and armpit portions of Hal's tee-shirt were dark with sweat.

Concert was great, but it was still oppressively hot when close to midnight we got back to John's. Weary, we went to bed straight away, John in his own bedroom at the front of the long narrow flat, Hal and Erin in the empty spare bedroom in the middle.

Melissa and I were on the overstuffed, beat-up couch in the room between the bedrooms and the bathroom.

All the windows were open, but no air moved. Lying there you didn't even contemplate getting up to fetch some iced water out of the fridge -- it was more effort than you wanted to expend. Melissa and I were keeping as far away from each other as possible on the couch, so our sweaty bodies wouldn't touch and create more heat. This was totally frustrating because we had been looking forward to this weekend not only for the concert, but because we might have a chance for some extended intimacies, problematic to us due to our separate, overly-supervised, summer living situations.

So here we were, with a golden sexual opportunity, and it just was too damn hot to even want to do anything fun. I had on a pair of briefs, Melissa in a tee-shirt and panties, her thick prominent nipples exceedingly arousing as they poked at the fabric covering them. Altogether still too much clothes for comfort.