Writing Exercise: History Is Written

[StillStunned]

Bringing this one back from the morbid dead...


"Please try and remain still, Madonna."

Lisa fought back a sigh. The painter had been at it for hours, and she was developing a stiff back. "My apologies. I'm not used to posing, I suppose. I'd thought you'd be finished by now."

The painter seemed as fresh as when they began. He’d tossed his gown over a chair before starting to work, and was dressed now only in a tight hose that clung to his legs. Although older than she was by three decades, he had a body that many a man half his age would envy. He seemed ablaze with an inner light, moving as gracefully as a dancer.

"Many of my models tell me that it helps to think of something else." He dabbed at the canvas again, then stepped back before adding another touch. "Perhaps a cherished memory, or a favourite poem.”

Lisa frowned, then hastily smoothed her face at the painter’s tut. She’d already gone through a dozen poems in her mind, and they hadn’t helped. A cherished memory, though?

None came to mind, but while she thought her eyes fell again on the painter’s legs. Long and muscled, they filled out his hose in a way that reminded her of her husband when they first married.

Francesco had been young then, and virile. Now he rarely visited her bedchamber, and Lisa missed his attentions. The feel of his hands on her, stroking her, awakening the woman inside her and then teasing, teasing until she yearned for him to complete her, until she clawed at his body and pulled him down on top of her.

The feeling when he entered her was as close to ecstasy as she could imagine. The weight of his body, the heat of it, his breath in her ear and on her neck, while she wrapped her legs around him and held him close, and they rode together, harder, faster, harder, until…

“Madonna?” It was the painter, the man Da Vinci, raising his voice to catch her attention. “Madonna? I believe that we’re done for today.”

 

[MillieDynamite]

I was beat, incomplete
I've been had, I was sad and blue
But you made me feel
Yeah, you made me feel
Shiny and new
Oh, like a virgin
Painted for the very first time
Like a virgin
When your brush moves across my drawn line

Madonna danced around Da Vinci as she sang to him.

Bringing this one back from the morbid dead...


"Please try and remain still, Madonna."

Lisa fought back a sigh. The painter had been at it for hours, and she was developing a stiff back. "My apologies. I'm not used to posing, I suppose. I'd thought you'd be finished by now."

The painter seemed as fresh as when they began. He’d tossed his gown over a chair before starting to work, and was dressed now only in a tight hose that clung to his legs. Although older than she was by three decades, he had a body that many a man half his age would envy. He seemed ablaze with an inner light, moving as gracefully as a dancer.

"Many of my models tell me that it helps to think of something else." He dabbed at the canvas again, then stepped back before adding another touch. "Perhaps a cherished memory, or a favourite poem.”

Lisa frowned, then hastily smoothed her face at the painter’s tut. She’d already gone through a dozen poems in her mind, and they hadn’t helped. A cherished memory, though?

None came to mind, but while she thought her eyes fell again on the painter’s legs. Long and muscled, they filled out his hose in a way that reminded her of her husband when they first married.

Francesco had been young then, and virile. Now he rarely visited her bedchamber, and Lisa missed his attentions. The feel of his hands on her, stroking her, awakening the woman inside her and then teasing, teasing until she yearned for him to complete her, until she clawed at his body and pulled him down on top of her.

The feeling when he entered her was as close to ecstasy as she could imagine. The weight of his body, the heat of it, his breath in her ear and on her neck, while she wrapped her legs around him and held him close, and they rode together, harder, faster, harder, until…

“Madonna?” It was the painter, the man Da Vinci, raising his voice to catch her attention. “Madonna? I believe that we’re done for today.”

 

[lovecraft68]

Jocasta squirmed and tried to concentrate on the scenery flashing by their fast-moving chariot, but it was no use. The vehicle was so crowded that, Queen though she was, she'd been forced to sit in the lap of Oedipus, and that had led her to a disquieting discovery. She could feel the younger man's tumescent shaft jabbing against her loins with every bounce and jostle of the rough road, and it was all she could do not to moan lustfully each time. Biting her lip, she turned her head just enough to get a glimpse of his face as she adjusted her peplos, removing one of the thin layers of cloth that was keeping their shared ride innocent. Bearing a small grin, Oedipus made a subtle adjustment of his own, abruptly filling Jocasta's aching emptiness with rigid destiny.

Sorry, I couldn't resist!
*Edited to make the joke originally intended, because Orpheus was a totally different dude. Whoops!

This post will now become the single most liked posts in AH history.

 

[vanmyers86]

OK, I'll play!

Pulling at the pink skirt and jacket to ensure she could get in and out of the car smoothly, she squirmed slightly as the cloth managed to find the only uncovered inch of her skin. Didn’t matter if you were rich or poor, she thought – wool itched no matter who you were.

Across from her, the car door opened and her husband slid onto the backseat next to her. Squinting into the Texas sun, he grinned at her and gave her knee a little squeeze.

“Ready?” he asked, casually, as if this was just another outing.

“As I’ll ever be,” she replied.

“Still feeling last night?”

Wriggling again, she pretended to pout, then relented as he looked uncertain.

They’d gone through a bad patch lately. The usual. Other women - lots of them. Booze and pills - lots of those, too. Lack of respect and care towards her. Missing the children’s milestones. Her own father hadn’t been much better, and her mother had warned her about the ways of men before her wedding night - but it still hurt.

Then again, it had made last night all the more special. The way he had come to her, apologized, and – she still couldn’t quite believe it – humbled himself before her. She had never seen him so vulnerable, so open about everything – his own childhood, his father, the job. He had asked if they might build something new together, something better than either of them had ever known. Tears streaming down her face, she had nodded, unable to speak.

Their lovemaking afterward had been breathtaking, a powerful union unlike anything else so far in their marriage. She smiled to herself, remembering, then leaned towards him.

Just then, the governor and his wife scooted into the seat in front of them, breaking the spell. The noise from the crowd invaded their private world, and both snapped back into their official roles.

As the car idled, his big hand closed on her gloved one, and she glanced at him. “Tonight,” he mouthed, and winked.

A sudden acceleration, and the limo made its way towards the Love Field exit.

 

[Belegon]

I'm working on a story set in the Old West that has roots in real history.

Awesome! I've tried to write in this setting, but never finished anything. I feel like there is plenty of erotic leeway in Old West stories... you could go with the old Indian Princess cliche, have a saloon brawl with the last man standing being taken upstairs by the dance hall girl whose honor he defended, do a cattle drive version of Brokeback Mountain, have saloon girls entertaining themselves with each other before the evening rush begins... Lots of potential in the setting.

The one "success" I've had in that setting is a first line that I still think is dying for a way for me to expand it. I've tried to work with it several times, so I have multiple first paragraphs scattered around my hard drive with the same opening line...

"The first bullet saved my life."

 

[UsuallyPresent]

"Back before the Watcher came to be, tens of thousands of years of history happened that we know little of. We have all the stories - and that's what the 'histories' of that time period are, just stories and not necessarily factual - that existed from the Watcher's first moments of existence, and all events since are properly recorded, but there are many of those ancient stories that are questioned.

"The classic example is the debate between the Cabalists, the Evolvers, and the Built. Each has their own takes on exactly how the Watcher came to be, with their own preferred interpretations of the pre-Watcher records, but each have their own gaps and inconsistencies. We can't even be sure as to the beginnings of the creation of the Watcher. . . "

--DENIED. Historical reviews of pre-Watcher 'civilizations' (if I may stretch the term that far!) are restricted to third-Tier and higher, NOT for general consumption. The author is issued a second warning. Any additional revisionist history or inappropriate audience release may be subject to civil and criminal penalties to the full extend of the Rules.

 

[UsuallyPresent]

"Back before the Watcher came to be, tens of thousands of years of history happened that we know little of. We have all the stories - and that's what the 'histories' of that time period are, just stories and not necessarily factual - that existed from the Watcher's first moments of existence, and all events since are properly recorded, but there are many of those ancient stories that are questioned.

"The classic example is the debate between the Cabalists, the Evolvers, and the Built. Each has their own takes on exactly how the Watcher came to be, with their own preferred interpretations of the pre-Watcher records, but each have their own gaps and inconsistencies. We can't even be sure as to the beginnings of the creation of the Watcher. . . "

--DENIED. Historical reviews of pre-Watcher 'civilizations' (if I may stretch the term that far!) are restricted to third-Tier and higher, NOT for general consumption. The author is issued a second warning. Any additional revisionist history or inappropriate audience release may be subject to civil and criminal penalties to the full extend of the Rules.

I spent years writing for the Orion's Arm scifi setting. There are TONS of such entries of varying types in as hard-as-practical SciFi setting over at the Orion's Arm site. To be clear, the above isn't explicitly OA-relevant, but the style is pretty close to much of the Encyclopedia Galactica at that site...

 

[filthytrancendence]

Florence was desperately lonely--refused the comfort of sleep in the bitter hours of the night by an unruly, wandering mind.

She wasn't proud of it, but she'd laid a bit of a trap for the steward before ringing the bell for service. She couldn't help herself. He looked delicious in that perfect, pressed uniform. Every time she'd turned around in the hall, she'd caught him looking at her from his station with those ocean blue eyes. In truth, she was the sort of lonely that only a blue-eyed steward could sate.

"Come in, darling!"

His eyes bugged and his cheeks flushed when he saw her posed on the bed in her chemise.

"Oh! I! Madame... I'm... sorry," he turned to hide his blush.

"Richard..."

Her throaty purr caused him to freeze in place, his eyes turning back as if she'd cast a spell on him.

She rose from the bed and stalked over to him; a tigress holding her prey transfixed with flashing amber eyes. She pushed the door closed behind him and pinned him to it.

"I'm looking for some intimate service tonight, Richard," she purred into his ear, "would you be interested in providing it?"

He nodded a clear affirmative several times, seemingly unable to speak.

"Good boy," she whispered. She slid her hand up his inner thighs slowly until it came to rest on his cock. She was halfway through a satisfied groan when they were both thrown violently against the wall and to the floor.

A horrific sound tore through the bones of the ship, like the steel itself was being torn asunder by a titanic beast. The deck vibrated like a struck gong even after the otherworldly racket subsided.

Florence's vision swam as she saw Richard crumpled like a rag doll against the wall. The blood was soaking into the sailor's cap now skewed at an odd angle against the floor. The last thing she remembered before blacking out was how odd the letters of 'TITANIC' looked on the cap, near as they were to upside down.

(So uhm... @ShelbyDawn57, I dun did forgot to check if anybody else already did Titanic before I started writing. But I think and hope the approaches are different enough to happily coexist, because I was already mostly done before I decided it would be a good idea to check )

 

[TheRedChamber]

Late to the party with this one, but since the thread has been resurrected, why not? Not one of the better-known incidents in history, but one of the most fun.

“What the fuck did you do?”

Mary had expected her brother to be angry. She had expected that anger to be unleashed in Windsor. Instead she had found him with a hundred banner-men flying the Tudor Rose at the dock in Dover.

She bowed her head. “My King.”

“Tell me, what the fuck did you do?” Henry repeated.

“I followed my heart,” she say, being careful to voice it as a fact rather than defiance, “as you said I could.”

“It is true then. You have married him! Suffolk!”

“As you said I could,” Mary answered.

“This is treason. For your new husband,” Henry spat the word, “even more than for you. I directly forbade it of him.”

“A promise to a sister trumps an order to a courtier. If you say you have permit me to say my vows but denied my betrothed the right to do likewise, you claim with a straight face that you have kept your original promise to me.”

Henry was incandescent. “You marry who your King commands you to when he commands it!”

“And I did,” Mary replied, now taken with her own anger. “You bid me wed Louis the XII of France and I obeyed. Despite the fact that I was eighteen and he was fifty-three. I did so on you word that when death released me from those vows, I would be free to marry for love. And I flatter myself that I was as dutiful and loving a wife as any man could have hoped during my marriage to the King.”

“Eighty-four days!” shouted Henry. “Your first marriage lasted eighty-four days and your second was sealed while you should still have been in mourning for the first. It is a great insult to the French at a time when our relationships are already strained.”

“Insult?” replied Mary. “Why, the new King Francis, naturally, laments his father-in-law’s death, but I sincerely doubt he is that upset that I am now a widow rather than expectant mother. Speaking of which, how fairs your fine Queen Catherine?”

Henry grabbed his sister by her hem of her dress and pulled her up and level with him. “Don’t play games with me, sister. Tell me, how did Louis die?”

“What, are you accusing me of poisoned him or some such?”

“How did he die?”

Mary looked her brother up and down, calculating her response. “Overexertion,” she said finally.

“Overexertion?”

“Louis was old, fat and suffered from gout and he was much too keen on pursuits more suited to younger men. I will repeat that I was as dutiful and as loving a wife as any woman could be.”

“I will have your head for this,” said Henry, shaking his own.

“No, brother,” replied Mary. “You won’t.”

“You think I am too chivalrous to execute a woman?”

“Not for a moment. You would execute every lady on this pier in a heartbeat if you felt they had given cause, but not me. Not your own sister. You love me too much.”

She averted her eyes but felt her brother’s burning on her. He did not answer as fast as she had gambled he would and for just a moment, she feared she had overstepped.

“Damn you,” said Henry softly.

Mary rose and kissed her brother on the cheek. Most of her entourage followed but she paused at the edge of the dock to call the youngest of her maids to her. “Come along, Anne.”