Image: MAKY. OREL via Wikimedia Commons

There’s nothing quite like penning the first few lines of a new story. Realising a new character, allowing them to step out of your head and onto the page; setting a scene and creating a world for them to walk about in. In fact, I think I may have a slight addiction to beginnings because I’m particularly good at writing these as opposed to middles and ends! Looking in my Drafts folder, I’m greeted by a veritable wash of documents containing snippets of text – monuments to ideas that I absolutely had to get down before they disappeared into the black hole of lost thoughts and then, after typing those critical words, promptly did nothing with.

It’s not that I consciously abandon creative flashes, rather that I an idea strikes and nine times out of ten I’m working on something else that means I can’t give it my undivided attention. Inevitably, by the time I have the breathing room to explore it, the urgent creative outpouring I initially experienced has ebbed or I’ve forgotten that I had the idea in the first place. There have been quite a few occasions when I’ve gone to open a document up, seen a file I have no recollection of creating, opened it, and gone “Oh, yeah! Why didn’t I keep going with that?”

So, I need your help, my lovelies. Below, are snippets from three stories I started writing and failed to continue with. There is one that stands out more than the others to me but I thought it would be fun to see which introduction is most appealing to you.

Given the choice, which story should I continue to write? Which would you most like to read?

 

EXCERPT ONE: “CLEAN”

“What do you think you’re doing?”

I shriek, spinning around as I do so. Almost slip on the wet, soapy tiles.

He’s standing right next to the glass door of the shower cubicle, completely naked, a grim look on his face.

Busted.

My face flames and I drop my guilty hands to my sides, the hot shower spray washing the last of the frothy suds from my belly and between my legs, sending them swirling down the drain.

There’s nothing I can say.

We both know that I’ve broken my promise.

I’d hardly say that I’m a neat freak. I’m not the sort of girl who folds up her clothes after wearing them, who makes her bed neatly every morning before skipping merrily off to work. No, more the kind who leaves the washing in the dryer for as long as possible rather than putting it away. Leaves flowers in vases until the blooms have long dried up, withered and crumbled into dust.

In fact, I’m not really tidy at all.

But when it comes to cleanliness? Well, you know that old mantra. It really is next to Godliness in my book. Especially when it comes to my body. I shower at least twice a day, every day – and always, always after sex.

The drip and trickle of rapidly cooling semen coating my pussy and legs?

The sticky smear of my own arousal?

The urge to wash both from me pounces within seconds of him pulling out.

I know it’s irrational. I do. And he hates that I’m so eager to wash the evidence of his possession off of me, his disappointment seeping into me like a cold, dismal damp. I think we both knew that my promise to try and accept the mess of our joinings was a hollow one but to have my lack of commitment to our agreement confirmed is worse than I imagined.

His gaze bores into mine.

 “Get out of the shower. Go and lie on the bed.” Continue reading →