September's CWCG: Hunger

It is time for this month's Creative Writing Challenge results! I'm actually a day early this time around, WOW! Click here to find out how to play along!

This month's words:

Quay – warf; concrete or stone

Cornbread – bread made of corn

Fuddle – to confuse or stupefy, as with alcohol

Venereal – of sexual intercourse; transmitted by sexual intercourse

Evil - morally wrong; harmful

Theme: Nature

Picture:

Here is my September entry, share your thoughts!

HUNGER

She sat down and rested her back against the tree, looking out over the hills and watching the prairie grass in the breeze. The hills rolled in waves, an ocean of different kind. She enjoyed coming here, to this spot. The rhythmic swish of the grasses in the wind had a calming affect.

She held tight to the leather-bound journal in her hand.

“You have a story to tell,” he had said. “Write it down.”

Looking down at the journal, she wondered if today would be the day she would confront those memories. She stroked her fingers across it gently, feeling the smooth surface of the tightly-bound leather. The spine was firm; it urged her to crack its cover and fill its pages. She pulled the fountain pen from the clasp that locked the journal shut. She drew her fingers slowly, with great care, opening the cover.

The pages inside were made of cotton, at least 25 percent. She pulled the cap from the pen and doodled a blue, flowery vine along the outer margin of the page. Then, she began writing.

*****

I met him on the quay. I was barely 16 when I stowed away, hoping for a future in a new and rich land. When first discovered by him, I was fearful he’d turn me in to the authorities. I was, after all, an illegal in this country. He was charming and seemed sincerely kind; I’d soon discover this was a bluff of his inherent evil.

He offered me a warm meal. I was fearfully skeptical. But I hadn’t eaten since two days before, having savored the very last morsel of cornbread I’d packed for this journey. My stomach grumbled, giving itself away, and I agreed to the meal. He took me to his home and introduced me to his wife, a fragile looking woman, almost emaciated. The wife took my hand in her own, it was cold to the touch. She patted it and smiled.

In what seemed a blessing, the couple offered me a job as nursemaid and helper to the wife. It included room and board. What more could I ask for? How lucky I was to be so blessed, right off the ship and already food, housing and income. But it wasn’t a blessing in the end.

What was to come was venereal in manner. I didn’t know which was worse. The way he took of me, or the way she did.

The first time he was kind enough to fuddle me with flavored liquors and seltzer. He said we were celebrating our good fortune, having happened upon each other at such an opportune time. Then he was on me, groping me, taking me like a starved man; I was the mirage of his meal. He whispered things to me as he took me. It hurt. He was my first. I would soon find that he would be my second, my third…

He apologized after, as if his hunger for affection would be forgiven so easily. He stroked my cheek and tucked a stray piece of hair behind my ear and then he left me. I was weak and my mind still fuzzy, dreamlike when she entered. She hungered for me too, but she would feed from me in an entirely different way.

*****

She slammed the journal shut, as a tear fell, wetting the leather. She replaced the cap on the pen, and returned the pen to the clasp. She listened to the grass swish and sway. She would write another day.

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I had more, but it didn't have any good breaking point. It was kind of hard to continue without getting into a whole other basket of 'words'.

HAPPY HUMP-DAY!

September's CWCG: Hunger