My Author Bio - by Justice Harlow

Baeli was born to spin a yarn. The daughter of a professional musician, she arrived in Wichita and began her journey with a song in her heart and a plethora of passion erupting from her pen. This love of lyrics, prose and poetry was just the simple seed of what would grow into a wordsmith's obsession with the creation of multifarious characters and storylines that fork with dual plot lines into romance and intrigue.

Oklahoma, Arkansas and Colorado are just a few locales that surface in Baeli's novels as these places are ones she drank in from her time in University, to retreating for self exploration. Each place is rich in bucolic terrain and provided grand palettes for her mysteries and suspenseful romances. Townies and their coveted colloquialisms provided divine fodder for tales too real to be true.

There is nothing like experience to craft a character. Baeli has plenty to spare—from a stint in the military to late nights spent delivering newspapers or waiting tables. Each job was a necessity, but one that Baeli turned into a study in the human condition or sometimes inhumane conditions. Some of Baeli's fondest endeavors were fronting an all female band for seven years in Little Rock and her enjoyable time as a managing editor for a women's press.

In recent years, Baeli has pursued technology with a perverse passion. Website building, blogging and creating and maintaining online forums have shared the docket with her ever-present story crafting. Baeli has relied on her technical writing roots and expanded her repertoire, enabling her to edit for herself and other writers, both accomplished and aspiring.

With over 200 song writing credits and 15 books to her credit, Kelli Jae Baeli shows no signs of wear. She has returned to her beloved Colorado where she may be found amongst the Denverites, people-watching over coffee and conversation...awaiting the next story to inspire and entrance.
~Justice Harlow

The author can be followed on Twitter @JaeBaeli. Reader and Professional reviews, as well as Feedback, Praises, and First-Born Children, are cheerfully accepted via her website, jaebaeli.com.

My Author Bio - by Justice Harlow

Excerpt from Somewhere Else

(book in progress)

~The Color of Confusion ~

Cornelius paused with vermilion loaded up on his brush, about to make a bold swath across the canvas, when he noticed Daelah. Placing the laden brush in his teeth, he reached down and readjusted the position of his wheelchair so he could see her better.
      At the end of the long corridor leading to the kitchen, she stood at the foot of the stairs, looking up at the ceiling, and down at her hands, and touching her own face.
      Cornelius frowned, a drop of vermilion free falling from the end of his brush onto a dried spot of cobalt blue on his sweats.
      A tapping grew louder and he twisted toward the back hallway leading out of the living room as Jubal made his way toward Cornelius, seated at his easel. Jubal moved the white-tipped cane back and forth in front of him. Tap. Tap. Tap, Tap.
     Cornelius took the brush from his mouth and caught his attention. "Psst!"
      Jubal paused, one hand on the saxophone dangling from a cord around his chalky neck, the other on the cane. His lifting of eyebrows at the sound made his wraparound sunglasses bob upward on his nose. "What?" he whispered back.
      Keeping his voice in a whisper, still, he said, "Have you noticed anything strange about Daelah today?""How would I notice anything about Daelah?" The blind man smirked.
      He swiped a hand down his face, to smooth his Van Dyke style goatee. "You know what I mean."
      "Well, yes. . ." He took a few steps forward, sliding the tip of the cane along the wood floor in front of him. "She smells different."
      "Smells different?"
      "Yeah."
      "New perfume?"
      "Nope. Individual, natural scent is different."
      "Okay, weirdness." Cornelius turned back to watch Daelah who was now reaching toward the ceiling, stretching like a cat, and moaning with pleasure.
      Jubal cocked his head toward her sounds. "What the hell is she doing? Playing with herself?"
      "Just stretching. . .but weird, like she's never stretched before. She seems to be enjoying it too much."
      Jubal took measured steps forward, made a left face, and then moved quietly down the hall, holding his cane against his chest. He paused not three feet behind her, and put the saxophone to his lips, blowing a rude honk at her.
      She jumped, stumbled against the wall and stared at him
      Feigning ignorance, he said, "Oh, is someone there?" He lifted his cane and swept it side to side, comically searching for her.
      In the living room threshold, Cornelius let out a humorous huff. His friend Jubal enjoyed playing the sightless eccentric all the way to the bone. He had embraced his disability with unusual flair.Daelah looked at the tall, angular blind man. Almost-flawless skin, paled from a lack of sunshine. She knew better than to say, who are you? She was aware of several things she suspected she should know at this point, but precisely who this blind man was, she wasn't sure about. "You scared me," she offered instead.
      "Oh. Sorry." He lowered the cane.
      "How can you sneak up like that when—"
      He knew she meant to add, when you're blind. "I have sonar like a dolphin. I can sense the walls and obstacles. . .I can feel the ions in the air, parting for my passage."
      "Right," came the snide remark a short distance behind Jubal.
      Cornelius rolled down the hall toward them and watched  Daelah lean out to see past Jubal toward the approaching wheelchair.
      Jubal cocked his head. "Are you okay, Daelah? You smell funny."
      "What?"
      "Huh?" he responded, just as confused about her misunderstanding as she was about his statement. She knew he had a keen sense of smell. The subject had come up many times before. She knew he noticed the minutiae most people missed.
      Daelah frowned again as the man in the wheelchair stopped beside the blind man. Jubal released his hold on the saxophone to sweep his hand at waist level, toward Cornelius, catching him in the face. "Oh, there you are," Jubal said.
      "Stop it!" Cornelius reprimanded him, slapping his hand away. His antics could be so aggravating.
      Addressing the still-baffled looking woman in front of him, Cornelius said, "You seem weird today, Daelah."
      "I do?"
      "Yes."
      "I. . ." She glanced to her right, up the staircase. "I think I'll go up and lie down for awhile." She turned and climbed the steps, showing interest in the photos on the stairway wall, and glancing back at them as if they were friendly house-spiders, but spiders, just the same.
      As she disappeared around the landing, the two men waited in silence for a moment, then Cornelius spun his chair and rolled back down the hallway toward the living room, the vermilion-loaded brush in his teeth again.
      Jubal followed him, and took a seat in a chair to play his sax.
      Upstairs, Daelah sank down on the edge of the bed. She rubbed her eyes and considered her own confusion.
      For the last few minutes, she had been trying to assimilate the volumes of information that had seemingly been downloaded into her brain. Everything from how to tie her shoes, to the relative merits of clean underwear.
      She was Daelah Murdock. She felt like herself. But something had changed. That much was clear, if only by the reaction of these two housemates. The blind man and the cripple. They seemed familiar, but she didn't know them, as odd as that contradiction was.
      Then, she recalled the dream that had played out in her mind just before she emerged from nocturnal bliss that morning.
      A glowing white essence, shaped somewhat like an elongated teardrop, had told her, telepathically, "Thank you." Daelah had no way of knowing what she, herself, looked like in the dream, but sensed she was also a glowing essence.  She had reached out to grasp the wrist that emerged from the glowing essence—a human wrist, that clenched her own in farewell.
      When the Teardrop Essence vanished, her dreamself noticed a tattoo on her inner forearm of a strange  symbol. Then she woke, and the tattoo was not on her skin, and she sat up to draw the symbol on the pad of paper on the nightstand. Then she had found the bathroom and hurried to look in the mirror, and was stunned by the sensation that the face looking back at her in the glass was not her own. Then she had not recognized the room, and had gone downstairs to look around.
      Now, frowning down at the paper, she sensed that the symbol was important, but wasn't quite sure why. The shape resembled an ankh, the universal symbol of eternal life, but it was like a blending of two ankhs, one upright, the other upside down, and joined at the stems.
      Daelah spent the next few hours roaming around the bedroom, seeking clues to her befuddlement. The bedspread was an aggravating shade of pink, and there was a pink dust ruffle made of lace around the bed. She hated it. Likewise, the matching horridly pink lampshade on the nightstand, had engendered more repulsion. Though the walls were a standard eggshell color, they were festooned with all things pink.
      This could not possibly be her own room, though she had awakened here. Peering down at herself, she  noticed she was wearing a hideous pink nightgown with lace around the collar. She pulled it off her like it was on fire, and hurried to the closet.
      Inside the wardrobe nook, her efforts to find more agreeable attire had met with a nightmarish array of pink, salmon, lavender, and fuchsia. The singular exception was a black T-Shirt, banished to the far end of the clothes rod. She turned it toward her to look at it. A depiction of a bread-like ring bejeweled with fruit and nuts graced the front, and below it in white letters was the word Fruitcake. No doubt this was a gift from someone with a sense of humor who was making a veiled suggestion about the pink-woman's mental status.
The Pink Woman. She had framed it as though the pink woman was not her. But it wasn't her. Yet here she was, being her.
      As she pulled the black fruitcake T-Shirt over her head, snatched a pair of jeans and pulled them on, and added some atrocious pink sneakers to her–no surprise—pink socks, she felt a little more like herself. Whoever that was.
      Emerging from the closet, she stood in the middle of the room and thought about it all. She wasn't herself. Couldn't be. What did that mean?
      Her trip downstairs a few minutes ago, did not garner her much information. The house was like a familiar place from long ago, yet almost erased from her memory. When the blind man and the cripple appeared,  things became even more confusing.
      Sitting back down on the bed, she listened for a moment to the blind man playing saxophone downstairs. She recognized the tune as Patsy Cline's "Crazy." It was a little crazy that she recognized the song, but not the guy who played it—a guy who obviously lived in her house. . .or she in his.
      She picked up the wretched pink purse, and pulled out the aggravating pink wallet. The driver's license read,

Daelah Murdock

72 North Tapioca

Cedar City, Utah.

Tapioca? Who the hell would live on a street called Tapioca? Was Pudding Circle all full-up? Daelah perused the license again. She was apparently female, and 36 years old.

  About the book:
A non-physical soul makes an agreement with another incarnated soul to take over her body. The Walk-in, perhaps too fearless, and too hungry for the pleasures of the flesh, discovers she has inherited the life of Daelah Murdock, a Mormon goody-two -shoes with a pathological attachment to the color pink. As a live-in caregiver for two men--one blind, the other wheelchair bound--Daelah's life seems bland and puerile. Yet someone is trying to kill her.
_____________________________________
Somewhere Else,  (c)Kelli Jae Baeli

Excerpt from Somewhere Else

New Review of my book RAOB

Review of Random Act of Blindness on weRead: 

"I didn't want to put this book down, the characters had me hooked from the start, the erotica so real, I wanted to be there. Its not often I find a book that has me enthralled from beginning to end, Random Act of Blindness is one of the few. I am so looking forward to my next novel by Kelli Jae Baeli." ~ Joanne Cincotta



Excerpts:

 EXCERPTS:

Never, in all her days, had she imagined herself in a position like this. Vivid fantasies aside, Rachel had never considered acting on the impulses that invaded her thoughts throughout the day. They were private affairs stored only in some scurrilous recess of her mind. Yet her mind interacted with other minds, and often, there were fragments of information to be had in decidedly ironic ways. Doctor Bass, for instance, listened to her confession of the scandalous gearshift penetration mirage, and fantasy bondage scenarios and produced a copy of the bondage magazine. While not something Professor Rachel Leeds believed would qualify as a "literary device," it was nonetheless pivotal in the events in which she was now participating. Namely, being on her way to a hardware store to find something to use as a whip on the girl who lay naked and bound in hotel room number 66, the Mark-of-the-Almost-Beast.

Faith. To believe in things not yet seen, they say. Patrice was faithful a long time ago. Then she communed with the faithless, and their cloying demands. She needed evidence because it made her feel foolish. And faith was lost. But the bitterness left her cold, barefoot, detached from the warmth of love and connection. Then she discovered a different faith. One born of her own power, left untapped for eons, swirling, ebullient, joyful. And now, coming full circle, she found herself wholly unqualified, still, to manifest from faith alone. Yet, perfectly accustomed to crying alone, wishing alone. Hope did not float. It sat on the bottom, weighted by its own lie.

New Review of my book RAOB

Some Recent Abstracts

These are some of my most recent abstract paintings. For more of my art, go to http://jaebaeli.com/artist

Some Recent Abstracts

Baggage (excerpt, Mainstream novel)

Excerpt from
Baggage
(c) Kelli Jae Baeli

(*This is my second novel written for a mainstream audience. Most of mine are lesbian-oriented. This excerpt is formatted for legibility on the web)

During Hurricane Katrina, Patriarch Dominic Fontaine meets his freakish demise—the rubble of his “hurricane-proof” mansion all around him—and no one suspects that a vengeful woman came to kill him.

In the aftermath, the secrets held in a safe deposit box spur the Fontaine offspring into a journey of enlightenment and self- discovery as their lives converge with strangers, and the mystery of synchronicity takes over.

CHAPTER 9

AS HURRICANE KATRINA SPUN CLOSER TO THE GULF coast, Sienna realized Dominic's intent to ride out the storm, just as he had in all the other hurricanes. His decision was no marvel to her. He obviously considered himself invincible.

She peeked through the slightly ajar door to the attic stairway. He was, of course, too rich to have a standard pull-down ladder; no, Dominic Fontaine had to have a stairway to his attic.

Sounds of shattering glass came from the foyer. The formidable Katrina was hammering at the front of the mansion, morphing into a beast that clawed at the rafters, pounded at the flooring, and made promises to inflict still more. It was as if God Himself was behind the maelstrom. Sienna had never been in a hurricane, and anxiety crept into her mind. Was it always this bad? Was it only this frightening because she had never experienced it?

She had her own Katrina thumping against her chest cavity. Thrashing in the sea of her own trepidation, she tasted it in her mouth, then recognized it as meaningless. I am going to die anyway. He had made sure of that when he pushed himself inside her and mingled his diseased blood with her own. After all those years of being judicious. All those years when her party-happy friends were taking chances like a capricious vacation in Vegas, and prodding her mercilessly with monikers like Sainted Sienna, Sinless Sienna, Spotless Sienna, and even Snowy Sienna, to imply that she was frigid, rather than careful. Now, she felt the fear slipping away, replaced by her own resolve, her own fury; an apoplectic bitterness that was matched only by the tempest that pummeled the mansion of the man she despised.

Pleased to have placed herself correctly, she saw him hurrying up the staircase, silver briefcase in hand, dragging a yellow nylon rope. Pulling the door closed a bit, she observed him through the tiny crack as he lashed himself to the newel post at the top of the grand staircase that fed down into the foyer.

The compromised portions of the house were revealed with every slap of wind and rain. As the storm bullied on, moaning its feral incantation, the window beside the attic stairs blasted inward, shards of glass spattering to the hardwood floor, as Katrina sneezed into the opening.

Dominic held onto the rope with one hand, and the briefcase with the other, his own features touched by terror.

Shelving collapsed, and she heard more shattering glass downstairs. Pictures leaped from the walls along the stairs, their glass spitting out onto the steps. In the hall beyond the top of the grand staircase, Dominic's fish trophy plaques clattered to the floor. The gigantic swordfish rattled against the wall, as if preparing to reanimate and swim away in the sodden air of Katrina.

She reached down to pick up the small bronze sculpture she had taken from the occasional table at the top of the stairs. Her fingers closed around it firmly, and she waited for the right moment to confront him. As water began to drip onto the landing from above, and a puddle grew near the ravaged window, she pushed the door open and stepped onto the landing.
Raising her voice above the din, she said smartly, "Well, Lincoln Berringer, as I live and breathe-"

He turned to the voice behind him, a moment of keen astonishment and recognition on his features, that had little to do with his joy at seeing her, and much to do with the realization that she knew who he was. His fate became clear, when he saw her holding the heavy statue, saw her raise it high.

He opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by the moaning of Katrina, sucking the window frame from the wall. Debris struck her shoulder, and she fell to the slick floor, the statue toppling away.

Steadying herself by holding the door knob of the attic stairs, keeping her head low against the incoming sheets of rain and wind and debris, she watched the giant swordfish drop to the floor, and move toward the hole where the window had been. A shifting of wind, and the monster fish spun, rolled, became airborne, and in mindless seconds, had impaled Dominic's back with its rapier beak. She captured the attic door jamb, to stop herself from being sucked toward the window.

Her attention back on him, the swordfish rocked back onto its tail, as Dominic leaned backward into it, soon limp. The briefcase toppled to the floor, as his arms spread open, his torso propped on the swordfish, its beak protruding from his chest, his waist still secured to the newel post.

Stunned, she stared at him, splayed there like some fisherman's crucifixion. Euthanasia performed by God.

A blast of rain slapped the side of her face and she scrambled to the silver briefcase, which was already being sucked toward her on the sodden floor, snatched it up and ran down the hall to the bathroom, where she grabbed a rectangular wooden table, broke the legs off and huddled in the garden tub, holding the briefcase on her chest, the table over her head, waiting for the end of Katrina's blitzkrieg.

Baggage (excerpt, Mainstream novel)

Achilles Forjan (mainstream novel excerpt)

Achilles Forjan
(mainstream novel)
(c)Kelli Jae Baeli

REVIEWS

Another great book by Kelli Jae Baeli!


This is the third of Ms. Baeli's books I've read and I plan to read more of them. She is an absolute MASTER of characterization! After I read her books, I catch myself wondering about the characters as if they were real people. And, no, this is not a sign I need to be in a mental ward somewhere; rather, it is a testament to how authentic her characters are. This authenticity extends to her plots as well. I can especially speak to the authenticity of the plot and characters in this particular book because I work in the emergency services field myself. This book in it's entirety, down to the smallest of details, is real enough to be based on people whom I know and work with daily.

One final big plus!... more often than not, I can guess "who done it" before the ending of a murder mystery and that just ruins the whole book for me. I also view it as a weakness in the writer's talent. However, not so in this gem of a psycho-thriller/murder mystery! I was totally and happily surprised! Reading this one was time well spent!

~Tanya Gotcher,
Little Rock, AR

"We believe this is a marketable story. It has all of the necessary elements: good characterization; interesting (and well-described) settings; authentic-sounding dialogue. What’s more, Baeli is a superb writer! This is some of the best work we’ve ever seen here at KIWI!"

--KIWI Club Reviews

"Baeli has outdone herself with the new offering of Achilles Forjan. Prepare for an quickly paced, psychological thriller that captivates the reader with dynamic characters and sleight-of-hand clues covering a gamut of genres. This witch's brew of medical, legal, psychological, and mystery motifs, is rendered more tasty by the pinch of romance Baeli adds. The result is a potpourri of all things found in the news, too strangely absurd to be fiction. Achilles Forjan is a modern day, forensic packed who-done-it that will tug you by your hair through each scenario. I was left with a lingering taste for more as the dichotomy of Amy Jane Spenser engaged all my senses."

~ Justice Harlow
    author of The Recipe & Shall We Consummate?

"Achilles Forjan was a quick read and maintained my interest. I felt many different emotions, especially through Amy's character--sadness, regret, concern, happiness...I really wanted her to be okay. The story kept me on the edge, and it was an attention grabber. When I wasn't reading the book, I was thinking about it. Kelli Jae Baeli's novels are easy to get interested in, and hard to put down. They always have an unpredictable but happy ending. This ending was a big surprise- I was very pleased with it. I'll be looking for the sequel!"

~Shell Smith
Truman AR

"Enjoyed the story very much and did have trouble putting it down when I had to. Had that 'want to read more by this author' feeling when I reached the end. I was actually hoping Baeli would include a preview at the end, with an excerpt from one of her other books there. I also felt that the ending came too soon; I wasn't quite ready to be done with Amy and her friends. That's a good thing!

The plotting and pacing is excellent. Love her characters and the tension/conflicts revolving around them--very three-dimensional. Spicy details tastefully employed. Well done! The setting was great, too--fit her story perfectly.

Overall, "recommended." Say, four outa five stars? Baeli spins an engrossing tale, moves it right along, and mixes things up splendidly. Any sex she included was used to further the plot, without being offensive or prurient. She's a good, solid writer who deserves to be published. That's my take on it."

~Jim Bessey
Fairport, NY

Burlington, Vermont was a city known for its near-nonexistent murder rate. So when bodies begin to appear along with a mysterious note and a humiliating gesture from the killer, local authorities scramble to discover who is responsible.

A complicated series of events points to Amy Jane Spenser as the prime suspect. She is troubled by sleep deprivation and frequent memory lapses. Her job as a paramedic feeds her compulsion to help people, but ultimately only renders her a crippled witness to the human condition. Amy struggles with doubt over her own mysterious behavior, and is left with no alibi for any of the murders.

Her friend, Karma, uses her degree in Criminal Psychology and a gift for psychometry to search for clues to Amy's innocence, in spite of a persistent detective. The suspense builds as lives intertwine, and destinies dangle precariously over an abyss of secrets and suppositions, until nothing can ever be the same again.


EXCERPT:

Ashleigh knew it was him. His gruff, slurring baritone voice. His fat fist against the door. He'd be waking the neighbors, and they'd be calling the cops. She was still too weak from her trip to the emergency room three days ago, and didn't have the strength to deal with this. She stayed with Jeremy because it was easier than staying with Leonard Huff. Safer.

Jeremy had offered Ashleigh a ride home from work seven months ago, and she had told him she didn't want to go back to her father's house. He suggested they go to his apartment and get high instead, and she agreed. It wasn't long before Ashleigh was spending the night at Jeremy's Southside apartment. The choice between a sweet guy who provided a good high, and a raving, nasty, controlling drunk, was an easy one. She didn't even call him 'Dad' anymore, but 'Leonard.' His all-nighters and recently, his affiliation with a group of bikers, was a pain in the ass; and although she had vivid memories of his hands on her when she was a little girl, he had stopped pursuing her for his need to touch innocence.

This didn't stop his biker-buddies from crossing the line, though. At a nubile eighteen, she was now a young woman, and considered ripe for the picking. When one of the leather-clad animals came by the house and put his hands on her tits, she packed her stuff and went to Jeremy's. That's when she decided that Jeremy had his flaws, but at least he wasn't violent. He'd never hit her, even when she'd smoked the last of their weed. If she kept him smoking, she could pretty much do what she wanted. He didn't make much money as a night shift stocker at Handy's Grocery, but she didn't make much as a cashier there, either. She didn't really do without anything, and the rent was only $350 a month. A few days ago, Jeremy got extra pot from his dealer so they could make a little cash, because Ashleigh needed time off to recuperate from her fall down the stairs.

With the pounding outside growing louder, she snatched the door open and Leonard Huff barreled in, headed straight for Jeremy, who was finishing the removal of marijuana seeds from the marred glass coffee table, sweeping them onto a metal serving tray and shoving it under the ratty Goodwill sofa.

She put herself between the two men, hoping to prevent anything that might have cops snooping around. The last thing she needed was to go to jail for possession.

Leonard Huff pushed her out of the way, and she fell into the glass top of the coffee table.

* * *

Roy peered in the window, and saw the boy hovering near the kitchen, saw the girl sitting on the chair with blood on her arm. With one last glance at the street, hoping to see the police cruiser, he knocked on the door. "EMS!" he called.

Jeremy opened the door, and Roy stepped in first, carrying his jump bag fully stocked with an intubation roll, already assessing the damage to Jeremy's face. Amy came along behind him, trying not to look at Jeremy; all she could see now was him beating off to kiddie porn.

Ashleigh was sitting on the chair across from Huff, still in a robe and on medication from her recent trip to the hospital. Now, she had one hand pressed to her bleeding elbow. Amy knew the girl would need sutures. Ashleigh looked up at her with a mixture of embarrassment and relief. Embarrassment, that the nice female paramedic she had poured her heart out to was coming to the rescue again; and relief, that somehow everything would be taken care of and some semblance of normalcy would return.

Even before the staircase fall at the apartment a few days ago, Amy and Roy had been to the Huff house to patch up Mrs. Huff when Leonard directed his anger at her. Police had escorted her to the Battered Women's Shelter that night, and it was unclear whether or not she was still residing there.

Perhaps it was why Leonard Huff was at the apartment now. His anger needed a target, and he couldn't get to his wife. He had pounded his beefy fist into the young man's face and made a real mess of the living room of their tiny apartment. He was at the end of a nasty binge, having burned up the fuel of whiskey, and was sitting on the sofa nearing a nap. Amy stepped over the fallen ashtray and remnants of potato chips dotting the floor, and sent up a prayer that he would not find any reserve tank in his body before they got the job done, or at least not until the cops arrived to stand sentry.

The ashtray, along with two smoldering cigarettes, lay on the dirt-colored carpet, amid shards of glass. Amy picked them up and tossed them in the tray to be safe.

Roy saw that Jeremy was lucky not to have a broken nose. He might get away with some butterfly bandages on the cut above his eye, but the rest of his injuries were the usual contusions when a fist contacts the skin. He had the young man sit at the kitchen table while he set to work on him.

As the two medics donned surgical gloves to cleanse wounds and apply compresses, Huff muttered expletives and warned Jeremy that he was not even close to being finished with him. "She'll never be clean again," he said. "You made her dirty."

"You're not worried about me, Leonard," Ashleigh hissed. "Look what you did to my arm!" She held up the lacerated elbow, causing Amy to drop the gauze roll and forcing her to gather it and start winding it around again.

Huff lit a cigarette awkwardly and let it dangle precariously from his inebriated lips. "You brought that on yourself, little girl," he said around the cigarette. "You need to learn when to stay the hell outa the way."

Jeremy leaned away from Roy's cotton swab and snarled at Huff, "You're fuckin' going to jail."

"Oh yeah? What for?"

"Assault and battery. You're a sorry-ass excuse for a father. It's a good thing Ashleigh met me."

"Wors' thing ever happened to her." The glowing ash fell off Huff's cigarette and landed on his blue shirt, stained with sweat and booze. A wet spot doused the cherry, making a sizzing sound. Amy was afraid he would burst into flames.

"You're goin' to jail, you sorry piece a shit!"

"Be still-" Roy reprimanded, pressing the last butterfly bandage on the boy's head, anxious for he and Amy to get out of there.

"You're goin' to jail," Jeremy repeated.

Amy wanted to scream, You belong in jail, too, you sick pedophile! She knew she'd have to bite her tongue until they finished the call. This situation had become too personalized to her, now that Ashleigh had spilled her guts. She didn't want that kind of investment in her patients. It was hard enough without that.

Huff tried to push himself up, but rocked back, and had to scoot to the edge of the sofa before he could manage to stand. "I ain't goin' to jail if I ain't here when the cops get here-"

"Sit down," Roy ordered him in his best authoritative voice.

Huff paused, considering him, then staggered over. Roy got up to prepare for evasive action, when Huff took the cigarette from his mouth and threw it at Roy.

Roy held up a warning finger. "Now you just behave yourself. You've caused enough trouble."

"You ain't seen trouble yet, boy." Huff lurched forward and pushed Roy aside, reaching for Jeremy, who bear-crawled away, scattering the top-most contents of Roy's jump bag. Angry that the young man had scampered out of reach, Huff grabbed Roy again.

Amy tapped on the big man's shoulder, and he turned around unsteadily. "Could you do me a favor, sir?"

Frowning, he swayed slightly. "What?"

"Your hand looks terrible. Could you go over to the sofa and sit down so I can take a look at it? It looks like it hurts."

Still holding Roy's shirt at the shoulder, he looked at his free right hand. His knuckles were red. "Yeah. My hand needs some nursin'." He released Roy and went to the sofa, sitting and holding his hand out to her.

Roy blinked rapidly like some cartoon character, and Amy tried not to smile. There was little she could do for the sore knuckles, but she made a production of wrapping gauze around them, hoping to stall long enough for their cop friends to arrive.

Roy kept a close eye on Huff as he gathered the items that had been knocked out of his bag.

Finally, the police arrived. Sergeant Kenneth Branch and his Rookie, Jimmy Tackett assessed the situation quickly. They were also familiar with this family and their various degrees of in-fighting.

A glint of morning sunlight reflected off Branch's bald head. Before taking a razor to his hair after losing a bet, Kenneth Branch never fully appreciated the creative genius of eyebrows. They were crucial to keeping sweat out of the eyes, and in his line of work, vision was sometimes the only thing between you and a bullet. He even fancied the idea of God as a bald entity. A tall, muscular man with thick arms and legs, Branch was intimidating; a comfort to have around if you needed help, and a frightening presence if you were in trouble with the law.

Tackett was short and boyish-looking, and ripe for a bullet from some street thug. Tackett's best chance for survival was to be partnered with Branch. The contrast of the two was almost comical. Like Batman and Robin. Not much older than Jeremy, Tackett was the mirror image of the young man cowering in the kitchen, with slight alterations based on the application of free will. Two young men who took different paths. It only took one wrong turn to create that kind of polarity.

"What can we do to help out, here, folks?" Branch asked.

Huff was suddenly aware of where the new voice came from, and got up, knocking Amy back to her rump on the floor. He gestured angrily, the end of the gauze around his knuckles dangling in the air. "Don't nobody touch me, goddammit." He gestured at Ashleigh. "Come on over here, girl. I'm taking you home."

"Now hang on-don't I know you? What's your name, sir?"

The big man turned around, his comb-over flailing upright. "Name's Huff. I come to take my little girl home!"

"I'm not goin' anywhere with you!" Ashleigh shouted.

Jeremy moved over to Ashleigh in a show of support, and she moved away, almost imperceptibly.

Branch met Ashleigh's eyes. "Is he here with your permission?"

"Well I didn't know he was gonna try to kill Jeremy!"

To Jeremy: "Do you intend to press charges?"

"Hell yes."

Tackett asked Ashleigh for her ID. He turned to Branch. "She's eighteen."

Branch held up both his hands to Huff. "Now, Mr. Huff, your daughter is at the age of consent, so you can't force her to-"

"I don' care what consent she is, she's comin' home!"

The sergeant swiveled his right hip so that his firearm was out of the man's reach, and planted his feet as if he was about to perform a Jackie Chan movement. "Mr. Huff, let's do this the easy way, okay? Please turn around and put your hands behind your back."

He shook his head. "Nope. I ain't goin'."

"Sir, I'm not asking you. I'm telling you. Turn around and-"

Huff swung an arm at Branch, but he leaned back and the blow missed. Branch snatched the wrist and twisted it behind Huff's back as he spun him, pushing him toward the sofa. Tackett was beside his partner and in a few swift seconds, they had his face in the cushions, and were handcuffing him.

Officer Branch had just celebrated 10 years on the force; nine of them in New York, and had transferred to the Burlington P.D. to hedge his bets. He considered himself lucky: lucky to have lived. That luck was now bolstered by the low rate of violent crime in Vermont. Still, Branch was looking forward to his training as a Detective. He intended to spend the last ten years on the force wearing his own clothes, and sitting at a desk rather than in a squad car.

"Am I under arrest?" Huff bellowed into the smelly foam.

"Yes you are, sir. Drunk and disorderly, assault and battery, attempted assault of a police officer, for now. You have the right to remain silent--"

"I ain't gonna be silent!" he shouted.

Branch continued to Mirandize him as he and Tackett half-dragged, half-led him to the door, the drunk man's flailings managing to knock Amy off balance and onto her rump again.

As Tackett returned with the forms for Jeremy and Ashleigh to fill out, Roy pulled off his surgical gloves and tossed them in a Ziploc bag for later disposal. Moving over to Amy, he looked down at his partner, who was still seated on the floor. He plucked a jerky strip from a pen protector in his breast pocket and popped the end in his mouth. "No sitting down on the job, Spenser," he cracked.

Achilles Forjan (mainstream novel excerpt)

Armchair Detective (novel excerpt)

,
(Lesbian Sleuth Erotica)
(c) Kelli Jae Baeli

A wannabe Private Investigator has to start somewhere. If that means incurring the wrath of her suspects, then so be it. When Jobeth O'Brien awakens from the floor of her kitchen, her battered face and the memory of an angry visitor tells her that she is close to something important in her investigation. She pulls herself together and goes to run her paper route--a job that pays the bills while she pursues her other vocation. Her romps in the backseat of her Falcon with a wealthy socialite, Phoebe, are a welcome distraction from her excursions into the developing facts of the blackmail and prostitution operation. As the case progresses, Jobeth fends off her growing need for Phoebe, as well as the advances from her barracuda landlady. Amid these challenges, she stakes out her prey and runs for her life, continuing the investigation that pulls her into close calls, unexpected allies, and more secrets. But Jobeth has secrets of her own, and only love can excavate them.


EXCERPT:

The Falcon rested in the alley across the street like a big metal dog. That's how I viewed this paragon of antiquity. It was like the pet I never had. I bathed it, fed it, communed with it, talked to it, even stroked it every now and then, although not when anyone was watching. If it wasn't so big, I'd let it sleep on the foot of my bed.

Hunkered low, I checked that the film was loaded properly and advanced a frame or two, laid the camera beside me and poured myself a cup of brew from Phoebe's green thermos. I loved her coffee. Hazelnut, I think, from fresh ground beans. I couldn't imagine someone like Phoebe dipping grounds from a metal can; it wasn't chic enough. More likely, she had it delivered to her door by Juan Valdez himself.

Halfway through my second cup, I decided it was time for a little evidence-gathering. Hanging the camera around my neck by its wide strap, I stepped quietly out of the car. crossing the street, blending with shadows, until I entered the alley beside the Salon. Behind the structure I found the garbage cans. Smiling, I freed the two full bags and started back to the car. Squinting around the corner, I lurched back when I saw a distinguished gentleman with short-cropped hair approaching the front door of the Salon. I lifted my camera and snapped a shot of him before he slipped inside. A teenaged boy came around the corner and went in soon afterward, and I hurried across the street with my treasures, sure that things were about to become a bit more interesting.

Warming my coffee again, I kept an eye on the front of the shop while I opened one of the garbage bags. I donned a pair of surgical gloves from a dispenser in the glove compartment, and put them on before reaching into the bag. I recalled the scene earlier when Phoebe had found the gloves while searching for a lighter.

"What are these for?" she had inquired with salacious interest.

"Not what you think," I had told her.

"Mmm-hm," she had said, unconvinced.

"But I'd be happy to use them for that. Is it time for an exam?"

She had grinned, "Maybe next time."

Now, glancing up every few seconds, I began to wish I had a partner; I wanted to look through the garbage without missing anything going on at the front door. It could be an advantage, I had to admit, but the bad outweighed the good on that one.

Thirty-five minutes later, the sound of the Salon door brought my attention away from the bags. The distinguished gentleman emerged and hurried into the darkness around the corner, his shirttail hanging loose, holding his coat in one hand. I snapped a shot of him before he got away. A tall, blond man opened the door and hauled another man out with him, gesturing angrily and pointing down the street. He looked like the same blond man that had been talking to Stacey that day. The man he talked to seemed to sigh, shook his head, then turned and headed in the direction of the gentleman.

The blond man lit a cigarette and remained outside the front door, agitated. I tried to get a close shot of him, and decided it would be a better picture if I could move outside the car. I removed the cover from the interior light and pulled the bulb out, then quietly, I opened the door, and kept my head down below the level of the front fender. Lifting the camera, I bumped the wheel well and the camera toppled to the pavement. The zoom lens separated from the body and I stifled the curse that came instantly from my mouth. The lens was history, for the moment. I discarded the injured mechanism into the car, and grabbed the regular lens, hurriedly screwing it on the body of the camera. Pushing the door almost closed, I took a position by the front of the Falcon again, peeking over the fender. He still stood there, smoking. I'd have to get much closer, for a clear shot. I waited until he turned around, then crept over to the blue mailbox at the corner, concealing myself behind it. Ebon cloaked the street, but dawn approached with a luminous mist, and left me with one chance for a clear picture of him.

I tilted out from behind the mailbox and focused. His eyes swept over my area, and then seemed to pause. Click! He saw me then, and threw his cigarette to the sidewalk, breaking into a sprint toward me. The camera firmly in hand, I dashed down the walk and around the corner as fast as my tired legs would carry me. Rounding the building, I cut to the right across the main roadway into another alley and scrambled up the board fence and over.

Landing in a trash can, I kicked free of it and continued down the adjacent alley. I could hear him behind me-heard him climb the fence and continue the chase, cursing as he fell on the same trash can. Coming to a "T" in the alleyway, I found one exit blocked by a Dumpster, and the other by a drainage ditch.

I picked up a piece of concrete gravel and threw it hard toward the Dumpster, producing a telling thwang, then leapt feet first into the shallow water of the ditch. Stooping to enter the concrete culvert pipe, I scurried through, pausing thirty yards later to listen for approaching steps. I waited, catching my breath and listening, certain I'd lost him.

I imagined him pausing at the end of the alley, having heard the noise of the gravel against the Dumpster, and stealthily raising the lid. I also imagined the grimace on his face when he lifted the lid and found only putrid garbage. He would no doubt assume that I jumped the fence. Men can't imagine women doing things like jumping into watery ditches and scurrying through culverts. I used this narrow-mindedness to my advantage whenever possible.

Navigating the concrete piping to its end, my exit was blocked by a barbed wire fence. I climbed through the strands with some difficulty and found myself at eye-level with a yard full of farm machinery. I climbed out of the watery trench and paused by a John Deere tractor to survey the area. The grounds of the co-op were spacious, reminding me of a rodeo arena. The front fence stood about 50 yards across the grass in front of me. Heaving a sigh of relief, I patted the camera smugly and started for the far gate. Near the middle of the grounds, I heard a low growl that made me wish I had stayed inside the pipe.

Turning toward the sound slowly, he came into view. A pit bull of the large killer variety emerged from one of the sheds. The variety that tears the limbs from small children and pulverizes housecats. He dipped his square black head low, baring a set of exceptional fangs.

"Shhhhhhit," I whispered like a slowing steam engine, measuring the distance to the front gate. The phrase from here to eternity erupted in my mind. I turned back to him, placating meekly, "Nice doggie-"

He lunged at me and I broke into a run, making a beeline for the precious, distant gate. The dog caught the bottom of my jeans, and swung me to the ground like sack of Idaho potatoes. From the feel of it, he intended to tear the fabric away first, then slice and dice my bare leg. By the look of his canines, a steak knife had nothing on him. I kicked him hard in the head and swung the camera. It caught him in the eye and he yelped at the thirty-five millimeter infliction, freeing me long enough for me to struggle up and run again. The chase resumed and I stopped to swing at him again, missing as he ducked. Where is an M-16 when you need one?

He jumped and clamped his teeth onto my arm, the fangs piercing the layers of fabric. I growled back at him and knocked him in the head several more times with the camera. Eyes closed, his teeth made contact with the skin below the flannel and thermal shirts, blood appeared on his head, for which I was uncommonly grateful, but it didn't make him let go of my arm.
I kicked him frantically in the ribs, but his mouth rivaled a bear trap, except bear traps didn't jerk savagely at fabric. And they didn't chase you across a machinery yard like some miscreant from the center of the earth.

Desperate, I dragged him toward the fence. Looping the camera strap around my neck, I clamped my fingers on the chain-link, and placed the toe of my sneaker in one of the wire diamonds to pull myself up until the dog dangled in the air. I could feel the excruciating tear of my skin each time he shook my arm, still mauling me from his place in mid-air. Bile swelled in my gut and threatened to rise like green mercury into my esophagus. With one last swing of my free leg, I kicked him in the stomach, and the yelp this evoked opened his jaws enough so that I could wrench myself free as he fell to the ground.

He recovered from his fall without the slightest hesitation and vaulted toward me again, and I barely pulled myself up beyond his reach, scrambled over the fence, to land with a breathless thud on the grass.

Armchair Detective (novel excerpt)

As You Were (Novel Excerpt)

As You Were
(Lesbian Romantic Suspense novel)

(c)Kelli Jae Baeli

Beth and Brittany shared a beautiful home on Red Mountain in Colorado, enjoyed self-employment, horseback riding in the snow-laden hills, and romantic nights in front of the fireplace. But when an average day leads to a tragic accident, and traumatic amnesia, Brittany must return to a life she neither remembers nor approves of. Yearning, revelations, and lurking danger pull at the threads of their once-idyllic life. As You Were is a romantic story driven by mystery and suspense.

EXCERPT:

A swath of morning sunshine fell across Tru's eyes, and she came awake, aware of the sharp pounding in her head, and the television which sat silent, bolted to a steel pole extending from floor to ceiling. She vaguely remembered her decision to get a motel the night before, and wasn't sure whether she had been too drunk to remember to call Brittany and let her know. She pressed both hands against her head, wishing for ibuprofen.

Tru blinked her eyes into painful focus and saw her reflection in the mirror over the dresser. Her appearance told her more than she wanted to know about how much she had had to drink the night before. Also in the reflection, a lump under the blanket next to her, and she turned quickly to find the lump was a leg, and that the leg belonged to Travis. His chest was bare, and she immediately discovered that hers was, too. Tru jerked the sheet up under her arms and stared at him, horrified. "Travis?"

He stirred, his eyes fluttered open, and he smiled warmly. "Morning, Sugar." He ran his hand down her arm.

Tru jerked away, grabbing the blanket and drawing it around her as she got up. "What the hell are you doing here?" she rasped, swallowing the cotton that seemed to be growing abundantly on her tongue.

He pushed himself up into a sitting position, his face filled with a boyish grin. "Enjoying the morning after, Sugar "

Tru coughed involuntarily and pressed a palm to her head. "Travis. . .we didn't. . .I mean, I don't--please tell me we didn't-- I don't remember what happened last night "

He lifted one eyebrow in a smirk. "I'll never forget it. I never suspected you of being such an animal in bed. You even--"

"Jesus, Mary and Joseph! What have I done?!" Tru searched for and found her clothing heaped upon the floor by the bed, and began to dress beneath the blanket.

"Hey, why so uptight?"

"Why so uptight?" she squeaked. "Are you out of your mind? Do you have any idea what sort of mess this is? Oh, my God. . .she'll kill me, I am dead meat. She'll never understand this, I don't understand this--" Tru dropped the blanket and began to button her shirt. "Travis, you have to swear you'll never breathe a word of this. I was drunk. I didn't know what I was doing--" she babbled.

"You most assuredly did know what you were doing. I can't remember the last time I stayed that har--"

"Travis!" she shouted, groaning and holding her head, then more softly.
"Spare me the sordid details."

"Don't worry, Tru. Your secret is safe with me. I wish you could stay a little longer " He reached toward her and she lurched away, grabbing her socks and shoes and making a quick visual sweep of the room, before she headed for the door, hopping in place as she shoved the sneakers onto her bare feet.

"Where's my Cherokee?" she asked, her hand on the doorknob. And where's my sense?

Travis folded his arms. "Still at the club."

Tru dug in her pockets and came up with twenty five dollars, lifting her eyes to him, quizzically.

"I paid for the room, Sugar," he admitted.

She slammed the door behind her, and hurried to the front office to call a cab.

Travis reclined, his fingers locked behind his head, admiring his reflection in the mirror. He flexed his pectorals and began to sing an old Carole King tune. "It's too late, Baby, now it's too late..." It had been remarkably easy. Remarkably. He checked his image in the mirror again, rubbing his chest with both hands, absently, and he began to whistle.

As You Were (Novel Excerpt)

Plethora (Info & Excerpt)

Plethora
(c) Kelli Jae Baeli

Brenna Clay, a quirky bisexual writer, escapes with her lover to the remote Ozark area of Hogscald, near the quaint tourist village of Eureka Springs, known as "The place where misfits fit"--a place where Mother Nature is not always nurturing, there are sniper squirrels, newspaper- stealing mutts, and her nearest neighbor lives in a treehouse and thinks she's been inseminated by aliens. As an added bit of entertainment, the Bubbas have out their binoculars, and are watching from the knoll, having never seen a real, live "Lezbean Homo-sek-shul."

Meanwhile, Micah Rose Royce lives in Eureka Springs and works as a masseuse. Fresh off a prolonged disibility, she is anxious to feel human again, but has difficulty getting started. Her best friend, Scarlet, suggests she get a reading from Righteous Clementine, a medium- cum-sorceress, who promptly lays her hands on her and utters, "Plethora." Micah trudges through the exasperating and often comical dating scene in real life and on the Internet, still desperately searching for a suitable partner.

"Erotic, funny, thought-provoking and insightful..."
~LightSwitcher Books

16
The Last Take-up

"Here's your spline, spline roller, and awl," Kori said, dropping the items one by one on the old brown Army-issue towel that lay crumpled upon the wood planks of the porch. "I felt stupid asking the guy at the hardware store, but he knew exactly what they were."

"Great!" Brenna clapped her hands together and reached for the torn screen door that she had removed and leaned against the decrepit railing.

Kori carried another armload of sacks up the front steps and paused over Brenna, already at work on the screen. "Do you know what you're doing?"

Brenna gave her a irritable expression. "Of course. I told you I've done my research on this. I Googled it. This little rubber gasket do-hickey is called a spline-" she explained, prying it out of the groove around the screen with the awl. "I just replace this ancient aluminum screen with some of this new nylon screen." Kori shifted the sacks for a better hold, as Brenna continued, "Why nylon, you ask? Well, see, it has better solar penetration."

"Sounds good to me," Kori said, lifting her eyebrows suggestively.

"That just means that more sunlight can come through it," Brenna went on. "And this is the little roller that puts the spline back in." She held the tool up proudly.

"I'll make us some lunch," Kori said evenly, carrying the packages inside.

Brenna sighed. She hadn't seen much of Kori lately. This was the first Saturday in a while that Kori hadn't gone in to work overtime. Since returning to her job from vacation time, and making the roundtrip into Fayetteville each day, it was little more than a hello and an air-kiss before Kori watched the news and then went to bed. They hadn't had sex in so long, that Brenna was having fantasies about the UPS guy.

Resolving to open a discussion about that very thing today-not fantasies about the UPS guy, but their own sex life-she bent back to repairing the screen.

Minutes later, Brenna sat back and congratulated herself on a job well done. The screen was replaced, and she would only need one Band-Aid this time. She squeezed the puncture made by the awl atop her thumb, and wiped away the blood absently. When she lifted her head again, she noticed the movement from the direction of the knoll. Someone was headed toward her on horseback. As the horse drew nearer, Brenna could see that the rider was a young woman with short blond hair, clad in faded, ripped jeans and a T-shirt. Brenna thought she bore a striking resemblance to the actress, Mary Stuart Masterson, from her role in Fried Green Tomatoes. As the woman urged the animal close to the porch, Brenna stood and wiped her palms on the front of her jeans. "Hello. . ." she offered cautiously.

The young woman grinned with one corner of her mouth and continued to smack at a wad of pink gum. "Hi."

Brenna noticed that the T-shirt the woman was wearing had the image of a hot air balloon on it with the words Up Up and Away written below it. "Thought I'd come see what all the hoopla was about."

Her country accent was strong, and Brenna tried not to seem entertained by it. "The hoopla?"

The woman patted the chestnut's neck affectionately. "Me and ole Sassafras been hearin' bushel baskets a' stuff about the two sisters that moved into the old Pate place." She crooked one leg easily over the withers of the gelding. "Name's Tilly. What's yours?"

"Brenna."

"Pretty name, that." The young woman took a deep breath and squinted into the sun, casting a sidelong glance at Brenna. "Am I yer first viz'ter?"

"Actually, no. We met Harvey Hunsicker last month."

"Sorry to hear it."

"What?"

Tilly licked her lips and tried not to grin. She jerked her head away in a mannerism of forced self control and cleared her throat. "He's a handful, he is. Fize' you, I'd keep a ditch `tween ya."

"Oh? Why do you say that?"

"He's kinda loose in the upper story. Got a mean streak a mile wide and twice as ugly."

Brenna nodded slowly, her brain busy deciphering the colloquial assertions Tilly shared. "That's. . . good to know."

"Mind if I sit a spell?"

"Not at all." Brenna indicated the rockers, and knew that this Tilly- character would appear someday in one of her novels.

Tilly pushed her leg the rest of the way over and slid off the pony, dropping the rein to the ground. The Chestnut wandered across the yard in search of edible greenery. "Been too pooped to pop since the last take-up." She sighed heavily and dropped into the chair, rocking.

Brenna sat in the other. "Since what?"

"The last take-up." Tilly said this matter-of-factly, pulling a seed-like burr that was stuck to her shirt like Velcro. As she turned her head to mop her neck with an old bandanna, she saw Brenna's bewildered frown. "I get took up ever now an' then. Been happenin' since I was knee-high to a toad. Mighty spooky at first," she continued, smacking her gum. "But a body gits used ta stuff after a while."

Brenna was blinking rapidly, trying to compose her next question, when Kori came out to the porch, testing the new screen door a few times before she noticed they had company. "Kori, this is Tilly."

Kori nodded in her direction. "Would you like a glass of tea or something?"
"If it ain't no trouble." She half smiled with the corner of her mouth again.
Kori stepped back inside, giving the screen door another skeptic's perusal.
Brenna considered Tilly as she sat there, chomping her gum and watching Sassafras graze in the front yard. She kept trying to make sense of Tilly's phrase about being 'took up', and wondered if it was just a backwoods colloquialism that meant being tired, or sleepless, or ill, or maybe it meant having sex--

Kori came out with tea for each of them, and took a seat at the top of the steps. Brenna cleared her throat after a swift drink and decided to be abrupt. "Hey, Kori, Tilly was telling me about being took-up."

"Took up?" Kori parroted.

"Dang! I reckon I have to explain it to ya'll, too." Tilly pulled the wad of pink bubble gum from her mouth, and stuck in under the rim of the chair, unaware of the almost comical dismay this action incited in both the other women. "I know nobody takes me serious, but I ain't tetched like they say. Some say I'm crazy as a bessie-bug, but don't ya'll swaller that for minute. They's all just green 'cause they ain't the one's bein' took up." She nodded, as if she had just released some sensitive information.

Brenna tried again, "Uh, Tilly, I think we are just confused about . . .what you mean by 'took-up'. Took where? By whom?"

Tilly turned and studied their faces with surprising thoroughness, her lids contracting into slits over her hazel eyes, then nodded slowly. "In that flyin' machine. They come and take me up 'bout once't a year or so."

"Oh! An airplane!"

"Naw. Ain't no air-o-plane. And don't nobody use it fer crop-dustin', neither. It's round."

"Helicopter?" Kori offered weakly.

"Ain't no heelacopter, neither, I tell ya. Ain't got no swangin' blades on the outside."

Brenna and Kori exchanged animated glances. "Uh, Tilly, are you talking about a UFO?"

"You-ef-oh?" she repeated carefully. "What's that?"

"An Unidentified Flying Object-"

Tilly leaned back and swept a derisive hand in their direction. "Course not!"

The two breathed a sigh of relief.

"Don't take no genius to figger it out. . . Once't ya see it, ya can identify it right enough."

Kori began to play with a loose board on the porch, and Brenna pretended she had something in her eye, so she could mask a burgeoning giggle.

"Last time was Sundee last. Thangs were dif'ernt that time. They done some stuff to me they ain't never done before."

"Who? What stuff?" Brenna asked, clamping a hand over her mouth.

"Them white varmints with buggy eyes. They ain't as big as me, but they don't have no trouble keepin' me in a bridle. Last time they done some funny stuff, and now I think I'm nailed."

Kori looked up suddenly. "Nailed?"

"Yes'm. Lord knows how long it'll take that young 'un to hatch. They never told me nothin' about it." She sipped her tea calmly. "But it's in there, shore as shootin'." she patted her stomach. "I can feel it."

Plethora (Info & Excerpt)

ISO (In Search Of)

ISO (In Search Of):
The Art of Dating, Relationships & Sex
For the Discerning Lesbian
by
Kelli Jae Baeli

CONTENTS


The Contradictory Art of Being Lesbian
Art Does Not Imitate Life ~ Butch, Femme,
Androgynous or Femepicene? ~ Hide & Seek.

The New Art of CyberCruising
The Misnomer ~ The KISS Method, With Perhaps Not So Much Kissing ~
Sour Milk From the Cyber Teat ~ CyberCruising Caveats ~ CyberCruising ~
Red Flags & Deal Breakers

The Lost Art of Dating
Desperation & Expectations ~ 17 Dates ~ Minding Your Manners ~
Dating Caveats ~ Dating Red Flags & Deal Breakers.

The Applied Art of Relationships
Friends ~ Lovers ~ Partners ~ Friends with Benefits ~
Fuckbuddies ~ Stalkers ~ Understanding Yourself Orientation,
Identity & Behavior ~ The Five C's ~ Relationship Caveats


The Dubious Art of Keeping it Together,
When It's Falling Apart
To Mend or Not to Mend ~ Lesbian Bed Death Boredom, Conflicts
with In-Laws, Finances, Infidelity ~ Listen, Sleep On It, Use Humor
~ Caveats for Relationship Angst


The Stolen Art of Sexual Prowess
Safe Sex & STD's ~ Good Sex ~ Affection ~ Kissing ~
Heavy Petting ~ Digital Penetration ~ Oral ~ Phallic Penetration ~
Fisting ~ Ass Play ~Yes Baby, Tie me Up


An excerpt can be had at my site

ISO (In Search Of)

Kairos

I've been working on Baggage all day. Made some good progress with the language, the prose aspects. Spent time finding more specific ways to convey different aspects. And I've been integrating everything from random musings to dreams into the book, too. Snippets of conversations that play out in my head when I'm about to doze off....

I discovered this fabulous word today::: Kairos. (kay-ross). It's an ancient Greek word meaning the "right or opportune moment" or "God's time." It's that undetermined time "in between" linear time in which something "special" happens....i used it in the manuscript today, even though i knew most people would have no idea what it meant.

Ironically, it resonated with me so much because i feel i am in Kairos lately.

Kairos

No, the Other Baggage...

I sat down with my coffee and noticed no mail yet from the source of my current vexation. Within 5 minutes, (last night after our phone call, I sent the txt: Thank u for being u. I get a text from her- Got ur txt. : Training 2day, No email. grr. I text back: Rats! Guess I'll work on writing, music, sculpture & my self. Have a good day! . . .

So I'm spending the day trying to be productive. I have to stop obsessing on this woman. Baggage still needs another 20,000 words or more, unless I'm going to let it be a novella. It did occur to me yesterday that I might consider writing novellas. . .i have this idea that I have to write full-length novels because that's what "real writers" do and with the idea that potential publishers/agents won't take it seriously if you don't. . .well, it's not like they've been beating down my door. I've been doing it all myself. And then there's the argument I make frequently, that a book should only be long enough to tell the story. I don't believe in "padding" as I think it contradicts the act of creation. . .so. IF it becomes clear that Baggage is complete before it reaches standard length, I guess I'll have to let it be a novella. I'm also trying to get A Random Act of Blindness done. It needs to at least double in size to even be able to reach novella size in order to print it in paperback. It's around 50 pages, and needs to be at least 100.

No, the Other Baggage...