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Jarvis & Smith ~ Chapter 7

500 words based on a sentence selected by Dive.

This week’s sentence is from Wilkie Collins’ The Moonstone:  The Thursday night passed, and nothing happened.

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“Dad!  Wake up.  Mom says dinner’s almost ready.”


Jarvis opened one eye and found himself lying on a sofa, television blaring, adolescent boy glowering.  The boy seemed familiar, but many years younger than Jarvis expected, a couple of decades at least.  And something about this room was odd.  His vision was blurred, his mouth dry.


“What day is it?” Jarvis croaked, not fully awake.  He hoped it wasn’t a Thursday.  Bad things happened to him on Thursdays.  It had been weeks since the Thursday night passed and nothing happened.


“It’s Thursday.  You had your test this morning, remember?” said Timmy.  “Jeez, Dad.  Get a grip.”


“We’ll be eating soon.  You must be starving,” said Roz, leaving the table she’d been setting.  Something was off with her as well.  She seemed dowdy, ordinary.  Where was the smoldering femme fatale who’d ravished him so thoroughly?


“Roz?,” asked Jarvis, slowly sitting up, one hand clutching the television’s remote, the other rubbing his face and hair.  “What’s going on?  You were up on the ship with Timmy and Doctor Richmond and me.  No, Timmy was Doctor Richmond and I was so cold, and there was a beaver and robots and space aliens and Mulder!  I talked to Mulder…”


“Ok, Greg.  No more X-Files marathon for you today,” said Roz as she took the remote from him and turned off the TV.  “You’re still groggy from the sedative and not eating anything solid the last few days.”


Jarvis shook a cigarette from the pack on the coffee table and lit it with the Godzilla table lighter standing sentry next to the ashtray.


“He’s such a dork,” said Timmy.  “And does he have to smoke in the house?  It’s frackin’ gross!”


“Timmy, go easy on your dad,” said Roz, “and watch your language.  Everyone’s upset by their first colonoscopy.  Let’s hope by the time you’re old enough for one there won’t be any need for cancer screenings.”


“Or at least they won’t have to go up your butt with a camera.”


“Enough!” said Roz.  “Timmy, finish setting the table for me.  Greg, go wash up.”


Jarvis heaved himself to his feet, rubbed his eyes like a little kid and wobbled from the room, steadying himself on the furniture as he passed.


“What’s that music?” he asked, pausing, hand on the wall, nodding towards the kitchen where a radio played to the empty room.  “I can’t get it out of my head.”


“The station’s doing a psychedelic flashback thing this week.” Roz said.  “Whenever they play the end of White Rabbit you’re supposed to call in to win a prize.  I can change the station if you don’t like it.”


“No, it’s fine,” said Jarvis, turning back toward the bathroom.  “Dinner smells good. I’ll be back in a minute.”


Behind him, Roz and Timmy exchanged a glance, a spark jumping from Timmy’s hand to hers as she passed him the silverware for the table.  Their eyes glowed red as they nodded to each other in silent affirmation.

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copyright (c) 2010 Lulubelle B

This Little Piggy

Jarvis & Smith ~ Chapter 6

500 words based on a sentence selected by Dive.   Click here for more info.

This week's sentence is from Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago:  The hotel staff were being driven frantic; the incident in No.23 was only one more nuisance added to their daily vexations.

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The hotel staff were being driven frantic; the incident in No. 23 was only one more nuisance added to their daily vexations.  It was not every day that one of the guest suites disengaged from the building and jumped to rejoin the mother ship hiding behind the moon.  The Commander must have had her reasons and they would have to deal with the local authorities and the specialists who would undoubtedly be brought in from Bureau headquarters in Washington.


Jarvis, lying on the bed in Suite 23, was being driven frantic as well, being fully consumed by the expert ministrations of the intoxicating Miss Smith.  He’d arrived at the hotel in response to a scribbled note to find her dressed only in heels, silk stockings and a lovely blue sash, which seemed oddly familiar somehow.  She stripped him, learing at him hungrily, her dimples lending an incongruous air of innocence, and teased him, dancing with an intricately carved ivory fan.  Then she’d taken a more direct approach.  As he reached the outer limits of control he and the bed began to quake, which he attributed to Miss Smith’s considerable skills.  Just as he reached the point of no return, she began to hum a haunting and familiar tune.  Jarvis lost focus and then lost consciousness.

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“Tell me again why we have to wear these ridiculous getups?” asked Richmond, fastening the off-center buttons on his white smock, carefully keeping the stethoscope draped around his neck.


“Just go with it,” said Miss Smith, her eyes briefly glowing red as she adjusted her starched white pinafore and matching nurse’s cap, “It adds to the ambience.  Besides he’ll expect an element of camp.”


Richmond sighed and rolled his eyes.  The things he did to humor the Commander these days.  Once this mission was over he’d ask to be reassigned.  She’d lost all sense of decorum and gravitas.


Jarvis opened one eye and found himself lying naked, prone and spread-eagled on a cold metal table, arms and legs restrained.  He lifted his head, blinked both eyes, trying to bring the room into focus.  From what he could see, he seemed to be in a laboratory of some sort.


“Hello Gregory,” said Miss Smith, dimples flashing.  “I believe you’ve met Mr. Richmond.”


“I don’t understand.” Jarvis said.


“We’re collecting samples and checking on the health of humans of a certain age,” Miss Smith answered.  “And you’re just what we’re looking for.”


“And now,” said Richmond, “We need to run one last test.”


As Richmond reached for the metal probe suspended from the ceiling on a gimbaled arm a flash of electricity arced between his hand and the instrument.  He pulled on a pair of heavy black rubber gloves.


“This,” he said, patting the gleaming machine with a gloved hand, “We call this the Hog in Armour.  Its snout routs around just about anywhere.  Miss Smith, how about a soothing song for our friend Gregory?”


Miss Smith began to hum that blasted song again.  Jarvis’ world went black.

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copyright (c) 2010 Lulubelle B

Probing Questions

Jarvis & Smith ~ Chapter 4

500 words based on a sentence selected by Dive.   Click here for more info.

This week's sentence is from Louisa May Alcott's Little Women:  "A pair of silk stockings, that pretty carved fan, and a lovely blue sash."
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Miss Smith waited in a booth at the back of the diner, gazing out the window and idly playing with the carved ivory fan she’d picked up at a second-hand store, its pierced floral pattern really quite attractive.  She was, as always, impeccably dressed in a tailored suit and blouse, makeup and hair fresh and immaculate.   An untouched cup of black coffee cooled at her elbow.  She checked the time on the neon clock over the swinging door to the kitchen.  He was late, as usual.  He’d say it was due to an abundance of caution.  She knew it was just sloppiness.


“Miss Smith,” he greeted her, standing tableside.  Damn, he smelled good.


“Mr. Richmond,” she sighed as he slid onto the facing seat.  Their irises briefly glowed red in recognition as they made eye contact.


“Been shopping?” he asked, noticing the fan.  He reached for the menu resting at the edge of the table, but did not open it.


“Supplies,” she said, picking up the fan and putting it into her tote bag.  “A pair of silk stockings, that pretty fan, and a lovely blue sash.”  She drew the cup of coffee toward her.


A waiter approached to top off her coffee and take their order.  Miss Smith waved him away.


“How was your evening?” Mr. Richmond asked, trying to sound casual.


“More pleasant than I’d anticipated,” Miss Smith said, a small smile playing across her face, revealing the slightest hint of her dimples.  “Jarvis is fully prepped. I set him up with two triggers.  Either the song or the catch phase will induce a trance, making him fully receptive to our instructions.  And I planted a visual in his subconscious and in his office just to keep him off-balance.”


Mr. Richmond nodded approvingly.  “So he’s a likely subject?”


“Seems to be.  He’s clever, intuitive and highly resilient.  The tests will tell us more,” Miss Smith replied, reaching into her bag and passing Mr. Richmond a small padded envelope.  “And he’s got some special skills I particularly enjoyed.”


Mr. Richmond ignored her last comment, knowing she was just trying to bait him.  Their history was personal. This was business.


“Samples?” he asked as the small package disappeared inside his jacket.


“Hair and skin.  Saliva.  Seminal fluid.  All there.”


“And the other?” Mr. Richmond continued.


“Not on a first date, Timothy.”  Miss Smith batted her eyes coquettishly.  “What sort of girl do you think I am?”


“Really Roz?” said Mr. Richmond, raising an eyebrow.  A small spark flashed between their hands, resting millimeters apart on the faded formica.  “Technically, you’re not any sort of girl at all.”


“There’ll be other opportunities,” she said.  “We’ll take him aboard the ship.  He’ll be expecting the full experience.  The strobing lights, the cold metal table, the biting restraints, the looming, menacing probe.”  She smiled broadly.


“Why wait?  You had full access last night,” he insisted.  “You just had to flip him over.”


“That would've been unprofessional,” said Rosamond, dimpling.  She beckoned the waiter.

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copyright (c) 2010 Lulubelle B

Feed Your Head

Jarvis & Smith ~ Chapter 3

500 words based on a sentence selected by Dive.  Click here for more info.

This week's sentence is from William Burroughs' Cities Of The Red Night: 
"He was passing a huge marble snail, a bronze frog and a beaver."

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Jarvis opened one eye and found himself lying in a puddle of drool on a conveyer belt tracking slowly through what looked like a large gallery.  He was passing a huge marble snail, a bronze frog and a beaver, a fox and a dormouse.


He tried to raise a hand to rub his itchy nose but his arms were tangled in his shirt, which wound through his bare legs and wrapped behind his back.  Jarvis lacked the coordination and the will to extricate himself.  It was easier to just lie still, attempting to remember the name of the song he thought he heard playing quietly, just below the threshold to make out the words.  He knew it, but the key and the meter were off. Still it was maddeningly familiar.  Something from his youth perhaps?  He felt it more than heard it as it wove snatches of melody and lyric into his brain.


Wait – did the beaver move?  Jarvis thought he saw it blink.  Nah, it’s dead, stuffed.  The music got louder, building towards a crescendo.  The beaver charged the conveyer, shattering the glass display case.  It clawed Jarvis’ chest and furiously humped his leg while the fox danced on its hind legs wearing a beauty queen’s satin sash and the dormouse chittered urgently, running frantically back and forth within the ruined diorama.


Jarvis awoke with a gasp, jerking upright on his office sofa, sunlight streaming through the half-opened Venetian blinds.  It was morning?  The last thing Jarvis remembered was happily boinking his client on the bed, on the floor, on a towel by the door…no, stop!  That was the Sarah Silverman video with Matt Damon.  Jarvis and Miss Smith had been going at it on the desk, and now he was alone and naked and sore and missing several hours.


What was in the spliff he’d been smoking when she walked in?  It certainly didn’t mix well with the gin he thought he remembered drinking.  And why the shooting pain at the base of his skull and the double vision?


He lay back down and tried to recapture his dream.  Some sculpture, some taxidermy and some music.  A woman’s voice, haunting and hypnotic.  And what about last night?  When did Miss Smith leave?  His memory was a kaleidoscope of erotic images, scents and tastes, but nothing made sense.


Jarvis squinted, trying to recall the last time the early morning sun had seared his retinas and thought about getting up to close the blinds and maybe start a pot of coffee.  His mouth tasted like a sewer, his tongue furred and dry.  This was more than his usual hangover.


Jarvis noticed a shimmering cloth half under the desk.  Looked like Miss Smith left him a souvenir.  He staggered to the desk, steadied himself against it and bent to retrieve her panties.  What the…???  Not Rosamond’s silky drawers, but the fox’s satin sash, “The Truth is Out There” scrawled across it.


Now if he could just remember what the dormouse said.

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copyright (c) 2010 Lulubelle B

Knowledge

Jarvis & Smith ~ Chapter 2

500 words based on a sentence selected by Dive.  Click here for more info.

This week's sentence is from George Eliot's Middlemarch:  'I suppose it would be unprofessional,' said Rosamond, dimpling.

In the lead-up to this week’s sentence Dive stressed a bodice-busting theme.  When I asked if the Romance Novel genre was required he said, “I certainly hope not, Lulu!  Go with whatever you feel: noir, comedy, space aliens, Godzilla, whatever.”

I know a challenge when I see one…

If you haven’t done so already, you might want to read last week’s story, Knowing, first, and then come back to read Knowledge.


Warning – this story is much more “adult” than my usual entries. If you are easily offended please avert your eyes and move on to the next blog.  Seriously – this story is humorously explicit in a Romance Novel kind of way.

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Knowledge
A Comic Noir Romance with Space Aliens & Godzilla


Jarvis put the report aside.  He sat a long time smoking, he did not read any more.


He studied the woman sitting on the edge of his desk, knees all but touching his, as he settled comfortably in the high-backed leather chair.  She was hot, with wavy auburn hair cascading past her shoulders.  She slowly unbuttoned her blouse to reveal a lacy brassiere, her eyes locked on his, a lascivious smile on her moist, bee-stung lips, the hint of a dimple accenting each cheek.  She was cool, cool as the two-carat zircon ring she’d taken from her left hand and flung into the far corner of the office, a mix of hot and cool and anything but lukewarm.


She’d shown up without an appointment, just as she had the first time.  She undid the knot in his necktie, leaning in to graze his lips with the darting tip of her cherry-pink tongue.  Her boldness surprised him, but he liked it.  It sure beat drinking himself into a stupor – his usual activity this time of day.


The late afternoon sun and half-drawn Venetian blinds sliced zebra stripes across her face and upper body as she drew her skirt up her smooth inviting thighs.


“What do you have for me, mister professional investigator?” she asked, her dimples flashing as her smile grew.  He ground out his cigarette in the glass ashtray.


“Well, Miss Smith, I spoke to my buddy Mulder at the Bureau,” he said, tracing a finger along the swell of her womanly orb, flicking his thumb across the pebbled rosebud that strained against its filmy cage, “Says your mystery man Richmond is not at all what he appears. He’s an alien most likely.”


“Illegal?” she asked.


“Flying saucer. He said to give you this, Miss Smith”, he said, reaching into the desk drawer.  “Found it in Richmond’s apartment with your name on it.”


“My Godzilla lighter!  See how the flame shoots out its mouth?  How very professional of you not to keep it for yourself.”  She pulled him closer, sliding down to straddle him in the chair, pressing her hidden petals against his throbbing manhood.


“I have something else for you, Miss Smith.”


“And what would that be, mister professional investigator?”  she teased as he swirled his tongue into the shell-like recesses of her ear.


She threw her head back and tore open his shirt, buttons skittering across the floor as she raked his sculpted torso with her blood-red fingernails.  He buried his head in her heaving bosom as she writhed with burning passion.


She loosened his belt and trousers.  He lifted her onto the desk, standing over her as she lay back, barely containing himself as she locked her legs around his waist.


“Rosamond,” he groaned as his lust grew and grew.  He lowered himself towards her as she rose up to meet him, clasping each other in a fevered embrace.


“Don’t call me that Jarvis.  I’m still your client.  I suppose it would be unprofessional,' said Rosamond, dimpling.

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copyright (c) 2010 Lulubelle B

Knowing

Jarvis & Smith ~ Chapter 1

500 words based on a sentence selected by Dive.  Click here for more info.

This week's sentence is from Alan Paton’s Cry, The Beloved Country:  Jarvis sat a long time smoking, he did not read any more.

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Jarvis sat a long time smoking, he did not read any more.


He studied the woman seated across from him at the century-old desk. About thirty, he guessed. She was hot, with wavy auburn hair cascading past her shoulders, smartly dressed, her tailored suit showing off just enough of her curves to draw his attention away from the bottle secreted in the bottom drawer. And she was cool, cool as the two-carat diamond flashing on her left hand.


She showed up without an appointment, a manila folder under her arm, as Jarvis faced his daily 4pm debate: gin or coffee? She put the folder with its sheaf of handwritten yellow pages half-way between them and waited while he read, a mix of hot and cool and certainly not lukewarm.


The late afternoon sun and half-drawn Venetian blinds sliced zebra stripes across her face and upper body. The frosted glass in the door behind her bore the words The Jarvis Agency, Investigations. She had not spoken. He tossed the folder on the desk.


“What do you want me to do if I find him?” he asked, gesturing with the cigarette toward the pages that spilled across the blotter. His other hand went to his mouth, absently removing a piece of tobacco from his tongue and flicking it away. “And what do I call you?”


“You can call me Miss Smith. And I don’t want you to do anything. I want to know the truth.”


He drew a few pages from the folder, turning his attention back to her neat Catholic school script. She waited, gazing out the window to the traffic below.


He lit another cigarette from the butt of the first. Who was the man whose story she’d so carefully outlined on the pages torn from the legal pad? Couldn’t be her husband, there was no band accompanying the sparkler. Ex-fiancé perhaps? Then why was she still wearing the ring?


She reached across the desk and helped herself to a smoke.


“I need to know if anything, anything, he told me was true. You’ve got everything I know about him, everything he told me.”


“Miss Smith, you say he’s gone. Left the city years ago. What’s it matter now?”


“I loved a liar, loved him like an animal.”


“And?”


“And I’m getting married. But this chapter isn’t closed. I cannot swear to forsake all others until I know.”


“Are you prepared to live with what I find?”


“I’m not living now. I’m trapped in the past. I can only move ahead by putting him behind me, and the only way to do that is to know the truth.”


“It’s a thousand a week, plus expenses. And I’ll need two weeks in advance.”


She took an envelope from her purse and placed it on the desk. “I’ll call you next week for a report.”


Jarvis reached for the bottle in the bottom drawer. As the afternoon turned to dusk Jarvis sat a long time smoking, he did not read any more.

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copyright (c) 2010 Lulubelle B