Greetings an hallucinations. I say hallucinations because this blog entry is going to ramble a bit.
As many of you know, my writing style is unconventional. At least I think it is. I work on three or four projects at the same time. I'm pretty sure most authors stick to one idea and finish that before they open another can of worms.
What that means, as I've said before, is that sometimes multiple projects get finished around the same general time.
And what that means is that between now and the end of January, I'm going to post at least two, and maybe three things.
The first of them is called Vacation At The Beach. It's pure coincidence that I'm posting a story about a warm beach when it's about to get cold and snowy. But if it helps ...
The other thing is that, when you write a lot about any genre, there's only so much you can say before you start repeating yourself. I write a lot of incest, and I wanted to try something that felt different. So I think this story is different.
This story has some darkness in it, specifically because it flirts with the concept of what some would call molestation. I am not trying to minimize the dangers of molestation, and I believe molesters - people who force their attention on the young and innocent - should be put where they can't hurt anyone. Some of that plays out in this story.
But I also learned, during my life, that not all "victims" feel like victims. Some victims have to be taught that they are/were victims. A good example is the recent hubbub about the team doctor who molested girls on the U.S. Olympics gymnastics team. More than one of the girls - the victims - said they weren't aware that anything bad was going on at the time. They just thought it was part of his treatments.
Now, of course, they're horrified and want justice.
But you see the difficulty, here. If something happens to someone that they don't perceive as bad, or evil, or whatever ... then the only reason they're a victim is because someone else tells them they are. And if they actually enjoyed what happened, the problem is even bigger. If they say they enjoyed it, then people treat them like something's wrong with them. They're taught to feel guilty about something they had no control over.
In "civilized society" it isn't up to the participants to decide what's good and bad. Society does that for them. And the only nod society gives them is to call some things "victimless crimes." The salient point there is that it's still a crime.
I don't pretend to have any answers. I just write stories about people in unconventional situations. I'm a philosopher. I like to imagine how people might react to strange stimuli under unexpected conditions.
And, after all, isn't that what fiction is for? Real life can (and does) crush us pretty regularly.
That's why things end up happy in most of my work.
Even if it's about an "icky" kind of situation.
So I hope you can enjoy this slightly seamy story about people to whom odd things happen, stimulating their subconscious minds to let them do something they never thought would happen.
Thanks for reading.
Bob