To celebrate the publication of my first erotic books on Amazon's Kindle, I decided to publish the first of them, Educating Goldilocks, for free here on Pixie's Place. I'm going to be posting a few chapters at a time.
This novel is based on my earlier Goldilocks Saga stories posted here, but is heavily rewritten.
I've uploaded my first four books to Amazon, and they are pending review. I'm not certain right now if any or all of them will be published there without change, but I definitely hope so! All four of them are currently available at Smashwords, and several other sites. Waking Sleeping Beauty is available for free exclusively on Pixie's Place. You can find updates to the publication history, and upcoming titles on my blog at www.garsmechant.com
If you find this, or any other stories of mine interesting, please feel free to look up my books at all of the major online retailers, and review them!
I'm so excited!
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Chapter 2: School Work
The next morning I managed to get up earlier than I was used to. And, quite frankly, in a much better mood than I had in quite some time. It looked like I might just have a new friend, someone outside of work and that lived nearby. That she was an attractive woman was simply icing on top.
Of course, I was sure that nothing was going to happen. I was a good five years older than she was. Even so, it was going to be fun to have her around.
When I was young, I had an adult friend who was a neighbor, and acted like a mentor to me. I learned a lot of good stuff about life from him, and I figured I could do the same for Amber. That was if she ever came back. If she didn’t, I wouldn’t be any worse off than I had been before, which was actually pretty dark when I consider it, so I won’t go there.
Right after a shower and quick breakfast, I got back into gardening. All the old plants were already gone, and finishing prep work for the soil didn’t take long. I was ready to plant fairly quickly. I was using the sage as a border for my plot to add a bit of color to the darker rosemary, which I was using as a ground cover. Purple basil was going in the back to add highlights. Planting itself was taking a bit longer than I had expected, but I didn’t care since I had nothing better to do, and I lost track of time working in the earth.
I worked for an hour setting the plants in place, digging holes, and placing the pots in the holes before finally deciding that I needed more sage and basil. I quickly headed over to the local nursery and bought varieties other than what I had already, and decided to throw in a couple of other plants, and when I got home, I set them up in patterns that looked decorative. I was almost finished planting when I heard Amber walk up behind me and say: “Hello, again!”
I turned around and saw her standing there, smiling wide. I was right; her mouth was meant for smiling.
“Well, hello!” I replied. “Nice to see you!”
“How’s the garden coming along?” she asked.
“Not bad. I’m just a few minutes from finishing the planting, then a bit of cleanup."
“Mind if I hang around?”
“Not at all,” I assured her.
She watched me quietly put the last couple of sage plants in the ground before asking me: “What did you plant?”
“Oh, it’s an herb garden. I’ve got rosemary, sage, basil, thyme, and just a few strawberry plants. However, if anyone from the Homeowners Association asks, they’re strictly ornamental.”
“Why’s that?”
“We’re not allowed to grow fruit or vegetables, strictly speaking.”
“That’s weird,” she remarked. I agreed.
I finished up the planting and watering, and she graciously helped me put away the gardening tools. Once we were done, I invited her back inside.
“You know, it was really nice having someone over for dinner,” I told her in all honesty. “It’s been a while since there’s been a good conversation over a meal in this place.”
“Thanks!” she said, smiling brightly. “It was nice to have someone new to talk to.”
“Oh, I totally agree on that point!” I told her sincerely. “So, how is everything going today?”
“Church was fine, after that and lunch, I decided to come over here,” she told me.
“So, you and your family are religious?” I asked.
“Well, at least for part of one day per week,” she said sheepishly. “Well, maybe one day per month. At least six per year, including holidays!”
“Oh, so, kinda-sorta-barely-maybe?”
She laughed a confirmation. “We don’t even really talk about it any other time.”
“So, just to make sure, I’m not keeping you from any important family time, am I?”
“Oh, no!”
“Good! So do you have anything going on tomorrow?”
“Just swimming during the day.”
“Sounds like fun. Are you looking forward to it?”
“Well, maybe a bit less than normal,” she confirmed with a frown.
“Is Justin going to be there?”
“Jason, but yeah.”
“Don’t worry about it. If you don’t bring it up, he probably won’t either. And it’s nobody’s business but yours.”
“True,” she said.
“So, what do you like to do outside of that?”
“Well, I spend a lot of time hanging out with my friends,” she said.
“What do you do with them?”
“We talk. Kind of like this.”
“That’s cool. What else do you do?”
“I like to play with my cat,” she confided. “She loves laser pointers!”
She told me all about her cat, her brother, her parents, and so on until I fixed us a quick dinner of orange chicken and rice, then it was time for her to head home again.
The next couple of days it rained, and I didn’t see her again until Thursday. I was outside, admiring my new herb garden and making sure the soil was wet enough for the plants when she came up behind me once again and said: “Well, hello!”
I turned around to see her smiling at me.
“Well, now how are you doing?”
“I’m fine,” she replied.
“I haven’t seen you in a couple of days,” I said. “Is everything going okay?”
“Yeah, it’s been good.”
“I have an hour before I have to get ready to go to work, so why not come in and tell me about it,” I offered.
“Is that why you weren’t home yesterday when I came by?” she asked as she followed me in.
“What time did you come by?”
“About four-fifteen.”
“Yeah, I leave just around four. Did I miss anything important?”
“Not really,” she explained.
“How was Justin this week?” I asked.
“Jason. He was okay, mostly.”
“‘Mostly?’”
“Well, yeah.”
“So, did he mention the picnic?”
“Nope, not a word.”
“So, why ‘mostly?’”
“Well, he wasn’t talking to me,” she said.
“As in ’I’m not talking to you!’?”
“No, more like he’s depressed.”
“He got rejected by you. He’ll get over it. Where did you see him, anyway, swimming?”
“He's in my English class.”
“Wait, is he taking that to be near you?”
“He did miss Monday. Yeah, maybe.”
“So how is the class going?”
“Not bad. I did pretty well on the test on Wednesday. I have an essay due on Monday, though.”
“Is that going to be difficult?” I asked her.
“Probably,” she said. “It’s a five-hundred word essay for English.”
“That was one of the few classes I did well in. What’s it about?”
“Romeo and Juliet,” she replied.
“Did you do the reading?”
“Yes, but it’s a bit confusing…”
“It really can be. I was pretty good with my essay about that one. What’s confusing you?”
“Well, my essay is about the theme,” she said. “But what is it?”
“Ohhh, that.” I looked at the clock. “Oh. I have to get ready for work, or I won’t make it on time, and the answer to your question is longish. However, if you want to come back tomorrow I’m sure we can work on it together and finish your essay.”
“That would be great!” she exclaimed excitedly.
We both got up from the table, and as I walked her to the door, I suggested: “Why don’t you come by around noon. We’ll have lunch and then work on your essay. If we can’t complete it tomorrow afternoon, we can get it done Sunday.”
“That’s perfect!” she said again. She threw her arms around my neck and hugged me hard. “Thanks so much for helping me!”
“Oh, uh, sure,” I stammered as she disentangled herself from me and giggled her way out.
As I dressed for work, I couldn’t help but think that I was missing something obvious, but I kept rejecting that thought. Amber was the neighbor girl, a friend of mine. What could I be missing? Nothing, right? So I dismissed the nagging thoughts.
I spent my shift doing the rounds, thinking about Romeo and Juliet and what Amber and I could write about it. After work, I stayed awake a little longer than I normally do skimming the text. I ended up sleeping later than I wanted to and barely having enough time to get groceries for our dinner before she arrived.
She showed up just as I was unloading my car. She greeted me warmly and helped me carry the groceries inside and put them away before we sat at the dining nook table and spread out her notes.
She looked me in the eye, smiled, and asked: “So, what’s the theme?”
“Here’s the bad news,” I told her. “This isn’t one of the easy ones. There isn’t one unifying theme to Romeo and Juliet. There’s no ‘good triumphs over evil,’ there’s no ‘love conquers all,’ none of that. It’s simply a tragic story about two young kids who end up killing themselves over each other because of miscommunication and their parents hatred of each other's families.”
“That’s dumb.”
“Well, yeah. That’s why I don’t like seeing this particular play taught in basic Literature classes. It’s difficult, and it doesn’t really teach you anything. I think they teach it because it’s popular, and the main characters are about your age.”
“So what do I write about?”
“Well, there are a bunch of possible themes you could write about. You might write about Romeo’s impetuousness and how it started the whole mess.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, he had a crush on Roseline, which impetuously made him go to that party, even though she made it pretty clear she wasn’t interested in him. There he meets Juliet, and he transfers all of his affections for Roseline to her. Then just a couple of days later, he impetuously and secretly marries Juliet, a thirteen-year-old girl. You know there’s something wrong about this guy.
“Or you could go with the generation gap theme.”
“Which one?”
“Well, Montague and Capulet have this ‘ancient grudge’ going on, but it’s not Romeo’s or Juliet’s. They’re being told what to do by the older generation, and they break into youthful rebellion by getting secretly married.”
“I like that one more,” she said. “Let’s go with that one.”
We got to work, and after a couple of hours of talking through ideas, writing and editing, and finally paring it down to an acceptable length of about seven hundred words, we were done, with enough time for me to fix an early dinner.
Amber watched quietly as I chopped up the vegetables for my chicken-and-dumplings, mixing the dough for the dumplings, and after they were appropriately and thoroughly cooked, served the steaming stew into two bowls.
She could keep up her end of the conversation over dinner, but it seemed like she was very tired from all the thinking and writing. She needed some wind-down time.