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surveys-at-your-service · 4 years ago

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Survey #367

“i should warn you that you may fuck me, but chances are i’m gonna fuck you over”

Where was the last place you went for vacation? The beach. When was the last time you wore makeup? Halloween. Do you watch soaps or drama series? If so, which ones? Not currently. What’s your favourite tomato variety? I hate tomatoes. What was your very first pet like? Dad had a dog named Trigger when I was born, but I have no memory of her, so I'm excluding her. I consider our first family pet to be Chance, a cat my mom took in after finding her literally in the trash. She was... god, incredible. She was a loyal friend, and I can imagine no greater mother than she was (she legit fought off a rottweiler head-on to protect her kittens). She was so smart, so gentle, and just simply amazing. I'll always miss her. What was the best school project you remember doing? Looking back, despite the fact it TERRIFIED me before, that would be my senior project presentation. It was about snake misconceptions and fallacies, so I made a slideshow to present to the special ed class. I made drawings for them to color, word searches, all that kind of stuff. They were just the sweetest and seemed really into it. What’s your favourite type of fish to eat? None. What kind of an old person do you think you’ll become? I really... don't like thinking about this. Like I'm weak enough now at 25, I can't imagine how my, say, 60s would be. I hope and just about pray that my physical health will improve, but I'm just going to exclude that part entirely from this answer. Personality-wise and such, I have a feeling I'll be the quiet and sweet kind, the one that loves her (hopeful) spouse like crazy, and comes most alive on Halloween if I live in a place where children come trick-or-treating. I imagine I would LOVE that. I'd love to be the type that goes on morning jogs to help stay spry. Which well-known person’s death shocked you the most, if any? Steve Irwin and Chester Bennington might be tied. Both were so, so sudden. Steve was like, invincible to my childhood eyes, and when I heard about Chester's death, I thought it was just a sick rumor. Two amazing people that died way too soon. What’s the craziest colour you’d dye your hair? That would depend on personal opinions. I want to dye my hair LOTS of colors though, if that tells you anything. What’s the coolest hobby one of your friends has? Uhhhh. Idk. Name a video game you can play over and over again: Shadow of the Colossus. It's a pretty short game if you know what you're doing, and it's super relaxing to me and just so goddamn pretty to look at. Every time I've played it has just been a pleasant experience. Do you like meatloaf? Yeah, it's fine. How about Meatloaf? I know who he is, but I've never really listened to his music. Do you take time to do charitable work? If so, what do you do? No. ;_; Especially with all the free time I have, I really should... What is something that will make you laugh instantly? Okay, don't ask, but if I for a SECOND see that commercial of Mr. Clean dancing while he's cleaning, I will die because of memories. What is something you hope you will never inherit from a specific relative? Diabetes. It runs heavily in my family. Name a movie you wouldn’t watch solely based on its name: The Human Centipede. No. Thank you. Have you ever played in a stack of hay bales? No. What’s your dearest souvenir? The stuffed moose I got at Cabela's during a visit to Ohio. I named him Brownie, and he was my "childhood plushie" we all have. Is there a lot of graffiti around your neighbourhood? Not in the actual area I live in, but there are DEFINITELY places where it's a pigsty of distasteful shit. Have you ever made your own soda? (Soda Stream doesn’t count!) No. Do you have a hobby that forces you out of the house? If so, what is it? Nature photography. Have you ever been part of a theater group? No, that stuff doesn't interest me. What’s the most ecological thing you do? We recycle, and I also use metal straws. Would you stop eating meat, if you had to raise and slaughter it yourself? Absolutely. There is no fucking way I could do it. What’s your favourite board game? Why do you like it best? I like Clue just because of the mystery-solving factor, and I think it's kinda cool how you can think ahead and use other's findings to your own advantage to win the game pretty early. Besides English, what other languages can you speak? Some German. It's gotten pretty weak with neglect, though. Besides English, what other languages can you read? I can read German well. What thing/person/happening has made you the happiest you’ve been? This is a complicated answer that I just don't feel like elaborating on. What’s the most freeing thing you’ve ever done? Letting Jason go. Have you ever had a restaurant dish that was made with bugs? If not, would you even want to try one? No, and I'm not interested. Have you ever tasted birch sap? No. How about the young buds/shoots of spruce trees? No. Which edible flowers have you tasted? Honeysuckles. What has been your worst restaurant experience? Well, it's a fast food restaurant, but lemme tell you about my vegetarian encounter with Burger King. I ordered their veggie burger. Which they have. It's not a secret. These idiots gave me a bun with tomato and lettuce, and I think mayo on it, after sounding confused when Mom was ordering for me. Mom went back in there of course to tell them, and oh god was the manager pissed, lol. I got my veggie burger in the end. What’s the most immature, adolescent thing that still makes you laugh? Some sexually inappropriate jokes can still get me sadly, lol. Have you ever had a life-threatening condition? If so, what was it? Not literally, but boy do I think depression counts. Do you ever compare your life to somebody else’s? If so, why? Y E P. I can't tell you why, I just... do it. I look at other's successes and am just like, "Why aren't I there yet?", and beat myself up about being a failure. What is a food item or a dish you absolutely cannot stand? Brussel sprouts, asparagus, runny eggs, many other things because I'm just mega picky. Have you ever had a custom print done on a shirt? If so, what was it? Just the spray paint kind that vendors like to do at the beach and stuff. I don't remember any I got, though. What does your favourite mug look like? It's black with a Markiplier quote on it, given to me by Sara. :') Do you ever read other people’s survey answers? Yeah! Friends', anyway. I love learning all the obscure things about them. Do you like daytime or night time better? Why? Daytime, specifically early morning, because it's better for my depression. Are you more comfortable as a leader or a follower? A follower that isn't afraid to speak up when I'm really against something. What is your favourite song right now at this very moment? I've been really into "7empest" by Tool lately, and the synthwave edit of "Voices" by Motionless In White. If you watched The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, who was your favourite character? I don't remember it well, but I think I liked the butler. Was there even a butler? Who was your first online friend? Emma. :') Do you have any plants in your home? No. If you wear makeup, what’s the most outrageous colour you use? I only ever use black. What was the last photograph you took? My cat being adorable while sleeping. <3 Have you ever submitted a video to Funniest Home Videos? No. What was the first sport you learned how to play? I want to say soccer? I absolutely hated it. Do you have a headache at the moment? Yes, actually. I've really been attacked by the Covid shot side effects. Are your parents still together? No, thank god. What was the last hot food you ate? I made a chicken and I think pesto (some Italian noodles, idk) Healthy Choice bowl for dinner last night. Have you ever seen a meteor shower? No. :( Do you ever feel afraid people will question your sanity? I'm sure people have before, and back then? Rightfully so. Which X Factor audition(s) was/were your favorite? Never watched it. Were you a straight A student in spelling and grammar? Always. It's so weird how it's gotten worse with time since leaving school, even though I write... Were you a straight A student in math? Yeah, no. I usually got Bs or Cs. What is your favorite shade of yellow? Pastel. I don't really like yellow. What is something you want to accomplish before you turn 30? Have a stable job. Are you afraid of getting yelled at? YES. Do you feel a connection to the moon? It's not something I think about, so not really, but I do believe all things in the universe are connected in some way. We are simply a part of nature, as all else is. What does your heart long for? Contentment in who I am and where I am in life. I know I also miss being in love. Do you know what your purpose in life is? We have no innate purpose; we make our own, and I want mine to be to show others that there is always hope for yourself in yourself, and also to spread the message of love of all animals. Did you decorate a pumpkin this year? Last year I didn't. I really should change that this go around. Have you ever seen a fox? Yes! They're a kind of rare sight here sadly, so when I had the opportunity to photograph a fox tragically as roadkill, it was a photographic experience I won't forget. God, I wanted to pet it (I obviously didn't), but I did talk to it about how beautiful (s)he was as I got some shots. I never had a harder time leaving one of those angels I've taken pictures of. Do you find Halloween fun or scary? FUN!!!!!! Is there anything about Halloween you find offensive? Not at all. What do the trees look like where you live? I mean, there's a variety, but the staple that you see literally everywhere are pine trees. What is your dream vacation? Somewhere with mountains, clear lakes, cool weather, beautiful and various wildlife... What was the best vacation you’ve been on so far? Disney World as a kid. What is the best class trip you’ve been on? The zoo in the 5th grade. It was the one occasion I got to see meerkats. Did you like field trips when you were a kid? I lived for them. Do you find museums boring or interesting? I find science museums to be very, very fascinating. Art ones are great, too. What are three issues you are passionate about? LGBT rights, the pro-choice movement, and wildlife conservation, to name a few. Would you ever wear a shirt with your country’s flag on it? No. I'm not patriotic enough at all. What size is your bed? Queen. What’s a medicine that makes you sleepy? When we were experimenting with my Klonopin dosage, I learned that 3mg was enough to knock me on my ASS. Do you like bath bombs? I mean they're pretty, but I wouldn't waste money on 'em. Who are your favorite small YouTubers? Yikes, a looooooot. But this also depends on what you think qualifies as "small." Most of my favorite "small" YTers are tarantula keepers or sub-1M let's players. Who are your favorite big YouTubers? Markiplier obviously, Snake Discovery, Good Mythical Morning (even if I don't watch them anymore, they are veeery dear to my heart and I will always support them), Sam & Colby... Again, there's a lot. When you don't watch TV and YT instead, you really get attached to a lot of them. What was your favorite girl group when you were growing up? Would you believe me if I said Pussycat Dolls? haha Do you like Disney movies? Um, DUH. Were you ever in the popular crowd? No. Have you ever used an outhouse? UGH, at like childhood sports games, yes. I could NEVER nowadays, oh my god. Could you possibly write a successful novel? I think I have the creativity to, but not the dedication. Are there any foods that make you gag? Beans, for one. I just canNOT with them. It's a completely involuntary reaction. Have you ever had blonde highlights in your hair? I think I did? Who was the last person you video-chatted with? The lady who was seeing if I qualified for TMS therapy. Do you think sleeve tattoos look trashy? Definitely not, I love those. If you had to get a portrait tattoo, who would it be of? I don't actually want one, but if I did, I'd go to a serious professional to get THE Darkiplier smile. :') If u know u know. Do you have any stickers on any of your electronic devices? No. Do you think half blonde/half dark brown hair is attractive? It looks great on some people, but it's not my favorite combo.

#survey #surveys #questions #lyrics: ''leave a scar'' by marilyn manson

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lostbbygorl · 5 years ago

Conversation

CS as things my teachers have said (underrated side characters)

Dash Haber: I don't what tastes better. My coffee, or that lipstick I spent $58.90 on for my birthday, which I thibk should be a national holiday

Moose Boy: Jelly is indeed a genius creation

Otter Man: Get out before we have ourselves a friendly little genocide

Zari: guys wanna play a game called "lets use our fucking brains cause its fucking fun as fucking hell"?

Chief: How many of you feel like a disappointment to your families? I can't relate cause I left my family

Chase: Being sad is fun and all, but have u ever tried being so fucking crazy people back away from you at first sight?

Julia: That's a fascinating notebook you have there

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deeisace · 7 years ago

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hmmmm

i like to think there are a lot of interesting folks in my family

or there were, at least

well, yeah okay my recent family is pretty weird also

but just to list some odd/interesting/cool folks? i think, anyway. because i’m thinking about it and i can’t research bcs i turned off my ancestry account bcs i don’t have £15 a month spare

uhhh anyway okay

most of these you will know i’m sure, cs i do talk rather a lot of nonsense fairly often

because letterkenny has reminded me of the existence of canada-

henry bird, ghost child. the only record of him ever that i can find, ever, is the passenger list of him going over to ontario in i forget if it was 1873 or 1878, but he was 8 years old, and i assume he is a cousin of mine somehow (since he went over with my 4th-great grandparents, an aunt and her neices/nephew(/stepchildren - the aunt, Grace, married her sister, Thirza’s widower, 6 months after her sister died, and who died 6 months later)).

on the subject of Canada, Willie Bird, my cousin four times removed, who became a mountie in somewhere called Moose Jaw (someone who is from there is called a Moose Javian, which is fuckin amazing) in his early 20s/the late 1880s, and I can’t find a mention of him following that, in 1891. His sister Ann married a postman and moved to Ohio, where it seems she fairly immediately died, and his sister Thirza married someone called John James Nicholson, stayed home in Dufferin County, Ontario and named her second son Beryle.

Ellenor Moore, an aunt of mine, whose husband Thomas was in fact legally married to the woman next door - they had 10 children between the three of them over 15 years, with most of the eldest listed to Ellenor, and most of the youngest listed with Mary - or at least, they lived in that manner, according to the 1891 census, although the youngest two, the same age, had swapped residence according to their baptisms - John was baptised to Ellenor but lived with Mary on the census, and Selena was baptised to Mary but lived with Ellenor. I couldn’t find baptism records for most of the elder children, however. Of course I don’t know their lives or their reasonings, but I like to think they were happy, living in such a way, even in 1870s-1890s(etc) rural Lancashire.

Alfred Wyatt Pettit, my 3rd-great grandfather, the cheesemonger apprentice turned coachman - turned tram driver, turned omnibus driver, turned omnibus conductor. He really must’ve hated cheese - or just really liked these new motor cars, I suppose!

Redvers Madge, my 3rd great uncle. He just has a funny name, tbh. I’m not at all surprised he went by Henry. Jack, why on earth would you do that to your youngest son?? The rest of them had normal names, f god’s sake.

On the subject of odd names, tho - Thirza Bird, Devereaux Aland, Wyndham Evans (on my father’s side), Wyndham Madge (on my mother’s side), Mark Darke, Horatio Fox... A set of sisters all called variations on Mary - Mary, Maria, May - with Elizabeth and Charles the youngest two siblings. And a set of sisters all with flower names - Daisy, Violet, Ivy, Hyacinth (who hated her name, and was called something entirely unrelated as soon as she was able to protest) and Lily - where all the boys had, again, normal names - Charles, Sam, Eddie and Cyril.

Alice Fox, who came from a family of criminals - or at least, her dad (the aforementioned Horatio Fox, “a rough-looking fellow [and] lazy, drunken vagabond”, according to the papers, who I talk about here a bit) was terrible in at least most ways you can think, to his family as well as himself, and seems to have been in prison more often than not, fortunately - and one of her aunts was the 1870s equivalent of a shoplifter, whilst the other caused a lot of bother fighting with her neighbours, and the last married a policeman, which must’ve caused some family drama, I imagine. But Alice married a baker, who’sone and only mention in the local paper was that once he got fined for leaving his car outside a shop for too long, which spooked a horse, in 1912 - so while that’s no proof, I do hope her later life was happier than her childhood.

Ah, who else, now.

John Stuart Scarth, who was a son of a gun - although not in his manner, so far as I can tell. He was born, impossibly, on a ship on it’s way back from Malta. Impossible because although his dad was a soldier, the regiment he belonged to would not be in Malta another 30 years. He lists himself as being born in Lisbon, however - but although his daughter must’ve got something wrong - or I have, or someone has - he must’ve told her that story, for her to remember it and tell it to the author of a genealogical book about posh people in Illinois. I’m not entirely sure I believe that book, that she was "a lady of culture and refinement”, since that is certainly not true of any of my more recent relatives (refinement?? nah), although I do believe the book/her that her dad was the precentor of St Magnus’ Cathedral, sort of like a choir master, for 40 years, and had “a peculiar talent” “in vocal and instrumental music”, and valued music far above his trade (which was tailoring, same as his dad - who also had the same name) - I know from the Orkney papers some of the songs he sang, and that he had a “neat manner” and that he sang as entertainment for the local Temperance League meetings sometimes - which is why I say he was not a son of a gun - although his place of birth makes him one.

James Linklater Fergus, the first actual Scouser in my family (although Lancashire goes further back some, on another branch), a sailor on a steam ship who died in Alexandria, Egypt, after stepping on a rusty nail - or at least, that is what I assume from “puncture wound, sole rht foot, 10 days hosp”.

Betsy Evans, my 4th-great aunt, from Darlaston, who listed her occupation as “latch-press” in 1871 - I know of course it means that she made latches, in a factory or suchlike, but it seems so much like an old-timey word for a thief, doesn’t it? I can quite imagine her making the locks she will later break into, though I’m sure that’s a foolish thought if ever there was one.

Alfred Cotterill, my great great grandfather, who emigrated to Boston and came back not two years later - to join the war effort, for ww1 had begun (supposedly, according to his grandson - but he married in april 1914, in Newport, Wales (to an awful woman), and the war did not begin until july - so unless he was clairvoyant, I fail to see how that was the case. He had a tattoo, on his right arm, although I’ve no idea what of, since I can’t find his blummin war records, can I? He spent most of the war as a POW, in the salt mines - he was shot in the leg in no man’s land, and was reportedly glad the germans picked him up instead of the british, since it meant he kept his leg, rather than the british, who had no time or resources, just amputating it.

Richard Mussard, a cab driver in London in the 1850s etc, who lived near two train stations and did so alright for himself that he owned his own cab after some time. He became a cabbie before the advent of The Knowledge, and so must’ve been one of the first to have to take it. I’ve no idea of his parents, but London in 1800 seems to have had two Mussard families - one, lightermen (sort of like ferrymen, only for things rather than people, working with the currents and with long paddles used for steering) from Battersea, or the other, a middle-class fencing/dancing instructor to boarding schools who did indeed have a son called Richard, although it was his middle name and not first. I don’t know how Richard might have got from an alright middle-class background to ferrying people between train stations for a pitance, and I would not wish such a decrease in fortunes upon him, but I do hope I’m decended from a fencing instructor anyway.

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I think that’s rather enough, I suppose - I’ve run out of people that other people seem to find interesting, and I’m sure if I continued I’d bore you. And it’s midnight.

#ancestry #nonsense #if you should like to know about my recent family?#my mother is a disfellowshipped jehovah's witness who moved to france to spin alpaca wool and grow oyster mushrooms in her spare time from w #working at a chateaux #my stepdad is a blacksmith #he also used to write radio jingles and was an actual hatter once - one of the doctor whos complimented one of his leather top hats once #and he was a hairdresser #one of my brothers (fagin) studies theoretical physics; one (alfie) is a mechanic and the other works somehow in finance?? idk what joe does #my youngest sister's mum is a barrister who works in a bookie's; and my eldest sister is an au pair in london #i think that's rather enough nonsense for tonight i'm going to sleep

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mysteryshelf · 8 years ago

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BLOG TOUR - The Grand

Welcome to

THE PULP AND MYSTERY SHELF!

DISCLAIMER: This content has been provided to THE PULP AND MYSTERY SHELF by Partners in Crime Book Tours. No compensation was received. This information required by the Federal Trade Commission.

The Grand

by Dennis D. Wilson

on Tour October 1-31, 2017

Synopsis:

Chicago cop Dean Wister takes a forced vacation when he is on the brink of a breakdown after the death of his wife. During his summer solstice in Jackson Hole, where he met her years before, he is called in to consult by local police when a notorious Chicago mobster is found dead in the Snake River. Dean’s investigation threatens to uncover the secrets of a group of memorable suspects, ranging from rich tycoons to modern day cowboys, and threatens to derail the Presidential prospects of the Senator from Wyoming. As Dean follows the leads from Wyoming to Chicago to Washington D.C., he also struggles to cope with the personal loss that threatens his mental stability, as the nocturnal visits from his deceased wife suppress his will to let her go and make him question his purpose in life. The climactic scenes contain reveals the reader will never see coming. A funny, romantic, sexy, roller coaster thriller.

Book Details:

Genre: Crime Thriller Published by: Water Street Press Publication Date: December 2016 Number of Pages: 304 ISBN: 978-1-62134-330-1 (ASIN: B01N682LXW) Purchase Links: Amazon 🔗 | Kindle 🔗 | Barnes & Noble 🔗 | Goodreads 🔗

Read an excerpt:

SENATOR THOMAS MCGRAW sat back in the hand-distressed, buffalo-hide easy chair and contemplated the room around him. This was his first visit to the brand new, custom-designed mountain home of his lover. When their affair started a little over a year ago, what a sweet and savory surprise it had been to both of them. A business relationship grew into friendship, and then suddenly and unexpectedly exploded into something else— a red-hot, cross-country, obsessive romance fueled by shared erotic tastes. The senator felt sexually liberated under the spell of his exotic lover, and he was pretty sure those feelings were mutual. True, they needed to be discreet for a variety of reasons— indiscretion had nearly cost them everything— but they had worked it out. Although hectic schedules limited their rendezvous to only a couple of weekends a month, the deprivation and anxiety of anticipation made these weekends that much more satisfying. He was generally in a frenzy by the time he could get to her.

The room was the den of a typical ten-thousand-square-foot vacation home of the rich and powerful in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Decked out in nouveau western, its reclaimed timbers, Wyoming sandstone, and river rock were either complemented by— or detracted from, depending on your esthetic point of view— the original modern paintings depicting bold and most definitely non-earth-toned western landscapes and various forms of neon-colored wildlife. As Tom sipped his twenty-three-year-old Pappy Van Winkle, he studied the visage of a purple and orange moose head sculpted from California mahogany hanging dispiritedly over the fireplace. Damn, any self-respecting Wyoming moose would be embarrassed to know that this is some guy’s idea of what a trophy moose should look like. His personal style was more traditional Western— big wooden beams and a glut of real dead animal heads on the walls. But, the sex was still new and novel, unlike anything he had felt before, and he was willing to overlook these stylistic differences for the time being or, who knew, maybe for a long time. As his mentor had told him a long time ago: “Pussy is a powerful motivator.”

“I am soooo happy we were able to start our weekend a day early,” his lover called from the other room. “I’ve been so horny this week that I’ve been bouncing off the walls. I brought back something special for you from Chicago. Just give me another minute, sweetie.” Charlotte Kidwell dressed, and undressed, to accentuate her best features: her big green eyes, her long, toned legs, and her perfect bubble butt. Her regular head-to-toe salon appointments, personal trainer, and strict dietary regimen were essentials to the healthy, put-together appearance that women of her age and social status often have, if they have the money and motivation to work at it. In her younger days, her insecure attempts to add sex appeal fell short, and she’d ended up with an oddly unfeminine look with her clumsy and unsuccessful experiments with cosmetics. But middle age had actually softened her features, and as she became more adept at the finer points of female grooming, she began to realize how much she resembled her sister. During what she referred to as “The Sexual Awakening,” she had finally developed the confidence in her sexuality to consciously emulate her sister’s makeup and dress. Her older sibling had always exuded effortless sexuality, and throughout high school and college had gone through more boys in most years than Charlotte had dated for her entire youth.

The senator had certainly surprised her. Although his belly professed his lust for food and drink and a disinclination for exercise, his face was the opposite, exuding an irresistible cowboy masculinity. At middle age, most people have to choose between a wrinkle-free face and a toned and youthful body. What was it her friend in Chicago called fat? “Nature’s botox.” He had chosen his beautiful face at the expense of his body, but that was fine with her, because he was a sexual artiste. Certainly no one who knew him could possibly conceive of the hot spring of sexuality that was percolating beneath his surface. In spite of their distinctly different personalities, she considered him her soul mate. The first man in her forty-four years who had ever laid claim to that title. The thought made her giggle.

“Hurry up, baby, and get your pretty little ass out here.”

Appearing in the doorway, she framed herself with the hand-on-the-hip pose so popular with women much younger than herself. “You like? I know this little specialty boutique in Chicago, and it ain’t Macy’s Intimate Apparel.”

He liked the look very much. The red lace push-up bra, matching thong panties, silk kimono, and six-inch stilettos appealed to the man who’d had a weakness for strippers in his younger days. Though the untied robe looked more like a cape than boudoir attire, and the entire outfit reminded him of a porn movie he once saw— Superslut, a parody of Superwoman, he had to give her an “A” for effort. “Wow, you look like a very sexy Little Red Riding Hood. And where in the world did you find a bra that makes those pretty little A cups of yours look like Cs? Now turn around and let me admire your world-class bootie.”

She did a little twirl for him, grinned, and pushed together her bra cups to emphasize her cleavage. “It’s called a miracle bra, and see, it does work miracles. Now you just sit there and sip your whiskey. I have another surprise for you.” She strutted over to the bookcase, flipped a switch, and AC/ DC’s “Shook Me All Night Long” filled the room. And she began to dance.

“Oh my.” Tom took a big swallow and relished the burn. “You are just full of surprises tonight.”

“Just sit back and enjoy, Senator. I’ve got a few more surprises coming your way.”

Watching her rehearsed moves, the familiar hunger began to stir below his opulent belly. And then, in a maneuver that would have been impressive for a woman of any age, she turned away from him, spread her legs, touched her toes, looked straight up at him from her bare inverted V, and twerked. She had been practicing all afternoon, and when she saw the image of her quivering butt in the mirror she couldn’t wait to see his reaction.

“Oh, my god, where did you learn that?” The stirring rising now to a different level. And he was also wondering… her dance routine looked really professional.

“I have a very good friend in Chicago who does this for a living, and she’s been giving me some lessons.”

“Judging from that pose, sweetie, your friend must be an instructor in ‘stripper yoga’.” The senator, feeling the fire down there, leaned forward and reached for that perfect ass. “Get over here and let me take you the way I like, the way I know you like.” Putting his hands on her bare cheeks and grabbing two hands full, he left his chubby fingerprints as indentations on her flesh. Crazed now, pulling off his pants and underwear but not bothering with his shirt and tie, he pulled her thong aside, mounted her, grunting, sighing. Both of them grunting, sighing, grunting some more. And now just the sounds of flesh slapping flesh. And AC/ DC, urging them on…

Hayden Smith was running late. He was always running late. It was common knowledge in town that you had to book every appointment with Hayden an hour early to get him to show up on time. Attorney, county commissioner, real estate broker and developer, owner of a property management company— all that, plus trying to live up to the moniker of Teton County’s most eligible bachelor as determined by Mountain Woman magazine, well, that could take a toll on a man, even a man as fit and athletic as Hayden. And it was taking its toll on Hayden today. Sometimes he thought there was little point in taking any time off because you had to work twice as hard just to clear your schedule.

The last item of the day on his long list was to make sure all was in order in the home of his newest property management client before their arrival the next morning. But what he really was thinking about, as he put the key in the door, was that he was already an hour late for a dinner date at the home of one of Teton County’s richest and most beautiful socialites. And so if he hadn’t been fantasizing about the evening’s upcoming sensual activities, and if he hadn’t assumed that it was his cleaning crew that had left that open bourbon bottle on the counter, and if he hadn’t been formulating the words he was going to use to chew Pablo’s ass about getting control of his maintenance team, and if he had checked his voicemail after his last two meetings instead of engaging in licentious banter on the phone with the young socialite, then he might have reacted differently to the pounding bass of one of the most iconic rock anthems of the 1980s. He might not have followed the mesmerizing sound of Brian Johnson’s sandpaper voice into the den, assuming that he would find some of his employees having an unauthorized party; and he might not have witnessed the sight in front of him that would not only drastically change his life but would also set in motion a chain of events that had the potential to change the course of American history.

If he had looked directly at the man’s face, he almost certainly would have recognized one of the most well-known faces in Wyoming, soon to be equally famous throughout America. However, Hayden looked everywhere but into his face. The man, still dressed for business on top but naked from the waist down, was humping a pretty redhead doggie style, and Hayden was fascinated that with each thrust, her red stilettos would come off the ground about twelve inches, and then at the end of the thrust, the tips of her heels would bang down on the pine floor. Thrust, bang, thrust, bang, thrust, bang. Later when he played that video clip back in his mind, he captioned it “porn star tap dancing.”

He looked all around the room, but his eyes kept coming back to those red shoes, maybe because he didn’t really want to look at the man’s jiggling ass, or maybe because when his eyes followed those shoes north he was treated to a pair of the finest legs and most delicious bootie that he had ever seen. If he had been thinking clearly, he would have just turned around and walked right out of the house and he would have been able to go back to his great life as Teton County’s busiest and most eligible bachelor. But for whatever reason— the shock of the scene, or his own perverse voyeurism— he did not turn back around. He knocked on the door jamb with his clipboard and stammered loudly enough to be heard over AC/ DC. “Ah, ah, ah, I thought you weren’t coming in until tomorrow. I just came to check on the house. Is everything OK? I mean, just call me if anything isn’t OK. Sorry to interrupt. I’ll just let myself out…” And then he backed out of the room and nearly sprinted out the door.

Tom jumped up with impressive agility considering his exertion and girth, partly hopping, definitely bobbing. “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.”

Charlotte rolled over onto her side. “What the fuck, I left him a message that I was coming in today. What was he thinking?”

And the senator just kept repeating, “Oh, shit, oh, shit, oh, shit.” Then, catching his breath, added to his mantra, “I’m sure he saw me, I’m sure he saw me, I’m sure he saw me.”

His lover, handing him the rest of his twenty-three-year-old Pappy, said, “Here, drink this,” trying not to let the panic sound in her voice. She thought for a moment. “We’ll call Mario. He’ll know what to do. If that asshole tells anyone it’ll hurt Mario as much as us. Well, maybe not quite as much as us, but you know what I mean.”

Tom sat down for a minute, his white dress shirt soaked through, wheezing from the exertion, from the excitement, from the fear, his heart a thumping kettle drum in his chest. Neither of them said a word for a minute, then two. Finally realizing the heart attack wasn’t coming, he took a huge breath and said, “OK, call him.”

Charlotte punched the number into her mobile phone. “Mario? Sorry to bother you, but we have a problem. Some asshole just walked in on the two of us. Walked in on us… you know. What do you think we were doing? How could he not recognize him? Yeah, he’s my property manager. Hold on. Honey, would you hand me that business card on the table?”

THE FIRST TIME Dean Wister had visited the Tetons was twelve years ago, the summer before his senior year in college. Although he said it was adventure he was looking for, it was escape that he was really seeking when he answered an ad to guide for one of the rafting companies that run whitewater trips down the Snake River, just south of Teton National Park. It was a grueling twenty-four-hour drive from his home in Chicago to Jackson Hole, the mountain town at the foot of the spectacular Teton Range, and the route that he was taking, I-90 across Illinois, Wisconsin, and South Dakota, was one of the most monotonous and boring stretches of highway across America. Hour after hour he would stare at the road between truck stops, trying to keep alert for the highway patrol and the erratic driving of drowsy long-distance truckers. He tried listening to music and audio books, but his mind wouldn’t let him focus. Lately, he had a lot of trouble focusing. He’d once tried meditation, taking a Transcendental Meditation workshop with his wife, Sara, but meditation wasn’t for him. His mind would inevitably wander from the rhythm of his breathing to some problem from work that he was trying to solve. Dean had always been more of a ruminator than a meditator. And so he ruminated for hour after hour. He ruminated about all that had happened over the last twelve years. He ruminated about the horror of the last year. And he ruminated about what the future might, or more importantly, might not, hold.

That first trip had also been a time of transition for him. His mother died after his freshman year in high school, and his dad was killed in a work accident at the lumber yard just before Dean started college. As an only child he had led a solitary existence growing up, but by the time he left for college he was officially an orphan, no parents to cheer him as the starting safety on the University of Illinois football team, and no siblings to share the empty and confused feelings of losing the only responsible adults he had ever known. His hometown of Summersville, West Virginia, was near the banks of the Gauley River, one of the most famous whitewater-rafting rivers in the East, and the gray, small-minded, and cruel little town resembled what Mayberry may have looked like if Andy hadn’t been born. Until he was seventeen, Dean had never met a college graduate outside of a classroom, and growing up with his nose stuck in a book most of the time, his peers, and even most of the adults he knew, looked down on his habit as a sign of either homosexuality, laziness, or both. Maybe it was resentment for not living the fantastic and interesting life of the characters in the books that he read, or maybe it was the bullying that he experienced from his literature-averse peers, or maybe it was his sense of insecurity and inferiority from his hillbilly background, or maybe it was just his nature— for whatever reason, there was a well of anger deep inside of Dean.

The bullying stopped the first time he stepped on a football field. He loved to play defense, and putting the hammer to the ball carrier or receiver was equally pleasurable to him, whether in practice or during an actual game. He loved the rush of power he felt when a body crushed beneath him as he delivered the blow. As he would take aim at his target coming across the field, he imagined his body as a sledge hammer and he would launch himself, helmet first, at his opponents, relishing the pain he received nearly as much as the pain he delivered. As his scrawny adolescent body matured into a six-foot, one-hundred-ninety-pound defensive back, his football hits became ever more fearsome, and attracted the attention of a recruiter for the University of Illinois. Football would end for him upon college graduation for, as a pro scout told him, “Son, you sure have the meanness for pro football, but not the speed.” But that was all right; football had served its purpose.

The first time his dad had taken him along to run the rapids of the Gauley he was only nine years old, but after that he was addicted to the river. Working as a gofer for one of the rafting companies, imagining himself as one of the cocky swaggering guides, he would do anything to be near the river. The owner of the company took a liking to him, and broke the rules to put him on as a guide at sixteen. He worked on the Gauley through high school and college. But, with the death of his father, West Virginia held too many painful memories; he needed to get away. He heard from some fellow guides that the Snake River in Wyoming, south of Jackson, could be fun. Sure, its mostly Class 2 and 3 rapids were nothing compared to the Gauley, but he had always wanted to see the Rockies, and it was about as far away from West Virginia as he could imagine. That summer on the Snake, in the Tetons, revealed another side that he didn’t know he had. He learned how to cap that well of anger, to regulate the flow, to use it instead of letting it use him, and for the next decade was able to let it out only when his job demanded it. He discovered that there was another well, an untapped well, within him. A well of love and sweetness, of kindness and generosity. And the auger that tapped that well was Sara.

He’d just sent some food back at the Pioneer Grill, the coffee shop in Jackson Lake Lodge in Teton National Park. His order of sautéed Rocky Mountain rainbow trout appeared on his plate as buffalo meatloaf. His anger rising at this inexcusable display of disrespect and incompetence, he called over the pretty blonde server and pointed at the food in front of him. “Miss, do you think you would recognize a Rocky Mountain rainbow trout if you saw one?” She’d looked first at the gravy-smothered brown glob, and then directly into his twisted angry face, and behind her best smile said, “Apparently not, but I can recognize an asshole when I see one.”

Dean was overmatched by the spunky girl with eyes of a deeper blue than the summer skies over the Grand Tetons, and he fell in love on the spot. They laughed at the story forever, and she still called him “meatloaf asshole” on occasion, either when she was feeling especially fond or, more often, particularly annoyed with him. She loved to tease him and ridicule his quirks, calling him “schizo” for the many paradoxical elements in his personality: jock/ intellectual, hot head/ sentimentalist, loner/ showoff. But when she would call him “schizo” and flash him her irresistible smile, it would always soften his mood, and he was able to laugh at himself.

As a trust-fund baby of a power couple in Chicago’s legal community, Sara’s suburban childhood was exactly the opposite of Dean’s. Her bookworm ways were admired by her parents, friends, and her community. The vivacious blond with the sharp wit and the ability to fit in with every social group was a psych major at the University of Chicago, less than a two-hour drive up the interstate from Champaign if you are a hormone-crazed college boy, more like three hours for everyone else. Her well of anger was only a fraction of Dean’s and reserved exclusively for bullies and people who abused children, animals, and the less fortunate. But if you happened to occupy that territory, her fierceness could make even Dean flinch.

When he thought of their first summer, it played back in his head like some film made from a Nicolas Sparks novel. As he watched the movie, alone in the theater seat of his Jeep Cherokee, he smiled at the “meet cute” first scene in the coffee shop, marveled at the on-location, awe-inspiring backdrops of the Snake and the Tetons, was moved to tears by the scene where he makes love to Sara for the first time. And he couldn’t criticize the filmmaker’s decision to leave every sex scene of the summer in the movie. There they are making love on the window seat in the tiny apartment shared by Dean and his four other river rat roommates. There they are making love after a picnic at Schwabacher’s landing, the Tetons reflected like a painting in the beaver pond. And there they are on their last day of the summer, on a picnic in the alpine meadow they had discovered on their long hike into the mountains. The meadow they had named “Sara’s Meadow.” The meadow where Dean proposed. The meadow they pledged to return to each year on their anniversary. They talked of it often, and relived the moment every year on that special day. But they never came back. Life, and careers, and bullshit got in the way.

Careers included the single-minded ambition they shared. Dean’s resulted in a meteoric rise to detective in the Chicago Police Department and, after being handpicked to join the Midwest Organized Crime Task Force as the only local police detective among FBI and ATF agents, his days and weeks became an unending blur of clues, criminals, and cases. Sara’s graduate degree at Northwestern led to a tenure track appointment at Loyola University. But tenure track meant running never-ending, back-to-back-to-back marathons of teaching, research, and publishing. Their career ambitions allowed no room for children, or travel, or a return to Sara’s Meadow.

And then, over the last year, came the bullshit. Dean was working eighty-hour weeks on a high-profile case involving government and police corruption, and many of the Chicago cops whom he considered friends turned away from him. And then, just when they thought they were getting close to breaking the case, the investigation was shut down and he was reassigned. He was exhausted, disappointed, stressed, and his friends treated him like a traitor.

And then there was Sara. She had been diagnosed with cancer just as Dean began the investigation from hell. After her initial treatment, she received a clean report, and he was too preoccupied to notice when she continued to lose weight. A check-up a few months later showed that the cancer had returned. The rebound was aggressive, additional treatment failed to stop the spread, and she continued to get weaker and weaker in spite of what she would call “frequent invitations for happy hour cancer cocktails with my oncologist.” She even made up names for the cocktails based on the side effects she would experience afterward. There was the Diarrhea Daiquiri, the Migraine Martini, and the Vomit-rita. No subject was out of bounds for her wicked and irreverent sense of humor. Once, when she was bedridden near the end, Dean asked her how she was feeling, and in her best Sally Field Mama Gump imitation, she said “Well, Forrest, I’ve got the cancer.”

Dean wanted to take a leave to stay at Sara’s bedside, but she made up her mind that that was not an option. And when Sara made up her mind about something, he had learned to let her have her way. So Dean was relegated to spending every hour that he wasn’t working by her side, holding her close, imagining how they would live their lives differently when she was well. The night she died, she asked him to describe that day in Sara’s Meadow. And when he finished, she said, “Promise we can go there when I get well. Will you take me there next summer?” He nodded, unable to speak. She slept peacefully that night for the first time in quite a while, and in the morning she was gone.

Strangely, although she was the center of his universe, the only person that he could say he ever truly loved, he showed little emotion when she died. He didn’t cry. He felt almost as if he were an outside observer of these terrible events. He experienced only numbness. An unrelenting, withering numbness. A numbness interrupted only by random bursts of anger that disturbed even the hardened cops he worked with. Dean was not unaware of his problem, and tried to channel the anger by hooking up with Manny Cohen, a mixed martial arts coach and self-proclaimed king of “Jew-Jitsu”. He loved the physicality of the MMA bouts, and that the jiu-jitsu moves he learned permitted him to disable much bigger and stronger fighters, even if he was on the ground being pummeled. He justified the training as part of his law-enforcement skills, but he knew what it was really about— the ability to inflict some of the horrible hurt he was feeling on others.

The changes in Dean since Sara’s death were most troubling to his boss, Carlos Alvarez. Carlos had been crushed when, on the verge of busting a Chicago mob guy who had both political and police connections, which evidently reached all the way to Washington, the whole operation had been shut down. In his heart, he knew it was those same connections he was investigating that had defeated him. He looked at Dean and watched one of the most competitive spirits he had ever known flicker out, starved for the oxygen that Sara could no longer supply. The case they had put their hearts and souls into for the last year was ripped out of their hands and Dean, who normally would be just as pissed off as he was, seemed to be only going through the motions.

But the most disturbing problem, as far as he was concerned, was Dean’s refusal to mourn Sara. Carlos watched as Dean’s isolation became extreme, and he refused all offers to talk or socialize. Dean’s robotic demeanor and increasingly unpredictable violent outbursts were scaring him. When Carlos sent him to meet with the psychologist assigned to their department, he refused to cooperate. He insisted that he was fine. But Carlos knew he wasn’t fine. He saw a man on the brink of a breakdown and finally decided that drastic action was needed to rescue the man from himself. One morning he walked into Dean’s office and handed him a letter worded as an authorization, which was actually an order, to take a three-month leave of absence.

“But where will I go? What will I do?” Dean said, seemingly incapable of entertaining any change to his barely functional routine. Carlos looked toward the picture on his desk, the one taken twelve years earlier. It showed Dean standing on a whitewater raft. Sara was sitting in the boat looking up at him with a combination of love and lust in her eyes. In the background, the grandeur of the Tetons loomed. “You have to get out of town. You have to get away from here, from all this. And I know where I would go if I had no obligations and three months off. I’ve been envying that picture since the day you moved in here.”

What his boss didn’t know, and what Dean couldn’t tell him, or anyone else for that matter, was the real reason that he wouldn’t see the psychologist— something that would make him seem crazy to outsiders. Hell, he often had that thought about himself. Not every evening, but maybe two or three nights a week, he would spend the night with Sara. He would wake up a couple of hours after he went to sleep, and she would be there, sitting in the chair next to his bed. He would get up, and they would talk just like they used to, about everything, what was happening in his life and in his job, or what was going on in the news. They would make love, and it was every bit as passionate and real as before she was sick. When he would wake up in the morning, she would be gone. At first, he tried to convince himself that it was all a dream, until one night he washed the sheets before he went to bed, and the next morning her perfume lingered on the bedding. She was really there, and she was as real as anything he had ever experienced.

He had nothing against psychologists. He had seen a therapist in college after a particularly hard break-up and had found it very helpful. In fact, he visited that same therapist when Carlos was pushing him to see the department shrink— he wasn’t about to have his craziness officially certified to his employer. And his own therapist confirmed what he instinctively knew himself. “Your hallucinations of your dead wife will go away when you allow yourself to fully mourn her.” But that was exactly the problem. Her very real apparition was the only tangible thing he had left of her. Her visits were the only thing that let him get through the day, that kept him from becoming totally out of control, and he wasn’t going to let anyone take that away from him. He was determined to hold on to whatever was left of her, for as long as he could.

Sara was the one that convinced him to take the trip. She told him during one of their nocturnal visits that he could use the time off; that she knew he was stressed out. He agreed on one condition. That she would come with him. She gave him her mischievous smile, the one that had captured him that first day in the coffee shop, and said, “That’s not a problem. I’m not going without sex for three months. And the ghosts here are too creepy to sleep with.”

That first summer twelve years ago, he had come into town from the south, getting off I-80 west of Rock Springs, approaching Jackson via Alpine and driving up through the Snake River canyon so that he could view the whitewater section he would be working. Wyoming is mostly high plains except for the northwestern part, which is an endless vista of scrub grass, prickly pear, sage brush, with occasional red-rock battleships and gargoyles. On that first trip he was able to view the Wind River Range in the distance outside his window, but he didn’t really get a good view of the Teton Range until he reached the outskirts of the town of Jackson. This time he had decided to take the Northern route via I-90, because he wanted to see the Black Hills, one of the few topographic areas of interest that is easily accessible from the interstate. So he was not really prepared for what happened when his Jeep rounded the bend on Route 26, east of Teton National Park, and he looked west. The fragrance hit him first. He had the windows in his Jeep rolled down and, as the road increased in elevation, the air turned cooler and became infused with snow runoff blended into mountain streams and the bouquet of lodgepole pine forests to form the unique perfume that his unconscious associated with his first summer there. He was looking down for a station on the radio when he felt the jolt, as if a switch was flipped in his brain, and when he turned his face back to the road, the windshield was suddenly and magically filled with the panorama of the majestic purple, snow-tipped peaks of the mountain range that symbolized all that had been true and pure in his life. All that was lost and would never ever return. The image struck him like a bullet in his chest, sucking all the air from his body. The next thing he knew, he was out of his car, on the side of the road, on his knees, gasping for air, heaving, sobbing. “Oh, Sara. My sweet, sweet, Sara.”

***

Author Bio:

After a career working in an international consulting firm and as a financial executive with two public companies, Dennis D. Wilson returns to the roots he established as a high school literature and writing teacher at the beginning of his career. For his debut novel, he draws upon his experiences from his hometown of Chicago, his years living, working, hiking and climbing in Jackson Hole, and secrets gleaned from time spent in corporate boardrooms to craft a political crime thriller straight from today’s headlines. Dennis lives in suburban Chicago with his wife Paula and Black Lab Jenny, but spends as much time as he can looking for adventure in the mountains and riding his motorcycle.

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