SILLY GIRL by Michel Prince

SILLY GIRL by Michel Prince

Are professional sports just children’s games played by oversized kids?

 With an all-consuming focus Matthias Jessup has sacrificed his body in pursuit of greatness. But while he’s enjoyed the spoils of being an elite athlete, the physical punishment can only be held at bay for so long. He knows his time is running out and he will have to face his future soon.

Sylvia Kinder is obsessed with Matthias' public image. But now that her fantasy has walked into her life, could it possibly lead to a happy ending? She worries if there's any place for her in his world, much less his heart.

 Drawn to each other on a chance meeting, Matthias must look off the court and discover the real world, while Sylvia will have to find the strength of self to not become lost in a world she doesn’t understand. But those who aren’t ready for a life after the game surround Matthias and are willing to do anything to keep him on the court.

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~Excerpt~

Sitting straight up Sylvia looked down the hall to Matthias’ open bedroom door. The motto of loved and lost was dancing around her mind. So what if she became a one-night-stand to Matthias Jessup? It wasn’t like she had a chance to be more. This was her one shot at feeling his body against hers for real. His smooth skin and tight body against hers, surely for him this was happening because of a lack of options, but for Sylvia it would be a dream come true. The memories alone made it worth the hard glare of the morning’s sun.

Mustering up the courage to walk the twenty or so feet to his door, Sylvia stood up, fluffed her hair, and walked straight to the kitchen. Leaning her elbows on the countertop Sylvia buried her head in her hands and fought the angel and devil on her shoulders. As long as Matthias didn’t come out and hear her pro-con list she whispered to herself, she’d be fine.

If you learn how he is in bed all your dreams will be dust—con.

He could be better than your dreams—major pro.

You don’t need sex—lie.

He’ll see your scars—con.

He can make it so you don’t have to spend the next week masturbating more than a teenage boy to get him out of your system—pro…with a little con.

Right now he likes you—pro.

He likes you because he respects you—pro

He could be lying to get you to screw him and really thinks you’re a loser—con

You’ll never respect yourself if you become a one-night-stand to him—con.

You only have one chance to be with him and this is it, it’ll never come again—

Hmm.

Oh Jesus, she thought as her back fell against the wall.

“Come on, Sylvia, ten more feet, and Matthias will be spreading your thighs.” Okay, now Sylvia had truly lost it. She was in the really bad rhyming phase of her delusion. She turned back to the living room when she heard a grunt from his bedroom that stimulated every hormone known to man. That grunt was exertion, that grunt was a man working, that grunt…needed a groan with a purpose.

The hormones raced and Sylvia practically sprinted into Matthias’ bedroom, but didn’t see him. It took a minute for her to find him in the air above his bathroom door. He had a pull-up bar mounted in the doorframe and he was doing dips to strengthen his triceps. Sylvia used the doorjamb to hold herself up as she almost fainted at the sight of his tensed muscles. His shirt was off and there was a light misting of sweat covering his chocolate colored skin.

Matthias had been so focused he hadn’t seen his observer at first, but when he did he dropped to the ground and stood facing Sylvia. The cut of his abdominal muscles had an eight, not six pack, with the beautiful V right at his hips. He was in workout shorts that hung off his ass with such perfection Sylvia began to regret the thought of ripping them from his body. Best of all, the tattoo with Sharee’s name had been removed.

As she let out the air in her lungs her bottom lip trembled and Matthias took a step toward her.

“Did you need another blanket?” he asked as Sylvia forgot how to speak.

Stumbling through her mind she felt like Ralphie asking Santa for a Red-Rider B.B. Gun.

“No…um…I was thinking,” Sylvia began as she tried to control herself enough to not ask if he had a set of handcuffs around. “That…are you the damn model for Batman’s suit?”

“Huh?”

Sylvia composed herself by closing her eyes, but even then she couldn’t help thinking of Matthias’ tight chest and what she could do with a can of whip cream.

“I will probably never see you again after tonight,” Sylvia said as quickly as she could. Strangely, her voice hit about five octaves higher than she was hoping for.

Sylvia looked at Matthias’ face and prayed he would show some glimmer of, oh no, I’m going to bring a priest over in the morning to marry us immediately! Okay, that fantasy wasn’t going to happen, she thought.

Matthias stood steadfast and a little bit confused.

“Okay, so what does it matter if you think I’m a trick, because whether we sleep together or not we’ll never be together after tonight so I might as well…go for it. So to speak.”

Sylvia swallowed hard and nibbled on her lips hoping he didn’t bust out laughing. To her surprise, he looked at her and started to speak, but then stopped. He seemed to be trying to work out something in his mind.

In one giant step he cradled her head in his hand and kissed her in a way that shook her to the core. The passion behind his lips sent her into a frenzy. She wrapped her arms around his neck for support as she tasted the sweetness still on his tongue as it gently stroked hers.

With his other hand he lovingly glided down her back, and when he squeezed her ass she fell against his firm body. She could feel the wet heat building in her core and the groan she wanted to hear from him came out of her instead. He finally released and she held tight to his flexed biceps as she slowly opened her eyes.

“You let me kiss you,” he said with a smile.

“Yeah, I guess I did.”

Matthias released her quivering body causing her to brace herself against the wall to stop from falling over.

“That’s all I wanted.”

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A MOTHER'S EYES by Karen S. Woods

A MOTHER'S EYES by Karen S Woods

This is a historical Christian novel retelling the lives of Mary and Jesus through Mary's eyes.

Think about all the things she saw. Think about a good Jewish girl, for she was hardly more than a girl, being visited by the Archangel Gabriel and being asked if she will become the Mother of God.

Then think about how that one moment, that single "Yes" changed her life.

The first approximately 15,000 words of the 94,000 words of the novel are available to read for free HERE.


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Excerpt:

The afternoon sun felt warm on her back as she poured water from the village well into two large earthenware jugs. Fresh water needed to be in the house before Shabbat began, as after sunset today no water could again be drawn until after nightfall tomorrow.

The single room of her small stone house had been scrubbed and polished, flowers had been cut from the garden and placed in vases, and the loaves of bread retrieved from the communal oven an hour ago.

For wealthier families, dinner tonight would feature roast meat and a great variety of dishes, so many that the table linen could hardly be seen for all the food. But, dinner tonight in her house would be far less grand than that. Between the cost of the wine, the fine wheaten flour and the eggs for the six extra large loaves of the egg-rich braided bread for the three meals of Shabbat, and the beeswax candles for the table, there simply wasn’t the money for meat. Still, no one would go hungry. But, dinner would be much like dinner every other night; lentil stew, cheese, fish, eggs, greens and onions, olives, dried figs, dates, melon, olive oil, and salt.

The first of the three blasts of the shofar, the ram’s horn, sounded, warning workers in the fields to come in to prepare for Shabbat.

Soon, Yosef and his children would be here. Not that they had far to come. Yosef had installed her in this small house across the courtyard from both his own three room house and his carpenter’s workshop.

“Rejoice, Full of Grace! You have found favor with Elohim. Blessed are you among women!” a man greeted her.

Miriam looked at the stranger who spoke to her and then she turned away. What an extremely odd thing to say to anyone! She didn’t know what to say in return, so she picked up her heavy water jugs and walked away from him as quickly as possible. That man was definitely “strange”, in more ways than one.

Strangers were seldom seen in Natsarat. It had been seven months since Yosef had brought her here from Yerushalayim. Only now, after all this time, was she beginning to feel accepted in this small village.

She went to her own small stone house. Yet, when she turned to glare at the man at the well, he was gone, as if he’d never been there at all. Exceedingly strange.

She placed one jug of water on the small table that held her wash basin, picked up her large covered earthenware serving dish as well as a wooden ladle and the other container of water. Then she went out the back door into the common courtyard shared by her neighbors.

After she added more fuel beneath her earthenware pot to bring her dinner stew back to a boil, she spoke with several of the older women who also cooked their families’ Shabbat dinners in that courtyard. Most of these pots of food, including hers, would continue to cook, unattended, inside the communal clay oven in the courtyard, well into tomorrow, providing a warm meal for the families after morning prayers.

Miriam’s mouth watered at the scent of the whole lamb roasting on Devorah’s spit. Still, she tried not to envy Devorah’s family. It was a good thing her neighbor was able to keep enough money back from the tax collectors to be able to afford to eat meat; particularly as Yosef’s daughter, Lydia, was wife to Devorah’s son, Ahron, in much the same way Miriam was wife to Yosef, consecrated as wife, legally bound, but living separately until their nissuin.

Miriam ladled enough of the now boiling lentil stew into the serving dish for dinner, before she put the lid on her earthenware serving dish. The stew would cool enough to be eaten by dipping into it by the time they were ready for dinner, but not be so cool as to be totally unappetizing.

After placing the serving dish on the communal work table, she poured half the water from the jug into her kettle and threw in a cup of barley, a crock of pre-soaked beans, and more sliced onions, salt, and dill, before stirring the mixture with a long wooden paddle. Seeing everything was well mixed, she replaced the lid onto the cooking pot.

Devorah addressed her, “Miriam, would you like a leg of this lamb for your Shabbat dinner with Yosef and his children?”

Miriam smiled and sighed. “Thank you. But, I already have cheese on the table. I can’t take it.”

“Nonsense!” Hannah, another neighbor, urged, “Take the cheese off the table and put it on the shelf for another day, and accept the meat.”

“Are you sure you can spare the lamb, Devorah? I’ve never seen anyone eat the way your boys do,” Miriam said with a smile.

“That’s only because you’ve lived a very sheltered life in Yerushalayim, among your priestly relatives,” Devorah replied, with a kind smile on her face.

“True enough,” Miriam admitted, with a chuckle. “I would be most grateful for the lamb.”

“My Ahron will be there for dinner, anyway, with his Lydia. He could probably eat the whole leg himself,” her generous neighbor added, with a chuckle.

“Probably,” Miriam agreed. “It is a good thing he has strong skills with cutting and fitting stone, and can earn a good living, the way your Ahron eats.”

Devorah laughed. “Indeed it is.”

The second blast of the shofar came, announcing the time had come for the shops to close. Miriam and the other women began to shift their very hot cooking pots to the oven. The last step of that process was to shovel their individual cooking fires into the firebox of the oven and to add more fuel. The oven was still warm from today’s bread baking. But every bit of these cooking fires’ heat would be necessary to keep the meals warm for their families.

Miriam wished everyone “Shalom” before taking her food into the house. She put the dish of the lentil stew on the table with the other food and wine. Then she took the dish of cheese off the table, covered it with a bowl, placed it on a shelf, then took her serving platter outside to receive the leg of lamb her neighbor had been so generous as to donate to her Shabbat table. Coming back to her table, she covered the platter with her largest crockery bowl, so the meat would stay relatively warm until dinner.

Miriam removed her veil and cap, washed her hands and face, saying the blessings for washing. Then she combed and dressed her hair, before changing into her Shabbat clothes. She hung her everyday clothes on the peg in the corner.

She was as ready for Shabbat as she was going to be. So she sat near her flax spinning wheel and worked for a few minutes. Using her drop spindle, she worked the very last of the wool she had to spin for this commission. When all the wool was spun, she could begin weaving the large drapery. Since coming to Natsarat, she’d worked more frequently in linen than wool because linen was usually far more profitable.

Oddly enough, this single commission had done more to improve her standing in this community than anything else had done. She’d gone from being ‘that strange orphan girl Yosef married and brought here from Yerushalayim’ to ‘Miriam, the weaver, the maker of the scarlet curtain that is to hang in the Temple’.

Yet, there was no time for reflecting further on this. She needed to get the last of this wool spun before Shabbat began. After the candles were lit, there would be no more opportunity to work on this until this week’s Shabbat ended with Havdalah, the service of separation of the Shabbat from ordinary time, tomorrow night.

Although she hadn’t heard the door open, suddenly, she was aware of someone else in the single room of her house. She startled, looking up to see that strange man from the well, standing there just in front of her. The scream froze in her throat and the spindle dropped from her hand.

“Do not be afraid, Miriam, for you have found favor with Elohim,” the man said in a particularly gentle tone. “Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son. You will call his name ‘Yehoshua’. He will be great and will be called the Son of El Elyon. Adonai will give him the throne of his father David and his kingdom will have no end.”

Miriam drew a deep breath. Those words had literally taken her breath away. She forced herself to think about the meaning of the words. Her son would be the Moshiach promised by Avinu Malkeinu, Our Father, Our King? How was such a thing possible?

She shook her head. None of this made any sense to her. “How is this to be as I am a virgin?”

“The Holy Spirit will come upon you. The power of the Most High will overshadow you. The one who is to be born from you will be called the Son of El Elyon. Even now, your kinswoman Elisheva has conceived a child in her old age, and it is the sixth month with her that has been called barren. Everything spoken by Elohim is possible.”

Miriam had heard Zechariah had been struck dumb while serving in the Temple on the Day of Atonement, after receiving a holy vision and had been sent home. Yet she had not heard of Elisheva being with child.

Everyone said Elisheva was well past the age of being able to have a child. Then again, they’d said that same thing about Miriam’s own mother, Anna, of blessed memory. And they had been wrong, apparently on both counts. Elisheva with child? This child would be such a blessing to them in their old age.

She looked at the man. He began to glow with the whitest light she had ever seen. “Who, what, are you?” she asked, hearing the tremor in her own voice.

“I am Gavriel, who stands before Elohim, sent to you, today, as His messenger.”

Miriam’s head spun with the implications of this, of what this would mean for her life, of what this would mean for her people. She couldn’t take it all in. But she’d have the rest of her life to learn how to deal with it, if she agreed to this. Could she agree to it? Still, if this was what Avinu Malkeinu desired, and He wanted it badly enough to send an angel, especially the same angel He’d sent to Moshe to inspire him to write his books, the same angel who had taught Yosef, the son of Yaacov, the seventy languages he had needed to know in order to rule Egypt, the same angel who had been sent to the Prophet Daniel; if this was what Avinu Malkeinu wanted enough to send Gavriel to her with this message, then what else was she to do other than to answer ‘yes’? But, how could she do that? What would her dear Yosef think? Still, Gavriel hadn’t come to Yosef. He’d come to her. How could she not agree when faced with this, especially this, messenger from Elohim?

“I am the handmaiden of Adonai. May it be to me as you have said,” Miriam replied.

Then Gavriel was gone, just there one moment and not there the next.

Miriam blinked and rubbed her eyes. She laughed, her emotions bubbling over into sound.

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