Assignment (1,000 words min):
Write a first-person narrative short story, in the form of an internet diary entry.
*Includes Footnotes!*
I'm continually on the lookout for new and interesting experiences (i) (especially if the experience involves two women and a video camera), and I'm always keen to meet new people, so really it was only a matter of time before I took the plunge and signed-up for some adult evening classes. In fact, joining such a group seemed like such an obvious thing to do --just look at the name!-- that it's a mystery to me why I'd never thought of it before. The idea of joining an adult evening class had in fact been planted in my mind one evening when I saw a most fascinating statistic on the Internet; I had been enjoying looking at one of my favourite websites ('Horny Housewives'), and I had somehow managed to take my eyes away from the 'XXX Picture Gallery' to read some of the 'information' on the website, where I was rewarded with the following fact: "75% of 'Horny Housewives' say that they look for casual sex at ADULT EVENING CLASSES." This came as something of a revelation to me, and it immediately struck me as being the truth. Where else but at a place of learning would a randy housewife go to find an intelligent, sexy man? A man with a great mind and a good body. A man eager to learn new things. A man like me, in fact. I cursed myself for not having thought of this sooner. I wanted very much to meet these 'Horny Housewives'. I wanted the statistic I had read to be based on solid fact. I was keen to sign up. And so, having taken the decision to join an adult evening class, I hurried along to my local college to see what was on offer for the keen and enquiring young mind.
After half an hour or so of standing around in the foyer of the college, pretending to read a prospectus, it became obvious to me which course I wanted to join. I had been watching the students as they hurried into various classrooms, and I couldn't fail to notice that all the young and attractive women had been heading for room 203. I smiled as I headed for Reception, where I flirted with the lovely young receptionist, and very soon I was happily signed up for a three month course in Creative Writing, held each Monday night in (where else?) room 203. If nothing else, I thought to myself, I was finally going to understand how to properly use a semi-colon.
A week later, I was back at the college, dressed intelligently (tweed jacket and jeans, Shakespeare t-shirt, prop reading spectacles), and with pen and notepad at the ready, eager to begin broadening my horizons. Unfortunately, I had forgotten about my appalling sense of direction, and after twenty minutes or so of wandering confused around the labyrinthine corridors of the college, I had to admit to myself that I was lost. Damn it! Help was at hand, however, in the shapely form of a young woman who I saw standing outside a classroom, talking on her mobile phone. I approached her with a seductive smile and unflappable confidence. "Excuse me, darling, but this wouldn't be the Creative Writing class, would it?" I asked her. The woman broke off her phone conversation and shot me a look which could curdle milk. "I'm not your 'darling', and no, this isn't the Creative bloody Writing class, it's the Female Empowerment Group, alright? The Creative Writing class is down there, at the end of the corridor." I smiled, dazzlingly, and said, "Thanks, love. Perhaps I'll see you later for a drink, eh?" "Fuck off," came the reply. I thanked her again and stalked off, panther-like, down the corridor, where I soon found room 203.
I had joined the Creative Writing course three weeks later than all the other students in the class (obviously they had seen the information on 'Horny Housewives' weeks before I did), so my arrival at the class (late, but looking good) caused a bit of a stir. "Hi! I'm Dante," I said, sitting next to a Nicole Kidman (ii) look-alike near to the back of the class. "Claire," said Claire, introducing herself with a smile. The course tutor was an attractive blonde in glasses called Sally, who that week was wearing a pink cardigan and (rather fetchingly) chalk dust on her nose. She cleared her throat to reinstate some kind of order, and briefly filled me in on what the class had so far learned about Creative Writing (iii). Then a woman in dungarees stood up and read aloud a long and incoherent poem about the rolling, misty mountains of Peru. I leaned back in my chair and smiled. My education in Creative Writing had begun, and it looked as if the next three months were going to be great fun.
A couple of weeks later, I was feeling rather pleased with myself. Claire, the Nicole Kidman look-alike, hadn't asked me to move; I had gone for a drink with the mountain-poetry woman from Peru (which had certainly been interesting, if defiantly un-arousing); and I had the telephone numbers of several of the other women in the class. I had also learned how to use a semi-colon. Which was nice.
Each week, a member of the group was encouraged to read aloud some of their prose, and eventually it was my turn. I had come prepared with a very filthy erotic story I had written in a drunken haze, which involved a man, two women and a video camera. I wasn't quite sure how the group would react to my story (which I had called, "A Man, Two Women And A Video Camera", in homage to Ernest Hemingway), but I thought it was a pretty safe bet that they would find it much more interesting than poems about misty mountains. I stood up, shuffled my manuscript like the way I had seen Newsreaders do, adjusted my prop spectacles, cleared my throat, and began reading in a compelling, and sexy voice. I had reached the bottom of page one of my lusty story, which described, in graphic detail, how one of the women was licking the bottom of the other woman, while the man filmed them both with his video camera, when my tutor interrupted me.
"Stop right there, Dante!" She said --rather sharply, I thought. I looked up from my manuscript, and noticed that the classroom seemed to be filled with people with red faces and open mouths.
"Um...Is there a problem?" I asked.
"Not exactly a problem," said the tutor, "more a question of... where are you going with this story? Exactly?"
