The Side Car

Some notes:

In some programming languages the type of character data is denoted

char

. When spoken, it's usually pronounced the same as the word "car."

This story is very short.

I have a lot of trouble trying to figure out what category to put a story in. There's usually some sort of sexual touching in them, so they'll probably mostly end up in lesbian sex

, but the quote

erotica

end-quote in this story is pretty limited, and very unsophisticated.

............................

The Side Car

© 2021 by CeVin_ChienElle

"Hi."

She was startled by the sudden greeting, she'd been woolgathering since... Since when, exactly?

"When," she thought, "did I sit down here? Where, exactly,

is

here?"

"Helllooo in there." A hand waved in front of her face. It was a very pretty hand. Slender and shapely, with well and evenly manicured fingernails, and beautiful skin.

"Um, hi," she said. "Sorry, I'm a little muddled."

"Mind if I sit down?"

"No. I mean, um, sure. No, please do." She gave her head a shake. "Muddled," she thought, "might be an understatement."

The pretty face that went with the pretty hand was arresting, and open, and guilessly enticing. It went with an excessively attractive body that was, perhaps, ten years older than her own.

"My name's Marnie." Marnie's arresting and enticing eyes studied her intently as she tried to reply.

"I'm... I, uh." She started to panic. "My name is... is... I don't know what my name is!"

"Okay, sweetie, okay! It's okay." In a heartbeat Marnie was out of her chair and hugging her table-mate. "You're fresh off your first appearance. You'll remember in a second, okay sweetheart? Just breathe."

Marnie's hug calmed her, in one way. It made things a bit less calm in others, but at least her breathing evened out.

"That's right, sweetie. Let it go. Don't stress."

"Lainey. My name is Lainey. I remember."

Marnie smiled. "Yep. You're part of the 'weird names with a long "E" at the end' club. There are quite a few of us here."

Lainey looked around. She was seated at a round two-top in what appeared to be a nice little cafe, or maybe diner. It looked like a slightly upscale version of any small town diner. A few prints on the walls. A big window at the front with "efaC raC ediS" blazoned on it. A counter, where seated patrons bantered with the waitress.

There was a motherly woman in the kitchen behind the pass-thru. The equally motherly waitress between the pass-thru and the counter spied Marnie, and knocked on the pass-thru shelf. She and the cook waved. Marnie smiled and waved back.

"Who?"

"Saffy and Billy," Marnie replied. "They've been here since the foundations were laid, I think."

Lainey continued her inspection, which revealed some strangeness. The prints were a bit racy for a small town diner. Nude, or just plain naked women of various ages, alone and in groups. Kind of

intimate

groups, some of them. It wasn't that they seemed racy, though they were titillating. In fact they seemed normal and unexceptional to her. It was more that she somehow

knew

they were racy, for some reason.

She found it difficult to get a feel for the exact outlines of the cafe. The lighting was a bit "funny," or maybe "fuzzy" was a better word. There were other things that were just a bit off, but she couldn't put her finger on what they were or what was off about them.

One thing did suddenly jump out at her. "Marnie, um..."

"No, there usually aren't any men

in

here. There are one or two places that are a bit like here where you'll find them. Outside those doors," she tilted her head toward the front of the diner, "they exist when they're necessary, but they tend to be evanescent. Most of them aren't even

one

dimensional; they don't get beyond being a locus for some emotional response--mostly things like 'rough,' or 'smelly,' or hell, just a whole list: 'scratchy, annoying, insulting, threatening...' Actually,

annoying

has it's own sublist. Other than that, they're scenery.

"It's not all bad, a small number of them have as continuous an existence as any of us, and even wander in here occasionally. They have names, and some of them are even nice. There are

even

a few who aren't insanely frustrated; they're usually filling slots for male relatives, friends and acquaintances and/or gay guys, or some other combination of those. And random guys that have to pee, but that's usually not relevant to a plot, so, y'know. The rest of the random guys are generally unaware of any lack, but the ones that are a little aware of themselves..." She rolled her eyes.

Marnie stopped talking. Empty eyes aimed at Lainey's and elbows on the table, she leaned her chin on the knuckles of her left hand and the backs of her loosely curled right fingers on her lips.

"Marnie?"

Marnie's thousand-yard stare focused

into

Lainey's eyes, and Lainey's world went away.

"Lainey? Lainey. Lainey, honey, wake up. Come on back...

There

you are!

"I feel it too, sweetheart." Marnie bit her lip and scrunched up her face, looking like a schoolgirl trying to remember the answer. After a few seconds, she nodded.

"Hold out your hand, sweetie." Lainey laid her arm on the table, and Marnie said, "No, palm up. Okay, now, I'm gonna stroke your palm, and we are going to have a little reaction, okay?"

Lainey cocked an eyebrow at her and shrugged.

"Okay," said Marnie, "here goes." She reached out and laid the tips of her ring and middle fingers on the crease between Lainey's wrist and palm, pulling the fingers over Lainey's palm with a touch as light as wayward bit of down.

A "little" reaction. Right.

Lainey's breathing restarted as she again fell out of Marnie's wide eyes. Marnie's breathing was as heavy and slow as Lainey's. They both had the left sides of their lower lips caught gently in their teeth. Marnie started sliding her hand away and Lainey clutched at it.

"Don't you

ever

let go of my hand. Never! You

never

let go of my hand!"

"That could make certain bits of life a bit awkward, Love. I know for a fact that we're both left handed, so you'll be at a distinct disadvantage. Plus we won't be able to take off our tops without cutting them off and ruining them."

A little white lie, but Lainey wouldn't be able to process the truth.

"Another fact I know is that neither of us is all that interested in keeping any of our clothes on, anyway."

She looked at their hands, then looked up into Lainey's eyes again and said, "Let's go for a walk. There's someone you should meet."

"Is it your bed?"

"Forward little minx! No, but we will meet her a little bit later."

Lainey laughed. "I thought I was the only one whose bed was gendered."

"On this little walk, you are. In a way."

Lainey pondered this for a few steps. "So,

you

have

my

bed?"

"Sorta."

Lainey stopped. "Marnie, the more I think over this whole situation, the weirder it's becoming. I'm going back in my mind to where I was before I got here, wherever 'here' is, and I'm not finding the 'before' as I'm walking hand in hand down a familiar street I don't recognize after leaving a cafe without going through the door with a woman I desperately want to make love to because of a mostly spiritual orgasm in that out-of-focus cafe surrounded by a lot of not-male fuzzily-vaguely-there people while I'm very weirdly not freaked out by any of this!

"Or," she asked, "did I miss something?"

Marnie looked at their hands and shuffled her feet.

"Marnie, what the

hell

is going on?"

Marnie sighed. "Lainey, what's your Mom's name?"

"Ummm..." Lainey frowned, then looked up in consternation. "I... I..."

Marnie shot her a questioning look and hummed "Mmmmmmm," daring her to finish the word. Lainey suddenly yelled, "Muse! Mom's name is Muse!"

"Good. True. And your Dad?"

"Juh... Jack? No, Jack is my brother. Dad is Jim. But Dad and his wife don't accept me because I'm gay, even though Jim... No, Jim is

Cindy's

brother, I don't have a brother, and my Dad was... wait, just wait a minute!"

She searched Marnie's eyes, and the calm ocean behind them wasn't enough to halt her imminent slide into panic.

"Okay, your backstory was undecided when you entered the narrative for your gig, and it didn't really matter." Marnie's look was sad and gentle. "I remember sweetheart. It was

so

confusing and difficult. And I remember what Marnie needs to do for Lainey." The redhead held Lainey's face between her palms, and kissed her cheeks; the bridge of her nose; her eyebrows. She tucked blonde wisps back behind Lainey's ears.

"Have you ever noticed," she said, as she put her hands on Lainey's shoulders, gently caressing, "how some characters get repeated in some Author's stories?" She leaned forward. Her tongue-tip tapped into the corners of Lainey's mouth; her nose rubbed Lainey's.

Lainey began to calm, and breathed more slowly and deeply. Panic receded from being the imminent reaction, while a more pleasant reaction began to materialize. "I suppose they do," she said.

"They do," said Marnie. "Authors plagiarize their own stuff shamelessly.

Some

side characters get repeated in almost

every

story."

Marnie kissed her lips.

They kissed gently, then urgently, then ardently. To Lainey it seemed like kissing the idea of addiction. She grabbed the back of Marnie's neck; Marnie reached up to rub Lainey's bra-less nipple through her wispy shirt, and a woman cleared her throat near them.

"Hello, Daughter." The voice was a rich, mellifluous alto.

Marnie looked over Lainey's shoulder and said, "Hi, Ma."

Lainey went still. She was instantly sure the voice belonged to "Muse." When Marnie spun her around she fully expected to see an Amazon with a greek helmet, a ten foot spear and a loose, high-waisted shift covering breasts the size of basketballs.

Instead there was a slight, petite older woman wearing jeans, sandals and a white, knitted crop top (with a very scooped neck) under a red-plaid flannel shirt. Her clothes draped her figure perfectly demurely, and breathtakingly suggestively. Her hair was the color of a blue-white star. Lainey's immediate impression was that the woman was in her late twenties, but she revised that to early seventies, and then decided her age was just about as old as it took to be perfectly desirable. It left her a bit confused.

"'A bit confused,'" she thought, "is about par for the course today."

The woman was unequivocally beautiful, however you looked at her. Even the network of fine lines that traced around her features made her lovelier.

Then too, there was the glow... or corona... or whatever that was.

Marnie leaned way back in Lainey's arms while still fondling the breast she'd been working on. Arching further, and tilting her head very far back until she could just see the white-haired woman, she asked, "Feelin' horny, Ma?"

"You are impertinent and disrespectful and I know you know that feeling sexually aroused is a lot of how I do what I do for

The Author

, so why are you asking me pointless questions?"

Marnie grinned and pulled herself back up, finding Lainey's lips with hers when she and Lainey were vertically stable again. She had been idly rubbing the edge of Lainey's nipple with a forefinger throughout the conversation.

Lainey broke the kiss and stuck her hand out behind Marnie. "Pleased to meet you, Miz MuUUUse. Ooo!"

"Oh, Lainey." The Muse halfway rolled her eyes. "I'm not sure why you were expecting Athena with a boob job Dear, but just call me 'Mom.' Marnie," she addressed Lainey's distraction, "leave her breast alone for now, please."

Marnie pouted. "But it'll get all lonely and feel saaad."

"Marnie..."

"Fine! Hmph." The finger stopped moving.

"Marnie." The Muse sighed dramatically. "Move.

The whole hand

. Away. From the whole boob. Got it? You can play with your tits later; right now we need to bring you up to speed.

"Mom is kinda bossy," Lainey whispered.

"You have no idea," said Marnie and The Muse, simultaneously.

"Yet," added The Muse.

"Okay, Ma. What do I need to know this time?"

"Let's go sit and have tea, child. I'd tell you to drop the 'Ma' bit, but you're an obnoxious little bitch and you're about to get your comeuppance anyway, so what the hell. Come along, Lainey," she said, laying an arm over Lainey's shoulders.

Marnie had stopped short behind them. The Muse turned her head and said, "Oh, come along. It's not that bad. The Author still needs you as a Type, and a 'standard foil' and 'sounding board.' You're not going to be a 'one and done' Main Character even though you

might

end up as a 'Background Main,' probably in the 'Understanding but Annoying Best Friend' slot.

"Long story short, you're not being abandoned, so calm down and come on."

Lainey started feeling like she was being comforted by an army of grandmothers when The Muse had grabbed her shoulder. She came back to the conversation on the way up the steps, as Marnie was saying, "damn it, Mother, this is HARD."

They went into the house... House?

Lainey thought it was pretty difficult too. Though she wondered what Marnie thought was hard.

The Muse moved her arm to Lainey's waist. "You don't have a lot of personal continuity yet, Child. This will get easier."

"It really will, sweetie. Mom may be a cranky old hag, but she doesn't lie."

"Oh, thank you

so much

you sweet girl! I believe I'll suggest a critical story element for Marnie; maybe '

buried by a blizzard under a yard of snow on the edge of I-70 for three days in a small car with only a jar of pickles, a basket of dirty laundry, a jug of corn syrup, a case of vodka and a young woman you are hopelessly in love with who has to be cuddled naked to be saved from hypothermia and is the hottest, most homophobic, religious, convinced-she's-straight girl you've ever seen and upon whom you can't make a move because you

must

avoid damaging her psyche at all costs.

'

"Then she trusts you enough to ask for a Brazilian and a lotion massage afterward, has a 'come to Aphrodite' moment and runs off with the main character, after which the whole thing fails and the readers blame

you

. You like that better?"

Marnie turned to Lainey. "Mom is also vindictive, thinned-skinned, and can't take a joke. That's why she just disappears every so often and leaves The Author high, dry, and despairing."

"Generally not any drier than usual, and it's not me that causes that, Daughter, and you know it. Now get into the bed."

Lainey and Marnie dove into the bed, kissed the big soft pillow (and accidentally each other as well) and sighed. They said "I love you, darling" to the bed, and raised an eyebrow at each other.

Marnie frowned at The Muse. "One off?"

"Yes," said The Muse, laughing. "Can't happen again."

Lainey, trying to make sense of anything, realized something very important. "Wait," she said, "I left my tea in the kitch... uh, dining, um. Whatever room that was."

"This room," said Marnie and the Muse, who added "It's there on the night stand."

"Which one?"

"There's only one nightstand," said Marnie.

"No, silly! Which cup of tea?

"There's only one cuppa," said The Muse.

"What the fuck is with you two!" Lainey growled. "Is this the goddamn' Matrix? What's the goddamn' game?"

"Perfect, Lainey! Keep that annoyance, but simmer it under the horny. Now Marnie," said The Muse, "this is your exit from the story under construction, so make it count.

She turned her attention to the blonde woman. "Lainey, this is the driving bit of your backstory for the 'troubled friend who was abandoned by a faithless lover' character, and that's a multi-story gig. Short arcs, but a long set. Since this is it for Marnie, you two masturbate like it'll be your last time."

Marnie looked into Lainey's eyes, and there was a hitched-breath duet.

"I will not," panted Lainey, "be able to just lie here bare and masturbating while she lies next to me equally bare and doing the same mmmmph! Mmmmmmm..."

Marnie broke the kiss long enough put her lips close to Lainey's ear and whisper, "shut up and make love to me, sweetheart," then moved her lips back to Lainey's to resume their osculatory endeavors.

Lainey broke the kiss again. "Where did our clothes go?"

"We'll take them off in the buildup. It'll be a sentence or so of exposition. Don't worry about it, Love, focus!" Marnie slowly kissed her way from Lainey's temple, to her ear, to her neck. She finally reached the breast her hand wasn't working on, and Lainey began whimpering.

"Get a little more active, Lainey," said The Muse.

"Mmmmm. Just do for me what I'm doing for you now, sweetie." Marnie rolled them onto their sides. Pushing her breasts against Lainey's, she began feathering her fingers up and down Lainey's spine as they kissed.

Marnie's nipple caressing hers was driving Lainey wild, but the thought of their mother watching them was distracting at best. "This

should

be so

weird

," she thought. "Why isn't it?"

"Because the rules for the world—as the Author perceives them and it—are completely divorced from the rules

in

the worlds of The Author's Creativity," thought The Muse. "In The Creativity the rule is '

can

it be thought,' not '

should

it be thought.'"

"So... How the hell does someone deal with that?" thought Lainey.

"Authors," The Muse said aloud, "are always a bit tortured and a bit ashamed." She idly flicked her whip. "Though not necessarily by what you might suspect, in either case."

"How can you write about sex if you're ashamed of it?"

"Create, not write; writing is just a byproduct. And who said anything about sex?"

"Not

this

little sophomore," grumped Marnie. "Are you gonna make love to me, or go to philosophy class?"

Lainey sucked in a sharp breath. "Just, uh. Just ... just keep those fingers right where they're at and doing what they're doing and we'll see ohmigod ohmigod ohyeah JUST KEEP GOING!"

"Like it's your last time, Marnie. Make her scream."

"Yes Mother. Thank you Mother. Fuck off, Mother." The tears flowed down Marnie's cheeks like a river as Lainey thrashed.

"Oh," she said to Lainey, and sniffled. "You like it when I do that?"

"No. I mean YES! What am I, um?" Lainey warbled, "Oooooh... FUCK YES! YES! YES! YES!"

Marnie's tongue wrapped Lainey's point of focus in the dance. Lainey screamed and lost consciousness. Marnie, still crying, moved to cuddle her and The Muse said "No."

Marnie clenched her fists in fury and glared.

The Muse stared back with stony eyes, and said "write the note."

"No."

"Oh,

really

?"

Marnie sobbed. "I don't want to do this!"

"That's the point. Write the note. Then," The Muse glared at her, "get out!"

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

She was Lainey for three stories, trying to recover from the callousness of Marnie using her, making Lainey feel loved and wanted for no reason other than feeding Marnie's ego.

Lainey hung out at "The Side Car," escaping The Author. The Author didn't even know about The Side Car, but characters had to be somewhere when they weren't in mind. When she left the cafe, she went home and kissed her pillow and let her bed love her.

She was Lonnie for cameos in The Lesbian Bar; a late-twenties aged lush who dispensed jaded wisdom to the young main character, who'd accidentally wandered in and found a home. Lonnie was never there when Maisie was there; she'd heard about

that

piece of work and stayed away from her.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

She walked away, sobbing, remembering how it felt.

She was Marnie for three stories, "The Bitch in the Background" who had broken the heart of the main characters' friend, Lainey.