As I’ve mentioned before, ♀ & I have had some scheduling challenges the past few weeks. That’s not a big surprise to either of us, but still, I miss her. She left me an email for when I got up Saturday afternoon, telling me that she’d be home from work just after 6pm and we were meeting a friend of hers and her guy at a new Thai restaurant on the beach. She said she’d already made reservations for 7pm. She also told me she wanted me to wear all male clothes. It had been a long week and there was no one home so it was nice and quiet and I didn’t wake up until just after 3pm. I read her email and wasn’t really bothered about her clothing request. She doesn’t ask for that very often and it’s pretty much been all sissy all the time lately. I had a shower and shaved, put on a load of laundry, did the breakfast dishes (even in man clothes, I’m still her bitch) and went upstairs to get dressed.

The only men’s undies I still have are a couple of pair of silk boxers so I put on the Bugs Bunny ones, lined dress pants (some men’s clothes do feel nice) with a leather belt and a nice shirt. I decided against a tie, but put on some cologne. By this time it was about 5pm and I was starting to get hungry. Dinner was a couple hours away so I had a sandwich and a cola. I played some online backgammon and about 5:45 I decided that it would take her awhile to get ready so I had a beer. At 6:30 she wasn’t home yet so I called her cell. It was turned off. I had another beer. At 7pm, an hour past when she said she’d be home there was still no ♀ and no phone call. Her phone was still turned off. Her friends phone was turned off. I was more worried then annoyed, we let each other know where we are. That’s just common courtesy, right? I opened a third beer just as she pulled into the driveway.

Ok before I go any further, I need to tell you about something that happened a couple of days before she started school. We were in Walmart getting the last of her school supplies and before we left, we went through the ladies clothing department. They had the cutest little skirts on sale. They were short, pleated, plaid with big black belts. They also had plaid Mary Jane style shoes to match. with some knee high white stockings and a white blouse and you’d have the most adorable little school girl outfit for under $50. She insisted that she would never wear a skirt that short, and the only skirt that would have fit me was blue and the only shoes that would have fit were red. I tried to convince her that even if it never got worn out of the house, one of us should have that outfit. But in the end we didn’t get it.

So in she walked an hour late, wearing a little plaid school girl skirt like the one we saw in Walmart and hell yes, it was very short. She was not wearing the matching Mary Janes, but heels. They must have been at least 4′ with thin black straps that wrapped up her stocking clad calves. She almost never wears heels because she claimed that they hurt her feet and hips and the rare time she does, they sure as hell aren’t heels like that. The white blouse she was wearing was tied just below her breasts, exposing the tummy she’s always trying so hard to hide. Her breasts; holy crap, her breasts were huge. The only way she could have that much cleavage showing was if she had my silicone inserts in her bra. Don’t forget she had a breast reduction before she met me. She had her hair in pig-tails and at the top of each one she had a little pink bow. She’s 39 years old for god sake! She was wearing make-up. She almost never does that and when she does, she uses it very sparingly. Not on Saturday. She had it plastered on, thick and nasty and when she sauntered in chewing bubble gum and swinging a little purse she looked like a Tim Burton version of a middle-aged woman trying to look like a slutty school girl. It was, to say the least, disturbing. And that’s coming from a guy who spends a lot of time dressed as a woman, but still shaves his head and not his face.

“You’re late.”

“So.”

“We were supposed to meet Christina at 7.”

“I called her and told her we couldn’t make it.”

“But you couldn’t be bothered to call me?”

“I forgot.”

“Yeah, right. Are we still going out? I haven’t eaten yet.”

“You can go out. I’ve already eaten.”

“I’ve been waiting for an hour. Where did you go for dinner.”

“We went to Earls.”

“We? Who is we?”

“Just a friend.” She flipped one of her pig-tails back and that’s when I saw it; a big fucking hickey on her neck.

Ok, so I need to interject a couple of things here. Even before the start of my sissification, we’d talked about the possibility of including others. Various men and women have been part of role playing and trash talk in our bedroom. Together we’ve had cyber sex with both sexes. We often talk about potential candidates; both people we know and random strangers we happen to see. So far we’ve never done it, but we both agreed on one firm rule: Sexual contact of any kind with anybody else will only be permitted if we both agree to it and if both of us participate. In other words, No Fucking Cheating!!! The other thing you should know is she never cancelled her Classmates.com membership after she met me and recently she joined Facebook.com. In the past month or so guys have been coming out of the woodwork wanting to ‘reconnect’ with her; old boyfriends, guys that only wish they could have been her boyfriend back in the day, married guys, divorced guys, guys who have an ‘understanding’ with their significant other. ♀ had been showing me all the emails and as far as I knew she hadn’t met up with any of them. Our relationship was based on trust and respect so I had no reason to feel threatened or jealous, but let’s face it, I am a sissy and I sometimes worry that I’m not man enough for her.

“What the hell do you mean, ‘just a friend’?” I asked as I reached for her neck.

She slapped my hand away. “I don’t have to tell you anything, you‘re not my father.” And she jutted her chin out like a snotty little kid.

“We had an agreement.”

“What are you going to do about it, sissy?”

“I’ll show you what I’m going to do about it. If you’re going to act like a brat, I’ll treat you like a brat.” And I took my belt off.

“You don’t have the balls”, she sneered.

In one quick movement I grabbed her wrist, sat down on a kitchen chair and pulled her over my knee. I lifted up her skirt and do you know what she had on underneath? About a month ago a friend of ours was in Los Angeles and while she was there, she bought ♀ a leopard print bra and matching crotchless panties from Frederick’s of Hollywood. She hadn’t worn them for me yet, but apparently she’d worn them for some guy who’d been chewing on her neck. It takes a lot to get me angry, but I was riled. I folded the belt in half and I spanked her hard one, two, three times. She didn’t cry out, but on the third crack of the belt on her ass I felt something warm on my lap. I pushed her off and do you know what she’d done??? She’d pissed on me!!! Now, she’s peed on me lots of times in the shower. In fact I’d like her to piss on me even more often then she does, but bloody hell; in the kitchen, on my pants?

“Ah, it looks like the little sissy peed himself.”

“You bitch! Get the fuck out of my sight!”

She turned and meandered towards the stairs and as she went she started getting undressed. As she took off her skirt and panties and blouse and bra and my silicone inserts she just dropped them on the floor. One of my fake boobies fell through the stairs and landed in the kitty litter box. I finished my beer, tried to calm down them followed her upstairs gathering her discarded clothes as I went.

She was in the bathroom when I got there, sitting on the toilet taking her shoes and stockings off. The shower was already running. I reached in and turned it off.

“Get in and sit down,” I told her.

She looked at me hard for a moment then did as I’d instructed. I took off my wet pants and shorts and stood at the edge of the tub facing her. “You think getting pissed on is funny? Let’s see how you like it.”

“Yeah, right,” she said, and started to laugh.

She had every right to laugh. For some reason I can’t pee in front of anyone. In a public washroom, I need to wait for a stall because I can’t go in the urinal if someone else is there. In six years she’s never watched me pee, but I was really angry and my bladder was full of a cola and three beer. I stood at the edge of the tub and I let it rip. I pissed all over her hair and face and breasts; everywhere. She didn’t even try to get out of the way or block the stream. I bet you didn’t know this, but urine makes great make-up remover. It was pouring off her face. You can’t even imagine what a mess she was. Guess where else it was running from? Her neck! The big fucking hickey was running down her neck. This was all just some elaborate ruse she’d thought up.

 ♀ & I have been for several pedicures before, but I’d never been for a manicure…until last week. I work with food so can’t have nail polish on. Also, long finger nails at work aren’t really practical. I had holidays coming up so I started letting them grow out, being careful to keep them rounded and smooth as they grew.

My hands and wrists get really sore at work. Sometimes they are so sore when I get up, I have trouble holding onto my toothbrush.  Having my hands massaged and pampered was sooo nice. We had pedicures done first and then they started on our hands. The first thing the tiny asian aesthetician asked was if I wanted to keep my nails long. I held up my index and middle fingers of my right hand and said all of them except these two and then I winked at her. ♀ blushed, but I think the reference was lost in translation.

And it just so happens that our pic fits in with Boobie-thon.

HHNT

SSS

It’s my blogday

and I’ll brag if I want to,

brag if I want to,

brag if I want to.

You would brag to if it happened to you…

Blog Stats

Total Views: 131,106

Best Day Ever: 2,055

Views today: 499

Totals

Posts: 143

Comments: 469

Tags: 27

So thanks for stopping by and saying hello.

Cheers,

sss

 

 Our schedules have been crazy lately.  ♀ is going to school full-time and is supposed to be working part-time, but she and her employer have different ideas about what part-time is. She was hoping to be working 20-25 hours a week, but since the start of school she’s been working 30-35 hours a week. She’s finding it a struggle. We decided before the start of the school year that the only way she could possibly get through this was if she let go of all other responsibilities and distractions. She needs to concentrate on school first, then work and that’s all. You need to understand how difficult that is for her. Giving up control of the household finances was hard enough, but the real challenge for her has been the house work. The boys and I are supposed to be doing it all- well actually, I’m doing most of it and delegating when I can. ♀ likes a neat and tidy house. She’s not exactly anal about it, but she does like things done a certain way and she wants them done now. When things aren’t done to her standards she’s finding it really tough not to do them. We’re all going to need to change our ways.

Another thing that’s been a challenge to both of us is the disruption to our sex lives. How bad has it been? Well, we’re normally an every day kind of couple and we didn’t have sex once during her last period. I get home at 5am and she’s been doing homework until 1 am so she’s not interested then. But when she is horny after she’s done work, I’ve already left for the bakery. I don’t work Saturday nights so this past Saturday when I got up I started getting ready for a nice romantic evening with ♀. I cleaned up the house, made a nice dinner, put fresh candles and flowers in our room, had a nice selection of music in the CD player, I also did up a fruit platter to feed each other in bed. I was good to go. She got home at 7, we ate dinner and she said she just had a bit of homework to do and she’d get it out of the way while I was doing the dishes.

She came to bed at 11:30 and of course she was exhausted. Please don’t think I’m being bitchy about things. We both understood that we’d need to make sacrifices. It’s just that I really really miss her. She decided I should shave her pussy while she read Chelsea Girl’s article in Penthouse. She was flipping through the pictorials while I was giving her the post shave tongue test (the only reliable way to check for missed hairs) and that lead to a fast and furious fucking session. I think we were both done in under 20 minutes.

Normally we would both be zonked minutes after we finished (guys get a bad rap for that, but she’s just as bad as I am), but we were laying there cuddling and she apologized for the evening not unfolding like I’d planned. I admitted that was true, but it was still nice. She wanted to know how it would have been different so I decided to show her. I moved the flowers (she hadn’t noticed them), lit the candles, turned on the CD player and got the fruit platter with some yogurt for dipping.

 It was completely different then if we’d had those things as part of foreplay, but it really was amazing. I felt so connected with her and satisfied and happy and I know it sounds sappy, but madly in love. After the fruit was gone and the CD had ended, I blew out the candles and kissed her good night. And that led to another and another and pretty soon we were both getting excited again. Keep in mind she was really tired and I’m not 18 anymore so neither of us was sure if either of us would be able to come again, but it was so nice we didn’t want it to stop. It was about an hour later when I came and that’s what she needed to push her over and her second big O was HUGE!

 

HHNT

SSS

When I was in my early teens, my mom’s little brother lived in our basement. He’s only ten years older then I am so he’s been more like a big brother then an uncle. He was living in our basement because he’d bought a duplex and had both halves rented out- I wouldn’t want you to think he was some kind of loser. He was the Best Man at our wedding and back in the early ’70’s he was an up and coming slum lord and he lived in our basement.

Well, to be more accurate he had one room. It was the only finished room down there. It had a low ceiling, one ground level window, red shag carpet, a water bed and a lava lamp. My dad & I put a staircase in a few years later, but when Uncle C lived with us you could only get to his room from an outside door. So really he lived upstairs with us, he just slept in the basement.

One weekend Uncle C was going to be out of town and a friend of mine & I were allowed to stay in his room overnight. We were probably about eleven years old and this was a very big deal. It was like being away from home with no supervision. If the grumpies did want to check on us they’d need to come in from the outside and we’d have lots of warning. We ate junk food and watched my uncles little black & white TV. We could only get two stations and they were both grainy, but it was an adventure.

At some point during the evening we discovered Uncle C’s not very well hidden stash of Playboy & Penthouse magazines. I had never seen magazines like that before and I can remember sitting on the waterbed looking at the pictures when all of a sudden I felt like I really needed to go pee. My friend- who had a slightly older brother- told me I didn’t really need to pee, it was the pictures that were doing it. He took off his pj bottoms to show me. So I took off mine to compare. He was uncut, and he showed me how the foreskin slides up and down. We were both hairless. We didn’t masturbate. I don’t even know if the subject came up- it was a long time ago. All I remember is looking at the pictures and comparing boners.

It didn’t take long to figure out the whole masturbation thing and after that I was always borrowing from Uncle C’s stash. I liked Penthouse because they were slightly raunchier then Playboy. I’d take one or two from the bottom of the stack so he wouldn’t miss them, and trade them for other ones every few days. I thought I was clever and he didn’t know, but the Christmas after he moved out, he gave me a year long subscription to Penthouse and when I opened it, he leaned over and said he thought I needed some new reading material.

Finding out that Uncle C knew about my porn secret was a huge shock. If he knew that secret was it possible my mother knew I was borrowing her lingerie for the same purpose? Not that I stopped of course. I just tried to be more careful.

Funny, a few days after getting the gift subscription I was looking for the magazine and couldn’t find it anywhere. Finally I asked my mom and she told me it was under my mattress because that’s where you’re supposed to keep them.

♀ & I both like porn, but the only time we buy magazines is when we’re going on a long drive. She doesn’t sit still very well and needs distractions. Also she doesn’t like reading in the car so we need lots of pictures. Hustler is her favourite for long drives.

So it’s been decades since I’ve bought a copy of Penthouse magazine, but when I heard that the beautiful and talented Chelsea Girl was going to be in the October edition I rushed right out and bought a copy and so should you. Now you might not think that an article like that would be at all useful to a sissy, but last night I bent ♀ over the edge of the bed, grabbed a fistful of hair and pulled her head back so she could see herself in our squiggly mirrors and fucked her from behind. Hard.

Yeehaw! Thanks Chelsea Girl!

SSS

I don’t, as a general rule, delete emails. Last night I was trying to find something that I was certain someone had sent me years ago. I never did find it, but I found this little gem that ♀ had emailed me on March 22, 2002….

 I was laying on the couch reading my book and I started to fantasize about you. My fantasy went like this:
�
I was laying at the end of the bed facing the door with my legs spread, knees up and masturbating. I had the toy cock in my pussy moving it soooo slowly in and out all the while imagining it was you. I was feeling very horny as I arched my back and pushd my chest into the air. Just then you came through the door with your cock so big and hard with a seductive look on your face. You moved slowly towards me and pushed the head of your cock into my ass. You started to push slowly and when you were half way in your thrust your cock so fast and deep inside of me, driving me absolutely crazy.  As you fucked my ass fast and deep you also grabbed a hold of the toy cock and fucked my cunt the same way. My ass and pussy were being fucked at the same time in exactly the same way. YOU FELT SO GOOD. I wanted you so bad that I could hardly control myself. You had turned me on so much that I was ready to explode all over your cock. After a few minutes I lost control and started cumming. I was so loud as the excitement was totally unbearable. This was the loudest you had ever heard me and it got you very excited and you started cumming. You pulled out of my ass and grabbed hold of your cock and stroked it spitting your juicy delicious cum all over my naked body. As you did this I played in it with my fingers. When you were all done I seductively put my cum covered fingers in my mouth and you tasted wonderful. MMMMmmmmm. What a great lover you are…….

 HHNT

SSS

There’s lots of Bugs Bunny cartoons where he gets dressed up.

This is still one of my faves.

 Dear C;

so for the past while I’ve been humming and ho-ing about whether or not to
tell anybody about what I’ve been writing lately.  hopefully you’ll be more
honoured than disgusted that you’re the first person I’ve sent this to…

WOW!!!!!  At the risk of sounding a total idiot, I think I love you.     LOL

Well that is about the coolest surprise I’ve ever had.  I’m extremely
honoured to be the first you’ve sent the link to.  I am always tickled to
find out that my friends have secret kinks that I never suspected, because I
have plenty of kinks myself that nobody but a select few know about.  No
wonder you think your wife is a goddess — my god, how lucky the two of you
are!!  You had to wait a long, long time to find each other but it was well
worth the wait.

I’m going to pore over your blog in detail when I have some home alone time.
  There is plenty of good information there about how I can introduce
elements of dominance into my relationship(s).  Girl panties I had thought
of, painted toenails I had not.  I like that idea.

Thank you so much for taking a chance and sharing your blog with me.  I’m
going to be happy for days!  Better than Prozac any time.

Hugs,
C.
PS — talk about a liberating experience, being able to share all those
parts of your inner self with another person…in a way I’m soooo jealous of
you and ♀.

C. wrote this

————————————————————————————–

Dear K;

Don’t you hate letters that start like that?  For many months now, I’ve been struggling, with…well I’ve wanted to tell you for a long time that I’ve been writing. I’ve been writing a blog for almost a year and it’s really quite popular (120,000 hits in the past 10 months). I’ve wanted to tell you about it, but I hesitated. I hesitated because even though we don’t chat very much anymore, I still feel a connection with you, I still think of you as a good friend and that bond is still very important to me. It’s not a question of being embarrassed about what I write. It’s more along the lines of I think you have very definite ideas about masculine and feminine and I was worried about how you would react. I still have those concerns, but learning that we have the same prints in our bedrooms seems to have reminded me how much we shared and I really feel the need to be honest with you now. Many of the posts have pics so you probably don’t want to read it at work or with kids around. (does that ever happen?) There’s posts about the Marilyn print and the Steve hanks print. The link I’m sending you is from a post that is mostly about you and from there you can (if you so desire) navigate through the rest of the blog. I usually write two posts a week.

Haven’t read your blog yet as I am at work, but I sense your nervousness. Its like your stammering lol. I am worried now about what you have written, especially about me! If you have written anything about us as in a personal nature, I will disown/kill/dismember/make your life a living hell as that was private and not to be exposed to anyone else, let alone the world.
What do you mean I have definite ideas about masculine and feminine? Doesn’t everyone? Don’t you?
I think we will always have a connection. You broke up with W the same week T and I broke up. We spoke to each other when we were both at the bottom of the barrel. I used to imagine you in a dingy rat infested basement, tapping away getting some sort of warmth from the computer. I felt ill to the stomach as my life wasn’t any better. I don’t think we chat much as we don’t need each other anymore. Sort of like 2 people clinging together because they were drowning, now were both on shore and doing fine. I dont hear from you because I don’t need to… we were sort of like ships in the night.
We met when we were both at rock bottom. I hope neither of us get to that point in our lives ever ever again. But we have both learnt and become stronger people. I know I have.I hope to have the knowledge/empathy/courage to help someone else one day. Nothing like first hand experience when helping someone else!
You have become a whole person again thanks to ♀, and R has been my knight in shining armour. You seemed to recover your life a little quicker than I. I was “sidetracked” with that gruesome affair (still gives me shivers to think how badly I treated myself in that one). …. anyways, not sure if I will read the blog… I will always remember what we had as special, and you seem to be warning me before I go in…. I mean how bad can it be? not like your a cross dresser or a transvestite !
Life continues to move and we grow with it. I like to keep my memories of us as they were.

I wont read the blog unless you really want me to. I don’t think you do, not because your ashamed, but just a feeling I got with your email.
Still friends?
K

I sent her a slightly edited copy of this post

Well I’m glad your writing again. Writing is an essential outlet for you. I found nothing offensive in the story/comments you sent me, so I wonder why your so concerned about me seeing your blog.
Yes, we have moved on and yes were both happy, but you always found it necessary to vocalise about things that made me cringe. You put voice to things your not supposed to talk about, that’s what made you so interesting. I am a bit like that, very honest and open about what I like. Sometimes R will tell me I am a deviate, I just tell him that I am no different to anyone else, I’m just honest about what I am thinking.
Glad we’re still friends, even though you think I have “definite ideas about male and female”… still reeling from that one.

Apparently the template I was using for this blog was causing people to squint, get wrinkles, cause headaches and all sorts of other nasty stuff. I wish someone would have mentioned that before. Hopefully this is easier to read now.

There’s supposed to be a sports theme to the HNT’s this week. With school starting we were a little distracted. ♀ wanted to show off the new bustier with matching panties that I bought her. I’d already taken a couple of pics before I remembered about the whole theme thing.

So I tossed her Mini’s little football and she assumed the position:

That didn’t really show off the outfit very well so you get two pics this week:

HHNT

SSS

ps: I’d love to hear your comments about the post ‘H-E-L-I-U-M’

Helium

 

Whenever anyone asked Brent’s dad Earl why he would give up a good paying government job to become a writer, Brent would cringe and Earl would tell the following story.                                                                                       

 “My five-year-old son Brent was riding in the back seat of the car sounding out the letters on the tanker truck in front of us.”

“He-L-I-um?”

“Just about.” 

“Helium!”

“You got it little man. What did you learn at kindergarten today?”

In Earl’s story the two of them spent the afternoon at the beach with their dog Heyboy. It was a crisp early spring day and the tide was low with miles of beach. Their fingers went numb looking for life in the icy tidal pools. Earl would go on at length about all the other people they saw out with their own dogs, slobbery old Heyboy getting sick from drinking seawater and the sheer joy of a man and his son spending an afternoon together on the beach. Just before it was time to go they heard a train coming and rushed up to place some pennies on the track. Brent said, “Helium is what they fill balloons up with, right Dad?”

After the train had passed, Earl and Brent were searching the rail bed for their coins when an undercover railroad cop approached. He told them they were trespassing and that placing anything on the tracks was a serious crime. He got down to Brent’s level, “One of those coins could have shot off the track and taken your eye out,” he said, making a quick jabbing motion toward Brent’s face. A heated argument ensued between Earl and the cop with pushing and shoving and bad language. Earl threw the first and only punch and in a flash the cop had him in handcuffs. The cop had one hand on Earl’s shoulder and was reaching towards Brent with the other when Heyboy bit the cop and an elephant sat on Earl’s chest. That’s how Earl described his heart attack. He was taken by ambulance to the hospital and Mom rescued Brent and the dog. The following day when he visited his Dad at the hospital the very first thing Brent said to him was, “Why didn’t the helium truck float away?”

Earl was convinced his heart attack and that story were signs that he should change directions and become a writer. If a story that good just drops into my lap, his dad would say, just imagine what I’ll be able to write when I put my mind to it.  Brent always felt responsible for his dad’s decision. If they’d gone to the library instead of the beach, his dad wouldn’t have had the heart attack. If he hadn’t asked about the helium, Earl would have kept his job. If it had been a better story, Earl would have been a better writer and his parents would have stayed married. Just after Brent’s eighth birthday, Earl moved into a small ground floor apartment on the other side of town. Brent and his Mom stayed in the same house and made ends meet by taking in boarders.

Earl didn’t do any of the things that Brent thought a dad should do. He didn’t seem to have a life outside the sad little apartment with its ratty old furniture. He always drove old rust buckets of cars. He called them Bic cars and seemed proud of the fact that he never paid more for a repair than it would cost to pick up another disposable car. The only new clothes he ever had were clothes that Brent’s mom bought for Brent to give to his dad for Christmas and birthday presents. Earl’s child support payments were so small that Brent’s mom often gave them to him for an allowance.

When his parents first split up, Brent spent every second weekend at his dad’s. It was so boring that in time it became one afternoon every second week and even that was more than Brent could stand. Every visit was the same. Earl would try to get Brent to talk about whatever was going on in his life and Brent would give one or two word answers. Then Earl would talk about whatever he was working on; a half finished novel, a short story, an article or a poem, and always there was the endless stream of rejections. He kept them in a folder and treated them like some kind of ever-growing badge of honour. They depressed the hell out of Brent. He’d have burnt every one of them. He couldn’t understand how his dad could keep on being an unsuccessful writer. Sometimes Earl would read something that had been published as if to show that this was a measure of his success, but to Brent it always seemed pointless and sad. He asked his dad once why he hadn’t retrained for a different government job when he had the opportunity. Earl seemed puzzled by the question and asked Brent what job could possibly be better then being a writer? Brent was thirteen and moody and suggested ‘school zone crossing guard’ would have been a good choice.

One day when his mom was driving Brent to his dad’s they heard a discussion on the radio about earworms. That’s when you get a song in your head and you can’t stop humming it. They told a story about a woman who, when she was fifteen, woke up one morning with a melody in her head. She had no musical training, but convinced her parents to send her for music lessons. She learned how to read and write music and wrote out the song. During the next forty-three years she wrote out that same piece of music one thousand four hundred and eighty seven times. They were all done by hand, numbered, dated and each slightly different than the others. When she completed the last one she wrote ‘perfect’ at the bottom of the page and killed herself. Brent was laughing when they played one of the only known recordings of the song.

“That sounds exactly like Dad and his ‘Helium’ story. He’s got a literary ear worm.”

“That’s not very nice. Brent you should have more respect for your father.”

“Are you kidding?” Brent replied. “Did you know that anytime he gets stuck for something to write, he works on yet another version of that story? I’ve heard it from the dad’s POV, the son’s POV, and various versions in the third person. He’s even written it from the dog’s POV. I don’t think he even submits it anymore.”

“That’s because writers need to write. It doesn’t really matter what he’s working on as long as he’s writing. It’s who he is and I hope one day you’ll stop being angry at him for it.”

“Whatever.”

“Don’t forget to invite him to your birthday next week. We can pick him up if he needs a ride. I still can’t believe my baby is going to be sixteen.”

On Brent’s birthday a small party was held in his honour.  Mom and her new boyfriend gave him a gift certificate for driving lessons, his uncle gave him a sex manual and a box of condoms, his cousins bought him some beer and he had high hopes that his girlfriend would be giving him her cherry later that night. Then he opened his dad’s gift. It was a handmade card and inside it said:

Brent and I have a secret place

Where the world moves a different pace.

But I will never tell a soul

Where is our little glory hole…

 It went on from there, but Brent could no longer see the words. He looked up at his dad. Earl was beaming and saying, “You might not remember this, but before my heart attack I took you camping and I taught you how to pan for gold…”

 “This is it? This is what you’re giving me for my birthday? A f’ing poem! Are you completely insane? Last week when you were telling me about the play Agatha Christie gave to her grandson and how he lived his whole life on the royalties from it. I thought maybe you’d finally managed to publish something big and were going to give me something to make up for being such a loser, but this, this is just pathetic!”

As Brent ranted, he watched his dad age ten years in two minutes. The effect was no less dramatic than seeing him gray and unconscious beside the railroad tracks, but once the words started he couldn’t stop the eleven years of frustration and disappointment from pouring out. When he was done, he stormed up to his room and slammed the door. The party was over.

During the final three years of Earl’s life, Brent’s relationship with his dad was polite, but distant. There was no visitation schedule anymore. Brent would stop by occasionally and take his dad out for lunch. They’d talk about Brent’s job or school or girlfriends, but they had become little more then acquaintances. His mom’s relationship with Earl had also changed.  They had become friends again in a quiet gentle way that Brent envied.

In fact, she was the one who found Earl on the floor beside his desk. She told Brent that the computer was still on and the story his dad had been working on was ‘Helium’. Brent suspected she was trying to push his buttons.

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September 11, 2001

            Brent’s Big Ben alarm clock rang at noon. He turned it off and listened to the still unfamiliar sounds in his second floor bachelor suite. I hate this room, I hate night shift, I hate that another man is living with my wife and son, I hate that even with all my planning I still ended up with my father’s life, I hate…

No. That’s enough. He got up, took his Paxil and jumped into the shower.

“Mind over mood, right Dad? At least I’m healthy and working. I remember you telling me that everything happens for a reason and even though it’s a cliché, I’m holding on to that now. Night shift’s not so bad. I get to pick Drake up from kindergarten every day. It kills me when I don’t see him. Does that pain ever go away Dad?  I bet when I was a moody teenager it was a relief not to have to deal with me every day. God, I was such a prick. I thought I was so hard done by. If I’d known how hard real life would get, do you think it would have made a difference? No, probably not.  I’ve got to go do the dad thing now. I’ll talk to you later. Bye.”

Brent’s first knowledge that something serious was happening in the world came when he turned on the car radio. The second World Trade Tower had already collapsed and the media reports were focusing on what was going to happen next. With no pictures and only sketchy details of what had happened earlier in the day, Brent felt as if he’d entered the Twilight Zone. He was so busy trying to make sense of what he was hearing that when he answered his cell phone and it was his estranged wife Cheryl, he forgot to sound annoyed.

“Have you heard what’s going on?” She asked.

“I’m just listening to it now. The World Trade Centre towers are gone? How is that possible? What the hell is going on down there?”

“It’s been horrible Brent. I’ve been watching it since I got back from taking Drake to kindergarten. I just can’t seem to look away. They showed people jumping out of the buildings. It’s like some terrible nightmare come to life. They’re saying it was terrorists. It’s so scary.”

Brent passed under some power lines and when he could hear her again she was saying, “Drake hasn’t seen any of this. Please don’t let him watch TV today. He’s so young, he doesn’t need to see this.” After he’d hung up, Brent realized that this was the first thing he and Cheryl had been able to agree upon in six months.

The echo of the school buzzer hadn’t yet faded when Drake and his classmates burst out into the brilliant autumn sunshine, a half a day’s schooling being more than enough for their hummingbird attention spans. He was ten feet past Brent when he yelled, “I’ll race you to the car Dad!”

Once Drake had finished his victory dance and was settled into his car seat with a snack Brent asked, “What did you learn at kindergarten today?”

“We learned about Block Parents.”

“Cool, tell me about it.”

“Well, Block Parents are safe people to go to if I get hurt or lost or if a bad person is after me and I can tell who they are because they have a sign on their door and the police come and talk to them to make sure they are safe people to go to and if a bad person is after me I should yell and scream and if they try to grab me I should hit and kick and bite and scratch to get away. Look, there’s a house on the corner with a Block Parent sign.”

“Wow, you learned a lot. How did it make you feel when your teacher was talking about that?”

“Kinda scared.”

“Do you think she was just trying to scare you because Halloween is coming?”

“Daad, that’s not funny! She was telling us so we’d know what to do if something bad happened and thinking about the bad things is what scared me.”

“That makes sense. So our project for today is cleaning up this pigsty of a car. You need to decide what you want to keep and where you want to keep it, I’ll throw out the garbage and we’ll recycle all the empty pop cans and water bottles. Then I’ll get you to spray the back of the car with a hose so I can see where it’s leaking.  It’s not good having the bottom of the hatch full of water like that.”

“Daddy I need all of those things. The leaves and sticks are for my arts and crafts, the rocks have magic colours in them and give me special powers, some of the toys are for playing with in the car and some are for when we go to parks and I like the water in the back, I can hear it splashing when we drive and I can pretend I’m on a pirate ship.”

“Well, I guess I can clean up the car another day. Do you want to go to the park?”

“Yeah! Daddy, do you ever get scared?”

“Yep, lots of times.”

“Really? What do you do when you get scared?”

“The best thing to do is to face your fears straight on, things usually aren’t so scary if you look right at them.” The radio was still on low and Brent considered his own growing fear.

“Another thing that sometimes helps is talking to someone. I often talk to my Dad. That’s your Grandpa Earl.”

“Have I ever met him?” Asked Drake.

“Nope. He died before you were born.” Brent said, watching Drake’s reaction in the rear view mirror.

Drake’s eyes were huge, “Does he ever talk back?”

“No, he just listens. Just like your teddy bear listens to you. I talk to my Dad when I’m scared or worried and it makes me feel better.”

When they arrived at the park, it was deserted. Apparently most other people were letting their kids watch the horrors on TV. They played in the playground for a while then went for a walk along the trails beside a small creek. Standing on a bridge playing ‘Pooh Sticks’ Drake asked, “What else do you talk to your dad about?”

“Mostly I just talk about things that are going on in my life; you, my job, good things, bad things, just stuff. The other day I was telling him about my leaky car. He had a car that leaked inside just like mine does. Instead of fixing the leak, he decided to drill some holes in the floor so the water would drain out. Unfortunately he drilled the holes into his gas tank and once the water got into the gas his car didn’t work very well. So he went to the junkyard and bought another tank. He was under the car taking the tank off and he thought there were four bolts holding it on, but unfortunately there was only three and the tank fell on to his face and broke his nose.”

Drake looked at his dad seriously, “Is that story true Daddy?”

“Of course it’s true. I don’t tell stories.”

“Yeah right, you tell stories all the time. Mommy says I should ask her before I believe any of your stories.” Brent took a deep breath and let the comment pass. His thoughts kept going back to the drama unfolding in the States. What did it mean? What’s going to happen next? How do I protect my son?

“Drake, talking about my Dad has made me think that sometimes we take things for granted. Our lives could be completely different tomorrow. I’d like it if we could think of some way to remember today.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, it’s a beautiful day and we’re having a really nice time together. We never know how many days like this we’re going to get. So I think we need to come up with something to help us remember. Maybe it’s the leaves changing colour or the sound of the creek or the smell of the dog poop I stepped in, but I’d like it if we never forgot how happy we are today.”

“OK Dad, I’ll try and think of something.”

They arrived at Drake’s house at dinnertime, with cold wet feet from falling in the creek. They were tired, but happy with memories of a fun day still fresh in their minds. Before he got out of the car, Drake put a green heart-shaped rock the size of a golf ball into Brent’s hand.

“Here Daddy. You keep this at your house. It’ll help us remember the nice day we had together.” He gave Brent a hug and a kiss. “I love you Daddy. See you tomorrow.”

Brent drove toward home with the radio off. He squeezed his 9/11 rock and marveled at his son’s wisdom. He was half way home when he had a revelation.

“I get it now Dad! I understand why you needed to write ‘Helium’.” His dad didn’t choose that story it chose him. Brent pulled over to the side of the road and let the emotions wash over him. The small quiet story of a day with his son was set against a big story of unspeakable terror. It was perfectly clear and the words pounded in his head. Brent realized he had no choice. He had to write this story and get it perfect, even if it took the rest of his life. His hands shook and his tears flowed as he found a pen and on the back of a big manila envelope he began to write.