The Sexy-Time Cake Story

I was dating this guy – let’s call him Boguslav Nikola – and we were dating for a while. I mean, I think I dated him for three or four years. He was supposed to be a one-night stand but...that’s a story for another time.

It happened to be my birthday weekend. Between work and school and all that, we had a small party with my parents where a double-decker chocolate cake was homemade by my Mom and was in my fridge of my apartment. We had gone out to dinner and had cake at my apartment - just so you have a concept of how hard I party.

And the apartment was the haunted one, yes (Read about it: The Time My Apartment Was Haunted)

Now, I worked three jobs and freelanced while going to school full-time. You'd think all that would have made me successful or rich or smart, alas - here I am. It did mean I was normally up and out the door around 4:30am and didn’t walk back into into the apartment until 8pm at night, so, the dinner was smashed in there as my only "celebration" for my birthday. 

I had some free time that weekend, though. Since it's August, I didn't have as much going on. I thought this would be perfect for some cool, sexy, rar-rar, hubba-hubby couple time. Right?

I was going to put in some effort into it. REAL effort.

I was going to make the neighbors call the cops type...grrr, squeek-sweek, sexy-groan, nom-nom, rar-rar, bang, chicken cluck, motorized drill, bubble wrap...

...You get the idea.

I got my sexiest sexy sex-kitten lingerie on. I had a sexy corset that was strapless and all lusty-red and black. I had these impractical underwear, too. I struggled into some sexy fishnet thigh-highs with red bows on them - apparently, the sexy-fishnet stocking industry thinks someone with my calf size has really small thighs so it's always a little struggle to get into them or to keep them from falling down. I even had a silk sexy sexy-time robe to sort of hide the kabootle like some type of cross-dressing samurai. 

I shaved, too. Without cutting myself. I even had glitter and smell-good on. I was ready to rock and roll. 

MM!

I draped myself with alluring ease across my couch so I would be the first thing he would see when he walked into the living room. This was a little complicated because when I laid on my side, I had to fix my boobs a lot because the corset was not really for support or anything practical. The couch was also a little droopy and I had to flip the couch cushions to get a little more support so my body wasn’t on a downward angle. Then I had to make sure the robe was laying right.

Look, this is all very hard to do in a corset. And this was a back-closure corset. You normally need another person to help you get into those things and I did it all by myself. I probably had rope burn from it.

So, I turned on the TV and waited for my man to arrive for hot sexy sex-sex horn-dog birthday fun time. I couldn't wait to see the look on his face. 

In comes Boguslav Nikola!

Maddie: Lock the door, baby.

Boguslav Nikola: Ok. Done. Sorry I'm late, there was an...oh wow. You look great.

Maddie: Oh, this old thing? Do you like it?

Boguslav Nikola: Yeah, wow. Yeah, that's so hot. it’s really hot.

Maddie:…mmmm...

Boguslav Nikola: Hey, is there cake?

I mean, I down with it. Whipped cream, icing, cake – sure! Fuzzy handcuffs, Skittles, Sabre Dance - by Aram Khachaturian in the background...whatever, man. Let's get this birthday sexy time goin'! Yeah!

Maddie: Yeah, baby. In the fridge.

Boguslav Nikola: Cool

Boguslav Nikola proceeds to take out the cake and get a fork and sit in front of the TV to watch the Simpsons while I am there all being all sexy sex-kitten. Boguslav Nikola had basically been presented with both lust and gluttony – willing sex-kitten and chocolate cake. He picked the cake.

He picked CAKE.

So, about an hour later, I head to bed because I have to get up at 4:30am. Boguslav Nikola gets up seeing me getting up...

Boguslav Nikola: Hey, babe, where you goin'?

Maddie: I’m going to bed

Boguslav Nikola: What about, you know…

Maddie: …

Boguslav Nikola: Come on, baby. Why are you going to get all dressed up and then say we can’t do anything?

Maddie: …cake. You picked cake. I’ve been sitting here for an hour while you've been eating cake.

Boguslav Nikola:…I didn't pick cake, I was just like, I was going to and I didn't know if you were up for it and I mean, that was a good episode of the Simpsons and your Mom's cake is really, really good so I was...you know...waiting to see when you wanted to...

Maddie:…

Boguslav Nikola: I f**ked up, didn't I?

Maddie:....

As I un-hitched, decluttered and unpainted myself and snuggled into bed. Boguslav Nikola peeks in.

Boguslav Nikola:…don’t tell anyone about this, ok?

Maddie: ...

...Na.

And that is one of many times I proved that I cannot give it away. 

A Ranking of Celebrations and Holidays

Holidays, and general days of celebration, ranked in order of favorite to least favorite:

1. Halloween
2. Mystery Case Files Release Day
3. Christmas
4. Mother’s Day/Father’s Day (Tie)
5. Thanksgiving
6. St Amandus Feast Day (Feb 6)
7. Labor Day
8. Marine Corp Birthday
9. Easter/Good Friday
10. Groundhog Day
11. Eid al-Fitr/Rosh Hashana (when friends celebrate)
12. First Fridays
13. Memorial Day
14. Feast of St Francis of Assisi (Oct 4)
15. All solstices 
16. Daylight Saving Day
17. Independence Day 
18. Super Bowl Sunday
19. Columbus Day
20. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
21. George Washington’s Birthday
22. Saint Patrick's Day
23. Cyber Monday
24. Take Children to Work Day
25. New Year's Day (New Year's Eve)
26. Valentine’s Day
27. My birthday

Project Halloween: Why I Love Halloween

I love Halloween.

Most people who I say "Halloween is my thing" think I like it because it is weird and I'm weird. I don't know what the definition of weird is...


Oh...that's what it is. Cool. Yep.

The reasons I like Halloween are never really asked. I think that's strange sometimes - when someone says they like something or are really into something that we aren't, we never ask why. We assume something of their lives of personality before asking for data.

Here are the reasons I dig Halloween:

• I rarely feel connected to people. On Halloween, when I dress up and other people dress up, I feel a connection. I can be funny or horrible - I will always have something to talk to someone about. I feel more like part of a community.
• I like pushing boundaries. I like that this strange cultural tradition of Halloween is a time when you can be ANYTHING and do ANYTHING and it's all ok. Anything you want to explore or try on is ok - either externally or internally.
• I have lived through horror. Being able to see it outside of me makes me feel less alone.
• I like projects and learning. When I built a costume, I have to practice and work through things with my hands and mind. It's something that get's me going. It's fun! It's a fun process for me and when it comes to life - I just have a blast. The work is the joy, for sure.
• I like play. I like playing. I like when I can tackle something that I wouldn't normally do and have fun with it. I like learning about latex, makeup, special effects - I like learning about mythical beasts and real people. 

I started planing costume 2017 on November 1, 2016. In did my research and set up my list of items I would need. In August, I ordered my first shipment and, thanks to Amazon Prime, got it really quickly!

Project Halloween has moved from hypothetical to reality. Well...now I have to actually practice how to do all this stuff I will need to do. I'm not sure if I will be successful or how much I will have to alter, but, I'm going to do my best.

The Calpurnia Mission: Chapter 2: The Rebel Lion

This story is the meat of the whole situation or collection. This is where I can better define the problem that the characters have to solve – the returning of these magical keys. This was the first story where I had to fight brawn with brain.

The Rebel Lion starts with Derko, Calpurnia’s brother, being taken and held hostage. She has has some options:

• Turn herself in to Fairscourt to save him and face the consequences of her theft
• Run away 
• Attempt to save him

Calpurnia chooses to attempt to save Derko through slyness. She manages to infiltrate the heart of her Fairscourt's lair – a realm where he and his army, the Free Company, live. She is stopped by Rebelein and learns more of the details of what stealing the keys meant and generally what she is in for. It's a good place where the rules of the universe are explained.

The story displays two characters that are of importance – Commander Byron Fairscourt and Emmanuel Rebelein.

How about I pen a bit about Fairscourt?

Byron Fairscourt
Fairscourt is the first obvious antagonist – he is the one hunting Calpurnia and holding Derko. The whole goddamn series opens with him.

Goddamnit!

I wrote of Fairscourt: Brown, short hair. Hazel/green eyes. Muscular and compact. Walks with a limp. Probably 5’10-5’11.

It was so important for him to be brutal from Calpurnia's and Derko's perspective - and I created that brutality through two means:

• He is good at what he does
• He is never completely wrong

The first brush of Fairscourt was built for him to be the bully and the scary shadow.

It was also so important for him to carry the same richness as the rest of the characters even if he only gets a few lines or a few scenes in each story. Good thing I learned a lot from writing about Calpurnia for getting the most of a character out of the least amount of ink.

Phew.

As a Commander, the head of an army, I felt it was so easy for him to be simply brutal - that is the easiest part of him. In order for him to keep that position, he also had to be respected. He is a true protector – he just is not protecting Calpurnia who is the protagonist.

Fairscourt does not micromanage; he is involved with his men and seeks to bring out the best for the Company. He is a well-seasoned fighter with physical prowess – even though very rarely does he rely on his own force over a well contrived plan or his own men. I made sure his position as a leader of the Free Company involved the gritty planning over him in some type of combat.

Fairscourt is also probably the most mature character - like he adults good. I needed him to be powerful, brutal and intelligent in order for him to hold his own against Calpurnia. While she might win battles against him, he wins the war.

In order to create instability in Fairscourt, I built him with two different personalities that emerge at different times. Not Jekyll and Hyde, mind you. No Jekyll and Hyde is cool when you want to display out-of-controlness. Fairscourt is never out of control making the friendly, charismatic and submissive personality he can display against his cold and exacting personality…scarier.

Fairscourt is a remarkable static character but the world around the reader changes until when you review his first appearances and words, it makes complete sense and is completely the same as the person he is by the end.

What I Learned
Fairscourt is most often exposed through his journals that he kept for each mission. Each of these journals corresponds to a realm Calpurnia and Derko must visit to retrieve a key. The get to read why he was there, what work he was doing with his army, and then the after effects. This meant I had to come up with backstories for almost everything, as well as series of events, understand how Fairscourt would present them when writing down his notes and then finding slight ways Calpurnia could extract his character.

All while he was not there.

Fairscourt taught me a lot about honesty, good and evil and what it means to be loyal – to be centered in an ideology that understands others. Fairscourt is not bogged down with guilt and he doesn’t get caught up in things that do not threaten what he protects. He makes mistakes, he sees the importance of self-care and dicipline. He sees no importance in being louder or better than someone else.

He does his job even if what he is doing seems evil or wrong because he has a long view of life. He understand that only through oppression can there be revolution, and only in revolution can there be growth. He has no problem being the oppression or the revolution.

Within these perimeters, he is very quietly human. As the first “antagonist,” I thought it would be very difficult to find compassion or humanity in him. Actually, it was super easy and while he can be merciless, it felt easy to put him in spaces that required him to be supportive, trusting and even nurturing.

Key Points
Fairscourt always follows these structural rules:

• He is an excellent listener because he needs to extract information – not because he cares.
• He speaks only in “I” sentences. This is to show not only his total control over his world but because he absorbs the consequences. He is a protector and he claims everything as his own to protect it, use it and support it
• He doesn't allow women in his Company
• His weaknesses are hard to find but easy to see. It takes Calpurnia a long time to enrage Fairscourt. 
• It takes a lot of words and situations to final get a savage response from Fairscourt – although he shows his is capable in this chapter. 
• He has a doe-skinned jacket he wears frequently
• When possible, he will speak in one word as a command: Speak, report, silence, go

Fin
If you have questions about them or The Calpurnia Mission you can email me at StoriesbyMaddie at gmail or TheCalpurniaMission at gmail. All of the posts about the Calpurnia Mission can be found by clicking on the production label on the right.

What? I like gmail.

The Birthday Thing

I hate my birthday. I really do. I’m not a big fan. I sort of white-knuckle through it with all the passion of someone who just felt the esthetician do a final rub of the cloth strap stuck to your bikini area..

That is what my birthday feels like to me.

Other than I never had my bikini area waxed so my emotional metaphors are all hypothetical - unlike my bikini hair.

Something about singing a weird song that's not in strophic form and setting food on fire. Come on, that’s weird.

I dislike the attention of people being all wide-eyed at me or the stereotypical "you're a woman so you look 25 LOLZ" which is BS. I almost didn't make it to my 27th birthday so having a couple more is nice. But if I try to tell people that, I have ruined the moment by talking about the D word and that's sad.

Also, I can't eat the cake and the whole event just reminds me how I'm not normal.

Birthday remind me I am not normal.

[Gestures wildly]

What I do every year to combat my negative energy over these cultural traditions I don't understand and always get wrong is to create my own tradition.

My first attempt was in 2007, I almost died and lost a lot of my memories. I asked people to send me autographed photos of themselves so I could frame them and put them in my den. Like when people make walls of celebrities and memorabilia. It would be a floor-to-ceiling black-and-white glossy 8x11 photos of everyone I knew. Then I wouldn't forget them - I could look at them and remember that these are the people in my life.

I never got any so I gave up on the request a few years later.

My next attempt I figure needed to be smaller and less based on other people. I heard there was this Jewish tradition that you should always give money to someone when you are on a business trip or entering into a new venture because then the endeavor would be blessed with good intentions.

I have no idea if any of that is true - but I liked the concept of good deeds.

I didn't have a lot of money and I had no energy. I knew I couldn't change someone's life. I was merely alive and trudging through existence. After a lot of running around in my mind, I decided I could donate a dollar for every year and maybe that would be some type of good deed to kick off my year.

If I can be lucky enough to have a birthday, I should have the privilege of providing some token to the world of which I stank up.

I try to ask people what they are donating to or care about in order to get people thinking about what they can do to make the world better with their time or cold, hard cash, and support those who are in various stages of need. It also gives me perspective on what matters outside of my own thoughts and circles.

This year, I donated to American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. I also will hopefully be walking in the Out of the Darkness Philadelphia Walk

If you are in crisis, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 1-800-273-TALK (8255). The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline provides 24/7, free and confidential support for people in distress, prevention and crisis resources for you or your loved ones, and best practices for professionals.

So, no story today while I do what I am doing. Just a simple quote:

Jack London: A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog.

That Time I Put the Fun in Fungus

That time I got that rash thing - it actually was right where a horsefly bit me, so, I assumed that's what it was. Then it exploded so I decided to have some fun with it.

If you are going to have some weird disfigurement, why not have fun with it? Right? Here is the list of things I tried to "convince" people I had.

It was a vaccine gone wrong!

It's the mark of Satan - I'm a witch.

Cigar burn. I live dangerously.

Supernumerary nipple - supernumerary nipples are diagnosed in humans at a rate of approximately 1 in 8,000 people

Lab experiment accident...meth lab

Hipster tattoo of the sun over arrows.

I'm turning into pizza. Slowly turning into pizza.

It's all that's left of the twin I consumed in utero.

Firework accident.

It's the real Eye of Sauron.

Brown recluse spider bite.

And at the end of the day, it was actually...

Ended up being ringworm or Dermatophytosis if you think the word "ringworm" sounds gross.

I got it from one of the cats when I was cleaning cages and feeding and whatnot. You can pick up this common fungal infection anywhere - most commonly in lockers when you get Athlete's Foot

Things I Have Pulled Out of My Couch

I have this purple couch, the only one I ever had, so it's old. This is amount of things I have pulled out of it:

• Apricot pit
• Apron
• Barrette
• Books
• Bra
• Bullets
• Buttons
• Candy
• Candy wrappers
• Cat toys
• Cell phones
• Chicken bones
• Chopsticks
• Coasters
• Dimes
• Drivers licenses
• DVD remote
• DVDs
• Earrings
• Flask
• Fork
• Hair pins
• Hairballs (created by my hair)
• Hairballs (created by other mammals)
• Hand lotion bottle
• Handcuffs
• Horseshoe
• Kittens
• Map of France
• Matchbox
• Necklaces
• Nickels
• Pennies
• Pens
• Popcorn
• Pork chop
• Potato chips
• Quarters
• Rats
• Ribbon
• Seed packet
• Shirts
• Snow globe
• Socks
• Stuffed animals
• Sweater
• Tank tops
• Tapeworm segments
• TV remote control
• Underwear