Lesson 2 Sensual Prose...Exposition

Lady Liv,

Here are the three lesson assignments. Note that what I tend to write is heavy on the dialogue and light on exposition. Given a word limit I tend to try and say too much....I need to mix in more emotion and try and cover less ground....usless you see something I'm missing


Mild Anger: Taken for Granted.

Pete loved Carla, always had, always would. However he didn’t always show it. Sometimes he forgot things, things that were important….like birthdays and anniversaries and when this happened she had to remind him.

“Last year you forgot my birthday,” she told him, “and you better not let it happen again.”

It was irritating that he couldn’t remember that one special day. It galled her having to point it out. A year rolled around and so did the same old problem.

“Honey, you know what day it was yesterday,” she asked over breakfast?

“What,” he replied?

“It was MY BIRTHDAY!”

“Oh shucks, Babes,” he answered, “I’ve been so caught up in the Harris Account, I completely forgot.”

“Lately your memory is not doing so well,” said Carla “I’m not a houseplant.”

“You know I love you , Sweetheart…We’ll go out to dinner Saturday and I’ll make it up to you.”

“You had your chance yesterday and blew it….The day came, it hung around for awhile and then passed into history….its gone like a puff of smoke….like water over the dam. You can make all amends you want. Kissing and making up might be sweet but there’s no excuse for missing my birthday.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Apologies aren’t enough.”

“…And when we get home from Red Lobster, I’ll give you one of those big surprises of mine.

“You seem to think that sex is the answer to everything.” Carla was starting to get mad. “Well it isn’t’”

“Look Honey…you have the credit card…help me out on this… go buy yourself something nice… pretend it came from me.”

“Is that what our marriage is becoming….a pretense?”

“Come on now, whenever I buy you something ,the first thing you do is take it back and exchange it.”

“That’s not the point….“

“Then what is…”

Showing a little for thought…demonstrating your love…showing that you care, …that I’m not just a piece of property like a car or a boat or this frackin house.

“I said I was sorry,” he said, his voice taking on an edge. “I really am. Let me make it up to you this weekend.”

“That would be nice but it’s not the same as getting it right the first time. Are you getting tired of me?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“It used to be we had so much fun together but lately you treat me like chopped liver. Have I done something wrong…have I said something to upset you?”

“It isn’t you Babes….its this damned job…You know how focused I get…When this Account is tacked down, I’ll have some wiggle room and we can play a little “Catch-Up” How about a vacation to Cancun?”

“That would be fun..”

“Yeah! And maybe its time you quit taking the pill and we could time it to coincide with that magic day of the month….”

“I’m not sure we’re ready for that….if you can’t even remember my birthday. “


To me deep anger is often almost unspoken....Proxy arguments are used as stand ins for the real issues. In this case it is missing an anniversary. Some call it submerged dialogue. Deep Anger. Evidence of Unfaithfulness

Carla smelled the perfume on his undershirt. It wasn’t hers….Then there was the card with the telephone number…It was one of Pete’s female co-workers….She was crushed. At first she didn’t want to admit it…It wasn’t like she was all that satisfied with the way their marriage was going but the thought of breaking it off, of filing for divorce of having to face her family and friends as a failure …it was almost too much to bear. She was going to have to do something, maybe confront Pete and she dreaded it.

That evening at supper was a typical example….by quiet it was typical of being together and not having anything to say. She made dinner, he read the paper and they watched some TV before going upstairs..

As they sat up in the king size bed, Carla took a deep breath. “You forgot our anniversary last week.”

“Oh shucks,” he replied, I’m getting bad for that sort of thing.

“You sure are,” she answered. “This year, last year, the year before; what’s with us anyway? Has the blush gone from the rose? Have I got bad breath? Is there something I’m doing wrong?”

“Honey, I am so sorry. It isn’t you; its this damn job. I promise when I get promoted to partner I’ll be out of the rat race and there’ll be more time for us together. I love you sweetheart…you’ll always be the apple of my eye.”

“Our marriage is going south, Pete. The magic is gone and our future is flapping in the wind. All those expectations we had aren’t panning. What might have been has all spilled out and all that’s left is an empty pitcher. The pen has written our epitaph and moved on. One day soon you’ll be telling me it’s over…”

“Oh come on Honey. Quit being so melodramatic; you’re making a mountain out of a mole hill…I’ll concede that the past year has been something of a strain, but I’m close, I’m on the edge of the real pay dirt and soon I’ll be a Partner. Bear with me a little longer…”

“It hurts when you don’t remember my birthday or even our anniversary. Is there something you’re not telling me?”

“Like what?” he asked defensively.

“Is there some other woman?”

“JESUS !….where did you ever get that notion?”

“I’ve seen it happen with Jim and Betty; with George and Sarah. Is it our turn. Is it happening to you and me?”

“I swear to God there’s no other woman?” Why would I need someone else when I have you?” He rose up and went over kissing her on the forehead….come on Babes…let’s make it right.?

She turned away and picked her book off the nightstand. Why don’t you tell him what you found in his suit pocket….about the scent on his tee-shirt….COWARD! He’s using you like a door mat and you’re letting him wipe his feet.

“How about a new I-Pod ?“ he asked….Apple has the new model at Best Buy.”

“My birthday came and went. So did our anniversary. You forgot. It speaks volumes for what you think of me and this marriage.”

“I love you Honey….let me make it up to you?”

“How can you make up something that isn’t there any more? This might not be a big deal to you but it’s killing me. If I didn’t trust you, I’d swear there was more to it than meets the eye.”

“For crying out loud I’m not fooling around. You know how I am; how forgetful I can be. It doesn’t mean there’s someone else.”

He was lying like a dog., she thought. Deception is not Pete’s strong suit. When he departs from the truth his nose gets long as Pinocchio’s.

“If you say so,” she answered…. Coward she screamed to herself…Soon he’d start groping her and start insisting they make love. The joy was gone but she could still pretend he was the man she once loved. Don’t be hasty she warned. Maybe there’s still a way….Perhaps marriage counseling would work.

One hand closed around her breast and the other slipped between her legs. “What I got for you Honey is the answer to all your worries…it’s that man thing that every woman needs.”

In between Anger: Suspicion of unfaithfulness. A food fight type argument is not as repressed and malovelent, even though it appears to those listening to be quite intense.

Carla was hurt. Pete had forgotten their Anniversary….It wasn’t just that, but he had become very forgetful about things he once looked forward to doing. When they were dating he always found ways to celebrate their relationship Sometimes it was for the most stupid of reasons like Guy Fawkes Day.

“Yep, it‘s Guy Fawkes day,” he once told her, “and we have to celebrate.” They partied into the wee hours and then came home to a wild night of love making…Now they hardly talked to each other much less indulged in that spontaneous sex that was once the signature of their relationship.

Last time, when her birthday rolled around, he never even mentioned it. But, it wasn’t just that, it was the little things like flowers and small gifts and mementoes; reminders of his love. Then there were dinners out and the prospects of a romantic evening….Even the movies had been fun but those sorts of things just wasn’t happening any more….The magic was gone; the bloom was off the rose….She had become just another fixture that Pete took for granted; like the car or the house or his bowling ball.

Now-a-days she was lucky if they made love once a week and it wasn’t the joyful, raucous, playful romp it once was. It had become almost like using the bathroom or some other worrisome little chore. They hadn’t had any children either. Maybe it was all her fault. Maybe he thought of her as an appliance that never worked right.

Her friends told her that this phenomenon was quit normal. A phase in the cycle of matrimony during which the dreaded boredom set it That cooling down, to be expected once a couple settled comfortably into matrimony.

I’m not ready for this, Carla told herself. there has to be more to life than the deplorable state into which my marriage had fallen.

As her self esteem dropped the young woman wondered if maybe her husband was fooling around. Now don’t go getting paranoid, she kept reminding herself but it made her fret like a guinea hen. Her neighbor, Betty, suggested she try being more romantic. To fix herself up; maybe role play and pretend she was Snow White or Little Red Riding Hood. “Men like that kinky pretend stuff,” her friend told her with assurance. It sounded silly but Carla went anyway to Victoria’s Secret and bought this frilly red bra and a thong that left little to the imagination. When Pete came home she was waiting on the threshold. He played along and carried her up to the bedroom but he couldn’t perform and the whole episode ended in a fiasco.

Is it me? she wondered, or is he being tapped by someone else?

“Sorry I choked,” he explained. “Next time I’ll stop by the drug store and get my Viagra prescription refilled,”