With a Little Help

With a Little Help

© 2016 by the author

Norm stared at the blinking cursor. Maybe inspiration would come. Sometimes it did. He could always hope. He had spent two weeks on this story, and it wasn’t going anywhere. According to the counter at the bottom of the screen, he had churned out 52,682 words of this saga. “Saga” was the right word. The story sagged. Instead of muscular prose, he had written flab. The words had gushed out of his mind so fast that he had troubled typing quickly enough to capture them before they faded from his mind. Not that speed had helped—the story was garbage. Inert characters, an unlikely plot, and flaccid prose made this effort one of his worst failures. And he couldn’t see how to fix the problems.

The idea for the story had been so bright when it came to him. The first day of writing had been exciting. His fingers had sped over the keyboard. Everything went so well for a few days. And then the first whispers of doubt had come. He had re-read what he had written so far, and it was a congealed mess of cold porridge. Total crap. Suddenly the story was headed downhill, careening out of control, its headlong plunge over the cliff of mediocrity into the valley of the abso-fucking-lutely awful unstoppable. This story wasn’t going to add to his collection of Golden Cock awards—five of them so far, three best short-stories of the year, and two best novels of the year. It wasn’t going to become a featured work on Amazon. His many fans weren’t going to write rapturous reviews giving far too much information on how often his prose had made them cum. Hell, this work wasn’t even arousing him. The hero was so dull—not even his engorged nine-inch cock or his muscle-clad body saved him  As for the villain, the horniest fantasist ready to get hard at the merest mention of bare flesh wouldn’t find him sexy. There wasn’t anyone that feeble.

“Damn, damn, damn, hell, shit, fuck, fuck, fuck,” he typed. He pressed Cntl + a to select the entire document, all 52,690 words of it with his last addition. A transparent blue screen covered everything he had typed. His finger hovered over the delete key. Should he just get rid of it, give the *&(^# a merciful death? Or should he add it to the growing number of half-finished novels filed away on the Unfinished Folder on his computer? It would be a fucking shame to fucking waste all his fucking hours of fucking work on this fucking travesty. Maybe something would come to him if he let it stew for a few months. Perhaps a paragraph here or there could be salvaged from it and used in another story. Besides, if there was anything he really hated doing, it was admitting failure, and deleting the entire story would be a big admission of failure.

Norm shrugged. What the hell. Keep the damn thing. He clicked the “save” icon, closed the file, and then transferred the story to the Unfinished Folder. Not that that would help. If his past behavior was any guide, he would spend the next few days obsessing over this failure instead of moving on and coming up with an idea for his next book. If only it were as easy to flush the story from his mind as it was to flush crap down the sewer. Get rid of the turgid turds and have a nice clean bowlful of clear water. Jesus, was that the only metaphor or analogy, whatever the hell it was, he could come up with? He was in trouble if that was the best he could do.

He should turn his computer off and get out of his office. Spend the rest of the day doing something else, anything but writing. He could take a walk, he supposed. He vaguely recalled that last night’s weather report on the TV had promised good weather. He glanced toward the window in his office, but he hadn’t bothered to pull back the curtains that morning. He didn’t hear rain. So maybe the weather was good. Anyway, he should get out more, get some fresh air, not that the polluted air in his neighborhood was good for anyone. Or he could finish that half-gallon of ice cream in the freezer—drown his sorrows by binging on a couple quarts of chocolate fudge almond swirl. Don’t even put it in a dish. Just eat it straight from the carton. He could even add to the calories by opening that new jar of caramel sauce and pouring some over the top. No, make that the whole jar—this catastrophe had “comfort food” scrawled all over it. Maybe even crumble a few cookies over the ice cream. Or he could answer his emails. Or he could get a bowl of ice cream to eat while he checked his emails and maybe answered a few of them. He glanced down at his waist. Or he could just deal with his emails.

The first message in the queue was from Mike Hewson. It would be. On a day when he had faced up to yet another failure, his friend and fellow writer of gay porn—his friend and successful fellow writer of gay porn, he reminded himself—had sent him a message. Even without reading it, Norm knew that it would be one of Mike’s cheerful letters brimming over with news about his happy relationship with his partner, the heartening sales figures for his latest work, and the growing word count of his current project. Mike had become one of his best friends. They had never met, but admiration for Mike’s writing had led Norm to write him a fan letter. Mike had responded with, “Your praise means even more to me because it comes from you. Your characters are so real, and your plots are so intriguing. Your writing has been a model for me of what to aim for.” Their mutual admiration had led to a friendship of sorts. He had never met Mike in person, but they exchanged a couple of emails every week. Their friendship was all the more remarkable because they had different tastes in porn. He read Mike for the quality of his writing, not because he found his friend’s choice of subject matter arousing. Mike’s predilections for S/M and mind control themes weren’t to his taste in erotic fiction. Similarly Mike often chided him—in a friendly way—about the “vanilla” nature of the sex in his works. Their different tastes hadn’t, however, prevented them from having long and informative discussions about the perils and problems of producing porn, however.

He knew without looking that Mike’s email would end with the ritual question about his own progress. And it did—“How’s the new MikeX book coming along?”

There it was. Should he respond as usual and pretend that all was well, or he should he tell Mike the truth? Sometimes Mike made good suggestions—like the time he had had a slump, and Mike had told him not to worry, to take a few days off, go somewhere, let his mind relax. It had worked. When he awoke on the third day of his vacation, he had opened his laptop and started writing the first of his MikeX stories, his series of detective novels about a porn star who solved crimes against the gay community in West Los Angeles by screwing confessions out of the villains—literally. All it took was a few hours of vigorous thrusts by MikeX’s hard cock and criminals started blabbing and shooting off their mouths, among other things. He had never told the real-life Mike, but the name he chose for his fictional character was his way of thanking his friend.

Maybe Mike would have some thoughts about saving the book. At the very least, writing Mike about his problems with the work would help him organize his own thoughts about the book. With any luck, the solution would pop into his head spontaneously.

“The book isn’t going well,” he wrote. “I don’t know what’s the matter. I’m not having trouble producing words. It’s just that none of them are any good.”  He went on for several paragraphs. It was a good letter. He felt better after writing it. Articulating the shortcomings of the work to Mike had helped. Not that a solution had come to him, but at least now he had analyzed the work’s problems.

***

“OK, chum. Confession time. I’ve been using an online editing program. Judging from your description of the problems with the story, it is just what you need. I can’t praise this program enough. It does everything from catch typos and grammatical errors to suggesting just the right word that that beefs up a sentence and makes it glow. Membership is by invitation only. A current member has to recommend you. I haven’t done so before because I didn’t think you needed it, but if you want to try it, let me know and I’ll submit your name. The guy (guys? woman?—I haven’t a clue.) who runs it will check out your stories, if he isn’t already familiar with them. If he decides you can benefit from his help, he’ll give you a code to access the website and upload stories. I suspect the moderator will be familiar with your stories already—he seems to have read every bit of m/m porn online. So it shouldn’t take him long to decide. Let me know if you want to try it, and I’ll send your name and email in.”

Norm stared at Mike’s email. The other editing programs he had tried hadn’t worked out well in his opinion. Even something as rudimentary as spellcheck was far from perfect. As long as a word was on its list of correct spellings, it didn’t catch errors. The online old-maid schoolmarm that masqueraded as the grammar monitor was even worse. It harassed you about sentences that were fine but failed to spot many problems. The one story-builder program he experimented with was filled with clichéd plots and stock characters. It essentially supplied a basic story and allowed you to fill in names and choose a hair color for your characters before it churned out a load of crap.

On the other hand, he treasured Mike’s good opinion. If he turned him down, Mike might think that he didn’t value his recommendations. Although, he had to say, he was surprised that Mike would use such a program. Somehow it felt like cheating. Still, everyone, even the best writer, no matter how many awards testified to the quality of his prose, could use a little help. He should at least do Mike the favor of having a look. It couldn’t hurt to use the program once. If it didn’t work out, he didn’t have to tell Mike that. All in all, he had nothing to lose—providing the mystery man (men? woman?) behind the program accepted him as a member. And he was curious if the site’s moderator was familiar with his name and his stories. He chuckled to himself—he knew himself well enough to know that he would be miffed if the guy didn’t know who he was. He clicked the “reply” button and began composing a message accepting Mike’s offer and thanking him.

“You won’t regret this,” Mike emailed back.

The response from the site’s moderator arrived two hours later. “I’ve enjoyed your stories for many years and am sorry to hear that you’ve been experiencing problems with your writing. The program is simple to use. After you log in, just paste your story into the box provided. Depending on the length, the program will begin responding within five to ten minutes. For your viewing pleasure while you wait, the program provides a slideshow or a video to watch. Click on the link at the bottom of this message to access the site. Your username is Cx7429 and your access code is b33T18sd. Note that both are case-sensitive. The first time you log in, the program will ask you to read the conditions of use and electronically sign an agreement to observe them.”

Norm waited for an hour after receiving the email before accessing the program. He didn’t want to seem anxious. The delay was silly, he knew, but he felt that he had to assert a bit of independence. The program responded immediately to the codes. As promised, the first screen was devoted to the conditions of use. Those turned out to be brief and simple. He was not to reveal the program’s existence without permission. He wondered how Mike had got around that. Had he asked the site’s moderator for permission to recommend it before writing that email? He would have to ask Mike the next time he messaged him. In any case, he had no qualms about agreeing to the stipulation. He checked the “I agree” box and typed in his name.

It was the work of a moment to upload his unfinished story. The screen went blank for a few seconds before a new message appeared. “Based on the length of the story, we estimate that it will take nine minutes to analyze it. Please sit back and enjoy the following video while you wait.”

A picture of a fireplace materialized on the screen, and new-age music began playing softly in the background. Norm waited for a moment for something more to happen. Given the nature of the site, he had expected a slideshow of male nudes or maybe even a porn video. It struck him as a strange choice. He watched for a few more seconds. Maybe he should go do something else while he waited. Take out the trash or make a pot of coffee. But he didn’t want to miss the report. He was curious to see what the program delivered.

He stared at the screen. The video was oddly soothing. There was something about staring at burning logs and flickering flames that was restful. Although he didn’t much care for this music. It was too much the same thing over and over. Long notes with no distinguishing features to engage the mind. It was almost like listening to a basic tone. There were slight pulsations in it, almost a pattern. He focused on it, trying to make sense of it. Were the pulsations timed to coincide with the flickering flames? Maybe. In any case, it wasn’t something he needed to worry about. He wished he had a fireplace. He loved watching the flames and listening to this music. Each was relaxing, but together they … what? Together they … His body felt so heavy and tired. They … were so … peaceful. That was the word. Peaceful. He felt so peaceful and relaxed. At ease. Warm. The fire was so warm. He was so comfortable and warm. Lovely music. It was so easy just to drift and let the flames and the lovely music calm and caress his mind.

And now it was time to get to work. He felt so rested and reinvigorated, ready to tackle this story. He could see its problems, and his mind would effortlessly solve them.

God, there were so many typos, and missing words, and grammatical errors. The program was great. It caught everything. His mind was so focused. He must remember to thank Mike for recommending this program. If nothing else, he might finally be able to produce a story that wasn’t filled with elementary mistakes. The program was great. It caught everything that needed fixing.

And the program was right. The main problem was the villain. He was too vanilla. He needed to be spiced up. He had to be more … evil. That was it. A villain should be evil, cruel, even sadistic. And sexy. Above all, he had to be sexy. He should be attractive to readers just because he was so evil. Readers had to want the villain to do to them all the things he was doing to the hero.

“Just close your eyes for a few seconds and envision your villain.” Norm closed his eyes, and there was his villain. In seconds he transformed from that uninteresting milksop he had created. His body changed, became bigger, more developed, more muscular, more powerful, more intimidating, more threatening. His smooth body became hairy. His brown hair now gleamed a dark, dark black. His boring clothes dissolved and were replaced with a sleek, sexy Lycra body suit. He sported dark stubble. Contempt twisted his mouth into a cruel, sardonic sneer. He roared about town on a Harley. Two naked slaves lay prostrate at his feet, licking his boots. Oh, this was so much better. He opened his eyes and began typing.

And the plot. No wonder he hadn’t been able to do anything with it. He had written himself into a deadend. His new villain opened up so many possibilities. His hero would almost succumb to the villain’s charms. No, he would succumb to the villain’s sex appeal. The hero’s cock would throb with lust every time he met the villain. He would want to get down on all fours and join the villain’s slaves in adoration. Submission, obedience. Those were so important. And the hero wasn’t really a hero. That was just a stupid notion. No, the villain had to be the hero, and the one-time hero was his latest conquest. It was all so simple.

***

“Crawl over here and lick my boots.”

The Voice reverberated throughout his body, and at its command MikeX began struggling to reach the Voice’s boots. He was on his belly, and his arms were pinioned behind his back by thick ropes wound around his wrists. His legs were bent backward at the knees and more ropes trussed his ankles to his thighs. To crawl he had to push with his knees while contracting the muscles in his back to lift his torso. He swayed from side to side as he wriggled forward. The cold concrete floor tore his knees as he strove to cross the twenty feet that separated his mouth from the Voice’s boots.

He had to reach the Voice’s boots. The Voice had given him an order. He had to obey the Voice’s orders. Obedience and submission were his life now.

He could see the boots clearly now. They gleamed in the light. He had polished them earlier. His first attempt had failed to satisfy the Voice, and the Voice had punished him with the twenty strokes of the cane on the soles of his feet. He still burned with the shame of his failure. He was a piss-poor excuse for a slave. He had to serve the Voice better.

The metal cage imprisoning his cock and balls scraped against the floor. The hard steel ring surrounding the base of his balls was an inch thick. It squeezed them into a sphere the size of an orange. Each push of his body forward toward the boots bruised his balls. They were on fire with pain. MikeX thought they might explode, but he didn’t care. Pain was nothing. The throbbing in his groin didn’t matter. All that mattered was reaching the Voice’s boots and licking them.

“Faster, Mikey.” The Voice sneered. “You’re too slow.”

“Yes, Sir.” In desperation, MikeX turned on his side and began rolling his way toward the Voice. With a mammoth twist of his body, he lunged the last few feet to the Voice. With a groan of pleasure, he began licking the Voice’s boots.

“You love to lick boots, don’t you, Mikey?”

MikeX knew better than to reply. He redoubled his efforts, thrusting his tongue out as far as possible and licking the Voice’s right boot vigorously.

The Voice lifted his left leg and brought his foot down on the back of MikeX’s skull, mashing his face into the wet leather. The hard rubber treads on the sole of the boot bit into his skin.

***

“Wow, that’s all I can say. I just finished your latest book. It was thrilling. This is so different from your earlier works. Those were good, but this is spectacular. And the sex—man, you had me cumming all night. —Your fan, Jerry”

“The novel marks a new departure for MikeX as he encounters pure evil in the form of the Voice, the unnamed malevolent force at the center of the work. The virile MikeX gets down on all fours (literally and figuratively) before the Voice as he begs to be skewered by the Voice’s cock. The Voice enslaves Mike and whores the once-undefeated hero out in lucrative and lovingly described sex-for-hire scenes. Highly recommended. Another win for author N. R. Smith. —M/m online reviews”

“Welcome to the dark side, Norm. I knew you had it in you. Your greatest fan, Mike”

***

The sales for The Voice were off the charts. Norm was perplexed. Yeah, it was a good story, but it was just another novel in the MikeX series. He didn’t know what made this one different. Oh, well, reviewers and readers were strange creatures. Not that he minded. The reviews had been great, and he was receiving so much enthusiastic fan mail.

The new novel was going so well. He stared at the flames on the screen. The program was analyzing the latest chapter.

But what did Mike Hewson mean by welcoming him to the “dark side”?