Two Noirs for the Price of One

This past week marked the debut of twice a week NoHo Noir stories. From now on Mark Satchwill and I will be bringing you a double-tap of noir for your reading pleasure.

This week's episodes are all about sin and secrets.

Read Fools Rush In here.

Read Curb Appeal here.

Patti Abbott's "Scarry Night" Fiction Challenge

Here's my entry into the fiction challenge posted here.

SCARIFICATION

Ned knew she was sensitive about her appearance. The fire had barely touched her face but it had left her right hand nothing but a fingerless knob, sheathed in taut shiny skin. She still had the nubs of three fingers on her left hand, enough to hold a pen, enough to pull a zipper, enough to handle a fork. She was clumsy with them, though, because she had been right-handed.

Ned admired her for using her hand in public, for defying the stares and the curiosity of strangers. He knew she was self-conscious and applauded her courage. It was just one of the things he loved about her. When he took her to bed, he kissed the fingers of her left hand tenderly and then kissed what remained of her right hand.

As he stroked her from shoulder to hip, she trembled at his touch. She quivered and moaned, making noises in her throat in her rising excitement. Ned liked that. He liked a vocal woman.

He undressed her gently, delicately, peeling back the layers of clothes like the rind of a succulent fruit. The scarred skin on her torso was so textured and tortured it seemed like an alien substance, like the melted remains of some plasticized machine.

He traced his finger down the worst of the wounds, a thick, calloused ribbon of flesh that marked the edge of a graft where some dead stranger’s skin had been used to cover the raw redness left when her epidermis burned away.

“I really don’t mind the scars,” he said as she turned her head away from him as if ashamed. “They mark you as special,” he added, twining his hand into her hair to turn her face back towards him. “They are why I chose you.”

She began to cry then, her tears leaking silently down her cheeks and soaking into the duct tape that gagged her. He had stuffed her underpants into her mouth before sealing it with the tape and so the only sound she could make sounded like a baby mewling. It excited him even more than the scars.

He hadn’t been lying when he told her it was her scars had attracted him to her. Scarification was his thing.

By the time he finished with her, she would be beautiful.

NoHo Noir #18

The plot thickens...Remember the street kid Helen Parrish kidnapped awhile ago? Her mother has come to town looking for her. And guess who isn't too happy about that?

Read the story here.

You can read all of the stories here.

As always, the artwork is by Mark Satchwill. Swag with his NoHo Noir artwork is now available in Mark's Zazzle store; and you can also buy prints of his illustrations on Etsy and RedBubble. Show him some love. (And seriously, don't you need some NoHo Noir coffee mugs?) Fans of Dark Valentine Magazine will recognize some of his pieces for sale as well.

Good enough to Tweet

I have recently opened a Twitter account to promote NoHo Noir and in the process of looking for twitter-folk who might be interested in random thoughts of a noir nature, I have run across foodie tweets. Yes, bite-size bits of info about food and eating requiring less commitment than watching an episode of Iron Chef America (one of my guilty pleasures).

Here are the ones I like best (bonus points for clever names):

@beyondthepeel (a foodie in Vancouver)

@goddessofbaking (all about the bake)

@myfoodthoughts (philosophy of food)

@lifesafeast (foodie in France)

If you see something, say something

Here's a link to a letter you might want to sign if you agree that calling out the National Guard is the wrong reaction when working people protest.

Workers of the World Unite

There's a class war brewing in America. It's been steeping for awhile and now it's a dark and potent and bitter brew. What has finally caused the pot to boil over is the furor over unions and the virulent, illogical and seemingly personal attacks on working people by the people elected by those working people to represent them.

Cue the chorus of the Black Keys' song, "I got mine."

In Los Angeles, it's easy to see the human carnage that has been left in the wake of the disastrous financial storms of the past decade. People who used to be comfortable are now scraping by. People who used to be scraping by are now in bad shape. I know two people who have been unemployed for more than two years--with college degrees and excellent resumes. I know one woman who lived in an apartment without electricity for a month because an ex- roommate left her with a huge bill she couldn't pay on her income. I know one person who lives in her van. These are not lazy people.

These are not crazy people. These are people who have worked all their lives and worked hard and now find themselves all alone and naked as howling winds scour their flesh. They are terrified. But it should be the politicians quaking in fear.

"If they have no bread, let them eat cake." Those words led to a revolution. It's time for a political reality check before the chant of the crowds in American cities becomes, "Eat the rich." The contempt of elected officials for the people they are supposed to serve is unacceptable. It's time to let them know that.

Rachel Maddow nailed it in her phrase "the people who write the paychecks" not caring about the "people who cash the paychecks."

If you haven't seen the segment where Rachel talks about the GOP war on workers, click here.

Here's a thoughtful piece on the matter from David Simkins' McKinley-Whitehall blog.

I am an American. I work for a living. And I vote.

Unavailable Witness

"Unavailable Witness" is an evocative phrase, isn't it? I've been reading the latest news stories in the murder case against ex-cop Drew Peterson, who is accused of killing one wife and making another disappear. At the heart of the prosecution's case is testimony from several people Peterson's third wife talked to before she ended up dead in the bathtub. Normally, testimony of people about what people said to them (hearsay) is inadmissable, but in this case, lawyers are arguing that the dead woman is "an unavailable witness" and the hearsay should be admitted. It's an interesting point of law and what the witnesses say is chilling. Here's the story from CNN.com.

I find myself wanting to write a story...