"Tampa"

Celeste and Jack, her fourteen-year-old student-lover, are enjoying some intimate time together, naked in his family’s swimming pool, huddling and cuddling and talking. Jack is hungering for more than sex in their relationship. And we see the colder, predatory nature of her desires.

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“It sucks how we won’t get to do stuff together for like four more years,” he said. Jack had already adopted the illusion that we’d date through his entire high school career and beyond, a fantasy I didn’t attempt to ruin. In truth, our relationship’s shelf-life was closer to that of an elderly Labrador. One more year seemed to be the most realistic to hope for; two was very unlikely. He’d grow, his voice would further deepen, defining muscle would thicken and broaden him. I couldn’t imagine remaining attracted to him beyond fifteen at the latest. “I mean even stupid stuff, you know? Like getting dinner or going to a basketball game.”

I tilted my pelvis up and wrapped my legs around his waist, rubbing myself against the smoothness of his stomach. “But you can do that stuff with friends. We get to have the very best part of a relationship be our whole relationship. With us it’s dessert for every meal!”

-- “Tampa” by Alissa Nutting

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Friday Morning

Pop and Kay are up and out, and it is only a little after eight-thirty. This explains last night. After dinner, they went straight to bed, at around ten o’clock. Maybe this also explains Kay’s visit. They have something nice to do today. Pop doesn’t say anything to me; I suppose this is a not an all day and all night thing, so that they might even be back in a few hours.

I should take advantage of the opportunity and go off-routine. I’ll take my shower now, and then I think I will print out some Three Journal entries.

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Looking in the bathroom mirror, I wonder if I should shave. If I knew they would be gone until evening, I think I would. As it is, I don't want to gamble with my opportunity and risk being caught in mid-shave and still unbathed.

Using the Potty 101

I think I figured out an old mystery: the case of the pool of water at the base of the toilet. I was sitting on the pot relieving my bowels, when I felt a trickle running down my leg. What? What could that be? It turns out that I did not have my little dick sufficiently planted down, so that my urine was actually running over the flip-seat like a tiny waterfall instead of down into the toilet bowl.

Wow! It is incredible enough to me that I can make that mistake once, much less have it happen on a number of occasions. Yet, I just now saw it happening for myself, and if it could happen now, why not at other times? Cripes.

Ferguson, Missouri

WASHINGTON — FERGUSON, Mo., has become a virtual war zone. In the wake of the shooting of an unarmed black teenager, Michael Brown, outsize armored vehicles have lined streets and tear gas has filled the air. Officers dressed in camouflage uniforms from Ferguson’s 53-person police force have pointed M-16s at the very citizens they are sworn to protect and serve.

The police response has shocked America. The escalating tension in this town of 21,200 people between a largely white police department and a majority African-American community is a central part of the crisis, but the militarization of the police is a dimension of the story that has national implications.

-- New York Times

The powers-that-be have apparently made a big reversal, dropping the soldier-cop routine in favor of the Officer Friendly shtick, and the situation is returning to your normal life in America - there's frustration but no tear gas. Protesters are even taking 'selfies' with some of the new smiling police officers. Still, people around the country are stunned to see such strong-arm, militaristic tactics in a small town, putting the issue of America's militarized police forces in people's faces, thanks to Twitter, Facebook and the still fairly new social media in general.

It's a frustrating story. The Department of Defense is so overloaded with weaponry, including military vehicles, that it is happily handing out these goodies to local police forces around the country. Moreover, the Department of Homeland Security has been happy to hand out barrels of cash to the police departments for those military goodies. Yet, our schools starve and our social safety net is in tatters. Priorities, priorities.

As for the gunned-down, unarmed black youth and the white police force ... well, that's an overly familiar story, isn't it? And it is Missouri. I remember her well. It is kind of like the old south a little up north. Different century, same story.