The vodka seemed to arrive in Kev’s hand with increasing frequency. He took reluctant slugs, trying to dissolve the heavy dread in his stomach. It had to happen, here, on the wet bench. Paul had insisted.
Everyone said Stacey was easy, but she was capricious too. He’d seen Paul dole out beatings at her request as often as he’d heard boys boast of her caresses. “Go on, Stace”, said Paul. She moved towards Kev, kissed him. It was all tongue and teeth, braces brash against pursed lips. She took his hand and pushed it under her top. Blood rushed to his tingling fingers, her heartbeat pulsed beneath his palm. The weight in his stomach shifted, lightened.
Stacey recoiled: “What you doing, fag?” wiping the vomit from her chest. “Fucks sake, Kev. Go over there, Stace, I’ll deal with this”, said Paul. Stacey marched down the canal path to where the others sat waiting.
“I’m sorry. I was trying to make it easier for you”, said Paul, “for us.” He brushed the damp hair from Kev’s face, kissed him on the crown. Kev rested his head on Paul’s chest, felt his heart beat. Rain began to fall, giving the canal gooseflesh.
Hello Gareth - I entered the Flash Fiction competition too and didn't get shortlisted, but onward and upward eh? I found 200 words a really tight limit, but you see some that are 50!
I liked this little story, but there were bits that confused me at first reading. In fact, I still have some questions now. I think that can be fine though. It doesn't always all have to be spelled out for the reader. There can be bits that leave a question in your mind.
Here are the things that occurred to me, in no particular order of importance:
I misunderstood the setting initially. The vodka arriving in his hand I took to be shots being lined up. I read the phrase ‘wet bench’ several times, because I realised I was confused, but the image of a wet bench just did not come into my mind, because I already had such a clear notion that he was in a club leaning on a bar. I wondered if ‘wet bench’ was some kind of bar-room terminology that I didn’t know. I’d got all the way to the word ‘canal’ before I realised they were outdoors, and then the whole scene took on a completely different meaning. I think that some stories actually work quite deliberately to mislead the reader and then pull the carpet out from under them at the end – and the point of that is to show the reader their own preconceptions or prejudices if you like. I don’t think that’s what you’re trying to achieve here, so it would be better right at the start for the reader to have a clear picture of the scene. Having said all that – it’s possible it’s just me being dim and that everyone else got the scene correctly from the start!
I feel there’s a bit of cultural dissonance going on, which isn’t displeasing actually, and maybe you intended it, but I’m not sure if you did? I guess the cast of characters are meant to be adolescent (braces, drinking by the canal, dares/bullying etc)? Stacey and Paul certainly seem a bit rough (being ‘easy’, doling out beatings, their vocabulary). So they’re young and rough, but Kev uses words like ‘capricious’ and ‘caresses’? Even the phrase ‘at her request’ is not one I’d expect to trip off the lips of these kids. And at the end, the narrator notes that the falling rain was ‘giving the canal gooseflesh’. Now, the narrator is not the same person as Kev, but it’s a tight 3rd person POV and often the narrator mimics the language of the POV character. It’s a great phrase, but is it the kind of imagery/language that would occur to Kev? Like I say, it’s not displeasing the clash of culture/language. It’s slightly unbalancing. It speaks of someone trying to break out of a restraining culture, to be more than brutish – and perhaps that’s what you intended?
I have a couple of practical points. You go from them kissing, via his hand up her top, to him throwing up. Now, I really, really hope that they’d disengaged mouths by that point, because the idea of him throwing up into her mouth is just so graphic and gross! The fact that she’s cleaning the vomit off her chest suggests they had, but you hadn’t made that clear and in my head I still had them mouth-locked with his hand up her top and then he’s throwing up. This only matters because the idea of him throwing up into her mouth is so very gross an image that it attracts too much attention – it actually takes you out of the storyline while you recoil from it and process the grossness of it. In such a short piece of fiction I think you have to be aware of the weight that each image carries, and this one could overbalance the cart, if you see what I mean.
The other practical point: at the end, Paul sends Stacey marching off down the canal and then he kisses Kev’s head. I couldn’t help thinking – well can’t they all see? Perhaps he could have pulled Kev under the canal bridge or something that would seem to allow this display of intimacy?
Finally, I didn’t entirely get why Stacey getting off with Kev would make it easier for Kev and Paul? As a kind of distraction/disguise? I don’t think that bit matters though – that’s the kind of thing that could be left open for the reader to mull over.
Hope you get something out of my take on it, Gareth. I like your writing. You can clearly establish characters, describe tight scenes with psychologically credible drama, and you have a really elegant turn of phrase. Keep up the good work!
Deborah.
This was my entry to the recent Flash Fiction competition. It's the first time I've written in this format (not to mention the first competition I've entered), so I would welcome any advice/criticism at all. Thanks