Excerpt Monday November – Thumbelina!

November 9, 2009 on 7:00 am | In ERD, Uncategorized | 8 Comments

Once a month, a bunch of authors get together and post excerpts from published books, contracted work or works in progress, and link to each other. You=2 0don’t have to be published to participate–just an writer with an excerpt you’d like to share. For more info on how to participate, head over to the Excerpt Monday site! or click on the banner above.

The voice called Frog said, “Take that end and we’ll get it on wheels. Mike, we’ll need a ramp to get it up the stairs.”

Shit! It wasn’t time for moving! They only moved me for recitals, and recitals didn’t happen in summer!

Frog and another man lifted the piano and the keys trembled. A steel string came close to dividing me in half. I dodged and grabbed hold of a tuning pin as the old Steinway tilted and trembled. The wheeled board groaned beneath the piano’s weight, and the wheels themselves squeaked as the men rolled my house out into the hall.

Men! They always screw up my life! I was perfectly happy—thrilled!—with my walnut shell before the toad’s meddling mother tossed me onto a lily pad, and I would’ve found my own way in the grass if that milky-eyed mole hadn’t dragged me down into the rodent tunnels. And if it hadn’t been for the swallow and his blasted flowers, I never would have run into the vain prince who decided to give me wings, and the witch never would’ve been jealous enough to lock me up in a Steinway of all things. I didn’t even rank a baby grand.

Men.

I clung to the tuning pin and fumed as the latest batch of jerks pushed me down to the fire stairs. What pissed me off the most was I couldn’t even do so much as bite one of them due to the curse. Futile fury is the worst, and I stewed in it while the piano movers jostled and banged me up the stairs.

”Hold the ramp—”

“God damn it!”

One second, the Mike voice was grunting and muttering curses. The next—the next, I was sliding out of control. My shoulders gave out and I lost my grip on the tuning pin that decorated a jagged stake.

I expected to hit the floor hard, but I tumbled into a soft pocket lined with lint. The piano mover’s heart trotted recklessly, tearing off toward its finish line. His blood blossomed near my aching shoulder.

The church bell’s flinch rang in my ears long after the snap and crunch of splintering wood, the thunk and twang of snapping wires stopped echoing in the stairwell.

One of the men muttered, “We are so fucked.”

Another—Mike—said, “You’re bleeding, man.”

I held my breath and tried to make myself invisible as my pocket crinkled and gaped away from the warm, solid chest wearing it.

“Fucking piano stabbed me.”

Frog. His shirt sagged back to his chest. Beneath my left foot, his nipple hardened.

“You’re bleeding all over the damn place.”

“I’ll live.”

“You’ll get stitches. Get out of here.”

The men argued over the necessity of treatment while I tried to climb up Frog’s pec. I had to get out of his pocket before he left the church. I didn’t know how to live outside the musty basement.

“Whatever. You do the paperwork. I’m going home.”

Dizzy with panic, I scrambled for the opening of the pocket. I’d almost gained the top hem when a huge hand swatted across my cover, stunning me and knocking me back to the bottom.

Trapped—but free. Frog had exited the church. Over the warm, spicy scent of his body, I detected the crisp freshness of open, under-a-big-sky air. I knew it wasn’t spring for the world, but it was for me and I suddenly, inexplicably, craved a man.

A thousand fantasies overcame me, all featuring the man whose heart beat beneath my cheek. I spread my fingers against his chest to test the firmness of his muscle. He must have felt my groping because he nearly squashed me a second time. I learned my lesson and held still for what seemed like forever even though I desperately wanted an orgasm. Maybe if I was very careful…

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