Thursday, April 28, 2005


Martin found the girl wandering downtown streets reading aloud from a book on hotel management. Everyone looked at her strangely but Martin was fascinated. He sympathized, too, because people often looked at him the same way. At night he'd lay awake tossed left and right by his trembling obsession with hotel maids. Not even his therapist could satisfactorily explain it to him. Finally he stopped seeing the therapist and invested the money instead in a weekly stay at the Marriott. He felt safe lying on the plush hotel couches with cushions holding him snugger than a mother's womb. And no matter what he imagined about the maids, there was no one standing behind him telling him what it really meant, because no matter what it meant, it never topped the surface idea with the maids. So when Martin saw the girl, he immediately invited her home with him. Now she was reciting the chapter on female service personnel the third time through. He hoped it would get her in the mood, because he had plans involving her services. When the moment was right he would reach behind the sofa and pull out a maid's uniform. She would put it on for him. Then they would go upstairs, to the bedroom, where he would watch her make his bed and tidy the room.

Story #206

Note: It's another photo from Audra in Budapest!

12 comments:

The Mushroom said...

And the climax of the evening was when she laid a mint on his pillow. He had to take a cold shower after that, and to his surprise (and hopes) she was there... holding fresh towels.

Indeterminacy said...

Thanks for continuing the story. Your ending has more charm than mine.

toni's autumn sun said...

you left a comment on my blog ages ago. sure you can link me. thanks.

Jamie Dawn said...

Mushrrom's mint comment is really good.
The guy should stay in those extended stay motels than he could afford to stay more nights. The great thing about hotels is the freshly made beds and new sheets every day...I'm just too lazy to do that at home.

Indeterminacy said...

You should see the sequel Mushroom wrote to Story #103.He took one of my characters and made a really cool anti-hero out of him:

Jamie Dawn said...

I just read the Mr. Pudding story and Mushroom's embellishments. Wow, what a mind! It's kind of scary when someone can go that far; it's like their mind knows no bounds...kind of Stephen King-ish. Very interesting indeed.

The Mushroom said...

*blush* Oops, I blushed aloud, sorry. :)

As I was remarking to Alix yesterday, even if one doesn't find enough creativity/material at times to write in their own journals regularly, one always has enough to remark on others' musings when the moment is encountered.

Indeterminacy said...

Mush: if you updated your site every day I'm sure people would stop coming here. So I'm happy with the status quo as it is ;-)

alix said...

i have this disconcerting feeling that this actually might be a true story. about someone else, of course. LOL

Indeterminacy said...

Didn't Neil Young do a song "A Man Needs a Maid"?

But who would this be about? (Apart from the fact that I'm an unorganized slob who never makes his bed and leaves things lying around until I wind up having to put them in boxes which then get stacked somewhere and never opened again. But if a maid came to me I would try to talk her out of cleaning anything and instead take a couple of hours off with me...)

princessdominique said...

I love it, keep them coming. Do you have a published novel or a collections of shorts somewhere?

Indeterminacy said...

Hi Princess, I'm glad you came back. I will keep them coming. I wouldn't mind publishing these. But I'm worried about the legal issues. As long as the found photos stay in the Internet it's probably legal, as witnessed by sites such as 10eastern.com. These are found mostly via file sharing programs. In the terms of use sharers agree that they own what they are sharing and give writes for their shared files to be hosted by others. But in book form there may be a problem. There's no way to track down all the photo owners.

I wrote a few short stories in the mid 90's which were published at an online e-zine in Italy. One of the stories appeared in a printed anthology in Italian translation, translated by a well-known Italian science fiction author. I've posted the English version of the story here at the site:

"A Fairytale for Elves and Clouds"