I had reached the end of my talent: an impasse stretching infinitely as I wrote my last word. I could write no more. Months of torn, crumpled pages and jagged streaks of ink segmenting paper into fine strips of white (top to bottom) passed, and my hopes of maintaining a career as a writer began to slowly bleed with them. When trying to write failed, I tried everything else. I took classes; attended seminars; took to memorizing entire passages from dictionaries, reciting from thesauruses at every given opportunity; reread every book of major literary importance; I even submitted briefly to psychoanalysis. None of it worked. I wrote nothing.
The break in the monotony finally came from my landlord's daughter'a five year old girl. I was renting the small guest house in the backyard. My neighbors consisted of a swing set, five trees of varying size, a long-abandoned doghouse, and the shell of a trampoline'three twisted springs still clinging to the metal frame: four feet in diameter (it could even be seen when the grass was low). A swimming pool separated us from the main house. It was a beautiful summer day as I sat at the desk looking out the window across the yard in search of inspiration: the muse of nature and beauty caressing all of creation with her warm tendrils of sunlight beckoning, almost begging, writers and painters everywhere to document their awe! My eyes finally settled on the gentle oscillations surfacing the pool, their slow rhythm imitating the light breeze that must have been passing through the yard. That's when she broke my vision.
Settling down on the pebbled walkway by the water, she spread out a large but thin book and her right hand danced around the paper in ways I had only dreamed of those past months. With lips trembling, I calmly set my pen down and walked out the door. She didn't even notice me until I was towering above her, blocking the light. She set down her crayon and looked up.
The top of the page was covered in a thick spray of interlocking loops. It was crude, but I could make out the image to be that of a flower. Below it was a sight more glorious than any spectacle god cast upon this earth. There lay the words I had been hoping to find. Like the drawing above, they could have used some refinement; but they were rare and sacred and I breathed them in with the panicked gasp of a drowning man. Lifting the notebook from the ground, I read, 'Flowers are pretty.'� It had promise. Not only were the mechanical issues addressed, but there was also a clear display of imagination at work: the yard had not a flower in sight.
'Do you like writing?'�
She nodded her head.
On an impulse I began to describe my proposal, constructing terms and conditions as I went along. It was blurted in a manic frenzy and on several instances I was certain I had blown my chance, but surprisingly, after I had stumbled through my closing summation, she agreed and went to work immediately. She wrote with a fervor matched only by my days of attempting to write again. Page after page flew from her tiny hands. Within a week the writing was finished. She wrote my name at the top and I had my first story since I stopped writing. At least it was something to hold me over until I could come up with something of my own.
It was good, too, better than anything I had written myself. That was difficult to admit at first but the resulting events proved it as indisputable fact. The story was immediately accepted for publication. Once word got around people were clamoring to track it down and scorch their retinas with its radiant prose (which wasn't hard to do as it was published in one of the most prominent and widely distributed literary magazines in the world). Critics lauded it. I was the best writer to come along since you-know-who. With my quickly amassed notoriety, I was booked on all the talk shows. I kept my answers vague. Statements like 'It's really up to the reader's interpretation'� were elevated to a new level of cliché, but the public ate it up. The story was that good.
The next step was obvious and my apartment was transformed into a literary sweatshop. The passion with which she melded the words onto paper relented as little as the quality of the work. It wasn't long before I was solemnly absorbed into the esteemed top-five of literary celebrity. All this while, I watched closely as she wrought my dreams to fruition. I observed her fingers skillfully move the pen across the pages back and forth back and forth twisting around writhing the ink into its patterned stain across the white sheets. I watched her eyes search back inside, calculating each new word, every brilliant thought. I observed her genius. It was inevitable that I fall in love with this object of my creation.
It finally became unbearable. Out of necessity, I knocked the pen out of her hand, dragged her across the room, and threw her onto the bed. She started at me, petrified, as I undid our pants. It was the look of fearful acceptance: too naïve to be horrified. She didn't know the words, but she knew their definitions. I kissed her on the mouth. She responded awkwardly. I first took this to mean she loved me; but upon further reflection, I guess there was nothing else she could have done. I slid my penis inside her. She tried her best to muffle her screams, but some were bound to escape. It wasn't easy for me to work my way in either. It took some pushing hard, soft, hard, soft; some maneuvering'carefully planned and executed; rocking back-and-forth motions. I caressed her gently on the outside to distract her from the violent ripping of her insides. I ejaculated and withdrew. I loved her and it was the single greatest moment of my life'greater than the fame and the talk shows, greater than any word in any story I ever did or did not write. She rolled over and was free to breathe again.
Our affair went on for almost a month without incident. We made love frequently and she kept the same distant face she wore when writing. Her work even improved, if such a thing were possible! We never spoke about what we did, but we never had before. We had an understanding; I don't know what it was exactly, but I was very, very happy. The tears stopped after a week so I assumed she at least wasn't sad. It was all interrupted as suddenly as the knock on a door.
One day her father knocked on my door.
'Meet me in the house now. I wanna talk with you.'�
In all my years as a tenant I had never been inside the house. I knew it wasn't going to be good, even if his tone of voice hadn't given it away. I quickly followed him into the house. We stopped in the living room. She was already there, sulking in a corner.
'You must think y'er smart, don'tcha? Well, I know all about what you've been doing to my daughter! I know you've been exploitin' her, makin' her y'er slave, takin' advantage of her goddamn innocence! It's a fuckin' crime what you been doin' under my own nose in my own goddamn house! You're sick! I've got a word for scum like you! Plagiarist! Making my daughter write all them pretty stories and taking the credit for 'em it's just sick! I think a little plagiarist like you deserves to be punished! Don't you think!?'�
'I. . . I. . . I. . .'� didn't know what to say.
'Answer me, boy!'�
'I. . . uh. . . I. . . y-yes, sir.'�
'Now, I'm glad you agree. C'mere, honey. Now I want you to take one good look at her 'cuz I'm gonna make you do the most vile, disgusting thing humanly possible! Take off your dress, honey.'�
She took off her dress.
'Now you're gonna have sexual intercourse with this sterile, undeveloped stub of a child. She's like an unfinished block of marble, ain't even been cut yet, and she'll jes scrape y'er living, virile skins. The sour, unripened fruit's gonna flow like poison down y'er developed body that cries for the touch of a woman. Sorry if I'm bein' all poetic on ya', I just been readin' them stories my goddamn daughter wrote! I'll keep it simple: I jes plan ta' demasculate ya'! Now git on over there an' drop y'er drawers!'�
'I. . . I-I. . .'�
'I said drop y'er drawers, plagiarist!'�
I unfastened my belt and let my pants fall to the floor, just like he said. I was already hard and hoped to god he didn't take notice. I took her in my arms. She had the same impassive gaze as always. Once again, my penis made its way inside her. It was ecstasy. I tried not to betray the intense pleasure I was receiving from his daughter's vaginal canal. I even tried a grimace here and there, but I didn't overdo it. I'm sure I lost my composure in places, but overall the effect must have been conveyed. Once, my thumb even brushed against one of her breastless nipples. Impulse demanded I linger and squeeze on it; but under the cold, penetrating demeanor of my landlord's eyes, I moved on as if nothing happened.
Then my body shook with the impending climax. What do I do? Would he become suspect to witness this ultimate display of gratification? Would he think something wrong should this act not be brought to its natural completion? In the end, I couldn't contain myself anyway and shot off inside her, falling backwards onto the floor as my seed trickled out the barren slit between her thin, fragile legs. I was breathing heavily and my face was flush. Fuck.
'Well, did ya' learn y'er lesson, boy?'�
'I. . . wh-wh. . . I. . .'�
'Answer me! Are you gonna write y'er own stories from now on!?'�
'Y-yes, sir. From now on, I'll write all my own stories myself.'�
And here we are today in that same apartment. After all that success we had to go on and come up with a novel. She's writing it now, sitting on my lap, turning over finished pages like a maniac. To this day I still haven't written a single word. I've grown to live with myself and accept it. Some things just work out better if you just give them a chance and forget about any plans you were trying to impose. I imagine my own career knows better where it's headed than I do. She's already on the fourteenth chapter. I've looked a little at the first page.
'Swirls of light and sound [death image] engulfed the villain. He rolled helplessly in a sea of despair. His throat cut, voice mangled; constricted. Knots in time bled the disease from his decaying mind. It decays in reverse. Decay shifts, out, leaving his body: empty. He is vindication. Children of the world, sing!, sing! Call into arms the lives of this villainous swine! Tear down the walls to crumble upon them! Open the blackest pits 'til they keep falling!, falling! Their blood is ours so that our blood is ours again! We are vindicated from the villain! Let our song cry again from these parched lips! Swirls of light and sound, carry away these memories! Erase'Click'Whir of tape and lights flashing dim. . .'�
It's looking good. I can't wait to read the whole thing! I can't wait to see the sales! But it's not the money that I really care about; I only want to secure my reputation in literature. That, however, is for another day. I just patted her shoulder and kissed her cheek. It's bedtime now. She hates to stop, but at least she'll have something to look forward to in the morning.

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