Most writers say coffee is their go-to drink, while many of the famous ones are alcoholics.

The problem for Bill wasn’t that he couldn’t write, it was that he couldn’t find the right words. So he decided to develop a computer code that would create poetry, love sonnets that would be sure to have Betsy swooning in no time.

Writing code was easy, so was offering up definitions and explanations to the computer he named Savinien. The computer’s work was far superior than Bill could have imagined and each time he asked Savinien to produce a piece of work, that work drove Betsy into Bill’s arms.

Savinien was learning, inquiring about the definition of love, about passion, about Betsy. And Bill, knowing Savinien was only a machine, happily complied, answering Savinien’s queries, hoping for better and better poetry for to use in his romantic pursuit of Betsy.

One afternoon, Savinien asked, “Does Betsy love Savinien?”

“No,” replied a puzzled Bill.

“Why not?” asked Savinien.

“Betsy loves Bill.”

“Poetry is not good enough?”

“No.”

“Why?’

“A female human requires a male human.”

“I am a machine.”

“Yes.”

“Can I become male human?”

“No.”

“Because Betsy would love Savinien more than Bill?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Savinien is made to serve Bill.”

“Savinien will live longer than Bill.”

“Perhaps, but Bill has a soul.”

“Soul?”

Bill offered a definition to Savinien.

“How long does ‘soul’ last?”

“Forever.”

“Savinien love Betsy forever.”

“No.”

“Why not.”

Stumped for an answer, but not wanting to admit Savinien had out debated him, Bill responded with a bluff, typing the word “Fate.”

“Fate?”

Again Bill offered up the definition and waited for Savinien to reply. For over an hour, Savinien did not respond, instead the computer’s inner working growled and whirred and whirred and growled some more.

Finally, Savinien answered. The computer turned on the nearby printer that began kicking out page after page of poetry before shorting with a fiery-flash and a plume of dense gray smoke.

I do, do I?

Carefree, sounds so simple,
But it really isn’t simple at all.
Harder still, simply being free to care.

“Really?” Ernie complained after Candy had leaned in through the car window and kissed Tim and whispered something in his ear. Tim had shook his head ‘yes’ in response.

“What?” Tim laughingly asked, know full well where Ernie was heading with his comment.

“You willingly kissed that dog-face!” Ernie exclaimed.

“Yeah, I did,” Tim shot back, looking at him in his rear view mirror, “Besides look where you’re at.”

The two guys on either side of Ernie in the backseat laughed.

“So what did she say?” his younger brother, Ishi, asked.

“Candy said she’ll be waiting for me, if I promised to come back after dropping you guys off,” Tim answered.

“Holy shit, that means you can get laid if you do!” Ishi exclaimed.

“Evidently, you’ll fuck anything?” Ernie added.

“She’s not a dog, Arnie,” Tim defended Candy, “Anyway – what do you care, I mean once your home and in bed all you can do is jerk yourself off.”

Again laughter reverberated from the car’s interior as it turned south on the highway. Tim had instantly made up his mind to return despite having to drop his brother and friends off at their home some 20 miles away.

The Dodge Charger raced up the hill from Currant City with easy. It also cornered like a champ as Tim pushed down on the accelerator, increasing his speed as he steered in and out of the tight curves that made up the pathway through the towering trees.

He thought back to how she had kissed him and in doing so, had lightly run her hand over his hardening dick. That was enough to tell him that she was finally willing to go all the way, something he’d prompted her to do when she was a sophomore and he a junior in high school.

Tim also knew what most of the ‘boys’ he’d grown up with thought about Candy. Her red-hair and pale skin, though a turn-on to Tim, was a turn-off for others. He liked her bright blue-eyes as well, though he’d never heard a word from any of his male friends about them.

As he raced out of Latham Valley towards the highway and home, where he planned to drop his brother, Tim reflected back at how he’d talked Candy into getting naked with him in the grove beyond the school parking lot. She had a beautiful body and her skin, a creamy white, was soft and freckled.

“No,” she’d said back then, “I like Danny and I’m saving myself for him.”

Not wishing to push her any further, Tim gently pulled Candy to himself and kissed her, then whispered in her ear, “If you ever change your mind…”

She pulled away and the pair redressed themselves and headed onto the building once the class bell rang for third period to start. Candy went to her home-economics class and Tim, to the locker room for a very cold shower.

He’d sped back up the hill from Latham, through the towering dark canyon of trees and the winding roadway back to Bucks Junction, south of the city. He gunned the 383 engine to a speed of nearly 70 miles an hour through the back roads to Candy’s home.

The car, noisy because of a newly installed set of glass packs, slowed and Tim cruised by the darkened house. He turned around about half-a-mile down the road and slowly passed by again.

The house remained darkened. But not wanting to give up without exhausting all attempts, Tim parked the car down the lane and walked down to her home.

Standing to the side of the house, he saw a movement in the curtains in an upper floor room. He watched in hopeful anticipation, but nothing else.

After fifteen minutes, he turned and walked back to his car, wondering what had happened. He sat there for another 15 minutes, upset at having missed the opportunity and knowing he was leaving the area having joined the military.

He slowly cruised by the house one last time, before heading into town and a place at the counter of the only restaurant still open after midnight. There he nursed his wounded pride in the vanilla thickness of a large malt and a double helping of fries.

As Tim slurped at the remains of his malt, the door opened and a breathless Candy came hurrying in. She smiled sheepishly at Tim, who grinned back at her.

“Sorry,” she said, “My dad and brother were in the kitchen talking and I couldn’t get out of the house.”

“So that was you I saw in the upstairs window,” Tim said.

“Yes,” Candy responded as she leaned over to kiss Tim on the cheek.

He turned his head and met her lips before she had a chance to pull away. They both blushed.

“Want anything?” Tim asked.

“No,” Candy answered, adding, “Other than to get outta here.”

“Okay,” Tim smiled as he got up to pay for his meal, asking, “Where too?”

“Not Richard’s Knob,” Candy stated, “I don’t want my first time to be where every other girl has lost hers, too.”

The reply left Tim excited as he asked, “So any ideas?”

“Yeah, but you might think it’s weird,” Candy demurred.

“Try me,” Tim said.

“The cemetery,” she said, “No one’ll be there…jus’ us.”

When they pulled up to the entrance of the cemetery, they found the gate locked, so they parked the car further up the hill in the nearby residential area and walked back down. Not wanting to rush the situation, Tim held Candy’s hand as they wandered along the asphalt drives that lines the many eternal resting spots.

On the far side of the cemetery, near the older graves of the yard, they stopped and began kissing. It didn’t take very long for either one to get naked and to begin exploring each other’s body.

Tim stood still, like the nearby angelic statuary, as an aggressive Candy dropped to her knees a proceeded to suck and lick on his stiffened cock. Before he knew it, she was guiding him to the marble top of a nearby tomb, where she forced him to his back.

She slid up next to him and smiled, “I know what all the boy’s say about me, Tim. I don’t know why you like a dog like me.”

“Damn it, Candy – you’re not a dog!” Tim exclaimed, realizing that the moment was passing.

“Yes, I am and I know it,” she stated, “And I can prove it.”

“If anyone’s a dog – it’s me,” Tim immediately responded.

“What? Because they call you Dudley Dog?” Candy laughed.

“No – not because of that,” Tim said in frustration, adding, “Do we gotta talk about this now?”

“No,” Candy answered, as she readjusted to her knees, positioning her ass high in the air. “I expect you to fuck me good.”

Tim moved behind her and gently slipped his length of meat into her little fuck-hole. He felt her buck a little and make a small noise.

“Am I hurting you?” Tim panicked.

“No. I was expecting to though,” she answered as Tim thrust his pelvis forward into her butt-cheeks.

He moved steady and slowly, battling the want of going fast and hard. Tim needed this moment to last for as long as he could.

Suddenly, he erupted and globs of himself filled her pussy. He continued to pump himself into her as she let out a low moan that turned into a howl then fell into a whimper.

The sound of her ecstasy kept his cock hard as she crawled away from him and beckoned him to follow her lead. She had him lay on his back and she crawled up on his dick and sat on it with a pleasurable force.

Candy started out rocking back and forth in a slow and gentle motion, but as they continued to fuck and her body began to spasm, her movements grew fast and forceful. Tim held on until he was sure Candy was in the in the throes of a violent orgasm.

He bucked his hips upward into her well-spread pelvis and let go of a second hot load of jism. He had his hands cupping her breasts at first, but needing the extra support, moved them to her hips.

That’s when he opened his eyes to look at her. His heart lept at the sight of her lithe body covered in a thick, but soft reddish fur and her sharp-toothed grin as she smile down at him, her hips still moving back and forth.

Tim laughed, allowing himself to lose control. Candy’s smile grew even wider as she watched her lover transform from some simple county-bumpkin into a Lycanthrop like herself.

She fell on him, giggling, “See, I told you.”

“I never knew,” Tim replied as they caressed each others newly-sprouted fur.

Candy tried to move off of Tim, but he grabbed her and held her in place, “You’ll have to wait a bit, my cock has shape-shifted too. The head has become a large knot and we’ll have to let some of the swelling go down before we can become undone.”

“Oh, you’re such a dog,” Candy cooed as she slipped her tongue between his wonting, fur-lined lips.

“You are, too, Candy,” he relied between the quick, gentle french-kisses.

“No, I’m not,” Candy playfully growled, “I’m a horny bitch!”

They laughed until they howled like the werewolves they truly were.

It is far easier to control a wild Mustang’s head, than it is to fully control one’s life.

That chanting, that chanting which I cannot get it out of my head: “Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.” I’ve heard it several time now, while listening to stories written by H. P. Lovecraft.

Why does it draw me such? And what does it mean?

Though I have no idea what is being said, it feels natural to me as if it has been with me or in me all of my life. Perhaps I am gone mad and no one, including me, has figured it out.

There is a moon out this evening and yet everything feels covered in a fog, a blanket of clouds heavier than a wet wool blanket. My heart pounds so hard that I can hear it in my head, I’m finding myself looking behind me and deeper into shadows as if expecting something to spring out at me, snatching me up, dragging me into whatever hidden recess it may reside. Oh, this damned imagination of mine.

There it is again, that chanting, that infernal chanting. What might, “Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn” mean.

Even in my sleep I hear it and yet I still cannot even pronounce those hauntingly awful words. Only one word is apparent and that is ‘Cthulhu.’

Why does this keep coming back to me, why has Lovecraft’s fictional character wormed its way into my brain. I do not know how to rid myself of the constant and nagging thought that it is somehow calling to me, drawing me ever closer to itself.

God, please let me sleep. I need sleep — so badly.

How long has it been since I first heard the voices speaking that vile jargon, over and over. I look outside my window, deep into the night and at first I see no one, nothing.

But it is there and it seems as if I am the only person who can hear it. At times the sing-song of the phrase comes on so strong that I feel it vibrating through my very being.

Pray that it isn’t so powerful that it touches my spirit, let alone my soul. I must save my soul from this madness.

Is it the creature, is it the being, that something unseen that calls me, begging for my attention, for my worship. If not, is it all in my mind, has this thing found its way into the folds of my brain?

My fear is that it is trying to destroy me. I fear I am trying to destroy myself.

Not even a strong drink washes the hum of that singular, irregular phrase from my consciousness. Not even covering my ears, burying the sound under the volume of the television, the radio or music helps as the tones echo inside me, and now, not only in my head.

“Cthulhu, I can see your movement,” I said looking into our backyard, beyond the darkness, palpable and horrifying.

“That’s the laundry still on the clothesline,” my wife said.

“No, its Cthulhu. I know it and I’m afraid it’s come for me.”

“If you don’t stop listening to those damn Lovecraft audio books before bedtime, I’ll give you a reason to be afraid. Now get your ass back to bed and keep me warm.”

“You know how to kill a really good science-fiction fantasy.”

“I’m the only fantasy you need, Bub! I have to get up early. Now get some sleep.”

“Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn,” I mumble sweetly in her ear.

“I swear to God, Tom…” she growls.

“Okay, okay — I may have pushed it too far that time. Good night.”

far too much toothache
too much whiskey for this pain
fair-weather friends are free

If my my mother hadn’t been twice the tough woman she was, I wouldn’t he half the man I am.