yesh omrim

Married white man, creative, seeks sadist

As I mentioned a while back, I am getting back into SF-writing after a long absence. I have a story written and and almost (I hope) submission-worthy, but I would like to get feedback from some more people before actually sending it out. So I am willing to let you read “The Blessed Ones”, this 11,500-word story of mine, if you would only repay me with a thorough and ruthless critique. Everything is fair game: plot, characters, world-building, science, sex/race/class issues, etc.

Herewith, the teaser.

When Diana Rosenberg was six, she asked her father how to spell those strings of nonsense syllables that her mother said to him every morning and evening, sounds that she could not quite imitate and that didn’t resemble any language she heard in school, even on the playground. Her father explained that men could never remember what the Five Blessings sounded like, and anyway, they weren’t exactly words—they were sounds that touched a different part of the brain. The First Blessing, he said, was for housework; the Second was for out-of-house work; the Third was for fidelity; the Fourth was for listening; the Fifth was for safety. Her father spent a long time explaining “fidelity” to her, but the other four terms seemed perfectly clear to her.

By the time Diana was in fifth grade, she understood that “safety” was a euphemism. By the time she was in eighth, she realized that she would never hear her mother give her father the Fifth Blessing; even mentioning the topic to her parents earned her a cold look.

If you want to see the rest, drop me a note. If you don’t… I have more where that came from, bwah-hah-hah.