I told you that my latest Mr. Sugar and Mrs. DiMarco story was rejected by the market for which I wrote it (I’ll be sending it out, you can be sure). A couple of people expressed interest in the story, which is all the encouragement I need to share this sample from the first of their encounters.

They’ve each been picked up by aliens, along with a couple of human females Mr. Sugar has nicknamed by the color of their hair.

excerpt from “Mr. Sugar vs the Martians”
by Marian Allen

Mrs. DiMarco continued to curse, but not idly. Standing, she pressed her fingers together into a sort of wedge, as a woman does to put on a bracelet without unclasping it, and poked the tip of that wedge through the center of one of the force-grids. Her finger-tips emerged on the outside. She pushed harder. Her face darkened and her language worsened as her hand moved in micro-increments, then stopped.

“Mrs. DiMarco!” I said. “You can see the cage!”

The bi-color gasped. “What was that?”

“That was a cat, fool,” said Mrs. DiMarco. “Are you deaf, too? And pipe down–you want to wake up the Screamer? You want to get her started again?”

“What’s a cat doing in here?” Bi-color whispered. “Are they cat-like aliens? Is that why they have us in cages? Are they going to keep us for pets?”

“They are not like cats,” Mrs. DiMarco said with a weariness that told me she had spent more time than I would care to in Bi-color’s company. “They are little green men, and if I can get out of this goddamn cage, I’m going to kick their little green asses.”

“Little green men? Oh, God!” Bi-color squeaked. “They’re going to use us for breeding experiments!”

Mrs. DiMarco and I snorted in unison. “Good fuckin’ luck,” she said. “I had a hysterectomy ten years ago.”

~*~

“Mr. Sugar vs the Martians” is one of the stories in my collection LONNIE, ME AND THE HOUND OF HELL, available electronically for the low, low price of 99 cents. Get ’em while they’re hot.

Amazon http://bookshow.me/B003QHZ8K6

Buy it for the Nook.
Buy it for iTunes.
Buy it in other electronic formats at Smashwords.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: How did your main character meet another character who is important to the book’s or story’s action?

MA