In February, in honor of Valentine’s Day, I always do the Love and Lust theme. I got carried away this year.

In the past, I’ve done a few themes inspired by the titles of songs and occasionally an entire album of songs. I’m doing that again, and with the classic collection of love songs that every woman loves and every man pretends is silly but secretly he loves. I’m talking about Air Supply’s Greatest Hits from 1983, with nine songs that, in my generation, were so popular that everyone knew them all.

As for getting carried away: Maybe I’m getting to be an old, hopeless romantic. This album will span three months of Cud Flashes in the Pan, with three songs represented in each month. I hope that’s not too much love and lust—and there’s plenty of either, along with both happy and tragic endings.

 

“All Out of Love”
Science fiction
“…There's no easy way; it gets harder each day…”
by David M. Fitzpatrick

“Lookin’ for some love, honey?” the prostitute asked.

She was dressed in a pink tube top and glitter-blue short-shorts that were so tight there was no missing the cameltoe. She balanced nicely on candy-apple-red stiletto heels with excessive straps that wound around her ankles. She wore too much blush, lipstick as red as her shoes, and eye shadow to match the green coloring in her hair. Her ‘do had some orange highlights, and it was frizzed and tied up with one of those high-on-the-head, sideways ponytails the high-school cheerleaders wore in the 1990s. But I could see in her eyes that she was more than just a hooker. Some of them are street whores who revel in the life; others are downtrodden girls who just get stuck in it. She was the latter. She deserved better.

“I’m all out of love, sweetie,” I told her. “Just looking for a good time.”

“Hey, I’m your gal. Name’s Angel, honey.”

She sounded more like a waitress in a diner than a hooker. Maybe she needed to be a waitress in a diner, taking hash-and-eggs orders and earning good tips instead of spreading her legs for every sleazy guy who was looking for a thing to fuck instead of a woman to respect.

We negotiated her price, which went up when I told her I wanted her in my rental room around the corner. I showed her the inside of my billfold so there’d be no mistake that I was legit. Finally, she hooked her arm in mine and we headed back to my room, acting proud and ignoring the scornful looks from passersby.

She offered to let me undress her, but I said she could do it. I watched politely as she stripped down to reveal a gorgeous body. Then she laid back on the bed and repaid the favor, watching me undress. She sucked in her breath when I turned, naked, to her.

“No shit,” she said. “Prosthetic, huh?”

I could have had it look more natural, but I liked women to know what they were getting into. So I just nodded and climbed on the bed as she spread her thighs, and I gently fed it in. Then I mentally commanded it to self-lubricate and grow. The cybernetic organ inflated it until she was wide-eyed, and then I extended it to seven inches. I gave it to her good, and it felt pretty good on my end. I didn’t even have to work up a sweat—just put it in automatic mode, and it moved in and out on its own like a piston. There’s something to be said for being all manly and thrusting your hips, but there’s also something to letting the mechanics do the work. And I was more interested in her than the sex.

When Angel was done howling her way through her third orgasm, I let up long enough for her to tell me how she’d never had a cyberpenis like mine, and how she couldn’t imagine how it could be better. And then she begged me to keep going, to make her come again, so I dramatically increased its thickness and extended its length to eight inches. She screamed like a banshee and I pounded her good until the poor girl looked like she just couldn’t take it any longer.

So I made it longer. Needless to say, I flipped her several times like a pancake and penetrated her in every place I could—in every way that she begged me to. It was all up to her; I was hers to command, and as long as she kept coming and begging me to keep her coming, I kept going.

Two hours later, I’d gone to maximum size, and she finally said she couldn’t take any more. She looked as if she’d been through a meat grinder. Kinda had, I suppose. But I knew that she’d never been pleasured by a john like that. Maybe never been pleasured at all. Crying shame.

Angel cuddled up to me and fell asleep. In the morning, she was sheepish about it.

“I don’t ever spend the night,” she said. “You really wore me out.”

I smiled. “No problem, sweets. Money’s on the dresser. I left plenty of extra. Figured you earned it.”

“Are you kidding? I should be paying you. Keep the money. I… this was nice. Nice to…”

Angel began to sob into my chest. I felt hot tears on my skin. I pulled her close and held her tight. I knew it was what she needed. What she wanted. Same thing, sometimes.

“I’ve heard about you on the street,” she said. “Some of them have given up hooking after you. They always say they’d never felt the way they felt with you. I get it now. Thank you.”

I kissed her forehead, and then her lips, and we made out like lovers for a bit before I got between her legs and slid inside her again. She was swollen, I knew, so I kept it to a reasonable size and added extra lubrication. And this time I wasn’t on automatic: I used my hips, and I was slow and gentle, and I caressed her and kissed her the whole while. Last night, I’d fucked her; this morning, I made love to her. She was in a different kind of ecstasy than she had been last night. And after she cried out in orgasm and clutched my back as if she were afraid to let go, I let myself explode inside her, and we collapsed together.

She cried into my shoulder, but she told me it was a happy cry. She fell back asleep with a smile on her face. After a couple more hours of sleep, she finally got up and dressed without a word. She didn’t take the pile of money on the dresser, and after she opened the door to leave, she turned back.

“Why do you do it?” Angel asked. “You could make a woman so happy.”

“All out of love,” I reminded her.

“Does this make you happy?”

I nodded. “More than you can know.”

When she was gone, I laid there in contemplative silence, like I usually do, thinking about the woman who had taken my manhood from me. You don’t ever forget anything about an event like that—you remember every bit of every piece of every moment. I remember waking to the cold steel as it sliced through. I remember screaming as she laughed and flushed the toilet. I remember frantically trying to find my phone and call for help as she ran from the house. I remember the blood and the agony.

Most of all, I remember how I can never trust another woman.

But I also remember the surgery to implant the prosthetic, and how it turned me into a superhuman lover. I remembe

r the resolve I had to never let a woman do anything like that to me again, and how I’d find the women in the world who had been objectified and downtrodden and destroyed by men and make love to them. Maybe I could treat them like humans and bring them up and rebuild them a bit. I try to do good, and it should make me happy.

But it doesn’t. Not really. I always try to convince myself that I am, but I always end up here, alone in my room, a pile of unclaimed money on my dresser, and some hooker on the street as happy as I was miserable.

It was my turn to cry. I felt the tears welling up in my eyes. I always hated that. There was supposed to be something cathartic about a good cry, but it just cemented how bad I felt.

And suddenly the door to my room burst open, and she was there. It was a surprise. They really never took the money.

“My name is Rita,” she said. “My real name, I mean.”

“Pleased to meet you, Rita,” I said.

“Look, I’ve felt useless for so long that…” She trailed off. “Nobody has ever treated me like a human being before. Not my father when he raped me, not my mother when she ignored it. Not the teacher who molested me, not the bosses who only gave me hours if I blew them or worse. Not the johns who use me like a sex toy. You’re the first one to make me feel good about myself in my whole life. I just wanted you to know what that meant to me.”

It meant a lot. I didn’t know how to tell her that. All these years of money left on my dresser, all those times knowing they felt more human, none of them had ever told me anything like that.

“Maybe… maybe we could hang out a while longer,” she said.

That seemed like a wonderful idea, and I told her so, and she came to bed again. We didn’t have sex for days. We just talked, told each other about ourselves, and held each other.

It was nice to not feel completely out of love for a change.

 

“Here I Am”
Science fiction
“…Oh baby those memories come crashing through…”
by David M. Fitzpatrick

“We’ve been best friends for twenty years,” John said.

“That’s part of why I’ve fallen in love with you,” Brian replied.

They sat on opposite sides of John’s wobbly table. The kitchen was bare, since Jenny had taken most of the girly decorations when she’d moved out—and, really, most of the other stuff that used to be in the kitchen.

John grabbed his head with his hands. “Jesus, man. I’m straight. You’ve always known that. You were there in college when I had all those women in our dorm room, through all the dating in our apartment, and through my three miserable marriages.”

“And I’m gay, and you’ve always known that,” Brian said. “I was in love with you back in college. It was tough to accept that you weren’t gay… and listen to you with all those women in your bed. But I was always your friend first.”

“Then why are you doing this now?” John’s head was spinning.

“Don’t play stupid, buddy,” Brian said, leaning back in his chair. “You had to know I’ve always had it for you.”

“I figured you just had the gay hots for me. You know, like a straight guy with a platonic female friend still thinks about banging her.”

“Well, there is that. But a gay man can’t have purely sexual thoughts about a guy who is also his best friend for too long before it feels like something more.”

John sighed. “And you choose now, when my wife has just left, and another divorce is imminent, to lay this on me?”

They sat in a long silence. John couldn’t even look at him. It was all too awkward.

“Tell me this,” Brian finally said. “Let’s say you woke up tomorrow and were suddenly gay. Would I be the type of partner that would make sense?”

“What the hell kind of question is that?”

“You know the old joke about straight guys—that it would be easy if they were gay, because they like sports and have the same interests and all that. So if you suddenly turned gay—if suddenly you developed a sexual attraction to men—would I be someone you’d consider beyond the sex? Someone who you could love.”

John looked at him with mouth agape. “You’re my best friend, Brian. You know I love you. Just not that way.”

Brian flushed with frustration. “Think of it this way: The only difference between a best friend and a lover is sex. And you’ve had three wives who haven’t been particularly good best friends.”

John sighed. “The reason I’ve had three shitty wives is because I’ve been a sucker for fantastic pussy, but it’s always attached to horrible bitches. So, okay, if I woke up gay—yeah, you’d probably be my dream date. But that isn’t going to happen—ever.”

He could see the hurt on Brian’s face, and he felt bad, but Brian had to know that this would be his reaction.

“You know I’ve always said I should have been born a woman,” Brian said, his eyes wet with tears. “I wish I had been.”

“But you weren’t,” John said, probably harsher than he meant to. “You’re a man. Best friend or not, I can never get past that.”

*   *   *

John was watching football a few nights later when he heard his door open. Either Jenny was coming back to get more of her things, or it was Brian, who had a spare key. And then he heard the high heels clacking on the kitchen floor, and his heart sank. Even with the bombshell Brian had dropped on him, John would much rather have had him show up than that bitch.

He tried to ignore her as she walked into the living room and stood, hands on her hips, to his right. He stared at the TV and pretended that she wasn’t there, but he could see her out of the corner of his eye. She was wearing a short skirt that showed off her legs and a tank top bulging with breasts…

But he knew Jenny’s tits quite well after five years. Those weren’t hers. Did the bitch actually get new tits her first week away? He snapped his head about, ready to bark at her, but stopped cold.

It wasn’t Jenny.

“Here I am,” the strange woman said, and her voice was somehow familiar…

John’s eyes widened. “Brian?”

She was a knockout, with a slim waist, broad hips, and big breasts—the kind John used to love back in those college days, but that he hadn’t enjoyed since his first marriage. She had Brian’s brown hair, but it was long and wavy and full of volume around her shoulders. Her heart-shaped face was done up with makeup, and she smiled at him.

“It’s me,” she said, and the voice was definitely a woman’s voice but somehow it sounded like Brian. “You can call me Brianna now. It isn’t just window dressing, John; I went to one of those conversion places. Everything has been changed at the genetic level. DNA, chromosomes… and, of course, the window dressing. Bone structure, musculature… I even got big boobs, just the way I know you like them. And, hey, bonus feature,” she added, pointing at what was behind her skirt, “I’ve got a virgin pussy going on under here.”

John’s eyes couldn’t have gotten any wider. “What… what the hell did you do? You’re… a gay man, Brian.”

“Not anymore. Now I’m a straight woman. They didn’t do anything to my brain, John. I’ve always been the woman in my relationships—you know that. I’ve always been the effeminate, receptive partner. I like big, strong men. I prefer being banged instead of banging. Woman trapped in a man’s body, John. So nothing about who I am has changed—not in the way that matters. I just made myself into who I really am.”

John was frozen. He didn’t know what to say, what to do.

“I love you,” Brianna said, “and I hope I can be someone that you love. And if all that matters is that you’re attracted to women, then this should do it. And judging from what’s going on in the front of your sweatpants, I’m guessing that it’s working.”

John blushed and adjusted himself. Brian—Brianna—was definitely one hot package. A flood of emotions rushed over him, and it bought with it waves of memories: football games, nights in bars, fishing trips, hiking excursions, motorcycle treks, and just always being there whenever one of them needed the other.

Maybe Brianna was right. Maybe the difference between being friends and being lovers was just the sex.

“This is the strangest thing that has ever happened to me,” John said.

“Think how I feel. I have breasts and a vagina, and my penis is gone.”

Brianna sashayed into the living room, hips swaying her skirt, and John couldn’t stop looking at the tank top that her breasts were straining against. “So what do you say? Have I earned the chance to experiment?”

She swung a leg up, and settled on her knees on the couch, straddling his lap, her slim hands on his chest, and leaned in until her lips were so close that John could feel her breath. He felt his erection jamming into her soft spot.

“Give me one night,” she whispered. “Make love with me. If that doesn’t convince you, I’ll be just your friend forever.”

John felt himself trembling, felt his erection straining against his sweatpants, and he knew that there was no way he could resist the primal urge.

And in that moment, it suddenly seemed utterly right.

He took his best friend into his arms and kissed her.

 

“Sweet Dreams”
Sword & sorcery
“…Always denied the right to live my life the way I want; I want to share it with you…”
by David M. Fitzpatrick

Gwindola’s father, King Maxeron, had forbidden her to see Jartho, and it didn’t matter how much she cried or begged, how powerfully she proclaimed her love for the boy. The king wouldn’t have it.

“You cannot marry a common boy!” he bellowed for the zillionth time. “A princess cannot so much as befriend a commoner!”

At first, Gwindola’s mother, Queen Minaria, played the stern wife and sided with the king, but soon she softened for her daughter. When the queen began to implore her husband to show leniency, he nearly lost his mind.

“I will not have the women in my family conspiring against me!” he roared, and effectively put an end to things.

The queen came to see Gwindola that night in her chambers. Gwindola had cried herself nearly dry, but she was still miserable.

“I’ve done everything to try to convince him, my daughter,” Minaria said. “He’ll not have it.”

“Why must he be this way?” Gwindola cried. “Can’t he see that my love for Jartho is true? I don’t care if he’s a commoner. I’d rather surrender my royalty and tend the fields with Jartho—cook his meals, darn his socks, and bear his children! I’d rather be in poverty with him than wealthy with my father!”

The queen’s eyes were as big as saucers. “I understand the depth of your love for this boy. And I promise you that I have done something to help you. Now, if you mean what you say, then soon you must make plans to flee the kingdom with Jartho—but you will be without this family’s protection, and will have to survive with him as a commoner.”

Gwindola sat up, eager. “I will gladly do so. But what have you done to help me?”

“I have conspired with Paervyn, the court wizard,” the queen said. “Paervyn is not as loyal to your father as everyone believes, and he has worked a spell that will bring you and Jartho together at night—in your dreams.”

“But I want him in the real world!”

“Trust me, Gwindola—these will be special dreams! They will let you be with Jathro in a way your father cannot stop, and allow you to plan your escape from the kingdom. Do you understand?”

“I do, Mother.”

“Good.” Minaria pulled her daughter into her arms and held her tight. “Oh, sweet Gwindola, of all people I know how important this true love is. I was forced to marry your father, and while I am pleased that the union produced you, I have never loved him. My heart has long been for another, so know that I understand your pain.”

Gwindola pulled from her mother’s embrace and searched the queen’s face. Realization came over her. “Is it Paervyn, Mother? Have you loved the court wizard?”

Minaria looked alarmed, and her mouth hung open as she searched for any words, but she betrayed her feelings.

Gwindola smiled broadly. “I have seen how you look at each other when you think no one is watching. I just knew—I just hoped—that you could also one day be happy!”

The queen smiled and cupped her daughter’s face. “You will flee with your true love, Gwindola, and soon Paervyn and I will follow. Now, sleep well tonight, for Paervyn’s spell will give you the greatest dreams ever.”

*   *   *

As soon as Gwindola began to dream, there was no doubt that it was no ordinary dream.

She dreamed that she wore her best dress as she strode through the castle—a flowing white gown trimmed in blue, not too poofy, one that allowed her to move quickly without having to hold up her skirts. Castle guards dogged her path, but every time they did she threw up her hands and launched brilliant green fireballs that knocked them aside like pins in lawn bowling. Her dream world was hers to control, and it felt as real as the waking world.

When she reached the courtyard, a dozen of her father’s best knights, armed and armored to the teeth, quickly surrounded her. They meant to stop her, but when she used her magic, she was unstoppable. A right hand launched a red fireball that kicked one fifty feet away,and he landed in a clanging of metal. Her left hand threw a blue fireball that bent swords and shattered shields. Still they came, and those she threw recovered, so finally she summoned her magic with all her might and spun, throwing her hands out, and a rainbow ring of magic expanded around her and mowed them all down.

This time, the knights didn’t get back up. Gwindola loved the feeling of absolute power, even if it were in a dream. She had lived her life as the proper princess, subservient to her father in every way, and in her sleep she could be free of that.

The massive doors that led outside the castle walls were sealed shut, so she raised her hands and mentally commanded them to open. The crossbar shattered and the pieces flew aside and with a thrust of both hands the doors blasted open.

And there, on a massive horse, her father waited. He was bedecked in his full armor and wielded the biggest sword Gwindola had ever seen.

“You shall not leave this castle!” he bellowed. “All that is in this kingdom is mine—especially my daughter. You’ll never see that common boy again!”

Gwindola hollered with a rage she didn’t know that she could summon, and threw her hands forward. A devastating white-hot energy blast erupted from them and streaked toward her father. He roared at the impact and tried to resist, but she ratcheted up the power in the energy stream and yelled in anguish at him as her magic engulfed him.

His body exploded, leaving only his hips and legs in the saddle. Blood rained down as the frightened horse galloped off, half of the king’s body still aboard.

Gwindola reveled in the feeling. Truly, Paervyn’s spell was astounding! And she would use its power to see the man she loved. She realized then that knights and castle gates mattered not; she could do anything here. So she summoned her power and rose into the air, and she flew over the kingdom so that the colorful stars seemed to be swarming about her head. She descended to the farmlands beyond the kingdom proper, and soon she found Jartho’s house, lit from within by firelight. She landed at his door even as he threw it open, his eyes wide.

“Gwindola!” he cried.

She rushed into his arms, and they kissed and hugged. He was warm against her, and she could feel his heartbeat. She hadn’t held him in so many months. Even in a dream, it was so perfect.

“We will run away in the real world,” she told him. “In our dreams, we’ll plan that escape, and in our dreams we’ll be together. Even my father cannot stop us here.”

“If only it were so,” he said, “but this is just a dream. When I wake, you will be gone.”

“No—this isn’t just a dream!” she cried, and she told him of Paervyn’s spell, and that they were both sharing this dream. He seemed dubious.

“This is just my mind, desperately wanting the woman I love,” he said, chuckling, “but I’ll play along.”

“There’s one way to find out,” she said. “Tomorrow, at dusk, I will set fire to the tallest spire in the castle. At the same time, you go the nearby hill and light a bonfire. If we each see the other’s fire, we’ll know that this is more than a dream.”

“Then I shall do that,” Jartho said, “and hope.”

“Dream or not,” Gwindola said, going back into his arms, “tonight we’ll make love together here, and every night until we leave forever.”

*   *   *

The next night, the king’s men rushed to put out the raging fire atop the tallest spire of the castle. On a distant hilltop, Gwindola saw a bonfire like a beacon in the night.

In the castle, Paervyn came to Gwindola’s chambers, and he bowed as he entered.

“For all that you have done, you need never bow to me,” Gwindola said. “And soon I will be a commoner anyway. But tell me, Paervyn: How has it been for you, living under my father’s rule, in love with my mother, but being unable to do anything about it?”

“Ah, sweet child,” Paervyn said, his wizened face breaking into a sagely smile. “Soon, your mother and I will also flee. The spell that I cast for you and Jartho is a powerful one, and you have seen it work. And for twenty years, every night in our dreams, your mother and I have also been free.”