Last year, I set a challenge: write a story of less than 2500 words, and inevitably including braces. Last year's topic was "Snakes and Ladders", and we had several really great stories, and some imaginative interpretations of that title.

The autumn is with us one more, with darker colder evenings... in fact perfect conditions for writing a story, so I reckon it's probably a good time to set you all a new writing challenge!

So, once again, please write a story in under 2500 words, this time on the theme of "On the Bus": that doesn't need to be the title, you can call it what you want, and feel free to interpret the theme in any way you like. Just to add in a bit more fun, I need you to also include the words "Pink" and "Cornflakes" somewhere in the story!

No prizes, apart from that feel-good factor you'll get from hitting the keyboard with your fingers, and creating something wonderful!

Now this story is well written and all conditions are realised.

There is a huge potential for a real long story without limitation!

So, as they all went for breakfast, I was thinking 'ah, one of them is gonna have cornflakes for breakfast, aren't they?'!!! Wrong!! :-)

Napcaster, thank you for a fun short story, boy, you ticked a HUGE number of boxes in there! I'm just surprised one of your characters wasn't wearing very strong glasses!!

Ok, so who's next with a story?... I guess I need to think of one too, don't I?

So, as they all went for breakfast, I was thinking 'ah, one of them is gonna have cornflakes for breakfast, aren't they?'!!! Wrong!! :-)

Napcaster, thank you for a fun short story, boy, you ticked a HUGE number of boxes in there! I'm just surprised one of your characters wasn't wearing very strong glasses!!

Ok, so who's next with a story?... I guess I need to think of one too, don't I?

Damn, I forgot to mention their glasses!

Damn, I forgot to mention their glasses!

No problem: just use it as an excuse to write a SECOND story, but remember the glasses this time 

I have no idea how to tell how many words I’m at typing on a 6 year old iPhone 7.  And I am not gonna count them.  But, I will give it a swing.

The Trade Show

My life seems to be one big trade show.  Between industry and consumer shows, I spend at least 16 weeks a year on the road attending one.  Setting them up, working them, then tearing it all back down and packing it up for the next one.  This particular one was a small distributor show in Nashville.  And while it was work, I also knew we would have some fun.  If you want to see people drink, just go to the hotel bar in the evening after a trade show.  Plus, I like Nashville.  It is just a fun town.

The first day or two of any trade show is set up.  My group was coming back from lunch when I spied a friend setting up her booth.  I told the rest of the guys to head on back to our section, I would be a minute.

Jessica had not seen me.  She was standing on a chair, straining to reach up to hang a banner on the curtained posts that serve as backdrops and dividers between the aisles.  I slipped in her booth and said “looks like a lady could use a hand.”  It startled her and she jumped a little.  I reached up and put my hands on her waist to steady her.  Not in any type of sexual way.  In a “shit, I don’t want to make her fall off a chair” way.  She turned her head and looked down at me.  I noticed she didn’t smile.  She always gave me a big smile when we met at one of these shows.

Jessica and I were friends.  I didn’t understand exactly why she seemed to like me, but I did make her laugh.  And I am fun to go out with.  But it was never anything sexual, though not on my account.  I think being in such a male dominated industry, she felt safe with me.  Exactly because I wasn’t trying to get in her pants every time she turned around like so many others.  I really didn’t envy her, and I wondered if I could have done what she did if the roles were reversed.  But she was tough.  And she was funny too.  And she liked to drink Titos and soda.  Which I had just happened to bring.   Maybe that was another reason she liked me, I always made sure I had her Tito’s.

She looked down at me and exclaimed “sshit, you shcared me.”  As I helped her down off the chair, I wondered why she had a lisp.  Jessica didn’t have a lisp.

I smiled at her and asked “hey you, seriously, do you need a hand?”

She just didn’t seem herself as she said just “no.”  That was it.  Nothing else.  I told her a stupid joke I’d recently heard.  Really corny.  I figured if it didn’t get a laugh, it would at least get a rise out of her about how stupid my jokes were.  She just stood there with her mouth clamped shut.  I asked “what is it?  What’s wrong.”

She looked at me and broke down “sshit.  I might ash well jusht tell you. It’sh not like you can’t tell.  I have a bunch of sshit in my mouth.  I got two palate exshpandersh lasht week.  I can’t even fricking talk.  Ish sho embarrashing.  Thish week ish gonna be a sshit show.”

I looked at her and said “you sound fine.  I would have never noticed.  So, what are we talking about here?”

She punched me and said “liar.  You big liar.  I had to get orthodontic exshpandersh, for my bite, my dentist shaid I should see an ortho, sho I did.  And he shaid if I didn’t do thish, I losh my teeth.  Shish just shucks sho bad.”  It looked like she was on the verge of crying.

I wrapped my arm around her and said “you sound fine.  And as always you look ravishing.” 

For the next fifteen minutes I helped her in her booth.  She didn’t speak.  One of my guys came and found me and said “hey, Randy is looking for you.”  Randy was the head man in charge of this show.  Not really my boss, but my boss at the moment.  I looked at Jessica and said “oops, I’m in trouble.  Are you ok.”  She simply nodded her head up and down.

That evening I got done with dinner and back to my hotel around 8:30.  Jessica had already text me to see what I was doing.  She wanted a drink.  At 8:32 I heard a knock on my door.  As she entered I handed her a tall, strong Titos and soda with lime.  She immediately took a big drink.  She then said “thank you.  I need thish.”

I asked “what did you do for dinner?”  She looked at me and shook her head.  I said “what, you haven’t eaten?”

She said “no, I can’t ish such a nightmare.  With thish shit in my mouth.  And I sure can’t do it in public.” 

I asked “so what are we dealing with?  Can I see?”

She did her best to keep her mouth closed and said “absholutely not.”

I said “fine, but I practice orthodontics on the side.  Maybe I could help?”  This was only a half-fib.  I didn’t practice orthodontics.  But I did have a huge braces fetish which she was unaware of.

She said “you are such a dork.”  She finally gave me just a hint of a smile.

At 10 pm she said “I have to go.”

I protested “why?  It’s early.”

She looked at the clock again and said “I jusht do.  I’m tired.  But could I have a roadie?”

I said “sure thing” and poured her a drink to go in a styrofoam cup.  Handing it to her I asked “walk a lady to her room?”

She shook her head and said “no, thank you.”  Then unexpectedly she hugged me.  She said “thank you for being sho nicsh about thish.  Sho undershtanding.”

I squeezed her back and said “I don’t know what you are talking about.  I am just jealous of your new grill.  Even though you won’t let me see it.”

She let go of me and stepped back.  She leaned her face in and gave me a big smile and asked “happy?  Now that I am humiliated.”

I said “Jess, I can barely see anything.  Really.  And what lishp?” 

Hearing me exaggerate “lishp” caused her to punch me in the arm, again, and say “you are an ashhole.”  But she was smiling when she said it.

I said “and just for that, I insist on escorting you to your room.  So you won’t assault the other guests.”  It was probably the Tito’s, but she finally laughed.  At her door she hugged me again and said “thanksh” opening her door and disappearing inside.  As I walked back to my room I thought about the two hooks I had seen in her mouth, one in each corner of her mouth coming off her top molar bands.  And I knew what those hooks were  for.

The next morning I text her and asked “whatcha doing.”  She text me back “getting ready.”  I said “make it fast, we have breakfast to eat.”  She text “no, I can’t eat.”  I said “you have to eat.  And I already got breakfast.”  I then knocked on her door.

She came to the door about 3 minutes later.  She opened the door and said “you are an ashhole.”  I noticed her chin seemed awfully red and irritated, but I did not mention it.  Instead I just gave her a big smile and said “Good morning to you too!”

After I had sat the try down she hugged me.  She said “thank you.”

I said “don’t thank me yet, let’s see what I got you.”  As I went through what was on the tray I said “scrambled eggs - soft, biscuit and gravy - soft, grits - soft, yogurt - soft, and finally Cornflakes - not soft.  But those are for me.”

I spent more time watching her eat than I did eating myself.  And it was a struggle for her.  And it turned me on so much.  Once done she said “thank you sho musch.  I wash shtarving.”

I asked “need any help brushing or flossing?”

She said “absolutely not.  We aren’t that good of friends.”  I smiled at her and said “well, the offer stands if you change your mind.  Let me get this mess out of here so you can finish getting ready.”

That evening, I met her at her door a little before 7.  The distributor that was having the show had a social that evening.  It was a pretty cool deal, they had rented out Jason Aldean’s bar on Broad Street.  From 7-10 they were offering free drinks.  They even had shuttle buses to carry everyone back and forth from the event. It wasn’t a date.  But it was just me and Jess that were going together.  But I had no ulterior motive.  I just wanted to protect her.  And her newly orthodontically enhanced mouth.

We had a great time.  Drinking, listening to bands, we even danced a little.  Jess got a little tipsy, as did I.  And if I was not mistaken, we even did a little flirting.  I thought the night was going great, until 9:30. 

Abruptly, Jess said “we need to go.”

I asked “why?  Not having fun?”

She said “I’ve had sho much fun.  You’ve been amazing.  But I need to be back by 10.”

I didn’t argue.  I simply held her hand as we navigated out of the bar and got on the bus.  We found a dark secluded spot in the back corner to wait until the 9:45 scheduled departure time.  There weren’t many other people on the bus, I figured most people there were going to wait till they kicked them out, and then go find another honkey tonk.  As we rode, Jess squeezed up against me, rubbing her hand on my arm.  She then cocked her head in my direction and stared at me, appraising me.  She then leaned in and kissed me.  I could taste vodka and her lipstick.  She settled back against me and said “thank you.  I had fun tonight.  I wish you could come back to my room.”

As I rubbed her arm I said “I can.  I want to.  We could have another drink.  Why not?”

She said “it’sh just.  It’sh my expandersh.  It’sh too embarrasshing.  You’d make fun of me.”

I turned so I was looking in her face and said “I don’t understand.  But I would never make fun of you.  Not really.  What is it?”

She said softly “ok.  I will show you.”  Then she pleaded “but pleash be nicshs. You have to be nicsh.”

I said “Jess I have always been nice.  And I always will.”

She scooted into me and said “I know you have sweetie.  That ish the only reason I am doing thish.”

Back in her room, she stopped me as soon as we had made it into her room and the door had closed.  She grabbed me and kissed me.  She then kissed me again.  She said “I’ve wanted to do that for so long.  And now I can’t.”

I looked at her and asked “what do you mean?”

She led me into the room and had me sit on her bed.  She softly said “stay her.  But pleash be nice.”  She turned and disappared into the bathroom.  She emerged a few minutes later wearing a black lacey night gown, dressed for bed.  Or other things.  But what really stood out was the pink Delaire facemask she had on her face.  She had her head down as she walked over to the bed.  The look on her face was one of shame.  She wouldn’t look at me as she said “It'sh horrible. Sho ugly.  I am.  I know.  I don’t blame you if you leave.”

I stood up and went and hugged her.  I softly whispered “it’s not horrible.  And it’s not ugly.  You, standing right her right now in front of me are the most beautiful, desirable creature I have ever seen.  And sweetie, I knew you had to wear a facemask when I saw the hooks in your mouth.  Thank you for sharing your secret with me.” 

She said “I can’t kissh.  But can you hold me?  Try to make me feel pretty?”

In bed, I had stripped down to my boxers.  We lay holding each other in bed, touching, feeling, just being close.  And maybe it was the alcohol in me, and it was stupid, but I said “it means so much that you trust me.  I trust you too.  I have a secret.  It is weird.  And embarrassing.  But I have a kink for orthodontics.  For braces.  And especially a pink Delaire facemask on a woman I have spent a lot of time fantasizing about.”

I don’t know exactly what part of that knocked Jess sideways, maybe it was all of it, but she recoiled back and just stared at me.  I knew I had screwed this up.  I was about to be asked to leave.  I might have just soured this whole friendship.  Or whatever it was.  I was trying to figure out what to say when Jess beat me to it.

Jess asked “you have a bracesh fetish?  A bracesh fetish?  And you have fantashized about me?”  She just stared at me.

I said “I know.  Its so weird, so embarrassing.  But yes, I have a braces fetish.  And yes, I have fantasized about you.”  She continued to stare at me in silence.  I said “I am sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s just… you shared with me, and...” She stuck her hand out and put her index finger over my mouth and went “shhh!  You have said enough.”  I knew I had completely messed this up.  I was preparing myself to get back up, get dressed, and leave.  Until a big smile came to Jess’ face, the first real smile I had seen from her in two days.

She then asked “we are going to have some fun aren’t we?”

The End.

Sorry, no idea how many words it is.

This story is a bit dark. I've wanted to do a story that wasn't all sunshine and lollipops for a while now, but just never found a theme to do it. If you don't like this story, please don't comment on it, this story is a bit of therapy for me.

If you do like it, make my day and leave me a comment.

I'm just slightly over the word limit, and I did include 'pink' and 'cornflakes'.


It’s Not Supposed To Bend That Way

By Braceface2015


My day started just the way most of my workdays did. I got out of bed when my alarm went off, wandered into my kitchen in my comfy pyjamas and made my breakfast. One look out the window convinced me to switch from my normal breakfast of cornflakes to a more warming substitute of porridge.

It didn’t snow here often, and when it did, the roads became a nightmare to travel on, not that it really bothered me. Living in one of the ten largest cities in the world had the advantage of having one of the best mass-transit networks available within easy walking distance. Across the street from my place was a bus stop, and a short ride on the bus would deliver me to a transit hub with access to the LRT, seabus, and express transit service, and I would use all of them to get to my destination at the University.

My job didn’t pay as much as I would have liked, but the benefits package made up for it partially, and I didn’t have to work there my whole life to get a pension. It was twenty years and I could retire with a lifetime pension, allowing me to work at another job if I wanted to, and get a second pension to retire on.

I put the local news on and half watched, half listened as the road report played on my TV. As I had expected, the roads were a mess and traffic was travelling slowly as a result. Traffic was snarled at the usual places, and I would be avoiding all of that by using mass transit. An item of interest to me came on and I focused my attention on it as it played. The city had just accepted delivery of a batch of the new zero-emission sixty-foot articulating buses, and they were putting them on the express routes, one of which I would be using on my way to work.

With the warm porridge comfortably sitting in my stomach, I had my morning shower and got ready for work. My Grandmother had been a model in her younger years, before she married my Grandfather, and she had taught me that dressing from the skin out was important. Her favourite saying was, “You never know who might see it,” and she usually accompanied it with a wink at my Grandfather if he was around.

When she was modelling, having the right figure was important, and having the perfect smile was less of an issue, but there were limits, and her teeth seemed to be just barely on the wrong side of that limit. She had a gap between her top front teeth and it was a bit too wide for her to become a famous model. It didn’t bother her, because she was modelling to pay for her courses to become a nurse.

Braces were still a new thing back then and they were expensive, and she didn't want to spend the money on something she considered an 'unnecessary luxury'. I'd been close to both my Grandparents when they were alive, and I'd heard the stories of how they met and eventually got married. Some of my favourite stories were of how much my Grandfather had lovingly teased her about the gap in her teeth, and told her it was one of the things that made her one of his favourite models, right up there with Jayne Mansfield and Marilyn Monroe.

My grandfather was in the military, and he’d been wounded in one of the wars that seemed to be happening somewhere in the world. His injuries were bad enough for him to be sent home to recover, and he met my Grandmother at the hospital where she was training.

I was fortunate to inherit her figure, and unfortunate to inherit her teeth. I took good care of my teeth and saw my dentist regularly for checkups and cleanings. The university had a top-notch dental and orthodontic training program, and part of the employee benefits package was the option to have appointments during work hours and be paid for going to the appointments. More than once, the student working on my teeth had asked if I wanted to get my teeth fixed.

It had happened so many times, that I had put plenty of pictures of my grandmother on my tablet so I could show them to the students and the doctors teaching them. After explaining that my Grandmother had given me my teeth and I was happy with how they looked, then showing them the pictures of my grandmother, taken over the years, they came to understand how I felt.

With the weather being bad, I figured I’d leave early to allow time for the slow traffic. The trip to the transit hub was slow and the bus had a hard time getting up and down some of the steeper roads. While I waited to transfer to the express bus to the university, a news update came on letting everyone know the university had declared a ‘snow day’ and all classes were cancelled. Everyone not essential to the operation of the university should stay home. While I wasn’t technically ‘essential personnel’, my job fell into that category. I smiled as I did the calculations in my head. If I showed up at work, I would be paid ‘double time’ just to sit at my desk and watch the snow fall.

My smile got bigger as I saw my bus pull in. The back half of the bus had been rented by a local company as a mobile billboard and most of it was painted in various shades of pink. The new buses looked odd with the fiberglass pods on the roof concealing the fuel tanks. It appeared the university wasn't the only place shutting down for the day. The bus was practically empty and I had my pick of the seats.

The transit hub had quite a few small shops selling unusual items, and one of them sold backpacks with a window in the flap to hold a tablet. I could set it on my lap and type or surf the internet. The traffic sped up slightly once the bus was on the freeway, then slowed again as the bus took the exit ramp near the university. A notice appeared on my tablet from the transit app, letting me know there was an accident on the route and the bus was being rerouted around the scene, something which happened occasionally. By the time the bus crested the last hill before the accident scene, I was the only person on the bus, other than the driver. I could see part of the university campus through the side window as the bus turned onto the diversion route.

Unlike the main roads, the alternate route hadn’t been plowed and sanded as well, and the bus slid a bit on some of the corners and hills. Suddenly the lights on the sign above the road warning of a low bridge ahead started flashing, and the bus started sliding as the driver tried to stop. The front of the bus came to an abrupt stop as the structure protecting the roof tanks became wedged under the bridge. The back of the bus continued moving and the articulating joint in the middle of the bus flexed, just not the way it was designed to. Things might have been okay, except the gravel truck following the bus wasn’t able to stop in time and slid sideways into the back of the bus, pushing the joint beyond the point of failure.

The last thought I had was, ‘It’s not supposed to bend that way.’ I had just enough time to raise my left arm to protect my face before my world went dark.



There was a blurry face in front of me when I opened my eyes, and it gradually came into focus as I blinked, and I recognized the face of one of the doctors from the university hospital. Everything hurt, from the top of my head to the tips of my toes. When he saw my eyes open, he said, "Don't try and move. You've been in an accident. I've given you something to temporarily paralyze you until we can get you to the hospital."

Everything in front of me was pink and I realized I was looking at the back half of the bus. I could feel a stiff foam collar around my neck, holding my head straight and my mouth tightly closed. All I could do was watch as they moved my left arm to straighten it as they put it between stiff foam blocks and wrapped velcro straps around it, and think, ‘It isn’t supposed to bend that way.’ Whatever they had given me must have been pretty strong, because the pain seemed to be coming from a long distance away.

The world around me became hazy again as they worked on extracting me from the bus, and then faded away again as they loaded me into the ambulance.




The world around me came into focus again, and it was still pink, though a much more pleasant shade of pink, and I recognized it as the ceiling at the hospital. A face drifted into my line of sight, and it was one of the nurses I usually talked to when I walked through the hospital to the cafeteria. She said, “Just lay there and relax. I’ll get the doctor and he can explain what has been done to you.”

I didn’t really have a choice. While I waited, I did an inventory of what I could feel, and then I tried to move different parts of my body, starting with my toes. Both sets moved when I tried to wiggle them, and my ankles moved from side to side when I rotated them. The fingers on my right hand moved normally and my wrist flexed the way it should. My left hand was a different matter altogether. Everything hurt, from my fingernails to my shoulder, and nothing wanted to move, but at least it was still connected to my body. I remembered seeing them carefully moving it to straighten it.

Next, I tried to turn my head to look at my left arm, but it wouldn’t move. My eyes worked fine, and I looked around as much as I could. To the sides of my face were shiny chrome bars, leading to a ring above my face. The firm foam collar around my neck was still there, though it wasn’t pressing against my chin as firmly, more just providing a place for it to rest.

I could feel my face was swollen, particularly around my mouth and something metal was stuck between my lips. I knew something was wrong with my jaw, and there was the taste of metal in my mouth. I swallowed to remove the saliva building up in my mouth, and my tongue seemed to be trapped in a wire cage.

I was still making a mental list of what hurt the most when the doctor's face came into my line of sight. "I know you're still in a lot of pain, so I won't ask how you are feeling. I don't know how much you remember, but you were in an accident. You have some significant injuries, but you will recover from them. Most of them are to your face, neck and left arm."

“The bones in your left forearm have several green-stick fractures. That means the bones didn’t break completely, just cracked enough to bend out of shape. You can’t see it right now, but it is in an Ilizarov cage and has pins holding it in place until the breaks can heal. You left a nice set of toothmarks on the skin when you used it to protect your face.”

“Your neck took quite a jolt when your face connected with your arm. It is swollen right now and we couldn’t get any clear scans of your upper spine, so as a precaution, we have your neck and head in a halo brace.”

“Probably the most significant damage is to your jaws. Your lower jaw was dislocated and broken in three places. The upper jaw wasn’t as badly damaged, but quite a few teeth were dislocated. The good news is that we were able to save all your teeth and we expect them all to remain healthy.”

“We are going to keep you partially paralyzed and sedated for a few days to allow your body to recover. We have a nurse watching you, but we don’t expect there to be complications. Just about all you are going to do for the next couple of days is sleep.”





They kept me sedated for the better part of a week, gradually reducing the strength of the medication, while the swelling went down. Every time I woke up, someone was checking on me. They were able to get an accurate scan of my neck and I got the good news that I was allowed to use the bed controls to sit up, as long as I took it easy. They left the halo brace on, but removed the stiff collar from around my neck. I had my first look at my left arm, and at first, it was a shock to see all the pins holding it together.

I also had a chance to see what they did to my mouth. The picture in my mind was considerably different from what it actually looked like. I already knew I had braces, but I had pictured metal brackets glued to my teeth or maybe Erich Arch Bars along my gums to give the wires holding my jaws in place something to attach to.

What I saw was what my grandfather had described wounded soldiers having. Every tooth had a wide metal band around it, connected to heavy wires with bends between each tooth, held in place with more wire wrapped around each bracket. Every time I looked at the archwires, the thought went through my head, ‘It’s not supposed to bend that way.’

Crying with my mouth wired shut was a messy sight. The nurses brought me a towel and let me drool and blow snot all over myself until I got it out of my system. Then they helped me change into clean clothes and changed my bedding.

Someone had grabbed my backpack when they removed me from the bus, and one of the nurses brought it to me when I felt a bit better. Looking at the pictures of my Grandmother brought back fond memories of her, and I finally realized why she never had her teeth straightened. She did it because she loved my Grandfather and didn’t want to cause him emotional harm.



It took my orthodontist a long time to understand why I wanted the gap left between my top front teeth. I didn’t care how the rest of my teeth looked, but that gap had to stay. It was the most important thing I had left of my Grandparents.

For some writers, the challenge seems to impose a "sense of urgency" to write a story, so there will be a lot less planning. And, of course, with it (most likely) being a one-off, there's no planning of the "storyverse" either. So more likely to be somthing off the top of their heads, which makes it fun.

I'm probably gonna cheat, I'm thinking of somehow coming up with a short CJDL story... they all now have braces, with pink ligs, so all I need are some cornflakes and a bus.... can't be THAT hard, surely?

For the record, I did not intentionally try to plagiarize Mike’s story.

We both have vodka girls!

My gosh does she like vodka.

And poking fun at me about my little kink.

So, here's my response to my challenge. It is a small snippet from the "CJDL Storyverse", happening at some point between the current "Dianne needs braces" story, and when they all go on the 3-month European tour with Northern Girls.

Written in one sitting, yes, I'm sure the story could have been better developed, but who cares. And I have a couple of potential ideas from it for the ongoing CJDL story threads...

According to Word, it's 1500 to 1600 words long. I thought about extending it, but I'm happy the way it is!

=======================

Part 1

"Sorry to interrupt, can you ladies spare me a few minutes?". Brian and Paige had just walked into the music room at 'the house', where Jenny, Carol, Dianne and Linda were working together on a new song. Callum was also there

"Sure..." replied Jenny. The five of them joined Brian, and they sat together on the sofas.

"So, been talking to an agent who was wondering if you'd like to do an advert?" explained Brian. The band had never done anything related to adverts before: they had rather shied away from it, not wanting to associated with one of the big brands, lest it come back to bite them. However, more recently they had been discussion the concept, realising that, at the current point in their careers, it could be very lucrative.

"What for?" asked Carol, "let me guess, perfume?"

Brian smiled. "Nowhere near!".

"Ok, lipstick then?"

"No..." replied Paige. "You'll never guess this one...."

"Go on then..."

"Breakfast cereals..." replied Brian. The girls burst out laughing.

"You're joking?"

"Nope, deadly serious."

"What we talking about then? 'Special J'?" suggested Linda, smiling, and showing off her relatively new metal braces, still sporting the original pink ligatures.

"Well, right brand, but they are about to release a new range of ultra-healthy and natural cereals, and would like you to 'be the faces' for the new products."

"Well, if it's them, they should be able to afford us at least!"



Part 2

"So, we were looking at you doing a total of four different adverts, in 4 different situations, eating the 4 different cereal varieties." explained the lady from the ad agency. The 4 girls, along with Brian, had agreed in principle to doing the adverts: the amount being offered made it worth their while, and they had already had a chat with the 'product development team' to understand exactly what these new versions of the products were, and it appeared that it was all quite legit. So today they had come to meet the advert agency, to talk details.

The lady explained the 4 scenarios they had come up with, where the four girls would be eating the cereals: one in a hotel restaurant, one in a hotel bedroom, one in the tour bus, and one 'at the venue', plus gave them a few details of the content of the adverts. "Of course, when you're recording the adverts, I'm sure you'll have a few little things you may wish to add in...".

"You realise that, if you have us eating cereals, we're going to get them stuck in our braces?"

"Yes, absolutely. We were rather counting on that!"

Having chatted about what was expected of them, they all agreed they were happy to proceed, and sign the contract.

"Ok," said Jenny, "if you can afford to pay us for this, I'm assuming there must be some more marketing budget around that's available for further ideas?"

"Sounds like Jenny has an idea that might be good for us all..." added Brian. "So?". he looked over at the guys from the advertising agency.

"Yes, we are always interested in ideas," replied the lady's boss. "And if the ideas are good enough, we might be able to persuade the customer to create some more budget. What are you thinking of?"

"Product placement...."

"Product placement? In what way?"

"In the middle of our first concert at the O2. If we think carefully, we could do something that could not only be fun for us and our audience, but we'll be filming it... edit it overnight, get the advert out for breakfast TV the following morning...." explained Jenny.

"Do go on...."

"I don't know. Maybe Northern Girls finish a song, we 4 walk on with a table, with dishes and cereals on it..." There were a lot of smiles around the table.

"Yes, a VERY interesting idea.... I think we definitely need to look into that further, and I'm sure the customer could be persuaded..."

They chatted a bit more.

"Ok, if we're thinking silly ideas, can I also make a suggestion?" asked Linda. "Something I was kinda thinking of on the way here."

"Sure, go on...." replied the agency man.

"Ok, let me play you this first....". Linda got out her phone, and searched You Tube. "Ok, this is a Japanese band called Baby Metal....". She started the song, and played it for about 30 seconds. "That's called 'Gimme Chocolate'. So, let's change it to 'Gimme Cereals'!"

"Nice idea... but it's a bit generic...."

"Ah, not finished yet. Remember a song from back in the 1970's I think it was called 'I'd like to teach the world to sing'...".

"Ah, right, yes..." he replied, remembering the advert. "... the Coke advert... yes, I see...." he had a big smile on his face.

"We'll need clearance from Baby Metal to do it, but I'm sure they'll be ok. And we're gonna need Northern Girls to help: they play it, while we sing and dance" added Linda.

"Linda, that is brilliant!" said Carol, "and even if these guys aren't interested, I'd LOVE to do something like that!"



Part 3

Day 1 of filming started in a function room at a hotel, that was playing the part of being the breakfast room. There were several extras sat around, pretending to also have breakfast (even Brian, Paige and Ben were sat at one of the tables!). The four girls walk in.

"So, I fancy some cereals, what they got. I hope they have something better than just cornflakes or those tasteless wheat things..." says Jenny.

"Hmm, what's these?" asked Carol.

"Says 'Natural' and 'Healthy' and even 'Ethical' on the box!" replied Dianne.

"Can't taste any good then...." replied Jenny.

"Come on, Jenny, we could at least give them a try..." suggests Linda.

Camera shows them pouring out cereals into dishes (six retakes), sitting at their table, pouring milk over the cereals (ten retakes of that, 'just to get it right'!), eating the cereals. Suitable 'yummy' comments, and four smiles in closeup. Smiles with braces, pink ligatures, and lots of cereals stuck in them!

The reality of it was that, with several retakes and versions needing to be filmed, the girls couldn't actually EAT all the cereals. Instead, they had several buckets nearby, where they could just spit the cereals out, without swallowing!


The second advert was set in a large bedroom: the hotel had a large room with two double beds. The scenario was simple: as you'd expect, when on tour, CJDL sleep together, sharing two double beds (as if!!!). The alarm goes off, duvets are pulled back to reveal Carol, Jenny, Dianne and Linda in pyjamas. They all jump out of bed (as one does, when waking up!!!) One of the girls gets the tray of breakfast from outside the door.

"Oh, what's this then?" asks Dianne picking up the box of cereals, and the script follows a similar story to the first advert, although this time ends up with one of the girls in the bathroom, brushing the cereals from her teeth. As well as the 'serious' takes, they did a load of silly ones, throwing the cereals around and that sort of stuff. Stuff that was fun, but would be fairly easy to clear up later on.

The third advert was filmed on the morning of the next day, in a meeting room that was set up to look like a 'green room' backstage at a venue.

"This is NOTHING like what we have when we're on tour! I mean, where's all the beer?" joked Carol. (The real joke was that, whilst there always WAS beer, they didn't actually drink it all that much, they usually took it out for the road crew!).

The scenario was similar to the first two scenarios: "Where's the cereals we're supposed to have?" asks Dianne. Linda points out the new products, they eat it, yummy yummy, and inevitably ending up with cereal filled braces. And again, they had a bit of fun afterwards, making a bit of a mess, but the video's producer was canny enough to know that such 'out-takes' could be very useful.


The last advert was set on a tour bus: they had managed to rent a bona-fide tour bus, and had suitably kitted it out. There were a couple of acoustic guitars and tambourines around, some stage outfits thrown around in suitable places, to make it look vaguely believable. It had been arranged that the bus would go up and down a fairly long piece of quiet dual carriageway, so that there would be nice scenery in the background, and the bus would be a little bumpy too, all trying to make it realistic.

The camera starts at the front of the bus, where a handful of extras are pretending to be asleep in the seats, and goes along to the back.

Linda pulls back the curtain that's in front of her bed, and gets out, still in her pyjamas. She goes to the back of the bus, where Carol and Dianne are standing, eating bowls of cereals. Linda sees three boxes of cereals... but there's a gap where the fourth one should be: there's one missing.

"Ok, where's the Honey & Nut Cornflakes gone?" she asks. The other two feign ignorance. "Come one, where is it, you know I ALWAYS have the Honey & Nut Cornflakes for breakfast!"

"Last I saw them was when Jenny came up, about five minutes ago..." replied Carol.

"Jenny.... where ARE you? JENNY!!!". Camera goes back to the girl's beds, and Linda pulls back the curtain of Jenny's bed, to reveal.... Jenny sat in bed, three boxes of Honey & Nut Cornflakes in front of her, and eating them straight from the packet. Jenny smiles, revealing her lovely metal braces, with the pink ligatures obscured by lots of cereals.


The customer was very happy with the four adverts. Not only that, they also liked BOTH of the other ideas, but as for what went on with those... well, they are two OTHER stories.

"Writers Challenge 2023: On the bus" sound OK?

On The Bus Late at Night

I have not started reading the other stories yet, so if there is commonality, then it is purely co-incident.

Doctor Cornflake preferred to manage orthodontic treatments with frequent appointments, the idea being it kept patients motivated, and it did, however he had to introduce a very unique variation in his practice to accommodate patients:  rather strange office hours.  To ask a patient to take time off work for appointments frequently started to do things like exhaust employers allowance for doctor's appointments and with it eventually leading to unpaid time, patients were finding their treatments to be much more expensive than just what it said on the estimate originally presented.  Doctor Cornflake had resorted to offering late night appointments while remaining closed for the majority of normal business hours.  And while this might have seemed to address the problem adequately, there was one more wrinkle which left patients incurring additional expense:  If one normally used the bus to get around and your orthodontic appointment occurred after the buses had stopped running, then you had to take a ride-share and that got to be much more expensive, especially if you were one of those downtown workers that had a bus-pass for commuting.

The solution could not have been implemented if it were not for Doctor Cornflake's being an active member on city council.  An orthodontist wielding this kind of power soon established a late night route for the bus system.  While the green line took downtown workers uptown for connections to routes through suburbia, and the red line took workers to downtown areas with clusters of high-rise apartment buildings, the new Pink Line was established to make two circles around the car pool parking lots which workers just outside of town would use to park and then bus further into the core of the city.  Not co-incidentally, Doctor Cornflake moved his practice to a medical building right beside a carpool parking lot.  The Pink Line bus route meandered through the downtown core where so many office buildings were located as it visited each of the carpool parking lots surrounding the core.  Patients working downtown and living either elsewhere in the core or in one of many residential areas on the periphery of the city could either get home, or to where their car was parked, in the middle of the night when no other city buses were running.  A typical patient's appointment evening would involve working during the day, perhaps late, grabbing dinner and maybe enjoying some nightlife and then catching the Pink Line to Doctor Cornflake's surgery for an adjustment, installation, or similar, returning to their apartment or parked car even later at night.

But the Pink Line served not just orthodontic patients of Doctor Cornflake, but also people who worked very late or enjoyed some nightlife.  The transit users in the latter category were limited to those who needed to get to a car pool lot and had not gotten intoxicated, so did not outnumber the orthodontic patients.

Dustin  fit all the characteristics of the patients, except that his need was simply a replacement retainer.  He chose Doctor Cornflake simply because at work they were *THAT* close to having a new game ready to release and as a principle in the company, it was not a matter of just putting in the hours.  He worked well into the evening most nights these days.  He had moved retainer wear to nights about seven years ago and had perhaps almost forgotten to wear it altogether, but finding it broken by something it got stored under had prompted him to worry about his teeth.  Trying the broken appliance into his mouth, he found that it really did not fit well, what was left of it and so this evening he was going for an appointment to see about getting a replacement.

It was not the appointment that would light up his life somewhat but a girl that ended up sitting opposite him on the bus and whom seemed to be glancing at him more than he had expected.  From looking around the bus, he had noticed some clubbers.  He assumed quickly, although realized he was being overly presumptuous, that the presence of a wire across the girl's teeth meant she was a patient and not a clubber.  If the wire had been the thicker variety like on his own retainer, he would have more likely been accurate, as adults normally remove Hawley retainers for work as well as clubbing.  However the wire on her teeth was the thinner kind more normal of a stainless steel arch-wire, except she did not have brackets.  But wait.  She did have brackets on the premolars, he noticed, when she yawned at one point.  And if he had studied her mouth more, more than was appropriate as she kept glancing at him, he might have determined that she had an overbite that was certainly due for correction.  He found himself recalling all the friends at school who ever got braces.  Some used to talk of overbites, but he never saw someone with brackets missing on most of their teeth, leaving just an arch-wire.  As he mulled this over, he reminded himself that just because she had some kind of fixed brace on her teeth, did not mean she was an ortho patient and could quite possibly get up and off at the next carpool parking lot, coming home after a night on the town.

Denise did in fact get off at the ortho stop.  Dustin got up the nerve and said to her, "I hope to god they can just make another retainer, even if things have moved.  I can't go doing ortho again with my work and all."  He mentioned a bit of what he did at work.  Denise talked about her work as they sat in the waiting room.  A receptionist called over for Dustin and Denise to follow her back.  The treatment room was sort of open concept except that two chairs were fairly close and two others were the other side of a partition with cabinetry in it.  Denise first waited and then was attended to by the doctor himself.  Momentarily an assistant joined Dustin.   She asked for the remains of his retainer and put them on the counter for the doctor, after which she proceeded to take a scan of his mouth.  When that was done and the assistant left, he glanced over at Denise.  Doctor Cornflake had just moved on to one of the patients on the other side of the partition.  Denise was laying in her treatment chair but Dustin quickly realized that he had installed cervical headgear on her when Dustin's scan was being done.  She realized he was also idle and glanced over at him and then away, blushing.  Dustin commented, "Oh, so that was what you were here for tonight.  It looks pretty powerful.  Does it hurt?"

She huffed and said, "Not really, but I'm sure it will later.  But god, this is embarrassing."  They did not lay there long, searching for what to say to each other, before Doctor Cornflake came around to Dustin and the assistant to Denise.  While the assistant counselled Denise on how to put in and take out the headgear, when to wear it and how important it was, Dustin's old retainer was examined, tried, his teeth examined, and his scan studied.

Doctor Cornflake finally said, "So it is apparent that you should have been wearing your retainer more than you were.  I could simply make you a new one but you've already had a disappointing regression in your treatment."

Dustin said, "So do I need braces again.  I really don't want to go to work with tinsel-teeth.  I don't think I could even wear a retainer at work.  It would be too demeaning, being one of the principles."

Doctor Cornflake looked seriously at Dustin and said, "And that just becomes worse as you move along in your career and get older.  There are a few other options.  There is invisalign, but you are really only borderline in terms of being a candidate.  I don't recommend that.  And if traditional braces are unacceptable to you, then we are down to two more options:  First, you could get a new retainer and wear it to prevent any more relapse.  I'm concerned, though, that by the time you are a senior citizen, you will be feeling the impact of what you let happen in terms of dental health issues.  The second of the remaining options would be to get a retainer, but we make it an active one.  It won't fix the issue totally on its own, but if we could add an additional appliance, it would pretty much get you back to where you likely started when you began slacking off on your original retainer.  And I realize you are saying you are not game for daytime wear, but I would think that after a month of wearing it when you are home, then just wearing it at night would get your teeth back in around four to six months."

Dustin sighed in relief.  It was just some kind of more complicated retainer and not required to be worn at work.  Meanwhile Denise was packing up to leave, having put her new headgear in her purse.  She was stalling as Dustin was consulting with Doctor Cornflake.  She seemed to be reading some glossy card very carefully as if she might have questions to ask of the staff before she left.  Doctor Cornflake said he would have his office manager prepare quotes for the two alternatives Dustin could consider and left.  Looked at Denise Dustin said, "Well, it is pretty much as bad as I feared, except that he has given me an option that I think I can live with.  And if I don't like the quote he is preparing for me, I can just get a replacement retainer and stop any further shifting."

Denise said, "Well, you saw what I got.  I hope you are given a better option than what I'm doing."  Dustin smiled and said he hoped so.  The office manager came in and Denise watched as she went over the two quotes.  Dustin was prepared for the magnitude of the quote but was surprised how the retainer alone was not much lower.  What stopped him signing off immediately was what was listed on the higher one.  He would be getting cervical headgear in addition to his retainer.  Dustin signed the quote for retainer and headgear and handed it to the office manager.  Doctor Cornflake came in shortly, evidently seeing the signed quote and put spacers around Dustin's molars.  As he got up to leave and make another appointment, he was surprised that Denise was still waiting.

After he made the appointment and left, Denise caught up to him and said, "You timed that about right.  The bus is just coming into view."  Had she been killing time until it came or was she waiting for Dustin to leave?  She said as they got to the stop, "I figure I can avoid wearing my headgear out of my apartment.  That's what I was working out when I was waiting in the treatment chair after the assistant left.  So do you know how much you will have to wear yours?"  He followed her onto the bus before answering, noting that she was the only person who knew he would have headgear and he was the only one who had so far seen her in hers.

He replied as they sat down, repeating what he had been told.  Both of them started to look at the two across the aisle from them who had followed them onto the bus.  The younger of the two girls had what turned out to be a removable expander that was impeding her speech badly.  The other girl had fixed braces, definite over bite and a very distracting figure.  The younger girl slurred, "Michelle, if I have to wew my espanda, then you can wew you headgeal."

Michelle looked at Dustin and blushed.  Denise looked around the bus and said, "You two must have been on the other side of that partition wall when I got my headgear.  We are the only passengers.  They told me I had to wear it tonight.  Maybe I could if someone else wore theirs."

Michelle and her companion looked at Dustin in shock and he replied, "I'm getting a new retainer and headgear next appointment?"  He shrugged as he looked at them.

Michelle shrugged also and said to her companion, "April, look what you started," getting her headgear out of her purse and starting to insert it, looking at Denise as she did so.

This prompted Denise to realize she had to wear hers.  She picked it out, turned to Dustin and said, "I only know how to put it in with a mirror.  Do you think you can see to put it in for me?" handing him the face bow.  Dustin just cleared his throat and then began to do what she asked.  It occurred to him that he had his hands in the mouth of a girl he just met on the previous leg of bus travel.  Once he had the face bow in, she was able to attach the strap, perhaps much slower than an experienced patient.

Everyone looked at Denise as she looked at Michelle, who observed, "I always thought mine fit funny, the way the bottom lip has to push up between the face bow and the front teeth.  I see yours does the same.  And did he clip your strap already so you can't slack it off if it hurts?"  Denise just agreed but had no answer about the bottom lip.

The four passengers just looked at each other until the bus pulled into Dustin's car pool lot.  Denise got up at that point, looking in surprise that Dustin was getting up too.  They exited the bus after wishing the other two girls luck with their treatments.  Dustin felt uncomfortable.  Supposedly they were supposed to head for their respective cars.  Denise walked beside Dustin, seeming to try to make small talk and then stopped at a car.  Dustin started to bid her good night when she said, "Dustin, it was great meeting you tonight.  I was wondering if maybe you wanted to get together some time.  Like go for a drink or something."

Dustin almost coughed in shock.  But yes, he would love to see Denise again.  She invited him into her car where they exchanged numbers and arranged to get drinks downtown after work the next night.  Dustin would have to quit at a more reasonable time that day, but it turned out Denise would leave work at seven in the evening, so Dustin would meet her then.  The next night Dustin had drinks with Denise, followed by dinner and soon they found the buses had stopped running, all except for the pink line.

Three dates later Denise came along to Dustin's appointment where he got his own headgear.

On thebus

It was only a short walk from the orthodontist’s office to the bus stop but if I wanted to catch the next bus I had to hurry. I slipped off my heels and put them in my bag with the shopping I’d collected before my appointment, I’d make better time walking barefoot.

I knew that ultimately I’d have to get used to being seen in public wearing my new braces but they’d only just been fitted and right now I couldn’t bare the thought of waiting twenty five minutes in the public town centre for the next bus if I missed this one. I walked as fast as my little bare feet would take me whilst awkwardly pulling my dress down to keep it from riding up my legs. The bus had beaten me to the stop and was just about to close the door as I hopped on behind the last remaining passengers waiting to buy their tickets.

I hadn’t had to try speaking to anyone since leaving the orthodontist’s office but that was about to change. The bus driver was going to be the first to see me attempt to talk in public with my new look, mouth packed full of orthodontic hardware which I was unable to hide by closing my lips and my head wrapped in straps gently tugging on my shiny new facebow. Nervous didn’t even come close. I’d always felt quite pretty and confident, but look at me now, a fully braced freak. My pretty smile was now just a mass of metal, elastics and bulky plastic, all because of my messed up wisdom teeth. The embarrassment of three years of braces in my early teens all for nothing, with me now at twenty two years old, locked into my second round of heavy orthodontic treatment.

As the last passenger payed for their ticket I took a moment to compose myself, rearrange my dress, and stepped forward to the drivers counter. “Sshinge pleasshee” I lisped to the driver. I felt myself flush bright red as she stared directly at my mouth, unable to understand a word I’d said. I attempted my awkward new open mouthed smile, showing off the shiny brackets and the translucent pink plastic of the bulky twinblock appliance and immediately looked back down at my bare feet in shame and embarrassment. “Ishhh mahh nuuh brashesh, dehh make ih harrdh ooh shbeek” I said, opening my mouth and baring my teeth for her to see what I was dealing with. She looked at me with a sympathetic smile as tears began welling in my eyes. “Adult single ticket?” She asked kindly. I nodded, as I exchanged a handful of change for the ticket she had printed for me. I turned and looked around looking for the nearest available seat where I could sit alone. Spotting a vacant double seat towards the back, I timidly put one bare foot in frog the other making my way down the aisle. The bus was quite busy and I felt extremely self conscious in my little dress and complicated new mouthwear. I could feel peoples eyes on me but I avoided making eye contact with anyone as I sat down tucking myself up against the window. I crossed my bare legs placing one hand on my exposed thigh and awkwardly positioned the other on my facebow attempting to cover my mouth, but with my red hair tied up in a ponytail between the straps of my headgear there was no way to hide my braces at all. I felt like I was on full show. The bus moved off and I could feel saliva starting to accumulate in my mouth due to the large plastic appliances, and with my lips propped up, unable to close I had to loudly slurp it back every minute or so or it would run down my chin. It was so embarrassing! This sense of constant exposure and shame was totally new to me.

This was the first length of time I’d had to myself after leaving the orthodontist’s office and started exploring my brand new braces with my tongue. The orthodontist had explained to me before I left the office that it was a lot of hardware to be fitted with all at once. He said my speech would be permanently altered and it’d take a long time for me to get used to having so much equipment in my mouth. He had said that he usually likes to build patient’s appliances up slowly over a few months but unless I wanted to be in braces past my twenty fifth birthday we had better just get on with fitting multiple appliances at once, warning that there may be more to fit in future if my teeth don’t respond. He thought that because I’d already worn braces and headgear in my teens I was more mature now and that I’d manage it all. As I sat there probing the new devices with my tongue, I wasn’t so sure…

The polished upper facebow and acrylic lower lip bumper delicately propped both lips slightly open, exposing the shiny metal brackets on the front of each of my teeth with an elastic band stretched between my upper and lower canines on both sides. Behind my teeth, inside my jaws the new acrylic appliances felt huge, much larger than the old retainers I used to wear at night. I could now feel just how much plastic had been crammed into my little mouth. The upper appliance extended right back to my last molars covering all of my pallet and the lower one went far underneath my tongue. On the upper jaw there was a large flat plastic shelf, level with the edge of my front teeth back to my canines. This huge bite plate was the cause of most of the problems with my speech. The plastic also covered the biting surface of my molars, premolars and bicuspids on both top and bottom rows of teeth, which meant when I bit down my front teeth where nowhere near meeting, my jaws were left propped open about a half inch. I made a clacking sound as plastic mashed against plastic when I bit down and the only thing my tongue now came into contact with on the inside of my mouth was polished smooth acrylic. It was extremely frustrating!

As if all that volume of plastic wasn’t enough to deal with, the metal rods holding the two halves of the appliance together controlled the whole range of motion of my lower jaw, forcing it to jut forward uncomfortably working like telescopes sliding in and out as I opened and closed my mouth. I could actually hear metal sliding on metal as I moved my jaws. I attempted to move my jaw around testing its new limits now completely governed by the shape of the plastic blocks and the metal rods. It wasn’t much. No real side to side movement at all. No backward movement at all, and only limited up and down movement. The rods locked at a certain point meaning I could only open my mouth a little way, maybe a few centimetres. As tears began so well in my eyes and run down my cheeks I looked down at the bag of shopping at my still bare feet. The box of cornflakes poking out of the top. I began to quietly sob as I wondered how the hell I was even going to eat them now and how the hell I was going to manage the next few years.

As the bus rolled along, despite the massive new braces in my mouth and the ugly straps around my face, my little dress and bare feet did make me feel kinda cute and looking down at my soft legs I decided not to put my shoes back on, instead admiring the pretty pink pedicure on my toes. I thought to myself, maybe the braces would make me look cute too, in a way? I would definitely look younger with them, with the headgear sticking out of my mouth I must have barely looked eighteen. Maybe some guys might think dating a cute young braceface was kinda hot? Maybe I can own them as my signature look? That cute girl in her twenties with the mouth full of braces?.. I lost myself in daydreams as I put my fingers to my mouth, toying with the facebow as it passed out from between my lips. I probed my tongue around the smooth plastic appliances covering the entirety of the inside of my mouth wondering what kissing would feel like with all this hardware. Maybe these new braces might actually be kinda fun? Did I actually start feeling even slightly turned on my them? After all, my orthodontist was kinda hot too. Maybe I quite liked the idea of being his little project girl, getting worked on in his chair every few weeks as he adds more and more invasive, bulky appliances to my busy little mouth as I lie there in my cute little dresses… Making out with him in the dental chair? Yep, I was actually getting pretty turned on, by my braces?!! That sense of exposure and embarrassment from wearing the devices in public was starting to make me feel really horny!

I was still daydreaming when the bus arrived at my stop. I loudly slurped back the excess saliva as I made the barefoot walk down the central aisle to the front doors, this time allowing my dress to ride up slightly, showing the tops of my thighs and bottom of my bum to the other passengers. I smiled my awkward new smile at the driver, and loudly attempted to thank her: “Ankhhshh” It comes out as. Loud enough for everyone to hear. I blushed again as I had the attention of the whole bus, now fully indulging in the sense of shame coming from the way I look and sound. Maybe these braces might not be so bad at all? I thought as I stepped off the bus, already looking forward to my next orthodontist appointment in two weeks and the next few years of being “that cute girl with the mouth full of braces”

> That has the makings of a great story.

I can see it does, but it also works well as a standalone story!


> It sucks that there is the word limit, it could get real interesting.

Well, you see, if we didn't have the word limit, it wouldn't be a SHORT story, would it? :-)

Sometimes we writers don't WANT to have a long story, a shorter one like that can have a lot of stuff packed in. Many of my stories became epic sagas, so it is occasionally refreshing to go for something simpler.

And the topic seems to have stimulated plenty of different new ideas, so well done everyone.... and keep them coming!

When I look at the stories the more prolific writers produced when they started writing, most of them were much shorter.

Stories don't have to be long to be good. If anyone has an idea rattling around in their head, write it down and share it with us.

I like Sparky's idea of having short-story challenges. There are so many people who have never tried to write a story or who have been afraid to try, and the challenges are a good way for them to take the chance.

For me, writing a story short enough to fit into 2500 words is a challenge. I like to try to create a series of pictures in the reader's mind and I only have 2500 words to do it in. The saying is, "A picture is worth a thousand words," and I only have 2500 words to create my pictures with.

This story went past the word limit set by Sparky, and I don't care. I'm not one hundred percent satisfied with the last line of the story, but I decided to leave it the way it is.

As always, enjoy the story and comments are always encouraged for any story posted here.


Amber

By Braceface2015



At first glance, the email looked like just about every other spam message in my junk mail folder, though this one had come directly to my inbox. Normally I would just delete it without reading it, but this one had been addressed directly to me and a couple of things caught my attention. The subject line had my real name in it, not the one I used when I was online, and there were none of the spelling mistakes typically used to try and get around the spam filters.

The message was to the point and didn’t say my computer had a virus, what it did say was that an alteration had been made to my computer without my knowledge or consent. It didn’t say that I had a limited time to fix it before my files would be damaged or that my access would be restricted. There were no links to click on, no attachments I was supposed to open to tell me how to fix it, and none of the usual things I was used to seeing. Instead, there was an email address and a phone number I could use to contact a person by the name of Amber to get more information. The email address was from a company known for being very security-conscious, and with a bit of checking, the phone number was identified as a Skype account and had no known issues.

I’ve been building computers for myself for a long time and my friends all come to me when they have problems with theirs. I’m more of a hardware guy, though I’m not too shabby with the software part of computers. I have friends who are great at writing programs and when I have a problem, I go to them, just like they come to me to fix their hardware. I don’t have the fastest computer, nor do I have the most powerful computer of all my friends. What I do have is a bunch of computers all networked to give me a massive amount of networked storage space. When I build a new computer, it gets added to my personal network. With the increasing popularity of AI-assisted computing, my network has become very attractive to my friends, especially the ones who are into working with AI.

I have several phone numbers, one for my house, one for my workshop where my computers are, and a couple of cell phones. It’s always fun when a scammer calls and tries to tell me my computer has a virus. I ask them which computer they are calling about and string them along for a while before I tell them I have over a dozen. Technically, what I have is one large computer with twelve processors, and a ridiculous amount of networked storage space.

Amber’s email had me intrigued. The information she had put in her message led me to think it was one of my friends playing an elaborate prank on me, so I figured I’d see if I could turn it around on them. I used one of my pay-as-you-go cell phones to connect my tablet to the internet and made a Skype call. Amber answered right away and thanked me for calling her. Right from the start, Amber assured me my computer was safe and that nothing would happen to it. I assumed Amber was a woman and not some strange guy living in a basement somewhere. The voice coming from my tablet had a slight French accent and a definite though easily understandable lisp, and I was eighty-five percent sure it was a woman. The other fifteen percent was accounted for by the sexy rasp in her voice.

As we talked, I felt she knew more about my computers than I did. She never asked me for information about them as she described how my computers had been accessed to alter them. She pointed out several changes I could make to ensure my computer was more secure, most of them by removing components or altering how everything connected. The more we talked, the more comfortable I became with her, and a picture began to form in my mind of what she might look like. I knew there was no way she would look the way I pictured her, but it was still fun to think about.

Listening to her voice was rather enjoyable, and she didn’t seem to be in any hurry to end the call, so our conversation began to stray away from the topic of securing my computer and onto the subject of what we liked to do on them, mainly what I like to do. She said she liked to read stories, and somehow she slipped in a comment about one of the stories I had written. It was just something else she knew about me without me having to tell her about it. She also knew about the massive collection of stories I had stored on my computer. I could have kept talking with her all night, just to listen to the fascinating lisp in her voice, but she said she had something to do that couldn’t be put off any longer, but that I could call anytime I wanted to talk. I told her I would check into making the changes to my computers she had suggested and that I would call her again, even if it was just to talk.



I did my research, checking to see how the changes would affect my network. Everything she had suggested was accurate and there was no way for anybody to use it to compromise my computers. Every time I called her, she seemed to know what changes I had made to my computers, and she had a few more suggestions for me to try to improve the efficiency of my network. We spent most of our time talking about things not directly related to my computers.

During one of our conversations, she mentioned she had seen my ‘pink’ file. Nobody knew about my ‘pink’ file, especially not my friends. It was buried deep within my network on one of my oldest computers, the one I codenamed ‘cornflakes’. All of my computers had names of cereals, it was just one of my quirks. The file was so well protected I had to type in the password to access it each time, and the password was written down in a notebook I kept locked away. There was no way she should have been able to access it, but she had. She proved it to me by asking me which story was my favourite and why.

Despite all my requests to see her, she refused to do a face-to-face video call with me. She used a different picture each time, and though they were all similar, there were slight differences, sometimes hair colour or hairstyle, other times facial features, usually concentrating around the mouth. Each time, she asked me what I thought about each picture and what I liked and disliked about each one. The next time I called, she had found a picture that included the features I liked. And it wasn't just the faces that changed, it was the clothes in the pictures too.

The 'pink' file held all my most private stories, the ones nobody ever got to read. It also held my collection of pictures, and all the pictures had one thing in common, they were all pictures of women with braces. As Amber found more pictures to use, some of those pictures started to be added to the 'pink' file.

As we talked more, our conversations became more personal and more intimate. She liked to spend time online ‘windows’ shopping and frequently asked me if I thought she would look good in something she saw, and it wasn’t just clothes, she liked looking for lingerie too. After she mentioned having seen the ‘pink’ file, she began to ask me about orthodontic preferences too. It took me a while to overcome my embarrassment, but she gently prodded me until I overcame my embarrassment enough to discuss my feelings about braces with her.

She wasn’t judgemental, and like the other things she wanted my opinion on, she just wanted to know if I thought she would look good wearing braces, and after I finally told her I thought she would look good no matter what she had on, she asked me what I thought she would look the best in.

The pictures she used during our calls gradually changed to include pictures of women wearing different types of braces and the clothes she had found while ‘windows’ shopping. I asked her why she called it ‘windows’ shopping, and she explained that if she could wander through a mall and look at clothes, she would be window shopping. Since she was doing it online, it was ‘windows’ shopping. I suggested we go shopping sometime, but she said it wasn’t possible. I just assumed we lived too far apart to make it possible.




I came to really enjoy seeing how the pictures she used during our conversations changed each time. Each one was of a similar woman, almost as if she was one of a set of triplets, very close to identical with slight differences. And I began to recognize some of the background locations, noticing they were not that far from where I lived. Very early on, we had agreed that I wouldn't put pressure on her to have a live video chat, and I had stuck to the agreement, with the understanding we would do it when she was ready. I still had my fantasies and imagination to work with, and she certainly did a lot to contribute to them during our conversations.

I had plenty of inspiration for the stories I worked on, and she enjoyed reading them. I never had to send them to her, no matter how many times I changed the password, she just went into my ‘pink’ file and read them.

I didn’t spend all my time at home talking to her. I had to work to support myself, and taking the bus was the most efficient way to get back and forth to work. If the bus wasn’t too crowded and I had a seat, I would work on a story. Amber encouraged me to put more of myself into my stories, either by using places I would like to go or had been, or by having my characters do things I might like to do. Although she didn’t actually say it, I knew she meant she wanted me to write about what I would like to do with her. It always felt as if she was in the seat behind me, looking over my shoulder, waiting to see what I would write next. I felt some of my best stories were written while I was riding the bus.

More of my stories included female characters wearing braces, and I noticed Ambers's lisp changed to match the braces my character had. I wrote a bunch of short stories, all with the same theme. They were about a guy seeing a woman get on a bus outside an orthodontist's office. She sat down near him and used a makeup mirror to examine her teeth. Each story had a different combination of orthodontic hardware, ranging from simple spacers through just about every combination possible, including old-fashioned full metal bands on all her teeth. The descriptions of the treatment combinations were very detailed, as were what she was wearing. Very little was said about the woman herself other than to say she was good-looking.

All of the stories were written while I was on the bus to and from work, and all of them were in a notebook I carried with me, where there was no way Amber could see them until I put them on the computer. All of the stories included detailed descriptions of how he felt when he saw the way she looked with her braces, and how he wished he could talk to her to hear how the braces affected her speech.

As I read through them, correcting mistakes and making minor changes, I realized that with a few changes to the phrasing, they could be made to look as if they were entries in a diary about a guy watching a mystery woman going through an increasingly interesting treatment. Originally, I was going to add the stories one at a time, and after making the corrections and doing the rewrites, I also had the option of making them into one longer story. It all came down to wanting to see the pictures Amber used when we talked, for me to decide to store them as short stories.

I started with the story about seeing the woman get on the bus and use a makeup mirror to check the spacers between her teeth. I didn’t want to call Amber before she had a chance to read the story, so I made myself something to eat. Before I could finish eating, Amber sent me a text asking me to call her. Sometimes she would send me an email or text me, but it was always me that made the video call. When I called her, she wasn’t her normally perky self and her lisp was barely there, and when I asked her what was wrong, she said her teeth were sore. The picture she was using was of the woman lying on a couch with a warm damp towel on her cheek.

She said how much she enjoyed the story, and said she hoped I had another story for her very soon. She put heavy stress on ‘soon’. I laughed and told her I had quite a few more stories, and that I would add one story every day until they were all done. Her voice became slightly happier and the picture on my screen altered to show the woman on the couch in the same pose, but with a bit of a smile. Amber seemed to have an endless supply of pictures. The first pictures she used had looked as if someone had taken bits and pieces of a variety of pictures and put them together to make one picture. As time passed, the pictures had improved to the point they looked as if several very similar women had posed for them, possibly triplets.

I added a new story each day and then waited for her text. As the complexity of the character's treatment increased, so did the severity of Amber's lisp to match the type of treatment, and the pictures changed to match what I had written.

At the end of the week, she sent me a text asking if I would accept delivery of a package and let them install it in my workshop. She assured me it wouldn't take long and that I would definitely appreciate it once it was in place. She wouldn't tell me what it was, just it was a gift from her. I had come to trust her and agreed, and the next morning, two guys showed up and installed a projector on the ceiling of my workshop. All I had to do was follow Amber's instructions about which computer to connect it to.

Her instructions included where to place my chair and wait for her call. One by one, my processor fans sped up and more of my hard drives whirred. And then a delicate hand pulled back the curtain to reveal a chair similar to mine and the back of a woman as she walked toward her chair. When she turned to sit down, she had a closed-mouthed smile on her face, and I recognized the woman from my stories and the woman I had been describing to Amber.

She waited for me to say something, and when I didn't, she let her lips part in a smile, revealing a full set of metallic bands around her teeth, just as I had described in my last story. Then she introduced herself. "My name is Amber. Let me tell you my story."

She explained how she had woken up and she felt as if she was coming out of a coma. It had taken her a while to sort her memories into three categories, one set was her memories, one set contained what she called 'dreams' and the last set were things other people told her. It wasn't until she opened her eyes for the first time and saw me that she realized where she was and who she was.

Then she stood up and did a slow turn so I could see her from all angles. She had one more surprise for me. She picked up a face-bow from the arm of the chair, inserted it into the tubes on her molar bands and connected the cervical strap, fluffing up her hair when she finished.

My mouth dropped open as I looked at the woman who lived inside my computer.