Séduire: Excerpts & All the Goods

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Serial Tales & Flash Fiction

I am hiding behind my creation. Photo Credit: Tremaine L. Loadholt

Séduire: Serial Tales & Flash Fiction took off quickly; first, as an E-Book, and then, much more in paperback form. Thank you! I truly did not expect the current results, but I am incredibly grateful!

What should you prepare yourself for if you choose to purchase this book of fiction? Emotional indecisiveness. Heartache. Laughter. Connection. Anger. Hopefulness. Acceptance. And so much more.

I would like to share an excerpt from four different stories in the book. And what way to do that than to reveal just a few here with this lovely community? Shall we begin?

Just as she was thinking about Zee, her phone rang. The Rolling Stones’ Miss You blared
through the device’s speaker louder than normal. She’d changed the ringtone three days
ago. It seemed fitting at the time. She blows a huff of air out of her weakened body and
answers the phone.

“Hey, Zee. Did I leave something at your place?”

“Hello, to you too, Mika. No, you did not. I called to see if you wanted to go to The Ladies of
Neo-Soul concert on Sunday. Regardless of what we are now, we still love a good time.”

—Hearts of Burden, Séduire: Serial Tales & Flash Fiction, page 5

We don’t talk about that night. We don’t look into the eyes of her sons and wonder what
happened—why they lived—why she didn’t. We don’t ask for answers. We don’t wait for
answers. We stopped looking for answers. But my sister Alexandria does. She spends hours
on the phone with private investigators—works overtime to pay meaningless dollars to an
overweight, flighty man who lives at his place of business—too focused to go home—too
greedy to know home. She is submerged in the knowing—the yearning—the need to find
answers. We wish she would stop. We hope she won’t stop. We can’t get her to stop. But we
don’t talk about Daniela.

—We Don’t Talk About Daniela, Séduire: Serial Tales & Flash Fiction, page 12

My name’s Toby Clemmons. I live five miles away from Mr. Bradford. My family’s his closest
neighbors. Me and my best friend, Buddy Newsom, have walked his land in secret every
other Saturday for the last three years. He’s got corn stalks, fields of wheat grain, collard
greens, cucumbers, cabbage, and squash. Oh and his oxen. No chickens. No hogs or pigs. No
horses.

My nana says he had his manhood stripped away from him when he was in his
teens—something about being a sex-addicted fiend who couldn’t keep his third leg in his
pants.

—Mr. Bradford and His Ox Collection, Séduire: Serial Tales & Flash Fiction, page 15

Phara was ten when her daddy laid up with her for what seemed like the thousandth time.
He shuffled in one night, late from work, with Seagram’s Gin fresh on his breath as he
panted his way down the hall. He never knocked. He always entered without permission.
This was true for her door as well as the space between her girl-child legs. The night she
knew he had done something worse than the times before, she bled. She bled for two hours
before getting up out of the bed, removing her T-Shirt, and crawling the frailness of her
body to the bathroom. He was locked and loaded and heavy with the burdens of the world
and a job that did not pay much. Her ten-year-old self was what his thirty-two-year-old self
craved.

There was no escaping the sweaty reality attacking her fragile mind. He took what he
wanted. She had no choice but to let him. Little black girls don’t speak out of turn.

—The Phara Series, Séduire: Serial Tales & Flash Fiction, page 29

Have you gotten your copy of my new book: a collection of serial tales & flash fiction, Séduire (E-Book and Paperback) yet?

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