Flash Fiction Friday: Pool Party

As I pulled up to the house, I knew I was in for a good time.  Actually, it’s wrong to call it a house.  It was more like a mansion.  The driveway circled around a sprawling front lawn, the grass impeccably manicured.  I parked the car and got out, realizing as I did that a 1989 Jetta was going to look sorely out of place in the shadow of this imposing edifice.

I met Sallie that morning.  She’d been eyeing me from across the Starbucks on Wilshire as I drank my grande non-fat latte.  I returned her flirtation and eventually she sat next to me.  I told her that I was new in town – she guessed I was an actor – and before long she invited me over to hang out.

“My roommates love it when I bring hot guys over”, she said, a seductive lilt in her voice.  “Things usually get pretty crazy.”  She wrote her address on a napkin and tucked it into my shirt pocket.  The last thing she said before she left was, “Be sure to bring a swimsuit.  Or don’t.”

I didn’t.  When given the option to skinny dip with a beautiful woman and her sexy friends, I take it.  Not that I’d ever been given that option before.  First time for everything, I guess.

If Sallie’s roommates were half as gorgeous as she was, I was going to lose my mind.  As I walked up the front steps I imagined a diverse assortment of multi-ethnic bathing beauties lined up for the privilege of tending to my desires.

I rang the doorbell.  Sallie answered.  She was naked, her body flawless.  I silently thanked any deity that might have been listening.  She invited me in.

To my chagrin, she introduced me to her roommates, Marcus, Brent, and Julio. (301/301)

Behind the Scenes

This week's Flash Fiction Friday challenge was pretty easy to write.  Upon my initial glimpse of the prompt photo I was at a loss for a story, but it wasn't long before the smallest spark of an idea - are those guys in the background?  They are, aren't they? - came to me.  All I had was a vague notion of someone coming to the door expecting a house full of women and being unpleasantly surprised to find men instead.  In no time, the story practically wrote itself around this premise.

The other requirements imposed by Ram the Sunlover this week include the word "...chagrin...", as well as a word limit of 301.  The former proved easy to include once I decided the direction of the story; the word "chagrin" seems to justify the premise around which I wrote the story.  The latter, on the other hand, proved a bit more formidable than I expected.  Make no mistake, having a larger-than-usual word limit was freeing, in a way.  However, once I got used to the idea of being unrestrained verbally I quickly ran out of words.  In fact, at one point as the story crossed 350 words, I remembered that my limit was 301 and not 401.  

Because of this, I had to make some judicious edits.  In some cases it was a matter of trimming a word or two, while in others entire sentences got the axe.  I tend to write in a florid manner, using three words when two - or even one - is probably sufficient.  Therefore while I like my at-times wordy writing style it is often easy to edit a long piece of flash fiction down to the allotment.

Deleted Scenes

As stated above, much had to be excised to conform to the word limit.  Among the details that were lost to the cutting room floor were Sallie's invitation to a pool party, referenced in the title of the story.  In my outline and the first draft she makes it clear that she's inviting the unnamed narrator over to swim.  One of the associated passages that was cut involved the narrator noting that the driveway is empty but for his car; he surmises that he's the only guy Sallie invited over, and therefore that he will have all of her sexy roommates to himself.

There was also mention of the narrator needing to make some social contacts as a result of his being new to L.A.  It would have come up during his initial conversation with Sallie at Starbucks, but ultimately it added nothing to the story and was dropped.  I also considered including the narrator's reaction to the revelation that Sallie's roommates are all men.  Obviously he is disappointed, as evidenced by his use of the word "chagrin", but perhaps he is willing to go along with it anyway.  I dropped this angle for lack of space, but my heart really wasn't in it anyway.

Soundtrack

"Barefoot in Beverly Hills", by Grace Jones.  The Miracles' 1975 song "Ain't Nobody Straight in L.A." plays over the end credits.