1. The Poet and his Muse


    Date: 10/24/2015, Categories: Love Stories, Author: Sisyphus, Rating: 6, Source: LushStories

    Jason Petrov stood at the stove and stirred his oatmeal. He repeated the line of poetry he had been working on since dawn, trying to get it right, but the telephone's shrill ringing shattered his concentration. Fuck! He slammed his spoon down on the counter. Why can't I be left alone? Before picking up the phone, he noticed the empty bird feeder outside his kitchen window, then took a deep breath to suppress his anger before picking up the receiver. He spoke calmly, then stiffened at the voice on the other end. “Allison! What do you mean you’re on your way here?” He glanced down at his dog, Oscar, whose whimpers indicated he wanted to go out. Jason held up one finger to Oscar as if saying, “one minute,” then spoke into the receiver. “You're lost!” He ran his fingers through his thinning, gray hair. “I didn’t know you were coming here. I don’t know what to say.” When she announced she was at the food-coop in town, he swallowed, oh no, then said, "Well, you aren't too far. Since you're here, I'll give you directions.” He walked back into the kitchen, took a deep breath, glanced at his oatmeal in the pot and told her what road to take and to watch out for the big rock on her left, then turn into his lane and keep going through the woods and around a bend, then she’d see a big willow tree on the right and then she'd see his cabin. “See you soon.” He pressed his angry thumb hard on the cordless phone, then slammed it on the counter and stared at it. I don’t believe it. This is ...
    nuts. She'll be here in ten fucking minutes.” He glanced up at the apple-shaped clock and saw it was eight-thirty-five and knew he wouldn’t have time to continue working on the poem. While waiting for Allison, he stood at the stove and gave the oatmeal a stir and tried to remain calm, but couldn't. “ Damn, ” he muttered half to himself, annoyed that Allison Rubin was going to show up, unexpected and uninvited, to intrude on his quiet, simple life. All he wanted was to be left alone so that he could work on the book of sonnets he had been writing for the last six months. After spooning the oatmeal into a bowl, he sprinkled raisins, stirred in a little honey and cinnamon and took the bowl to the round oak table where he had his laptop and notebook, and where he spent most of every morning writing. He looked out the window again, noting the empty bird feeders and tried to remember the line he was trying to get right before the phone rang. “I don’t know about young people today. They just do what they want.” Though Jason felt flattered that a graduate student would want to do a study of his six books of poetry, he never expected she would just show up at his door. He remembered Allison saying she thought his last book was by far his best work and deserved much better reception than it had received. It was a book published ten years earlier. Jason knew very little about Allison. He had no idea what she looked like. All he knew was she was a young woman getting her doctorate in ...
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