Flash Fiction Friday 2-11-11: "Know Thyself"

(Source image: "Searching Narciso" by Martin Toyé)

Stretch, flex, lift, relax. Curve of hip, sheen of sweat, arch of deltoid. Working out in front of the mirror was the best motivator he'd ever had. Its glass eye showed every flaw, every ounce of fat, every wasted movement. It drove him ever onward along the road to physical perfection.

Always he fell short, though. What he saw in the silvered glass was always a pale reflection of his mind's eye image. Something...something was missing.

Frustrated, he stretched out a hand toward his mirror image, resting it on the glass. And jumped in shock as his palm met warm, yielding flesh.

His heart raced...and his cock twitched. He saw his double's do the same, and smiled a slow smile.

Time to really work out.

(Click for details on FFF!)

Your challenge for today was to use the picture above and write a flash fiction of 107-127 words. Additionally, I provided a key phrase I wanted to see used somewhere in the submission:

"...a pale reflection..."

Nobody's checking word counts, or for the key phrase, but you're only cheating yourself if you break the rules. Unless you're doing it to earn a spanking (in which case, see me after class).

Special Bonus Director's Commentary Track:

I seem to have a relentless urge to turn these into fantasy-themed works. Mythology, fairy tales, elementals, magic and mystery...yeah, I do telegraph my love of fantastic fiction JUST a little bit. I can't help it.

The title of the photo may have been "Searching Narciso" but I didn't get the sense that the subject was idolizing himself. Rather, it seemed to me that he was working out in front of a mirror because (like a camera) a mirror is very good at forcing all of your flaws into the open, do what you will to try and hide them. What better way to keep yourself on the straight and narrow, to keep the workout intensity up? When every little jiggle of fat is magnified by that reflection, you want even more to get rid of it.

Then I looked at the way he was caressing the thigh of the reflection. It looked like fascination to me. I imagine most of us would be pretty fascinated if our reflection suddenly stood before us in the flesh, too. Maybe you'd be horrified. Maybe you'd be freaked out. Or maybe, like the fellow in this tale, you'd be turned on. Maybe he's a little bi-curious and he wants to experiment a bit with somebody who knows his pleasures better than anyone else.

Regardless, wouldn't that be a great workout? Burning calories was never so much fun.

Please note that this week (as with last week) I am trying something different with the participants list. If you are playing along this week, please leave your link below. It will appear in the text of the post itself, not in the comments, so everyone that's playing will be listed here. This frees me from having to chase people down to find out if they're playing or update the Friday post several times for late entries. We'll see how this works out.

In any case, the participants list is below. Go check them out, and thanks to all who played along.

[[NOTE: Due to a screwup in the automatic posting, this didn't post until past 8 AM this morning. That isn't what I intended so I'm going ahead and adding links below for those I know are playing. If you're not on the list, go ahead and add yourself.]]



Check back here on Monday for the next challenge! And if you have any photos or artwork you'd like to see in a future challenge, please send them my way. 

-- PB