Adjustable Magic

By Wayne Benham

Three short pieces of people dealing with unusual circumstances and misbehaving body parts. "The Oddly Even Couple" go on a first date that will never be forgotten. Or ever fully remembered. "One Hand Clapping", but the wearer of the hand insists that it doesn't belong to him. "Social Dynamics for the Teflon Mind", an anti-lullaby for the dispossessed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wayne Benham
• Release date: Jan 6, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310179907

Wayne Benham

Morro Bay, California resident. April 33 is my first novel, but I've written a number of stories and songs, and I hope to start adding more free short story collections with somewhat greater frequency. I like things that are a bit offbeat and not easy to pigeonhole (or predict). And apropos of nothing really, but I used to have an iguana named Blue. You can also find me on the Morro Bay commercial free, format free, all volunteer radio station... streaming worldwide through our website EsteroBayRadio.org.

Book preview

Adjustable Magic

Three short pieces by

Wayne Benham

The Oddly Even Couple

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Social Dynamics for the Teflon Mind

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One Hand Clapping

Copyright 2013 by Wayne Benham

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The Oddly Even Couple

As he drifts slowly into morning wakefulness, a subtle but disturbing feeling of wrong begins to gather in his mind.

Automatically, his right hand slides down to grasp his erection.

Almost every morning when he awakens- 19 out of 20 would be a conservative estimate, 29 of 30 likely closer to accurate- Ryan Keller greets the new day with an erection. A real erection. Not some half-hearted minor tumescence, but full-blooded, primetime, as good as it gets hardwood. An erection a 37-year old man can be proud of. And by all rights deserves to be shared. Not in any social networked, photo-posted, phone sexted modus of immature operandi. Rather, shared in the old fashioned, reach out and poke someone kind of way.

A consenting and receptive someone, of course.

Add reasonably attractive, appreciative, and female and that pretty much covers the essential attributes of the very someone that Ryan often wishes were present in his bed for a bit of morning sharing.

In fact, he might even be willing to drop appreciative from the list.

Regrettably, with or without appreciation, the list also summarizes the very someone whose shareable presence has remained a woefully uncommon event in recent times. And that’s using a rather loose and liberal definition of the word ‘recent’.

So it is that almost every morning upon awakening, Ryan’s hand, acting from some unbidden force of habit, seeks out to grasp his erection. And in so doing his mind is then at peace.

It is a new day and Ryan Keller has a bone of significant contention. All is right with the world.

Except for that pesky lack of sharing angle.

On those rare occasions when his penis is pliantly noncompliant without justification (illness and abrupt/unpleasant waking the most common contributory exemptions) Ryan Keller begins his day feeling slightly out of sorts and mildly depressed.

Therefore it is with initial disappointment when Ryan’s right hand does not discover an erection on this morning.

But it is a much deeper concern… bordering on panic… when that hand cannot locate a penis at all.

Ryan is now fully awake. At the same time he’s probably never felt more certain that he simply cannot be.

Lying on his left side, Ryan’s fingers continue to search the area of the missing member and quickly make another startling discovery.

A vagina.

Oh, surely not. Impossible. And yet, a second cautious digital palpation seems to confirm the previous diagnosis.

It is a new day and Ryan Keller has a vagina. Something is monumentally not all right in the world.

Ryan is suddenly awash with a pervasive sense of physical incorrectness.

He rolls onto his back and