Welcome to Morning

By Carroll E. Stewart

Welcome to the City of Angles. My name is K.I.M. and I am a writer trying to make it big in the Land of La La. My writer's mantra is finish the chapter or write two-thousand words a day. I am also a Rebuker of Demons. This is a gift that carries in the blood of my Jewish female ancestors. Which makes me a demon magnet. My mantra for that job is Oscar. I call all of the postage stamp sized demons taped down to my desk, Oscar. When they get rude, it is easy to whack them with my five-pound thesaurus. But what do you do with a demon that is six-three with blue eyes and wants to know you in the Biblical sense? And on top of my bar where I work would not be a bad place to start, he thinks. And of course, he knows all the movers and shakers in L.A., being one himself. He also has a passing acquaintance with Venus, Odin, Janus, and several other fallen angels who took on the person of the ancient gods. He is, an original bad boy! Do I send him on to Hell, or invite him into my bed? Yes or no? Time to call my Nanna.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Carroll E. Stewart
• Release date: Oct 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9780997140507

Carroll E. Stewart

I am a graduate of Oklahoma State University. I have a degree in Theatre and an opinion about everything. I have a strong, undeniable faith in God and attempt to keep Him in my heart at all times. Some days are better than others.It has been an honor and a privilege for thirty-six years, to be my beloved husband’s camp follower. I would follow him through hell and back because I know he would bring me home safely, or die trying. There have been eighteen house-hold moves in twenty- seven years, three were over seas. I have traveled in forty-seven different states. I have tasted my way around the world, literally. Veni, Vedi, Visa. I came, I saw, I did a little shopping. Hey, someone has to keep the economy rolling. I am a U.S. Army wife and damn proud of it.I do not believe in coincidence and that word does not exist in my vocabulary.I think of myself as a domestic entertainment chef. There is no recipe to complicated or day of the week that is not worth celebrating.One of my favorite pastimes is to visit tea houses and then review them on my blog site. On the flip side of that, I love coffee. “Really, you roast your own beans! I’ll be right over!”...the spirit transcends the body...Myers-Briggs: I 60% ; N-80%; F-93%; P-88%

Book preview

Welcome to Morning

Carroll E. Stewart

Published by Carroll E. Stewart

Carroll E. Stewart 2015

ISBN: 978-0-9971405-0-7

This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All trademarks are the property of their owners and are acknowledged by the proper use of capitalization throughout.

I have no BETA, editor, or other such charming person. All mistakes are my own.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 My Personal Workout

Chapter 2 Define Roommate

Chapter 3 Dom Perigon

Chapter 4 Demon and Drink

Chapter 5 Gregory MacJames

Chapter 6 The Song that I Sing

Chapter 7 Summer Solstice

Chapter 8 My People Are Not Desert Dwellers

Chapter 9 The Nordic god of the Desert

Chapter 10 View from the Penthouse

Chapter 11 The Jacobs’ Women

Chapter 12 Little Umbrella Drinks

Chapter 13 The Franklin Mansion

Chapter 14 Nope, Not Related

Chapter 15 The Truth and Nothing But…

Chapter 16 Shake, Rattle & Roll

Chapter 17 Happily Ever After

In Gratitude

Books for sale by Carroll E. Stewart

Chapter 1 My Personal Workout

Welcome to morning....pbbblllltttttt!

My name is K.I.M. and today is just like any other day because I am living the dream, live, in L.A., where every day is the same, literally. That is because we have three seasons: summer which requires shorts and a Hawaiian shirt; summer lite, where you wear shorts with a hoodie; burning, with a hefty dose of flames, smoke, and the Santa Anna winds.

And yet folk flock here in frenzied anticipation of making it big. I am no different. I am not a native. My life started on the Right Coast and not the Left Coast where I presently reside, very much wanting to make it big.

But the land of La La, this City of Angels, this is where I now define my life, your life, their life. Well, especially their everyday life, which I am going to ponder and give meaning too.

I write.

Look out. Everyone I meet, if only passing you on the street, you are going to end up in my novel. You piss me off and I will make you the willing sex slave of the most unholy monster I can think up. Or maybe you will be the mate of someone that only does you in the missionary position once or twice a month. Sweats all over you while he grunts and calls out for his momma when he finally dumps his load all over your breasts because you are not worthy to bear his children...but your sister is.

Regardless of the type of hell I think you belong in, you are going to like it and the reader is going to think you are one really sick bitch. Because you will complain non-stop about your life but when your mate comes home, you are going to be crawling on your knees to please him with the riding crop in your mouth. (Maybe overdone, but effective.)

Or your life could be such a yawn the reader is just screaming for you to go ahead and invite the vampire in…or portal into another dimension, lost forever,…or ick…my own personal version of Hell; just sit on your ass and watch TV all day and night. Anything! Just end it! I can do mundane. Believe me. And without coffee flowing through my veins, there are some crazy assed monsters, and stifling boring ones as well, chasing me in my dreams.

Morning...pbbbllltttt! My eyes are open and it is now time to start the day. I sit straight up in bed, just to prove to myself that I can and stretch for the Heavens. I momentarily inventory my naked girly self and realizing that I feel good, physically. I head for the bathroom. Taking care of morning business is a great time to think. I waste no time, literally. I make plans as I sit and then wipe. Shower. Clothes. Clean teeth.

Today is the day. Finish that chapter. If not, then I will write at least two thousand words. This is my mantra, this is my will: Two thousand words, two thousand words, two thousand...

By trade and on my business card, I am a writer. In big bold letters K.I.M. sits proudly in the middle of the card. Beneath follows, Author with the initials T.L.O.L.L. Well yes, check out that pedigree, most impressive. No one has asked me yet what that means. Yes, that’s right. In this town, do not ever show fear or your ignorance. That bit of information is followed below it by where you can find me or follow me on line....damn...the list just goes on and on.

Like everyone else in the City of Angels, you need one name. Unless of course, you are the newest hottie to hit the silver screen. The current reigning king of Hollywood is a brunet, blue-eyed wonder by the name of Bryce Stewart. He is a Scot in a kilt and looks like sex on a stick and he puts the hot in hottie and he can get away with two names.

Since I am an unknown, I must adapt. I know how to do that. I am known by my initials. K.I.M., which happily spells Kim. See. Got it covered. All fronts and fonts. Initials and one name. I am just fucking made to order.

I am still trying to make a living at writing. Yes please, stop with the snickering. I am not a hack or an ambulance chaser nor do I write obits! I am a graduate of UCLA (go Bruins!) and have taken every writing class offered by Inner Harbor College of Fine Arts and Sorcery. Kidding about the sorcery. Maybe. Though, I am beginning to think it is going to take magic to get my work published. But I digress...

All my profs said I have talent. Yes, me and every other wanna-be sitting in their classroom. But we write and hope like hell the prof, Dr. I Am Known At the Studio, is not kidding when they say they write movie scripts and actually sell them. Then we hope like hell they are not going to steal our ideas and sell them as their own.

You cannot dwell on the philosophical about such matters. Writing is a calling and my heart is pure. I am a writer. I must write or combust. Yes, spontaneous human combustion. This is what causes it. Your desire is so great and your calling in life so pure that if you do not see it fulfilled, poof! Up in flame! See, I solved that mystery. Time to move on to the next unsolved mystery and write about it because I am not doing this for fame and fortune. (See that thing about spontaneous combustion.) Although, money...that would be nice because I do like to eat and one must pay bills.

While still snuggled into my bed, in my pre-fully awake moments, in my most truthful heart of hearts, I would love to take a meeting with the hottie Scottish lad in a kilt, Bryce Stewart, and discuss the script that I have written and the rewrites for the movie he is going to produce and star in. And in this fantasy while we are discussing this, if he would not object, I could have my legs wrapped around his waist while I am fucking his brains out.

These are my dreams while I am waiting to open my own publishing house. And I think my fantasies are not so very shabby and I like to tell myself obtainable. No snickering...please, at least allow me the dream.

To earn a living so I may continue writing, I am a bartender. Hey look, I know, me and my actor roomie and everyone else living in The Land Of La La, which I fondly call TLOLL...are chasing their dream. My roomie works at the same club as I do while waiting to be discovered. He is a big guy, good looking, muscles, and a bouncer. He could do porn with his equipment and maybe he has. I do not judge. He keeps practicing his Rhett Butler in case there is a remake of Gone With the Wind.

Yes, we are young and we are the cliché but at least we do not drive sports cars. We are not crazy. We still live within our budget because we both like to eat and drink expensive coffee. But this is us and everyone else in Los Angeles. Please, no snickering. My roomie and I, we want only positive vibes while we walk this life. Well...and sex and coffee....lots of both. And we want both, first thing in the morning.

I can never say enough good things about coffee. Now, a moment while I explain my views about sex.

Yes, sex. I like it...a lot!

You would think that this stud that helps with bills and is one hell-of-a-cook would be enough for me between my sheets, legs, and a few other places I write smut about. But no, thoughts of this hottie actor Scot in a kilt keep popping up. Ah-h-h-h-h oh such delicious fantasies!

I call my roomie, Brice. He does not mind because it just so happens that is his name. Me screaming his name this early morning while he had me hoisted above his shoulders and was pounding the hell out of me…well...you can see how this sometimes helps to fuel the Scottish kilted fantasy. That sex position from this morning is so going into the book.

And yes, Mom, he always wears a condom.

At this point in the morning, after the nasty sex and a lovely smallish nap, I love Brice. And not for just for his responsible adult redeeming qualities and big dick. He has made coffee, put it in a thermos and left it for me while he has gone to the gym. Fuck me, please! He is the perfect man except he has a narcissistic streak a mile wide. It maybe ranks right up there with a personality disorder but just fuck me running, he makes coffee, the good stuff, and leaves it all toasty perfect temperature for me in a thermos right there on my nightstand...sigh...pouring a cup is like having an orgasm that starts at your toes and rips through your body, exploding your nipples and then finally hits your brain with the caffeine goodness.

For the non-coffee aficionado, you will not understand. But Brice understands about leaving coffee sitting on a coffee hot plate, or any hot plate for that matter, and then how it cooks the coffee to demon piss. And grounds left in a drip filter...oh please...I have died and gone to Hell! That just adds acid to the coffee as it now drips poison into what was before a passable cup of Joe. Please, always make Joe a capital when referring to coffee and dump the fucking grounds, first thing, or do not come back. Brice knew this when he moved in. I did not have to educate this boy in the magical way of making coffee. I lowered his rent when I discovered this about him.

Fuck, I think I am in love...with the coffee, of course.

Time to get started. Fire up the laptop and get to work.

With coffee and thermos in hand, I do a little waltz to my place of business.

My desk sits in the middle of what would be the dining room. To the left is the living room; to the right is a bank of windows that looks out over Catalina Island. Please, do not be impressed. If you can see from your window the oil refineries, you tell folk that your view looks out over The Catalina. This is L.A. Better have a fucking view to talk about.

With my good morning wakeup call in my hand, and it smells so delicious I am drooling; I watch the activity on my desk. Yes, I am not the only one who is up and moving this morning.

My desk is an interesting piece of business...

...well, fuck...now you are going to have to know about a bit of my personal life. This is L.A. Most folks do not want to know about your personal life. The view from your deck is all the personal they want to know. You can bail on me now if you want...I will not be offended. But now I have to explain about my desk.

My desk is two feet by four feet. Just a couple of wide planks of wood that have been tongue and grooved, together. The wood is raw, sanded, and looks somewhat new. One or two scars and maybe a coffee stain that should sand out but won’t. The legs that are on it are not original to the piece. Not by a far shot. There have been no original legs on this piece for about two thousand years, if it started out as a table at all. The family history is a little fuzzy on that.

My people are Jewish and mystics. Some folks might start jumping up and down and pointing and saying Kabbalah and wanting me to explain about the mystery that is God. To which I say, God is a very big mystery and ask God if you want to know about God and the spirit transcends the body. Seriously, there is my answer. Make of it what you will.

No disrespect, but Kabbalah means different things to different folks and I do not walk down that path. In my family, we just call it having the gift. And the family history carries back at least as far as the top of my desk. Which is this:

In the days of The Temple in Jerusalem, there were several pools of water that were open to the public. At times, an angel would come and trouble the waters was a term that was used back in the day. First one into the troubled waters was healed.

One night, the grandmother of the house of my family had a dream. In this dream, her son would be hurt in an accident. They were to hustle his ass to the temple because as soon as they got there, an angel was going to trouble the water and they were to put his ass in it so he could be healed.

Well, lo and behold, all this came to pass. And this wood that is the top of my desk, that is what they carried his broken body on. In went the women carrying the man of the house and they submerged both man and wood. When an angel troubles the water, everyone gets healed. To include the wood.

And lets just say this is, oy vey, this is now some very special wood.

Time to stop waltzing and recapping literally, ancient history and have a serious drink of life’s elixir. I can see from here that there are paper clips being kicked around on my desk and someone is screaming the words to the song, Fuck You. So, it is going to be one of those mornings. Good thing the sex and the coffee are so delicious.

Time for truth: I was born a mystic and am called in official circles, a Rebuker of Demons. For this job I have a desktop that, for lack of a better explanation, traps certain types of things. Demons are what calls to mine. Not very big ones and they do come in sizes. Some are about three inches tall and I have certainly seen smaller. But they can talk some trash and are mean little fuckers. Once they are on my desk, they are not going anywhere else unless I release them to God. Just think of it as a hamster wheel. You really don’t want too many on your desk at a time. Like I said, they are mean little fuckers. I caught one the other day trying to crucify his fellow prisoner to my hard, pink eraser using the stapler.

Oh-h-h-h-h, I can see raised eyebrows from here and a lot of doubt. No problem. Just do not call me when you think you have the brass balls to invite a demon into your home and then into your body. I am always amazed at how many folks ask me if it is okay to do that. When asked my opinion on this my comeback is always this... Would you invite a known serial killer into your home? You want to give a demon access to your body?

Fuck...me...running. One sweet young thing in the sorority house was curious about hosting a demon said, Well, serial killers need to be understood and offered a place of respite and understanding as well. From…the…fucking…moon…you can see me rolling my eyes. It is my understanding that she is now in jail for armed robbery to support her meth habit. Her pimp beat her so badly that it scarred her face so she had to turn to guns and convenient stores. Her buddy, the demon that she offered respite and understanding, too. He is running her into the ground and an early grave. Like I said, they are mean little fuckers.

At times, I am a bit mystified by human behavior. Perhaps that is because I know non-human behavior of the worst sort. My people have for a couple of thousand years.

Demons are drawn to my family and follow us around. As in physically manifest and follow us around. Anytime we walk past anything we deem holy and need to be rid of said demon, you hear the vacuum cleaner of God kick on and these demons that are so enamored of us, they are sucked to this holy site. I do not know what happens to them at that point, although from their wailing and gnashing of teeth that I hear, I can hazard a guess. All I know for sure is that the next time I walk past they are not there and for a Jew, I believe in Hell.

There are all manner of beings that walk this realm. As a barkeep, all manner of folk and things walk in and belly up. Last night it was a demon so foul I could smell him when he entered the door of the club. And there are about eight hundred sex-lusted filled folk, twenty-one and older, out on the dance floor and that is a lot of smell to get past.

I fixed him a drink and he paid with his credit card. Gotch-cha. I do not even have to touch them. Just something they have recently touched. He stayed until closing and then followed me home. As we got closer, he looked less human and fuzzier around the edges. When I got to the door of my apartment building, there was no human. In the elevator he was two inches tall and buzzing around and calling me all manner of names. When he used the C word to refer to my female form, I swatted him with my hand and he ended up embedded in the wall of the elevator.

When I disembarked, he had to wiggle his way out and follow me. I love that part. I even hold the elevator door for them just to see the look on their face at just how fucked they now know they are once they pull free.

Well yes, the top of my desk...sigh. The newest Mr. Bad Ass has knocked over my paper clips and is jumping up and down on the closed cover of my laptop that I call Jack. As in You-Don’t-Know-Jack-Shit. Sitting my coffee and thermos down, I sit myself down as well in my favorite writer’s chair and address the newest.

Morning Oscar.

That is not my fucking name and I drip the perverted venom, he sneers at me. My brothers are coming with their poison as well. We shall infect you and your....

There is a lot more eye rolling going on while he threatens, me. First rule for defeating evil: In whom do you place your faith? I know where I place mine and fear is not a word that enters my head when dealing with demons.

With a chuckle I pick up the blue roll of painter’s tape. Blue you say? Yes blue, and there is a reason for that. You have to know a little bit about the color spectrum and how the universe is just not laid out willy-nilly.

God put that arch of color in the sky for a reason. Color represents wavelengths and a few other things. God’s aura is made up of these primary colors. And the color blue vibrates out reality.

Which brings me to the sheer genius of blue painter’s tape: these little fuckers cannot get past the reality that is God and you can also peel it off and it does not damage the finish on your furniture and then you can put it back down. Picking up the roll of such lovely torture, I tear off a piece and smile as I dunk his little ass in my god-like coffee and then while he is sputtering, lay him out on top of my desk and tape his ass down.

Yes, I smile and wink. How about that for a little D/s? I am glad your brothers are on their way. They are going to smell you in the cup and soon they shall be laid out keeping you company, as well. Now, so you do not give away the game, how about just a piece of tape over your mouth as well. Oh, sorry Oscar, seems that piece of tape has covered your entire fucking head.

There is a knock at my door. Honestly, from my lips to God’s ears. Going there I open the door, see the four little hellions and say Hello Oscars one and all. Please come in. Then I hear, Plunk, plunk, plunk and plunk...

Brother, you can hear them screeching as these little guys are diving frantically to the bottom of my cup, surfacing then diving again, where are you?

Now, here is the thing about coffee. For me, it is a sacred trust and something I use against the evil ones. So, as much as I love it...well demons react to it...just like any other God-given wonderful thing that I call holy in my demon-defeating arsenal. Coffee boggles their mind and shorts out their reasoning capabilities. The smell of coffee is poison to a demon in his pure state and seriously fucks with them. In a pinch, instant granules will do, but I find that brewed works the best. And if you have enough faith, decaf will even work. But decaf does not get my ass moving in the morning ‘cause apparently, I do not have that much faith!

Now, is coffee the only thing that fucks with them? No, of course not. In this world, when it comes to dealing with evil, there are many truths and you gotta do what works best for you. I have a friend who swears by holy water. To which I have said to her on numerous occasions: You can keep your holy water, unless I can make coffee out of it. You can and I do rebuke them in the name of Jesus. There is power in that name, believe it or not. Bottom line, you have to believe in what you believe. That is called faith.

With all the mayhem and hysteria going on in my two and a half