Two Scenes - Micah's Proclivities

In our writing group, we try to do some sort of exercise for every meeting, whether it's during our meet-up or done as some sort of between-class assignment. Most recently, our exercise was of the latter variety, where the goal was to showcase a character's personality by writing two scenes involving the same situation, but with a different character with whom to interact.

I think the idea was a very good one, and I think that the lot of us did a very good job. Here are the scenes that I wrote. They're a bit on the racy side, but I like how they came out.

Micah swirled his straw through his iced tea. The halfway-melted ice circled around and around without even the fainted of clinks. The otter let his gaze fix on the small wedge of lemon that bobbed along as his straw cut through.

Jarvis, the fox sitting across from him, cleared his throat. Micah looked up and blinked a few times, pretending that he hadn't heard the previous question. “Huh?” he said, scooching back upright. The look in the fox's eyes, though, told Micah that he wasn't fooling anyone.

“I said, what's this I hear about you on Saturday night?”

“What, you mean Trevor's party?” Micah asked. “Yeah, I was there. Weren't you invited?”

The fox sighed. “You know I don't care for Trevor's crowd,” he said. “And you know that's not what I'm asking. What's this I hear about you and Tommy?”

Micah tried not to clearly envision the raccoon's face. “Yeah, he was there, too,” the otter said.

“From what I hear, you two were definitely keen on one another's presence.”

The otter withheld a sigh. “Look, is there something you're trying to get at?”

Jarvis' face was blank. “Does Jason know?”

“Does Jason know what?”

“Does Jason know that you spent Saturday night making out with some other guy?”

Micah looked back into his iced tea. “What business is it of yours?”

“It's my business because I don't think he should hear it from one of the other several people who witnessed said make-out session.”

This time, the otter didn't even try to hold in his sigh. “And what if he does hear about it?” he mumbled. “It's not like he's my boyfriend or anything.”

“Try telling him that,” the fox replied. He looked sad, now. “Come on, Micah, you know how he's going to take that.”

“Yeah? So then why don't you tell him?” The otter almost knocked his glass over as he continued to fidget with it. He puffed out his chest and pulled himself back out of the slouch he'd slunk into. “What's the big deal, anyway?” he added before Jarvis could say anything. “All we did was kiss.”

“Kiss with your hand down his pants?” Jarvis asked. “Seriously, man, you and Tommy were the big gossip point of the week. And you know how Trevor's gang is; you're not going to be able to escape notoriety from this one.”

Micah dropped his straw into his glass of iced tea and pushed his chair back. “Well, if Jason wants to buy into town gossip, who am I to tell him what to believe?”

“Wait, so you're really not going to tell him.”

The otter was already on his feet, fishing through his wallet to find some bills to drop on the table. “If he finds out about it, and he still wants to be my boyfriend, he'll forgive me,” he said, before turning to walk out.

And here's the second:

Micah stared into his Long Island Iced Tea. The colors were separating, so the otter gave it a swirl to mix it all back together. Nothing was worse than a badly-mixed Long Island. Well, at least as far as trips to bars went.

“Come on, spill it,” Trevor said, the skunk's snout twisted up into a huge grin.

“Spill what?” the otter asked. He chuckled preemptively.

The skunk kicked Micah's shin under the table. “You know what I mean,” he said. “You and Tommy at my party. What's the deal?”

“You were there,” Micah said, his thick tail brushing against the floor as it gave a flick. “We were, ah, attracting quite the little audience, too.” The smile on Trevor's face made the otter feel a flush of pride.

“Oh, please, you know how shitfaced I got,” the skunk said. “If I was watching, I sure as hell don't remember any of it. Details, man, details.”

Micah shrugged it off modestly. “There's not much to tell, really,” he said. “I didn't get as far as I wanted, but that's mostly just because by the end of the night, Tommy was on the verge of passing out.”

“You didn't blow him on the couch again like you did with Ken, did you?” Trevor asked. He had this look of worry on his face, but Micah surmised that the skunk was more concerned with the prospect of having missed a free show.

The otter shook his head, though. “Nah. Just most of a hand job,” he said. “Actually, given how much he was drinking, I'm impressed he was even able to stay hard as long as he did.”

“How much of it do you think he remembers?” Trevor asked.

“Probably enough that he wouldn't hesitate to let me into his pants again,” Micah replied with a flick of his tongue. “Not that it was all that difficult to get in there in the first place.”

“You don't really seem to have that problem with anyone,” the skunk pointed out before taking a sip of his own drink.

Micah chuckled. “Well, except with Jason,” he said. “You figure after four months, he wouldn't still be so prudish about going all the way.”

“He probably feels intimidated,” the skunk said. “I mean, given all the action you get, he might just expect that he'd be inadequate.”

“Are you kidding?” Micah asked. “You don't honestly think he knows about all that, do you?”

Trevor chuckled again. “Okay, I think you must be joking, here,” he said. “You think your reputation doesn't proceed you far enough that Jason doesn't already know?”

“He sure as hell doesn't act like he knows,” Micah replied. “Given his general attitude towards sex in general, I think he'd run for the hills if he knew what I slut I was.”

“Hey, you're not just a slut,” Trevor said, poking a finger at the otter's snout. “You're everybody's favorite slut.”

Micah preened. “Flatterer,” he said.

“As if I need flattery to get anywhere,” the skunk said with a wink, and all Micah could do was grin again.

I tend not to make my stuff quite so, well, overt when it comes to the workshop itself, but for whatever reason, this situation just kind of called for that level of bluntness, and that's how the character was coming together in my head, so I just went ahead and wrote him as I saw him.