The Commissioner's Request

[AnonymousQuote]

Hey all! I'll be posting my stories on this forum from here on out, mostly because I want my gallery one DeviantArt to be images that I've worked on rather than stories.
With that said, here's yet another experiment of mine--

"The Commissioner's Request"
By AnonymousQuote

Author's note: if you only want quicksand, and aren't interested in all of this plot business, I suggest skipping to the second to last section (number 8).

-----1
The house was old and decrepit, a beleaguered woman who looked to be in her mid forties sitting on an old wicker deck chair in the front yard. A sign posted at the end of the driveway said simply: "garage sale." Always having been one for collectibles, I ambled up the faded concrete walkway, casting my gaze over the sparse selection of objects on display. The woman barely glanced up at me as I approached, too absorbed in doing nothing to care much for an average looking college kid. I spent about ten minutes there, mindlessly picking up random trinkets before setting them down again, nothing really catching my eye.
When I was about to leave, however, I noticed a small gleam poking out of a clump of grass at the edge of the driveway. Figuring I had simply knocked something from a table during my perusal, I knelt to pick it up and return it to its rightful place. As I held it though, I was certain that I'd never seen the object before. From what I could tell, it was positively ancient, a fountain pen beautifully carved in the shape of a feather, the white stone that constituted it faded and yellowing. My curiosity piqued, I glanced up at the woman, who was staring at the pen in my hand. "How much?" I asked, drawn to this unique piece of art. The woman's hesitation led me to believe that she had never seen the object before, either.
"Five bucks," was the blunt response. I reached into the pocket of my ragged jeans and produced a rumpled wad of dollar bills, hoping that breakfast this morning had left me with enough cash to buy the pen. Fortunately it had, and I counted five one dollar bills into the woman's waiting palm. I pocketed the strange pen, and the woman my money. Before I could leave, she pointed towards the end of a table near the end of the driveway. "There's an inkwell over there. Take it with you-- I certainly don't need it." I gave a quick thank you and grabbed the inkwell, a classic looking black thing with a flip up lid. I could still feel the ink sloshing around inside, so there wasn't any need to go hunting for some. Waving at the woman one last time, I jogged across the street to where my bicycle was waiting and sped off, back towards the small liberal arts college where I had been for the last two years.
-----2
I suppose introductions are in order. My name is Max Forester. I've been described as rather plain, with my "taller than average," slender build and stick straight black hair being nothing for ladies to swoon over. My roommate says I'm handsome, but I've learned to take any romantic advice from him with a grain of salt... I digress. Of course, all of this blather about my features has little to no bearing on the story, and it would be perfectly sound as a literary work without my descriptions, but I figure they help to better paint a picture for the reader. That's what I'm all about, after all. Painting pictures is my job-- or, at least, my part time job.
To help pay for some of my miscellaneous college expenses, I've built up a bit of a reputation online as a quicksand fetish artist. To most, I'm simply known as Quicksand_Max. Not very creative of me, I know, but hey. People remember me, and that's what counts. What I make from commissions isn't even close to enough to make a living off of, but it's enough to go out to eat on the weekends with a couple friends, as well as lessen the pain of buying textbooks each year. Most of my work is traditional, copic markers on paper, almost all of it done right in my dorm room. I think my fetish confuses my roommate, but he's never once said anything about it, which is better than most people. To avoid awkward confrontations with my other classmates, I scan most of my work in the dead of night, in the library computer lab. From there, I upload my creations in full resolution and email them to my clients. Pretty standard procedure. What wasn't standard procedure were the events that transpired late one night in the library, events that spiraled into something I will never forget.
-----3
Clutching a half-empty can of some off brand energy drink in one hand, I jogged to the library, a large folder filled to bursting with thick white paper clamped under my other arm. Each of these pieces of paper was a project: some were created at the behest of a client, others done simply because I was inspired. Most were quicksand related, although there were a couple scattered vore and tentacle hentai pictures among them. This night, my objective was to deliver a completed image to a client, a rather "vanilla" image involving a jungle girl breast deep in a tar pit. My black marker had taken a beating for that one. Pushing the marker from my mind, I eased the door to the library open, squinting as I passed into the brightly lit space. The student librarian glanced up and waved at me, and I gave a brief nod in return before scurrying off to the far corner where the computer lab was.
There was one other person using the computers tonight, a classmate I recognized from my physics lab course. Fortunately he looked to be sound asleep, drooling on his notebooks. I slid behind the desk closest to the scanner and powered on the all-in-one Macintosh, choosing the Windows boot option when I was prompted. Most of the computers at this particular college were Mac shells with the ability to load two different operating systems. When I had finally logged on, I opened the web browser and went straight to my personal email account. Nothing new had transpired, only a few new spam emails that I promptly deleted. Reaching into the folder I had brought, I produced the new image and quietly lifted the scanner's top, placing the thick sheet of paper face down on the scanning surface. While the scanner processed the image, I typed out an email to my client and attached the image when the computer pinged that it had received a new file. I clicked send, retrieving the paper from the scanner.
This particular client had always been fairly proactive about responding to my emails, so I decided to sit around and wait, idly clicking through websites to pass the time. Sure enough, after about ten minutes, the tab for my personal email pinged, a small orange circle appearing at the top left. I closed the site I was currently looking at and shifted over to my email, a new email with the subject "Commission?" sitting in my inbox. I frowned, thinking it odd that my client would choose to reply to an old email with the payment rather than simply reply to the new one I had sent. I opened it, and to my surprise it wasn't the old client, but a new commission request. It was fairly brief, a request for me to add a username to my email I.M. list so that we could discuss the terms for a new commission in real time. Intrigued, I added the username to my chat, the grey text promptly turning black with a green circle next to it, meaning that the other person had accepted my request and was currently online. I initiated the conversation.
--Quicksand_Max: Good to hear you're interested in a commission! What are you looking for?
--Legend89756: Do you do sequences? I was looking for a multiple image quicksand commission.
Somewhat surprised, I rifled through my folder, looking for any past sequences I had done. Finding a few, I responded.
--Quicksand_Max: Absolutely! There's a fixed price for each image based on the setting and how complex the character is. Who did you want sinking?
I waited for almost ten minutes for his reply, imagining that he was deliberating about which damsel he was going to imperil. Finally, his message came through.
--Legend89756: Her name's Julia. Do you need a reference at all?
I opened Google and searched for "Julia anime" and "Julia character." Not surprisingly, millions of results popped up. I would need the reference. I said so in the chat, and his reply came through almost instantly.
--Legend89756: I should have just given it to you-- the image is attached. Have you ever done something like this before?
Confused as to his meaning (of course I'd done quicksand commissions before), I clicked on the attachment, named simply "Julia.jpg." I was shocked to see that the image was not of an anime or game character, but an actual person! She was easily one of the prettiest women I had ever seen, long chestnut brown hair cascading down across her shoulders and framing a young, exuberant face. She was certainly shapely, well defined curves displayed perfectly by a cobalt blue bikini accented with a futuristic looking white pattern. I pegged her to be in her early twenties, possibly out of college. Obviously, this was Julia. I fired off a reply.
--Quicksand_Max: Wow, she's good looking! It will be quite a bit more expensive for each image, as I'll have to spend a lot more time capturing her looks and making sure she's as true to life as possible.
While I waited for his reply, I plugged the image into a reverse search engine, trying to see if she was an actress or other well-known figure. Nothing came up, however, leading me to believe that she was an acquaintance (or friend of) my new client. I decided not to ask. Finally, the messenger pinged.
--Legend89756: A larger price is fine. Could I have her sinking in thick mud, in a forest?
--Quicksand_Max: Certainly. How many images were you thinking in the series?
A lengthy conversation followed about the number of images in the series, her pose in each one, and other final details. I had borrowed a sheet of paper from my sleeping classmate, and had scrawled on it the various price details and estimates. The final price was higher than anything I had ever been paid before, and even so, "Legend" was willing to pay half of it up front. Excited, I gathered all of my papers and logged off the computer, rushing out of the library towards my dorm. It was a holiday, so I had plenty of time to get started.
-----4
I forewent sleep that night, deciding rather to begin the preliminary sketches for Julia's paper form. Taking a seat across from my standard-issue dorm desk (now stained by marker residue), I pulled out my phone and tapped through my messenger until I found her picture. Quickly saving the image to my phone's drive, I whipped out a fresh sheet of paper and my trusty mechanical pencil. Again pulling up the photo, I scrutinized every aspect of her figure, carefully noting everything from the curve of her waist to the way her hair flowed across her chest and shoulders.
Time ticked away and the hours of the morning grew small, the stars fading as the sun began to shed its light over the horizon. My roommate groaned and rolled over, landing on the floor with a thud. I paid him no mind, even when he glanced over my shoulder, as I was on the last iteration of my character sketch before I began the actual process of working on the commission. Several minutes later, I rocked back in my chair, rubbing the bleariness from my eyes. The final product lay in front of me, a detailed, black and white rendering of Julia sitting on the page, a hand on her hip and a playful twinkle in her eye. She was still dressed in that bikini of course, as I had been instructed to utilize that outfit. Satisfied with my work, I shambled my way to my bed, and passed out immediately.
-----5
The next day I started the actual process of sketching out her poses. None of them were particularly challenging, a lot of them being poses I had at least sketched once or twice. There were seven pictures in the set, each of them picturing Julia at progressively greater depths: with her feet stuck, sunk to her calves, to her thighs, to her slender waist, to her bust with her arms trapped below the surface, to her chin, and finally, beneath the surface. I felt myself get a little harder with every picture, my mind unconsciously reacting to my fetish, but I knew that letting myself get too "carried away" would be detrimental to my work. So I did my best to clear my head and continued sketching. When I got around to drawing the final picture, when she had sunk completely beneath the surface, leaving only bubbles and a few strands of hair, I couldn't bring myself to let the sequence end there. I sketched out one last image of her bursting from beneath the surface, hand stretched into the air, searching for a savior, one last breath of hope. I would be glad for that little gesture later, though I didn't quite know it yet.
It had taken the better part of a day to work out those rough lines, and I let myself get a night's sleep before I went on to the hard lines. When I was ready to start, I produced my standard line tool, a precise, black marker. It was, in all practicality, a pen, however, its ultra-thin tip barely thicker than that of a gel pen. I uncapped it, only to almost splash ink all over the sketches. The tip had somehow snapped off, and it had been leaking into the cap. Annoyed, I discarded the now-useless tool, and cast about for anything else I could use to finish the pictures. My eyes wandered to the pen I had purchased at the garage sale, its exquisite carving tempting me to use it. I knew in the back of my mind that it would be insanely risky to use a pen like that on such a delicate project, the possibility of splashing or dripping ink all over being very real. I felt compelled to use it, however, a feeling that I couldn't quite explain. I prepped it for use and touched it to the paper, carefully overlaying the sketches I had made yesterday. As I went, I worked faster and faster, the pen seeming to grow warmer the more I worked. As I drew the last line, I realized that the pen really had gotten very warm. I hadn't noticed it before, but now that I was finished, it gave off a searing blast of heat, causing me to drop it to the table with a curse, sucking on my fingers. I eyed the pen warily, wondering if it was haunted or something. My fingers had ceased burning, so I cleared my head and dismissed it as some weird freak of nature. As I went back over the papers one last time, erasing the pencils from underneath the pen, I noticed that some of the little ink spills that I had made were gone. Uneasy, I flipped rapidly through the remaining pages, in time to see that an ink blot was shrinking, vanishing completely from the page. I had been able to dismiss the pen, but upon seeing that the ink was nowhere to be found, on the other side of the paper, the table, or anywhere, I was genuinely freaked out. This was certainly not normal.
I was ready to completely scrap the project there and refund the money, claiming that life had gotten in the way. I almost did, my finger hovering over the send button in my inbox. I took another look at the payment information, though, and was convinced to continue. I was being payed handsomely for this, and it would be a shame to abandon it now, with so little left in the process. And so, I found myself back at the desk a day later, carefully coloring the lines I had made. Looking at them with a clear head, I noticed that they were some of the best lines I had ever made, flawless and unbroken, sharp points and clean lines adding a lot of realism to the work. Allowing my ego to inflate a little bit, I smiled and continued working.
It took me much longer to finish the colors, almost half a week passing before I slid back from my desk, the eight pages laid out in front of me. I knew beyond a doubt that I had produced my best work, Julia's figure perfectly capturing her real-life appearance. The mud looked thick and deep, a gaping maw to the depths of the earth. The backgrounds were crisp and clean, the details not distracting from the rest of the image. That night, I would scan the images in and receive the last half of my payment.
-----6
The transaction was uneventful, Legend being online at the time I uploaded the images. He promptly paid the last half, greatly pleased with how they had turned out. As an artist, feedback like that always felt good, a free ego stroking. He said that I could upload them to my sharing profile, and I did so with anticipation, knowing that the feedback from there would be just as positive.
That night came and went, and comments piled up on each image, most of them expressing something related to how hot Julia was and how nicely I had captured everything. Commission requests flooded in, and for the next few months, I was swamped. I had a new copic liner now, fortunately, the money from the first commission being well more than enough to buy a whole new array of markers. I worked frantically, and while none turned out quite as good as the first, I was still pleased with my work, and what progress I was making. As time passed, I forgot completely about the incident with the searing pen and disappearing ink...
-----7
It was one week from the start of the next university year, and I had taken a sabbatical of sorts in order to relax and clear my head before my life got crazy again. I had gone out to the middle of nowhere, to a little resort in the woods on the side of a mountain. It wasn't much, just a lodge and a collection of cabins, nestled into a beautiful forest not far from an icy cold, spring-fed lake. Once or twice a year, a couple of friends and I made the trek up here to escape campus life, but this time I had come alone, just for a weekend. The resort was quiet, the other cabins occupied mostly by older couples. I had only seen a couple other people my age, and most of them had been from a much louder resort down the mountain, one that frequently hosted cross country teams; teams who invariably ran up the mountain to the spring. I was a little irritated by this, because I would have liked to enjoy the stark beauty of the place in peace, but it wasn't really possible.
I did find a time, however, very early one morning, before the teams could start their daily workouts. Dim, red-gold sunlight filtered through the canopy of leaves as I walked to the spring in nothing more than a pair of black compression shorts, carrying a towel as well as a sketchbook and that feather pen, not knowing if inspiration would strike me as I was out. I reveled in the brisk wind of the mountain, goosebumps rising on my skin as the morning breeze blew down from the peak. My feet crunched on the path, fallen pine needles providing a soft surface. I turned around a bend in the path, towards the spring, the air growing colder as I neared the frigid water. The surface was like glass, the breeze calmer in the shelter of the mountainside.
I was about to step into the clearing when the glassy surface shattered, a head breaking the surface. Mortified, I leapt behind the cover of a nearby tree, instinctively moving my towel to cover my crotch. I hadn't expected to see anyone else up this early, and thusly I was dressed as I was, with the stretchy black fabric of my shorts outlining every little detail of my manhood. The figure that rose from the water was decidedly female, and I felt my face grow red, though I was certain she couldn't see me. As I watched her step out of the water, something clicked inside my head: I had seen the bikini she was wearing before. I squinted, trying to see it better across the distance. She turned towards me briefly, and I knew for certain. It was the very same bikini that I had drawn in that commission for Legend! I was about to dismiss it as a weird coincidence, until she turned towards me one more time, and I recognized her face. It was Julia! The very same girl that I had drawn sinking in quicksand was standing right in front of me! I crouched further down, a strange sense of guilt washing over me. The fact that someone, somewhere was probably getting off to this person sinking in mud made me more than a little uncomfortable.
After what seemed like an interminable amount of time, she finally walked off, down another trail that led away from the spring. After making sure that she was really gone, I stepped out from my cover and tiptoed towards the spring, still a little on edge. As I came closer, I saw a little pile of fabric on the ground next to the water. From what I could tell it was a towel, which wouldn't have been anything important in its own, but there was a phone as well-- one of the newest models. I glanced towards the path she had walked down, craning my head to see through the trees. It seemed like a careless thing to forget, but it had been almost twenty minutes (I had hidden for quite some time) and she wasn't back. I sighed, wrapping my towel around my waist and grabbing her towel and phone, determined to get them back to her.
About ten minutes into my walk, I started to feel a bloom of warmth in my left hand. I glanced down, only to see that the pen was glowing, getting hotter with every passing second. I got a burst of deja vu as the pen blasted my hand, forcing me to drop it into the dirt. A curl of smoke wafted up from where it landed, the leaves around it charred and blackened. Shortly the smoke stopped, and I knelt to pick it up, dropping everything I was holding in the process. I felt exposed again, the wind suddenly picking up and cutting through my feeble covering. Shuffling into the cover of a nearby tree for shelter from the still-increasing gale, I scrambled to gather my belongings again, cursing as my notebook caught the wind and blew rapidly away. I must have looked ridiculous, clutching a towel to my practically naked form and running through the woods after a notebook. Fortunately it slapped against a tree, and dropped to the ground. I paused as I picked it up, the forest eerily silent now. A strange tension filled the air; something felt very wrong, as though something terrible was about to occur. Suddenly all the tension snapped, and a rumble ran through the earth. A small gasp came from behind the tree, and all the weight vanished from the pen. Whatever was happening now, I was certain that the pen had something to do with it-- some kind of sorcery was at work.
Steeling my wit, I peeked out from behind the tree to see what devilry the pen had caused. I couldn't believe my eyes. Right in front of me was the scene I had drawn so long ago-- the commission for Legend! There on the path before me was the girl in the blue bikini, her feet sunk into the earth.
-----8
I couldn't understand it. Was the pen making what I had drawn a reality? How was that even possible? My mouth dropped open as I watched, the black-brown earth folding beneath her weight, creating a small pit with her feet at the center. To her credit, she didn't panic right away, keeping her movements calm and collected. Slowly, she worked her legs up and down, pulling the mud up with her ankles, the thick slurry stretching like taffy, not letting her go. With every movement, she forced herself a little deeper, the mud more than eager to start devouring her. I was torn-- half of me wanted to rescue this beautiful damsel in distress, while the other half wanted nothing more than to watch this impossible scenario play out.
I watched the mud slide up the sensitive area behind her knees, imagining that her toes would be pointing further and further downwards, allowing her to sink even faster. It was easy to see that she was getting nervous now, her movements coming faster and less smoothly, the surface of the mud rippling with her struggles. Bubbles started to emerge on the surface, the sound of their bursts combining with the sounds of the mud sucking at her legs to create an intoxicating "music" that only a few could understand. A little shriek escaped her as she lost her balance, her rump plopping into the thick mud. She heaved forwards, pulling herself away from the surface with a loud sucking sound and leaving a deep impression where her butt had been. She stopped struggling briefly, her chest heaving, a slight sheen of sweat on her forehead. I panicked as she turned towards where I was hiding, her eyes wide with nervousness and her cheeks pink from the exertion. From my position behind the tree, I finally heard her voice, calling out to the empty wilderness for help.
I took a moment to look beneath the towel that was around my waist, not at all surprised that I was fully erect. This was the living embodiment of my most deep fantasies, after all. My cock was pushing against the waistband of my shorts, almost pushing through. I had forgotten my prior unease with seeing this girl in the flesh, and had even started to forget the idea of helping her to begin with. All I wanted to do at this point was watch her sink. And sink, she certainly would. Renewed slurping sounds from the mudpit drew me from my hiding place, in time to see her release her left leg and allow the mud to reclaim it. Had she tried that tactic earlier it would likely have been more successful, but as it was, with her knees and lower thighs beneath the surface, she didn't have much leverage against the mud's sucking force. She leaned back, lying almost supine on the surface of the mud, wriggling her legs in an attempt to break the suction. Her elbows dug into the wobbling surface of the quicksand, the goo parting beneath her arms and almost closing over them before she stood, abandoning her newest tactic. She was visibly sinking faster now, the mud loosening to the consistency of thick oatmeal as she struggled. She cried out again, her voice more desperate. Some part of me wanted to go and help her, but it was overwhelmed by the part that wanted to jack off to this fetishist's dream.
Unable to lie down now that her hips were sinking under, she swayed back and forth, trying to lift a leg up through the mud and gain a foothold. I imagined what she should be feeling-- an enormous, building pressure on her shapely legs that denied all movement or chance at freedom. My eyes locked onto her butt, lifted slightly as the mud climbed up it, swaying against the growing pull of the slurry, rippling the mud around it and dragging it into strange patterns. Finally the top strap of her thong sank under, a little blue knot visible for another moment before a ripple covered it. I was certain that I was harder than I'd ever been, almost so hard that it hurt. I wasn't even feeling like myself, all my rational sensibilities burned away by an unholy lust. She lunged forwards, leaning down to claw at the leafy foliage at the edge of the pit, her hands pulling long furrows in the mud. When she stood again the mud was creeping up her navel, her hands placed warily on the mud, gauging her decent. I abstractly wondered if she would suddenly become aroused by the sensations of the mud, then dismissed it as folly. I had it pretty damn good as it was. Her descent had slowed considerably for the time being, and she took the time to call yet again for help, searching for someone, anyone to save her from a semi-liquid burial. I had no intention of answering her cries. After pulling desperately at the mud again, searching for a handhold that wasn't there, she switched strategies. Using the leverage gained by her position, sunk almost to her bust, she heaved against the suction, almost making headway before the surface tension of the thick mud broke, burying her hands at her sides. With a visible amount of difficulty, she extracted her hands, gearing up for another try. I knew at the back of my mind that this would be her last chance, and that it would fail. After all, I had painted it that way. She tried again, carefully placing her grip away from the pits created by her last attempt. Slowly, agonizingly, she pushed against the surface, her bust rising by an inch, then two, then three, then four! I gaped. Was I wrong, then? Was this all some deranged fantasy? My thoughts shattered as she failed again, her sensational boobs landing with a plop in the mire, her arms pinned at her sides. The mud clearly had a death grip on her now, her arms squeezed to her sides in a way more characteristic of snake peril, or vore. In fact, it almost looked like the earth was going to swallow her, small rivulets of water running down the sides of the little pit she had created and pooling near her body, the drool of some massive earth creature. She twisted violently, her struggles now an exercise of futility, and dignity. She didn't have a prayer at escape, but it wouldn't be brave to go down without a fight. Her chest heaved against the mounting pressure of the mud, her tits pressed up against her body by the earth's encroaching maw. Her shiny hair gathered around her shoulders as her bust disappeared from sight, its light brown coloration standing out against the dark mud. The mud seemed eager to finish the job, pulling her mouth beneath the surface right in the middle of her last cry for help. Her eyes went wide, hazel orbs glistening with panic as her shouts were reduced to an ineffective whimper. The image was too much, and I unconsciously came at that moment, white poking through the black fabric of my shorts as I hit the most intense climax I had experienced in ages. Everything went dark, my mind lost in the haze of euphoria...
-----9
I must have made a sound, because as I finished, her eyes flicked over to my hiding spot, locking with mine. I was floored by a sudden wash of guilt. This wasn't some movie, made with trained actors and shallow pits, this was real, despite any sorcery that might be at play. Stuffing my dick back into my shorts, face blazing with shame at what I had allowed to happen, I lunged toward the edge of the pit, hands stretched towards what was left of Julia's head. I slammed into the ground almost three feet too short, only able to watch as the mud folded over her head, leaving only strands of hair that were rapidly pulled under. I knelt at the edge of the pit, crestfallen. I stared blankly at the center of the pit, a round pinhole all that remained to show that a great struggle had taken place here. So shell-shocked was I that I barely noticed when the surface began to ripple, an impossible amount of time later. A figure exploded from the mud and I fell backwards, stunned. This was my last chance, I realized, one that I had given myself all that time ago. This was the pen's sorcery running its course, and if I failed here, it was over. Galvanized to action, I locked eyes with the muddy figure, the white and hazel gaze unmistakably hers. I pulled with all of my might, surprised at how strong the mud actually was. I gripped her hand with both of mine, her other hand locking around my forearm. A small growl might have escaped me, but I'm not sure. Inch by inch, Julia appeared again, the mud gradually relinquishing its hold on her body. Suddenly, with a loud sucking sound she edged free, my pull heaving her out of the mud with much more force than I had anticipated. She flew towards me, crashing against me and sending us both to the ground, her muddy body lying prone on top of me, both of us breathing hard. We locked eyes, and again I felt a wash of guilt at what I had done.
"Thank you for saving me," she said breathlessly. "I didn't think that anyone was going to come!"
I couldn't listen. She clearly didn't know what I had been doing the whole time beforehand, and now she was acting like I was some sort of hero. I felt immeasurably dirty, nothing like whatever she was making me out to be. Gently, I eased myself from beneath her, doing my best to hide my shame. I mumbled a few words incoherently, picking myself up and hurrying to my hiding spot, finding her phone and towel, leaving them on the side of the path.
"I saw that you had lost these," I managed. "I wanted to bring them back... It's fortunate that I found you when I did." The words felt foul coming out of my mouth. I had almost watched her die.
Unable to stand it, I grabbed my things and ran back towards the spring, vowing to destroy the pen.
"Hey!" I heard her call out behind me, "Where are you going?"
I didn't turn back, pausing only to hurl the wicked pen into the frigid waters, hoping that no one would find it. I was still standing there, panting, when I heard footsteps behind me. A hand on my shoulder broke me from my reverie. It was Julia.
"Stop it. I don't deserve your gratitude." My voice cracked as I spoke. "I almost didn't save you."
She didn't say anything for quite some time, but didn't remove her hand from my shoulder. It was some time before she said anything.
"But you did. I'm still standing here, alive. Without you, that wouldn't be the case. So, regardless of what you might have done, you still deserve some form of thanks for saving my life."
Hearing the words from her mouth eased my shame a bit, but I knew that nothing would fully take away the guilt of what I'd done.
She pulled me roughly into a hug, and I was struck by how tall she actually was, my chin only an inch or so above her shoulder. Hesitantly, I returned the gesture, still not sure that I deserved this. Finally she pulled away, leaving me standing awkwardly as she moved towards the spring. "I'm going to clean off," she said, turning slightly towards me. "It won't take very long-- I'd like to talk to you more after, so could you stick around?" I didn't respond, only watching as she waded into the water, the mud melting off of her as she moved. As she submerged I walked quietly away, back towards my cabin, knowing that my transgressions would ultimately have arisen during our talk. I didn't need any reminder of what had happened, and I would rather that Julia stayed ignorant of what I had been doing beforehand. Sure, someday on the internet she might come across my images and guess, but she could never be sure. And that, in my mind, was the best way it could be.

~fin

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I hope you enjoyed this story! If you did (or didn't), please feel free to tell me why in the comments! I love critique, and it will certainly help to improve what I put out.
Also, PLEASE report any grammatical errors you might have noticed. I have a nasty habit of writing these things on my phone in little chunks at a time, and my thumbs are really big, so some are bound to happen.
Thanks!

[QUIXXSANDER]

A very well written tale. You described the sinking scenes very well. But more breaks in the text would make it a bit easier to read.

[DJlurker]

Unique idea for a story! Not bad

So, does this mean you'll be posting your old stories here was well?