Homecoming (Part 1) - A Narrative Adaptation of the MPV Video "Just a Little Further," Starring Sarah Michelle

[JSample]

Over the years I've seen occasional quicksand videos that I've recognized as being video adaptations of stories that I had read earlier online; with what follows below, I've reversed that process. The following quicksand story is part one of my narrative adaptation of the Mud Puddle Visuals video "Just a Little Further," starring Sarah Michelle. I wish to emphasize as strongly as I can that this story is not about Sarah Michelle herself; such a story about a real person would be both creepy and inappropriate. Instead, this is a creative retelling that interprets and expands upon the background, character, and story of "Sarah" as portrayed by Sarah Michelle in the video. While my story encompasses and expands upon the premise and plot progression that are depicted in the video, the additional interpretive material is solely the product of my own imagination. If anyone would like to read my review of the video, wherein I discuss the various emotional and psychological insights and responses that ultimately led me to write this story, the link is at viewtopic.php?p=112892#p112169.

Because MPV owns the copyright to "Just a Little Further," I contacted Dave Lodoski last July after completing the first draft of this story to ask his permission to post the final version here and to ask some questions regarding the nature of the story itself and the contents of my interpretive expansions. He characterized my story as fan fiction, which I suppose that it indeed is, and said that he saw no problem with it. Because my story interprets Sarah Michelle's performance in the video, I also contacted her to get her feedback on it, and she very graciously took time out of her busy schedule to reply to me. She was both pleasantly surprised and enthusiastic to learn that her performance had inspired a fan of hers to such a degree of creativity (my first attempt at a quicksand story in nearly thirty years), and I am posting this story here with her permission and approval. My hope is that my amateur prose efforts have done justice both to her performance in the video and to her personal and professional capabilities as an actress, and I also hope that forum members here enjoy reading my story as much as I did writing it.
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HOMECOMING (PART 1)
by Jason Sample
June 2017-February 2018

The mid-afternoon sun shone lazily through the trees as Sarah made her way down a barely discernible foot path toward a small clearing in the foliage at the bottom of a hollow deep in the forest. She had been worried that she might have taken a wrong turn in the half hour that she had spent hiking through the woods, and more than once she had almost lost her way after stumbling and nearly falling over partially buried tree trunks that had long ago come crashing to the ground. But as the path leveled out and the vegetation thinned before her, she thought that she might have finally caught sight of her goal.

“Oh, is this it?” she asked herself expectantly. She turned and looked around herself to verify that, yes, this was the only clearing that she could see in the vicinity, and then, satisfied that she was in the right place, stepped forward in anticipation. “Yeah, I think it is.” She reached out and parted the chest-high branches of the undergrowth that stood before her to reveal the open space amid the trees, and there, glistening in the bright sunlight, lay the surface of a mud pit, the so-called “dare spot” that she had been looking for, the result of an upwelling of water through the loamy earth from an underground spring. “Sssweeeeet... yes!” she exulted with laughter as she gleefully stepped out into the open, pleased with herself for having successfully navigated the roundabout route to her destination. “Oh, yeah,” she confirmed to herself, glancing up at the trees that towered over her, “this is definitely the spot.”

She took an inquisitive step forward toward the edge of the bog that she had heard so much about. “Hell, yeah!” Sarah enthused, her pretty face radiant with delight as the sunlight streaming through the leaves and branches overhead played softly over her features. She had worn just enough makeup that morning to highlight her deep brown eyes and high cheekbones, and her rosy pink lipstick accentuated the full shape of her lips as she smiled eagerly. Her neatly trimmed bangs brushed her forehead gently above her eyebrows, while her long brunette hair hung freely, framing her face complimentarily on either side before cascading over her shoulders and spilling down the front and back of her white sleeveless top. Her well-toned arms swung lightly at her sides as she adjusted her footing in the soft earth, while her faded blue jeans hugged her hips and legs snugly, revealing that she took her exercise and fitness routines quite seriously, thank you very much. Her casual summertime ensemble was completed by a pair of comfortable old running shoes that looked as though they had traveled many a mile even before she had put them on in preparation for her afternoon endeavor. All together her unassuming, carefree appearance evoked the traditional image of the girl next door, and while she wouldn’t have presumed to say so herself, her girlfriends and more than one boyfriend had often told her that she was beautiful: “You should be a model, Sarah!” And if everything this afternoon went as she now hoped, by the time it was over both she and her outfit would be a beautiful mess.

Sarah stepped gingerly from side to side as she approached the boggy edge of the pit. “Whoa,” she chuckled as her feet shifted in the wet soil, almost tipping her off balance. Her friends had been talking up this place as a super-secret “dare spot” where they would come on hot, lazy summer weekends when they had nothing better to do and play a gutsy game of daring one another to see how far and deep they could jump into the bracingly cool mud and then pull themselves out without any help. The guys who ventured into the pit would usually put on a big show of raw strength and testosterone as they lurched about, grunting like cavemen as they heaved their legs up and out of the mire and using the opportunity to throw handfuls of muck at their friends, who would duck and dodge the incoming rounds as well as they could, while the girls would sometimes playfully adopt a “damsel in distress” persona, begging their boyfriends to “save” them from a horrible fate and making all sorts of teasing promises as to how their heroes would be rewarded afterward. These expeditions were usually accompanied by the consumption of copious amounts of alcohol, which would eventually lead an inebriated thrill-seeker or two to end up stuck in the pit up to their thighs or so, their arms pinwheeling crazily as they leaned unsteadily in all directions before finally flopping over drunkenly in the mud to the raucous entertainment of their friends, who would then laughingly pull their hapless fellow revelers back to the edge. As long as no one fell over face first and dead drunk into the more watery parts of the pit, no lasting harm would be done.

A few times already her best friend Joyce had invited Sarah to join everyone else at the spot, but for varying reasons her weekend schedules had consistently prevented her from doing so, which was why when an unexpected weekday off from work presented itself she had jumped at the opportunity to check out this place on her own. She had considered that her solo trek through the woods to this remote location might be especially “daring” and maybe even a little bit chancy, but that just added to her sense of adventure. She wasn't worried about getting into any real trouble; after all, she was a big girl and could take care of herself, and despite any possible risk she wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Besides, Joyce had said something in passing that had especially piqued Sarah’s interest: “Well, if you can come, make sure you wear something you don't mind getting all dirty and soaked with mud.” That comment had unexpectedly sparked a certain childhood memory in Sarah’s mind, one that she hadn’t recalled in years, and she had struggled at the time to keep her facial expression from betraying her sudden curiosity to her friend. And now that she was finally standing here at the edge of the pit, Sarah thought with a playful smile, she would be able to kill two birds with one stone: to see just how “daring” she could be on her own while also indulging that long-forgotten memory. “Oooh,” she said mischievously to herself as her left foot sank slightly into the mud, “this is gonna be fun.”

Sarah pulled her hair up from her shoulders to the back of her neck for a moment before letting it fall again. “Okay,” she said as she began to take several tentative steps forward from the mushy edge of the pit, enjoying how her shoes sank ankle deep with each step and laughing at the quiet squelching noises they made each time she pulled them up and out. “Huh,” she observed after a few seconds of exploring what still seemed only to be soft ground, “it’s not as deep as I thought it was gonna be; I thought...” Her words trailed off as she moved forward into slightly looser earth a short distance in from the edge. Her smile returned and she chuckled as her feet continued making their squishy noises in the loosening mud. “Hmm... ooh! Okay...” she exclaimed lightly as her right shoe made a particularly amusing sound as she pulled it up. She laughed again to herself, maintaining her balance as she neared what appeared to be a much wetter spot in front of her. “Whoa... hmm...” she murmured as she held her arms out slightly to keep from stumbling. The warmth of the sunlight from above, the fresh scent of the woods around her, and the inviting surface of the mud pit before her made her feel like a kid again, and Sarah’s mind wandered back to that singular memory that her friend had unwittingly awakened...


“Look at me, Mommy!”

Sarah’s mother looked up from her soapy dishes in the sink to see her five-year-old daughter standing next to the breakfast table, her angelic face beaming in her innocence as she held her hands out at her sides, her small frame soaking wet with a combination of muddy water and watery mud that was dripping from her arms, legs, and clothes and quickly pooling on what had been a freshly mopped kitchen floor. “Aaaahhhh!” her mother exclaimed, dropping a pan of water on the counter as she instinctively sprang to contain this latest incursion of the rural outdoors into her bastion of cleanliness. “Shoo! Go! Back outside!” she shouted urgently at Sarah, who up till this moment had thought that her mother would find the results of her daughter's latest outdoor adventure entertaining. Sarah certainly had. She quickly retreated out the back door, leaving a fresh trail of water and mud mingling with the one that she had brought in with her.

“Get the hose!” her mother commanded from inside the house as she resolutely recruited her mop, bucket, and floor cleaner for a massive ground assault against the sloppy enemy that had dared invade her kitchen. Outside, Sarah, struggling to unroll the unwieldy hose from its mount on the back of the house, realized that she might be in trouble with her mother. Just minutes earlier she had been playing at the bank of the shallow, slow-moving creek at the edge of her home’s large backyard, where the lazy motion of the water had over time laid down a layer of fine sediment at a bend in the creek bed. There little Sarah had whiled away the last half hour happily making mud pies, squishing her hands and feet into the soupy earth, jumping and splashing around, putting on “makeup,” and pouring water over her head with her beach bucket, making a complete mess of herself. She was in kid heaven.

War is hell, Sarah's mother reflected as she marshaled her forces to repel the slimy foe from its advance on the linoleum. She was gaining ground steadily against her mucky opponent when she suddenly felt a light spray of water fall against her shin. She looked up to see her daughter’s form, still dripping wet with water and mud, silhouetted in the frame of the open back door, hose and sprayer at the ready to help her mommy clean up the floor.

“No, Sarah!” her mother shouted, her eyes widening in horror as she realized that she was suddenly facing a literal waterloo. “Not in the house!”

“But you said to get the hose!” Sarah protested in five-year-old confusion.

“I meant to get it to hose yourself off outside!” her mother replied, gesturing emphatically toward the open doorway. Sarah withdrew once more to the backyard as her mother again turned her attention to her counter offensive. After a few wringings of her mop and refillings of her bucket, coupled with a brilliant flanking maneuver by a pair of ratty old towels that she had drafted from the laundry room, the battle was finally over, the goopy adversary vanquished... at least, she reckoned wearily, until the next time the great outdoors followed her adventuresome daughter back inside the house. She put away her cleaning equipment, retired the towels to the trash bin, and glanced out the window at her fearless little girl, who was now trying to obey her mother by cleaning herself off with the hose.

Sarah’s mother sighed. Her sternness toward Sarah had been only for the moment, and she regretted having raised her voice to her daughter. She was just having fun when she had tracked mud into the kitchen, her mother realized, and hadn't meant any harm. There had been a time in her own childhood when she had enjoyed playing outside in the mud and dirt as well. She smiled and chuckled as she watched Sarah fight to aim the heavy, twisting hose in the right direction to rinse herself off, and then laughed out loud at how the spraying water seemed to be going everywhere except on her daughter. Her mirth over Sarah’s battle with the hose was interrupted when she suddenly realized that her little girl was wearing her good play clothes. “Oh, Sarah,” she frowned as she walked out the back door, down the steps, and out to the yard where she retrieved the wayward sprayer from her daughter’s hands. “These are some of the clothes we had bought for you to wear to kindergarten in the fall,” she said as she knelt to the ground and gingerly squeezed the trigger on the sprayer, being careful not to blast her daughter with water as she hosed the mud and dirt off her. Sarah stood patiently under the gentle shower. “I’m sorry, Mommy,” she apologized as the muddy water spilled off her to the ground, “I was just playing at the creek and I forgot.”

“Well,” her mother said as she sprayed more of the mud off, “you certainly won’t be wearing these clothes to kindergarten. I don't know how I’ll ever get them clean.” She sighed again and concluded, “They’ll just have to be your bang-around play clothes from now on.” She looked at her drenched daughter, now mostly mud-free, standing in the wet grass, her waterlogged top and shorts stained in varying shades of light and dark brown. Sarah looked back up at her uncertainly.

“Am I in trouble, Mommy?” she asked worriedly.

Her mother smiled gently. “No, Little Miss Adventure, you’re not in trouble,” she replied, addressing her daughter by her favorite nickname for her. “I know you love the outdoors; I did too when I was your age. But I do wish we could avoid this particular problem in the future,” she said as she straightened up. “I tell you what,” she suggested, “let’s make a compromise.”

“What's a ‘com-pro-mise’?” Sarah asked, awkwardly pronouncing the new word.

“That’s when we make an agreement where we each get something we want,” her mother answered. “You love to play outside in the dirt and mud, and I want a clean house. So from now on, when you go to play at the creek, you wear your old bathing suit, the one with the flowers on it. That way you won’t mess up your good clothes, and if you do get some mud on you, we can rinse you off out here and you won't track it all into the house. Deal?” she asked, extending her right hand to her daughter. “Deal,” Sarah answered as she and her mother shook hands in an exaggerated, up-and-down motion that left Sarah giggling. Her mother leaned down and kissed her cheek. “Now go inside and get ready to take a bath so we can get you all cleaned up,” she said. “I’ll be there in a minute to start the water.” Sarah turned and laughed again as she skipped up the stairs into the house and ran through the kitchen toward the bathroom down the hall. Her mother rolled up the hose on its mount and glanced ruefully at the fresh stream of water that had trailed her daughter back into the house. “Once more into the breach,” she sighed wearily, shaking her head as she walked up the steps into the kitchen and reached for her mop…


Sarah smiled warmly at the recollection of one of her favorite childhood pastimes as her thoughts returned to the present. How had she managed to forget about playing in the mud by the creek at the back of the yard? She was grateful that her mother hadn't forbidden her so long ago from this activity, and Sarah had in fact ventured to the creek several more times that summer in her bathing suit, playing happily on the muddy bank and then dutifully rinsing herself off afterward, sometimes with her mother’s help and sometimes on her own as she learned to tame the writhing sprayer, before going back into the house. A quick wipe of the mop across the floor was all that her mother need do to restore her kitchen to its pristine condition, and their “com-pro-mise” held.

Still, Sarah reflected as she now stood before the “dare spot” in her clean white top and faded jeans, playing in the mud with her mother’s permission and on her terms had seemed less... naughty... than doing so in her good clothes. After all, part of the fun of playing at the muddy creek on that long ago day and then “innocently” walking into her mother's clean kitchen, she admitted to herself, had been precisely to see her mother's full-on reaction to the mess that Sarah had made of herself, her clothes, and the floor, and even now she was still amazed that her mother hadn’t punished her for it. She chuckled as she imagined how muddy she must have looked then. Well, look at me now, Mommy! Sarah smiled to herself as she balanced on the squishy precipice of another big mud puddle. “Not in your good clothes, Sarah!” her mother would cry. Sarah smiled again. Ohhh, yes, Mommy, she replied impishly in her imagination, in my good clothes. She rocked slightly from side to side, building up the nerve to make her first move into the pit. “I’ll just...” she said to herself, lightly bouncing on her knees and hips as she exhaled, “...just do like a little bit of a jump... just stay pretty close, but...”

Sarah jumped forward. Actually, it was more of a tentative hop than a jump; she didn’t want to commit herself too far into the pit just yet. Her feet landed with a thick, soggy plop in the wet, moderately warm mud near the edge, burying themselves about a foot deep, halfway up her shins. She exhaled as she steadied herself. “Wow,” she commented anticlimactically, “that's disappointing,” an underwhelmed look on her face. Her old mud puddle down by the creek had been deeper than this. Or maybe she had been shorter. “Really?” she sighed, rolling her eyes dismissively. “I thought this was supposed to be ‘a big, scary pi-i-it’...” she said sarcastically, adopting an exaggerated pose of mock fear. She exhaled again in dissatisfaction. “I hope I didn’t waste my time.” She balanced on her left leg as she worked to free her right foot, which finally came up after a few tugs. The lower part of her jeans leg and her shoe were stained a deep, rich brown, and small bits of muck fell away as she playfully dipped her foot back into the mud a few times before placing it on firmer ground. Her left foot required three stronger tugs before it too surfaced. “Ahh... oh, boy...” She stepped back up on the edge and mmmed quietly to herself as she moved bits of mud around on the soft ground with the toes of her shoes.

Time for another try, Sarah thought as she took a breath. “Okay,” she said to the mud hole, “come on... don’t disappoint me...” She looked around for a landing spot. “Let’s go... a little bit further here...” She bounced on her feet and knees as she fixed her gaze on a target site farther out in front of where she was standing, then took another breath and jumped. Again her feet plunked into the wet earth as she suddenly bent over at her waist, carried forward by her momentum. “Ooh!” she cried in surprise as her hair and hands nearly brushed the surface before she caught herself and straightened up. She looked around and exhaled disdainfully again, a look of growing impatience on her face as she saw that she was barely any deeper than she had been after her first jump. She gathered her hair on either side of her neck as she began working to pull her feet back out. “I mean, it’s not even remotely... deeper,” she groused as she began twisting her body from her knees to her torso to loosen the mud’s grip on her feet. “Stupid...” she complained, exhaling grumpily as she pulled against the mud. Several more seconds of fruitless tugging passed amid the sounds of wet, squelching noises as she spun from side to side, her arms and hair swinging around with her efforts. “Dammit!” she finally exclaimed, pulling her right leg free with an “ugh!” of frustration over how this day seemed to be going.

Sarah steadied her right foot on more solid ground and retrieved her left foot from the mud before turning to face her foe once again. “All right, that’s it,” she exhaled with a look of determination, collecting her long hair behind her head and pulling it forward over her left shoulder. “This means business.” She stepped from side to side, rocking on her knees and hips as she blew out a long breath from her pursed lips. “Show me what you got,” she challenged the pit with a resolute smile. She was going to find out what the big deal was about this “dare spot” even if it killed her. Figuratively speaking, of course. She again leaped out into the mud, landing deeper this time and falling forward at her waist as before. “Whoa,” she exclaimed, laughing as her hands plowed into the surface. She caught herself, and as she stood back up she held her arms out for balance while surveying her results. She was standing a bit deeper in the mud now, not much, but enough to notice. “Okay,” she said, grinning with satisfaction for the first time after a jump, “we’re getting somewhere.”

She began shifting back and forth on her legs again, working to free herself as before. A smile spread across her face as she pulled at her feet while laughing quietly to herself. “Okay... I see what you’re doing here,” she said to the sticky mud as she leaned back on her right leg and pulled with her left to free her foot. “A little bit...” she murmured as she continued rocking back and forth. “Just have a little patience, Sarah,” she reminded herself as she grabbed her left leg behind the knee and pulled it loose from the mud’s grip after a couple of strong tugs. “Whooh!” she exhaled after her effort, shaking bits of mud from her hands as she turned her attention to freeing her right leg. After a few yanks it too came free, throwing her off balance to her left and forcing her to catch herself by planting her hands on the firmer ground beyond the edge. “Whoa!” she laughed as she straightened back up, only to find that her feet and legs had again settled into the mud, requiring her to exert more energy to free them. “Uhh... c’mon... fucker...” she muttered in mild frustration as she worked herself loose.

“All right,” Sarah exhaled expectantly as she prepared to make her fourth attempt. Unlike before, this time her feet and lower legs were still submerged within the mud as opposed to being on firmer ground. She took a moment to run her hands down her thighs and back up again, grasping her unbelted jeans at either hip before pulling them up and bouncing her pelvis playfully as she pursed her lips and exhaled. She then gathered her hair quickly behind her head again before letting it fall down her back as she reached down to adjust the front of her top where it met her waist. “Let’s see if I can... oof,” she interrupted herself as she once again had to pull her legs loose to prepare for her next leap. “... Maybe get up a little bit,” she said quietly as she continued pulling on each leg alternately, “oh, boy... get a good jump in here...”

Sarah rubbed her hands together as she continued pulling with each leg to free her feet. “Jesus...” she complained lightly before setting herself and then jumping once more. Her hair flew forward, reflecting the sunlight as she landed. Even though her feet had been beneath the surface when she made this leap, her efforts and the loosening mud had allowed them to lift out freely, and she landed a bit farther forward and definitely deeper than before. Sarah exhaled as she evaluated her results and let out a confident laugh of triumph, happy with what she saw. “Yeaaah, that’s right!” she celebrated, noting that she was now in to just below her knees. The mud was noticeably cooler here than in the shallow spot near the edge where she had made her first leap, but not unpleasantly so, and she swiveled her hips with satisfaction while shaking her hands at her sides, inhaling deeply as she took stock of her metabolic state. “Hooh... heart’s beating a little bit faster now,” she said laughingly as she closed her eyes and took another breath, “but I’m okay.” She continued rocking from side to side on her hips. “Feels dangerous, but I’m still... I’m okay. So this is good,” she reassured herself, a delighted smile playing across her face. This “dare spot” was beginning to live up to its name after all.

Sarah continued swiveling her knees and hips to keep her legs free in the muck, her hair and arms swinging lightly around her. “Come on,” she whispered to the mud as she twisted back and forth, “you got anything else? Hmm? What else you got for me?” She exhaled a bit more forcefully as she continued trying to work her legs and shoes free for her next jump, leaning over to her left to station her hands again on the firmer ground that had assisted her before. “Uhh!” she exclaimed as her right leg finally came free. “Ohh! Okay... all right...” she said quietly as she turned her attention to freeing her left leg. “Just try to loosen... a little... so I can jump...” she muttered as she grabbed her thigh with both hands and pulled up, a grimace of exertion on her face. After three determined tugs her foot finally came loose. “Ooh... uhh!” she grunted softly with the effort. “Damn! That just suctions you...”

Her feet finally free, Sarah turned her attention to preparing for her next leap. “Okay... whooh!” she reveled giddily, wiping her hands together as a wave of exuberance played over her face. She pulled her hair back and laughed gleefully, lifting her left shoulder and striking a playful pose for an imaginary audience. “This is fun!” She pursed her lips again and exhaled. “What else you got, baby, what else you got?” she dared the mud, rocking from side to side again as she repeatedly pulled each leg up and out of the wet earth. “I step – uhh! – jump...” she murmured as she prepared herself again for liftoff. “Okay... ahhh... aw, man...” she whispered as she planted her right leg and then quickly jumped once again.

A look of wide-eyed surprise stole over Sarah’s face as she went in all the way to her knees, and she laughed with satisfaction at the result. “Ooohh, yeaah!” she rejoiced victoriously as she pulled her hair back and began rocking and swiveling her legs in the mud, creating undulating ripples in the loosening surface. She was quickly becoming a master of this “dare spot” and wondered what the record was among her friends for the most daring leap. She continued rocking as she once again worked to free her legs. “Unh... okay... uh-hunh!” she exhaled as she fought against her mucky opponent’s hold on her feet. “Uh-oh... it’s okay... I’m okay still... still safe,” she reassured herself as she leaned over and again placed her hands on the trusty firm ground to her left and pressed against it as she pulled on her legs, her hands descending slightly into the earth as her exertions softened it up. “Ugh... unhh!” she grunted, turning to her right to see if she would have better luck on that side. “Okay... uunnnhh!” she groaned with exertion as she pushed against the soft ground, her right knee finally ascending from the surface. “Ohh... uhh!” She balanced on her right hand as she turned around, her left leg also coming free.

“Okay, that’s good,” she said as she bent forward and placed her hands on the surface of the mud to steady herself. “Good-good-good-good–whoa!” she exclaimed with a surprised laugh as her left leg unexpectedly slipped deeper into the mud and her right hand splashed into the surface beside her, sending her over to her left side where she once again caught herself on the firmer ground. “Okay... back it up, Sarah... back it... uuuuuup...!” She pressed against the softening ground and raised her left leg free. Both her jeans legs were now painted a deep brown from the knees down, and it was anyone’s guess what condition her shoes were in. “I can do this,” she gritted her teeth as her right leg also broke free from the surface. She took several deep breaths as she finally straightened up.

“Whooh... okay...” Sarah said, smiling playfully and swaying gently from side to side, “maybe just... a little bit further?” she laughed in a conspiratorial little voice as she wiped her hands free of mud and dirt. “I’ve come this far... might as well,” she answered herself jokingly and chuckled as she rocked on her feet, as if she needed to be convinced to go on. “Okay,” she exhaled again and began positioning herself, moving her legs up and down in the mud, and then doing so again even more so against its grip. “Unh...” she grimaced as she continued pulling on each leg, “I try and loosen this, but, man!... This just wants to... hold on to me!” She laughed again and then smiled coyly at the thought of a few boyfriends of whom she could say the same thing.

“Okay...” Sarah exhaled quietly as she steadied herself. “All right... let’s try this... okay...” She launched herself forward once again, gasping as she splashed thickly into the mud and descended to halfway up her thighs. “Whoa!” she reacted gleefully, laughing as a look of amazement crossed her face while she held her arms out for balance and glanced around herself at the rippling surface. This was undoubtedly deeper than her childhood mud puddle by the creek. “Okay, now we’re definitely getting somewhere!” she said, laughing again with a sense of accomplishment. She was quite pleased with herself as she rotated her body on her hips and knees while taking in the results of her latest jump. She now felt especially daring, and regretted having forgotten to bring her cell phone with her. No solo mud-pit selfies to show off to Joyce and the others, darn it!

Sarah leaned over to her left and placed her hands on the ground as she once again commenced with her leg-retrieval process, expecting it to take some time and effort this time around. “Oh, boy... oh, boy... ahh... my shoes...” she muttered as she pulled on her feet. Not surprisingly, her shoes really didn't want to come away at all from the bottom. “Okay... whoa!” she laughed as she straightened up and sought to keep her balance while the loose earth flowed freely around her. She faced forward again, for the first time noting a certain... physical... response on her part to the clingy feeling of the mud around her thighs through her soaked jeans. “Cool!” she exclaimed in delight, running her fingertips lightly across the surface before adding, “Ohh... feels nice!” with a hint of sensuality in her voice as she imagined other “daring” possibilities for this pit. The mire at this depth was considerably cooler than it had been elsewhere in the bog, providing a refreshing respite from the heat of the day, although she suspected that she would become uncomfortably cold if she stayed this deep in it for very long. She leaned back over to her left and continued trying to work her legs free again. “Unhh!... Okay... try to... oh, this is difficult... uhh!” She leaned back toward her right as her legs slowly emerged from the surface. “A little bit further, maybe,” she debated with herself quietly as she pulled against the mud, “if I can just... try to jump out...” She leaned again to her left, placing her hands on the soft earth and pushing down with her left leg as her right slowly emerged to her knee. “Ohhhh, boy...” she groaned, straining from the exertion, “aaahhh, yeah, this is a workout.” She turned around to her right, planted her hands, and pushed again as her right leg rose slightly higher. “Uuuugh!” she grunted strenuously against the mire's continuing hold on her legs and feet. She turned and placed her hands behind herself as she leaned back, almost losing her balance and falling over backward. “Whoa!” she exclaimed in surprise, laughing at the spill that she had almost taken.

“Okay... uhh!” Sarah again planted her hands in the soft ground to her right and began working her legs in tandem, back and forth, to try to free them, the mud sloshing loosely around her knees in rhythm with her efforts. “I just want to jump a little bit more,” she insisted softly, turning forward and balancing herself on her hands as she felt around for a solid place from which to push, “but I have to... get... unh!... out a little bit... unh... in order to... do this.” She finally straightened up in the mud, having worked her legs up and out to the level of her knees. Her jeans were stained nearly black from the middle of her thighs down. “Oooohhhh… wow,” she exhaled from her unplanned exercise routine, shaking the loose dirt from her hands as she looked down and examined her darkly muddied blue jeans and the small flecks of mud on her otherwise pristine white top. Her shoes were filled with cool, squishy muck deep beneath the surface, and she wriggled her toes inside them as she again smiled mischievously. Look at me now, Mommy! “Little Miss Adventure” said in her imagination, grinning as she turned her attention back to the matter at hand. “Okay,” she exhaled as she took several deep breaths and began working her legs up and down again to prepare for her next jump. “Oh, shit... all right,” she reacted as she rotated her arms to keep her balance, laughing lightly at her need for vigilance against the slippery muck. “Everything’s great!” she smiled after recovering her footing, giving herself a double thumbs-up of encouragement as she continued working her legs free.

“Let’s see,” Sarah whispered as she again leaned over to her left, planting her hands in the mud to keep her balance as she made one more attempt to extricate her legs completely. “Oooh, boy...” she grunted as she pushed one last time with her arms before finally straightening up again in defeat, still knee deep in the mud. “Okay, apparently that’s not gonna happen,” she conceded quietly, swinging her arms for stability before finally deciding, “sooo... let’s just jump from here!” She smiled again, her long hair shining brightly in the sunlight, her angelic face beaming in her innocence as she held her hands out at her sides, palms opened in a proffered “com-pro-mise” with herself. She bounced softly on her knees as she worked out the details of her proposal. “And then I’ll get out,” she promised herself, nodding her head in approval. “Yeah. Jump one more time, and I’ll go on my merry way!” she concurred, smiling and swinging her arms to her left, pointing to the way up and out from the mud pit.

Sarah nodded her head once more in agreement with the deal that she had made with herself, eyeing her targeted landing spot a few feet in front of her. This is gonna be for the record, she told herself, lifting her legs and feet in turn to keep them free as she made ready for her seventh and final jump. The loosened mud at the surface of the pit swirled and flowed around her knees in response to her own movements, reinforcing her pleasurable reaction to it moments earlier and putting her in an especially voluptuous mood. “So come onnnn,” she purred teasingly to the mire before her, lightly swiveling her hips and torso as though seducing a lover, an enticing smile on her lips, “don’t disappoint meee... I really need some thrills.” The reality, Sarah suspected, was that it was she who was being seduced, drawn in to the pit’s thick, fluid embrace not only by her childhood memories and desire for adventure but also now by her own rising, fluid response as the interplay of sunlight and shadow on the gently rippling surface beckoned her beguilingly, and she savored the rapturous sense of expectation coursing through her body as she envisioned how deep her final leap would take her. She again leaned over to her left and put her hands in the mud to steady herself. “So let’s see if I can...” she exhaled, interrupting herself and holding her arms out as she worked to keep her balance. “Oh, boy!” she laughed lightly as she exhaled again and gently shook her head, closing her eyes and swinging her bangs to either side of her forehead. She pursed her lips and breathed out through the small opening between them. “Okay,” she whispered, tugging at her feet to make sure that they were planted stably beneath her in the mud. Her liftoff was delayed yet again as she continued positioning herself. “Okay... uhh... you really use these thigh muscles and calf muscles... okay...” she murmured as she made her final preparations.

She inhaled through her teeth and then quickly exhaled, bouncing lightly on her knees as the moment of truth arrived. “All right... you got this, Sarah...” she assured herself in a quiet voice, a smile of confident anticipation playing across her face. The time had finally come, and she was ready. She exhaled once more, and then, swinging her arms behind her while bending quickly at her knees and waist, with a heave of exertion she flung herself forward through the mud.


How soft lies the surface between time and eternity…

_____________________________________

(Continued in Part 2.)

[water_bug_62208]

Wonderfully enjoyable story!

I liked how you described Sarah as a strong, well-toned athletic woman... I like the idea of a muscular gal getting stuck in the mud. I also liked that you had her wearing a white sleeve-less top to show off her strong, toned arms as well as tight-fitting faded blue jeans that conformed along the muscular curves of her calves and thighs. And, thank you for having her wear sneakers. All combined, you described a wonderfully sexy lady meant for getting stuck and sinking in mud.

I also liked how you described her thoughts in detail. I loved that you went into details describing her efforts to free her stuck legs and feet so she could jump further out into the mire. What I really liked is how she took the efforts to free her legs so she could jump further out as nothing more than an annoyance... something she didn't give a second thought to and not realizing that the increasing difficulty to free her legs each time was a warning to turn back, that things were getting more and more serious.

Thanks for sharing!

[JSample]

Wonderfully enjoyable story!

I liked how you described Sarah as a strong, well-toned athletic woman... I like the idea of a muscular gal getting stuck in the mud. I also liked that you had her wearing a white sleeve-less top to show off her strong, toned arms as well as tight-fitting faded blue jeans that conformed along the muscular curves of her calves and thighs. And, thank you for having her wear sneakers. All combined, you described a wonderfully sexy lady meant for getting stuck and sinking in mud.

I also liked how you described her thoughts in detail. I loved that you went into details describing her efforts to free her stuck legs and feet so she could jump further out into the mire. What I really liked is how she took the efforts to free her legs so she could jump further out as nothing more than an annoyance... something she didn't give a second thought to and not realizing that the increasing difficulty to free her legs each time was a warning to turn back, that things were getting more and more serious.

Thanks for sharing!

Thank you, Waterbug! I really appreciate the positive feedback. I will admit that all of the things that I "had" Sarah wear, do, and say in my story were directly based upon what Sarah Michelle had actually worn, done, and said in the video, and what I imagined her character thinking and feeling were based directly on what I took from her performance. If you haven't yet seen the "Just a Little Further" video, I highly recommend it!

[JSample]

It's been about two weeks since I posted my two-part "Homecoming" story here, and I wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who has taken the time to read it. As of today Part 1 has over 350 views, and Part 2 over 400. That level of interest, along with the supportive comments that I have received, is very gratifying and encouraging, especially since, as I said in my preface above, this was my first attempt at a quicksand story in nearly thirty years. I want to take a moment to share with anyone who is interested a few behind-the-scenes elements that I sought to bring out in my story, some of which I'll comment on here and others I'll mention in a separate comment on Part 2.

The whole point of MPV's "Just a Little Further" video was to present a dramatic damsel-in-distress quicksand story, but the first nine minutes could rightly be subtitled "Playtime in the Mud." Here Sarah Michelle's performance is indeed playful as she challenges both herself and the mud pit to see just how "daring" she can be yet still be able to pull herself out. Likewise, my narrative adaptation of this part of the video is also playful, with a handful of "Easter eggs" thrown in as humorous asides. The (rather obvious) first of these appears early on after I describe Sarah's appearance in the video. Sarah Michelle of course is an accomplished actress and model in real life, and so I have Sarah's friends in the story all be of the opinion that her beauty is such that she should pursue modeling as a career.

The second is a bit of gallows humor serving as foreshadowing. After a couple of disappointing leaps into the mud pit, Sarah decides that she now "means business" and challenges the pit to "show me what you got." I imagine her mentality as, "She was going to find out what the big deal was about this 'dare spot' even if it killed her. Figuratively speaking, of course." Of course, what she imagines here as being merely a figure of speech would eventually become a literal, deadly reality by the end of the story.

The third is another bit of foreshadowing that also refers to another MPV quicksand video. After Sarah's next-to-last leap, I have her regret that she has forgotten to bring her cell phone with her. In the dramatic second part of the story, this lapse will mean that she has no way of calling for help from deep in the woods as she sinks to her doom, but here she merely concludes that she'll have "no solo mud-pit selfies to show off to Joyce and the others, darn it!" This is a sideways reference to the MPV video "Quicksand Selfish," starring another of my favorite quicksand models, Star, whose video MPV released during the several months I spent writing and tweaking my story.

The final Easter egg in the first part is a reference to another MPV video of Sarah Michelle's. As Sarah prepares for her final leap in the pit (after which she assumes that she'll be free to go on her "merry way"), she comments in passing on how the mud feels around her legs. I represent this moment in this way: "She faced forward again, for the first time noting a certain... physical... response on her part to the clingy feeling of the mud around her thighs through her soaked jeans. 'Cool!' she exclaimed in delight, running her fingertips lightly across the surface before adding, 'Ohh... feels nice!' with a hint of sensuality in her voice as she imagined other 'daring' possibilities for this pit." This is a direct reference to Sarah Michelle's incredibly sexy "Sinking About You (Again)" video which she shot in the same pit and during the same shooting season as she did "Just a Little Further." Whereas in "Further" she played an imperiled "damsel in distress" as she sank, in "Sinking (Again)" she explored the sexy side of quicksand by playing an impassioned "damsel in delight" while sinking. Talk about daring...

There are also a few "eggs" in the second part of my story, which I'll address in a comment there.