Welcome
to the final Charity Sunday of 2025. During the last eleven months,
with your help, I’ve sent $290 to various worthy causes.
Compared
to Elon Musk’s fortune or the US national debt, that might seem
like a pittance. But what if every adult in the U.S. –
approximately 250 million people – matched that donation? That’s
72.5 billion dollars. Think of the good that could do.
Each
of us does what we can.
For
this last, holiday-themed Charity Sunday, I am supporting the
Coalition for the
Homeless. Centered in New York City, they provide not only
shelter but also legal assistance, crisis services, emergency food
and other critical types of help. In addition, they advocate for
people who are homeless, working to change punitive laws and to free
up resources to help deal with homelessness.
The
stereotype of a homeless person is a drunken bum living in a
cardboard box under a bridge, panhandling and looking for
opportunities to grab things that don’t belong to him. People
without shelter are often dirty, smelly and unpleasant to be
around—you would be too, if you didn’t have a shower available.
Often there are psychiatric or substance abuse problems that
exacerbate the shelter problem. Homelessness might seem like another
world (although I wouldn’t be surprised if some of my readers had
shelter problems). But anyone can end up homeless.
When
I was in college, I had a friend from my home town—call her
Marnie—who had been accepted to the same elite university I
attended. She was brilliant and creative. Unlike me, she had serious
conflicts with her mother (her father was dead). In addition, she was
bipolar. As a result, Marnie ended up living on the streets for a
number of months. For me this was a wake-up call. Who would have
expected the high school valedictorian to end up dirty, hungry and
homeless?
Anyway,
I will donate two dollars to the Coalition for the Homeless for every
comment I receive on this post. I’m also sharing a complete
mini-story I wrote, a long time ago, for a member of my online crit
group who was in fact homeless. Warning: it's somewhat erotic. But it's also a beacon of hope.
Easy
By
Lisabet Sarai
For
G.T.
Sleet
was the worst. He huddled under the awning of the shuttered
refreshment kiosk, shivering as a gray veil swallowed the skeleton
trees across the lake. It wouldn't take more than ten minutes for
sleet to soak through his sweatshirt and the two sweaters he wore
underneath. Then the wet clothing would freeze against his skin. The
icy slush pooled at the curbs would leak into his battered shoes on
his way back. Bally was a top brand, but the miles he had walked in
the last six months had worn through the soles. Anyway, leather, even
the best quality, was no good in winter weather.
He
remembered his down ski parka – Columbia! – how toasty warm he
had felt as he swooped down the black diamond trails up at
Killington. Gone, like so many other things. If he had only realized
what was happening, he might have planned a bit, held on to what was
really important. The change happened so gradually, though. Plus it
had violated all that he had believed and trusted.
He
would have found it inconceivable if someone had told him he'd find
himself in this situation: jobless, homeless, broke and alone. On
Christmas Eve, yet.
He
had a Harvard MBA, for God's sake. Who could have imagined that his
plum product manager position at a top hi-tech, his BMW, his four
bedroom colonial, his wife, his kids, his life, could all melt away
like snow on a steam-tunnel manhole?
In
the distance, the clock in City Hall tower struck three. Two and a
half more hours and he could return to the shelter. Trying to reduce
the surface area, he clenched his hands inside the canvas work gloves
he had found discarded on trash pickup day last week. His fingers
were already numb. His feet were blocks of ice. He had to get inside,
somewhere. The temperature would drop as dusk approached.
He
had two quarters and a dime hidden under his layers of rags, but he
had already had his coffee today. He had made it last for two hours,
while the Burger King staff glared at his bedraggled form slumped in
the corner. Tough. He was a paying customer.
Cloud-colored
ice skinned the lake where he used to take his daughter canoeing. Not
strong enough yet for skating. He could start walking across. He knew
the surface would crack long before he reached the boathouse on the
opposite shore. It would be so easy. The lake was deeper than you'd
expect.
The
ice would freeze over his entry point. They wouldn't find him, not
for days or even weeks. No one visited the park in the winter. That's
why he came. The cops didn't hassle him here and he didn't have to
suffer the looks of pity and disgust he got on the street.
Easy,
yes. So tempting. Everything else was so difficult now, a daily
struggle to survive. Why should he bother? Who, after all, would
care?
He'd
thought he was so clever, hiding his affairs, but his wife eventually
lost patience. She took the kids out west, leaving him with the huge,
empty house and an equally enormous alimony payment.
Then
came the downsizing—hell, how many “personnel reduction
strategies” had he helped to plan? The bottom dropped out of real
estate, but the mortgage had to be paid. No one, he discovered,
wanted to hire a manager in his fifties, no matter how stellar his
credentials.
His
sigh hung in a white cloud before him. He had pawned his Rolex early
on, but he guessed that about ten minutes had passed since the clock
had chimed. He closed his eyes, unutterably weary, longing for his
cot in the shelter. It was hard to sleep there in the dorm, with the
bums raving around him all night, but right now he would have given
anything to be able to collapse onto the thin mattress and pull the
rough blanket around his ears.
“Good
afternoon, sir.”
He
started, the youthful voice pulling him from his drowsy stupor.
“Ah—um—good
afternoon.” She was a beacon of color in the monochrome landscape,
with pink cheeks, copper curls and a long, holly-green coat. A
matching green ribbon held her fiery hair away from her face. She was
young, certainly no more than twenty, with a freshness that made her
seem old-fashioned. That coat reminded him of one his mother used to
wear in the fifties, shaped like the letter A with those funny
sleeves—raglan sleeves, they were called. He felt irrationally
pleased that he could remember. His mother's coat had been a sober
brown, though. This woman's garment was so bright it made him blink.
She
stepped closer, out of the sleet, joining him under the overhang.
“Wintery weather,” she commented, smiling up at him. Her eyes
were the same startling hue as her coat. Her lips formed a perfect
bow. Even in the chill air, he caught a hint of her scent, cool and
fresh like evergreens in snow.
He
was suddenly aware of his own funky smell, his ragged clothing and
his three days of stubble. He searched the girl's face for the
inevitable sympathy or scorn. He found neither. Instead,
inexplicably, he recognized desire.
His
cock stirred inside his sweatpants. Was it possible? Exhausted and
underfed, he hadn't been horny in months.
She
took his hand in her own small, bare fingers. “I know someplace
warmer. Come with me.”
She
drew him along the slippery path that circled the lake. Needles of
sleet pricked his cheeks. His sweatshirt grew wetter with each step.
In her cashmere coat and patent-leather boots, the woman seemed not
to notice the weather.
Another
spot of color grew before them. A Japanese-style bridge, rust-red,
arched over the narrowest point in the hourglass-shaped lake. The
trail crossed the bridge. He had never noticed the stairway leading
down the bank. There was a ledge underneath, bordering the water,
making a snug private space. He had to crouch down to follow her
inside. The bridge swept upward, just over their heads.
“We're
out of the wind here,” she told him, her voice like bells. “Let's
sit down.” She slipped the coat off her shoulders and spread it
over the dry stone.
He
couldn't believe his eyes. Under the festive-hued coat, she was
naked. Her skin was a creamy peach tone. The buds tipping her sweet,
small breasts were a deeper rose. A ginger tangle at the apex of her
thighs hid her sex. She looked like an innocent angel. Her smile as
she reached for his zipper, though, hinted of lascivious delights.
“Wait—I
can't...” His erection thickened by the second as she worked at his
jeans but his shame was stronger than his lust. “Please, I haven't
had a shower in a week. I smell...”
“I
don't care,” she murmured, peeling the denim away from his hips and
starting work on the sweatpants underneath. “I like the way you
smell.” She gripped his rod. Her flesh was hot against his chilled
skin.
“But
why...?” His protests grew weaker as she pumped her hand up and
down his length. “Who...?”
She
stopped him with a peppermint flavored kiss. “Because I want you.
Now. I can't wait.”
He
surrendered, sinking back onto the soft wool, entwined in her arms.
After
that, there was nothing but glorious warmth, luscious wetness,
tightness coiling in his groin and then expanding into utter relief.
I must be dreaming, he thought, as she wrapped her thighs
around his waist and drew him deeper. Maybe I'm dying.
He
didn't care. She offered him her fire and he accepted her gift. He
forgot everything except her satin skin, her cushioned hollows, her
scent of fir trees by the ocean. There was no past, no future, only
an eternal present.
They
drifted together, passion cresting and receding and peaking again,
lost in the ancient rhythms of the flesh. Finally, even their bodies
melted away. All that remained was joy.
The
chimes woke him, five strokes that reached him through some kind of
fog. Darkness had fallen. Shadows filled the cozy nook under the
bridge. Even in the gloom, he could tell that he was alone.
His
limp, sticky cock hung outside his pants. As he noticed, he realized
how cold he was, not just his penis but his whole body.
A
dream. Still, shreds of joy clung to him. A dream like that was
far better than waking life. Perhaps he could recreate the dream
tonight, in his dormitory bed. He closed his eyes, summoning her
emerald eyes and plump lips. Yes. He would not forget.
He
needed to hurry, though. The shelter opened in a half hour and beds
were allocated on a first-come, first-serve basis. He zipped up and
then pressed against the ledge to lever himself onto his hands and
knees.
He
felt the plush softness of cashmere beneath his palms.
It
was too dark to see, but he knew it was her coat. But if she had left
her coat here, did that mean that she was wandering naked in the park
in these frigid temperatures? Was she crazier than the old coots at
the shelter?
I've
got to find her, he thought, gathering the warm garment in his
arms and crawling out from under the bridge. She’ll freeze.
The
sleet had stopped. The December air was a knife in his lungs, clean
and sharp. He peered into the darkness, seeking the slight, pale form
of a nude woman.
A
cluster of stars was born. To his right, twinkling points of
brightness twined through the tree branches. Another tree leaped into
light down the path. One by one the black winter skeletons
transformed into fairy tale shapes as the city turned on the holiday
decorations.
Finally,
surrounded by glory, he understood. He swung the coat over his
shoulders and wrapped himself in its warm, pine-scented folds.
Another gift, to remind him how precious life is. Even his life.
He
headed for the street, humming an old carol under his breath. He had
only twenty minutes to get to the shelter, but he wasn't worried. It
would be easy.
Don’t
forget to leave a comment. It might help put a roof over some
deserving person’s head.
