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The Ups and Downs of Skeeter Kitefly

a novel by P. S. Ehrlich

Click here to download the Split Infinitive Edition of The Ups and Downs of Skeeter Kitefly

and here for the Titles to the webchapter version
 

New What's

Skeeter Kitefly Index

  PART TWO:  DEMORTUIS 
 

The Ups and Downs of Skeeter Kitefly

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
 

Skeeter Kitefly's Sugardaddy Confessor

Part One
Part Two
Part Three

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Skeeter Kitefly's
Titular Assets

COMPACTIFICATION
behind the scenes


RoBynne O'Ring's
GRUNTS OF
PASSION

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TO BE HONEST

FINE LINEAGE

13 BLACK CATS
UNDER A LADDER

BOLSTER,
NOT MOLEST HER

MARAT À LA MODE

BAGELANNA

OLD LITTER

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About the Author

Contact the Author

Characters

Book Covers

Skeeterography

Etc.ography

Site Map

Links

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Last Updated

March 20, 2010

"Becoming a woman" at age eleven,
Skeeter pursues her first teen Cool Boy
—right into his bedroom, with
unexpected fallout for them both.
 

...Ginny had been terrorstricken by her menarche, and turned scarlet at the mention of periods and colons and other marks of punctuation.  Skeeter, contrariwise, had welcomed her time’s arrival; and she
collected nicknames for it, such as high tide, That Midol Moment, and “riding the cotton bicycle.”  (In future years she would sometimes punch men in the stomach—playfully, but punch—and say, “THAT’S for
being a guy and not having cramps!...”)

Click here to read "The First of the Svens"
(webchapter version)

and here to read "The First of the Svens"
as it appeared in Entropic Desires
 

Skeeter spends New Year's Eve '72 at
Sadie's college dorm, where she can't
wait to get high like a practically-adult
for the first time.
 

...She applied herself to the mouthpiece slowly, deeply, with a steady sssucckkkk—gag! choke! HUCK HUCK HUCK, sounding like runaway Jim on the fogbound raft.  There was genial laughter from her elders.  “Mmmm boy that’s good grass,” coughed Skeeter.  “So how soon before I’m ripped?  Does it happen instantaniciously?...”

Click here to read "Visions of Sugarbongs"
(webchapter version)

and here to read "Visions of Sugarbongs"
as it appeared in Unlikely Stories
 

10—Spookacious

Starting high school, Skeeter slices
open her first worm and renounces all
nursing ambitions, focusing instead on
Halloween mayhem.

...Skeeter had no intention of ever growing up, of course, or old, or fat (yuggh) but adults were always asking what she wanted to “be” when (not if) she did the first of these.  Yeah—right.  Like she was ever going to be five full feet tall, or would ever want to be.  Grownups couldn’t be buttoncute, or have any authentic fun, or even take a proper bathtub wallow.  Forget it...

Click here to read "Spookacious"
(webchapter version)

"Spookacious" appeared in the printmag Arnazella;
click here to read it as it appeared in
Ten Thousand Monkeys
 

Deep in the Derelict Days of 1974,
Skeeter pledges a sorority (actually
more of a skag-gang) and insists that
a tattoo be part of her initiation.
 

...after further consideration she settled on her baptismal initials, K.R.K., and them to go on her right hindquarter after all.  To this end (and past it) Skeeter wriggled out of her fancy-free jeans and fire-engine-red brevities (for which she’d recently given up her virgin-whites), while helpful Nat kept her in staggering stitches by wondering aloud whether Bless This Buttock ought not to be added...

Click here to read "Initially Illustrated"
(webchapter version)

"Initially Illustrated" also appeared in the printmag Arnazella;
click here to read it as it appeared in
Ten Thousand Monkeys
 

At loose ends during her junior year,
Skeeter is shanghaied into school
theatrics and seeks tutelage from a
local brasslungs legend.
 

...Skeeter was exactly the right type for this part, according to Mr. Minie; the librettists might’ve had her in mind when they wrought the play.  For was not Bitsy bitesized, jocose and twinkle-eyed, with toothsome grin and roguish giggle and verve as big as all outdoors?  All of which
Skeeter was, had, or could readily approximate...

Click here to read "Projectile"
(webchapter version)

and here to read "Projectile" as it appeared in
The Sidewalk's End
 

Skeeter alternates between devising a
standup comedy routine and dancin'
away the summer night—both of which
culminate in Sadie's morning-sickness.
 

...bring on the night!  And in it charged!  A windy howl, blowing up Skeeter’s Farrahfications layer by layer into a peachy fuzzy mushroom cloud, rising, twining, undulating: “Medusa you say!”  But Skeeter a gorgon?  Just look at that face, deeLISHus round winsome pink peeping out of the boy-howdy cloud; how could it petrify anybody?  Then look again at the abruptly-pointed chin, the tipped-up buttony nose, and listen to the peals of cacklelaughter—oh my God she was a witch!  Beware, lest she turn you all into newts!...

Click here to read "Little Artful Antics"
(webchapter version)

and here to read "Little Artful Antics" as it appeared in
Ten Thousand Monkeys
 

Giving up on drama as a career option,
Skeeter quits college at age twenty and
starts life on her own in downtown
Demortuis at the height of Discomania.
 

...Nobody doubted Skeeter’s stage presence, or her knowing where
she was coming from.  It was the going-to that kept tripping her up, especially when interacting with comedians liable to pull the unexpected.  Joe undertook to coach her, but all for naught; as an improv comic, Skeeter made a damn fine audience.  She would get agog and engrossed in what her partners were coming up with, then miss the ball altogether when it was thrown her way, or burst out cacklelaughing fit to die...

Click here to read "The Clearing Stage"
(webchapter version)
 

In 1980 Skeeter meets Jim Midge, the
Ultimate Laplander: a man who might
be THE One AND Only for her ... in a
very terminal way.
 

...Feeling creepy-crawl and goosey-bump, Skeeter scrubbed her face and throat and further south; rinsed, toweled, stretched to hang towel
and washcloth over the shower rod, hoping vaguely that the sight of her other best side might warm the blood and thaw the atmosphere.  No response.  She rolled on Secret, tended to her teeth, brushed her hair a little, put her glasses back on—and found an ashen face staring back at her, immobile, from the mirror.  Heeeere’s Jimmy...

Click here to read "ELOHSSA DECAFTIHS"
(webchapter version)

and here to read "ELOHSSA DECAFTIHS" as it appeared in
Unlikely Stories