Here is my short story. Please tear it apart.

[Alis]

Warning: Do not read this if you are deeply religious. I am not trying to offend.

Okay. So I wrote this as a jokey sort of gift for a friend. Now she is trying to force me to submit it to the literary magazine at our university. I say no. no. no. Still, she is persistent.

I ask you my darlings to please save me from the harsh judgmental stares of my peers. Either tell me it is shit so I can convince my friend, or help me make it less shit so that when I inevitably capitulate I won't die of shame.


Oh god this is so terrible and pretentious and intentionally shocking in stupid ways. Ugh. Ugh. Why do I do this to myself? Moving on.

One last note, this lives in the land between short story and poem. I can't quite decide which it is.

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Crucifixion

The second coming of Christ can be found, most nights, stretched out in mock-crucifixion on an X-frame in an S & M club in Soho. It’s not always the same club. He has finally learned of the beauty in anonymity and the blessing that is non-attachment. Tonight, like most nights, he is aching for sex and love, but mostly for redemption. This club has a reputation. It is one which he suspects has been greatly exaggerated- much like his own. The place is loud and dimly lit, but it doesn’t take him long to find what he’s looking for. She isn’t pretty, but rather beautiful in a way that is sleek and predatory. He falls into her orbit and she draws out his confession. She strips him naked and he drops to his knees and begs for absolution. Sweat beads on his brow as he is stretched out, reaching for atonement- begging for forgiveness. There is a dangerous gleam in her deep brown eyes that keeps him stuck in the moment- that traps him more than leather cuffs or iron nails ever could. He is unable to break free- he cannot even think to desire it. She demands his tears, his blood, his submission. She negotiates the terms of his sacrifice and he wants nothing more than to give it all up, to lay everything down at her feet. She looks away first, circles him. For a long moment he can no longer see, no longer hear her and he feels something akin to terror. Then the Cat ‘O Nine Tails hits his back, and it jerks him into memory so fast that he cries out a name that is not hers. That belongs to no-one living. That belongs to someone he could have saved. With the next strike he cries for his father. The former’s forgiveness and the latter’s repentance are all he asks. The next stroke and he is back in his body, yet still lost in the tide of his own history. He is so sorry, so sorrowful, as he contemplates the selfish nature of sacrifice- all the pain that has come from his martyrdom. This act is selfish too. Ever so slowly the pain in his body is making his brain hazy. With each strike he is a little further from himself- a little closer to being nothing more than human. He is sobbing, bleeding, shaking. He is so weak. He closes his eyes and finally breaks free.

[onlyaworkingtitle]

The concept is intriguing, but it definitely needs to decide between prose and poem, because it isn't eloquent enough to be a solid prose poem. (Those need to be pretty damn eloquent to work well.) If you choose poem, then obviously it would need to be free verse (unless you want a total revamp), but be careful where you lay your line-breaks. If you choose prose, some expansion is necessary -- add detail, backstory, and split into multiple paragraphs, rather than the single overlong block of text. Personally, I vote for the poetic form for this story; I feel it would work better with the surreal nature of the content.

My second point is that, regardless of which form you choose, it needs more vivid details -- you give the reader some, but you need to remember to always show instead of tell; instead of telling the reader that "he is so sorry, so sorrowful" (which, by the way, is a very good juxtaposition to show the relationship between the two words' meanings -- I urge you to keep it somewhere in here), show the reader his sorrow, his expression, his posture. Give the reader pieces of each of the senses -- what is this Christ seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling? Make the reader care. And, especially if you choose prose, give the actual dialogue between the Christ figure and his dominatrix, and make sure that they are characters and not simple charicatures.

Lastly, in anything this short, you need your diction and syntax to be spot-on -- be sure that you say exactly what you mean, as specifically as possible, and that every nuance is correct. Your grammar is fine; the only hard correction I have is that "SoHo" has capitalized S and H, as it is an abbreviation of "South of Houston." Beyond that, I recommend only that you listen closely to the advice of the lit mag editor (with defensible reasons for each suggested adjustment you refuse), because once you've made your revisions to the piece you should certainly submit it.