1862: When the Tooth Fairy went to war to help the soldiers…

The Tooth Fairy took on a new role during the Civil War. She fought long and hard to help the soldiers keep their teeth, not take them. If a soldier had a toothbrush, it was homemade.

Brushes didn’t show up as commercially made until 1885. Most used a “chewing stick” made from a twig from a tree or bush.

Chomping on hardtack didn’t help. Called tooth-dullers by the soldiers, they tried to soften them in coffee, but often cracked a tooth.

No wonder the Tooth Fairy was so into preventive care.

You see, for a man (or woman disguised as a man) to join the army of the North or the South, they needed a good set of teeth.

As you can see in the excerpt below from LOVE ME FOREVER

Flynt grabbed the young officer and a flash of heat shot through him, a sensation so unexpected it shook his senses to the core.

My God, what’s this?

A woman’s breasts?

He drew back, puzzled then disturbed. Warm nights . . . silken sheets . . . perfume.

He couldn’t speak. He was dumbfounded, his entire being shaken. He couldn’t move and he could barely breathe. He struggled to keep from blurting out his discovery.

The Rebel prisoner was a female.

Would his nurse give her away? Or was she waiting for him to say something? He couldn’t. He felt a stirring within him, something he didn’t want to admit, that brought a hardness between his loins. Did he dare imagine that a beautiful woman existed under all that blood and dirt? He’d heard stories about women enlisting in the army, both North and South, and fighting as men. A good set of teeth to rip open a bullet cartridge, a trigger finger that worked, and a firm handshake was all that was required to join up. It was no secret the promise of a steady paycheck was often the reason behind such reckless female behavior.

That didn’t solve his immediate problem.

Flynt couldn’t see her face under the broad-brimmed hat, but the fullness of her breasts was quite evident when she fell against him. She was tall, making her charade as a man believable, with a leanness about her uncommon to most women he knew. Too often they bound their bodies with boned corsets and rounded hip pads.

He released her, though not willingly. Her lean figure added to her appeal. She was strong and lithe, like the mountain cats he’d hunted west of the Mississippi, but she was no country girl. Her manner of speaking, though strange to his ears, told him she was well educated.

An adventuress? Or was she a female physician? That would explain her disguise since women in the medical field were rare.

Her presence put him off balance, but he couldn’t stop a smile from curving over his lips.

Who is she? he wanted to know.

More important, what was he going to do with her?

Meet Liberty Jordan:

Women Soldiers in the Civil War from “Love Me Forever” from Jina Bacarr on Vimeo.

So keep our Tooth Fairy happy. Take care of your teeth!!

~Jina

If you love Civil War romance and time travel and TWO hunky military heroes, check out my Kindle Scout winner below.

LOVE ME FOREVER

She wore gray.
He wore blue.
But their love defied the boundaries of war.
And time.

LOVE ME FOREVER is a Kindle Scout winner and is now available from Kindle Press at Amazon.com

Meet the Princess and the Stilettos for Valentine’s Day and “Virgin Kiss” short story

Valentine’s Day is here!

This is one of my favorite videos I made about princesses:

https://vimeo.com/86387069

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And here is VIRGIN KISS

I wrote this fun short story about a high school freshman and her first kiss disaster — here’a preview of Virgin Kiss:

https://vimeo.com/86681100

————–

Riley Murphy is a kissing virgin, waiting for the right guy to come along. Until she joins the Drama Club at Holywell High and has to kiss the class dweeb on stage in front of the whole school on Valentine’s Day.
Virgin Kiss is a short story

What’s in a kiss? A kiss by any other name is—

—sweet, romantic, intimate, passionate, wet, sloppy, disgusting, probing, awful, nasty, sexy, tingly, and sometimes just plain wonderful.

But what if it’s your first kiss? And what if you have to pucker up in front of a live audience? What then?

Pass the Altoids, please.

The kiss-from-hell happened to me, Riley Murphy. Let me set the stage for you.

I was the new kid at Holywell High School, a shy, skinny freshman with cinnamon-colored freckles sprinkled across my nose. And flat-chested. Not exactly Miss Popularity with the bouncy boobs and flirty lashes. More like an olive stuck on the end of a toothpick.

Even with that dossier, I wasn’t a total dork. I’d gotten pecks on the cheek with quick brushes on the lips, but I’d yet to experience the soul-melting kisses you see in the flicks. The passionate lip-lock I dreamed about, wrote about in my diary. I pined for that kiss, but it didn’t happen. No doubt I’d be in graduate school facing lifelong debt before the right pair of lips met mine.

To overcome my shyness, my mom convinced me to try out for the Drama Club. Somehow I landed the leading role in a one-act Chekhov play. Yes, Chekhov. I played this mad, beautiful countess with passion and heart. I loved it. I came alive on stage. I could do anything, be anybody, say anything, I could—

—kiss the male lead?

A gangly sophomore named Harold Brimwell with long greasy hair and an upper lip curled in a perpetual snarl? He was going to anoint my virgin lips with my first big kiss?

Forget the Altoids. I needed a stress pill.

I quit the play. They could find another dupe. Not me. I wasn’t going to let him use my lips for kissing practice.

Then I heard this little voice in my head telling me this was acting, right? Going through the motions at rehearsals and on stage didn’t count on the kissing scale. I could pucker up with him and still be a kissing virgin.

After that, I sailed through rehearsals, knowing my lines, and “connecting to my character,” according to the director, who insisted on method acting. That’s how the trouble started. We didn’t rehearse the kiss. He wanted a real kiss on stage, he said, not some phony smooch.

I panicked. This was not what I’d planned. Worse yet, we opened on Valentine’s Day with a preview performance at the afternoon school assembly. Not only did I have to kiss this guy, I had to do it on the most romantic day of the year in front of the entire student body.

I dumped the Altoids down the toilet.

Valentine’s Day dawned rainy and cold. Perfect weather for a Russian play.

I arrived at the gym early, put on my makeup in the girls’ bathroom, then hooked up my long Victorian black lace dress, the silk petticoats rustling around my feet. I checked my props, including a dainty parasol, dueling gloves, and a small pistol. I saved putting on my lipstick for last. It had to be perfect.

First, I gargled mint-flavored mouthwash until my lips turned green and my mouth went numb. Next, I lined my lips with Chekhovian dark red lipstick and smacked my lips together. Perfect. I was ready for my lip close-up.

It’s showtime.

I was nervous when the lights came up, but after the first few minutes I relaxed. My training took over and I was “in the moment.” The dueling scene went off without the pistols misfiring and that meant it was time for…

…the kiss.

My co-star walked toward me with that “I’ve got you now” look fired up in his eyes, his lower lip snarling. I freaked. My stomach did flip-flops. My teeth chattered. My mouthwash stopped working.

It was so quiet in the high school gym you could hear the director chewing on the end of his pencil. My heart pounded as I held my breath when he pulled me into his arms and—

—slammed his mouth into mine. Bile rose in my throat as he pushed my lips apart and thrust his mushy, saliva-coated gum into my mouth, making me nauseous. Then he shoved his tongue down my throat, nearly gagging me. I started choking.

I can’t breathe. I thought I was going to pass out, but I was determined not to faint. I had to get him off me.

With stars circling my pounding head, I pulled up my strength and kicked him in the shin. Startled, he jerked backward, but not before he bit my lower lip. I tasted blood, but it wasn’t over.

He held me tighter, slobbering all over me, licking my face, my throat, coating my skin with stringy gum. The audience went crazy, yelling and shouting like they were at a basketball game and I was the bouncing ball.

I had to do something. Fast.

The pistol.

I panicked. Where was it? After the mock dueling scene, I threw the prop gun down on the round table. It had to be there, but where?

I reached out behind me, my nails catching on the lace doily, edging the gun toward me, an inch at a time. Sweat oozed down my too-tight collar and my knees started to buckle, but I didn’t give up. I couldn’t let him take advantage of me.

Almost got it…there. My fingers wrapped around the pearl-inlayed handle. Without losing my nerve, I grabbed the pistol and jammed the prop into his ribs. Hard. I yanked my body with such fury, I ripped the black lace sleeve out of the armpit. It slid down my shoulder, but that didn’t stop me.

“Get your hands off me, you sloppy kissing, gum-chewer!” I yelled, ignoring the script and re-writing Chekhov. “Or I’ll plug you.”

The director gasped. Loudly.

“Yeah, sure,” Harold stuttered, letting me go, and then backing away. “Anything you say.”

“That’s telling him!” someone yelled from the audience.

Amy Zanderbar. His ex-girlfriend.

Seems I hit a nerve with the females sitting in the bleachers who’d had their share of bad kissers. They loved it. The audience started clapping wildly and stomping their feet, shouting for me to let him have it.

I was tempted to push him off the stage and give them what they wanted, but my thespian instincts kicked in and I got back into character, giving Chekhov his due and ending the play as he’d written it.

The poor darling. I’m certain he had a restless sleep in his grave that night.

We performed the one-act play for the next few nights without further incident, faking the kiss each time. My co-star was cool, not attempting any more way-out kissing. For me, it was strictly acting. As far as I was concerned, I was still a virgin in lip-land.

I haven’t forgotten that V-Day and my experience with the gum-toting, kissing bandit. Not a bad guy, just a rotten kisser.

And in case you’re curious, as time went by, I did find the right pair of lips to land that first kiss. A hottie senior. Jack Dayne. Sexy and perfect.

And when I did, I discovered a kiss isn’t just a kiss, it’s…

…magic.

——————–

PS — yes, Riley is me, a shy freshman back in the day.

I still remember the black-beaded Victorian dress I wore when I performed the part of Elena.

My High School Kissing Disaster on Valentine’s Day

https://vimeo.com/86681100

What if your first kiss, and I mean your Virgin Kiss was just plain awful?

Meet Riley Murphy — you won’t believe her high school kissing disaster in Virgin Kiss

A very short kissing story I wrote.

I bet we all remember teenage angst…there’s nothing more angsty (if there is such a word) than that first kiss. Even worse is when it’s not your dream guy.

It’s the guy in the school play.

And boy, does he have ‘tude. Like, power play to the max.

Riley almost lets him get the best of her, then she does something that empowers her in front of the whole school. Find out what that is in Virgin Kiss. I’ll post the short story in its entirety on Valentine’s Day!

Or: you can watch it on my Instagram Page in Parts — up to Part 8 today.  

I wrote this before the #MeToo movement, but it was never more true today as the heroine fights back against this snarky guy in a funny and humorous way. And with a Chekhov play, too!

PS — I still remember the black-beaded Victorian dress I wore when I performed the part of Elena. Yes, Riley is me.

—————-

Riley Murphy is a kissing virgin, waiting for the right guy to come along. Until she joins the Drama Club at Holywell High and has to kiss the class dweeb on stage in front of the whole school on Valentine’s Day.
Virgin Kiss is a short story

 

Photo and Music Credits:
Photos: http://www.Dreamstime.com
Music: Sweeter Vermouth Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

 

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Valentine’s Day “Virgin Kiss” preview on Instagram

Valentine’s Day is coming!!

I wrote this fun short story about a high school freshman and her first kiss disaster — here’a preview of Virgin Kiss:

https://vimeo.com/86681100

Riley Murphy is a kissing virgin, waiting for the right guy to come along. Until she joins the Drama Club at Holywell High and has to kiss the class dweeb on stage in front of the whole school on Valentine’s Day.
Virgin Kiss is a short story

Photos: http://www.Dreamstime.com
Music: Sweeter Vermouth Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

And here is Part 1:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BtVPl01gW8K/