EXTRACT FOR
Elaine and Donna: A Love Story, Part 1, Elaine's Fetish
(David Monroe)

      Elaine had been simultaneously frightened and exhilarated by thunder and lightning storms since she had been a young girl growing up on her parents' farm in Kansas. She was never quite sure just where the fear came from....maybe just the suddenness and potential lethal power that the passing weather often brought with it. Certainly as a young girl she had seen her share of violently damaging storms come through her little town of Childers and had witnessed first-hand just how damaging they could be to a small agricultural community. The exhilaration portion was partly the same....just the sheer power and force of the wind, rain, hail, and eye-popping electrical displays were enough to send her pulse racing. But there was another component to her experience of exhilaration that came with the frequent squalls that she never told anyone about.



      When Elaine was about eighteen or so, there had been this particularly violent and unexpected storm that sprang up while she was tending to some of the smaller farm animals.....few goats and sheep....on their spread. She had been out in the barn as the afternoon calm was absolutely transformed by a massive electrical storm turning the formerly blue and cheery skies to what could have been confused as night, the clouds so darkened the sky. She had been way back in the barn feeding the animals and had not noticed the approaching weather....just sensed the change in winds from mild to gusty. The wind swept through the open windows of the small barn, but this was often the case in the summers in Childers, so she did not give it much thought at the time. 



      In just a few minutes, the temperature plummeted as the winds began to howl and the first clap of ear-splitting thunder, followed soon after by a piercing bolt of lightning nearly knocked Elaine off her feet. More claps reverberated through the late afternoon sky with the almost constant accompaniment of bolt after bolt of lightning and rain began to come as if the clouds had just fallen apart. The sky was hideously dark blue, bordering on black as the storm unleashed all it had as Elaine cowered in one of the empty animal stalls. At the time it felt as if the world might be ending as the ferocity and intensity of the storm just seemed to keep growing.