Like a lot of little girls, I loved riding a Merry-Go-Round. The music, the lights, the horses – some friendly, some fierce, some more decked out than the local Rose Festival Queen.
I rode my horse round and round, up and down, like everyone else. But in my imagination, he and I sailed over the heads of the others and off into the clouds, far from Portland, Oregon. We twirled and danced and he reared back on his hind legs as I held on and princess-waved to the crowds below. No small feat for a shy, klutzy, nearsighted kid.
Then I grew up. Began writing. Rode a Merry-Go-Round again, for the first time in years, and began envisioning all kinds of sexy things that could…you know…happen on a moving carousel horse. Between a man and a woman who have the place all to themselves. Things the people who made Merry-Go-Rounds probably didn’t have had in mind, although I can’t speak for them.
I put it into a story - Grab the Brass Ring. A fantasy ride for a grown-up girl and her gorgeous guy, where all of that up and down has a much different result, but time and the real world still slip away. Cue the lights and music.