"Dim Aspen" is a short story by author Dan P. Mise concerning the hapless exploits of Pam Denis, a.k.a. "Snide Pam", and her quest to rise above her bleak existence. Pam is a bitter pens-maid who has grown sick and tired of cleaning the muck and slop from the stock enclosures on her step-aunt's sheep farm and is terrified of the increasingly violent beatings she receives beacuse she nips mead on the sly to endure the mind-crushing dullness. Her shrill-voiced biting sarcasm only makes things worse.

Inspired by "Mein Spad", the unpublished autobiography of P.A. Midsen, a German WWI aviator who fought for the French, Pam runs away to the big city, Bozeman, Montana, believing there will be any number of paths to a better life if she can just meet the right cattle rancher. Pam soon finds that there are no cattlemen in Bozeman and, lacking marketable skills, she is reduced to wandering the streets.

One day she stops to admire the strength of a well-muscled and mustachioed hunk of a man doing "amen dips" on the exercise machine in his side yard. Sid Mapen turns out to be a real smooth talker, and after some idle chit-chat he cajoles Pam into fellating him while he does bench presses. She does it so well he slips Pam a C-note and, just like that, Pam decides to become a call-girl. Pam's descent into into the seething, depraved underbelly of Bozeman is swift and relentless. She finds she has great facility with an obscure sexual talent and becomes greatly sought after by a circle of ardent felching fetishists.

Over time a problem arises in that her customers are prone to painful bladder infections and Pam's income swings wildly. Seeking to protect her clients, and her income stream, Pam looks at her dental dam one day and decides to invent the penis dam to provide protection for a John's urethra and bladder. She spends much time and all her money researching suitable materials and designs, but, when it comes time for product testing, inserting the penis dam proves too troublesome and painful, plus it seriously impedes the flow of passions, among other things.

Distraught and destitute once again, Pam begins singing original songs on street corners for spare change, her formerly taut vocal cords now producing eerily smooth and sensuous sounds. She is discovered by Ed Pisman, a vacationing A&R rep from Nashville, and lands a recording contract. Drawing on the characters she's met and mining the depths of her despair, Pam finds fame and fortune writing and performing songs such as the plaintive cry for rescue "Ma Sped In", The heartfelt confessional "P.S. I Amend", and the insomniac anthem "Dime Naps". Pam's song about the stunning variety of crazy stories people tell themselves to get through the day, "Ape's Mind", finally lands her in the Country Music Hall of Fame.

--
Pandeism anagram writeup contest

(Author will change pandeism pipe links if those nodes are created.)

Log in or register to write something here or to contact authors.