I had no idea what to expect (or what was expected of me for that matter) as I walked in through the front hallway. I had been in this house countless times and knew the layout well, but everything took on an unfamiliar look now. I instinctively headed toward the kitchen at the end of the hall. This had always been the rallying point any time I came to hang...
Malta, 1815 Billy woke in the late evening and reached over beside him to find the bed empty. He looked over to the French doors out onto the garden on the cliff overlooking Malta's Valetta harbor, with its vast array of ships' masts in view beyond the edge of the garden. He sat up on the side of the bed, opened the drawer of the nightstand, and took out a...
It was a fairly easy two-day march north from Lüneburg to Hamburg, one of the major seaports on the North Sea of the former Hanseatic League, which had maintained its importance even while the inland Hanseatic cities declined. Antwerp had lost prominence when its access to the sea, via the River Scheldt, had been closed down by a war treaty. Amsterdam simila...
I rise slowly to my feet, tears leave a thin trail of wetness on my cheeks. The silhouette before me remains as still as it had when I first saw him standing there. Walking cautiously toward dad, he begins to move very slowly. He raises both arms above my head. I feel the leather belt he is holding become a collar around my neck, it pulls through the buckle,...
When our family bought the house, we knew what we were getting into. The place was a bargain but it was old and it needed a lot of renovating. My parents were sure they could make a nice place out of it though. They saw it as an investment. That's why the house was in constant state of reconstruction for the past year. Eventually, my siblings and I got used...
He left the ruins of Georgia in the summer of 1874, another orphan of the War of Rebellion and one step ahead of the lynch mobs and night riders. Headed west into the territories seeking out the promise of fortune on the far frontiers, but he was broke and hungry in the slums of St. Louis Missouri before the month was out. A young man without promise or pro...
Bing Bing.....Bing Bing. Aaron sat on the side of his bed, grimacing at the thought of checking the message on his phone. It had been a month since his tag team loss to Greg and Diego, and he and Matthew were no longer on speaking terms. Aaron had all but vanished from the underground wrestling scene and become a recluse. It was hard for him to accept that...
All participants are 18 or over. ***** I knew what to expect when Mr. Collins came into the store. He usually winked and waved in my direction and let his eyes hold mine for several seconds longer than felt normal. He usually managed to stand behind me for a bit while I swept the floors or stocked the shelves with canned goods. I never knew how to respond...
CHAPTER 1 Matthew Makepeace laid his final brick of the day and, in his usual meticulous fashion, pointed off the excess mortar from the course he had just finished. When Matthew had finished a piece of work, there was never any need to go back and point the joints as he always left everything perfect. Matthew was, as you must now have gathered, a brick- l...
I want to thank everyone for the support on this story so far. These past few chapters have been my first writings. So I apologize if it's a little boring. The characters are all above the age of 18 if they encounter any type of sexual relation at all. This story is based on a true story, but has differences. I hope you all are enjoying it. *********** I...