Before I could continue Jola's story, I was summoned to a rather run-down hotel near Hamburg. Our Belgian network administrator had managed to combine favourable accommodation costs, personnel-availability and enough notice to enable Friday travel, arriving for dinner and then beginning work. Following terrorist attacks including foreign visitors, the aim w...
I consider myself a very fortunate man. I'm popular, I live in a home that I own and I'm a - some would say very but I say moderately - successful author. I'm close to my parents and to my siblings. My parents taught me good values from an early age. I learned that success usually doesn't come easily, you have to work for it. They also taught me not to judg...
Chapter 001 -- Destined Encounter Year 11583 -- Outskirts of Belington, Gentle breezes streamed across, shaking branches and its' leaves. Fishes plopped on the lake surface while birds chirped on treetops. Meanwhile, sitting leaned against a tree trunk, gazing at the lake's serenity, was a boy in his mid-teens. His short, black hair swayed by the wind a...
Netta Thorbold made her way up the stairs to the studio. She had agreed to sit for a young artist. 'Sorry, I'm a bit late,' she said as she came in the door, 'but we've been busy at the shop.' The studio, or rather Felix Appleby's bedsitter, was large and bare, with grey walls, on which were pinned the studies he had done. It was a pleasant room with two w...
Sally Gooden receives her mid-morning coffee from her secretary and settles down for a ten-minute break. The morning has been hectic so far and will be again. She relishes the buzz and thrives when she is at the centre of it, but she equally relishes the short breaks she gets. She needs them too, in order to recharge. And today it gives her a chance to check...
Jack Tayor couldn't believe his luck. He was going to be the first of all his friends to see the new Clint Conner's action film, Deadly Larry. With a bravado worthy of Clint Conner himself, the 18 yr old senior had spent a week planning the operation that had resulted in his triumph. First he had reported to school that morning and attended his home room a...
I used to think the institution of marriage wasn't for guys like me, until I met the woman I was meant to be with. In my old life I was known as Kendrick Wilkins, but these days I go by the moniker Brother Khalid. I'm a hard-working student at Crossroads College, with a double major in business administration and theology. Someday I will become a preacher. I...
Chester was now subjected to a life of blissful humiliations and indignities, pressed home with rigorous and perpetual discipline by the plump and cruelly assertive Jenny. He'd never dreamed he'd be made to show his face in the community where each day he was reminded of the cutting shame that his exposure had brought him, but Jenny ensured he lived in that...
There were five 'missed calls' when Anita woke up. The voice mail from Trish sounded extremely urgent. "Do not do anything with those photos and video clips. Phone me back as soon as possible." A text accompanied it, 'Phone me ASAP!" Anita had had her phone 'on charge' all night, and accidentally on 'silent.' When Trish picked up, her first words were,...
John was my first boyfriend at seventeen. Twenty years later we were married with two boys - me working part time and looking after them and the house and John obsessed with work. I often thought how much my life had changed and how little his had. He still went out with his mates at the weekend while I was at home. My friends were settled down and I worked...