Jack moved into what he called, his 'closet' right after splitting up with his wife. It was essentially just a bedroom with a kitchen and bath. "Studio" was over stating the situation but since it was all he could afford in a short time period, who was he to argue? He hit it off with the landlord upon their first meeting so the rent wasn't what it COULD have...
--- Chapter 2: Attempted escape, and punishment --- I gasped air. Water. Fresh water! I plunged my head back into the blessed, muddy, warm liquid and just drank. I was alive, I would survive! Water! Finally I sat up and looked around me, laughing for the first time in what seemed like years, my full belly wobbling as I did so, dirty water flowing down my f...
Chapter 22 If you can't fight and you can't flee, flow. Connie had her hands full in trying to convince George she was a female. He made her cry when he indicated she was living her life in denial; since she had a penis. "I mean it's silly for you to have a penis and not realize you are a male at some level," he said trying to understand better; hoping...
"Pet!" Her master's voice boomed across the small cottage. Danielle trembled with fear. She couldn't hide from his anger. It reached out for her, surrounding her and she gasped for breath. "Come to me!" Danielle crawled out from behind the kitchen table. She was hungry and he had forgotten to feed her again. She'd almost made it to the kitchen, where her...
Chapter 2 - A NEW JOB Tuesday was the big day. I was starting my new job. Not that it was a career or anything, but it was better than some of my previous jobs. I had worked at Carl's Jr. (Hardee's in the rest of the U.S.) when I was in high school and the previous summer I had worked in the customer service department at a department store. The only thing...
Heather Sampson tilted her head back, squinting into the bright mid-morning sunlight. This was a bad idea. What had Geoffrey been thinking? She brushed the moisture from her eyes with the back of her hand. She would never know. Just as she would never again engage his brilliant mind in debate about some esoteric topic. He was gone. A year almost, and the p...
It had been a long three weeks since Natasha and Steve had holed up in the cabin, on the run from remnants of Hydra, and Hawkeye. They settled into a routine, though Black Widow admonished herself during this time as she had not so easily fallen into it. Steve was a natural - coming from a simpler time of the 1940s and roughing it on the front lines of WWII...
"You know, if Australia doesn't drop the Queen as its Head of State, that is my only concern about possibly moving in with Tanveet in Melbourne. Only in the sense that I don't know how that would impact things, just because she has reserve powers. What if she uses them to help the New Order regime somehow? In principle, however, I would love to move to Austr...
My office is on the fifth floor of one of those pale impersonal behemoths that now dominate the London skyline. It's a comfortable, functional room that has about as much soul as a three-day old corpse. So I arrive late, leave early and enjoy a long lunch. So there I was on a nondescript, overcast, Wednesday morning. Stood watching the clock and waiting fo...
"Oh, what power the giltie gie us, to see oursells as others see us." -- Scottish poet Robert Burns (1759-1796) Usually an editorial is the first thing I write for these newspapers. But some editorials are harder to write than others. This one is the hardest yet. Why? Because I keep changing my perceptions on how I see myself, and how I should discuss the...