In the fall of 2020, twelve female personalities of international politics disappeared in a single day. Secret services around the planet were astonished, not being able to explain how any organization could have the necessary infrastructure to organize a global operation like that, and do it without being detected. The answer to who could have done it and w...
It's not every day you walk in the door to find an elf in your living room – especially a female elf. Slightly under five feet, she was taller than I expected. She had long blonde hair braided down her back, so that it was easy to see her slightly raised ear lobes that were not as tall as I expected. Her brilliant blue eyes were slightly larger than I expec...
Solace “Sol” Tynan stood, swaying slightly, as she watched her now ex-best friend and lover, Rosanna “Sanna” Romero, stride purposefully across the street. It was a damned good thing she was holding tightly to her mobility cane because she might have made quite a spectacle of herself by crumpling to the sidewalk for no good reason that anyone could discern....
2000: “Aren’t you ready yet, Sol?” called Rosanna impatiently from Solace’s living room. She glanced again at her watch, noting they had less than an hour to get to the rehearsal in time. They would have to take a taxi. Katrina would give them the evil eye. Rosanna could not understand why Solace found it so difficult to get herself together each time. She s...
1999: Rosanna was certain that she had thought of the perfect gift for Solace. The only challenge would be finding such a specialized item. She had accompanied Solace to a meeting of an advocacy group for the blind and had seen the device. She had been so preoccupied gawking at it that she hadn't thought to get the information on where it was manufactured. T...
1999: Solace and Rosanna had known each other for a year. In that time they learned a great deal because they spent hours talking, mostly in person as they lived in such close proximity. Solace discovered that Rosanna had a real thing for neatness and order. This subject was the source of several heated discussions and activities. “Sol, why don’t you put yo...
1998: Solace and Rosanna traversed the avenues and then made their way uptown. They walked arm in arm, and both smiled inwardly at how comfortable it felt walking with a near-perfect stranger. Solace considered herself to be a carefree person, but this was a bit odd even for her. Rosanna, being the levelheaded pragmatist knew she must be suffering from some...
2003: Tears ran unaware and unchecked down L. D. Jansen’s face as she watched from her shadowy alcove as the stranger first embraced and then kissed the lips of the woman she had hoped to make her own. The tears were accompanied by a persistent ache in her abdomen, as if she’d been punched, but she could not turn away. Anger rose, but died just as quickly. W...
“Bizarrey! Bizarrey!” Solace called as she entered her apartment. “Mommy’s home! Come here, sweetums!” That’s probably why she’s staying away, Solace thought. What self-respecting cat would want to be called ‘sweetums’? She dumped her cane and shoulder-bag at the door and began to search her one-bedroom apartment. She looked in all of Bizarrey’s known hiding...
Dana squinted as she stepped outside the gym into the bright and sunny Southern California morning. Having just wrapped up with a client session, she was sporting a purple tank top and tight, black yoga pants. Her blonde hair was tied up in a pony-tail. She clutched a yoga mat under one arm and a fresh coffee in the other. She opened her car and took a sea...