Being known in one’s professional circles helps to get gigs and assignments, but this kind of gig wasn’t what Debbie Delaney, professional photographer and reluctant ghost chaser, was hoping for. That’s because this assignment involved visiting a cemetery…

“Do you like wearing a dress, Daddy?”

“Can you believe it used to be that Men told Women what to do, what to wear, their hair, clothes, everything!!!”
“You mean – we used to be in charge - and that women spent all their time wearing pretty clothes and looking after the house and the men? Weird!”

An AP-500 story
(posted quickly because a recent story got 1000 hits in less than 2 days! Yay!)

“Land of Confusion”
"The Last Domino"
"In Too Deep"  
"Tonight, Tonight, Tonight"  
"Throwing It All Away"
"Anything She Does"  
"In the Glow of the Night"
“Take a Look At Me Now”

Land of Confusion

It’s been three years.

I sat for a while when I was back in the Depot at the end of my first week back from holiday. It had been working for the company for almost ten years and very soon, I’d be giving it up for good. Letting go was hard but it had to be done. It was time to move on to pastures new.

On my way out of the Depot, I checked my schedule for the next day. I smiled when I realised that I’d be returning to the Depot in the middle of the afternoon to change both the type of bus and the route. I’d have a chance to go into the supervisor’s office to hand in my notice. In a strange way, I’d miss the place and a good few of the regular passengers that I carried almost on a daily basis.

Jon was waiting for me when I got home. The expression on his face told me that he had something he wanted to tell me.

“Out with it!” I said as we sat down to eat.

“I was sort of wondering if I could go and see Christine for a couple of days?”

This story is set in the same "world" as LadyDragon623's stories about werefolk, vampires, fae and other supernatural creatures.

I have her express permission to use the "world" and characters she has mentioned in her stories if I feel they would fit into this story.

Another week passed as Callista finalized the purchase of the land and the change of title and deed.

After quite a bit of juggling and working extra days to allow other drivers time off to do their Christmas shopping, I managed to secure a decent period off over Christmas. I didn’t tell Jon/Fiona until I’d booked a week in Tenerife over the holiday. It wasn’t cheap but I’d secured a self-catering apartment and flights for a week away. The downside was that the flight was from Birmingham on the 21st. We’d need to set off really early in the morning to check in by 07:00. The other downside was that the return flight was not due to land until 23:00. I booked a Hotel close to the Airport for that night as I guessed that neither of us would want to drive home in the small hours of the next morning.

When all the tickets and everything arrived, I showed them to Fiona.

“Dad?” she said when she’d seen everything.

“Don’t you want to go?”

“You know I do but I don’t have anything to wear for that amount of time away.”

“Funny that, neither do I. Why don’t we go shopping in Manchester a week on Saturday?”

Lazy dancing and strange lights at sea and the Sunderland is scrambled!

Being a parent is stressful even at the best of times. You are always worrying about your children no matter how old they are.
But, being a single parent is just doubly or even triply so. Since ‘she’ left me to go off with ‘him’ because of … well, just about everything, it had just been my son Jonathan or, as he preferred to be called ‘Jon’ and me.

Jon was growing up fast but the worry of being a patent didn’t reduce as he grew older. Teenagers have their own special set of issues.

This particular Friday night, he was out god knows where with some friends. At least that’s what he told me via a text message earlier. The weather was filthy so I’d stayed up waiting for the inevitable phone call, ‘Dad, can you come and pick me up?’

For once in my life, I was lost for words.

“The thing with George is just business,” said Pritti in a total expressionless manner.

Those words seemed so cold, so out of place for her.

Pritti reached up and kissed me. Part of me I wanted to break away but I didn’t. I just wanted to savour every second. The woman I loved was going to marry someone else.

When we broke off, I said,

“How can it be just business?”

“Patricia Jenkins said you weren’t my mummy, an’ she said you were just daddy’s bit of hot stuff.”

This is the story of Penny. A closet Transwoman thrust into the outside world 24-7 when she would rather go and hide away. Perhaps the title should be Welcome to Penny’s Paranoid World…

Pillow Talk
By
Michele Nylons

Chapter Seven – CBGB

Michelle is faced with having to help two Mafia thugs rob the bordello where she is the Madame and her mobster boyfriend the owner. Will the thugs keep their part of the bargain and will the FBI keep her safe from Frankie's retribution?

Sarge-03

Pritti came in from outside just in time for lunch. The change in her that one week in the country had done was remarkable.

“Hi there. I saw you arrive. I was out collecting the eggs.”

I smiled.

“We’ll make a country girl of you yet,” I said jokingly.

“Sorry, but the smell of animal poo still makes my stomach turn,” replied Pritti.

Pillow Talk
By
Michele Nylons

Chapter Three – Compromise

Michelle Clooney, undercover transvestite NYPD detective, is directed to get close to Mafia captain Frankie Caputo and use her charms to get information on the New York Five Families. She accepts an invitation for a second date with Frankie but he becomes insistent that they become more than friends. It's Michelle's time to compromise or go to jail.

I'm not quite sure how best to continue telling this story. There were so many parallel streams of my life set in motion after my birthday, each of them so separate from each other that they almost felt like they were happening to different people at the same time like some weird version of synchronicity.

Caution added for references to rape and suicide - there's nothing graphic here but they are part of the story.

Things return to normal for Taylor, well as normal as can be for her. The family returns to Florida and start the next chapter in the lives of the southern branch of the Turner family. Taylor starts the next phase of her job and meets the GCW women head-on as she takes control while giving the ladies what they wanted but were denied for years.