It was too short notice to make a birthday cake, Mrs. Ramsey said, but they had a couple of boxes of Girl Scout cookies that they’d bought from the scouts at church the previous Sunday, and we nibbled on those and they sang “Happy Birthday” for me, and I cried, and everybody hugged me.

Leaving magic class, I was grateful that none of my classmates followed me to subterfuge. Having to face anyone who'd seen me naked so soon after it happened, would have been unbearable. There was one teeny tiny problem however, I had to walk the hallways by myself, and who knew what Micheal or his friend Victor would do.

When you make a wish on Christmas Eve. Even if it is a wish that you have been hiding from everyone your whole life.

“Wake up! It’s Christmas morning! You just missed Santa Claus!” Mrs. Ramsey called out from the hallway.

Morning came all too quickly.

I pulled the front door open with a jerk, surprising an imposing man with a completely bald head just as he was about to hit the door again. “If you say anything about knockers, you’re a dead man!” I growled.

I thought about what Sophia and Savannah had talked about last night, about their fathers and their long estrangement and how they were trying to be friends again now. Would it be like that between me and Nathan when I made contact again after I turned eighteen?

“So... Petra, will you be keeping the new body?” Clarice asked, looking a tad envious.

Slumped in my seat, I was busy stuffing food into my face. Being killed and resurrected over twenty times had made me work up an appetite. The new proportions probably didn't help matters either. It felt like I was sitting on balloons, and I missed being able to see my feet.

By

Gwen Brown

This Short Story has been laying in one of my SSDs, neglected and unfinished for years. It seems that my protagonist is deeply confused about their gender. That’s not the half of it. What can we do to fix that? This is a story of secrets, deception, abuse, and war.

I checked into the hotel in town for a week, I felt it made sense to keep anyone I meet with away from home. When I signed up to the hook up app I got a lot of attention, even though I blurred me face and it turns out those naked photos in the changing room were useful, which all made it easier to pick guys based purely on their looks and then availability. I only had a small bag with me and the first guy was turning up on his way home from work and only had two hours.

As the year draws to a close, I would like to wish you all a happy and safe Festive Season. I thank all the wonderful writers on this site who have raised my spirits during the year. I hope that 2023 will be better for everyone. My writing had hit a block due to a book project and other things this year. I hope to get back writing in 2023. Before that, though, here is a little story which has a tenuous link to the Christmas story.

Marianne Gregory

Chapter 1

Changing Roles
By Julie Dawn Cole
Chapter 27

I couldn’t believe that I’d just said that. It sounded so girly, and he’d trusted me to be his right hand man as MD. Had he taken advantage of me because of my nature and exploited my weaknesses and lack of experience? Since Emily had arrived, I’d seen how far short of being a strong leader I fell short.

Hannah was waiting for me the moment I walked out of work, and she followed me in her car as I drove home, insisting on being the one who took me shopping. Once we got to the shop, the idea was that she would pick things out that would be suitable for a young teenager to wear to a party, so there I was shopping for the other me, and trying to visualise how I would look in things. Hannah settled on a blue dress which I thought looked very short and very tight, but she insisted it would look perfect as she had been doing some research.

A new start - Part 1 of 5

I've finished this, but haven't decided yet if I will post it once a week or in consecutive days, and part five is technically a prequel but still very connected to the whole story. I hope you enjoy.
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Dozens of hands were grabbing Alexander, long nails claws at his hair and clothes trying to get a grip. The vines attached to the hand encircled him like snakes, their thorns scraping along his skin, drawing blood.

I reached into my purse and flipped him my drivers’ license. “That’s me,” I said. “Or was, up until a month ago. I have sixty years of memories to go with the photo. If I was scammed, the scammers are the functional equivalent of an advanced species. And there’s no way that I could ‘delude’ myself into a working knowledge of Old English, Norman French, Greek, Classical Latin, Church Latin and Hochdeutch, with a smattering of other languages besides.”

Jennifer Lam, of "A Bikini Beach Summer" and "A Bikini Beach Late Summer", revisits Bikini Beach for the first time.

Cameron could not wait to see Gerald again. Since Cameron had been away at college for almost a year, the two of them had not been able to see one another. But now that it was June and Cameron was home, he could go and see Gerald again.

Cameron reached Gerald's house, knocked on the front door, and was greeted almost at once by his old friend. "Hey Cameron!" Gerald said, giving him a fist bump.

"Wassup?" said Cameron.

"Come on in," said Gerald. "I've got some kettlecorn ready for us."

"What-you made kettlecorn?"