XXX: Penthouse Pet

I shook my head angrily, dispelling the memory that clung and reeked like Dace’s pinche weed. Through my still-clenched teeth I said, “I’m not seventeen anymore, and you are fucking with the wrong goddam woman!”

The woodworking classroom smelled of sawdust and machine oil, a scent David had come to appreciate over the semester. Unlike other classes where he felt constantly out of place, here the expectations were clear: design, measure, cut, sand, finish. A project either worked or it didn't. No social navigation required.

Heart of a Lion
A Short Story of Reimagined History
By Maryanne Peters

Who was he, my master and Lord of my Heart? Richard the first of his name King of England, Duke of Normandy, and of Aquitaine, and of Gascony, Lord of Cyprus. Count of Poitiers, and of Anjou and Maine and Nantes, Overlord of Brittany, Richard Coeur de Lion – the Lionheart.

An aging queen returns to her old stomping ground for a final hurrah and is joined by someone starting their journey.

Chapter 4

We arrived at what looked like a mansion in Kensington. A valet helped me out of the car and drove it away to be parked after giving Walter a token. Walter took me by the arm, and we went inside. It had been totally rebuilt inside, with a proper cloakroom where I checked my fur, and he checked his overcoat. We went through a set of doors on one side of sweeping stairs, to a large dining room and were shown to our table.

Sorry for the short chapter.

Charlotte was getting frustrated with every attempt she made with trying to patch things up between her parents. Her mother slapped her in public when she ambushed her mother at the beauty salon her mother liked going to. She was trying very hard to keep the promise she made to her grandmother, but it seemed that this was one promise she wouldn’t be able to keep.

The New Girl at Uskweirs Manor

a pastoral romance by Miriam Robern

To Bridewell

Monmouthshire, November 1812

I was a twisted lump of metal caught between the hammer of Abuela’s relentless, immigrant ambitions and the anvil of my parents’ broken dreams. I had no power to outrun my dark memories, nor any way to keep them buried. They were part of me.

Undercovers
A Short Story
By Maryanne Peters

Chapter 09

Warmth.

That was the first sensation—a gentle, encompassing warmth that seemed to cradle consciousness itself. There was no body to feel it with, no skin to register temperature, just the pure essence of warmth wrapping around awareness like a mother's embrace.

Chapter 3

Walter drove us back to the agency in the bigger car, with me in the front and the others in the back. Before I got out, he gave me his business card and I told him my mobile number, which he entered into his own phone, ‘so we can coordinate the shoot details’. I stood on the pavement, and we watched him drive away. Janice laughed.

“I wonder if there are more like that at home?”

The Discord notification pinged as David finished his math homework, the sound a welcome interruption from polynomial equations. He clicked over to find his gaming group already deep in discussion about the recent string of disappearances in Millridge.

"I'm telling you, something weird is going on," Tony's message declared. "Three people vanishing in two weeks? That's not normal."

Chapter 3 Rise to High Priest

I awoke the following morning, the remnants of last night's events lingering in my mind like fragments of a vivid dream. As I gazed into the vanity mirror perched atop my desk, reality struck me with undeniable clarity. The reflection, looking back, was altered, transformed by forces I could scarcely comprehend. There was no escaping the truth—I had changed in ways I'd never imagined possible.

Sam and Rick awkwardly got into the ride vehicle, a giant sturgeon with skin marred by peeling paint and bleach stains. The inside of it had been scooped out as if by some hungry giant, the organs and fat replaced by two benches dotted with droplets of water from previous loops.

 
XXVII: Back at the damn ball

Bulbs flashed everywhere like tasteless arc welders fucking epileptic fireflies. “Countess Devaris!” A tabloid wraith blocked her path. “Does Lady Elaine’s absence signal fractures in Phoenix Rising’s founding triad?”

Chapter 2

We hugged and air kissed, then went through to the dining room. We had a table in full view of everybody and got a lot of looks when we were seated. Monica gave me a potted history of the shoots that she had been in since I last saw her, and I gave her a potted history of my own recent past. We were into the main course when she said something that changed the situation.

“Do you know any places I can live in London? Someone called Yvonne from an agency there has bought out my contract with the agency here.”