Dot and Sam 23

“I’ll have to look things up to see if they’re worth more than the precious metals in them,” she said. “I don’t recognize them. The minting techniques seem to be relatively modern, like eighteenth or nineteenth century, but I thought I’d recognize all the historic coins of that period, and I don’t.”

If only I had listened to the warnings about drugs. In my defense though, I have had a rotten life up until this present moment. A moment that finds me staring down the barrel of a shotgun in a private hospital in the middle of the night.

The first few years of my life were like many other people's. I was the only child of loving but poor parents. I was always on the small side which led to bullying at school, but that was normal. Schools say they hate bullying, but most of them turn a blind eye to it.

Venuses in Furs
A Vignette
By Maryanne Peters

We always get the invitations. It was that way when we started doing it just for fun, but now it has become a lifestyle. You might say that it has gone way too far, but I have learned lately that too far isn’t far enough for me.

We decided to throw our own “Fur Party” because that is how it started, for me anyway.

Toni has been Toni for a little over a week, which seems to be just enough time for her to have slept in a boy’s bed. Yes! With the boy next to her. And they did more than sleep in the afternoon, long before the Sandman visited. But how will she handle discovering men do more than smell good and kiss good?

Will Toni be spending the new day telling all her friends about her discoveries with a smile on her face? Will Steph in Light Avenue have to get used to saying the annoyingly alliterative “Toni and Tim?” Or will Toni be running to Big-G, her one rock, with tears in her eyes when she meets him later in her day? More importantly, does Toni even remember why she’s meeting Big-G, or has her mind been filled with more distracting thoughts?