It was a scorching June day when this all took place. I was 13 and living alone with my single mom. I was homeschooled, but not sheltered from the world. My mom was my hero - my dad was gone before I was even born, so she raised me solo without any help, all while owning and operating her own successful salon. We did well for ourselves, had a nice house with a pool. Despite her busy schedule she always made time for me, and even though I was homeschooled I never felt coddled or alone with her parenting. I based a lot of my personality and work ethic off of her.

I hurriedly rummaged through the deep pockets of my beige coat before pulling out a set of unorganized keys, one of which was supposed to open the door to my apartment. I let out a big sigh as I carried the bags of groceries I had just bought inside before closing the door and slumping to the floor. Being a woman had made me significantly physically weaker than when I was a man, and performing everyday tasks took more energy. Like how every time I needed to use the tallest cabinets in the kitchen, I needed to grab a chair and climb on top of it.

Siblings are great for gossip, not so much reading the room.

Captions:

Panel 1:

Lari: "It was really great to hear from you too. Love you, miss you. Call me later, okay?"
Sis: "Wait, before you go, Larissa. Have you seen your baby sister's new haircut?"

Panel 2:

Sis: "She looks like a ... >>lesbian..<<"
Lari: "Uh... huh..."

To Save the Worlds

Chapter 2

The sun was shining through a gap in the drapes, casting plenty of light. Michael found himself squinting as he woke. The bed was comfortable, probably the best he had slept in for quite some time. He lay still for a bit, just enjoying the feel of the bed and the scent of fresh linen. These were things that he had not had a chance to experience in quite some time.

PSYCH-OPS
A Short Story
By Maryanne Peters

Twelve originally volunteered, and six were selected, including myself.

Chapter 9: In Which I Share The Secret With Someone Else For The First Time, And Begin To Learn Something Even More Valuable

We stopped by another town on the way, at which Master said she had an errand– she did not elaborate, and no one asked her to.

Diva Dismayed: Chapter 11 – At the hop

Chapter 8: In Which I Say Some Things That Were Perhaps Unwise To Think, Much Less Speak, But Am Eventually Shut Up With Master’s Assistance

Valentine was looking at me expectantly, waiting for her heals, and I couldn’t tell her I wasn’t running that spec, because– oh thank god, Master was coming over.

“Actually… could I heal you, Valentine, if you don’t mind? Sasha’s been teaching me a little healing magic, and I think I’m pretty decent, but the proof is in the ashes, as they say.” ...who the heck said that? I had to question some of this world’s idioms.

“So what’s eating you?” Anette asked Tori from the other side of the table. Tori looked up at her, eyes heavy and body racked with exhaustion after the events of the day.

“Are we having dinner?” Tori asked quietly, ignoring Anette’s question.

“Pot roast,” Anette said simply. “What’s eating you?”

"Here's the thing, Merope," Agent Kirchmeyer said.
"If we take what you said at face value, what do we have? Something about cylinders.
We don't know what these cylinders are. Frankly, they sound like rolls of money.
Which, of course, is nice for him, but not really remarkable,
if you know anything about the Switcher."

Authors Note: This story is complete and sitting on my hard drive. The novel is 49,188 words long in twenty chapters. I will be posting two chapters per week, roughly 5,000 words per post, on Fridays.

Alex comes home one day and his wife, Carrie, tells him of a problem in Mike and Lisa's marriage. Mike is his best friend since middle school. It seems that Lisa caught Mike cross-dressing and came unglued. She had come to Carrie looking for solace and support for divorcing Mike. But Carrie told her about a Phil Donahue show she'd seen as a teenager featuring married cross-dressers and said that cross-dressing really was no big deal.

Lisa was offended that Carrie wouldn't back her up and said, "If it was your husband, you wouldn’t think it was so cool," and left in a snit; part of her anger now directed at Carrie.

Carrie, on the fly, hatches a plan to help Lisa see that if it was her husband, she'd still think it was no big deal. Alex somewhat reluctantly goes along with it and discovers things about himself that he never knew existed.