Nick learns the depths to which he will sink when a guest comes to dinner.

In my eyes the town looked as miserable as it had done 25 years before when I left it. I suppose it was OK if you had a thing for Midwest small towns. A long way from any sizeable city it was the commercial center for a wide swathe of the countryside. Not that the aforementioned countryside was particularly densely populated. I passed a small mall when entering the town. That was new. However, the main reason for the existence of the town was The Mill. Most of the working population worked for the mill directly or indirectly. The fact that I arrived on a cold and windy December day didn’t matter. I couldn’t have hated South Odom any more anyway.

Chapter 4

Of course, you don’t invent a new and legal business as easily as pulling a rabbit out of a top hat. No, there has to be a lot of thought and not a few meetings. We first talked through what we did do as a family and, once you took away the prostitution, money laundering, stand-over tactics, and smuggling there wasn’t a lot that we could turn out hand to and still keep our self-respect.

Damsel in This Dress
A Short Story
By Maryanne Peters

I was one of those people who believed that I could handle everything, until one day I discovered that I could not handle anything at all.

It started with headaches. Initially they were the kind that you could pop a pill to put them aside, but then I got those head-splitting things that they call migraine attacks that force you to sit in a still, darkened room, to get any peace. It seemed as if it could not get worse, but it did.

Warning: Brief descriptions of torture.

The Angel of Earth

by

Rodford Edmiston

Part Three

Nick was pretty sure he led a normal married life of routine, and he did, until his wife, Jennifer, learns she can push him out of his comfort zone with a little 'hands-on' encouragement.