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Chapter 15
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Mai was in the process of gingerly tearing a corner of her ketchup packet when Tatiana sat down with a tray of food across the table from her. They were in the food court in the mall having lunch, and Tatiana had unsurprisingly grabbed enough food for two people. Mai remembered the feeling from two decades ago.

“Still no word back from her?” Mai asked.

“Nope,” said Tatiana. “Maybe she fell asleep again.”

Brett sighed, the sigh of one who was weary of the whole world, a sound that had no business coming out of a fifteen year old. “Mum’s a user. She’s not at home for days at a time. I know what she’s doing, but don’t want to talk about it.” I just nodded. “When she’s home she’s out of it. There’s me, Jonno and Sophie. Jonno’s seven and Sophie’s five. There were others but they died when they were only babies before mum left the hospital. I’ve been collecting the family allowance for a couple of years now. I hide the book so Mum can’t get it, or we’d have nothing to eat. I can’t afford to get caught nicking anything, or the others will get taken into care. S’pose that’s what’s going to happen now anyway isn’t it?”

Sometimes life takes an unexpected twist. In my business, I am paid an awful lot of money to forecast the unexpected, take the ‘un’ out of uncertainty and at the same time make a shed load of money as a result. Even so there are times when even my crystal ball gazing misses something. The prospect of that is what makes me get out of bed each day and come into work.

Erin has pulled a couple of her old ASS* stories, and reposted them here. I'm following suit. This story was posted as part of Lord Malinov's Exploding Nipples contest: write a short story with a title based on a spam subject line. I've written several, even after the contest was mostly forgotten.
 
        Tit Torture-Free Site
        By Daphne Xu
        Copyright 1998

"YOWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!" Something zapped my breasts!

Castle The Series - 0042 Weights & Measures, Sunrise and Sunset Times

Later that night, after leaving Beth’s house and returning home to supper, I found my thoughts fixated on Beth’s health problem—her fate, I guess—and my own problems with what I should do to cope with my own situation. Needless to say, I wasn’t very talkative during supper and I think everyone was wondering and speculating as to what, exactly, was eating at me this evening.

Hi everyone
after a time of personal issues I finally finished another story
it’s not what I usually write so I hope you enjoy it

Sorcerer.

by jasmine Monica
Princess Serinina leaves her home for ever to make a new life in a new land that she does not know
Chapter 1

Amanda sat quietly and just let me talk for almost an hour, whilst I told her my story, from the dress-up games and teenage sessions with Chloe, my drift into marriage with what turned out to be a domineering partner, nagging me into working in a boring job with her father, my secret cross-dressing, how she had found out, and how she angrily threw me out of our home, leaving me with only my women’s clothes.

FRIDAY

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Chapter 12
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Mary walked out of the coffee shop, and narrowly dodged the man she encountered right outside of the door. Her sidestep became an awkward step when she saw the man’s face. He wore no mask, but she recognized him regardless with his chin structure and green eyes.

“Fancy meeting you here,” she said to him.