The Disappeared
A Short Story
By Maryanne Peters

Quinn was off work. Injured in the line of duty they call it. Shot himself in the foot in the locker room. I like Quinn but he can be a klutz.

They paired me for a week or two with Gayle. Gayle is a lesbian, but you cannot deny that she is good at her job. She is just not the cheeriest soul on the planet. It makes you wonder if lesbian sex can really be that satisfying. But people’s private life is their own. I make no judgments.

When I tell people that the Sunflower Grocery Store is haunted, people around Benton tend to give me something of a sideways look. But honest to goodness the store is really, bloody haunted. In fact I would go as far as to say it's crawling with ghosts. My name is James Donald Bell, and I'm a part time Courtesy Clerk at Sunflower Grocery store. Before I move on with my story, I should tell you a little about what a Courtesy Clerk is and what they do.

When revenge goes wrong...

Diva Dismayed: Chapter 9 – And then not
Not long after my probationary weeks at the salon had passed, Mrs Millward called me into her office. I was a little nervous, wondering if I had done something wrong, though I couldn’t think of anything. I was glad when instead she said she’d had the strangest telephone call. “It was long-distance. Can you guess who it was from?”

I couldn’t imagine and said so.

Photo credit Photo by Luke Stackpoole on Unsplash

Thanks to a few of our British sisters, I'm relatively certain that my British characters aren't speaking in American.

This is an account of an American's visit to London England an how he felt about attending a fancy dress party. Something he'd only experienced at Halloween and not since eighth grade. But then this wasn't like any Halloween party he'd ever been to.

Can you spell "Turn-About"?

I, like many others, learned to read from the “Dick and Jane” series of books to which I was first introduced in the first grade. While the dog, Spot, ran and Dick played games with Jane, I was absorbed in looking at pictures of the pretty dresses Sally wore. I was envious of the puffy sleeves, the pink, the ruffles, and the short hems. I learned to read really quickly while pouring over those books wishing I could wear those beautiful outfits.

“Have fun at college.”

 

“Wooo! Girls and partying!” I exclaimed as I waved back. Jada and my big self both giggled.

A pervy guy goes “Fairy Watching” in the fantasy town of Moonview, hoping to see up the skirts of the fairies. When he’s caught, an angry fairy turns him into a fairy girl, but is that really such a bad thing?

A group of friends streams their gaming on Wednesday nights. But not all the action is on the dining room table.

Chapter 12

Allan arranged a gig on a Saturday night at a civic party. We did our new look show and it went well. I wasn’t highly excited about it. We played our music and then went home. I may have been the only one feeling a bit jaundiced. But I did have a lot of other things on my mind.

I wondered if it was the prospect of being a father that outweighed the upgrade of becoming a woman. Was I worried about the future of the farm against my likely career as a music star / model / businesswoman?

After a mere four hours of restless slumber, I awoke with my thoughts still consumed by the precarious situation I found myself in. What kind of peril was I facing at this very moment? Hell had unleashed demonic bounty hunters upon me, and as if that weren't enough, an angel tasked with eradicating demons in the city was lying right beside me. Despite the danger, I felt an inexplicable urge to offer her some comfort, particularly after she had saved me.

The figure in the mirror was still a stranger to Keir. Despite having spent weeks in the body, he had not gotten used to it, or let himself study it beyond the basic plumbing problems. It was a perfectly useful body, at least when it wasn't recovering from getting shot and nearly killed. Many people had similar bodies. Still, it wasn't his. Like ill-fitting armour it chafed and pulled in odd and uncomfortable ways.

Halloween Romance
Sequel to
Mischief Night Magic
Part Six: A Lesson on the Perils of Womanhood

Gwendoline took a deep breath as she closed the heavy wooden doors of the girls bathroom behind her. She then started to walk around every square foot of the bathroom. Once she was sure we were along she turned toward me and heaved another long, drawn out sigh.

“I’m not against letting formerly disabled kids compete,” Eric said, “but I’m not sure exactly where you’d draw the line between someone venned into a healthy body and someone venned into a more athletic body.”

Lying on a fluffy towel, surrounded by soft green sand, with the sound of waves just a few feet away, I had to admit life wasn't so bad.