Just east of Benton is an unguarded railroad crossing. According to legend, one cold, foggy, autumn afternoon a school bus full of children became stalled on the tracks. Before the driver could get the children off the trail, a freight train came barreling through and smashed into the side of the bus, crumbling it up like a sheet of paper. In the blink of an eye, the bush became nothing more than a twisted collection of metal and wire, reaching the wreck, fireman found the mangled bodies of six school children tangled up in the spiderweb of bent medal, broken glass that bus had become.

This is the story of two gender non-conforming teens back in the benighted 1980s. Two kids trying to find their places in the world and finding a kindred spirit.

Thanks to Lizzy Bennet, editor and friend extraordinaire.

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Fall 1983. Spencer’s Gifts in the Nanuet Mall.

Lyle and Josh were flicking through the racks of posters, the clicking sound getting faster and slower.

Graphic created by Patricia Marie Allen from photos on Pixabay.com
- Background by Artem Beliaikin on Unsplash

This is the story of a crossdressers wife. It was originally published as part of the anthology One Dozen Roses. I highly recommend the whole anthology, but I am biased.

I found myself floating. Floating through the air, floating through space, time had no meaning, there was no beginning or ending through the realm I floated through. My body felt light as a feather. Then I felt my toes touch something. I looked down and noticed I was standing on some green grass. I looked up and noticed the sky was blue. I had gone from floating from nothingness to standing on earth again. Then I noticed it. Before me a massive gate with a fence running as far as the eye could see in both directions. The bars of the gate glowed in the sun. 

The wind was blowing hard, harder than before and small flakes of snow were starting to fall down from the sky. The sky above me was gray and cloudy and my whole body felt numb and small flecks of snow were falling down upon me. The door of the ambulance had just opened and I had been awoken from my sleep by the blinding light. My whole mind was numb too.

In two thousand and eighteen I volunteered for the dunking booth attraction at the relaunch of the 'Discover Benton Festival' that has become a yearly event that draws a number of people to our small, little delta town. I was fourteen then and just starting to come out of my shell. I was new to Benton and in a way, I was still frail. Beside dealing with puberty and the discord that it brings, I was also trying to come to terms with me being transgender. My mother had just been buried four months before, and because I was in hospital when the funeral took place.

In a clearing eight miles north of Benton there stands an old wooden railway depot. It's a simple white wooden building with a rusty tin roof. It stands next to another wooden building that was once the town's post office and beside that another building that was once the town's trading post. Beside the depot there's an old steam locomotive resting in an old section of line. A quiet section of road runs pass these three buildings before crossing the mainline of the “Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad” that runs straight to Benton.

Gentle Summer Rains: I'm the Village's Idol Now?!
Episode One: The Village's Talent Show Brings Me Misfortune!

Jane took a deep breath as she entered through the front door of the manor house. A sudden blast of warm air greeted her and for a brief moment her breath was taken away at the sight that greeted her. It was something out of a storybook. The living room had over the course of the school day been transformed into a homily little scene of domestic bliss. An evergreen tree thrice as tall and wide as her was sitting in the far corner of the living room.

Belladonna's "Hiding in Hose" (mother seizes corporate control from her son and transforms him into her maid): perhaps it's a dark tale rife with unfairness; alternatively, perhaps it's a moral tale of just desserts. This is my (unauthorized) tribute, Fanfiction, to one of the best FM authors. It is set 15 years after Belladonna's story. Any overlaps in copyright I cede to her.

https://fictionmania.tv/stories/readtextstory.html?storyID=1...

BTW, this will be my last story for a few months.

One of the saddest stories on FictionMania is Janice's 'The Slut': "Three teenage girls exact revenge on the older brother of one of them, who is obnoxious to them, with dire results." Six minutes ago, I posted it here on BCTS as 'The Slut (By Janice)'. It's a short but powerful story, cutting 'close to the bone' of reality. Many of its reviewers demanded a sequel. 'Aftermath' is my unauthorized tribute to Janice's gut-wrenching realism. Please do not associate any shortcomings in my work with her thoughtful gem. Any overlaps in copyright I cede to her.

A little observation about fiction v. non-fiction.

Cedric scrupulously audits 'Donna's Dungeon of Domination'.

The aftermath of a bachelorette party that went awry.

Leanne's daughter needs surgery soonest. Alas, there's a problem.

Warning: do not read if depressed.

To the credit of its author, one TG story on a site disturbed me to the conclusion that, in order to sleep better at night, I needed to write a moral counterpoint to it.

This next story is a bit personal for me. It's one I'm still having trouble coming to terms with. One one hand, it could have been a trick of the mind. I was on some pretty powerful painkillers at the time. My life too it seemed had fallen apart, like a piece of priceless china that had been dropped on the floor. The tiny porcelain shards scattered to the four winds. I guess I should start at the beginning of the story.

For generations the legend of 'Jenny Greenteeth' has haunted the imagination of the children of Benton. The tall tales of the malevolent water hang with green, mottled skin, long hair and sharp, pointed teeth. That is supposed to lurk out of sight beneath beds of duckweed in ponds, canals or gravel pits. Biding her time, waiting for her chance to rise up and snatch from the banks careless children or the elderly that had strayed too close to her hiding place.