Chapter Three - What Happens to the Girls?

Taylor finally gets her startup running and it's a huge success, so successful in fact that the profits exceed her expectations. Bradley Freeman takes liberties with Taylor, thinking she owes him more than just his cut of the profits and Taylor seeks Veronique's advice. Suddenly Taylor's hopes and dreams are threatened by an unexpected source.

Adolescence is the most confusing time in a person’s life. The process of going from being a child to an adult is filled with changes, the unknown, instability, intense emotional feelings, contradictions, progress, and failure along with it feeling like a never-ending process. The worst part about it is sometimes a person feels like everyone else is changing yet they are staying the same. Somehow the others were being adults yet they were in arrested development

One Portland Night
By Ellie Dauber © 2020

A magical protester gets some retribution from two agents from an unknown federal task force. Warning: This is a politically-biased story. I won’t argue the politics, but I would like to hear about what people thought of the story.

One Portland Night
By Ellie Dauber © 2020

Shaylah was standing at the edge of the crowd, about forty feet from the Portland federal courthouse, when the vans pulled up.

Framing the narrative is the best way to have people come around to your way of thinking. That is why, word choice, members of the audience, and timing is important as to when to bring up a subject. Lori knew how to make people see things her way. This knowledge was why she aborted the counter offense on Luke as soon as she walked into her Aunt Bridget’s home. Her dad was there.

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Samantha lay in her bed, but she couldn't sleep feeling the Weight and stress of all the problems and events of the past few days.

Luke was standing in the domestic flights arrival area of LAX with his aunt and uncle waiting for his parents and twin sister to come down the steps. It was a little over two months since he saw them so today was a big event in Luke’s life. As the moment of reuniting with his family was coming near, the teenage boy started to feel the entire gamut of basic emotions. These feelings came one by one.

He shouldn't have teased his sister

By Jasmine Monica

Chapter 4
Veronica deals with forgetting her time of the month and learns her lesson. And then she has a conversation with her mother Sarafine

Alice was happy for her son but hated the situation after hanging up after Luke’s phone call back home. Luke sounded so happy, but all the reasons for his happiness hurt. Her son loved living in California and Alice was hoping that he would be begging to come back home. Luke wanting to return would make her husband stop the fruitless house hunting they were doing. His happiness for being in with a crowd and having a nickname, was not right to the concerned Mom. Luke was Luke, he should not be going by Eck. This was nothing like how an older brother should act.

Chapter Five – Everything’s Coming Up Charlie

Charlies relationship with Robin becomes serious and she takes up an offer of more gainful employment. At a dinner party at Glenda's Charlie meets a journalist who wants to write Charlie's story and publish it. Meanwhile the Essex Slasher is still looking for Flaming Girls to quench his desires.

Chapter Three – Blue Star

Robin, Glenda, Ruffe and Charlie form their Special Crime Investigation Team and go about tracking down the Essex Slasher. Robin has second thoughts about Charlie and finally sees her as a woman not a freak. Despite the danger Charlie goes back to work and is picked up by one of her regular punters.

I prepared myself for my first day back as a detective with North Yorkshire Police, after an extended leave of absence. Most of the women detectives went into work in casual or practical clothes, trousers and shirt/blouse with comfortable flat shoes, but I had decided that I needed to make a statement and was dressed to the nines in a Scarlet shift dress with black bolero jacket and with 3” heels. I had my hair cut, coloured, and styled the previous Saturday, along with a full beauty treatment, waxing, eyebrow shaping, nails shaped and polished a bright red to match my dress. Content with how I looked, I picked up my shoulder bag, took a deep breath and went down to my car to start a much changed career.

The summer sun was rising as Luke stood on the cove looking towards the ocean next to his cousin Sam. Even with the bearer of the new day coming up from behind them instead of coming from the sea, the landscape was still breathtaking to Luke. The waves looked bigger, the water looked bluer, the sand was finer than the other beach Luke was at. Even with the beach being what Luke would consider paradise, this felt more like home than the other one. With how much Luke felt at one with the place, he did not even pay attention to the group of about 15 kids in the corner of his sight.

Basking in victory made Lori being sent to her room easy to take. Even with how angry her dad was and being told she was punished, Lori was enjoying being in what her dad thought was a prison cell. To her, this was just a holding pen and her mom would grant her a partial pardon. She would be able to do anything when the warden, her dad, was not home.

The Option
A Short Story
By Maryanne Peters

I did not recognise the name when I was told of my visitor. Although it had been a few years I recognized her as one the victims of the Pickton Prowler, a mass rapist who I had been instrumental in catching. After an exchange of greetings I sat to hear what she had to say.

“I was sorry to hear about your conviction”, she said. “There are many of us who truly appreciate what you did for us. We want to help. In particular Annie Haldane and the Mitchell Sisters want to help.”