WRONG NUMBER
PART 6: Healing Wounds

Keri gently squeezed Kelly’s hand to let Kelly know she was there.

“Kelly? Are you waking up?”

Keri's eyes began to water and Kelly’s mother sat up and took notice.

“Kelly, baby? I’m right here, honey.”

Kelly’s eyes opened a few millimeters and her eyes slowly moved from one side to the other. Kelly smiled weakly at her mother and looked over to see who was holding her hand. When she saw Keri, she smiled and tried to speak.

“Keri,” she managed to rasp. “You’re here.”

Jack@ The Greenstalk. (conclusion).
by Angharad.

“Wowee!” exclaimed Zoe as the beleagured boy followed the two women out of the beauty salon, “You look like a princess.”

Jack blushed as red as any fire engine. He looked at his mother who smiled.

“I think Zoe just paid you a compliment,” Sally said wanting to add, young lady, but she resisted the temptation.

WRONG NUMBER
PART 4: Third Time Is A... Complete Disaster

It was only natural that Keri and Kelly arranged for a third date before they parted company —- right after another thoroughly intoxicating round of kisses. This time, it was to be the two of them alone! Kelly was so excited to finally be with the love of his life all alone without that damn Chloe interrupting the best moments. Chloe was a great friend and they got along famously, but her patience could be a tad thin at times. Kelly couldn’t wait to finally be able to let love take its course uninterrupted. What was it that Kelly had said during the second date, something about being a dreaming airhead? Yeah, that was it!

Kelly dressed as a girl again before Keri arrived. Kelly had realized, the previous night, that Keri had seen Kelly-the-girl but never Kelly-the-boy. It was going so well and he didn’t want to risk any problems (irony of ironies). He had gone shopping and bought himself a cute, soft dark purple corduroy jumper with a pale lavender long-sleeve shirt to go under it. He already had a pair of white tights he could wear with it.

She arrived right on time and Kelly greeted her with a long, warm hug at the door. Kelly hadn’t put his make up on —- though he was otherwise ready —- so he led her up to his room. All of a sudden, everything went horribly wrong. When Keri saw his room, she stopped dead in her tracks and her smile faltered.

“Are you all right? What’s the matter?”

She was very flustered and Kelly could tell that she was about to cry.

WRONG NUMBER
PART 2: The Mall

The big day had finally arrived. I checked my outfit in the mirror. I looked very nice in the floral shirt and denim skirt. I had managed to run my hair through my straightening iron to make it look extra-special. I had done my makeup beautifully. I had decided I wanted to look as good as possible so that I could blend in with the crowd if need be. I felt good enough about my appearance but I stood before my mirror, looking myself in the eyes and trying to figure out what in the hell I was thinking.

Keri dressed herself in a lavender corduroy skirt and a matching, long-sleeve cotton top. She had debated herself over whether to wear hose. Pantyhose would be too alluring if I did turn out to be a psycho. Ironically, going bare-legged posed the same problem: there would be too much skin exposed and this would only draw a pervert all the more. She decided she’d better wear a pair of opaque tights. She picked out a pair of white ones and slipped them on. She stood before her mirror and tried to think of what she would say when she met this stranger named Kelly.

Fate wore a pony tail and a red dress. We were both attending a large group ballroom dancing lesson along with perhaps two hundred other kids our age, all of whom attended schools in town. Our mid-lesson break had just begun when the lovely girl headed my way.
Christina was a very pretty girl with pretty blue eyes and shoulder length, light brown hair. She wore a red, short-sleeve, cotton dress that hung just below her knees and had a sparse floral pattern on it. She wore suntan nylons, and black, leather flats — and she was headed my way.

Everything began during my sister Dierdre’s slumber party one Friday night. My twin sister, Kirsten, was away for the night at a friend’s house. The only other person in the house was my single mom, and she had to leave on business.

Dierdre’s party was fairly small. There were only three other girls there, Alexis, Karen and Caitlin. I could usually find something else to do, but when there were pretty girls in the house they would command my attention and pique my curiosity. I had never spied on my sister before today, but I couldn’t resist. She and her friends were pretty and I always loved to see what they were wearing and how they did their hair.

The girls all arrived around noon. Because my mom had to be away on business that night, my sister had had to negotiate with her to have the slumber party. My mom asked who would be present at the party and when Dierdre listed the names of the three girls that she’d invited, Mom recognized them as good kids, not the trouble making sort at all. Satisfied that they could be trusted, she allowed the party. She asked Dierdre what they would be doing for dinner and she said that Alexis’ mom was picking them up and taking them to dinner. Mom figured that was good; it meant that we’d have adult supervision at least part of the time. She left money so that Dierdre could pay for herself, her friends and me and warned her not to leave me home alone at night or else. She said that if Dierdre would prefer I go to a friend’s for dinner instead of having dinner with the girls then that would be all right too.

This is a work of fiction, though it does contain actual data and some conjecture. If you don't like tears, I would suggest not reading this. This is my first attempt at a standalone story (heck, any story period) and would ask for any and all words of wisdom and criticism. I would like to thank Kaleigh for her encouragement and my spousal unit for her proofing help.

Thanks and hugs

I watched deep blue lighten to gray, felt that extra stillness, extra
quiet of a weekend morning in a strictly-business downtown. Standing by
the hotel window, I stared down the long, straight, empty streets of
this place I didn't know, at all the hopes and happiness, despair and
desperation sheltering under the endless neat rows of roofs, beneath

Sheila shooed me off to the lounge where the other girls were watching TV. Blue Peter was on and Valerie Singleton was doing something with sticky back plastic.

By late afternoon, I was feeling pretty sure I'd called it right to
come up here. I phoned the boss, reported not quite as optimistically
as I felt and told myself that I was clocking out.

The evening rush home had started, horns and rumbling of motors as
downtown spilled its people out for another night. I went the way the
red lights let me; to the corner where he'd said his store was. I

You always worry, can they see? Is there something, maybe the way
you've let your hand relax or your wrist bend, despite all the times
you've caught yourself and clenched your fingers, straightened the
curve. Something -- the way you hold a hand to your mouth? Or tilt your
head? Why do you hook your knees together when you sit: ankle on

It was getting dark when I got there, and I'd managed to get off the
wrong exit, too, guessing downtown was where it wasn't, as I always do.
It meant an anxious tour through the dark and empty streets down by the
river, looking for a place to stay, finding nothing until I finally
passed an open space -- park or vacant lot, I couldn't tell and didn't

Sometimes, despite a breath of breeze across the inky river, the night air seemed almost liquid with the lingering heat ....

I try to shape my days now by my work. Numbers in charts, words battered out of a keyboard, spit out from a whirring printer: Let's say it is work like that I do, work meant for grey-walled cubicles under flickering fluorescent lights.

The fountain that my own fingers recall, nothing like this: Drawn from a pond, a puddle. But, oh, how I felt an ocean of you crashing in. Ocean: warm saltiness of life, thick with potential, humming with energy barely contained, condensed of beating hearts and fluttering gills and lashing tails of a million, of a billion tiny creatures saying: Live, live.

by Phantasi Boi

Intro: Here’s chapter 4 of my 1st attempt at a serial. As always I welcome comments be they praise or criticism. Please don’t be angry if I get any facts wrong regarding gender issues, it is only a story, besides the characters themselves could be getting it wrong rather than me. Feel free to point out any errors I make though.

They hadn’t noticed Nadine walk back in; she heard this last comment despite the fact they were talking quietly.

“Erm, no not at all, we were just talking about someone else.”

Jewel the exotic dancer has a successful life in the fleshpots of northwestern Japan, but is there something important she's forgotten? CAUTION: contains explicit sexual scenes.