When my mother died and my father, someone that I had never met in my life, proposed to take me in, I actually believed that I was going to live with him. That of course wasn’t going to happen. That man, without even meeting me once, was sending me to a boarding school - a boarding school that apparently didn’t even know my name or gender, because in the letter they sent me to tell me I was accepted, they kept referring me as Miss Brooke Falconer.
That was completely ridiculous, I mean, I was Brook Woods, a tough (yet slightly short) guy!
“Yeah Mom, your new boyfriend thinks you have two daughters,”
Marley stopped and just stood there, his sister was laughing, but his Mom looked seriously upset. That guy Mom knows thinks I’m a girl, God this is messed up, Marley thought. Oh and she likes him, and now I’ve screwed that up, Marley’s embarrassment bubbled over and he yelled “Damn it this isn’t funny!”
“Yeah knock it off Ann,” Lisa said. “I’m so sorry Marley, this was such a stupid idea, listen let’s just get you back to normal and go home.”
Gabriel, Matt, and Danielle receive a visit from Brandin Jessup's agent, Thomas Dern. The agent is pushing to get his client back into the film project, while Matt and Danielle have already decided to use Sloan. In Hollywood power plays between producers, directors, and agents, who's will is stronger?
“Come on, cheer up!” Dad urges me as I comb my long- for a boy- floppy blonde hair. “Don’t think there’s a single twelve year old boy who wouldn’t kill to go where you’re going tonight, getting to see the best film ever with your girlfriend AND being surrounded by a bunch of celebrities…”
“Yeah, I guess,” I say with a long sigh.
“What’s wrong?” Dad asks. “Just a little tired? Don’t tell me you don’t like Star Wars…”
“No, the film was alright,” I say, making dad sigh.
Anthony stared at the mirror, trying to ignore the sounds of the school that echoed in the hallway and into the small bathroom. His perfectly cut blonde hair matched school regulations, not touching his collar. A year ago he'd had a ponytail that reached well below his shoulders, he'd managed to man up and not cry when it was cut off on his fourteenth birthday to meet the high school regulations, but he desperately missed it whenever he combed his hair.
The next day after a shower I put my makeup on and found a pair of leggings that Jane had left behind. I went downstairs and Sarah was in the kitchen eating some cereal. She looked at me and said, “Ok, I need to teach you daytime makeup.” She had a point.
It was just another Monday at the office, and I’d popped out for a cigarette. Sarah was there, she works on a different floor to me, but we’re smoking buddies, so I went over to chat. Sarah is drop dead gorgeous, and she told me about the new cosplay she was making. Like me she’s a geek, although I’ve only ever worn fancy dress for parties.
Her and Jane, her housemate, had been making Sucker Punch costumes for the London Comic Con. I couldn’t get tickets to go with them, although without a costume I may have looked out of place walking around with them.
God, I just have to realize/accept that I’m not like other girls. All my friends at school are into the jocks, the BMOCs of the school. Not me. As a matter-of-fact, I’m not sure I’m in to guys at all. I mean, I can’t see myself doing all the things that lesbians do with each other, but when my friends talk about what they want to do with the guys they want to be with, I can’t see myself with one of their heartthrobs doing that kind of stuff either. It’s then, while they’re extoling the virtues the manly men they’re crushing on that I wonder if I’m a lesbian.
I’m actually doing something that my mother had done and likely her mother had done or dad’s mother had done but I’m doing it too. And I know it’s weird to even think that it’s such a like good thing because of the whole girls in the kitchen thing and all of that and I actually believe in being feminist and that those old stereotypes suck.
But they don’t so much right at this moment to me.
Maybe I’m simply like underdeveloped. I can be a little bigger and I can have a little more muscles but I don’t am so big and I don’t have those muscles and I’m more dancer than a jock.
“Everyone’s staring at me again,” Jessica moaned, relaxing back into her chair.
“Staring at US,” Paige said. “And let them stare. Nothing they can do about it, they can hardly throw us off the plane now, can they?”
“God knows there are people who’d want to,” Jessica replied. “America may have legalized gay marriage, but that doesn’t mean everyone in America agrees with the Supreme Court.”
“I’m heading out now,” I say, grimacing in advance at the inevitable response.
“Kayleigh-Ann,” mum says in an obviously fake pained voice, “come here…” I roll my eyes, before heading into the living room and facing my mother, whose face is scrunched up in a look of pure disapproval.
“What is it?” I ask. “I don’t want to keep Ollie waiting…” I don’t want to keep Ian waiting, either, I think to myself.
“WHY are you going out with him?” Mum asks, barely restraining herself from spitting. “He’s a nerd…”
Sloan and Dana are a young married couple in SoCal. Both are involved in the Arts, Dana as a make-up artist and aspiring director, Sloan as a talented, but struggling actor with dreams of becoming a star.
The couple are deeply in love, and believe in each other; however, a costume party at the home of a darkly handsome movie director and his strikingly beautiful wife open a doorway into desires that neither of them had ever considered.
When Sloan is offered the lead in a new motion picture about a transgender hit man, it is a dream come true. Unbeknownst to the young couple, the domineering director, and his forceful wife have other plans for both Sloan and Dana that have nothing to do with acting.
Once they cross the line, can their marriage survive the experience?
My hands shake with nerves as I- and everyone else in the vast room- watch the action unfolding on the television with baited breath.
“Come on,” I whisper. “I know you can do it…”
“The winner,” the blonde TV presenter announces in her refined northern accent, “of Strictly Come Dancing 2015 is…” A long, agonising pause fills the room as everyone holds their breath, waiting for the inevitable announcement.
“…Hannah and Robin!” The presenter says in a happy voice, prompting a loud, riotous cheer from everyone around me- myself included.
Checks can be made out & sent to:
Joyce Melton
1001 Third St.
Space 80
Calimesa, CA 92320
USA
Note: $6000 is the operating, maintenance and upgrade budget. Amounts received in excess of the $6000 will be applied to long term debt accrued over the last 19 years.
Once I've been lost by myself to be found by others who cared...
