“Are you new around here?” a stunning Latina asked me as I was checking my mail. “Just a couple of months now,” I replied, turning around to get a better look at her. My guess would have been she was at least five years older than me, somewhere in her early forties. She was a few inches taller than me, and she had a slim build for a woman who had given birth a couple of times. Whenever I saw her, she usually sported a pai...

The first time I knew the apartment next to me was occupied, I heard a mom yelling at her son for something. The walls here are thick like a castle, so I would have to increase my eavesdropping skills if I was to get any juicy gossip from them. I had never seen them before, but as time went by, I tried to imagine what they looked like. One night coming home from work, I finally got a glimpse of them entering their apartme...

I was a few years out of college when I found an interesting friend request pop up on my screen. It was my friend Rebecca’s Aunt Chelsea; I had not seen either of them in years, so it was quite unusual for her to find me. Rebecca didn’t speak to me much after college; in her mind, our foray into intimate relations was a brief excursion and one she decided we should not talk about ever again. I honestly didn’t care; Rebecc...

“Where are they sending you this time?” Grace asked her roommate Hailey as she noticed her stuffing a suitcase. “New Orleans,” Hailey quickly responded. “What happened down there?” Grace probed trying to pry for more information. “Just a routine software upgrade, shouldn’t be more than a couple days,” Hailey replied, continuing to pack without averting her gaze. Grace slumped a little with a slight nod. Hailey had become...

“She’ll see you now,” the secretary smiled as I approached the office of the vice principal. I shuddered for a moment, and with a great sigh, I entered her office. The secretary made sure that our secret meeting was kept confidential, as she rose from her desk and checked the hallway. The last thing I saw before I closed the door was her head peering down either side to see if the coast was clear. She turned back at me an...

“You’ve never seen Casablanca, before?” I asked, astonished that she had never had the pleasure before. “I’ve heard of it, yeah, but I really don’t watch black and white movies,” she responded, causing my heart to sink in disappointment. “Well, in that case, you have to come,” I insisted. “Do I, though?” she debated, leaning her arms on my kitchen counter. “Well, I mean, you’re not obligated to attend, but how often does...

I found myself in awe of my surroundings. I had never been south of the Mason-Dixon line in my entire life, but I found myself traveling into the belly of the Bible Belt looking for work. In a moment of sheer capriciousness, I thought that I needed a change of pace, if only for a little bit before I completed accepted adulthood. Virginia took forever to drive through, it was made up of long stretches of highway almost com...

For the life of me, I couldn’t read French. As we passed the street signs, they looked familiar. Stop signs were still red octagons even if they said, “Arret” {Stop}. At the time I was a bit tipsy and wasn’t sure why we decided to go to Montreal to get more booze in the middle of the night, but as it was my first journey outside of the country, I was determined to make it memorable. The border agents let the three of us t...

“Aunt Chelsea? I-I’m s-s-sorry, I didn’t know you’d be home,” Rebecca stuttered, still bent over and turning her head toward the door. I was still shocked, I was standing in the middle of the bedroom, with her aunt’s decorative paddle in my hand and our roasted bare bottoms on display for her. “Oh, a little experimentation is fine by me,” Aunt Chelsea explained as she walked in closer toward the naked college girls in fro...

“You totally pushed me into that rock!” Rebecca shouted as she floated in the calm eddy, with her life jacket making her bobbing head a buoy in the river. “Girl please, that kayak is no good on the river and you know it,” I protested, hiding the fact that it was my bow that moved her away from the channel and into the rock. “Well, ugh,” she said, struggling to get back into her vessel. “I’ve never had a problem with it be...

“Do you guys serve any food?” I meekly asked the bartender, while I tried to settle myself on a particularly uncomfortable stool. He stared at me, scrunching his eyebrows a little, and turned away. I must have looked like an absolute tourist, because the regulars glanced over at me, shaking their heads. He reached under the counter to grab a canister of mixed peanuts and unceremoniously poured them into a Styrofoam bowl....

“I hate you and you’re the worst person I know,” I cried out in fury at my foster sister, Samantha. She was my closest sibling and we were practically best friends. When we were both seventeen, I spent far more time with her or around her than anyone else. We were not blood, but we sure acted like it at times. With her being merely weeks older than I am, it tended to lead to disagreements between us. This anger and contem...

She wasn’t our real mother, or stepmother, but as a foster mother, she made us call her that. Any deviation, for example calling her mom, mommy, miss, or ma’am, was met with a swift reprisal. She was a strict disciplinarian, but never crossed the line and for a majority of the time, she treated us with love and respect. We were clothed, fed, taken to school, and enjoyed occasional vacations. I never could recall what happ...