“Any plans during the break?” Sue asked. “No,” Diane said. The bell rang, ending their conference period, so they headed back to their classrooms. Sue was the best friend Diane had at work; for that matter, she was probably her best friend anywhere, at this point, though they rarely saw each other outside work. Since Diane and Bill split up, most of her former friends had slipped away. Splitting up was complicated, after...

Matty was really excited when she got her acceptance letter into University of Wisconsin. Best of all, she was going to get to live off campus with her step-brother, who was entering his junior year. She had always been very close to her brother, Marty…or, as she had called him since she was a baby, Bubby. The whole family thought it was cute, and the Bubby name had stuck. Their parents decided that it made more sense fin...

It seemed like five days, rather than five weeks had passed since Cindy and Dan last pulled into John and Barbara’s neighborhood. That party five weeks ago had put a spark in their sex life that was still burning. As they pulled through the gates into the circular drive, Cindy realized they hadn’t said a word on the trip. She had been lost in her thoughts, and apparently so had Dan. At 7:30 on the dot, John closed the gat...

“SISSY!” Al roared as he wrapped Cindy up in a bear hug and lifted her off her feet. Planting a big kiss on her lips, he put her down. “You look great. How was your flight?” Since Cindy’s dad had died, Al was the only person in the world that called her sissy. Cindy had known Al since he had first started dating her older sister Debby twenty years ago, and she had always loved Al. He had an outgoing, upbeat personality, w...

No matter what you say, no matter how you believe you would react, until it happens to you, you can’t possibly know. It was around 3:00 on a Saturday afternoon, and Wendy had been gone since before lunch, “running errands.” She came back in, carrying a bag from Crate and Barrel. “Hello, there,” I said. “Not now, sorry, I have to go to the bathroom,” she said, eluding my hug and rushing by me. She came out of her bathroom,...

Elizabeth completed finishing school in June of 1898, but she wasn’t scheduled to return home until August. That’s when acquaintances of her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Longmont, would be traveling back to Shanghai. It would be unthinkable for a young woman to sail unescorted. While she looked forward to seeing friends and family, she wasn’t sorry that she would miss at least part of the sweltering Shanghai summer. Just shy of...

“What’ll it be?” “Martini. Gin. Dry.” The bar wasn’t particularly busy, at least not yet. The music was too loud. He hadn’t been in a bar in years, but he could see that nothing had changed since he was a young man frequenting such places. The obligatory pack of straight women who thought it hip to hang at a gay bar. The table of lesbians, looking smug with their lovers, knowing they wouldn’t be lonely tonight. And the yo...

I tried every excuse I could think of to turn down Jerry’s invitation, but he told me if I didn’t buy a plane ticket immediately he was going to buy me one himself and kick my ass when I got to Colorado Springs. He knew why I was reluctant to come, but he didn’t care. I resigned myself to an awkward and uncomfortable weekend, and bought a round trip ticket. In previous years I would have eagerly jumped at the chance to st...

Ever since Rob brought home the pornographic magazines, Julie and Rob’s sex life was in overdrive. They constantly fantasized about the graphic stories they read in the magazines. Julie had never fantasized about being with other men, and certainly had never thought about being serviced by more than one man at a time. Now she seemed to think of nothing else. Of course, she could never be with more than one man at a time,...

After twelve years, there was no denying that Rob and Julie’s marriage needed help. One of Julie’s friends recommended a marriage counselor that she had used, and they set up the first meeting. The counselor listened as they described their issues, occasionally asking questions. At the end of the meeting, she recommended that each of them come to her individually once, then they would meet together again. In his meeting,...

“Rick? Rick Connors? This is Tommy Bowers. Michael Bowers' son?” It took Rick a moment to place the name. Michael Bowers was Rick’s step-brother, and he remembered that he did have a couple of kids. Rick’s mother had married Michael’s father when Rick was a teen-ager, but Michael had lived with his mother, so they had only seen each other a handful of times, the last time being at the funeral for Michael’s father, some te...

Elizabeth paced nervously as she waited the doctor to finish his examination of Aston. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, the doctor came out, looking somber. “What is it, doctor?” she asked impatiently. “Mrs. Larksley, I’m afraid your husband has post-polio syndrome. It’s affecting the involuntary muscles that control his breathing. That’s why he’s having so much difficulty in breathing, and is unable to move about...

After the war, Aston had been reassigned to a mission in the Belgian Congo, one of the few protestant missions in BC, where the need for health care and education was great. A missionary was often the primary source of health care for the surrounding area, and the only source of education, and the Catholic missions were unable to provide for the vast territory. There were only a little over three thousand Belgians living...

When the last of the schoolchildren finally left, Elizabeth sighed and started to prepare the tea. Aston was in the chapel, working. Throwing some coals in the stove, she picked up the letter from home and re-read it for the third time. Today was her thirtieth birthday, and she was feeling melancholy. She was tired, and bored. She didn’t like living in French Equatorial Africa, as it was now called, nearly as much as she...

The completion of the railway brought civilization, in the form of white settlers, to the region around the mission. With the taming of Kenya, as British East Africa was beginning to be called, John Brown’s trade routes changed. No longer did he need to make the long trek to the coast; his inventory from England, Siam, India and China travelled by rail from the coast, and he transported the raw materials he traded them fo...