It is just after 10:00 at night.  After an exhausting seven hour trip I have finally make it to my fourth-floor room.  I am really pissed off that I have had to undertake this emergency business trip. Especially since it is to a city that I have never visited before.   As an avid flasher, I normally research the hotel where I am going to stay to make sure that it is amenable to my hobby.  This time though, with less than...

My apartment is on the second floor of a three-story building in an older development. As an older building, it has far more character than the new cookie-cutter high-rises.  While the quirky units are nice, the lack of air-conditioning was a big drawback. But with large windows that open, lots of fresh air gets in. With the recent heatwave, that’s been fantastic, but it does mean that I have to leave the blinds open to l...

It was July seventeenth and the day of our group’s annual picnic. Ever since we’d graduated from college ten years ago we’d had a summer picnic. The first one had been to blow off steam the weekend after we’d learned that we’d passed our exams and would be graduating. We had started out as twelve but, as some moved to other cities, our numbers had decreased. This year besides me, Janet and her husband Greg, Jim and his wi...

Just over a month into my final year of university and I was hosting another of my biweekly get togethers. As parties in the rat hole, the affection name given to my apartment, went this one was dead. It was about nine o’clock and, while all the regular crowd had been here, there’d been no spark all evening. Maybe it was because Rob, my goofy roommate, hadn’t been there. Apparently I wasn’t the only one that thought this...

That was an absolutely fantastic weekend, I thought as I drove back to the city on Sunday after spending the last weekend in June with my folks at their cottage. While both days had been hot and sunny with temperatures in the mid to high thirties, it was what I’d experienced on Saturday that made the weekend most memorable. I don’t normally visit my parents this early in the summer but I’d just graduated from university a...

‘This is it. I’m going to do it,’ thought Jane. ‘No!’ she thought shaking her head, ‘I’m not going to do it!’ ‘I’m doing it!’ As she reached into her room for the light switch she thought back to that fateful Friday night about a month ago. She’d come home by taxi about 11:00 after a really boring monthly dinner meeting at which she’d had a few too many drinks. She’d stumbled into her bedroom without turning on any lights...

I am alone and lonely in a distant hotelIt's a frigid cold night out I can tellFrom the bundled up people I can see walking the street I'm on the third day of my stay A tough business trip with no time to play I've had great success but I'm a little beat Out my third floor window I see a bar advertising beer Its outdoor patio abandoned for the year All stacked and chained is its furniture I see small groups, from time to...

It was 9:25 on Thursday morning. I was in an elevator with eight other people on my way to the eleventh floor for a job interview. I’d been looking for a job ever since graduating third in my class with a bachelor of business, and even six months prior to that. I was hoping for an entry-level position with any sort of professional firm. All my professors had told me that I shouldn't have any difficulty in finding a job. S...

I'm naked and alone in the dark Watching out my hotel window at the park I'm waiting, waiting, waiting for the right moment My heart beats in anticipation As I keep my station I try, try, try to be calm and patient Then I see a chance A twenty something women out for a dog prance I watch, watch, watch as she comes closer My breathing gets shallower My heart pounds harder As I pause, pause, pause my finger I flick the swit...

Life in rural Ontario was tough in the mid-1800s. Farming families were able to make a living but it was hard work every day of the year. In spring they planted and hoped that the crops took, in summer they worried about drought, in fall they harvested and in winter they tried to survive the harsh days where the temperatures sometimes plunged to minus thirty for days at a time. Our family ran the General Store so we didn’...

It was just after 9:00 on Monday morning and I was just finishing up with unpacking boxes into my new cubicle when Jocelyn, Mr. Jeffries’ secretary, dropped by and said, “Jane, Mr. Jeffries would like to see you in his office if possible.” “Sure,” I replied, “When?” “Now, if you can.” As I followed her back to his office I asked, “What’s up?” “I don’t know,” she replied. “He just got off his weekly conference call with he...

It was just after 9:00 on Tuesday morning, and I had just arrived at Tower Productions on Grant Street. I had received a telephone call three weeks ago from Jeff at Tower Productions who said that he had received my application for being a contestant on Jeopardy and, while it had been rejected for Jeopardy, he wondered if I would be interested in considering a new game show that was being planned for one of the cable chan...

Anonymous Pleasure As I stood under the shower and let its warm spray wash over my body, I thought back to how frustrating the day had been. Everything seemed to go wrong. It all started when I told my boyfriend that my boss wanted me travel to Rosetown for a few days to attend emergency negotiations over a contract that would be the largest we had ever signed. He threw a temper tantrum, saying that I had more time for wo...