Over hill, over dale, Through bush, through briar, Over park, over pale, Through flood, through fire… …Annette ran like fuck. Her muscles burned from hill-climbing, her lungs from dale-traversing and pale-hurdling. Her ash-blond hair had snagged on bushes. Briars had torn her gown and fires had singed it. Drenched by floods the cobwebbed fabric clung to her slender frame. She was scratched and scorched and foot-sore, yet...

X Lyla was sitting on the piano bench, facing the keyboard. Shana was sitting close beside her, facing the opposite way. The singer was absently running through finger patterns on the keys with one hand, but the board was turned off and there was nothing but the soft clack of her fingernails on the fake ivory. “All this time…” she said, her dreadlocks dangling over her face as her head bent down. Shana didn’t say anything...

VIII Case lay naked on the floor of the open, ground floor salon listening to Lyla play through the songs she’d been working on over the past month. It had surprised him when he first heard her sing without a full band behind her and only accompanying herself on the keyboard. She almost sounded like a different singer, but the strong, crystalline voice was pure Lyla. At that time of night, she was invariably naked at the...

V They were heading through the mountains with the top down on the Invicta. Lyla was wearing as small a T-shirt as he could find, and a pair of drawstring pants with the bottoms rolled up. She had her dread locks tied up the best she could manage in a pale, blue scarf Case had given her. He was surprised how easily he could look at her wearing it. It was a relic Kelly had left in her wake. And an ill-fitting pair of aviat...

III Rawlins undressed in his living room while Lyla took a shower. Despite driving another hour and a half with the heat blowing, his clothes still felt tacky. Leaving them in a heap on the terra cotta floor near the couch, he clicked on the television and padded naked into his bedroom to rummage for a pair of sweatpants and a dry T-shirt. Lyla had left the bathroom door ajar. He listened to the water run. He wanted to go...

Lyla Simon was breaking a sweat, skin glistening like wet obsidian while the band drove her hard through fatback anthems of desperation and betrayal. She was an avenging angel of lust in every song, full of anguish and the perfume of human strain. She moved around the mic stand like the bass line was coming from the center of her body, her voice slicing the humid air like a whip above the heads of a packed crowd. In a bla...

In a sea of frogs, Calvin was a prince. Strong and handsome, with shaggy, dark blond hair, hypnotic eyes, and a physique sculpted into pure eye candy, he was smart, witty, funny, and interesting. Calvin’s only downfall was that he was a nice guy; Calvin finished last. He lived alone, worked in isolation, and wanted for nothing, save companionship. Sex was never his problem. In today’s modern, egalitarian world, women lust...

In the distance, I heard the crunch of gravel under car tires, the tiny rocks being rolled over and displaced. Looking through the trees, I saw a large black sedan. However, I paid this no real mind at all, figuring it was one of my husband’s business associates or managers. Stan’s office was usually always unlocked, even when he was away on business. This gave his cronies access to anything they may need and meant they d...

Who gives a flying fuck about rules on the last day of school? Not Sara; nor her besties. For they were the Coven; that self-styled moniker proclaiming us-versus-them defiance. Hitching tartan St Joseph skirts centimetres above a generous interpretation of buying into school or indeed maternal standards, they began burning their bridges. On the school’s main quadrangle, Loretta, using a lighter she’d nicked from her dad,...