“Are you wearing lipstick?” Mike asked.

I nodded.

“Melissa, is he your personal make-up model?”

“Would you like to be my next artistic marvel?” Melissa asked with a subtle flirty hint to her voice.

“I could use a little hair work, maybe.”

“Oh, I can do a lot more.”

“We noticed,” Chad replied as we stepped into the building.

©2025 SammyC

“He’s alive! This boy’s still breathing—”

A fist pounded on my bedroom door several times sometime between o’dark thirty and oh-hell-no o’clock. Melissa—not waiting for me to answer her—threw the door open and then threw off my comforter. Great thing for the both of us that I slept in a t-shirt and shorts.

“We got an hour to get to the school before the bus departs.”

Chapter 1

It’s funny, you know, the things that stick in your mind. They ought to do a University Study on earworms. My grandmother was always singing or humming “I am strong, I’m invincible,” until the day she dropped dead. My mother had ‘Hotel California’ embedded in her brain. I didn’t listen to the radio at lot. Probably a good thing as having odd lines of ‘gangsta rap’ lyrics in your brain in later life would be like a living hell.

©2025 SammyC

A Grumpy Old Man’s Tale 63 Ever Colder

Too, if a man doesn’t spend any time wi’ his missus what the hell did he marry her for because it ’ould a bin a sight cheaper te gang te Carlisle, Maryport, Workington or Whitehaven and renting a woman from one o’ the pubs. Gods alone knows there’re enough o’ ’em at cheap enough prices. If you’re a bit choosy and prepared to pay a bit more you could always try Keswick, Cockermouth or even Penrith where you’d find a better class o’ whooer. Mind, in times gone by there’s many a Bearthwaite man as went to one o’ those spots and found hisel a likely younger lass and brought her back to rear a family wi’. Not all whooers are sluts, many on ’em are just desperate, may be dumped by some arsehole and left wi’ kids te feed or even full o’ arms and legs as well. Decent women ’ll do owt to put food in their kids bellies. I learnt a long time since not to judge folk because you never get to find out all the circumstances. And think on, the gods alone know how many o’ us are alive because one of our female ancestors earnt a few shillings to feed her kids wi’ from time to time from the pack pony men down at the Dragon.

Being Samantha Masters

an homage-sequel to Being Christina Chase

Apologia

“Samantha!” Finley called out, ducking between foreign students as they flooded out of the classroom en masse.

Hyperbowl, Whateley Academy

Jack O' Lanterns, Moonlight, and Magic 
By
Rebecca Anna Coleman

Chapter Six : Nurse Cerridwen (Part One of Three)

“One hundred and three fever.” I heard a voice say as I slowly opened my eyes. “If I was your mother, I would bundle you up in some blankets and rush you to the hospital. But, I'm your cousin, not your mother, and beside the roads between here and Benton are iced over.”

Chapter 8

We stopped at a hotel on the first night of our return, having a shower and a night in a good bed, with someone else cooking our dinner and our breakfast. We knew what each other was thinking. Our future now depended on us, and us alone.

  Mike thought he'd found the perfect Valentine's gift for his young wife. A sexy red baby doll nightie.

Her face fell when she lifted the nightie out of the box.

   “You’ve got to be kidding,” she exclaimed. “When have you ever seen me wear something like this?”

   She had me there. In the summer, she slept in a long tee-shirt and what could easily be men’s boxers except there was no fly and in the winter, it was flannel nightgowns knee length or longer.

   “Michael, it’s the middle of winter. Didn’t you notice the snow coming down as we drove home? If I wear that to bed, I’ll freeze my rearend off.”

   “You wear that to bed and I’ll warm you up in short order. Feel the fabric. It’s positively sensuous. I thought it would really enhance our performance on this romantic night.”

   “Well I’m not wearing it. If you think it will ‘enhance our performance’ all that much, then you wear it. You can freeze you hinny if you want.”

Chapter 7

We were back home, and the roast was cooking, when Geraldine appeared. There were ghostly tears pouring down her cheeks.

©2025 SammyC

After witnessing a murder. Young Robbie Dunkirk sees his family also murdered. He calls his mothers estranged twin sister. She comes up with a plan to hide Robbie. He becomes his twin sister Sarah.

Chapter 5

I took my phone off the charger and turned on the laptop. I looked up the Tate Modern and rang the number on the screen. When it was answered, I told them my name and that I had found some interesting drawings in the attic of the house I was living in and asked to speak to someone about authenticating them. When the girl asked me who the artist was, I told her that they were abstracts and some of a really beautiful woman, and that they all had PP in the corner. I added that there were notes in Spanish which I couldn’t read.