Charles is now at Jane's Winsome Girls' School for Wayward Boys. He has volunteered to become one of Jane's girls to help Jane not only clear his name but to help Francis. He has a lot to learn about being a girl in a short amount of time, as Toby Camber is arriving at the school in a weeks time. Something else occurs that Charles wasn't expecting, he learns something else about himself while being Charlotte.

Amidst the glow of computer screens and the rhythmic clack of keyboards, Alex sat in his cramped office, immersed in lines of code. At 19 years old, he was a mild-mannered software developer with a penchant for order and structure, finding solace in the digital realm where everything had its place.

Different Perspectives of Benton
Perspective Four of Six: The South will rise again! And Donald Trump will be President!
Character Point of View: Shawn Bridges.

“Good evening, Jenny,” she said. “I swept the floor in the kitchen, but I can’t tell how you take up the carpet to shake it out. Do you move all your furniture every time?”

 

I suppressed a laugh. “No, we have a machine for that – let me show you.”

A Grumpy Old Man’s Tale 47 Increasing Independence

“That story Angus prised out of her concerning that Landrace boar her grandfather gave her as a piglet when she was what? six or seven was priceless! And her mum’s reaction when her lurcher pup her dad gave her just kept growing when she’d thought it to be a Jack Russell was out of this world priceless. That she raised the pig to killing weight, had it follow a bucket of feed to the slaughterhouse and insisted on watching every detail of its slaughter and butchering and being given explanations of what was being done and why was remarkable enough. But to cap it all that she helped process the blood, the head meat, the offal and all the bits and pieces was, I considered, amazing. When she said it had had a good life, but she’d raised it to eat and didn’t like her bacon so fresh that it could bite back, so it had to die, I had to struggle to avoid laughing, because she was absolutely serious about it. When she said that her next piglet, a gilt [an unmated sow], was given to her by the slaughterman, who is shortly to become her grandfather in law, so she could see the differences between sows processed for pork and boars processed for cured meat due to the testosterone boar taint I couldn’t help but laugh. Then when she said Grandad Vince the Mince obtained a barrow [a castrated boar] for her to raise to finally to complete the picture, which she then killed and butchered herself at the slaughterhouse. I had to look away because I’d tears of laughter in my eyes.

For Carrie, she's often had to do just fine on her own, but rebuilding a broken family relationship and finding unexpected love may be more possible than she thinks as a new year approaches.

Still Time
By Marissa Lynn

Among the less important things Carrie Emerson inherited from her father was the ability to be able to fall asleep from the seated position on the couch.

Dot and Sam 29

“My God, Holmes, why are you dressed as a woman? “

“This is the real me. Watson. All the opium and melancholy were just trying to deflect my agony over living as a man.”

“Extraordinary! How long have you felt like this? When did you know?”

“When? Elementary, my dear Watson.”

Ghost Town
I had small hope this year of achieving my New Year’s Resolution. Recognising that it was likely to fare no better than its predecessor of the year before, I’d varied it this time, but I had little faith. My basic need was centred on overcoming the temptation which surrounded me and which in the past I had proved too weak to conquer. The circumstance from which that delicious torment arose was that I was at home, alone, for long hours each day while Carole, my wife, was working. There was no escaping it.

Dot and Sam 27

The Silent Ghost

Trygg was an irritation to many of his teachers. He wouldn’t engage with any he didn’t wish to, and because of the injunction against the Ed Psychs they were not able to discover what his ‘problems’ and ‘special educational needs’ were. It would have been an impossible step for them to take to realise that they were his problems and his special educational needs were merely to be left alone so as not to distract him from soaking up information.

Maeryn Lamonte Copyright ©️ 2024
I doubt this’ll count as it’s about a thousand words short, but just for the fun...

“Mr Smee! What in blue blazes do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m steering the ship, captain, like you said.”

“Then why, pray, are we going in the wrong direction?”

“No sir. I beg to differ sir. Not the wrong direction at all. You said, ‘Second star to the right and straight on till morning, sir.”

“So do tell me, you imbecile, why it is that we’re steering for the third star to the right?”

“Please tell me more about Chris,” Permelia said as she followed me down the stairs to the parking lot.

 

“He’s like us,” I said, “except that he was assigned female at birth. And he was lucky enough to have understanding parents who helped him get HRT in his early teens, before he finished growing… and I understand both the men and women in his family tend to be tall. Anyway, he’s a big guy, and can be scary-looking if you don’t know him. I don’t think anybody will bother us with him escorting us.”

A welcoming gathering spot, The Midnight Hour is a place where love can be found, lost and maybe even found again.

At The Midnight Hour
By Marissa Lynn

This would have been a "You may wonder how I wound up here" needle scratch moment, but Ethan Hammond knew exactly how he came to be sitting in The Midnight Hour, sipping on a bourbon cocktail that somehow tasted of chocolate even though there wasn't any in it.

This was the scene of the crime -- where it all started and where it all went completely sideways.

Maeryn Lamonte Copyright ©️ 2024

"You know that film?”

We all looked at Caitlyn expectantly, but that seemed to be all she had to say for now. Her focus was on the varnish, and using it to paint my toenails, and that seemed to be limiting her capacity elsewhere.

“Oh, you mean the one with, erm...?” Alice tried. Sometimes all it took was a verbal nudge.

“Yeah, Jim Carrie. You know?” Caitlyn looked up from her efforts at the blank faces surrounding her.

“Ace Ventura?” I hazarded a guess.

How I wasn't chucked out of the cottage or had to return my engagement ring to Hannah, I’ll never know. Eventually, I was back to being my normal self. Whatever that was! .

Ally suffers verbal and physical abuse from his father and needs to escape. Little did he know how his life would change for the better. Note, abuse is inferred rather than graphically detailed

Charles is now at Jane's Winsome Girls' School for Wayward Boys. He has volunteered to become one of Jane's girls to help Jane not only clear his name but to help Francis. He has a lot to learn about being a girl in a short amount of time, as Toby Camber is arriving at the school in a weeks time. Something else occurs that Charles wasn't expecting, he learns something else about himself while being Charlotte.

Maeryn Lamonte Copyright ©️ 2024

So I’d bought one. It’s not as if I have a lot of people in my life, so the Christmas present budget is light. Sad, I know, but then it means I can splurge on me a bit.

I’d wanted one since they came on the market, but could never justify the expense. At least not until this year. This Christmas they had a sale with a humongous seventy-five percent off. which still put the price tag at a grand, but that was just inside my budget.

As long as I skimped elsewhere.