The nylon strap of the car seatbelt drags across my chest every time I brake. A week ago it was background friction, nothing. By Thursday the fabric bites into flesh that's gone tender and strange just below my collarbone, and I drive the whole way from the firm holding the strap an inch off my shirt with my left hand, steering with my right. My shoulder aches from the angle.

Thursday arrived, and there had been no message from Mr Pruitt. To both Dido and Trish, this was a sign that Dido’s father didn’t care about getting out of jail the next day.

Part 17 The Dead Penny!

The following week in the studio we worked hard to get the ‘Thursday’ and ‘Friday’ episodes sorted out. Andrew had us do a couple of linking scenes in last weeks’ outfits to tidy up the ‘Wednesday’ show and then we all changed to start the ‘Thursday’ one.

I was given some time off this time as the big sex scene for the ‘Thursday’ show was Susan telling Tanya to join her in the ladies’ room where she pulls out the dildo that they had spent Saturday night with.

A sister and a family support a curious twelve-year-old in a newfound exploration of gender.

CHAPTER 43
When I got home after the shift, there was something that had been niggling my memory right from my first sight of that news report. I pulled it up on iPlayer on my telly, and paused it at one of the clearer views of the team and scanned along their faces. They were a right mix of types, some clearly more ‘physical’ than others.

“How can that woman be so hot?” Marcus asked the world at large as he drank from his tumbler.

“Who?” His friend, Paul, asked.

“Over there. With the long straight platinum blond hair and eyes so green we can see their color across the haze of the dance floor.”

“You’re really into this girl? Oh, her. Wow. That hourglass figure must have been work.”

“You think?”

“Maybe. Why is no one near her?”

“She’s in a league all her own. Deservedly.” He drank again.

“Or they all know she has chlamydia.”

CHAPTER 18
I watched the two of them dancing round each other, and felt my worries start to ease. Jacky had timed her visit to coincide with Mary’s summer break, and I would have two weeks in the middle of it, but it had still been a worry, leaving them together without me there to moderate, or perhaps shush one of them when I could see a secret about to be divulged that I would rather keep private. A bit like having your parents to stay, knowing that as soon as you leave them alone, they’ll be looking for your more embarrassing possessions.

I found a jacket that remembers a missing girl, and it’s rewriting my body one day at a time. Now I have to solve that girl's murder before the coat finishes its work and I disappear into someone else’s life.

Mark Lansing never wanted to stand out. He was perfectly happy disappearing into a football huddle with the rest of the team until one play made him the talk of the town. Thrust into a spotlight he never wanted, every choice can reshape his future, and every decision could transform him in ways he never believed possible. Mark’s destiny will be determined on the field … assuming he can figure out how to dress the part.

CHAPTER 42
Not good news at all, I thought, wondering if we were going to see a repeat of schooltime fallings-out, where friends were pushed hard to take a side, pick the ‘real’ friend over the ‘false’ one, but Amina had been clear on that issue. Same people, just no longer a couple.

The weather wasn’t helping, my birthday having flown past as unnoticed as I could manage. There was too much bound up in such an occasion, none of it calling for celebration. I was off the next day, so it was another evening of tears before and during bedtime, as well as waking up in a chair again, as the light slowly emerged outside my living room window.