CHAPTER 28
We moved up the coast bit by bit, starting at the spot where the mountains ended. It was surreal: the Pyrenees simply came to an abrupt halt not just at the sea, but also at the edge of a vast plain, like a crease in a bedsheet. More importantly, though, we had sand rather than gravel.

We stopped in at the tourist office, where they had a list of hotels that Ange checked against her book, until she went “Ooh! That one there. Not the most expensive, but it’s got a bloody Michelin star!”

CHAPTER 12
Work had left me frazzled, as that time of year always does. There are various interpretations of legal responsibility by both accountants and clients, and by that I mean more or less blatant breaches of the rules, as I have said. As a firm, we don’t do that, or at least I haven’t seen it. I see so many entries on websites like Companies House where accounts haven’t been filed at all, or regularly late, and I can’t do that anymore than I could shoplift. Annual accounts are, in essence, an account of a year’s business plus a snapshot of where that business is at the start of April. Some clients try their hardest to either squeeze things in or hold them back, for financial advantage, but we refuse to play that game. When those windows and doors shut, they are shut.

Part 12 Penny and the Penthouse

Andrew had given us Sam for the rest of the day. Sam was very happy to drive us around. He was still on a high after filming the last couple of scenes. I wondered if he may be a bit of a sadist himself given the chance.

Problem was that he didn’t have the body for this game; actually, he carried two bodies around of his own.

CHAPTER 10
“To be honest, no”

“I am sorry?”

The bed is wrong on both sides now.

I wake at 5:31 and lie there in the gray light with the sheets and the wrong silence. Kate's side of the bed is just her side of the bed now, the impression her hip has made in the mattress over two years, the pillow she's taken, the whole absence of her breathing. She took the comforter, or I let her take it. I can't reconstruct that part of the conversation. What's left is the spare blanket from the hall closet, the one that smells like the cedar block I put in there two winters ago, and I've slept one night under it and woken up cold.

Part 11 A Penny in the Change

The last one we went into was a biggish room with a huge bed in the middle. The lights were already on and, laying on the bed, totally naked, with his wrists and ankles tied to the bed-ends, was Steve.

Susan gave the two of us a wink and commanded.

“Slaves, strip Penny of her false outfit and secure her so that she may be returned to her proper place!”

I unfolded the one that wasn’t pink...

Another Country -22-
Erin Halfelven

Today's chapter of Perspective reminded me of this little scene from [mumble] years ago.

Magnolia Blooms & Sakura Petals
By
Rebecca Anna Coleman

-5-
Downtown Greenville

CHAPTER 62

We sat for a few moments, each of us clearly needing to order some thoughts, or manage reactions, until Kul lifted his bottle.

“Gerald Barker, then?”