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Short Story: Lina

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I had had several opportunities to back out before now, I thought as I stepped into the elevator of a hotel near the airport. There had been plenty of time to call the whole thing off before it got to this point, and I had yet to reach that point of no return, but I continued on, pressed the 7 button, and waited for the elevator to take me to her floor, and eventually to Lina’s door.

I had never met Lina, but with her I was in the best relationship I had been in ages. I don’t think I would be wrong to say ever. There was something between us that seemed to slip into place, even across the expanse of the internet. We messaged each other constantly when we were online, text back and forth all day, and even talked several times on the phone. We exchanged pictures back and forth. There wasn’t anything that I had kept from her.

We met on a dating site my friend had suggested I check out. At the time, I had come off a pretty brutal divorce, and then a girl that I was interested in asked me out for drinks after work. We hit it off. She told me she liked me, we kissed goodnight, and then she flaked out, leaving me hurt and confused. She wasn’t ready to date, she told me. Then I found out she had started dating another coworker and didn’t want me to know. Probably hoped to keep me in reserve if that one didn’t work out. Fuck her, I thought and moved on.

I started playing around online, signing up on various dating sites, but my heart wasn’t in it. I was still nursing a broken heart and a bruised ego from being shunted aside by that bitch. I functioned, at least superficially. I made it through the day, but the moment I walked through my front door, I broke down. What’s more pathetic than the image of a grown man bawling his eyes out?

My friend, however, was adamant I check this site out, so in exasperation, I told him I would. When I found it, I discovered, to my horror, that it was a tranny dating site. I found the idea repulsive and quickly left the site, but my interest was piqued and I had to check it out for myself. Didn’t take me long to be told that all the terms my friend used, tranny, shemale, and a lot more vulgar terms, were insulting. Some of these women, as they wanted to be called, were transgendered in various degrees of transition, and some were simply crossdressers looking for a guy willing to make them feel like a woman, even if only for a night.

I was flabbergasted every time I looked up a profile. Some girls looked beautiful, putting my ex-wife to shame, and others were obviously a dude in a bad wig, horrible makeup, and ill-fitting clothes. I laughed to myself, wondering what kind of perv would be so desperate as to hook up with one of those freaks.

The thing was, I kept coming back. I soon stopped laughing as I was drawn in by some of the girls. I started talking to a few, not looking for anything, neither shallow nor serious. Some girls only wanted their identities validated and were content to remain anonymous, but a few were openly hunting for anyone interested in a good time, sexually. I learned to avoid them.

It wasn’t until a few weeks later that Lina showed up. She, like me, had come off a bad marriage. Like me, she had also suffered from a cruel game from woman he knew and was interested in, and had left the dating scene as a result. Unlike me, she had to accept the harsh truth about her gender identity. She started coming to terms with her femininity, accepting that her boyhood desire to put on her mother’s dress wasn’t a sick sexual fantasy, but her soul’s desire to be the woman she longed to be.

I found her story fascinating. Soon, like I said, we were talking constantly. It became intimate fairly quickly, but not in a crude, sexual sense. We shared all our secrets over the course of a year. We became friends, and somehow more. Even though we hadn’t met, we decided that we wanted to be a couple. Lina, a man who inside knew herself to be a woman, became my girlfriend.

Still, we hadn’t met. We didn’t need to. Our connection was real, more real than any I had ever felt. I memorized her face, gazing at every photo she sent me, knowing in my heart that I had found my soulmate. Finally, after almost a year and a half, we decided to meet. Lina would be in town on a business trip, or at least her male side would, and we agreed that it would be a perfect chance to see each other , face to face.

Then the day arrived, and I started getting cold feet. I wasn’t gay. I never felt the least bit attracted to other men. The thought of doing anything sexual with a guy was repellant. A gay friend confessed he felt the same way about sex with a woman. Even the thought felt unnatural, we confided to each other. What I couldn’t shake was my feelings for her. It wasn’t a sexual attraction, or simply a physical connection, once and done, but a mental connection, a spiritual unity of our souls. This was real in a way that none of my other relationships had ever been.

I tried to reason my way out of the meeting. Wasn’t our relationship built on a lie? Lina wasn’t a real woman, and I didn’t believe pretending to be one made it any more real. I listened to all the arguments made against the transgender community, but I instinctively argued against each one, knowing that it wasn’t only what we had between our legs that identified us as man or woman.

I countered every fact and logical reasoning with experience. Lina treated me better than any real woman ever had. I treated her better as well. I did worry that what made it so great was that we were never actually close, that there was no immediacy between us, but that last hurdle was set to be jumped in a matter of minutes.

I screwed up my courage as I stepped off the elevator on the seventh floor. I walked to her door, room number 726, and I knocked. I heard her unnaturally pitched voice, muffled by the door, telling me that she was coming. This was my last chance , to escape from the sham, but I couldn’t. I loved her, and she had confessed that she loved me.

It had come to this, a moment of truth, a moment of fear and exhilaration, and a rush of adrenaline washed over me. I heard her slip off the door chain, heard the deadbolt being opened, and then before I was ready she opened the door, looking every bit as apprehensive as I felt.

“Lina?” I said, unable to believe we were actually meeting.

“Yes,” she replied guardedly, not knowing how I would react.

“It’s good to finally meet you,” I smiled, my heart brimming with affection for this woman I just now got to see with my own eyes.

“You too,” she relaxed, extending a hand for me to shake.

“I don’t think so,” I laughed. I took her in my arms, noticing that though she was almost as tall as me, she still felt feminine in my arms. I looked her in the eyes, then stepped back to admire her. “You’re more beautiful in person, Lina,” I said, once my eyes had taken her in. “Absolutely stunning.”

She flushed, but otherwise looked pleased. She let me into her hotel room, wrapped her arms around me, and we kissed for the first time. “Damn,” I said, once we broke our embrace. “Never got kissed like that before.”

“Good,” she winked, and took me by the hand towards the bed.

“I thought we were going out for dinner,” I protested, both excitement and panic setting in.

“We will,” she hinted with a flirtatious smile, “but first let’s get to know each other. I’ve been saving myself for you, and I waited a long time for this. Make love to me, please. Afterwards, we can grab a bite to eat, and then?” She asked rhetorically, opening herself to the great unknown, and inviting me along to join her for the next grand adventure.

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Short Story: Open Secret

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The house was as enigmatic as the woman whom I would have the pleasure of interviewing. Gloria Kirkland is the last living icon of a forgotten age, wife of the infamous financier, Rutherford Kirkland, matriarch of family that has touched almost every aspect of American life, yet she is relatively unknown to the masses. That’s the way it has been since she married into the Kirkland family, and the way she wanted it to stay.

But with the unauthorized biography of her late husband hitting the shelves next week, she felt the need to step out of the shadows. The family had enjoyed anonymity for decades, living right under the radar, but were well-known and beloved within the upper echelon of American, and indeed global society. They were power players, make no mistake, and the powerful play by their own rules.

But the new media no longer cares about playing by the rules of the elites. They seek to tarnish the legacy of the powerful, to tear down legends and role models. Ms. Hoff appears to be part of the new media, not content to impugn the members of the elite, but the power hitters of a bygone time. Her target is Rutherford and the family he left behind.

Gloria received me graciously into her home. She calls it home, though she rarely stays there. She usually stays in a penthouse in New York, or else the ranch she own in Texas. The Estate, as she call her home, was the first home she made with Rutherford after they married. Sixty years later, and she still calls it home, and it’s easy to find his influence throughout the mansion.

“Why don’t you take a seat,” Gloria says, pointing to the sofa nearest the door. She takes a seat in an arm chair nearest the fireplace, in which a fire is blazing in spite of the near eighty degree day outside.

“Thank you, Ms. Kirkland. We can begin whenever you’re ready.”

“Proceed then,” she encouraged me with an airy wave.

I pulled out my phone, hit the record button on my recording app, and began the interview. “We can do this however you want,” I stated. “I can ask you a series of questions, or you can tell your story uninterrupted. I’ll be able to put together a coherent narrative from either.”

“I’ll just tell you my story then,” she says. “You’re here at my invitation after all, and I think we should be playing by the house rules.

“As you like,” I replied genially.

“You’re probably wondering why I asked you here,” she started, not bothering to wait for an answer. “The memory of my late husband is being besmirched by that beast of a woman, and I thought it best to clear the air and state the whole truth, the unabridged, painful truth, as we lived it.

“Ms. Hoff wants to paint a picture of an effeminate man, one who had no control of his cuckoldress of a wife, a woman who she claims kept company with the rich and powerful, men who controlled the destiny of a nation, politicians and celebrities alike. But there’s more to it than that.”

“More than infidelity?” I gasped, interrupting her story, scandalized by the implication.

“I don’t know if I would categorize it as being unfaithful, Violet,” she replied, unconcerned by my interruption. “Every man I bedded I did with his blessing. Indeed, he encouraged me to enjoy the company of every man I invited to my bed. You see, Rutherford was not an effeminate man. He was manly, a man’s man, an avid outdoorsman, hunter, fisher, and camper. He enjoyed manly pursuits. He just didn’t enjoy the intimate company of women.”

“Are you saying that Ms. Hoff’s assertion that he was gay is correct?”

“I am,” Gloria nodded matter-of-factly. “It was an open secret within our circle. He was already in a long-term relationship with his partner and lover by the time we got married. I was to be the trophy wife, you see. I was young, beautiful, and desirable. Our parents set it all up. His father needed to see his heir in a stable marriage with a woman from a good family, and my father wanted to move up the social ladder. It was arranged, and though I didn’t know what I was getting into, I accepted my lot in life.”

“An arranged marriage?”

“Yes. Don’t get me wrong, I cared for him. He was good looking, charismatic, and a wonderful man. I grew to love him quickly enough, and in time he grew to love me. We married in an intimate ceremony at the cathedral, wedded by a cardinal no less. We consummated our marriage that night, and it was as awkward as you can imagine. Adept as he was in making love to another man, bedding a woman left him utterly flummoxed.

“But we managed it that night, though it wasn’t the only time we shared a bed. He needed heirs, after all, so we started having sex on a regular basis. His lover didn’t like it, but he understood the social requisite of the era, and he accepted it with good grace. I bore him three sons, and a daughter during our first five years of marriage. Afterwards, he visited my bed once a year, on our anniversary, to perform his required husbandly duties.”

She laughed at the idea, but I was left speechless. What had seemed from the outside to be a solid, Christian marriage was nothing more than a sham, or so I thought. Gloria looked at me shrewdly and smiled. “Does it shock you? You have to understand that the rules are different for those in our social class, at least it was that way with old money.”

“It does, yes!” I exclaimed.

“I need you to know, and I need you to relate to your readers that our marriage was a loving and respectful one. I became his partner and confidant, though only his annual lover. But I loved him all the same, loved him like I have loved no one else. I believe he loved me the same way. The only defect was that we lacked the romantic component most associate with love.

“He had Edgar’s bed for romance. Edgar’s wife was not as understanding as I was, but she accepted it like the devoted wife she was trained to be. She took no lovers other than Edgar, so she had a loveless, and sexless marriage. Other than a pro forma consummation of their marriage, they bedded only one other time, and she conceive a son for him. She grew embittered fairly quickly, deprived of a husband to care for, and a lover to care for her needs.

“I had no such qualms. Like I said, Rutherford encouraged my dalliances with other men. He was quite proud that I was desirable. I used that to our advantage, bedding the right man in my husband’s quest to gain control of one business or another. More than once, I slept with an influential senator at his insistence, gaining the support for a bill he wanted passed, or defeated.

“I wasn’t too keen on politicians, but celebrities were another matter. I must have slept through a who’s who of famous men, starting from the late fifties when we were married. I’m over eighty, and let me tell you, I still manage to get some of the fresh faces into my bed.Having money is a potent aphrodisiac, and the young are willing to trade favors for a little money. I’m not ashamed to have pressed my wealth to my advantage, but it has kept me young.”

I nod in agreement. She still looks beautiful in spite of her advanced age. She sat in front of me, with a short skirt the showed beautifully toned and tanned legs. She was thin and regal, with high cheekbones, and flowing silver hair. Her hazel eyes were piercing. I admit that I felt an attraction towards this woman.

“I can’t help but wonder, with your husband sleeping with men, did you ever dabble with women?”

“Why? Are you curious?” She laughed knowingly. “I’m familiar with your reputation, Violet. You’re not shy when it comes to lovers, are you?”

“I’m openly bi,” I confess, feeling ashamed for the first time.

“I’ve tried it a few times during the free-love sixties. I enjoyed it, but I realized fairly quickly that women were not my taste.”

“That’s understandable,” I say , trying to keep the disappointment from my voice.

“Oh dear,” she grinned, and I felt a pull of magnetism from her. “Were you hoping to score more than the story of a lifetime?”

“Well, no,” I flushed. “I hadn’t considered it until just now.”

“I think we should continue the interview at a later time, once you’ve come back to your senses.”

I nodded in agreement, and I picked up my phone and stopped recording. Gloria rose and pulled me to my feet, pulling me into an embrace and kissing me like I had never been kissed. She surprised me by how good a kisser she was. “It’s been awhile since I’ve been with a woman,” she confided with a wink, “but I think I’m willing to try again. Feel free to use this in your story, if you want.”

I would love to relate what came next, but I will keep that part of the interview to myself. I will note that I was not disappointed by her skills in the bedroom, as evidenced by the fact that I ended up spending the night there that same night, and several more after that. If that unauthorized biography threatened to cause a scandal, I don’t know how the world will react to our own secret love affair, and frankly, I don’t care.

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Short Story: Shattered

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I wish I could pinpoint the exact moment my heart broke. There has to be a moment when it’s whole and well and in the next it’s shattered beyond recognition, beyond hope of ever being whole again. In my mind’s eye, I picture a high-speed camera recording it happening, and then when I replay it time and again, I can see the seismic event as my heart flutters and contorts violently, before the trauma rips through the organ, shredding it into uncountable pieces.

I replay the event constantly as I try to sleep. I try to divine meaning or purpose from it. I wonder if I had missed any warning signs. I pray for healing, but I’m left barren, an unbeliever in a miserable dark night of the soul. I’ve been hurt before, but never like this. Never have I been left questioning even my own identity. Maybe I should tell you what I’m talking about.

I met her a few years ago at a 5K event, a fundraiser with proceeds going towards cancer research. I lost my mother to breast cancer the previous year, and I wanted to do something to honor her memory. I took up running, hoping to help the cause. Sandra had also lost a loved one, in her case her favorite aunt. We met at the sign in table, and we started to talk. She was actually one of the first women I initiated a conversation with. I felt a pull from her, a well of gravity that captured me and placed me in her orbit, though I hadn’t recognized it at the time.

We exchanged phone numbers, and within a few days I called her, wanting to hear her again, needing to see her. The sensation was unlike anything I had ever experienced. It was utterly intoxicating. We went out for dinner, and then the next week to a movie. Soon we were dating fairly regularly. I’m not even certain when we became a couple.

All too soon, we ended up moving in together. I, who had spent a lifetime taking things slow, never wanting to rush into anything, fell headlong into a relationship. I realized quickly that I was attracted to her, that I felt a rush of emotions when I was with her. The heady feeling of euphoria clouded my judgement, but I didn’t care. I was in love with her, and she told me constantly that she was in love with me. It was bliss, or so I thought.

There were signs the entire time, of course, but I ignored them. I was too in love to see clearly. I cast my doubt away and allowed my heart to blind me. She, I believed, could do no wrong. She would never betray me, yet there was a nagging suspicion in the back of my head. I shouted it down, but the voice became louder. Still, I ignored it. I was, after all, in love.

As time wore on, however, the little signs became clearer. Maybe it’s because she became emboldened by my refusal to see what was in front of me that she no longer felt the need to hide it from me. I accepted her fidelity as a given, but her actions clearly betrayed her. Even my friends could see what was going on, and though they tried to warn me, I ignored them as well.

We were together for a year before the truth became brutally clear. Sandra, in her arrogance, started being careless. I would read texts between her and her friends. They were clearly romantic in nature. I’m not sure romantic is really the word I’m looking for. There were explicit, but I tried to rationalize it. I wasn’t giving her my full attention. I was clearly working too hard and not being available to her.

So I left work early ond day, wanting to surprise my lovely girlfriend. I got home, noticed several cars in the driveway, cars that I didn’t recognize. Curious, I crept quietly into the house. That’s when I heard her. From the doorway of the house, I heard her moaning, moans that I had never heard escape her lips. It sounded ravenous, guttural, with a kind of savage ferocity that I had never thought possible to issue from a woman’s mouth.

My heart seized in my chest, but I was still in denial. I had to be imagining it. I hung my jacket in the closet before sneaking up the stairs. The moans became louder and clearer as I crept up. I heard the voices of several men, in addition to hers. I heard her utter words I didn’t even know she knew, profanities and invocations to a deity I was beginning to lose faith in.

I opened the door, hoping not to see what I knew very well was happening within. On the threshold into the bedroom, I felt my very soul torn asunder. Something in my mind broke the moment my heart was shattered. When I came to myself, I was surprised at what I saw. I was covered in blood, the bodies of two men strewn along the floor, their bodies broken by my hand, and the wooden bat I must have picked up from the coat closet by the front door.

Sandra cowered in the bathroom, having witnessed my break from sanity as I swung against her lovers with an anger I had never displayed in my life. The aggression that had built up during a lifetime of submission washed over me, like a dam spilling over after a flood. Nothing could hold back my anger, and in those moments she came to discover that even the meek can only by strung along for so long.

I felt the power pulsing in my veins as I drank in the fear from her eyes. I must have looked mad, drenched in the crimson life force of the lovers with whom she had mocked my own manhood. At that moment, my tenuous grasp at sanity was fleeting and I felt a surge of hatred overpower my control. This time, however, I was fully aware of what I was doing. I knew what I had to do to regain my battered manhood. I would have to kill her.

I lifted my bat above my head, relishing the terror etched onto her face. I thought my love for her was intoxicating, but having control of her life, and now her death, was empowering. I laughed a mad laugh as I walked towards her, watching her shrink back against the vanity, having nowhere to flee. Her life had been forfeited for having been a treacherous bitch.

In my righteous anger I hadn’t heard the muffled, pained breathing of one of her lovers. I was deaf to everything but Sandra’s pleading for mercy. I didn’t hear anything until the loud pop from behind me, then the eerie warm sensation of something viscous pouring from my side. Then the searing pain as another bullet ripped through my body and I fell onto the floor, my consciousness floating away.

I’ve been told that I failed to kill those two bastards, but that the one who shot me lost the vision in one eye, and the other may never walk again. No one will tell me what happened to that bitch of a girlfriend of mine. I hear precious little in here, and the nursing staff will not talk to me. My therapist is trying to put my psyche back together, but I don’t think there’s much left of me to fix. The man I was is dead. The woman I loved killed him with her betrayal. I wish I didn’t miss her. I don’t understand how I can still love her with my shattered heart.

 

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Short Story: Bare truth

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Ever since I can remember, my mother has been the sole provider for our family. She was the one who toiled all night to put a roof over our head, and food on the table. It’s not as though my father wanted it this way. I do have vague memories of him heading off to work while my mother, the ever dutiful housewife, stayed home and took care of their precocious four-year-old, me.

That changed one night, when after going out for drinks with his work buddies, he rolled his car on the way home. Seeing pictures of the car many years later, it was a small miracle that he survived. It was more so that he didn’t hurt or kill anyone else. It was a single-car accident. He was the only occupant. He survived, but his life, and ours, changed in an instant.

The few memories that I have from that time are not happy. I spent a lot of time sleeping at either Nana’s or my Aunt Dodi. I rarely saw home or either of my parents. I was aware that Dad was in the hospital, but they didn’t tell me much, only that he was hurt but he would be okay. He wasn’t. He never would be again.

My mother changed after that. She used to be carefree and happy. After the accident, she grew hardened and distant. We no longer played together. I remember seeing her cry a lot whenever Nana, Papa, or aunt Dodi were around. Looking back, I now know she was worried about losing the house and paying the bills. Eventually, we became homeless and started living above Aunt Dodi’s garage.

This went on for over a year. Mom found a job, but she didn’t have Dad’s skills. He was a manager at a warehouse, moving up, with high ambitions. Now he was stuck in a wheelchair, paralyzed from the waist down, unable to do anything any more. The pain, he confided in me once, was too great for him to concentrate on any task. All he did now was play computer games, or else try writing stories that honestly aren’t very good. He’s not creative. He’s analytical. That’s what Nana says.

Mom worked as a janitor for the school, making minimum wage, unable to provide her family a decent life. She was a high school dropout, leaving school because she got pregnant with me. She wasn’t a very bright student, but she had a dingy but cute angle going on. Mom was very popular, always had at least one date every weekend, and was usually dating one of the popular jocks.

She never had any ambitions other than to land a man who could provide for her. Now with the table turned, unwilling to leave the man she married just because he stupidly got himself handicapped, she entered the workforce for the first time, only to discover he had no appreciable talents.

That changed after I started second grade. She found a job working nights. I remember asking her where she worked, but she said it wasn’t any of my business. I wanted to see where she worked, but Dad said it wasn’t a great idea. I remember Aunt Dodi and Nana being upset about it, but since they didn’t do much to help her out, Mom said it wasn’t any of their business.

I learned not to ask about my mother’s job, but it didn’t take long for her to start bringing home more money. Where once we had been shopping at thrift stores, all of a sudden we were going to the mall a couple of times a week. Where once my mother drove a broken down Gremlin, which for some reason she kept, she started driving a brand new Shelby Mustang.

Pretty soon we moved out of Aunt Dodi’s garage apartment and moved into a new home out in the suburbs. It was quiet, and everyone kept to themselves for the most part. Dad didn’t do much except watch me at night while Mom was at work. No one really knew what she did, except for Dad, and our neighbors, too, learned not to ask too many questions.

***

When I turned eighteen, right before Christmas of my Senior year, I still didn’t know my mother’s profession. By then, I didn’t care. I had my own life to worry about, my own future to be concerned with. I had inherited my mother’s waifish figure, pale complexion, and general personality. I was a little more of an intellectual, having inherited my father’s brains, and his ambition to do something with my life.

My mother took me out for lunch and then took me to get my nails done, then out shopping. She bought me several new outfits, and then surprised me with a car, “a gift from your father and me,” she said with a faint smile, but I knew better. My father was living in a bottle most to the time by then. I don’t know why she put up with it. I would soon learn that it was he who drank to put up with her.

My mom went to work, leaving me and my girlfriends alone to watch movies. My father, as he did most nights, drank himself into a stupor. Once he was out, I grabbed my keys and me and my friends snuck out of the house to explore the city in my new car. We didn’t go anywhere in particular at first, but then Mandy convinced me to drive to a club she heard about, where you only had to be eighteen to get in.

We went. I was curious since she rarely suggested anything, and something about how she said it made me have to see the place. It was as though she knew something I didn’t, and wanted to see my reaction. Knowing I had till dawn, we drove up to the club, which I discovered was a strip club as soon as I parked. I wanted to leave, but all my friends were egging me on. To save face, I had no choice but to go in.

Mandy paid for me to get in, and they stamped us with a red stamp on our right hand to signify to the bartenders that we were not of age, and we went in, right to the front. A couple of creepy old guys started hitting on us, but a bouncer quickly shooed them away. He was giving me a strange look before shaking his head and walking away. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see him talking to some other workers, pointing me out. I decidedly ignored them.

Soon the music started and the dancers came out. First song was fully clothed, and then when the second started, clothes began coming off. Soon they would dance, fully nude, gyrating with their legs open, and guys drooling like pigs. It was disgusting, but it was also a bit arousing. I never considered myself a lesbian, or even bi, but maybe it was just the taboo of it all, of being where I wasn’t supposed to be, of seeing beautiful women parading themselves so freely, that it did turn me on a bit.

It wasn’t until the third girl came out that I understood. I have no doubt you figured it out by now, probably when I was still talking about myself in second grade, but it shocked me. I could never have guessed it. My mother came out, wearing nothing more than a teddy with white stocking and red stilettos. She didn’t notice me at first, and I kind of hung back. My friends, however, headed right up to the stage, waved a bundle of cash and grabbed her attention.

She didn’t notice who it was at first, so she started gyrating, legs open, showing what she told me was too precious to flaunt about like a piece of garbage. Soon Mom realized what was going on, knew who was paying her to dance, and I could see the humiliation etched on her face. She didn’t stop, however. She had a job to do, and she did it. When her song was over, I saw her give me a significant look, pointing me with a glance towards the same bouncer that pushed the pervs off of me.

He took me aside, back to where private lap dances were given. My mom came in, looking afraid of how I would react. I didn’t know what to say. She remained quiet, sitting down on the sofa and looked down at her hands which she rested on her knees. Finally, after several tense minutes, I broke the silence. “So, you’re a stripper?”

“Yes,” she answered in an unnaturally calm voice, unlike her usual tone. “I guess the secret’s out of the bag.”

“It is,” I agreed.

“Was it Mandy who told you?”

“No, but she did suggest it. Why do you ask?”

“Because,” she said, not quite looking me in the eye, “her parent’s have been coming here for years. They knew about it, and kept quiet, for a price.”

“What do you mean, for a price?”

“Can’t you guess what kind of place this is?” She asked patiently, sounding a lot like Mrs. Roberts, one of my favorite teachers from middle school.

“It’s a strip club,” I answered, looking at her as though she were stupid.

“Yes, but things happen here. Things that aren’t supposed to, but they do. The club looks the other way provided no trouble comes of it.”

“Sex?”

“Sex, favors, games. Whatever fetish the client wants to engage in, and if we’re up to the task, then why not.”

“You’ve been sleeping with Mandy’s parents?”

“No, just her mother,” she replied, a cheeks flush with embarrassment. Her father likes to watch.”

“Does Dad know?”

“Of course he does,” Mom cried, burying her face in her hands with shame. “He knows, and he knows there’s not a damned thing he can do about it. It’s his fault that it’s come to this. That’s why he drinks so much. It’s the only way he knows how to cope with it.”

“Then why are you doing it?”

“How else am I going to provide for you?”

“I don’t know,” I shrieked hysterically, the absurdity of what I was seeing finally dawning on me. “You could have gotten a real job?”

“This is a real job,” she replied heatedly. “You think this is easy? Do you really think I like doing this?”

“You tell me,” I yelled. “How long have you been doing this?”

“Keep your voice down,” my mother pleaded nervously. “Don’t give them a cause to throw us out?”

“You mean me?”

“No, I mean us,” Mom snapped. “If I can’t keep my clients in check, then I’m out of here, too. And don’t think you being in here isn’t costing me money. I have to give the house a cut in what I bring in, and being in here without making anything, well I’m paying for it out of pocket.”

“Then leave. You’re capable of so much more.”

“You don’t think I tried?” Mom said, her voice wavering for the first time. “Don’t you think that wasn’t my plan? I enrolled at the community college, but I’m too stupid even to pass a remedial class there. I was never the smart one. That was your father. I was just the pretty one, the little trophy bitch at home. You know he had other girlfriends. That’s who he was with the night he broke his back.”

“And you stayed?” I yelled before lowering my voice. “You stayed?”

“I was only ever the cute side chick. We only got married because of you. He promised to provide for me so long as he was free to do what he wanted. I agreed because what choice did I have?”

“Mom,” I cried, grabbing her hands. “You have choices. You don’t have to do this. I mean, you’re almost forty. How much longer do you think you can do this?”

“If I can get you through college, that’ll be enough for me.”

“Mom, I don’t need you to do that. My grades are good enough to get me scholarships at the state school.”

“I thought you wanted to go to one of those fancy Ivy League schools.”

“I did,” I replied. “I do, but not like this. I’d rather be poor than see you degrading yourself for me.”

There was a knock on the door. “Time,” came the bouncer’s voice.

“We’ll talk about it later,” my mother said, standing up and fixing her bra strap. In my emotional state, I had failed to notice that my mother was only wearing revealing lingerie.

I nodded and walked out the door, my mother following me out. “Careful with your friend, Mandy,” my mother implored me. “She’s propositioned me a couple of times, too. I politely refused. I think that’s why she decided to out me.”

I nodded. My friends were right where I left them. Mandy turned towards me with a smirk as i walked up. “How’s mummy?” she asked.

Without thinking about it, I cocked my fist back and punched her squarely on the nose. Blood gushed out everywhere and I turned on my heel and walked out. The bouncer hurried towards Mandy, giving me a little wink as I left. I hopped into my car, leaving my friends behind. Screw them, thinking it would be funny to do this to me on my birthday. I didn’t need it. As I drove off, the first flakes of snow beginning to fall, I imagined them having to find a way home. Smirking to myself, I began to call their parents, just to let them know where they were at.

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Short Story: Assassin

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“What the hell?” A large, barrel-chested man shouted as he barged into the chambers, his sword drawn. “How did he get past the guards?”

“I should be asking you the very same question, Officer of the Guard,” another man – this one in robes of embroidered silk, bearing the insignia the Court Advisors – said scathingly, his eyes focused at the dead man on the floor. His blood pooled beside his head, the result of two arrows that pierced his eyes.

“Are you suggesting that my men allowed him access to the King’s chambers, Roma?” The officer asked heatedly, suppressing the urge the attack the advisor. “There is no way that my men were responsible for this.”

“Then how do you explain this, Garrem? Are you suggesting he just materialized into the room?”

“That’s enough out of you two.” Another man – this one arrayed in in armor, bearing the Royal Seal of the King – spoke up. He still had a bow in his hand, but he place the arrow back in his quiver. Beside him, on the throne, sat King Darrian, his face an unreadable mask. “Someone sent an assassin to kill His Majesty and you two want to quibble about how he managed to make it into the chambers? This is not the time.”

“With all due respect,” Roma bowed at the Chief Guard, “but I dare say it is. There was a serious breach of our defenses and we need to know how and why. Who was responsible? How did he get in? What do we need to do to shore up our protection of His Royal Highness? This isn’t something we can ignore.”

“There will time for that later, Roma.” King Darrian replied for his Chief Guard. “Right now I’m more interested in who this assassin was, and who sent him.”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Roma looked at everyone in disbelief. “It must have been the Yelians. Look at what he’s wearing! He’s one of their guards!”

The king glanced at his advisor with a look of pity before addressing his Guard. “We need to search him.”

“I’ll do it, Majesty.” Garrem started towards the assassin but was stilled with a gesture from the Chief Guard.

“Not yet. He may be warded.”

“Warded? But he’s dead. Surely any wards that protected him would have broken the moment he breathed his last.”

“Perhaps, but we don’t have the luxury of making that assumption,” the Chief Guard informed the Officer of the Guard. “Our allies made that same mistake and when they investigated the dead body of the assassin to be, there was an explosion and arcane fire rained on everyone assembled in the room, killing everyone in the room, including their king. Fortunately, the prince happened to have left the room moments before the attack and survived. I’d rather not take that chance.”

With a nod, he signaled to a couple of spellcasters who stood behind out of sight behind the tapestry of Founding of the Realm. The couple, a man and his wife, began to chant incantations, searching the deceased for any wards or curses. After several tense minutes, the woman turned and addressed the Chief in an unusually low voice, “He is clean. There are no wards, talismans, or other magical items on his person. He is as he appears, unprotected and undeniably dead.”

“Thank you,” King Darrian sighed with relief. “You may go back to your station, but don’t wander off. We may have need of your services again.” The couple bowed low, and without a word left the chamber. “Now you may search him, Garrem.”

Garrem made swift work of searching he deceased. He turned out his pockets, pulling out Yelian coins, maps, and orders to assassinate the Chanalian court, stating with Darrian. “It appears to be a Yelian guard, Your Majesty. His manner of dress, his meager possessions, everything points to an act of betrayal.”

“There you have it,” Roma said silkily. “Yelia has engaged in an unprovoked, and may I add, cowardly attack on our sovereign. We must respond in kind!”

“Our closest allies?” Darrian spat angrily at his advisor. “Are you so witless that you are blinded by what you see and fail to see the truth?”

“The truth is plain enough for even the most dimwitted to see, Your Highness. King Lain has betrayed you, as I always warned you he would.”

“And your hatred of the Yelian’s has betrayed you, Roma. It wasn’t the Yelians.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“If I may,” Garrem stood up, wiping the blood from his hands with the dead man’s cloak. “He is as he appears to be, a Yelian, or so we are made to believe.”

“What are you going on about, Officer of the Guard?”

“We have employed assassins before, Roma. Maybe not often, and never towards an ally, but against an enemy we have. It’s a dirty game, but not one we are above employing at need. No assassin is stupid enough to go in dressed in a manner that’ll betray the one responsible for the assassination. He must go in dressed to be unnoticed. He will carry nothing other than his weapon. No one goes in with orders in his hands, coins of his home realm. Whoever is responsible wanted to implicate our closest ally, that much is obvious.”

“If not Yelia, then who?”

“Answer me this, how did he get in?” the Chief Guard asked the advisor.

“How should I know? Ask your Officer. It was he and his men that failed to stop this would be assassin from storming the chamber.”

“This was no failure of either my men or our defenses. There are no unguarded points of entry, and to get here, he would have had to force his way through several layers of protection.”

“There is one way,” Darrian said.

“What?” Garrem exclaimed, his face draining of all color.

“At peace. There is a secret way in and out, known only to myself and a few key personel.”

“And am I not to be trusted?” Roma asked indignantly.

“In a word? No.” The Chief Guard replied. “Other than the King, only myself and the Royal Attachment knows of it. The spellcasters erase all knowledge of the passage should one of the Attachment leave the King’s service. There is no one who could possibly know the secret way in.”

“There is one,” Garrem sighed. “Amian”

“What?” Roma scoffed. Do you suspect the Prince might have tried to kill his father? What could possibly make you even consider that a possibility?”

“The fact that he defected to Morta,” the Officer replied. “It’s not a big secret that he blames the King for the Queen’s death. It’s not unheard of for the son to kill the father to ascend to the throne, and in this he has cause, though his cause in an unjust one.”

“Yes, I fear you’re right, Garrem. “The Chief Guard nodded. “I’m also disposed to believe Amian’s the one behind the attack.”

“Where’s the proof?” Roma asked, his arms outstretched to those assembled in the room. He paced in front of the body, almost like a counselor pleading his client’s innocence. “Where’s the proof that the prince had anything to do with it? I defy you to show me.”

“Proof?” The Chief Guard sneered contemptuously. “We have no proof, only suspicions at the moment, but bear with me. The assassin managed to sneak in undetected. The only way he could have made it into the chambers undetected would have been through the King’s passage. Also, the attack lacked subtlety. It was unrefined, poorly planned, and even worse in its execution. This bears Amian’s hallmark.”

“Without proof that the the prince did it in exile, how can you be so swift in judgement? There’s no way he could have done it from Morta.”

“You’re absolutely correct,” King Darrian agreed, “at least not without assistance, Roma. Pella! Ostian! We need your assistance once more!”

The spellcasters appeared immediately from behind the tapestry. “Your Majesty!” Pella replied as she and her husband bowed.

“We suspect that there’s a traitor amongst us. What do you see?”

“Often the sight is cloudy,” Pella replied, “but this is not the case. The traitor is here, in plain sight, paying deference to the one-time prince, the traitor Amian. He lacks subtlety and wisdom and betrays himself with his defiance of the obvious and his defence of the guilty. Look no further, Majesty. There is no need to employ the ancient magicks. His own words brands him a traitor.”

“How dare you?” Roma spat. “I would never betray the kingdom!”

“But you would betray the King, Roma?” The Chief Guard pulled his sword from the scabbard as he stepped down from the dias and reached out to grab the advisor.

“Darrian betrayed us first, leaving us vulnerable to attack. He’s guilty of the Queen’s death, and countless other subjects, all for a fool’s errand. No, his kingship is over. The Prince Amain is the rightful King.”

Roma pulled an orb from beneath his breast pocket. “Death to the treasonous king!” He threw the orb towards the king but the orb hovered for a moment and then a burst into blue flame, showering Roma with arcane fire. Pella and Ostian muttered furiously as they directed the orbs power towards the traitor, his screams echoing from beyond a chasm, fire consuming him until nothing remained but a charred heap. The magic dissipated and Pella and Ostian lifted their wards.

“What luck!” Garrem exclaimed.

“Luck?” Pella raised an eyebrow. “It was obvious he was the traitor from the start, such as it was obvious that there were no wards protecting the assassin. Ostian scanned the room from artifacts of magical properties as I searched the deceased. We set up a barrier around Roma once we were certain.”

“Why then didn’t you tell us?” The Chief Guard yelled angrily.

“What has happened had to play out,” Ostian replied hoarsely, speaking for the first time. “He had to reveal his guilt before we could intervene. We are not murders, nor are we employed as such. Neither are we soothsayers. Our duty is to protect the king and not dictate the flow of events to our will.”

“You did well,” the King thanked the spellcasters. “Now we must respond in kind. Amain’s actions has earned him the title of traitor to the realm. Son or no, he must answer with his blood. Garrem, you know what need be done.”

“And so it will be done,” Garrem said with a sigh before bowing to his leige and turning away, his heart heavy. The one-time prince’s life was forfeit, and it would fall to him to carry out the sentence.

 

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