The Pastime

Contributor: Jon Moray

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Rusty “The Crusher” Crusheda stood outside the batter’s box, took a few practice swings while eyeballing the pitcher on the mound for the Kansas City Royals. The pitcher, Lefty Nolan, the ace of the staff and the reigning Cy Young award winner peered back at Rusty, with eyes beckoning him into the batter’s box. He was no ordinary pitcher and Rusty was no ordinary hitter. And this showdown was no ordinary showdown.
It was the last game of the season and Rusty was a homerun away from breaking the single season record. The stadium was overflowing with fans, hoping to witness an historic night. Lefty had something to gain from this game as well. He was going for the league’s lead in wins, trying to notch number 25 under his belt and all but guaranteeing a second consecutive CY Young award. A reporter asked him before the game whether he was going to pitch to Rusty, to which he replied, “I am coming with my best and we’ll see if his best is better than my best.” Lefty’s best featured a fastball clocked as high as 105 mph. Rusty’s best was destroying a fastball. Something had to give.
Rusty stepped into the batter’s box, while a ball boy handed the home plate umpire a special hologram marked baseball to authenticate the identity of the potential record setting baseball. No one in the stadium was sitting. Flashbulbs were popping as Rusty prepared to bat. Networks broke away from their regular programming to cover Rusty’s every move at the plate.
Lefty bore down, focused on the catcher’s signals. He shook off a curveball and a waste pitch outside before agreeing on his bread-n-butter, the fastball. Lefty went into his wind up and hurled the baseball toward the plate. The pitch went right down the middle and Rusty swung as hard as he could. He made contact and the ball skyrocketed off his bat and into the chilly autumn night, gradually elevating up and over the right field upper deck façade. The ball looked like it was going into orbit as it disappeared out of the stadium. Suddenly, it was gone, vanished, out of thin air. Everyone that saw the ball thought they lost sight of it in the dark. Fans that were outside the stadium and were situated in the vicinity where the ball would’ve landed, reported never seeing it make land fall. They did report seeing a flash and a vibrating blur in the direction where the ball was leaving the stadium. The ball would never be found, becoming the strangest and most unsolved mystery in modern history.
Unknown to any of Earth’s scientists, the flash and the vibrating blur represented a portal to another dimension, into a world in its infancy in regards to evolution.
Oog worked diligently on sharpening his rock into a point when a thump behind him startled him and drew his attention. He turned and saw a white foreign object lying in the dusty tan terrain. He cautiously hunched over to the object and surveyed it curiously. He hopped around it several times before kicking at it lightly. He gathered enough courage to grasp at it and pick it up. He felt the texture of the red stitches as he brought the sphere to his mouth. He instantly spat, disgusted at the beaten leather taste.
Several other inhabitants converged upon him, wanting to examine the new object. Oog ran off in defense and was able to distance himself from the crowd, suddenly becoming protective over his new souvenir. Gretch, the biggest and the most feared among the natives, picked up a large club and stomped over towards Oog. Oog, fearful of the giant, backed away and in his haste tripped over a large stone, dropping the sphere in the process. Gretch made up ground, while Oog quickly shot to his feet, and retrieved the orb. As Gretch grew nearer, Oog threw the sphere at Gretch in desperation and Gretch instinctively lifted his club in a swinging motion to defend himself. The ball met the bat and careened off of it about two hundred feet. They both looked on in wonder at the flight of the object and grunted at their discovery. Oog retrieved the ball and again tossed it at Gretch and a new pastime was born.


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The Edge of Eden

Contributor: Kristen Keckler
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Pam and Jerry arrived at the Eden pool, the adults-only section of the resort, expecting to see flesh—the website had alluded to “European-style bathing.” So when they’d found everyone in swimsuits, Pam was relieved. Jerry pretended to be disappointed but he wasn’t. He just wanted to be, didn’t want to worry about anything, nothing, not even tits.
“Isn’t this classy?” Pam said as they claimed two in the line of chaise lounges. She’d never seen an infinity pool—the pool’s tiles shone like opals, the water flowing over into a tile-lined moat. But instead of lining up with the ocean, the edge only lined up with the fence.
Green hammocks hung from poles among raised queen-size mattresses and pruned palms with bark like the skin of pineapples. A clutch of yuppies from Jersey sat on the ledge, debating St. Martin over St. Barts, the casinos, golf, and “natives.”
“Listen to them,” Pam said. “The one in the purple thong is a doctor—surgeon, cardiology.”
“You miss nothing,” Jerry said.
“I miss you,” she said.
Jerry laughed—she was right—and stroked his scruffy gray goatee. As Pam rubbed milky sunscreen into his back, the faded eagle tattooed on his deltoid flexed. Still laughing, he returned the favor, and when he lingered over the familiar constellation of freckles on her shoulders, she said, “Get under the straps?”
She adjusted the front of her pink one-piece, arranged the skirt-thingy that hid her uppermost thighs. Jerry watched her tuck her champagne blonde hair under her floppy hat.
“Another margarita?” he asked.
“Let’s try that thing,” she said, stacking her magazines.
“That the lady at breakfast was talking about?”
“She was a teacher.”
“With a mouth like that.”
Pam grinned.
A Dominican waitress suddenly materialized, clad in all white, like a nurse, the outline of white underpants showing through tight slacks. She listened to his description, some piña colada daiquiri concoction.
“Miami Bice,” she said.
“Bice,” Jerry repeated, and kept repeating as the afternoon wore on.

#

Pam lowered herself into the pool, pushing the water in circles. “Look, Jerr, I’m a mermaid!” she called out, then crossed and rolled her eyes. She did a dance for him, stringing her fingers through the air like a belly dancer, the way she had years ago at Hogs and Honeys—she’d had a good little figure back then. Jerry still liked it, even if she didn’t.
He had that grin. He rolled his shoulders to the ambient music, winking at her, sipping his drink.
“Come in!” she said. “It’s refreshing, the water, it’s like caresses,” but he shook his head, took another sip. “Bice,” he said.
Their waitress—Luz—brought another round.
Under the surface, Pam slipped out of her top, felt the water flow over her nipples, tried to get Jerry’s attention, but he was studying the fence. She felt reckless, silly, even a little spurned, like she had the first time they met, at that dive bar watching some cover band. She licked the salt off her lips, waded to shallow end.

#

The sun had moved beyond their umbrella, and they squinted at the light glinting off the pool, something profound about it.
“I can’t believe we’re actually here,” Pam said.
“Are you crying?” Jerry glanced at her, then around the deck. “You’re not fucking crying.”
Two women in the chairs next to them were reading, one from a thick hardcover, which she lowered to her tanned stomach, as if she’d lost her thought.
“I’m just happy,” Pam said, rolling her body toward him. “Drunk and happy! Twenty-four years, and our little Jonah, that Tina actually married Jonah’s dad, and that Billy isn’t dead. Remember, we thought he’d be dead.”
“He’s a fucking dentist,” Jerry said.
“He was a wild man.”
“But Jonah,” Jerry said. And felt his own eyes welling. He said, “I never got why women cry, then say they’re happy.”
“It’s like men drinking,” she said.
“I never said I was happy.”
She held up the issue of People in her lap. “All these people who have so much more than us, private planes, infinity pools, Miami Vices every day. But they don’t have, I don’t know, anything real.”
Jerry sighed, stared at the supposedly infinite edge of the pool, kept staring.
“You deserve this vacation more than anyone—Jerry Conners, you deserve this!”
“Infinite my ass.”
“Especially after what happened on your birthday.”
He hefted himself up and lumbered over to the pool, the waistband of his trunks hanging low under his gut, waded in, waded away from her, jaw set, Bice high in the air. He dunked his head—shock of coldness.
Eyes closed, she counted her breaths, one through ten, trying to bring back the moment. When she opened them, he was beside her, dripping puddles onto the nice stone deck.

#

The sun now only hit the hammocks beside the fence, and the mattresses were scattered with damp towels abandoned and twisted into lumps. The wind had picked up, carrying a hint of chlorine and fryer grease. Luz appeared, asking, “You like something else?”
“No,” Pam said.
“Gracias,” he said, fumbling with a wad of bills, sliding several off for a tip.
Pam stood and looked at the pool, now empty. “See, Hun?” she said, pointing. “A petal from this morning!” There’d been lots, she’d heard, all colors of roses, when the pool opened that morning.
She dipped her feet in, and as the petal drifted across the swells, peach as a swatch of flesh, she imagined hundreds floating, spilling over.
Some waiters were wheeling in carts of flowers for a wedding, orchids, birds of paradise, and he noticed then, as if for the first time, the carefully landscaped plots along the fence, the lemon yellow lilies with orange freckles, the papery purple bougainvillea spilling over raised beds, and even his wife, hands stretched behind her neck, rising from the pool like a lotus.


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Kristen Keckler's work has appeared in the Iowa Review, Prick of the Spindle, Ecotone, and other magazines. She currently teaches creative writing at Mercy College in the Bronx and is obsessed with basketball, astrology, flip-flops (sandals) and cats.
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The Last Mighty One

Contributor: Ray Daley

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Some intact statues of The Last Mighty One still existed in the smaller outer provinces.

A few desperate people still left their votive offerings at the various altars in the vain hope that life would return to them one day.
That was the function of The Last Mighty One.

To bring life to the lifeless. To restore energy to the exhausted. Power to the powerless.

No-one truly understood the nature of his form.

Why wasn't he Human, like his devotees?
Obviously at some point in time people had known why he had taken that particular form.

The Great Rabbit.

Worship at his feet, prostrate, genuflect.

The Mighty Duracell.

Hear our prayers.

Bring the power back, light the darkness.
Save us from ourselves.


- - -
Ray Daley was born in Coventry & still lives there. He served 6 yrs in the RAF as a clerk & spent most of his time in a Hobbit hole in High Wycombe. He is a published poet & has been writing stories since he was 10. His current dream is to eventually finish the Hitch Hikers fanfic novel he's been writing since 1986.
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Dry Harvest

Contributor: Sean Crose

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In truth you prefer the dry harvest to its more colorful counterpart. Who wants to work with water outdoors in November? Besides, the dry harvest allows you to mostly work alone. It's just you, nature, the gas-powered picker, and the cranberries.
Naturally such solitary manual labor causes one's mind to wander. You tend to think of two things as you work your way across the rows of hard earth: the past and your ambitions.
In a distinct way you see them both as being connected, since you never actually fulfilled the promises you made to yourself back in the day. You wonder what some of your peers would say if they saw you now, toiling in soiled jeans at six-thirty in the morning.
Would they be embarrassed or would they simply turn to one another with “I told you so” looks? Of course you'd tell them that you love the work and are still planning on attending law school. Yet, being almost forty, that bold proclamation doesn't carry that much weight. You wonder if you even have the ambition to attend night classes anymore.
And so you continue on with your dry harvest, toiling under the awareness that others are thriving. On some mornings you find yourself wondering if your endless youth has finally morphed into belated adulthood. You've yet to come up with an answer to that question. You know only that all dry harvests come to an end.


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My work has appeared in such publications as FICTION 365, CRACK THE SPINE, THE COPPERFIELD REVIEW and, of course, LINGUISTIC EROSION. I live in Connecticut with my wife, Jen, and Cody, the world's greatest cat.
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Lost and Waiting

Contributor: Christopher Grey
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The heat seemed worst after dusk, as if the layers of summer piled on top of each other under a thick, humid, blanket. That is why he sat on the roof of his building, enjoying a cigarette and flipping through a magazine. The last of his beer was consumed half an hour ago and so he was thirsty, drowsy and fighting a headache.

Still, it was cooler up there.

He heard sirens below and rose to look out over the street, but stopped. There was lavender in the air and so he knew she was there.

"The girl I can't forget," he said without turning.

She didn't respond.

"Do you remember our song?"

His mind fluttered away for a moment, recalling their time in Madrid. Candlelight hovering above the plaza. Red wine. The scent of lavender.

"The melody only," he lied.

He felt her breath behind him and gentle fingers squeezing his arm, running down to his hand and to the tips of his fingers.

She began humming softly, the music entering from deep inside conjuring it all. The war. The lost battle on the mountain. The scimitar driving past the breastplate and icy pain splinters piercing into his core. He remembered seeing the red cross on white flags above the horizon, collapsing underneath smoke and fire.

"Why New York?" She asked quietly.

"So I'll forget."

"But you can't."

He turned to her. She had the same radiance she did three centuries years ago. Dark skin and green eyes. Improbable perfection in her eastern face.

"How did you find me?" He asked, but didn't need to. She always found him. Even before Spain, before Gaul. When Iberia was a colony and the ships arrived in their majesty from the Atlantic continent. She found him then. She found him in Athens. And in Thebes. In Alexandria and in the wastes of the Bavarian winter.

"I can see your heart," she said.

"Then you know I am lost."

"It's the saddest it has ever been," her voice was just above a whisper.

He held her hands and brought her close.

"You have to take me to him?" He asked, but didn't need to. She didn't answer, only took his lips with hers. Lavender spilled into him and for a moment he could feel nothing else.

When they released her eyes softened and she said, "It is time."

Behind her, he saw the masked man, dark overcoat whipping and cracking in a wind that didn't exist.

"Where will I be the next time?"

She lead him to the masked man, gently holding his hand.

"We don't know if there will be a next time."

He stayed silent, understanding. It was all coming to an end. His role was finished. He was unnecessary. As lost as he thought he was. When he closed his eyes, he pictured rising through the light, swimming through the sea of fire that created the light, and dissolving into the dark abyss that separates mankind from God.

The masked man was cold and quiet, as he always was. He held a revolver in a gloved hand. A far cry from the old days when he carried a scythe or trident.

She was quiet too, unable to look him in the eyes. Even in the dark heat of the New York summer, she was beautiful. He would have said "I love you" before the masked man shot him, but he didn't need to.

His lifelong trial was at last over and he rose through the light, swam through the sea of fire and dissolved into the abyss before God.


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Ground Zero

Contributor: Ray Daley
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I'm sitting there alone on a park bench with nothing but the fading remnants of my thoughts and dreams for company when the bomb finally goes off. There are children who are still playing on the swings, people are walking their dogs too. A little way down the path a couple are walking, holding hands, probably on their first date.

On the pond, ducks and swans are competing for space with the model boat enthusiasts. Underneath the shady Oak trees a family is bonding over a picnic lunch.

And this is the way the world ends.

No countdown timer, no ticking clock, nothing visible to defuse. It's the ultimate weapon.

You can't disarm what you can't see.

When it happens it's the biggest bang since the first one.

***

And yet all around me they carry on with their lives as though nothing has changed for them, the kids swinging higher; determined to get over the top, sandwiches being passed around amongst friends and family, dogs refusing to let go of interesting sticks and ducks glaring at model yachts.

Because this is how my world ends.

Not with a bang, nor a whimper. The only victim of the fallout is me.

I sit alone on the bench where she just walked away, still holding the ring after she said no.

The bomb was dropped.

No.

The emotional time-bomb exploded. And this is how my world ends.

Wounded by rejection, death by broken heart.


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Ray Daley was born in Coventry & still lives there. He served 6 yrs in the RAF as a clerk & spent most of his time in a Hobbit hole in High Wycombe. He is a published poet & has been writing stories since he was 10. His current dream is to eventually finish the Hitch Hikers fanfic novel he's been writing since 1986.
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Not Ready

Contributor: Portia Dawn

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It has happened again. The species of Earth has once again come to its turning point. Humans, animals, and plants. They all think they have what it takes to survive. But nobody can escape the inevitable. All things must come to an end.
But how have things survived so long? Because of women like us. The Mothers of Nature. There used to be hundreds of us.
Each time humanity needed us, one would step up to save them. In order for them to live, one of us must die.
I am the last one of many. Humanity has been given too many chances. I'm not going to fie for them.
I'm not afraid of death. They just keep making mistakes they can't fix. Polluting water, waging wars, and making even more decisions that could kill them all. After this last one, who knows if they'll survive without my help.
So I have only a little advice for humanity " Adapt or die."


- - -
I enjoy books.
I love to write.
I would love to meet all my heroes.
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High Voltage

Contributor: Marian Brooks

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Every time Clara wears her black leather jacket she thinks of Joe Grimaldi. He purchased this jacket for her fifteen years ago. It’s missing a button now but otherwise, still wears well.

Clara graduated from an Ivy League university with a degree in English Literature. She loved ballroom dancing. She was quite tall, not really glamorous but classy and fashionable. She twisted her blonde hair neatly into a bun at the nape of her neck. Joe liked to kiss her there. It tingled for a long while afterward.

Clara categorized Joe as her first and only “true grit” boyfriend after the divorce. She was tired of academics and thought she might be missing something by limiting her mate selection to college graduates. Joe never finished high school, lived with his sister and sometimes drove a green taxi with several hefty dings on the passenger side. His grammar was deplorable. He took on construction work from time to time just to buy small trinkets for Clara. Joe had a blue lightning bolt tattooed on his right forearm. She’d never once dated anyone with a tattoo.

Joe loved to dance. In fact, that’s how they met, at the Summit Ballroom in New Jersey. It was an elegant venue with fine table linen and the customary mirrored ball rotating from the ceiling. Sometimes Joe would just jump up in mid-air during a swing number without any warning and land on the floor in a split. Clara laughed until she could no longer breathe. There was a glow on her face when they waltzed or tangoed. He made Italian spaghetti sauce from scratch. Joe thought Clara was beautiful. She was his “Uptown Girl.”

It took several months for the grammatical errors and lack of good manners to begin to grate on Clara’s sensibilities. He embarrassed her by greeting her friends with “Yo” and “Whazzup?” Eventually, all things conspired to reach the inevitable conclusion. She began making excuses for not being available and he began following her whenever he had the opportunity. He called Clara five times a day and parked his taxi outside of her upscale, high-rise condo, waiting and hoping. Ultimately, he gave up in frustration and, after a few choice expletives, drove away for the last time dragging his tailpipe.

Several months later, he discovered Sandy, a petite redhead, with a wild history. She helped him forget about Clara who was happy for them both and relieved for herself.

Clara met Ethan Granger, II at an art exhibit and, after a short courtship, married him. He knew when to applaud at concerts and could quote many Shakespearean sonnets. He often did just that. Ethan was grounded, handsome and refined, a gentleman whose decorum Clara could count on even though he had a weakness for outlandish bow ties. But he rarely kissed Clara and disliked dancing of any sort.

Two weeks ago, Clara’s friend called with the dreadful news that there had been an accident. Joe was dead. He had electrocuted himself at a hotel construction site. Although Clara had not seen Joe for over ten years, she felt an overpowering compulsion to visit his grave site. His tombstone read, “Joseph Grimaldi danced his way into this world on March 6, 1948 and split on June 12, 2004.” Clara reached for a tissue in the pocket of her black leather jacket and began to weep.


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Recently retired, Marian Brooks has begun to write some short fiction. Her work has appeared in Curly Red Stories, Linnet's Wings, First Stop Fiction and others.
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The Man Who Was Twelve Bears

Contributor: Ray Daley

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A man comes to your house, he is wearing a grey suit. He pulls at his tie nervously as he speaks to your mother. She asks his name, "William Gibson" he replies. You later discover that he calls himself Twelve Bears, he is of the Navaho Nation. It is not a traditional name, he has not been named in the traditional First Nation way.

He was not named for the first thing his mother saw after giving birth to him.
He jokingly says "Otherwise my name would be Hospital Ceiling."

There are many other possible reasons why he calls himself this name. He may have seen twelve bears, he may have killed twelve bears. He may have even owned twelve bears at some point in his life.

You will later discover that none of these reasons are the correct one.

"My mother was a good woman" he tells your mother. He insists on speaking to you in person but you refuse to come down the stairs, he looks very scary, afterwards you can remember telling your mother that. "It doesn't really matter, there will be another day." he says to your mother and excuses himself, leaving your home as quickly as he had entered it.

The following week you see on television that he has been arrested by officers of the Oak Ridge Police Department for the crime of murder. He has killed a boy the same age as you, leaving his mother as the only witness that he "had to kill Baby Bear". He is still being called William Gibson by the news reporters. Only this time he is calling himself Thirteen Bears.

You will remember this forever.


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Ray Daley was born in Coventry & still lives there. He served 6 yrs in the RAF as a clerk & spent most of his time in a Hobbit hole in High Wycombe. He is a published poet & has been writing stories since he was 10. His current dream is to eventually finish the Hitch Hikers fanfic novel he's been writing since 1986.
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Brigitte's Appeal

Contributor: Matthew H Emma

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Over the last two years, Tim Emmer had seen 80 short stories and two novels in printed works that sold seven million copies. Success brought him critical notoriety, but also social duties. Eloise Branberry, Tim’s publisher and CEO of Year of the Tiger Books expected him to attend various Upper East Side social events.
Eloise somehow convinced Tim to host a soiree celebrating the signing of author Michael Stevens inside his Manhattan apartment. The gong show took place September 14, 2012. Beginning at seven o’clock, Branberry and her cronies descended. One complained about having to “rough it” by driving her Porsche because the Bentley was being serviced. Another bitched the Brie cheese was too strong for his palette.
He shook hands, pretended to be grateful for their half-assed praise and tried to smile while grinding his teeth. Finally, at a quarter-past eight, Belgian Countess Brigitte Vonyckx walked through the door. Revelers knew her, but not as Tim’s girlfriend. Brigitte was polite, extending her respects to all who approached. Tim waited 20 minutes before texting her.
“Hi,” he wrote.
“Be right there,” Brigitte typed back.
Tim let Brigitte work the room. He got up, went to the bar and downed a couple Heinekens. Ninety minutes later, his phoned beeped.
“Help me,” Brigitte jokingly declared in her message.
He glanced over and saw his better half speaking with Eloise, Michael and a few people he didn’t know. They made eye contact and waved to each other. Tim got an idea and grabbed his phone.
“You look so damn hot tonight,” he texted Brigitte. “I’m going to our room. If you love me, meet me there in 10.”
Tim left the bar and darted towards the master suite. He walked in and began to pace, while nervously hoping Brigitte would follow. Sure enough, exactly 10 minutes later, his wish came true.
“Did anyone see you?” Tim asked her, as she closed the door.
“I don’t think so,” Brigitte answered.
“Shit,” Tim said. “I wanted every last one of them to see you walk in here with me.”
“Tim,” Brigitte said. “We really shouldn’t do this. You’re the host.”
“Hon,” Tim responded. “Not one of them means a thing to me. Only you do. I am so madly in love and want you right now. If anyone notices, who cares? Please, just one hour. They have booze, fancy food and their shallow conversations to keep them entertained.”
“The writer again proves he has a way with words,” Brigitte said. “You persuaded me.”
They undressed quickly and made torrid love for an hour, first on the floor and then in the shower. After completing their tryst, the pair re-emerged.
Jane Litchfield, Tim’s publicist gave him a look and grinned.
“Did you do what I think you did?” she inquired.
“Absolutely,” Tim responded.
“Alright,” Jane said, as she high-fived Tim.
“Jane,” Tim said. “Tell me the truth. Did anyone notice?”
“Everyone saw Brigitte follow you into your bedroom,” she answered. “That is what you’re wondering I take it?”
“That’s all I needed to know,” Tim replied.


- - -
Matthew H Emma is a freelance writer currently pursuing a career as a fiction author. His short story "Mutual Satisfaction" was published in the December 2012 issue of Skive Magazine. Mr. Emma resides in Valley Cottage, NY.
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