365 Ficlets - Day #236 ~ "Balcony"

He stared out over the river, enjoying the reflections of the city lights on the calm surface, and trying to empty his mind. Another year over, and still he was watching time’s inexorable progress alone. Sure there were thirty people inside his flat that he knew well, that were in some sense ‘with’ him tonight, and indeed always, but the place by his side?

He took a long slow drag on his cigarette, an annual ritual that had long since ceased to be about pleasure and smoke and become something deeper about control and choice. He concentrated on the smoke trickling down into his lungs, tried to visualise little particles entering alveoli, nicotine molecules crossing the cell boundary and bonding with blood cells.

He was roused from this internal reverie by the sound of the veranda door closing. Looking up and opening his eyes he could not see anyone there, but the little sounds of soft soles on the concrete told him he was not alone. He waited patiently for the woman he could now smell to step out of the shadows.

365 Ficlets - Day #235 ~ "Requiem for New Year"

“She’ll never love you, you know.”

Tristan stepped out of the shadows as the cab pulled away and lit a cigarette, as if to underline the theme of unattainable pleasures.

I shrugged and started to walk away.

“Where are you going Paul? It’s not as though you can escape me, I’m your guardian angel; heh heh heh.”

I turned on my heel and stared deep into his eyes and made the relevant arcane signs to begin casting, holding them still in front of me.

“No Tristan, you are a demon, and if you continue to be so unsubtle in your attempts to tempt me I will send you home.”

He took a long draw on his fag and chuckled;

“Touched a nerve did I? You know that it doesn’t matter what happens, yeah? I mean you know that the love she does have for you will never bear the shape and form that you desire, right?”

I nodded;

“Yes Tris, and yet I choose to be friends with her and I respect her; it’s called love.”

“Pussy”

I began to trace certain symbols in the air and began to speak the words, but he was gone before I was even close to finished.

365 Ficlets - Day #234 ~ "Slow Day"

Alex turned the page on the paper that she had found on the Tube, and sighed again. She had been at work for seven, as requested by her sister, but she was starting to think that Pearl was mad for wanting to be open that week. Everyone knows that the world does mostly stop between Christmas and New Year, so what trade was a café in The City going to do on a Monday between those two holidays?

The paper was crammed with useless crap about celebrities and who was cheating on who, being seen getting in and out of cars without their knickers and generally nothing of any use to her. She might not have been Brain of Britain, but something to occupy her attention was what she needed. The Sun was simply not cutting it, particularly on this slow news day.

She checked the coffee machine, and then came out from behind the counter to straighten some chairs. She had her back to the door when the bell made her start.

“You are open, yah?”

He was gorgeous, and he had a voice like Hugh Grant. She straightened her apron and nodded.

365 Ficlets - Day #233 ~ "Christmas Regrets"

Snow on the ground, for the first time in the year and yet the year was nearly gone. I looked out of the window into the moonlit garden and it looked for all the world as if someone had sprinkled several tonnes of caster sugar over the hillside. I remember thinking that it was a good thing that none of us needed to drive anywhere in the morning. Spending Christmas week at the top of a hill in the Lake District has its downsides, and one of them is getting stranded. I say ‘downsides’, but for me it was positively an advantage. After the helter-skelter rat-race of London, the family home just outside Stavely was a welcome refuge. Sure it was a disappointment to once again be coming back alone, instead of doing my part to fill the place with grandchildren, and providing my mother with another ‘new daughter’ as she put it whenever one of my brothers would moor himself in domestic bliss - wedded or otherwise - to a woman unlikely to take their shit.

Veronica would have liked it; that was all I could think. Damn it.

365 Ficlets - Day #232 ~ "Wrapper"

“Have you finished yet?”

This was the third time that she had shouted up since I had retreated to the back bedroom with three rolls of positively festive paper, sellotape and all of my resolve. Let’s be clear I HATE wrapping Christmas presents. If I had the money to shop in the kinds of places that would do it for me, then that would be a perfect solution. It’s not that I disapprove of wrapping gifts, I think it’s a lovely practice in fact and get very upset if I am presented with an un-wrapped gift, but put simply I am utterly useless at doing it.

I suppose it all started as a child. My father, in particular, was very good at wrapping presents, and I was never as good as him at doing it, so soon I was getting other people to do it for me in return for extra washing up, money, whatever it took to not have to compete in the gift-wrap wars that go on between afficianados of the pursuit.

So anyway, I had been upstairs for a little over an hour and I had still failed to wrap any of the five gifts that I had to do.

365 Ficlets - Day #231 ~ "Stranger"

“There’s a man in the courtyard, standing by one of the big stone planters, and he’d been there for over an hour.”

“So?. I mean I know it’s a locked courtyard, but people lock their appartments as well, and he might be a new tenant or anything. What if he’s having a cigarette?”

She raised one eyebrow, a feat that I was genuinely jealous of at the best of times;

“For over and hour? That’s one hell of a cigarette. Come on, if he has a real reason for being here, looking up at our hallway, on a night where the temperature outside procludes the excuse ‘I like being outdoors’, then he won’t mind a resident asking him his business.”

I shrugged, and headed for the door. As I descended the three flights of stairs I smiled to myself at how easily Jess had got me off the sofa; any excuse to be the ‘man’ of the house. Still my ego seemed to like this way of showing me that I was needed.

I pulled the heavy outer door open and looked out into the courtyard; a weasley looking chap was there by the planter, fag in his mouth.

365 Ficlets - Day #230 ~ "Christmas Present"

Through half-closed eyes I could see the lights on the tree twinkling in the corner of the room. The others had all gone into the other room to watch something or other on the television, and I had decided to stay put and have a nap. I was just thinking about going back off to sleep when I felt a hand upon my shoulder; it was Rach.

“Hello, babe. You didn’t want to see Doctor Who then?”

I smiled up at her, enjoying that she had came back in to find me.

“No Rach, but thanks. Come and sit with me, babe?”

She smiled and plonked herself down next to me and snuggled in. The kids were up in their bedrooms; video games having claimed their souls after Christmas dinner was done. My sister and her bloke and my parents were, according to Rach, watching some dreadful reality TV show about dancing; filled with food, and with my woman next to me I was pretty certain that Christmas could not get any better.

“I need to tell you somethin’, Felix, are you awake enough?”

I nodded.

“I’m pregnant, and it’s yours. I’m going to keep it.”

365 Ficlets - Day #229 ~ "Christmas Eve"

The house is quiet, the kids are sleeping, and my wife is despairingly following me about the place as I insist on not only providing stockings brimming with little presents to each of our little ones, but also unearthing bundles of larger, more lavish presents from various hiding places around the house and placing them under the tree. This all has to be done in almost complete darkness and long after we have managed to get the children to head off towards the land of nod, in order to preserve the illusion; yes none of them yet know for sure whether or not Santa real.

The last of the presents is safely under the tree and my wife coaxes me out onto the deck, into the warm night air, and immediately the illusion is lost for me as well. I grew up in England; the idea of being able to stand around outside in shorts with my shirt off is not a part of the Christmas experience for me, even after twelve years in Australia.

Still the ocean does look beautiful, waves breaking on the moonlit beach,

“Coming for a swim?”

365 Ficlets - Day #228 ~ "Homeward Bound"

“There it is.”

“What? What are you pointing at?”

I pointed out, through the windscreen, into the darkness while keeping the wheel steady with just the one hand.

“I can’t tell what you are pointing at, babe. I want to just get it, but I’m tired and I’ve been in this car for hours now.”

She offered me her cute “I’ve had it but I still love you” face that we both know always means that I cave in and I did just that.

“You see the red lights going up in a straight line on top of that hill?”

She perked up a little;

“Yeah”

“Well that is Winter Hill, there’s a big TV mast there, and it’s the landmark that tells me I’m home. Day or night you can see it from my room, and round where I grew up everyone knows it. it’s one of the things that is ‘home’, you know?”

She smiled, a perkier smile, and seemed to be enjoying being introduced to THE NORTH, and more importantly to my home. There was a brief flicker of incredulity in me, followed swiftly on by joy; I’d never brought a girl back home who seemed like they wanted to go before.

365 Ficlets - Day #227 ~ "Comparing Notes"

“I dunno, it just feels as though there has to be a better way to organise Christmas than on a minimum damage basis, you know?”

I nodded, but took my cue nonetheless to pour out more of the single malt that we had been drinking since dinner had ended some hours before. The ashtray had the stubs of more cigars than I was happy with and yet the evening, had become one of those special times when opinions are tempered in the forge of debate and the whole world is put to rights by three friends, armed only with good scotch and no desire to sleep.

“I guess I am blessed”, I said as I put the stopper back into the bottle; “Christmas has always been a happy time for me. Single or in love, child, boy or man I have always felt the love of family and friends, the sense that we are all together, in spirit at least as the year ends and we look forward to the new. Who watches what on the TV, and who got what as presents has never really featured as long as some of us could be together.”

“You are lucky. That’s for damn sure.”

365 Ficlets - Day #226 ~ "Power Cut"

“Where are they?”

“Er, third drawer down, I think. I bought them months ago to be romantic with Becca and then she left me before I got around to it.”

“D’ya think that might be why she left? Romantic is not something that you ‘get around to’ you know?”

Cheryl was right of course, but my lack of spontaneity was not the only thing wrong for Becca and I. When all was said and done I was not the right woman for her and we knew it, but the circumstances of our beginning and some great sex made letting go too terrible an option. Like any relationship the cost of ending it was added to, multiplied even by the way our families and friends would be affected, and then there were more mundane things, like our mortgage. The horrible truth that we were not a good fit was too much to contemplate until one day she snapped and just left.

Cheryl found and lit one of the candles, and we laughed together in the soft yellow light as we realised that with the power out we could not even make tea.

“I’m sorry Teri, I know you did try.”

365 Ficlets - Day #225 ~ "Party Talk"

The party was jumping for sure. The kitchen was full of people, and lo it was indee a party.

John leaned back on the kitchen unit and let himself listen to the converstaions around him…

“Well she really likes to suck cock, so I think you ought to be looking for friendship and no more.”

“What are you saying?

“Well you need to think about how much you will disappoint her with your distaste for blow-jobs.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well you don’t like to have your cock noshed on, and she likes to suck cock, so I think that you are better off not trying to date her, you know?”

Off to the side…

“No, man, Punk Rock is not the same as Punk! I know that it’s a fine distinction, but we need to clear this up, yeah. Punk Rock is the US evolution of Punk and gave us bands like the Ramones and all of the bands that came after…”

“Yeah, Felicity is unwell, and so I need you to recommend an alternative drummer apart from youself.”

“The figurine started to crumble, but as if by magic a handful of the good earth starts to hurt favourites.”

365 Ficlets - Day #224 ~ "New Experiences"

“What are you doing down there?”

“I’m kissing your thighs, touching you, I’m going to go down on you… Why? Am I doing something wrong?”

“Oh no, and the thought is very sweet, but look around you. I just dragged you out of a fire exit into an alley behind the club so that you could fuck my brains out, not so that we could have fantastically caring, mutual sex with orgasms and everyone’s needs met. I’m not looking for the big O, I just want your cock inside me. As soon as possible, yeah?”

This was not how it goes in the magazines and the books and the conversations with my unrepresentatively large coterie of female friends, but then Jess really isn’t like any of them anyway. On our fourth date she took me sky diving, without telling me until the door was opened on the plane. Still I would tandem with her again in a heartbeat.

I fumbled with my fly and after a couple of false starts got my cock out and slid it straight into her, effortlessly; she moaned with relief and looked right into my eyes.

“Now really fuck me!”

365 Ficlets - Day #223 ~ "Orientation Day"

I can tell you is that dying is the easy part. Don’t misunderstand me, pain is pain, and if you die in pain then clearly it won’t be ‘easy’, but it’s nothing to the pain of carrying on. Seeing the people that you left behind grieving, coping, healing and then moving on; that’s pain.

Imagine seeing your lover every day as their soul is held against the flame, week after week, and yet you cannot reach out to them and let them know that your connection to each other while no longer physical is no less powerful in death.

Now imagine that time passes, they heal, and though they never forget you, there comes a day when you watch them all day long and it becomes clear that they have not been troubled by their grief; that life carries on. Of course you want and indeed need them to be happy, but oh what a subtle edge to this particular turn of events because now they are turning away from their memories of you. Then one day they touch another the way they touched you. Imagine all that; dying is the easy part my friend.

365 Ficlets - #222 ~ "Revelation Rant"

What is there other than this? A fairly broad question I’ll allow, but one that merits thought nonetheless. Is there not a moment, or a day or a week in the life of every modern man and woman when they wonder if they were really brought into this life to eat frozen pizza, keep up the numbers using public transport and either watch or berate those that watch populist television? Sure there are the people who live unexamined lives, the people who do what they are told, without reflection or consideration, but if my life has taught me anything then those people are actually few and far between.

There’s not many who spend the majority of their time questioning their existence either. For most of us it is as Harry tells us, a fleeting thought that passes in and out of the transom of our minds, when we are confronted by death or injustice or just the horrifying spectacle of the dullness of our lives, from time to time. You want to know the secret that they will never tell you? Being dead does not change any of this.

365 Ficlets - #221 ~ "A Wordy Beginning..."

If you get really close to the yellow lines painted in the gutter you can see the reflective flecks in the paint that make it light up at night. It never ceases to amaze me the way that the human mind can fill even the most abject moments with trivia as an attempt at distracting from the greater horror. Because I was face down in the gutter on Greek Street, in the pool of bright light from the headlights of Keiron’s Jag, with some nameless thug in his employ standing on my back when I registered the above fact about the yellow lines.

You may ask, quite rightly, what I had done to end up in this ignominious position? The truth of it is more than slightly fantastic, and while I would happily tell you the whole story I was only one small part of the events that led to this rather uncomfortable and potentially hazardous pass.

You don’t mind if I fill in with heresay and what I’ve been told, you say? Very well then. In order to explain I need to go back two weeks to a members club in Shoreditch called The Tobamorie.

365 Ficlets - #220 ~ "Photoshoot Down the Rabbit Hole"

“It all started to go wrong in Berlin. I was supposed to be shooting in the KitKatClub, and the agency had booked three local models who were going to be meeting me there. So I arrive at Tegel and there is a guy there with a board, you know it has ‘Freeland’ written on it with a Sharpie or somesuch, and so I lug my gear over to him and stick out my hand. He just smiles and beckons, doesn’t take my bags, heads off at speed towards the exit. I follow and find him standing by the open boot of a large silver Merc. I think “that’s more like it” and start to lift my camera bag into the boot.

I don’t even remember getting koshed one, but I must’ve been, ‘cos I woke up here, camera gear gone, clothes gone, but I’ve still got my wallet and my cell, even my passport. You’d think if it was a serious theft they would have taken the stuff that is easy to flog, right? I mean there’s not a lot of places you could get half the value of the gear that was in that case.”

“Stop talking Mr. Freeland. Your lies do not impress us.”

365 Ficlets - #219 ~ "Beginning of the End"

There was nothing left to say. We were sitting opposite one another, but we were no longer able to even look at each other. I was stirring my coffee, even though I did not put any sugar in it, and wondering if I should fix it; not could I fix it. The thing was, I was fairly sure that nothing was going to fix this. The words were still hanging in the air over her head;

“I’m sorry, Paul, it just happened, and once it did I’ll be honest I wanted it to happen again.”

Now, I am not trying to be overly dramatic, but once my lover had told me that not only was being unfaithful to me ‘just one of those things’, but also that this momentary lapse of reason did not lead to feelings of guilt and shame, rather a desire to do it again, I did rather feel as though there was an end in sight vis à vis our relationship. I didn’t want to fix it now; in fact I just wanted to burn down the house.

She stood up and started checking her pockets; she was leaving, and I was starting to feel the anger rising;

“You’re going to him, right?”

365 Ficlets - #218 ~ "Sweet Melancholy of Time; Memory"

She is standing there by the window, in my memory, but not as the grown woman in the exquisite ivory wedding gown who stands there now. As I enter the room and see my daughter, looking out expectantly for the car, a memory of another time comes forward to me so strongly...

Suddenly it is thirty years before. Though dark outside, the moonlight is streaming in through the window, and my little Molly is standing in a moonbeam, face pressed against the cold glass, staring out into the snow-covered garden.

“Look, Daddy, the snow has come! Do you think that Santa will be able to come now?”

I am a younger man; stronger and surer on my feet, and I cross to the window and quickly enfold my flannel-clad princess in my arms and pick her up;

“You, Mistress Molly, are supposed to be in bed. Santa won’t stop by this house if little girls are wandering about trying to sneak a peek of him about his task. Come on, I’ll take you back to bed and tuck you in.”

And then I am back in the room, and my daughter is to be a bride this day.

365 Ficlets - #217 ~ "Window Light"

The evening sun, streaming through the quartered windows, warmed her skin where it fell. She was not sure why she had been moved to lie down in this patch of sun, but now that she was there she just enjoyed the sensation of having the warm sunlight play across her body.

She ran her hand down the inside of her thigh, opening her legs, letting the soft breeze from the bathroom’s open window play across her pussy, and then covering it with her wrist. The tips of her fingers were deliciously close; she lay just out of reach but for the tensing of her wrist. She lingered, enjoying the laziness of the moment, and building the anticipation of the second when she would give in and push her fingers between the soft folds to spread the wetness, that was starting to build, to her clit. She imagined the relief that would come and then the sharp climb towards release that she could manage so easily on her own when the mood took; held still in the sunlight letting her imagination touch her first before she let herself move.

---

This story was inspired by a photograph created by Scott Church, you can see it here.

365 Ficlets - Day #216 ~ "Aldwych"

The evening air was cold and bitter as he climbed up out of the Underground station and started to head down The Strand. December in London, away from the madness of Regent Street, Bond Street and Oxford Street, was oddly subdued. The few signs of life were of groups of colleagues having their Christmas jolly or not-so-jolly depending on whether it was a joy or a chore, and the odd fast moving business man or freelancer zipping between Covent Garden and the offices on The Strand.

Not one of them could see what Jonas could see. He hated this time of year; there were far more shades on the streets. If you can see the dead without casting magic or using talismans - if you can just see them - then there are many kinds of entities that might trouble your sight. Shades were a particular dislike for Jonas. A ghosti that does not know who it was in life, and that cannot communicate in any way apart from by instilling fear is no fun to spend time with. As he passed the Aldwych one of them tried to get his attention.

365 Ficlets - Day #215 ~ "First Act"

She felt good tucked in under his arm; he felt comfortable holding her close to his body, and it felt clear to him that neither of them was under any illusions about where this walk was going to end up. She squeezed him a little tighter and it occurred to him that she was probably having the same thoughts; walking along as they were without speaking. That was the other thing that felt good - he was not desperately trying to think of something to say to her.

She rubbed the top of her head against his neck and a little jolt of unbidden joy flew down his spine. It was the mystery of human chemistry, to his mind, but clearly his body liked her just fine.

Back at her house she let them in and pointed to the sitting room while she headed for the kitchen. He shed hat and jacket and stood at the hearth. Moments later she returned with two shots, and a joint. She placed the joint on the coffee table and passed him a shot glass.

They both downed their shots, she pointed down at the joint;

“After.”

Then she was kissing him.

365 Ficlets - Day #214 ~ "Changing of the Guard"

The soft morning sunlight slowly trickled over the village like soft golden syrup as the sun came up that morning. From above the village, it looked to Peter as though someone had opened an unseen blind, slowly, and light had spilled across the landscape, like paint from a tin carelessly kicked over.

He was glad of the light; soon he would be in his bed and his younger brother would be about the task of watching the sheep. To many it might seem to be a dull existence, the life of a shepherd, but that night alone he ahd chased off two different wild dogs and less than a week before he had been required to face down a family group of wolves who seemed to want to eat his sheep. When not protecting the flock from the local fauna there was plenty of time to think and contemplate the world, and even to read. His father had been adamant that he learn to read and now he was almost never away from home without a book in his knapsack.

He could hear Tom coming up the hill, and so he got to his feet to greet his brother.

365 Ficlets - Day #213 ~ "It blows for thee?"

“Honestly, Sal, I don’t know what else to do.”

Her friend shook her head and smiled.

“Let me get this straight, you have made eyes at him, squeezed and hung on longer than the friendly hug, and even landed a kiss on the lips, rather than the safe cheek or forehead , and he hasn’t realised that you quite fancy him? Outrageous! What with men being such perceptive and frankly psychic creatures. He’s just toying with you Jen. He knows you’re panting for him and he just wants to see how hard you’re prepared to work!”

Sal tried to hold her serious face as she finished her analysis, but it only held for a moment before she collapsed onto the bed in peals of laughter.

Jen looked at her, confused, and started flapping her mouth like a fish, failing to come back with a witty rejoinder.

As Sal recovered her composure she saw this display of speechless frustration and nearly lost it again.

“Jen you need to talk to him. Do you know how many times most men get slapped for getting all those signs wrong before they get to thirty?”

365 Ficlets - Day #212 ~ "Which way blows the wind?"

What does this mean? She clearly enjoys being close to me, being held by me, even to kiss my cheek. Normally I can tell if the affection that a woman shows to me is sisterly or not; chaste or not. This woman I cannot decode. It’s as if she can only broadcast in NTSC and I am PAL, as if her messages are enigma encoded, but using tomorrow’s keyword and I only have today’s.

It’s fair to say that I am not confident at the moment; part of my uncertainty is a rather pathetic ‘are you sure? really?’ reaction to signals that in my youth I bolted at, without any concern for the potential awkwardness if I had misunderstood them.

Is she attractive, you ask? I find her very attractive. I mean to do her no disservice in saying that she is not the kind of attractive that ends up on the front of magazines or in music videos; in fact I mean to honour her by saying such. She is beautiful indeed, but more than that there is a spark in her eyes and a candour in her character that is intoxicating. I should just ask her? Kiss her?

365 Ficlets - Day #211 ~ "Intellectual Fatalism..."

The moments ticked by at a snail’s pace, time slowed down by the weight of realisation as we all saw the truth in what Philip had just said. It was still hanging there;

“You don’t have any rights, you fools. You’re all here trying to find a way to improve education and you haven’t realised that the people who really own our country do not want the vast majority to be educated, or liberated in any way. Who would run the machines, do the boring clerical work? Don’t you children realise that there is no power-block currently in the world that could survive an entire generation thinking for itself?”

We were all looking at each other, and then at the floor or desks or our hands, desperate to not make eye contact and find acceptance in the eyes that we met. It was too hard to imagine; surely none of us were prepared to be that cynical?

I looked up and allowed my gaze to find Amy’s. She was crying, silently. I let her see my own pain, hoping that this small act of solidarity, in hope, might in some way touch her soul.

365 Ficlets - Day #210 ~ "A Gul's Revenge"

“Do you hear my voice, Olivia? Is it familiar to thine ear?”

She stirred, her heavy eyes eventually yielding to her will to see. As she looked around she realised that she was not in her bed chamber. Not only was she not where she expected to be, but she was tied to this bed and that was definitely out of the ordinary for her. In the dim light she could see several indistinct shapes; were they people watching her?

“Have you remembered me yet, Olivia? Does my voice move your memory?”

She looked around, trying to find the source of the disembodied voice and her eyes fell upon Sebastian. She wondered why he was not moving, and the longer she looked the more she started to realise that something was wrong. He was not blinking,and his head was at an odd angle. She struggled against her bonds to get a better look;

“Ah you have spied your husband, I see. He screamed for you as I lifted his heart out of his chest, you know. Here, have some more light so that you can see.”

More light fell upon him and she screamed in pain.

365 Ficlets - Day #209 ~ "Daytime Detectives"

“You have to help me get into his office. He’s hiding something, and I think it’s got to do with the disappearances that have been happening.”

I could not believe what I was hearing. My normally perfectly sane friend Sandra had clearly been abducted and replaced by a character from an Enid Blyton novel or a Nancy Drew tale. I raised an eyebrow;

“San, are you seriously telling me that you not only want me to help you break into the Head of English Literature’s office, but that the reason you want me to do that is because you think that he’s the one abducting cats, even though no one is willing to confirm that there is any evidence of cat abductions? Honestly, San, have you been drinking Red Bull again?”

She looked at me with that angry, stubborn stare and practically fizzed with frustration.

“Stop talking at me like that, okay? I know you think I’m crazy, but I saw him from the staffroom window yesterday. He thought that no one was watching, he was out by his car, and there were three dead cats in his car boot.”

365 Ficlets - Day #208 ~ "Right Brain Hip-Check"

So it’s not all glamour. When I tell people that I am a freelance photographer the first thing they ask is how on Earth I make money; to be honest I am very cagey about that, after all there are far too many of us already. Once we’ve talked briefly about the ins and outs of why it’s a lot of hard work and you’re only as good as your last shoot, then comes the question that they’ve been dying to ask. I should clarify that this question is not asked by everyone, but it is not exclusively asked by men, either.

“Do you fuck / sleep with / shag [delete as appropriate or add your own cliché here] loads of hot models then?”

Let’s clear this up once and for all; owning a camera is not a license to be an asshat. Sure I’ve had the odd tumble, but it’s been with people I’ve got to know, on long trips, not as a coda to a quick two hour shoot for Marie Claire. Let’s clear this up too; models are not whores. Some of them are promiscuous, some of them are not, just like people of any other profession; the women and the men.

365 Ficlets - Day #207 ~ "Dinnertime Dogma"

“It’s only a book, you know. Don’t look so shocked. If it were the word of an all powerful god don’t you think it would be less inconsistent? More to the point, don’t you think that the book itself would be inviolable? As it is I can show you how it’s been edited and altered by man to fulfil man’s agenda…”

Peter grunted as he interrupted;

“Oh good heavens, not this again! The bible has been altered so it can’t be the word of God? Did you ever consider that it might have been the Grace of God within chosen people that led to the refinement of the bible? The point is that you don’t believe in God, so you assume that there are no good reasons for what you see as inconsistencies in the Bible. I on the other hand believe in God and that the Bible is the Word, I am just not smart or holy enough to fully understand it. So anyway how do you want your steak? Everything is ready and the pan is hot.”

“Medium rare, please Pete. Thanks.”

Peter turned away and placed the first steak in the pan;

“Why don’t you pour some wine?”

365 Ficlets - Day #206 ~ "Getting ahead of myself..."

Sometimes a pipe is just a pipe, but sometimes it is an egg whisk. I had been wondering whether or not the apparent flirting coming from the guy who lives over the road was real flirting for well over a week before I finally decided to do something about it.

As usual I was setting off on my morning run, at about half six, when I saw him coming out of the house, already dressed for work. I did nothing different; simply waved and smiled, but he stuck his hand up and before I knew it he was coming over.

“Hi there. Going for a run, huh?”

This was a fairly safe gambit; it was not like he wandered over and said “I’ve worked out you’re gay and I’d like to invite you over for dinner and maybe a good hard fuck”. Still the body language was all there. His whole body was slightly inclined towards me and as I stopped to answer him he reached out with his hand, his eyes were dilated… He was a really good looking guy; I was more than a little flattered by the attention. I was about to take his hand;

“Can you sign this for me?”