One Two Three
One Two Three
She kicks her leg up, showing the world her shapely thigh. Her skirt’s a rainbow of pastels that frame the swell of her plump buttocks and the sheaf of white panty that bisects her inner leg and whispers of the dark cleft underneath.
One Two Three
One Two Three
She turns in a whirl, her soft doll curls spinning like the dishes balanced precariously on smooth ivory poles. Her lips are red; the perfect cupids bow, and dark eyelashes flutter above ice blue eyes, so incredibly blue they’re ghost-like.
One Two Three
One Two Three
The curtains close. They open again. She’s seen undressed; her porcelain skin grasped at every angle by the calloused hands of men. The cupid’s bow is now split apart, a thick shaft poised between it, ready to shoot its quarry. …
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Steve looks rested, has all his teeth and his shirt is immaculate; you would never in a million years think this guy was on welfare. He’s my brother and we meet once a year for my birthday treat at the restaurant of his choice. This year, he’s chosen Olive Garden.
Aside from this splurge, I supplement his upkeep with a monthly check which he demands with the punctuality of a landlord. I’ve paid him thousands in what might be called blood money.
What else can I do? Certainly, no person in his right mind wants to end up like him. According to his caseworker, he’s anti-social. His life has been one long con job though he was shrewd enough to avoid jail by making all his victims those who loved him; people who’d never go to the police. …
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The three older boys hanging out behind our school said that they’d killed a rabid dog at the abandoned air force base. “We slashed at him until I got him in the stomach,” one of them said.
“Did he bleed out?” I asked, trying to sound cool.
“No. He didn’t fucking bleed out,” the tallest boy said, tossing a pocketknife between his hands. “I threw my knife and hit him between the eyes.”
I stared at his knife in awe.
“There are tons of rabid dogs there. Twenty bucks to watch us kill one.” He looked at me and then at my friends, Kyle and Thomas. “Or are you a bunch of pussies?”
“I’m no pussy,” Kyle said.
Thomas and I nodded in agreement.
The tallest boy slid the knife into his pocket and then unrolled a pack of cigarettes from his shirtsleeve.…
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If he had been sitting on a lazy cloud, looking down at the world, it might almost have looked nice. The patchwork of rice paddies could have been a green quilt thrown over the earth. Henry’s rifle hung heavily from his shoulder, and silently he wept—knowing that I could not weep aloud.
Guns and smoke were tattooed over his mind, blurring the image of five young faces. Even through the haze of regret, he remembered the way the eyes had looked as were jolted out of this world by soldiers’ bullets. Death should be peaceful, a gentle settling, the end to a long journey. Not accompanied by groans and shouts. Not full of agony like flares erupting in their skin. Not pain. That wasn’t the way to die—certainly not at eighteen years old.…
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He did not want to see her and comforted himself with the thought that she did not want to see him either. It was too much!
It.
He did not want to think about that, so he thought about the summer of seventy-four or seventy-five instead, when they had both read The Great Gatsby and all summer long imagined themselves very bohemian, very 1920s avant-garde,people of affairs, perhaps, or at least people not shocked by affairs.
Yet for the Halloween party that year they did not dress as Jay and Daisy, or even Scott and Zelda, but chose Bonnie and Clyde because she had been seduced by Theodora Van Runkle’s costumes on Faye Dunaway’s flawless frame.
In particular, the beret.
He had gone along because he dug Warren Beatty. …
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It was a bitter cold December evening, and Officer Pierce wished he was home with his family. It was the holiday season, after all.
Soon he arrived at the scene, which had an ominously festive appearance. Blue and red lights flickered, reflected in the glass shards that covered the ground like a light dusting of snow. The crunch of his boots on the glass sounded like a stroll through a winter wonderland. But there was death here.
It was a dangerous corner, a turn that coincided with an intersection established long ago, when drivers heard hoof beats or the jingle of horse-drawn buggies, and paused, tipping hats and bidding good evening to neighbors they knew, not only by name or appearance, but by voice and words and deeds.…
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Maybe I should feel guilty. I don’t. She really did have it coming. But you know that.
Try the shrimp. That’s a wasabi crust; the dipping sauce is orange-ginger.
Where to begin? You know, things used to be really good between us. Effie and I were together six years. And up until the last couple months, everything seemed great. Sure, we had our ups and downs, like everybody, but we always worked them out. Until he came along.
You okay with me not using his name? Yeah, I figured you would be. It’s childish, I know, but I can’t bring myself to say it. It grates on me that much.
Anyway, Effie comes home one day and announces that her boss is dead and gone. Terrible thing.…
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