Friday Free Read: Change of Pace

"Any word from the gallery yet, Tom?"

Tom's girlfriend Vicki curled up on the lumpy black couch in the photographer's studio apartment. She wore one of his shirts, a faded Van Halen tee that came to her knees, and she had her pretty legs drawn up underneath her like a cat as she flipped through one of her poetry magazines. Edward—who, in the mirror, appeared to be every bit a Tom—glanced up from the canvas he idly toyed with.

"Not yet," he managed. Did Tom call his woman honey, or darling? Baby, that would have to be it.

"No, baby, not yet," he repeated. He tested the words for himself as much as he said them for her benefit.

Friday Free Read: Dysmorphia

Here's a bit of an experimental "challenge" piece, prompted by a fellow author. It needs a little cleanup, for sure, but I'm actually very pleased with the results.

“Oh, honestly, Harold?”

Francesca Delaney threw down the handful of business mail she’d just retrieved outside. Crossing her arms over her chest she glowered. Not even twenty-four hours back from his latest jet-setting jaunt –this time to Greece – and here sat her soon-to-be-ex husband, in her home office, being straddled by some new twenty-something. The little cunt’s simpering giggles carried well out into the hall and any of Francesca’s staff might hear it, just as they would surely witness the blatant sex-play with their own eyes simply walking past the wide-open double-doors. Harold wouldn’t mind any of it, of course. Humiliating Cesca just made him more pleased with himself.

As Francesca walked in on them, Harry’s red-headed bit of candy was holding both ends of his loosened tie in one fist. The bright, shimmering gold tips of her nails bit into his almost-naked chest a little above his heart. Francesca wondered if the cunt undid the buttons of his tailored dress shirt with her teeth. He’d always liked it when Cesca herself nipped them off. Back when he and Cesca still fucked. Now the two interlopers glanced up, feigning surprise. It must be feigned of course. They hadn’t ended up in her office by accident, after all.