At the haggard edges of New York City, the Fourth Avenue Local of the RR Line started or ended, depending upon your intentions, at Ninety-Fifth Street on the far ass-end of Brooklyn, where the city skyline was but an aspiration. You could barely see the Statue of Liberty if you were on a rooftop and knew where to look.
Continue reading “Blood Lovers by Gerald Coleman”
I knew I wanted her for a model when I saw the portrait selection at the Portland Art Museum. She was painted hanging out of the passenger seat of a car waving at something unseen by the museum visitors. I don’t know if I’m right, but I thought of early Marilyn Monroe.
Continue reading “Twin Sisters by Doug Hawley”
First time I laid eyes on Alanna, I thought, There’s a woman I want to saw in half.
She was in the audience, one leg in plaster stuck out into the aisle. After the show I watched her leave, expecting her to walk like a pair of compasses, but somehow she moved so gracefully everyone else looked awkward. I sent my assistant to catch her at front of house but she claimed she missed her, ha ha. And that’s where I should have left it. Stopped thinking about her. I keep going over it, how I might have escaped this God-awful mess, financial and . . . yes, yes, all right, all the rest.
Continue reading “Love? Don’t Make Me Laugh by Alex Barr”
He looks long into her eyes, probably for the first time. He has focused, from the bottom up, on every part of her nude form, spending minutes, hours, on the impossibly smooth contours of her toes, her hips, her breasts, her shoulders, but this, he thinks, must be the first time he’s really looked into her eyes.
Anna was not one to look twice at anything or anyone. Everyone looked twice at her though. They couldn’t help it.
Most people don’t bother looking twice at insignificant details, so unsurprisingly she wasn’t particularly popular. People thought Anna was either arrogant, or stupid, or both. But I knew that when she did look twice at something, even more rarely someone, that look could take hours, it could take days. I’ve spent my whole life waiting for her to look at me like that.
My appointment is at twenty past eight. I stand waiting outside the surgery at half seven – when the receptionist opens the main door she fires me the same kind of look she would to a drunk or an addict but I pay no attention. In the waiting room I flick through an abandoned copy of the Observer and enjoy the sensation of being the only person here, the only person Doctor Matheson is preparing to see. I like to book the earliest appointment she has on any given day – I like the thought of being first on her list of priorities.
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