This is my submission for ASSM's Curmudgeon Fest. It concerns the romance between a 16 year old girl aircraft enthusiast and an obsessed Aircraft Engineer building his own historic replica.
I wasn't athletic enough to play on any teams in high school, but I wanted to participate by being a volunteer equipment manager, maybe for the football or basketball team. When I asked our athletic director, he told me the team that really needed help was the girls' volleyball team. When I seemed reluctant, he said two words that convinced me, "Volleyball shorts."
A story in the Available Light Cycle Universe
He reads every room for a living. Nobody has ever read him back.
Three days at a photography conference in Prague. A woman who watches him as hard as he watches everyone else and refuses to let him hide behind the lens.
Three photographs: colleague, desire, morning. And a fourth he was never given permission to take.
Explicit, unhurried, nothing fades to black.
When the war blew up there were bound to be people caught out in the wrong place. I was one of them and the Carpathian Choir was another. The history of the war will be written elsewhere, this is about one little incident where I was labelled 'James Bond' for my actions.
A couple join a gym only to find out that changes have been made! Showers and changing rooms are all unisex now. The husband is horrified, his wife, delighted — especially when the head trainer takes an interest in her. She and the trainer abandon the husband, after having embarrassed him to the max. His fear that she would leave him one day has come true, but he decides to act and regain his dignity, his freedom, and have a little revenge!
After years away, Uncle Jeff comes to stay with his brother, sister-in-law, and their daughters, Mel and Hazel. They make him feel so welcome he never leaves. How they do it is what this story is about.