Busted

Cami Delmore had never looked more beautiful. Chocolate brown hair, strawberry red lips, icy blue eyes, and a body deserving of the many bikinis she wore in these modeling photos. Owen Finley sat in front of his computer clicking through these photos while having a wide-awake wet dream. Something about this felt so wrong, yet it was so right. This was the perfect way to wake up in the morning. Every day, pictures of Cami making his life so wonderful. And then…

“Owen!” shouted a feminine voice from the bedroom doorway. The teenager turned around and covered himself up with his hands while his stepmother stared him down with a look of shock and seriousness. “Breakfast is on the table. It’s oatmeal and honey. Come on down before it gets cold,” said Cami before shutting the bedroom door.

“Come on down? Is she kidding me?” panicked Owen as his arousal went flat. He scrambled as fast as he could to find clothing for the day. Black jeans? Check. A Green Day T-shirt? Check. Sneakers? Check. He never dressed himself so quickly in his lifetime. Was there time to eat the honey oatmeal? “Fuck the oatmeal, I’m out of here!” he said to himself.

He grabbed his backpack and bolted toward the door, but stopped midway knowing Cami’s judging eyes would be zeroed in on him throughout the morning. His hand trembled on the doorknob at the thought of being scrutinized by her. He’d probably never get an erection again, nor would he want one. Maybe his balls would be cut off with an olive fork. Maybe his dick would be broken with a meat tenderizer. Maybe his face would be slashed open with a butcher knife.

“Oh god, oh god, oh god…” Owen murmured while trying to think of a better escape route. Of course! The window! He snapped his fingers at the idea and made a beeline for the fresh air outside. He didn’t care if it was a tall drop to the outside; he jumped anyways. A sore ankle was better than being castrated by his own stepmother and it was the former he got. He hobbled and limped towards the bus stop looking like hell.

The whole school day was nothing but a numbed out blur. Math homework? What math homework? Gym class? Who needs that? US history? The revolutionary war actually happened? No shit! Owen almost got in trouble in class several times for his incessant shaking. The laughter from his various classmates made him tremble that much harder. But when asked about his quirky behavior, he kept giving false answers and otherwise remained tightlipped. He kept looking down at his own crotch to make sure he didn’t get an erection in the middle of a lecture.

By the time the school bus dropped him back off at his house, Owen took his sweet time getting to the front door. The front door? He couldn’t go there. Cami was probably waiting for him with a pair of surgical scissors. These thoughts brought a weakness to his stomach and jitteriness to his legs. Where was the goddamn ladder when he needed it? He snapped his fingers once again as he remembered it was in the tool shed.

He heaved the clumsy metal object towards his bedroom window and became winded after the anaerobic exercise for the day. Owen’s heavy breathing was for more reasons than that. He tried so hard to calm his stomach down and shake the feeling back in his rolled ankle. By the time he actually started climbing, the ankle pain flared up like a burning building, almost to where he fell off several times. He hurried as fast as he could up the metal device and successfully made it through the window.

Owen’s energy was completely sapped from his body and all he wanted to do was lie in bed and sleep it off. If he never woke up again, it would mean never having to talk to Cami. Mission accomplished. Not one awkward conversation was had. Not one genital was snipped. Not one more look of anger from the object of misplaced affection. Or at least so he thought.

“We need to talk,” was the quote the snapped him awake. Sure enough, Cami was standing right there in his doorway with her arms folded and her face emboldened. Now Owen really started to sweat. His eyebrows shot up to the ceiling while his eyeballs moistened and trembled. This was it. He was a dead man. He crawled backwards toward the window only to have Cami yell, “Hey!” at him several times and drag him back inside by his ankles.

“Let me go, damn it! Let me the fuck go!” shouted Owen, but nobody could hear him and he wasn’t going anywhere with Cami pinning his legs together on the bed. He tried screaming some more. “I’m sorry! I’m fucking sorry! Now please let me go!” It was no use. Cami held her hand over Owen’s mouth and the only other screams that came were capital M’s. He could thrash around all he wanted, but there was no escape from what he perceived to be a trip to the gallows. Owen couldn’t help but let a few soggy tears out.

And then Cami’s demeanor changed when she removed her hand from Owen’s mouth and instead petted his puffy black hair. She whispered, “It’s okay” to him over and over again until the stepson stopped shaking. His tears wouldn’t stop coming, but he was at least calm enough to sit on the bed and have a real conversation with the new family member he masturbated to this morning. He couldn’t even look her in the eyes. He kept his head down and allowed his tears to stain his jeans.

“Owen? Look at me,” she said, finally getting his semi-relaxed attention. “I’m not mad at you.”

“You’re not?”

“Not at all. I was more worried about you than I was angry. You left this morning without eating your breakfast. Come here,” she said while hugging her crying stepson around the shoulders. “You don’t need to be afraid to talk to me. I may not have given birth to you myself, but I’m still your mother. Nothing will ever change that, do you understand?”

Owen wiped the tears away with his wrist and sobbed, “Yeah, I guess so.”

“Look, I know you don’t take kindly to being embarrassed and that’s okay. You’re a sensitive guy and I respect that. But we need to talk about what happened this morning. I saw what you did and I saw who you were doing it to. Can we please just talk about this and not avoid each other anymore?”

Snorting snot up his nose, Owen said, “Fine. Let’s talk.”

Cami hugged her stepson some more and rocked him back and forth while she talked. “There’s nothing wrong with masturbating, Owen. It’s perfectly normal. Everybody does it whether they like to admit it or not. I bet there’re some preachers in our neighborhood who do it too even though they don’t say anything. I’m sorry I walked in on you like that. I’ll knock next time, okay?”

She kissed him on top of his head and rocked him some more. “But here’s the part I want you to understand. You and I can never be together that way. You know that, right? It would tear our family apart. Your dad would divorce me and he’d never forgive either of us. On top of that, you’re only fourteen years old, Owen. You’re way too young to have sex, let alone with someone my age. I’ll still be your mother and you’ll still be my son. Nothing more, nothing less.”

Owen’s cheeks burned a bright red as he whispered, “I’m sorry, Cami. I really am. I feel stupid right now…”

“Hey,” said Cami while pointing her stepsons chin up with her delicate fingers. “You’re not stupid. I don’t ever want to hear you say that again. You’re a teenager. This is what teenagers do. You’re just figuring out the world around you. And that’s okay. Besides, it’s not my place to tell you what you can and can’t fantasize about.” She pointed at his head and said, “What goes in on here is nobody else’s business but your own. Your mind is the last sanctuary you have.”

Owen’s jaw stopped convulsing and he could actually get words out this time. “I don’t know, Cami. I’m taking this sex ed class, right? And I don’t even want to ask anything in front of everybody because they’re a bunch of giggly assholes. Besides, the teacher won’t stop talking about abstinence and STD’s and shit. Yeah, like that’s going to do a lot of good. I’m already fucked up as it is!” Owen’s last sentence was punctuated by him kicking his own backpack and Cami holding him even tighter to calm him down.

“Sounds to me like you’re not getting a real education out of that class. I want you to listen to me, Owen. Forget everything that teacher taught you. There’s more to sex than just getting green stuff on your penis. There’s more to romance than waiting until you’re married. That’s all bullshit and it doesn’t work. If you see a girl at school that you like, don’t be afraid to introduce yourself to her. Treat her like an equal and she’ll treat you the same way. I should probably have a talk with the principal at your school.”

“No, Cami, you can’t do that! If the rest of the school finds out you…”

Cami shushed her stepson three times and petted his hair some more. “Nobody else has to know that I talked with him. It’ll just be a one on one conversation. They shouldn’t be teaching that abstinence crap anyways. It’s not realistic. There’s a lot they’re not talking about that they should. Do you even know how to use a condom?”

Owen shook his head and Cami sighed in disgust. “Yeah,” she said. “I should definitely have a talk with that principal. In the meantime, you’ve got homework to do. I’ll leave you alone and let you do that. And remember, if you have any questions that you don’t want to share in front of the class, you can share them with me. Okay? I love you.” She kissed him on the head again and proceeded towards the bedroom door. “Good talk tonight, son. Let’s do it again sometime.”

“Uh, Cami?”

“Yes?”

“C….could you not tell dad about what happened this morning?”

Cami smiled and made a lip-zipping motion to solidify her silence. She then waved at him and closed the bedroom door behind her. Owen plopped backwards on his bed and breathed heavy sighs of relief. Embarrassment still clung to him tightly and the tears still hadn’t dried up. But at least now he knew what he needed to do. He slowly picked his exhausted body off the bed and proceeded to delete all of Cami’s pictures from his computer. “I need this family. I love her too much for this bullshit,” Owen said to himself.

Subway Smackdown

The damage to Venice Reyes’ car was sickening: side view mirrors shattered into pebbles, the windshield reduced to snowflakes, the metal twisted and bent, the tires punctured, and the top of the car caved in completely. What other method of transportation was there to get her to her next modeling gig? As she thought of the ultimate answer, her stomach burned with anxiety and her skin welled up with goose bumps. She had to take the subway train. She threw up in her mouth a little bit at the thought of it.

Venice boarded the train wearing a red cocktail dress and black heels, obviously dressing for the job she had. She wasn’t onboard for a few seconds when the stench finally assaulted her nostrils: monstrous body odor, stale food, vomit, urine, and shit. The sexy model contributed to this mess when she doubled over and threw up bile on the already disgusting floor.

The monsters, orcs, ogres, and goblins riding the train with her laughed like hyenas with sore throats. Venice gave them all a frightened smile as she grabbed onto one of the overhead hand railings, struggling to keep herself standing straight. The subway train lurched forward and the model fell right on her ass into the puddle she puked up. The slimy skinned and diaper odor monsters laughed yet again at her plight, this time causing her to shed a few silent tears.

Venice once again grabbed hold of the railing and managed to stay up this time. Her dress was a disaster. How was she supposed to do a convincing photo shoot with her clothes in such horrible condition? She needed the money, smashed car aside. If only she could have caught the bastard who did that to her vehicle. Venice was a lover, not a fighter, but even she would have been capable of reducing a punk ass vandal to blood chunks if given the opportunity. Damn that vandal and damn this subway!

After a few minutes of being lost in her own thoughts, she was accosted by a throaty laugh behind her. She begged whatever god was up there that the monster wasn’t interested in her. She slowly turned around with tears in her eyes and snot in her nose to see a seven foot tall piece of bloody meat named Khan Shou, a famous boxer she had seen on television a few times when there was nothing else on.

Television didn’t do Khan justice. Venice looked like a small child standing next to him. His shark-toothed grin sent chills up her spine. His swollen red body was dripping with green slime. Venice secretly begged for this subway ride to be over, but it was just beginning.

“You must be Venice Reyes. Yeah, you’re definitely her! I’m a big fan of your work!” said Khan as he held out a magazine with her on the cover. The publication was covered in red and green goops as well as goop from a more intimate place. “Will you give me an autograph? I’ll pay you whatever you want: fifty credits, a hundred credits, two-hundred credits, hell, I’ll give you my life savings if you’re willing to do a little more for me!” Khan licked his lipless mouth with a combination of hunger and lust.

The model stared at her monstrous assailant with wide eyes, a quivering body, and a terrified smile as she held up her hands defensively and slowly backed away, obviously giving a no answer. As she backpedaled, she tripped over a homeless orc’s legs, prompting the passengers to laugh at her some more and prompting the orc to yell, “Watch it, bitch!”

Venice gently and apologetically giggled at the orc before standing up and stumbling toward the women’s bathroom, slamming the door and locking it tightly. Compared to the outside of the bathroom, this tiny stall smelled like a botanical garden. Venice used this opportunity to take deep breaths in and out and enjoy the beautiful air. She sat down on the toilet shaking and clutching her knees to her chest, still feeling the trauma of riding this subway.

Khan ripped the door off the bathroom and tossed it aside like it was a piece of paper, not caring who he hit with it. Venice screamed in horror as the seven foot creature said to her, “It’s not exactly the mile-high club. More like the six-feet under club. Either way, I’m a happy guy. Come on, pretty girl, what do you say? Are you ready for some goddamn fun?!”

“Hey, shit head!” yelled the homeless orc from before, who was now sporting a giant lump on his forehead. “Watch where you’re throwing that fucking door! You almost gave me a concussion, asshole!”

“Who are you calling an asshole, you queer?!” yelled Khan as he and the orc were pushing and shoving each other with the subway passengers cheering them on like animals.

Venice had spent most of the time covering her face in fear until she saw an opportunity. While Khan was distracted, the model got on her knees and crawled beneath the monster’s oversized legs. She then stood back up and ran towards the back exit of the subway. As Khan yelled for her to get back to where he was, Venice didn’t care if the subway was still in transit. Her modeling gig was over the minute she boarded this god-awful train.

She continued to run until she jumped through the back window and landed on the train tracks. The subway train left her behind while she was lying on the tracks covered in glass and blood. Venice was slipping in and out of consciousness while crying softly to herself. She may have gotten to safety, but that didn’t mean her troubles were over. She needed money in the most desperate way. She needed to buy a new car, get a new apartment, and get food in her stomach. She was sure to be late to her modeling gig, not that she was in any condition to be there anyways.

After what seemed like centuries of lying on the train tracks, Venice Reyes slowly picked herself off the ground, pieces of subway glass getting imbedded into her once lovely hands and knees. When she stood, she was on wobbly legs. When she walked, she struggled to stay upright.

“You look like you just had the world’s greatest orgy!” said a familiar throaty voice behind her. Venice silently said, “Oh no!” to herself over and over again as she turned around and saw Khan Shou smiling at her from a short distance. The hideous circus freak thudded and thumped on the train tracks as he stalked his sexual prey, licking his lips like he was about to eat a slab of prime rib.

Venice started running down the tunnel despite wearing heels and despite being in bloody pain. In her mind, she was running faster than a cheetah bolting through the African plains. She looked like a bolt of lightning flashing through the sky. She was a blur to the naked eye. She could see the boarding platform and it looked like the gates of heaven with the light shining down upon it. With one mighty leap, she grabbed hold of the edge and attempted to pull herself to safety.

And then she felt the chokingly tight grip of Khan Shou’s monstrous paws clutching her ankle. Venice screamed at her highest pitch, but nobody was around to hear her, not even the transit cops. She pulled her leg as hard as she could, but her diminutive strength was no match for the vice-like grip of the hellacious ring warrior, who whispered at her sexually and clicked his tongue.

So this was what the life of a famous sex icon was like in a dystopian world. Even in a normal world, Venice would have been treated like a sex slave to the public. Was putting her body out there really worth all of this unwanted attention? Of course not, which was why she took off the high heeled shoe on her good leg and jammed the stiletto in Khan’s left eye.

For a guy who was a brutal ring warrior, Khan showed a childlike lack of toughness when he danced around clutching his smashed eyeball. He screamed and bled all over the train tracks before finally removing the hell with brute force and staring a hole through Venice, who was crab-walking her way toward the platform exit.

Khan Shou growled like a grizzly bear when he said, “I’m going to snap off your arms and legs like the Barbie doll you are! I’m going to chew your brains like a giant wad of fucking bubblegum! I’m going to drink your blood like a bottle of Coors Light! I’m going to…” His lovely oratory was interrupted by a speeding subway train that splattered him all over the platform like a rotten tomato. He smelled just as bad as one too.

Venice laid backwards and breathed deep sighs of relief. The subway ride was over, Khan Shou was a dead man, and Venice Reyes was safe from male perversion. The only question now was, what would she do for money now that her modeling gig was a bust? She didn’t dwell on that too much. She instead closed her eyes and drifted off into a haunted sleep. There were other modeling gigs for someone as beautiful as her. Just a few more photo shoots and she could afford to move onto something else. Maybe she could also afford a therapist. 

Alpha Female

As he trekked up the stairs of the apartment building, Bart Kenny stuffed his hands in his leather jacket pockets and replayed those negative messages in his head over and over again. “Women don’t rape men!” “You got raped by a fat chick!” “You just want attention!” “You WISH you were raped by her!” These hurtful slogans came from multiple sources, among them his own friends, his own family members, and even law enforcement. Bart’s eyebrows furrowed and his crooked frown was leaking a little bit of foam. It didn’t make him any safer to be around knowing he had a pistol in his jeans pocket.

In the week that had gone by since this moment, Bart allowed his blond hair to become dirty and disheveled. The stubble on his cheeks and chin as well as the smell of his bad breath gave away the fact that something was wrong with him. The dark circles underneath his eyes suggested that he didn’t sleep or pay attention to his personal hygiene. How could he sleep with the image of that horrible woman on top of him? How could he focus on his job when that sick pudgy-faced smile was haunting his imagination twenty-four hours a day?

Just a few more steps and this was about to be over once and for all. If the police wouldn’t help Bart, maybe he could help himself. Once he got to the apartment of his alleged female rapist, he took a deep breath to try and calm himself down. His blood still ran cold through his veins and his stomach was boiling with anxiety. It didn’t matter how many breaths he took, because no amount of oxygen could prepare him for this. He considered turning and running away, but then reminded himself that his was his only opportunity to make things right.

Bart Kenny cleared his throat and knocked on the apartment door. “Maxine! I know you’re in there! Open the goddamn door!”

“Relax sweetheart, the door’s unlocked. Come on in and take a seat,” said the woman known as Maxine Tiago. Her name was known all throughout Paulson City since she was a high demand plus-size model. Who would ever believe that she was a sexual predator? Bart believed it and that was why he opened the door to confront her.

There she was, all 250 lbs. of Brazilian hot mama laying seductively on her leather sofa watching TV. She dressed for the job she wanted with her black cocktail dress and fluffy pink slippers. Her chocolaty skin, sassy curves, coffee eyes, and curly blue-dyed locks were definitely her moneymakers.

Maxine clicked off the TV with her remote and sat up in her sofa with her legs crossed. “Hello there, Bart. That was quite the party we went to last week. I was beginning to think you weren’t going to call me again.”

“Cut the crap, Maxine, you know why I’m here,” said Bart Kenny, who stepped inside the apartment and slammed the door shut with all of his angry strength. “I certainly didn’t come here for hot sex on a platter. But apparently, you wanted it so badly that you were willing to do…” Bart wiped his eye to suppress his tears. “…those things to me.”

“Honey Bear, I know the accusations you’ve leveled against me. I’m truly sorry that nobody believes you. You’ve probably heard the women don’t rape men spiel hundreds of times. Well guess what, sweetheart: it’s true. Look at me. Just take one good look at me. Do I look like the kind of woman who needs to rape men? I’m a model, for Christ’s sake,” said Maxine, who waved her hands over her body to show off her good looks and to further her debating strategy.

Bart couldn’t suppress his tears any longer. No matter how many times he wiped his eyes with his jacket sleeve, they wouldn’t stop coming. He soldiered on anyways. “That’s all I’ve ever heard for one whole week. Women don’t rape men, women don’t rape men! Whatever happened to never blaming the victim? Whatever happened to rape isn’t defined by who the people involved are? Did we suddenly forget that shit a long time ago? For fuck’s sake, when did rape become normal?!”

Maxine stood up defensively and snapped, “I don’t know, Bart, you tell me! Or better yet, maybe you should ask that question to someone who actually has the time to fritter and waste away with you! You know what I should do right now? I should sue you for slander! I could use a cool million dollars right now! Maybe I can move out of this apartment and get me a mansion or some shit like that!”

“So that’s what this is about? You’re strapped for cash, so you rape me and file a lawsuit against me for complaining? How sick do you have to be to do something like that?” The shaky voice was replaced with a fiery tone when Bart said, “What kind of sick disgusting piece of shit are you?!”

“Alright, that’s it!” Maxine reached under her sofa cushion and brandished a machete that she supposedly kept for security purposes as opposed to a gun. She waved the blade in the air and shouted, “I’ve had just about all I can take of this bullshit! Either you get out of my apartment or I’ll stick this fucking blade right through your chest! And don’t worry about me going to jail over it, because if the cops didn’t believe you then, they’re not going to believe you now!”

Bart Kenny didn’t want this confrontation to come to this, but Maxine Tiago forced his hand and it was time for business. He pulled the gun out of his pocket and clicked it to get it ready to fire at any moment. With nine millimeters of steel pointed at her, the hefty lady slowly put down her machete and raised her hands to the sky.

Despite the change of events, Maxine’s brows remained furrowed and her angry voice was still blasting like a bazooka. “Okay, tough guy! Go ahead! Shoot me! I’ll be a hero in the eyes of the public while you’re just another con man! The entire city will be at my funeral while you’re just going to burn to ashes without a second thought! Shoot me, you son of a bitch! Shoot me!”

Bart’s scratchy and low voice gave away no signs of intimidation. He had the gun, therefore he had the power. “Before I put a bullet in that oversized watermelon head of yours, I just have one thing to ask you. Be honest with me. When you put that Xanax and Viagra in my drink, did you really think I was going to forget everything? You can deny it all you want, Maxine. But I know what you did. The whole world knows what you did. They won’t do anything about it because of your celebrity status. If you were just an average woman, you’d be in prison right now. Go ahead, deny it. You’re well-guarded and that’s why you’re free. Rich assholes never go to jail. That’s the law of the land.”

The seductive and charming smile returned to Maxine’s face and was accompanied by a giggle or two. “Okay, Bart, you got me red-handed. Now I have a question to ask of you, my dear. Was your first time with me everything you wanted it to be? Did you have wet dreams the next night? Put the gun down and let’s talk some more. Let’s talk about how awesome you would look in a red rubber ball gag.”

“I’d love nothing more than to pop you in the head right now. There’s just one problem…” Bart trudged over to Maxine’s stereo and waved his gun around it. As he did, the sounds of radio feedback and interference filled the apartment.

Maxine’s eyes widened when she said, “What the hell…?”

Her worst fears were confirmed when Bart put the “gun” to his face, clicked it, and said, “You can come on up now. I got her confession.” Bart Kenny hadn’t smiled in over a week, but in this moment, he finally did when he said, “Word of advice, you psycho bitch: don’t bring a knife to a gunfight. You’ll lose!”

Three black uniformed police officers entered the apartment with zip ties and proceeded to lash the supermodel’s arms behind her back. One of them said, “Maxine Tiago? You’re being placed under arrest for the sexual assault of Bartholomew Kenny.”

Maxine’s eyes bulged out in shock as she left out a few soft “No’s” before unleashing a loud storm of them while being dragged away by the cops. One of the cops stayed behind and patted Bart on the shoulder while saying, “Nice work, kid. This plan couldn’t have worked out any better.”

As Maxine was being dragged down the hall, she yelled a firestorm of obscenities at Bart, who was standing in the doorway sarcastically waving goodbye at her. The model screamed, “I will kill you!” and Bart responded with, “You’re gonna have to!”

The cop from earlier patted him on the back and said, “Easy there, tiger. You’ll have all the time in the world to rage when you see your therapy bill.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” said Bart.

Barbie and Ken

When I was a kid growing up in Chehalis, Washington, commercials would constantly come up on TV for Barbie products and my mom would jokingly suggest that she should buy them for me. You know what my answer was? “Nooooooooo!!” Now that I’m an adult, it seems as though I’m not the only one who thinks this way. Somewhere along the leaden path, being called a Barbie or Ken doll became an insult. It’s constantly used as a slur against WWE Divas and any other female wrestler who happens to be skinny and pretty. Ed Schultz loves to refer to Sarah Palin as “Caribou Barbie” whenever she comes up in conversation. On the flip side, Erick Erickson once called Wendy Davis “Abortion Barbie”. So basically, this insult can work with anybody as long as they have something to attach the slur to, such as a profession, a hobby, or a belief. I don’t want you guys to think I’m actually using these insults on people, but somewhere along the way, some nut job out there could refer to Danica Patrick as “NASCAR Barbie”. Somebody could also put it out there that Bill O’Reilly is “Conservative Ken”. And yet another example could be that Mary Kay Letourneau is somehow referred to as “Statutory Rape Barbie”. I keep having to ask myself where all of these Barbie and Ken references come from. What does being a Barbie/Ken doll imply about that person? That they’re perfect in every way? That they’re plastic and fake? That they’re shallow? Or maybe there’s this stigma going around about how Barbie dolls are anatomically incorrect and that if somebody actually looked like one, they’d be fucking dead. Well, as far as I know, Danica Patrick can still walk around without breaking her ankles, so there’s no way in hell she could be “NASCAR Barbie”. You’re probably asking yourself what all this talk about girl toys has to do with literature. Well, the same thing could be applied to popular books. For example, someone could call Bella Swan “Vampire Barbie”, which would most likely be attributed to her Mary-Sue qualities. So is that what it takes for someone to be a Barbie doll? Mary-Sue attributes? I’d have to say so. If that’s the case, then the outside world is just one big doll house. But maybe if I actually ventured outside my room and into the real world to meet some of these people, it’ll be even less likely that a giant pink convertible will pick me up for a trip to the Silverdale Shopping Mall. People are Barbie and Ken dolls until you actually get to know who they are, all their faults, all their pains, and all their love. Maybe that’s why it’s so hard to be a writer: because we have to work so diligently to acquaint the reader with our characters so that they don’t become Barbie and Ken dolls.

　

***BUMPER STICKER OF THE DAY***

“Normal people scare me, but not as much as I scare them.”