I fell in love watching you shower, you know. I've done it so often I know your routine off by heart. I know how shy you are and how you shriek when you catch me watching. I always hated the see-through shower doors until the first time I saw you through them, now I wouldn't trade them for anything.
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When you start writing a fiction story, it's fun to think about where to start. But when you're writing a true story, especially one with a lot of threads runnings through it, deciding where to start is really hard. There are so many strands involved in explaining the key event, and people won't understand you if you don't describe them well. They may even judge you.
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Spots of dappled sunlight streamed through the trees and danced and twirled on the pavement as I waited for her outside the building. She was always late, frantically trying to keep up with her life. Not that I would ever want her life, I snorted to myself. Immediately regretting the thought, I focussed on the distant rush of traffic echoing softly through what had to be the last quiet street in Brisbane's central business district.
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Sitting under the awning next to her truck, Vanille looked down the street and decided that the fair was beginning to wind down. She breathed a sigh of relief both because the long day was over, and because she was going to turn a decent profit from working the small town street fair. Considering her name, she might very well have been destined to sell homemade ice cream from the back of a truck, but it certainly hadn't been her plan.
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"Thin" isn't a word anyone has ever used to describe me. "Beautiful" isn't either. But "sexy"? Well, that's another story.
It's funny how long it takes us to come to a realization of who we really are. For me, it took just over 40 years. My whole life I'd struggled with the weight of my own expectations—always wanting to be fifteen or twenty pounds lighter, to have better cheekbones, to have my hair be a better color or my complexion a little better.
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When the Black Death swept through her village in central Germany, Brigette didn't really understand the changes it would bring to her life. Indeed, no one was prepared for the chaos that arose from nearly half the village not being able to work – and then beginning to die. Suddenly it seemed that everyone was sick and everyone huddled in their homes, afraid of human contact. But it came home to her when her mother and older brother came down with it, and then both her younger sisters the next day.
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I can still see it in high def, up close and personal; the image is engraved on my brain. The bald, glistening vulva of a teenage girl — a squirming, moaning teenage girl, knees up — is not to be forgotten. The best night of my life was the night my sister had a slumber party.
To save money during my last year of college, I moved back in with my parents and commuted from their home in a Boston suburb.
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Aileen had always been an adventurous girl, even with her religious upbringing. Her parents had encouraged her to participate in extra curricular activities, such as girl scouts, sports, and even the international student exchange program. And it was in Spain that she'd met Tadeo. The handsome college boy had been so taken with the lovely American redhead; he told his family that he intended to marry her.
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He stretches himself out, the sheets rustling as he flexes his muscles and lets out a long yawn. Nick smiles at the smooth, warm form resting at his side. Glancing over, he sees her red hair spilling across her face and pillow, her creamy white skin exposed to the air. She moans and moves closer to him, one arm draped across his chest while one leg slides up along his own.
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It was getting to the end of one of those, long, miserable winter days. All day the storm clouds had been building up; black, threatening monsters heavy with rain. Although it was bitterly cold outside, the temperature inside the office that I shared with Angela was warm, even slightly too so. I watched absently out the windows as the first of the thick, heavy raindrops began to splat onto the pavement outside.
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