He’d been planning it for weeks, deciding what to cook and choosing a day she would be visiting anyway. It was their regular Friday evening wind down for the weekend, chilling with a box set and a bottle of wine. Usually, it was ‘order in pizza’ day, but today it’d be special – his meal, candles, flowers and the ring, of course.

He was just discovering that flower arranging was a lot harder than it looked, when the phone rang. 

“I need to tell you I’m seeing someone else…”

He put a ready meal in the microwave and ate it alone.

E.M. Swift-Hook

Maybe by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook . Sometimes we walk the edges of realty…

This time the door opened onto an almost vertical staircase. Two of the cats led the way, with Annis next, then Jess, then the rest of the cats. There was no need for Annis to signal for quiet. The need for stealth seemed to have burned itself into Jessica’s brain and she wasn’t sure she was even able to speak. 
The staircase seemed to go on for a very long time and Jess was glad of Annis in front of her setting a slow and careful pace, as otherwise she didn’t think she would have been able to make the harsh descent. Eventually they came out onto some sort of a balcony overlooking the huge vaulted chamber she knew from Annis’ drawing. 
Annis made a low sound of disgust in the back of her throat as she looked down on a scene of terrifying bloodlust. The vampire was there, naked now, and looking plump and young again, and as white as the carved pillars. He was spreadeagled and tied to a table in the exact centre of the chamber, surrounded by blank-faced women who were taking it in turns to bite him. As each one sank her teeth in his flesh he screamed, and with each scream the females crowded a little closer. Annis felt sick and turned a worried face to Jess. She was surprised to see her friend regarding the scene serenely.
“What are they doing?”
“Blood rite. I think. Women are Blood Eaters and Fear Eaters. Beware, as they can change to their other forms in the blink of an eye.”
“Can he really not escape?”
“Now not. But should they lose interest in him, perhaps. What they do can not destroy him, just torture.”
Annis hissed to the cats who froze, then indicated for Jess to follow her. It was a low-roofed passage necessitating a crawl in hands and knees, and she sincerely hoped Jessica wasn’t claustrophobic. It seemed not, as she could hear steady, even breathing in her wake. Carefully counting openings, Annis took the thirteenth branch of the tunnel, which dropped swiftly to the ground behind the basalt throne. Jessica stood up and patted her on the shoulder. 
“You go back to the cats. I will count to one hundred before climbing onto the throne. Give me a kiss for luck.”
Annis pressed her lips to Jessica’s cheek then turned and scrambled back up the tunnel like a little mongoose. She reached her cats before anything happened and they all stood watching the throne, waiting for Jessica to move. It seemed to take so long that Annis was beginning to think Jess’ courage had deserted her. But it hadn’t. There came a sound like a cracked bell being tolled and a dark-clad figure took its place on the basalt throne. Annis stared, thinking she would not have recognised Jess had she not known who was occupying the huge black seat. The dark queen sat seemingly at her ease, with her golden hair spreading around her like a veil, and a hand on each of the serpent heads that formed the arms of the throne. Her face was as still and smooth as a statue, and her remote beauty seemed to be demanding both respect and fear. 
The vampire screamed his terror and frustration.
“Nooo. She is mine…”
His torment sounded greater at the thought he might lose his prey than that he might be left suffering for eternity beneath the power of the abyssmal beings who had captured him.
The cold, queenly creature on the throne didn’t even flinch.

Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook

Part 14 of Maybe will be here next week…

I feel
Awkward
I wish I’d thought to make my dress
Much more
Conventional
Then I’d not be in this mess
Eying the
Succulent
Menu on the groaning table
And seeing
Something
I’d so love to eat but I’m unable
To leave my brave
Companion
The tall potted plant, which now conceals me
From plain sight and the
Odium
Which would follow me
Inevitably
If they saw the real me…

E.M. Swift-Hook

Ante Diem Nonum Kalendas Aprilis MDCCLXXIX Anno Diocletiani

I

The working office of the Magistratus had changed considerably since Sextus Catus Bestia had taken over the role in Demetae and Cornovii six months previously. Dai Llewellyn, Submagistratus for the same area, still fondly recalled the simple and yet tasteful decor the previous incumbent had preferred. Bestia, by contrast, favoured opulence over simplicity and substituted extravagance for good taste. But then, unlike his predecessor who had risen through the administrative ranks, Bestia had transferred into the state sector after enjoying a successful career as a commercial lawyer. Dai assumed that impressing business clients required such an ostentatious display of wealth, but the same sat ill with the kind of civic dignity expected of Bestia’s present role.
Not that the man couldn’t easily afford the expensive artwork lining the walls, the rarewood furniture, the bejewelled and gilded bust of the Divine Diocletian and the elaborate full-length golden-framed painting of himself and his wife of a few weeks. That marriage had surely made him one of the wealthiest men in all of Viriconium.
Which was why this present meeting was beginning to make Dai move from frustration into anger. Bestia was sitting in his throne-like desk chair, hands resting on the carved lions that adorned the arms. The late afternoon sun had painted the window behind him with glowing light, adding to the regal impression. He also looked regally bored, as if he found the whole business of overseeing the administration tedious in the extreme.
“I see no reason to bend the rules just because your Senior Investigator has a gut-instinct about something. Cartivel must be close to retirement age and is probably just dyspeptic.” He smiled as if inviting Dai to share the joke.
“I’m not asking you to bend any rules. I’m asking you to sign-off further resources to investigate properly. I would if I could, but have already authorised this case to the limit of my authority.”
Bestia glanced down at the file on his desk. “Indeed. I see you granted SI Cartivel and his team an entire day in man hours. Time they have used to ascertain little more than that this woman was known to be a lupa and known to be willing to take money from clients who wanted more extreme practices than the usual. But there are no grounds that I can see here for me to extend the investigation any further. It would be a waste of public money.”
“If Malina Tesni was a Roman Citizen…”
For the first time, Bestia sounded annoyed.
“If the woman was a Roman Citizen, she would not have been a common British puta who was paid well by an over-vigorous client.”
“Over-vigorous?” For a moment Dai saw the start of a red haze clouding on the edges of his vision and with a supreme effort of will he fought it down, drawing a deep breath and counting silently.
“Distasteful as it is, there was nothing to suggest she had been abused against her will. She was also found with what I am assured would be a substantial payment for a street woman. No doubt an incentive to allow her client more leeway in his behaviour.”
“She was beaten half to death. The autopsy said she died of those injuries having caused severe internal bruising and swelling.”
“It was not murder. There was clearly no intent to kill or why pay the woman and let her go home? At very best it was an accidental death. No one has denied that she was a prostitute and that is a profession that we all know carries certain occupational hazards.” His expression softened suddenly and his voice shifted to something more like friendly cajoling. “You are a good man, a good Citizen and a good administrator, Llewellyn. I do understand why you feel so strongly about this, but you must let it go. It’s for the best.”
Dai had been sitting but now he shot to his feet.
“Let it go? Dominus, the man who did this is somewhere in Viriconium and he could do the same to another woman.”
Bestia lifted one hand from its lion’s head resting place.
“Stop right there. Firstly, I already said that I completely understand where you are coming from with this. Who could not be appalled at by it? But where is the crime? There is no law against prostitution.” He leaned back and shook his head, looking saddened. “If anything the dead woman is the criminal here. The only prosecutable offense I can see is failure on her part to have purchased a license to practice her trade. And, of course, the subsequent charges of tax evasion that would lead to, especially seeing how well she was being paid.”
Dai struggled to find some way to frame things in terms that could penetrate Bestia’s lawyer logic.
“If she was a Citizen there would be unlimited resources made available to uncover the man who did this whether it was deemed consensual or not. What if the man is local and his next victim is a Citizen?”
Bestia was frowning now.
“You should know better than that, Submagistratus. We can’t run the Vigiles on ‘what ifs’. There is no reason to think the man was local, indeed it is more likely someone passing through, staying the night and wanting some entertainment. And even if he was local, you have already spent public money on investigating something that is not a crime. Instead of asking me for more perhaps you should apologise and be grateful that I’m not going to mention that you did so on any official report.”
The red haze rose and this time Dai could do nothing to stop it. His last conscious act was to turn and start walking towards the door. Better to be rude to his superior than get arrested for attacking him.

From Dying on the Streets by E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago

Beneath the feathers 
Beats a heart
Behind the eyes
Where thinking starts
He watches us
Our little lives
Brothers, fathers 
Sons and wives
And as we burn
The rubber miles
A mother cries
And Satan smiles

©️janejago 2020

Me and my rat terrier, Gyp, have opinions on a lot of things – like beef, cheese, beer, television. And designer dogs.

Do. Not. Buy. A designer dog. 

They are mongrels – and often not as healthy as proper accidental scruffs. When I wanted a dog I found a farmer whose terrier bitch had got out and mated with a dog or dogs unknown. I gave him a tenner for Gyp who is an excellent companion – if a bit inclined to fart under the dinner table and bite visitors.

He’s an ugly little sod and his hair is the bane of my life, but there again he wasn’t specially bred for his face or not to shed hair on the Aubusson.

However, I do like all dogs, though, even the poor designer chaps. So why am I so against idiots paying a couple of grand for an ‘oodle’?

I’ll tell you why…

When me and Gyp amble along to the pub we meet a great many ‘oodles’ with their shiny collars and special fleece coats and often ridiculous haircuts. They are never let off their shiny red leashes and their walk buddies ignore their pleading eyes as they fiddle with their smart phones or count their steps on their twitbits. Meanwhile Argus, or Tweedledum, or whatever the poor animal is called, has been demoted to a mere accessory and is expected to look beautiful but not to need fun or affection.

We see the poor animals watching Gyp with envious eyes as he scuttles about in the undergrowth. We watch the yummies treat their dogs like status symbols and our contempt for them knows no bounds.

So. Unless you want a grumpy old lady and a bad-tempered terrier to creep up behind you one day and liberate the dog you don’t bloody deserve, here are a lost of things You Do Not Do.

Don’t buy a designer dog. Go to a shelter and adopt a dog.

Don’t get your dog a stupid haircut

Don’t put stupid clothes on your dog

Don’t drag your dog along behind you and ignore it

Basically if you have a dog it should be your best mate. 

If you don’t understand that you better just bugger off now, before Gyp pisses on your shoes.

It’s been cold in the house since Karina left. There’s an emptiness. A Karina-shaped hole through my heart, just as the cushions on her favourite chair still show the marks of where she sat.

I never stop regretting the argument. What did it matter she’d bought herself a new shawl? 

If I could take it back…

I still light the lantern each night, I’d not want to think she might pass this way and miss the house.

Footsteps outside.

A knock.

I rush with hope to open the door.

No one’s there.

Just a basket – and a smiling infant within.

E.M. Swift-Hook

I was tired, my ankle was aching, and I had an incipient headache of the monster variety, and then I got a message from Salt Lake City. My employer, Daniel Smith, variously known as The Boss and His Nibs, wanted to talk privately, which meant me remaining at work and sending everybody else home. I wasn’t happy, but I owed the man, so I put the best face on it I could.
Promptly at five, my phone bleeped and his face came up on the monitor in my skinny office. He looked at me in some concern.
“Alysson, you look like hell.”
“Thanks, boss.”
He grinned, showing two fine rows of perfect American dentistry, then shook his head.
“Have you been burning the candle at both ends, young lady?”
“No. Just the one. But we’ve been snowed under.”
He frowned.
“I wasn’t told that. My information is that your workload is currently light.”
“Somebody is telling you porkies. And it ain’t me.”
“I don’t for one moment think it is.”
This time his smile reminded me of an alligator I saw one time in a swamp in Louisiana. I was very glad I had a clear conscience.
“Okay,” he said biting off his words very precisely. “I shall have that little discrepancy looked into. In the meantime, I need your very particular expertise.”
“In which area?”
“Computers. Or to be more specific virtual reality. There would seem to be a problem which may or may not have something to do with some of the new generation VR headsets.”
“What sort of a problem.”
“People are getting sick.”
“What sort of sick?”
“Headaches, uncontrollable twitches, unexplained rages, gaps in memory. Just unimportant stuff like that.”
It was my turn to frown.
“If people are getting sick and you know it’s the VR making them sick, why’d you need me?” “We need you for two reasons. The first being that VR is only one of the common factors between the people who are ill. And not all the VR headsets come from the same company. The second, and even more important, thing is that if VR is the cause of the problems we need to know why and how to fix it.”
I could see the logic to that although it didn’t make me particularly happy. I nodded.
“Okay. What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to get on an airplane and make your way here. We can decide our next move when you arrive.”
I couldn’t think of a valid reason not to go, so I nodded.
“What about the office here?”
My nice Mormon billionaire boss showed his teeth again.
“Oh, I think the kids could do with a vacation, don’t you? Full pay of course.”
We shared a grin.

From ‘Vicious Reality’ by Jane Jago, one of the stories in Challenge Accepted an anthology of speculative fiction, featuring people with disabilities who rise to the challenge. 

The collected ‘wisdom’ of seven decades on this planet condensed into limerick form. Certainly not philosophy to live your life by…

You need some new glasses they said
Choose frames that look nice on your head
But I can’t see my face
Without glasses in place
So I’ll just keep the old ones instead 

©️jj

The Prefect had an office at the top of the Vigiles building with a panoramic view over Londinium. The Augusta Arena, Constantius Column, the Temple of the Divine Diocletian set in beautiful parkland running down to the river, the sub aquila housing, the Forum and the new baths. Dai presumed the Prefect’s view would be even better than the one he had from the small waiting area outside the office. He was on his fourth cup of water from the cooler and wondering if he should risk a quick trip to the snack dispenser he had seen by the lifts to curtail his stomach’s noisy ambition to digest itself, when the door opened and he was shown in to the Prefect’s sanctum.
The Prefect was a stiff-backed old-school Vigiles, clearly not too many years from his – presumably – well-earned retirement back to the warmth and civilisation of Rome. He was standing, not sitting when Dai walked in and responded to his salute with little more than an upwards nod of his head. Dai, standing in his best parade-ground stance, said nothing.
“Llewellyn,” the Prefect was behind his desk and reached down to tap a folder on it – old-school – with the photo of Dai pinned to the front they had taken when he signed up for the course. “Good things. It says very good things.”
There was a pause and the prefect stared at him as if expecting some response.
“Thank you, dominus, I am glad I have been meeting expectations.”
“Meeting. Exceeding. Top of the class, Llewellyn. Highest score we’ve had in years.”
This time Dai said nothing in the silence. They were not told their mark on the Investigator’s exam, only that they had passed it.
“Yes,” the Prefect went on as if answering a question, “Impressive for a Briton. Direct graduate too. Master’s degree. What was that in again?”
“British History,” Dai provided, painfully aware how that sounded every time he said it. “I did do sub-units on the Early Empire and the reign of the Divine Diocletian as well,” he added hurriedly. But for all the reaction he got, he could have said it was Celebrity Studies or Creative Cartwheeling. Dai felt the usual sensation of being invisible, even though on this occasion at least, he was the supposed focus of a Roman’s attention.
“Vacancy here,” the Prefect was saying. “Lost the last man. Tragedy. He was promising too. Very bright. Shame. But have to have someone and you’ll do. Be wasted in the sticks anyway.”
Dai blinked and tried to make sense of what he was hearing. He opened his mouth to ask if he could ask something, but the prefect was speaking again.
“Accommodation provided for the first month, after that on your own – but you’ll be paid by then and can find something in one of the estates.” Then the Prefect stepped away from the desk and glowered at Dai. “I don’t like appointing one of you people, but this role needs it. You will be dealing more with your sort than with Citizens.”
Your sort. The sting of made Dai’s guts tighten.
“I’m not sure I understand, dominus. I am going home tom-”
The Prefect made that odd upward nod, like a wild animal scenting blood.
“No. Not happening. We need you here. Starting now.”

From Dying to be Friends by E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago