The voice outside changed tack, instead of screaming insults it became smooth and insinuating. “Jenny, Jenny. You know you can’t hide from me. And you know you have to be punished.”
Jenny felt herself wilting as the promise of a life back in his hands, pressed down on her like a pair of clammy claws and pulled every inch of resistance out of her soul. She lay her head on the table and all she could understand was the slow burn of tears leaking from her eyes. Mike bent over her.
“That isn’t happening, Jenny love. My word on it. You just stay there and I’ll send him on his way with a flea in his ear.”
Even in extremis she needed to warn Mike so she forced her voice to work. “Be careful. He’s dangerous.”
“When it comes to your safety, so am I.”
He went out, walking purposefully, and Jenny heard him open the door. She listened
“Yes?”
For a moment there was no response.
“I’m looking for my wife.”
“Your what?”
“My…. My ex-wife.”
“Ex isn’t the same as yours.”
Jenny could all but see Graham puffing himself up for attack, and she was rather surprised when he said nothing. She was beginning to hope he would just go away when he spoke again.
“Look. I don’t know who you are but you shouldn’t be taken in by Miss Innocent Jenny. She isn’t what she seems at all…”
Mike broke in and his voice was full of cold contempt.
“If I was you, I’d leave right now. While you can. You are contemptible and I am finding it very hard not to beat you to a pulp.”
The sound of a siren announced the imminent arrival of the police and Jenny rather thought Graham would make a run for it. He didn’t, though, and she could hear the hideously familiar sound of his heavy breathing as he worked himself up into a rage.
“You just tell her from me that she shouldn’t ever sleep soundly, because I will get her. And this time it’ll be her face. I’ll gladly do the time to ruin her like she ruined me. See how you like her when I mark her face…”
He stopped abruptly, making a peculiar whinnying noise instead of further spreading his poison.
“Shut up, you bastard. You might not be afraid of prison, but you should be afraid of me.”
There was silence save for the sound of heavy breathing and then a car stopping in the road. The clump clump of deliberate footsteps sounded on the path and an unfamiliar voice spoke.
“Ah. We’ve been looking for this gentleman. He’s already broken his parole conditions, and now this. He’s just booked himself a taxi straight back to prison. Thanks for finding him.”
“You’re entirely welcome.”
There was the sound of a scuffle.
“Keep still, will you…. Okay. Drop him.”
The high keening noise that was Graham’s reaction to not getting his own way went on for quite a while. Eventually, Jenny could only assume he had been subdued as the noise subsided.
“Okay. On your feet.”
Just as Jenny thought she might be able to breathe again, Graham fired his Parthian shot.
“Just remember if you do get my dear wife into bed, she likes a bit of pain with her pleasure. Comes really hard if you throttle her.”
The sounds from outside became confused then, but Jenny couldn’t compute them anyway. All she could think was that Graham was going to win again with his lies that everyone believed. A few words had poisoned her life and plunged her back into the grey fog of hopelessness. That bright chimera of hope she had been allowing herself to feel at last had been extinguished by the same lie that had driven her from her home. She could barely draw breath for the lancing pain in her chest, and somehow it didn’t seem to matter anyway.
She wasn’t aware of crawling into the corner of the kitchen, but she mush have done so, because when she came to herself there was a pair of denim-clad legs in her eyeline. Mike bent down and put out a hand. At first she cringed away, expecting a blow, or a gesture of repudiation. He did neither thing. Instead he laid that gentle hand on her cheek.
“Oh. Jenny love. Don’t cry so.”
It was only then that Jenny realised she was shaking like a wet kitten, while her whole body was racked by shattering sobs. Looking into his face she saw nothing but caring concern and when he held out his arms she crawled into his embrace like a child in search of comfort.
He stood up with her still in his arms and carried her over to where he could sit down on the floor in a patch of sunshine. Jenny hadn’t known she had so many tears left in her, but it felt like some sort of release to let it all out so she laid her face against the softness of his t-shirt and just cried. He said nothing, and nor did he move except to gently stroke her back.
When the worst of the storm had passed she lifted her face and tried for a smile.
“Sorry Mike.”
He shook his head. “You have nothing to be sorry for. It’s that piece of ordure should be sorry, but I don’t think he is.”
“No. He’s not wired to feel remorse. Even if he gets caught out in wrongdoing, in his mind it’s always somebody else’s fault.”
She moved to get off Mike’s lap and he let her go. When she stood up he uncurled himself from the floor and stood beside her, although he was obviously being careful not to intrude on her personal space. Somehow Jenny didn’t want that, so she walked back into his arms.
Tilting her head, she looked into his worried eyes.
“Thank you. I think I must have been needing that meltdown for a long time, because I actually feel stronger for it.” Then she said the thing that had to be said. “I’ll understand if it’s all too much and you need to step away from me.”
He just wrapped his arms tighter around her. “Not happening, Jenny love. I’m here. And here I’ll stick.” He rubbed his face in her hair. “Do you want to tell me about it?”
“I want to try. How about coffee in the sitting room, where we can sit on the sofa and talk? I think if you cuddle me I can be brave enough to tell you all the things you need to know.”
So it was that they sat cuddled together on Jenny’s big sofa and she said a lot of things she he had never said before.

Jenny is the latest book from Jane Jago

Why do you send your babies out
Crying trick or treat?
Do you truly think it safe
For children on the street?
When all around the air is full
Of things not kind or sweet
As from the earth the dead things rise
A gibbous moon to greet
Things that touch their chubby hands
And trip their little feet
Things that want to suck their souls
And eat their brains like meat
This is the night of the living dead
Who only wish to cheat
And steal away the children
Left to wander in the street

©️JaneJago

Listen to Granny because Granny always knows best!

Now I have your attention, let’s think about Halloween.
The night when, according to superstition, the veil between here and wherever is at its thinnest. So what do people do? They dress little Testosterone and Menopause in ‘supernatural’ costumes and they send them out to knock on the front doors of total strangers crying ‘twick or tweet’.
In what alternative universe is that a good idea?
Has nobody read Hansel and Gretel?
The opportunity for deeply disturbing adult behaviour is there for all to see. But no. What does the great British public do? It opens its fricking door and dispenses sweeties willy nilly.
Then, just as you are fifty quid lighter for the night, and at last even the most persistent of winkie has been put to bed, the door knocking becomes rougher in character and the local teenage males come out to do a bit of extortion – with menaces.
These bastards don’t bother to even pretend they are in costume, and they really won’t be satisfied with a mini Mars bar. Mostly they want ciggies or beer, although one or two will expect a fiver in their greasy palms in order that they won’t throw eggs and flour at your front door, or accidentally key your car, or tie a firework to your cat’s tail.
From the depths of my armchair this seems too close to blackmail to be acceptable, and I determined to put an end to such behaviour once and for all.
I am in the fortunate position of: one – being wholly nerveless; two – having more hefty grandsons and nephews than you could shake a shitty stick at,
Conceive of the scene, my friends, local thugs beat a tattoo on elderly lady’s front door. It opens with an eerie creak and a huge figure with a gimp mask stands in a sulphurously lit hallway.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” it says in a voice like a winter hailstorm. “Do come in…”
Exit thugs stage left. Pursued by creatures whose faces gleam green in the streetlights.
We don’t see trick or treaters after dark these days…

He expected to live his life a widower. But the elders thought differently, so he found himself a reluctant participant at the church door, with the innkeeper’s plain daughter at his side.

Once married, they walked towards his home in frigid silence. When they were almost at the door she put a timid hand on his arm.

“I’m sorry.”

He looked at her obvious misery and felt ashamed.

“Not your fault.” He took her hands in his. “Shall we make what we can of this.”

She searched his face with her eyes. “Yes please.”

They found friendship and laughter together.

©️JaneJago

“May I come in then?”
She buried her face in the flowers. “I guess you’d better, because I’ll ever be able to eat all I cooked on my own.”
A smile awoke the crows feet at the corners of his eyes. “I’m all about helping damsels in distress.”
“Eejit. Come in and sit quietly while I find a vase for my flowers.”
He followed obediently, although she got the distinct impression he was right on the edge of the giggles. In the kitchen she put her flowers on the worktop and turned to face him with her hands on her hips.
“Okay, buster, what’s so funny?”
“Me being bossed about by a woman who barely reaches my chin. And liking it.”
“Do you actually like it, Mike? Or are you humouring me?”
“Oh I like it right enough. I love the sass about you when you are putting me in my place. Besides which, I’d never patronise you by pretending.”
Jenny felt as if another corner of her frozen heart melted but she occupied herself putting the flowers in water rather than think about that.
When she was satisfied she carried the vase into her sunny sitting room. Mike made no attempt to follow her. Instead he stood at the french doors looking out at her tiny, chaotic garden.
“I like that,” he said as she came back into the kitchen.
“Like what?”
“That lovely little bit of jungle in the city.”
She went to stand beside him. “When I moved in here it was a perfectly respectable lawn with regimented flower beds around the edges. Took me most of the time I’ve been here, but now I can fancy myself out in the fields when I sit out here of any evening. And the wildlife loves it. It’s a good job my landlord’s amenable.”
“No conditions about mowing the lawn every Sunday then?”
“No. But there wouldn’t be. It’s my dad. Or, to be more accurate, it’s Ford Farm.” He said nothing, so she ploughed on. “I came out of my marriage with bugger all, and the need to escape from all the nasty rumours my ex engineered. Dad and Mum bought this house and renovated it for me. Then I got a job with a firm in the city. The rest, as they say, is history.”
Mike smiled down at her. “The layout of the house is really good. How much did you have to do to get it like this?”
Jenny was silently grateful that he chose not to pick her up on coming out of her marriage with nothing, and delighted to be able to talk about the house and the work it had taken to get it to her liking. She grabbed his hand and dragged him all around the downstairs, pointing out where walls had come down and how the thing had evolved. He was obviously fascinated and when she had run out of steam he had a lot of very sensible questions.
“Come and eat. We can carry on talking while we stuff our faces.”
Maybe they didn’t quite stuff themselves, but between talking and laughing, and squabbling about house layouts they managed to get outside of a pretty impressive pile of roast chicken.
Jenny was just making noises about pavlova when there came a thunderous knocking on the front door, accompanied by what sounded like someone kicking the stout wood.
“Who the heck?”
Just as she was about to go see who was responsible for this rude intrusion, a voice made itself heard.
“Open the door you filthy whore. I know you’re in there.”
Immediately, Jenny was back in the place where nothing she ever did was good enough, and the pain was all but physical. Mike must have noticed her suddenly pinched features because he spoke with careful neutrality.
“Your ex?”
Jenny managed to nod her head, and the concern on Mike’s face enabled her to force a rusty whisper from her mouth.
“I knew he was out of prison, on licence, but I never dreamed.” For a second she could say no more for the constriction in her throat, but some reserve of courage she didn’t even know she possessed came to her aid. “He shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t know I live here. And even if he managed to find out there’s a restraining order. He isn’t allowed within five miles of me.”
Mike walked around the table and stood behind her. He was close enough for her to lean into his strength if she wanted, but not so close as to crowd her. He handed her his phone.
“Call triple nine love. He sounds like a bloody maniac.”
Jenny called, grateful to have someone else do the thinking for her. A police presence was promised immediately and she could relax a little.

Jenny is the latest book from Jane Jago

Zraxy’ct had wanted to be an alien archaeologist from the time she had squaddled out of the brooding chamber. She had gained the right knowledge nodes to be accepted into the chosen clutch of those training for that elite career.

Now she was undertaking a course on one alien culture and its as yet untranslated languages. There was an odd broken circle symbol found everywhere thought to show generative power. It was clear to Zraxy’ct what the elements of it represented. The very obvious fact it showed a symbolic penetrative sex act was the basis of her acclaimed final thesis.

E.M. Swift-Hook

… or ‘How To Speak Typo’ by Jane Jago

ahd (acronym) – absolutely horrible dandruff

bastrad (noun) – asshole whose parents have disowned him

brather (noun) – inconsequential conversation with male relative

cncetrating (verb form) – of jelly to set very firm

colun (noun) – printer’s symbol indicating the above is gobbledygook print as it stands

delive (noun) – technical term for murder

ebfore (noun) – very low tide

fdribblingrom (noun) – the mouth of a very drunk person

fudhe (adjective) – squishy and smelling faintly of old underwear

grwon (noun) – supernatural being almost always invisible but discernible at all times by its galloping halitosis

hopefulyl (noun) – optimistic alien

hosemate (noun) – person who swings a mean length of rubber pipe

ireonic (adjective) – of facial expressions, annoyed in a long-suffering manner

irritaes (noun) – annoyed rodents with very sharp teeth

kake (noun) – strange green dessert made from honey and cabbage

lvoe (noun) – small furry armpit parasite

maoment (noun) – unit of time falling anywhere between twenty seconds and an hour as in ‘I’ll do it in a maoment’

migth (adjective) – applied generally to children – meaning small, pale, and given to developing strange illnesses

numer (noun) – bloke who sniffs dirty laundry

orefer (noun) – yellow bird with pink feet and an attitude problem

somethme (noun) – occasional herb

Disclaimer: all these words are genuine typos defined by Jane Jago. The source of each is withheld to protect the guilty.

“It’s a long way up.”
“It’ll be worth it when we get to the top,” he promised.
“But what’s up there?”
He wouldn’t say, just laughing and tugging her along in his wake.
When they reached the top of the hill she looked around in bemusement. It was just another hilltop. Then he turned her so she was looking at a stand of trees and a white stone that stood among them.
“Sacred to the memory of Arthur Merryweather,” she read.
The sudden tears filled her eyes.
“Oh. You’ve found it. After all these years. You found my dad’s grave…”

©️Jane Jago

Torwyn watched the Easterner as he advanced across the floor of the arena. Therloon was fully aware that this was his moment and the exaggerated grin that split the tattooed face was as much leer of derision as smile of victory. Only those nearest the edge of the arena heard the tattooed man’s words as he approached his unarmed foe.
“You want to take back what you said before?”
The Sabre backed off step by step as the other man advanced, his arms spread wide in a gesture of pacification or surrender and the roar of contempt from the crowd at this sign of cowardice swelled close to riot.
“Take it back? Why should I?” he said as if puzzled by the question.
“Because on that depends how fast you die.”
“I don’t see why.” The Sabre’s tone was soft. “No matter how quickly or slowly you kill me it is all still true, Gant. You are an imbecile, a laughably dumb brute. You have less intelligence than the beast they named you for.”
An animal growl in his throat, the Easterner shot forward, the long axe held lightly in his hands. Sabre stepped back in a nervous retreat and in doing so missed his footing and tripped, sprawling backwards over the body of Therloon’s previous victim. He fell on his back, arms wide, body spread open and helpless.
The Easterner charged the last few paces, his face congested by anger and hate and Torwyn knew he was going to make this kill one his audience would long remember.
Then the fallen man moved. His body rolled suddenly backwards, looking for all the world like a street tumbler, legs disappearing over his head and he finished the movement smoothly on one knee, the spear he had rescued in the process of completing the roll, held in his hands and braced solidly against his foot.
Therloon could no more have shifted his course at that point than taken flight and his eyes barely had time to widen in horrified comprehension, before his stomach was impaled upon the spear.
Sabre was on his feet as the impact was carried through, driving the point home deeply, twisting it to bite into the spine as the Easterner went down. Standing above his fallen foe, the sturdy fighting-slave looked down, without compassion at the tattooed face which was broken now by a rictus of agony.
“How fast do you die?” he asked savagely, for once allowing the fury and disgust to boil up through his veins. But the Easterner was beyond words, lungs pierced by the ripping barbs on the side of the spear’s head and breathing only in wheezing grunts.
The adoring ululation of the crowd ran like a hurricane around the arena and a monsoon of flowers and ribbons rained down onto the blood-drenched sand.
“Sabre! Sabre! Sabre!”
Torwyn straightened up and looked around as if seeing the scene for the first time. Then, strangely impatient and with no more than the most perfunctory of gestures to acknowledge the adulation, he ran his hand through his short rust-coloured hair and strode back through the now open gates, into the dark tunnel beyond.
The lanista was, predictably, already there to greet him from behind the bars with a grim smile of delight.
“You had the crowd really going there for a few, Tawn, but I knew you could do it. I had an entire moon’s takings riding on you.”
The fighting-slave shook his head in disbelief.
“You are a bad liar, Proculin. You meant that asshole, Gant, to take me – in fact I am sure you are disappointed he did not. Why else did you give him that axe and me nothing but a shiny twig? You knew I stood no chance with that against him, that if I tried to fight with the thing it would snap in two.” Torwyn, the man the crowds knew as Sabre, was feeling more than cynical. The intense exaltation that another had died and he still lived roared through him with a primal surge, making everything clearer, brighter, more perfect and intensifying every nuance of sound, sight, smell and sensation. He did not miss the false stiffness to Proculin’s smile.
“I hope you lost a lot.” Torwyn added sincerely, gripping the bars that kept him from the free-world. But for once the money-grasping lanista seemed unconcerned.
“It is no matter. I made on you anyhow. But don’t bother settling down too comfy, Tawn, you’ve been sold.”
There was a nasty edge of delighted malice in Proculin’s tone that the lanista made absolutely no attempt to disguise. The relationship between the owner of the Alfor Arena and his most famous and profitable fighting-slave had never been other than caustic, but this presaged something of a different order.
“Sold?” Torwyn repeated incredulous. “You would never sell me. You’d more than halve your profits to do so.”
“Well get used to the idea, because it happens to be true. As of the moment you spitted Gant you became the property of Qabal Vyazin. But cheer up, Tawn, I hear he has a Zoukai captain working for him nowadays, one who used to ride with the caravans keeping the slaves in order on the road. So you’ll be in professional hands.”
The lanista seemed to find his own joke very funny and he walked away laughing, leaving Torwyn still gripping the bars, his knuckles white, as the real consequences of his lanista’s words dawned on him with the cold chill of comprehension.

From Dues of Blood part three of Fortune’s Fools Transgressor Trilogy by E.M. Swift-Hook

A family picnic in the orchard with parasols, white dresses and a tartan rug. Jean-Paul proposed over caviar and champagne, she’d accepted. He said he’d have the ring resized, but by ill-fortune it’d fallen from her finger as they packed away.

The ring was lost for so long, Elise forgot about it.

Children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren with their children, came for her hundredth birthday – a picnic in the orchard with parasols and champagne.

Through serendipity, her favourite great-grandson found the ring and Elise wept tears of joy. Then and there, with Elise’s delighted blessing, he proposed to his true love.

E.M. Swift-Hook