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"Your ability to move so swiftly from sexual advances to enquiries about your son's well-being is only ONE of the reasons you don't have custody, Jonas. He's fine. I told him he was adopted. It seems to have made all the difference."
"I'm going after Moreau, you know."
There was a pause. Not a long one, not even a clearing of the throat, but it spoke volumes. Moreau had got us together. Moreau's downfall had led, however indirectly, to our own. She had to realise the significance.
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"I'd say be careful, Jonas, but unfortunately, I don't give a rat's ass."
"So, that shag..."
Another pause.
"You've got 10 minutes."
***
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I arrived at Jerkwad's office 15 minutes later, sated and confused. Sleeping with an ex, in some ways, is the closest thing we have to truly virtual porn. You can't get completely lost in it, cause you're consciously aware that it's temporary - mutual masturbation of the highest order. You both know how to please the other physically, yet you signally fail to register that what made sex between the two of you fantastic when you were together was the uncertainty - where will we go from here? Will we last? Will this be my life from now on?
Fear is the great aphrodisiac.
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But with an ex, unless a reconciliation is on the cards, you just have this gaping chasm (no jokes, please) of loss, accompanied by a faint sense memory of fulfillment. It's heartbreaking. Someone usually ends up crying.
Exactly like masturbation, then.
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"Where the hell have you been?" said Jerkwad. I had collapsed on to one of the faux leather sofas that sat in the centre of his office. In our game, the likelihood that your visitors may be mortally wounded is high, and it's wise to have flat surfaces available. They were a deep red, for similar reasons.
"Guess," I said. I disliked Jerkwad intensely, but we had known each other for a very long time. In male terms, time served is as good a measurement of friendship as anything else.
"Sandy," he muttered, shaking his head.
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"Don't start, Dennis."
He hated being called Dennis. But until he found the cajones to go through with the hormone treatments, I refused to call him Denise. I'm not prejudiced - I just felt that if he wanted to be a woman he should go through with it. It's more than just a close shave and a predilection for Manolo Blahniks, you know.
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You could tell that Jerkwad wanted to respond in kind, but we both knew that time was short, and this was one of those moments that went beyond personal rivalry. Like sports, or dirty jokes.
"Moreau's back, Jonas. We don't know how, or why, but he is."
I knew that much and told him so.
"You've already have that particular dramatic reveal, Dennis. Just tell me where."
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"The Rilkington Post Office."
"WHAT?"
"He's taken over a village post office."
"Why the fuck would he do that?"
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Fiction - Welcome To Hellville - Part 13 By Rich Mills
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From: "audioally"
To: "Black Star"
Subject: BASF C90 tape transcribed and identified
Date: 28 Nov 2040 12:09:06
Hello there,
Thanks for the opportunity to investigate the origins of the BASF C90 tape that you forwarded onto me.
As I understand you found this in an open box with other items, it hasn't been
too badly damaged by the elements and
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Fiction - Welcome To Hellville - Part 12 By Rich Mills
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"Whoa, I think I'm gonna be sick." Alan spoke the words out loud for the captive audience of one.
Days of wine and roaches had taken their toll, numb now becoming a commonplace emotional placebo
in uninvited preferences to those of active and creative thought processes.
Clearing his head while reviewing the short dopey ramblings he'd so
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Fiction - Off To See The Wild West Show Part 14 (1886: Hull, Yorkshire) By Frank Beill
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Daylight broke through the darkness like the show's arc lamps.
I was back in my orphanage bed but where were George's cold feet?
What were those mounds on the floor wrapped in blankets?
A sniff of dank air reminded me where I was.
I pulled the warm blanket around my shoulders and scrambled up on my bunk to look through the porthole.
Beyond a narrow stretch of water were
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Fiction - Zero and the Neighbours Part 1 - Demo version 0.1 By Joe Hakim
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Frank was one of the regulars. From the first day I started dealing poker on the tables, Frank was there. To look at, he was your typical moody old man - old in the Father Christmas sense - white hair, a huge white beard and a round gut that hung out of his shirt and over his belt. You could imagine him sat in a grotto in the bottom of Princes Quay with some mewling
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Fiction - Welcome To Hellville - Part 11 By Rich Mills
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I don't know how to explain this, or if there is anything to explain. Something happened last night, but I'm not
quite sure what it was, or what it means. If anything! All I can do is document it.
I've been up a couple of nights, working, writing, digging through more of Alan's files.
I fell asleep at some point I think, had this sharply vivid dream.
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Fiction - Welcome To Hellville - Part 10 By Rich Mills
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Full ashtray, dry mouth and thoughts connected with his inordinate hunger were momentarily sidetracked by a juggling jester, the sight of which threw him off the long-winded path he'd set out on. He picked himself up, dusted himself off and looked back from whence he came. Blocking his way, being directly in front of him, as usual stood
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Fiction - Off To See The Wild West Show Part 13 (1886: Hull, Yorkshire) By Frank Beill
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The custom of the Wild West Show was to camp alongside the place where it performed but this didn't happen in Hull.
For one thing there wasn't enough space at the football ground but mainly it was because the stay was to be brief.
Some of the performers like Buffalo Bill himself stayed in hotels in the town.
My people (this was how I thought of them now) and the cowboys lodged
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Fiction - Just like Eddie by Bob Spence
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I don't know exactly when I got into it but there you are.
Like most lads, I suppose it was the thought of being Bristol's answer to
Elvis that was some kind of inspiration.
Yes that was always there in the back of my mind, but the accent never sounded
quite right to be fair.
Anyway. The South Deans Village Youth Club was a right place back then and we used
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Fiction - Off To See The Wild West Show Part 12 (1886: Hull, Yorkshire) By Frank Beill
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Only warriors shared the glow of Red Shirt's campfire and so I was led away to join the tribe's women and children sitting around their own fires.
I was starting a new life but my feelings were different from my first day in the orphanage. It was just as much a step into the unknown, maybe more but the situation wasn't the same.
Today it was my decision. For the first time in my life
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Fiction - Off To See The Wild West Show Part 11 (1886: Hull, Yorkshire) By Frank Beill
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We waited standing back to back, hoping this would give us some protection. The tribesmen slowly circled us, just as they would when attacking a wagon train of settlers on its way to California. Well, this is what my novel said they did.
Occasionally, a warrior would prod one of us. One snatched a hair from George's head before rushing back within the group
to display his strange booty.
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Fiction - The Wall by Darren Sant
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Sometimes your best is just not enough.
Panic stricken and panting I arrive.
There it is, a fucking huge wall. An obstacle blocking my progress.
A visible representation of all that I can't achieve.
Nervously I look behind me. I lash out at it, kicking and punching but to no avail.
It is rock solid. I jump but find it too high. I take a running jump
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Fiction - Divine by Blair Ashworth
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"Mein Führer? Mein Führer?" The old man in the long grey coat was bent over the body slumped in the chair.
"Give it a few more seconds, Henry," said the doctor. "Do you speak any German? It might lessen the shock." No, Henry didn't speak any German and he didn't much care about any shocks he might deliver.
Behind the heavy oak chair,
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Fiction - Off To See The Wild West Show Part 10 (1886: Hull, Yorkshire) By Frank Beill
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'So how are we gonna get in?' George kicked a loose stone across the street.
'We've got to circle the camp and look for a weakness in their defences. That's what Buffalo Bill would do.' I was not certain what my hero would do, but I thought my scheme had the right sound to it.
'Aye, but it's Buffalo Bill we're wanting to attack.
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Fiction - Welcome To Hellville - Part 9 By Rich Mills
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The analysis of the VHS tapes have come back.
Keith reports back that indeed one of the tapes did contain episodes of He-Man, along with
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Inspector Gadget and Battle of the Planets.
Be worth something to an animaphile out there.
I will stick it on eBuy-GUM, the online Global Underground Marketplace.
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Fiction - Scissors, Paper, Stone! By Bob Spence
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The Lord Nelson was your typical run-down seventies pub. The decor was in disarray, with half a mind to venerate the Royal Navy's biggest hero or to catch the eye of the potential clientele with the latest fashion. In this manner it achieved neither.
Mickey was the prototype glass collector for every
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Fiction - Off To See The Wild West Show Part 9 (1886: Hull, Yorkshire) By Frank Beill
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'Not seen nowt like it!' George was sitting on his favourite seat - the kitchen doorstep. 'Them horses was wonderful.'
Dinner was over and most of my stew was inside him as well as his own double portion.
'But it was me father.' I was not listening and stamped my foot.
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Fiction - Drowning, Swimming By Joe Hakim
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Keith sat and stared at his wife, who was holding his daughter and staring at the
28" Philips Widescreen TV situated in the corner of his house, on his laminate floor,
flanked at either side by his Sony sound system and his X-Box.
He was sweating and his head was throbbing - the general effects of the weekend
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Fiction - Any Instructions? By Denis Price
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It wasn't the first time he'd missed the bus. From the Mess to the monitoring hangar was only a quarter of a mile walk, something he relished during the central European summer as the airbase had been carved out of heavily wooded countryside teeming with wildlife.
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Fiction - Off To See The Wild West Show Part 8 (1886: Hull, Yorkshire) By Frank Beill
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Morning assembly in the hall and once again the Master's voice rang around the rafters.
'Ten children will be selected by Mr Jason from his class, ten by Mr Childs and ten by Mr Rodgers.'
All hope died with these words. There was no chance of Jolly Rodgers selecting his 'little brown friend'
for anything - except for
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Fiction - Welcome To Hellville - Part 8 By Rich Mills
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Alan carelessly tossed the apple core in the bin next to his computer.
Constructed in a moment of sheer mindless boredom, the waste-paper bin was an amalgam of newspaper strips
and PVA glue, coated in a thick yellowing layer of varnish.
Stuck to the outside, sandwiched in between the
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