Other stories for this prompt

The implant's biggest drawbacks were the headaches. The gear-man had assured her that would abate in time, but meanwhile she was dying for an injection, or even a good, old-fashioned aspirin. Too bad the chemicals would interfere with the implant's bonding process.

Text passed before her eyes, the latest news, the day's top story, ads for sexual aids and fast food joints. She blinked, but the visuals refused to recede into the background of her consciousness. Could she really take another day of non-stop sensory stimulation before she could control her access?

Resigned to stay plugged in, she laid back...

Geraldine, I'm serious give me that back, I don't have time for this... Because it's mine. Give it back now. It's ringing. If you don't give it back to me as soon as I'm done on the phone I'm coming to take it.

Yeah. Hi. Can I order something? Ok, give me two butter chickens and two naan breads. Yes that's my address. No, no apartment. Cash. How long? Thanks.

Geraldine you give me that right now. Where did you go? You better not be reading that. I swear when I find you.I don't know why I'm even buying

Johnny, my boyfriend was aptly named. Laura, my dad's girlfriend called him 'The Pirate' because of his long dark curly hair, caught up around the forehead with an old blue and white bandana. Looking remarkably like Johnny Depp in his Caribbean pirate movies.

I suspected something was going on between them. Lots of eye contact, protracted, meaningful. And they were always joking about, you know that kind of banter where you can just feel the sexual tension.

Johnny was handsome so I suppose it wasn't that unusual. He looked mean and sexy in his long black leather coat, black boots...

It was Andy from the grave.

"Can you speak up?" Caroline, distracted anyway by something on TV, couldn't understand him.

"I said it's Andy. From the grave. That's the muffling, the grave."

"Well, it doesn't help you're such a mumbler anyway. Wait, do you mean you're actually calling from the coffin?"

"Not really," said Andy, "but I am dead somewhere. I don't feel like I'm in a box. I feel like I'm in a cloud."

"That could be the coffin. I saw it," Caroline remembered, "it was plush."

"That's nice."

"Listen, did you want something? I've gotta head out in...

"So are you going to Joanie's?"
...
"Why not? It's not like she is a bitch or anything."
...
"She didn't... She didn't! Oh that was low."
...
...
...
"All that?"
...
"Now you are pulling my leg, I knew Joanie like football, but what a way to show it. But you know we should go."
...
"Why? I can't believe you just asked that. Why? Because her parents left her to watch their home, you know that seventeen bedroom house on the hill. She wants a few people over."
...
"I don't know, fifty or seventy."
...
"Oh...

Loved him for an evening.

Sienna had a way of loving them that way. In one evening her compassion for the man at her side transcended adoration.

The men usually left quickly, a blur of parties, cigarettes and alcohol. She was happy enough that way, and of course so were they.

The man in the red hoodie was a bit different. About ten years younger than her if she cared to admit it. As slim as her, with large, dark, cow eyes. Sweet as pudding and she let him linger a week.

Apparently had found religion recently, tried bringing her...

"I want grandchildren."

"I know, ma. But, I'm just not ready for-"

"-Did I ask you what you're ready for?" ma interrupted me, once again. "I'm old, lonely and in need of grandchildren. As my only child, you owe me that."

I closed my eyes and sighed heavily. Why? Why does my mother torture me so? "Listen, I really do have to-"

"-When are you going to get a man?"

"Mother!"

"Don't act surprised. You're 28. You've never had a steady boyfriend. The girls in my book club are starting to wonder about you."

Embarassment covered me from head to...

"No. I won't go back."
I listened, expecting and shoring up my supply of reasons in advance.
"I tried. I really tried."
Around me, the contents of my storage facility. I would rather die than let them use that label on me. So, yeah, I had no running water, no electricity, no nothing except the contents of my closets and drawers slung everywhere serving as a multipurpose couch/bed/cocoon. Yeah. I'm that person. Rehab had been so not for me.
The streets - my arms are too scarred for tattoo ink. This, this is slightly better than the alternatives, of which...

"What do you mean, you don't have any? C'mon, Billy, this is me! Don't hold out on me, OK?"

The party crashed and throbbed around her, the scowl on her face morphing into worry, almost into fear.

"Billy, what the hell's going on here? Nobody's got any!"

She listened for a moment.

"Oh, don't be an ass. OK, yes, I called some other guys before I called you. I'm not trying to cut you out of my business, you're my rock solid, the best source in town. You ALWAYS have some. I didn't want to bother you except as a...

So, give me more details, sweetie. No, not that kind of detail!
Where'd you go? What'd you eat? What'd you wear? Come on, babe, we need more, more, more!
Did he pay? Wait, I need to light up...ok, go. Credit card? Flashy. You're kidding - champagne? On a first date? Seriously flashy.
Ok, so what next? Did he leave a tip? No way, cheapskate! Bet they remember him there anyway.
And where'd he take you? His flat? What, the old "my mother's staying with me so we've got to go to a hotel" line? You're kidding - no-one really says...