Nate Walis

Annie was quietly pleased that the roster had teamed her up with Jess for the day; there were some girls on the payroll that she was fond of, some that she really loathed and others that fitted somewhere between provoking neither fun nor fury. Jess fitted into the middle category and made herself desirable for the work of the day simply because she was a pleasant soul who more than anything else knew when to talk and when to shut her mouth. The shift was a long one and Annie needed to make it through without a constant line of inane chatter in her ear. ...

The coffee had long since gone cold by the time Eleanor lifted it to her lips and took the first sip. She grimaced as she returned the oversized cup to the oversized saucer, only partly from the unpalatable taste of the contents. The largest part of her discomfort came instead from the fact that she had reached the final page of the job listings in the last of the papers spread across the table before her for what was probably the fifth time that morning and the result was still that she had found nothing that was even remotely worth pursuing. ...

Fingers crossed as she stepped into the lift and jabbed a finger at the button, Heather Stepney had no need to even glance at what she was doing thanks to the innumerable number of times she had performed those same actions before. As the familiar grinding rumble began and the car began to inch its way upwards, she wondered how much of her daily routine she could have managed to complete with her eyes closed or in a state of trance. A moment later she was reminded by the stench of the enclosed space finally hitting her that there were some things that even a blindfold would not have kept her from having to deal with in the course of her day. ...

Fingers crossed as she stepped into the lift and jabbed a finger at the button, Heather Stepney had no need to even glance at what she was doing thanks to the innumerable number of times she had performed those same actions before. As the familiar grinding rumble began and the car began to inch its way upwards, she wondered how much of her daily routine she could have managed to complete with her eyes closed or in a state of trance. A moment later she was reminded by the stench of the enclosed space finally hitting her that there were some things that even a blindfold would not have kept her from having to deal with in the course of her day. ...

It always made things easier if the building was old, a heap of concrete and grimed glass that had little in the way of physical locks and nothing at all when it came to more sophisticated security systems that cost real money and made a real difference. This was a prime example of the type, an office block that had somehow managed to survive the turn of the century and now seemed to be waiting for demolition, living on borrowed time. Breaking and entering in this case would be done more for the need of secrecy when simply walking in through the front door would have been no problem at all. ...

There were certain things in life that seemed to have a strange effect on those who were aware of their existence and importance, but at the same time not actually required to come into contact with them on a daily basis and the New York subway system was without doubt one of them. It had only been a few days since Ellie had read an article on the subject written by a journalist from back home, stopping over in the city before hopping onto a plane back across the Atlantic. The woman had somehow managed to stumble upon a fairy tale version of the subway that she described as a place where the highest and lowest of New York society rubbed shoulders because of a shared need to travel from one side of the city to the other. For her it had been a fascinating place which put on show the strata of different folk who lived on the same island and would never otherwise have come into contact with one another. ...

(story continues from Her Contract Entails 3) Part Four Henry chanced a look into his mirror, supposedly checking out the flow of traffic, but in reality flagellating himself with another stolen glance at the occupants of the back seat. Aubrey Lister sat back on the leather like a king reclining on his throne, his face a picture of self-assured crapulence as he draped one arm over the shoulder of his favourite pet, the other lost beneath the fabric of her tight denim skirt. ...

There were always little rituals to be observed and even the smallest of goals to be achieved in the space of a day. They were the routines and the mental talismans that kept Hannah’s overactive brain in check and allowed her to manage the obsessive nature of her thoughts from one hour to the next without spinning out of control. Deprived of their comfort and familiar nature she was often scared to imagine what might happen to the complicated interior world that was her own mind. ...

Part 1: Table Service The wheels of the landing gear made an audible screech as they touched down on the runway at La Isabela; it was a sound that was as commonplace as the dull pinging of the buttons that passengers pressed to summon the attention of the harassed cabin crew and nothing to spare even a moment of thought over. But to know that for a fact would require a person to have flown on more than one occasion and as with so many things in life, this was Hope Carpenter’s first time in the air on anything that went higher than a playground swing. ...

continued from part one Part 2: Pool Toy Hope hardly remembered the rest of the night and seemed to have sleepwalked through the process of being freed from her restraints and escorted to her room afterwards. The first thing that she truly recalled after the intensity of her orgasm the previous evening was waking up in what she presumed was her bed, her arms and legs still holding the dull memory of her time as a human table in the form of aches and stiffness. ...

continued from part two Part 3: Mermaids Hope went unnoticed for the short remainder of the day, most of the guests by the pool choosing to leave well alone the toy that had been the subject of such wild attentions. She tried to be philosophical about the whole experience, telling herself that there was nothing personal in the trials she had been forced to endure. These were just people behaving as was natural in an environment that cast off the strictures of modern society and allowed them to go wild for a short time. ...

The sound made by the hydraulics of a standard maintenance hatch as it split into two halves and opened should have been something so common to him that it passed without notice. Jack had been on Gagarin 1 for such an extended period of time that the unique sound was as commonplace to him as birdsong to those who lived planetside. But then the sound was not usually accompanied by so much anticipation or the same fear of discovery as it was on that particular night. ...

Part One On the rare occasion that she was able to stop and take stock of the events that had taken place in her life over the past two years, it seemed odd to Gwen that there were still things that managed to take her by surprise and cause her to wonder if it would all turn out in the end to have been a crazy dream. She almost laughed out loud when she realised that it had once been as likely for a girl from her estate back home to see the inside of a limousine without a gaggle of other women on a raucous hen night as it would have been for her to step foot on the surface of the moon. ...

continued from part one Part Two At first, Gwen could not be sure whether the light that filled her vision was blinding her because she had opened her own eyes or not. Her mind was fogged, as though she were waking up with a terrible hangover and it was hard to make sense of her surroundings. While it seemed to follow that she must have been inundated with the light because she had just opened her eyes, there was the inescapable feeling that they had already been looking into some kind of impenetrable darkness when something else changed and admitted the relentless beams. ...

Part 1: Walk in the Park The rain had eased off enough for it not to matter that she had forgotten her umbrella. As usual the path that wound down through the small wood was deserted in the middle of the afternoon as people with proper lives were busy doing whatever it was they did on a weekday. There were a few quiet little things in life that kept Eleanor walking on the right side of sane, and being able to come here and be alone with her thoughts was one of the most important. ...

continued from part one Part 2: Maid to Vacuum At first Eleanor thought it was the light streaming in through the narrow window that had woken her, but the awful feeling of discomfort that seemed to be spread out across the whole of her body soon made her realise that it had been responsible instead. The light, she realised had been in the background of her perception for some time and the more unpleasant sensations were only now coming to the fore. ...

continued from part two Part 3: Mermaids It had been two or three days since Eleanor had woken alone on the narrow bed and in the room in the rafters of the house. She had no memory of how she had arrived there after falling into a state of exhausted torpor, drained by her ordeal within the vacbed. More worryingly she was genuinely unable to count the days that had passed since then, the monotony and isolation of her enforced duties as a housemaid occupying her physically and draining her mentally until the hours simply ran into one another and became lost to her memory. ...

Agnes had always told herself that nothing would change her, that no matter how high her star rose and what plaudits were heaped upon her she would still be the same girl who had been given her first break on the bill of that off Broadway play all those years ago. There was a part of her that at least wanted that to be the truth, but in her most honest moments, even she could acknowledge the reality that no one could experience a rise to fame like her own and remain the same person they had been when they set out on the path they had chosen to follow in life. ...

This story follows on from Jemima’s Blossom There was little to be seen of the finer detail of her bedlah save for the flashes of bright red diaphanous material that swept by along with the movements of her body. For some the improvised dance in which she was engaged would have been termed belly dancing, but Jemima had always hated that term. It was so typically Western to boil something so ancient and articulate down to a tawdry term that fell so far from the true nature of the thing. ...

Relaxed and finally having shifted down the gears until she felt that she was almost herself again, Tamara Dumas slipped into the booth and across the cracked leather of the seat until she was sitting directly opposite the man in the suit. Her last dance had ended more than an hour before and now there was no need for a performance on her part. It was no matter to her that the attention of a well dressed individual this long after she was off stage always meant the offer of serious money, if the customer was that interested in the goods he could stand to see the person behind the body that went on show every night. ...

The illumination from the streetlights was more than enough to see by, even after the intense electric glare of the subway station. But the addition of the subtle light of the full moon added a certain something to the night that Alex Johnston had always thought special, almost ethereal in nature. Even now she marvelled a little at the way in which the moonlight seemed to erode the clean and ever so modern edges of the nondescript Yokohama street, eating away a part of the very real and practical nature of the architecture of concrete and glass with its natural beauty. ...

This story follows on from Jemima’s your Oyster The sound of the door brought Jemima to her senses from the sleepy state of relaxation that had fallen over her as the afternoon progressed like a starting pistol to an athlete and in a second she was up off the sofa and on her feet. The suite they had paid for in the hotel was in reality little more than a hallway, bathroom and a tiny kitchen with a sofa and matching chair. But it was the bedroom with its floor to ceiling glass wall that made the whole thing worth the expense, a special place to enjoy a special night. ...

The door of the limousine finally slammed closed, sealing Magenta inside and the baying hordes of paparazzi outside the car. She flopped back onto the seat and let out a breath of sheer exhaustion and relief that the evening was over and another premiere was behind her. Magenta was always amused by the fact that there were millions of people who would have swapped places with an actress of her fame and glamour, but she wondered if they really knew how much sheer hard work went into it on a daily basis. ...

This story follows on from Jemima in the Box & Love the Doll The carriage was crowded as always, but he had managed to become pinned in a corner with his back to the wall and so when the ringtone sounded and he fumbled the phone out of his inner pocket there was nobody else who could have seen the screen. As soon as he started to watch the video message that had been sent to him, he was glad that was hemmed in right where he was with no chance of someone catching a glimpse of the footage for even a moment. ...

This story is a follow on from “Love the Doll”. The fittings and pipes in the bathroom were aging brass and covered in green verdigris, but the water flowed fast and hot over Jemima, filling the air with steam and losing the walls in a mist of moist heat. She would have liked to spend more time beneath the cascade and soak up the warmth after the chill of the late autumn evening outside, but there were things to be done and a schedule to be kept to. So she made a quick but diligent job of lathering herself with soap and shampooing her corn blond hair, but took more time and care when it came to running a razor over her body, making sure that there was no stray hair left that could be removed. ...

Jemima locked the door of the apartment and dropped her bags on the floor of the hall before kicking off her heels with an audible sigh of relief. She ignored the pile on mail on the doormat and trotted across the wooden floor towards the small spiral staircase that led up to the bedroom. As she climbed the stairs she consciously shed the concerns of the day and left them behind her, just like the clothes that she peeled off as she went. By the time she reached the top of the stairs, Jemima was wearing only her underwear; everything else had been left draped on the stairs as a little hint as to where she was going and what was on her mind. ...

(Copyright 2008: the work of prose below is the sole intellectual property of the author, permission is not given for it or any part of it to be posted or printed elsewhere without the consent of the same. The author can be contacted at [email protected]) The radio was a faint hiss in the background as Mina hunched over the dashboard of the car and tried in vain to keep her hands from freezing by holding them over the heat vent. It was a battle that she was loosing fast no matter how much she rubbed them together. ...

(Copyright 2004: the work of prose below is the sole intellectual property of the author, permission is not given for it or any part of it to be posted or printed elsewhere without the consent of the same. The author can be contacted at [email protected]) The rain had eased off and was steaming from the tarmac by the time Eliza breezed out of the studio building and crossed the car park. A cooling breeze was the only thing that prevented the heat of the early afternoon from becoming unbearable, overhead the sky was a clear blue and the sun blazed mercilessly without a cloud in sight. ...

Measuring time by means of a watch was something that seemed like a distant memory in the few moments that Carla Largo was able to contemplate the swirling mass of stress and obligation that had taken the place of what had once been her life. Instead she had come to orient herself by the colour of the pills that she was taking at any given time during the day as they seemed to be the only thing that remained fixed and constant as she lurched from one place to another under the weight of her responsibilities. ...

(story continues from Her Contract Entails) Part Two Carla was surprised by the view of the building as the car pulled to a stop with the sound of gravel crunching beneath the wheels. Although she had to admit that she would have been at a loss to describe what she expected the clinic in which she would be operated upon might look like, the red brick house she saw through the window looked to her more like something from a costume drama than a location at which a woman might be able to have herself transformed into a mermaid. As if the whole idea of what awaited her was not strange enough, she now found her mind struggling to cope with the unfamiliar surroundings of an English country house at the same time. ...

(story continues from Her Contract Entails 2) Part Three The darkness of the room was not truly penetrated as the door opened, but the corridor outside was filled with a shading of deep shadow rather than an absence of light and so a portion small degree of that dark was replaced with shades of grey instead. A vaguely human shape flitted through the gloom and made for the bed, followed moments later by a far larger figure that could have been mistaken for a hunched bear. While the smaller figure moved with purpose and without pause, the larger constantly glanced back over one shoulder as if fearing discovery at any moment. ...