FICTION BY A LESBIAN


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Two evangelical girls fall in love in an Iowa treehouse. Will religion tear them apart?

The reviews are in: Other Women is “a must read.”

“I loved this book! It captured my attention very early on and I just couldn't stop.”

“…a must purchase….an enjoyable, intelligent read.”

“If you’ve ever been curious to get inside the head of a lesbian, to be one for the space between the covers, this page-turner literary romance is your chance.”

Kirsten Hansen is a femme, twenty-something writer living in San Francisco with her partner, Soraya, a therapist who barely escaped war-torn Afghanistan. Soraya announces she would like to have a baby just as Kirsten realizes she may not want to stay in their relationship.

Punctuated by arguments in razor-sharp dialogue, flashbacks to Kirsten's first love in a treehouse in Iowa, and Kirsten's own internal narrative of temptation, betrayal, guilt, and often humor, the plot unfolds as Kirsten goes about haphazardly dismantling her relationship with Soraya while not-so-secretly plunging into an on-line search for love.

"The Meaning of Black" won second place in short fiction in the scratch literary contest and was featured in scratch ANTHOLOGY Volume II.

A review from one of the contest judges:

"MEANING OF BLACK is a mystical story full of twists and turns that reaches a satisfactory conclusion. The two main characters are perfectly drawn and the relationship between them is temporary but satisfying."

The Meaning of Black

Sometimes the answers to our darkest questions lie where we are most afraid to look, a place so long abandoned that we can no longer find it without a reference, without the outside help of gods or devils or passing strangers. Marie is about to encounter a passing stranger, and in passing, find herself.

The woman strides onto the Paris Metro train, tall as a lie. As she sits opposite Marie, their eyes meet. It is more likely that Marie is caught staring. And the older woman, past sixty, the one with the dyed black hair, dares back. Everything she wears is black. Each piece is exquisite in its own way but making up an eclectic and unexpected whole. A black wool Chanel skirt, high heels of pristine black patent leather, her long legs, clad in black silk stockings. Her sweater is black cashmere, cut intricately in dips and swirls around the wide neck. And at last, though first to Marie’s eye, is the enormous, but appropriately flowing black lace shawl she wears over it all, clasping it herself at the neck with a right hand bearing a healthy emerald ring rather than adding the weight of a brooch.

The women’s eyes lock for a moment, the younger woman looking away in an instant. Marie is simply on her way home from work. She didn’t ask to be confronted, didn’t ask to be seen. Still, there she is, caught, wanting to look anywhere else, to see anything but the knowing, challenging gaze of this woman, as if she’s saying, This soon will be you, this grand funeral march for youth and beauty.

Once she breaks the woman’s gaze, Marie realizes the car is far from silent. With the bubble of concentration between her and the woman burst, Marie is now back in her clacking, chattering, real-world of the moment, complete with the stink of human sweat and food and breath trapped endless years in the subway car. Strange how comforting they are to Marie, these otherwise irritating sounds and nauseating smells. They tell her she’s here now and not lost in the future sitting opposite herself thinking of her past, even of this moment perhaps.

Marie isn’t the only one who sees the woman with the open eyes, the one with secrets only she can tell. The man jammed into the tiny center walkway between the doors, singing Spanish love songs with his karaoke machine sees her. The old woman with a gentle yellow smile reading Le Nouvel Observateur a few seats down sees her. The unkempt man with wild black hair who stares at Marie’s breasts, his slick ebony eyes alighting, devouring, then drifting away. He sees her. When he tries to make eye contact, Marie looks away, though for different reasons. The older woman smiles at Marie’s indignance, but her eyes are not there when Marie’s suddenly seek them.

And there are, of course, the countless sitting and standing nameless; soon to be faces populating the characters in each other’s dreams.

The two women are traveling the same track. Two directions the train can go, one it does. If at different times, each will still hit the same stops on one trip or another down it. In this way, as their moment suggests, they know each other….

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