120 Blind Dates... And Other Short Stories

Copyright

I love spending the entire summer on Gavdos because it is so far away from civilisation that I can focus on my writing. In the past I used to camp on the beach, but I bought a small house two years ago when it had become clear that our arrangement would become a permanent one - and making love on the beach is not nearly as much fun in reality as it may have been for Meggie and Ralph on The Thornbirds.

Read more:

https://www.wattpad.com/1001144668-under-the-rain-a-short-story-under-the-rain

Sneak Peek: "Secret Santa Clara"

As a child, Claire Archer had always wondered why she was the only child in the world who seemed to have noticed that Santa Claus was not a man, but a woman. To be exact, "he" was her aunt Clara because "he" spoke with her voice, only it was her voice in disguise, pretending to be an old man, and "he" had her aunt's face even though "he" wore a fake beard. And yet, it was part of the game they played every year: They pretended not to know each other when Santa Claus came by her house to visit her and her little brother John.

There were so many things about Aunt Clara that made her so different from any another woman she knew. Had she been asked to name all of them, she wouldn't even have known where to start. For one, her aunt was the only female mailman she knew, too. Even though Claire wasn't allowed to talk about this, let alone ask questions about it, she was also aware of the fact that Aunt Clara lived together with her best friend Rosie. Whenever her aunt, who was her father's younger sister, visited the family and was accompanied by Rosie, Claire noticed that her mother felt uncomfortable.

But things took a turn for the worse on December 25, 1985. Claire was 9 years old and a tomboy who hated the pretty dresses her mother wanted her to wear. As everyone was unwrapping their presents in the living room of her parents' house, Claire complained bitterly to her aunt, who was dressed up as Santa Claus again, about the dress she had been forced to wear for the occasion. She had never seen her aunt wear a dress or even lipstick, so Claire thought she would be her ally.

Perhaps everything else that happened later was Claire's fault. She shouldn't have lured her aunt into a trap because Clara - or rather, Santa Claus, who all of a sudden spoke with a female voice - encouraged her to wear whatever she wanted and whatever she felt comfortable in.

Unfortunately, Claire's mother overheard the comment and was barely able to hide her anger. "Don't tell my daughter things like that!" her mother spat at her sister-in-law, as if Aunt Clara was someone she was forced to put up with, but didn't want to have in her home.

"Why shouldn't she learn to stand up for herself?" Clara had asked.

"Because we don't want her to become like you!"

Read more:

https://www.wattpad.com/995302157-secret-santa-clara

Sneak Peek: "Lucifer Devil Jr.'s Christmas Surprise"

Being the devil's son had never been easy for Lucifer Devil, Jr. Because of his father's name and reputation, everyone expected him to be this thoroughly evil, ugly creature. So it was a big shock when a fair-haired, shy boy, who also happened to be genuinely nice, showed up for his first day of school at Hell International School.

The staff at the school had seen a lot of antics and put up with even more. The other students were the offspring of demons, monsters, wizards and basically every villain that had been sent to hell and had started families there in the last 2,000 years. But when the chauffeured limousine arrived at the main gate of the school, Mr Blackbeard, the principal of the school and grandson of the infamous pirate, stopped dead in his tracks.

He had prepared meticulously for the arrival of this special transfer student: After all, one didn't get the chance to teach the son of the big boss everyday. So he had not only put on his best outfit, but also taken great care that every hedge on the school campus had been trimmed to infernal perfection and that the students in the school band knew how to play the national anthem without getting in a physical fight or destroying half a dozen instruments in the process. He had threatened to expel anyone who misbehaved, and since he ran the only state school in hell, they were not about to risk their education for this.

And now this. Lucifer Devil Jr.'s first day at his school couldn't have started off any worse.

Of course, the students who were in the band noticed what was wrong, and nasty rumours about the new transfer student were already rampant.

"Are you sure he is really the devil's son?"

"Well, perhaps he was adopted."

Read more:

https://www.wattpad.com/984333481-lucifer-devil-jr-%27s-christmas-surprise-the-short

More short stories: "Aim to Engage 2020" (Anthology)

https://www.wattpad.com/story/249394127-aim-to-engage-2020-an-anthology/rankings