Room 2D

Great story, from the elusive Blushes 78, either by R.T. Mason or someone copying his style. Looking out of her bedroom window Amanda could see at the end of the garden the two workmen. They were putting in a drain or something. Yes it was a new drain, she remembered her mother saying. It was a warm afternoon, September, the end of summer, and they both had their shirts off. One older, her father’s age perhaps, with a beer belly, but the other one was different: mid-twenties, trim and muscular. He was the one Amanda’s eyes were fixed on: the muscles in that back, those shoulders. A body like that could make a girl feel slightly breathless. When you were seventeen, and it was a hot, sultry afternoon and you were supposed to be working. Writing that essay. Amanda reluctantly turned away from the window. She had to concentrate her mind on the essay. Her full lips mouthed an expletive. She sat down at her desk, trying to think about the essay. But there were all the other thoughts cr...

Story by R.T Mason from Janus 42 The subway station was ultra-modern, spacious, brightly lit, and of course spotlessly clean. A far cry from the London Underground or the New York Subway, with not a sign of graffiti marring the sparkling walls. For naturally here in this Socialist State no one would be so antisocial as to wish to deface public property. And if by some faint chance someone did he would only do it once. A clean new train drew quietly in, its doors sliding smoothly open. From the first two compartments came a party of teenagers, 16- to 18-year-olds, laughing and chattering but at the same time orderly and well behaved. Socialist youth, disciplined and self-disciplined; no London punks here. There were perhaps 20, all in casual summer clothes, the boys in open-necked shirts and shorts, the girls in blouses and skirts or light dresses. They all carried rucksacks. There was an excited buzz for the school year had just...