short story

THROUGH HER WINDOW
by Harper Kingsley

He’d found her through the Internet in a remarkably easy way.

It was almost as though she wanted him to find her.

He didn’t mention the leaks in her security. Just quietly followed the gingerbread trail until here he was.

Standing outside her house.

Peeking in through her windows and seeing her there. In her house. Her safe place. Her home where she and her family lived.

He watched her for a long time. Standing there in the dark. Huddling in his jacket to deal with the night chill.

He saw all her secrets. The her she was when she was alone.

The strange, beautiful her. The awkward, disgusting, slovenly, vulgar, lovely her.

He watched her and there was no part of him that wanted to look away. Even though he felt guilty. Even though he knew that what he was doing was wrong.

Wrong on a fundamental level.

The level of "Thou shalt not secretly follow people home" badness.

He’d done things when he was younger. Things that had disturbed his mother enough that she’d enacted several awkwardly horrible "discussions" that basically amounted to "Don’t be a rapist."

It had upset him when he was younger. There were several instances where he had wanted to scream at her to "Stop! Stop! STOP!" But now… He kind of understood where she had been coming from.

The very thought of sexual assault disgusted him. He had NO interest in being That Guy. He’d always been careful in his everyday life to not share certain jokes and to not touch without permission. Even as a kid, he’d had a clear awareness of "Personal Bubble."

It was just that as a kid he’d been very obvious about what he was thinking about. It had set adults … Read the rest “SHORT FIC: Through Her Window disturbing, stalking”

Title: Tears
Author: Harper Kingsley
Genre: drama, angst
Summary: There are times when she retreats to the solitude of her bedroom and cries.

There are times when she retreats to the solitude of her bedroom and cries. There’s something cleansing about tears, about cracking the hard shell of her emotions and letting all the hate, rage, and sadness out in one uninterrupted flood of tears. To cry until her eyes ached and her nose was red and sore.

And then she washed her face–flipping her eyelids back to release the trapped salt deposits to prevent swollen eyelids–and crawled into her bed. It let her paste the plastic smile on her face with the morning light and pretend that everything was good, she was happy and nothing was dying inside.

Being able to cry was the only thing that let her face the days of boredom and abuse. She was a loser, but she could pretend otherwise if she tried hard enough.

Things I like: bacon. Bob's Burgers. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. cats. cheese. chocolate. crossword puzzles. Dredd. eggrolls. fried chicken. gochujang. Hannigram. HEAs. HFNs. jigsaw puzzles. kimchi. lo mein noodles. mushrooms. nectarines. Nintendo Switch. paperback books. pineapple. pizza. potstickers. raspberry jam. Rick and Morty. sleeping in. snickerdoodles. spaghetti. strawberries. sudoku. tacos. tomatoes. vacations. vaccinations.