1. Desperate In The Library


    Date: 10/18/2023, Categories: Watersports, Author: flip_the_script 

    Bethany had been in the old downtown city library for hours. She loved the vibe of the place, with its long labyrinthine hallways and ornate woodwork. After being closed for decades, the city decided to renovate the library last year, and the main wing recently opened to great fanfare. It had become her regular haunt for the last few weeks.

She sat in her favorite study room, the one where the evening sunlight streamed in through the tall, arched windows, bringing a warm, comforting feeling. The ambiance helped her be more creative and relaxed, she had decided.

But right now, Bethany wasn’t relaxed—at all. Her fingers flew across the keyboard of her laptop as if possessed by some supernatural force, tapping out words with an almost feverish intensity.

She had been pouring her heart and soul into her latest book for the past few months—Stellar Fates. “It’s a sci-fi romance novel about twostar-crossed lovers,” she had joked to her friends, pun intended. She'd spent months crafting the adventures of her two protagonists in outer space and writing about the obstacles they faced in trying to be together.

And now the looming deadline for the first draft of the book was only days away.

“I love ya, Beth, but no more extensions on this one,” her editor Kara had told her over the phone last week, “If you can’t get it done by next week, we’ll have to revisit our relationship.”

Bethany knew “revisit our relationship,” was a euphemism for her publisher canceling the ...
    ... whole contract and leaving her with nothing to show for the last 8 months of work except the measly $10k advance check. If she didn’t finish the book on time, she was going to have a hard time making ends meet in the next couple months.

One chapter. That’s all she had left. But she had been working on that one chapter all month. In fact, she had lost count of how many times she had started over. A cloud of anxiety, dread, and stress seemed to follow Bethany around now as she constantly worried about how the hell she was going to finish this damn book.

The keyboard clicked and clacked as she tapped out a line into her laptop. "He looked into her eyes and knew he'd do anything to protect her"—before quickly jamming the backspace button. "Fuck, that's not right either," she mumbled.

Bethany snapped the laptop shut and closed her eyes, leaning back in her chair with a sigh of frustration. Her shoulders were tight from the hours of being hunched over the laptop. She reached up to massage her neck, feeling the knots of tension in the muscles.

She should probably take a break. Get some fresh air, maybe get something to eat.

She felt a vague feeling of discomfort permeating the edges of her consciousness. It slowly creeped in, tugging at her attention, like a fly buzzing around her head. Uh oh. What had she forgotten?

She checked in with her body, and the vague discomfort turned into a dull ache in what she realized was her bladder. She had to pee.

Bethany opened her ...
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