My name is Stella and I work at an old-established but slightly falling-apart food factory in deepest Devon. We make pastry products, cakes, cake mixes, and powdered drink mixes. I am twenty-seven years old and single again after finally catching him red-handed with Suzanna, a floozy from the firm of lawyers next to his sports shop. A few months later (alright, weeks then) I was beginning to feel the lack of someone to pl...

Monday morning came around soon enough. I knew Himari went to a relative's house on Saturdays, and I went to my middle brother's house for Sunday lunch so we'd had all weekend to think about Friday night, and to prepare suitable excuses and apologies if the need arose when we met again on Monday morning. When Himari got into the office at about one minute to nine our eyes met, clearly searching for the other person's feel...

The next day, Tuesday, was normal right up until the moment when Lindsey came in looking for a report the MD had asked for. The office door swung shut and Himari and I looked at Lindsey, back in her more familiar work clothes, to see what the reaction would be. She sauntered across to her normal perch, sat on it, and looked at us for a few seconds. “Hey, I enjoyed last night,” she began. “When's the next meeting?” We all...

They all arrived on time. I'd heard a car draw up alongside the house as opposed to outside the front door, and I watched Lindsey get the wheelchair out of the boot and assemble it for her friend who heaved herself into it directly from the front seat. Jennifer was wearing a fleecy coat and a woolly hat, so I guessed that she didn't like the cold wet weather we were having. I opened the kitchen door just as she got to it...

First, I had to get Charity, the blind woman, to where Jennifer, the wheelchair user woman, lived. I went to Charity's house and guided her into my car. It was raining lightly and we hurried out of her house and into the car, her cane poking everything in front of her, including me a couple of times but she didn't notice and I didn't say. Much the same thing happened outside Jennifer's house except in reverse, the rain dr...

Lindsey, Himari and I work in the accounts office at an old-established but slightly falling-apart food factory in deepest Devon. We make pastry products, cakes, cake mixes and powdered drink mixes. The printer was just whirring into life for the fourteenth (and last) time before lunch. On a Friday, lunchtime was a bigger landmark than for the other days of the week. For one thing, most of the ovens were shutting down for...

Today was much the same as yesterday. Happily, the crèpe suzette vendor had moved to a different location. Either that, or the other nearby stands had got together and physically removed it to the other side of the hall. Or to the far end of the Long Stay car park. The day went slowly enough, what with having to tolerate Jake's Japes with each batch of data sheets. But at least the visitor data kept rolling in. It was our...

Life seemed a bit tame, back at work in the same familiar surroundings, doing the same things as normal. However, Himari and I had plenty to talk about, as did Lindsey when she popped in round about first coffee time. The no-audio office security tapes would have shown three women with their mouths moving a bit more than usual, and stopping to laugh a lot more than usual. However, the work got done and, finally, it was ti...

I got up late this morning. My week had been alternately busy and boring, then busy again. And besides, Rover, the cat, had crept onto my bed in the night. She was asleep half on my pillow and half on me and I didn't want to wake her. However, she soon woke up, stretched and went to the kitchen and mewed for her breakfast so I had to get up anyway. Honestly, it's like having children! From what I gather. I was just in my...

No sooner had I finished rubbing Rover's tummy than my phone burbled. Rover was still explaining to me that I hadn't done it for long enough, not anything like long enough, in her words. I shrugged my shoulders and answered my phone. One thing I've noticed about other people's ring tones is that none of them sound like ring tones. The cacophonous racket sounds like their earpiece cable has popped out of their phone causin...

Once everyone had arrived, there was quite a squash at the kitchen table. Someone had to move Jennifer's wheelchair out into the utility room and I'd found some more fold-up chairs from the garden shed. Nicole introduced Suzanna by holding up her hand so we could all see who she was. Except Charity, who couldn't see but still knew anyway. “Everyone, this is my friend Suzanna. She's a solicitor who works here in Tiverton....

It wasn't long before the weekend rolled around again, and Friday night's No Entry Club meeting would be the last at my house until Monday evening. For all the club members it would be a whole two evenings of solitude, alone-time and watching the telly by ourselves all evening while my bedrooms stayed silent and dark, and the cheerful noise of female friendship did not visit the kitchen twice each night. Rover, the cat, a...

It was warm and sunny, so Suzanna and I took our cups of tea and some more fresh homemade pastries out into the garden at the back of her house. The nearest neighbour was quite a few yards away and not normally able to see into Suzanna's garden so we felt quite safe in going outside, me with nothing on and Suzanna wearing only her red straps. We sat on her wooden garden bench and let the late afternoon sun play on our ski...

First through the door this Tuesday evening was my ex, Dave. My mouth dropped open, I couldn't find any words to say. He now looked very different to how he had looked when I had last seen him, in the room in the Tiverton Arms in bed, half on top of someone else in the bed who turned out to be Suzanna. Then, he had looked really really surprised and, for the first time ever, at a loss for a misguided smart-alec retort or...