Happy New Year!

"Barely four months total I had known Astrid and I felt like I had crossed over. Sometimes when I opened my mouth I felt like I could breathe fire.

Now I knew you could be in control like that. Anything could be yours, you could take it and all you had to do was ask. At the Coffee Trader, Metro, wherever. One minute you're stirring sugar into your coffee, the next you're flying through the night beside some hot guy with a pierced lip who whistles through his teeth and calls you darlin', just a little bit shy.

'Isn't it wild?' Astrid said after we'd picked up a cuple of punk rockers on Downer, all of us crammed into Juli's car, sitting on laps and laughing, heading for a garage party on the Southside.

'Wish I'd met you sooner,' I told her.

'Don't wish.' Astrid grinned. 'Just enjoy it.'

So we drove on, the three of us, young and glorious, fierce eyed and smoking, blazing though the night."

Whores on the Hill
by Colleen Curran