Excerpt from Love in the Aftermath

Francis came into work flushed and out of breath. She had just returned from lunch and now the cubicle she worked in every day, the small space she looked forward to tucking into each morning like a cocoon, safe and secure from the outside world, seemed not to fit her anymore. The crisp fall air wafted in behind her as she walked, almost floated, in. She was brimming with a magical feeling she carried in with her like fairy dust. Her nose was pink at the end and her lips were raw. Had anyone in the office even noticed, they would have thought she had chapped lips from the dry air except that she glowed too, luminescent, so the careful eye would note that she had been kissed, recently, and more than once.