New Claudia Dey story on Pages website

The new website for our friends at Pages Books and Magazines is full of great new stories, interviews and other value-added content.<!--newline--><!--newline-->Their latest item is a brand-new short story from Stunt author Claudia Dey, called 'But Who Will Slap Marguerite?' Here's a sample:<!--newline--><!--newline-->Not all of Marguerite's thoughts turn to violence. Why don't I have a pet? Why must I dream about the children of celebrities? Dingbat. Celery. Bicep is incorrect. But, in the dull shimmer of her brain, it is this thought -- slap me -- that bursts fluorescent. It flexes when she is having her hair cut, fingers skirting her skull, or when a boy points up at her and says 'woman'. It flexes now. Before sex.<!--newline--><!--newline-->Sitting in the Chinese restaurant, with its aquarium in the corner that her date had called 'pointleth', Marguerite examines him. Jean-Francois has the windowless office beside Marguerite's boss and a very slight lisp. His cheeks are ruddy, his hair curled, and just when you would deem him a clown, you would be wrong. While he does exude the sadness of a man who lives alone in a trailer sinking in the wet mud of a forgotten field, she has seen him walk barefoot across broken glass -- her kitchen light twitching, his face not. Marguerite thinks him a shark in a birdcage and that, despite its manners, their courtship is really about negotiating pain. She pictures their bodies after dinner. The hard skim of him. How he will fall asleep and then in the metallic grey of early morning, go home to change because people in the office do not know that they are together. How Marguerite is excited by the secret. How like a private play, she exaggerates their distance.<!--newline--><!--newline-->Marguerite works at a job her mother would call 'under' her, but Marguerite is not ambitious. She is an exceptional typist, and has what her boss calls 'the right decorum'. This makes Marguerite imagine a room wherein everything matches. This is enough for her. A bonus: she can lock her desk drawer. In her single fit of exoticism, Marguerite decides to wear the key around her ankle on a chain. She wears it over her tights. The act of locking makes for acrobatics and, she is sure, leads to Jean-Francois’ dinner invitation. When Marguerite says yes, she closes her eyes slightly and unpracticed, for too long.<!--newline--><!--newline-->Read more at www.pagesbooks.ca