Aynjel Kaye is a queer bioluminescent deep-sea monster in a human suit, lured ashore by the promise of chocolate lava cake and fancy cocktails. A graduate of the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’ Workshop, zir work has appeared in Strange Horizons, Polyphony 5 (Wheatland Press, 2005), So Fey (Lethe Press, 2009), and Daughters of Frankenstein (Lethe Press, 2015). Zie makes zir home near the overcast coastline of Washington State, where zie wrangles computer issues by day and gleefully stalks pixelated prey when the sun goes down. If you listen carefully on a moonless night, you might catch zir whispering strange stories about love and other slippery, slithery things into the void. Find zir online at digital-delirium.org and on Twitter as @aynjelfyre, where zie often grumbles about stories oozing beyond the bounds of short fiction word counts.
The first time Robin spent the night at my house was the first sleepover I had that there wasn’t some kind of complaint from under the eaves or deep in the walls. We were eight years old and Robin slept in a leopard-print sleeping bag that filled the space on the floor between my bed and the wall. “You still sleep with a nightlight.” And Robin’s tone wasn’t snotty and mean the way Tina’s had been. There was no unspoken baby at the end.
