Romantic Stories from Women's Magazines

By Clinton Smith

Top short women's fiction from periodicals such as WOMEN'S WEEKLY, CLEO, WOMAN'S DAY, ARGOSY UK and ABC Books.

There's 'The Sand Man' - an award-winning story about a crazily-in-love couple who build a huge sand man on the beach. What happens then will make you cry
There's 'The Snag' - a story about a man who can do anything, except relate to women.
And 'Serpent for Celia'. Do sea serpents exist? Of course not. But still...
And 'The Man Who Made Whistles' - where a hen-pecked husband gets his own back on a domineering wife.
In 'Spinster', a lonely woman suddenly discovers a different way to live.
In 'Brass Teeth', a Prime Minister's wardrobe malfunction changes the course of history.
In 'Time Waits for Nolan', a complacent retiree slides into a decomposing world.
Then, just to tone you up, there's the arid, eerie SF world of 'Tub Travellers'.
And, finally, for readers not afraid to think, there's 'The Stand-in' - a searing re-examination of the Crucifixion based on esoteric research. (21,500 words)
ROMANTIC STORIES FROM WOMEN'S MAGAZINES has a companion set of stories. VICIOUS TALES FROM MEN'S MAGAZINES.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Buzzword Books
• Release date: Dec 9, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311154743

Clinton Smith

Clinton Smith has extensive experience in radio, film, television (copywriting, producing and directing) and is the author of two previous novels, The Fourth Eye and The Godgame, both of which have been optioned for film. He lives in Cammeray, NSW.

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Copyright © 2014 Clinton Smith

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This edition published by Buzzword Books at Smashwords 2014

First published by Buzzword Books 2014

P.O. Box 7, Cammeray 2062

Australia

buzzwordbooks.com

Romantic Stories from Women's Magazines

by

Clinton Smith

Other titles in this series by Clinton Smith:

VICIOUS TALES FROM MEN'S MAGAZINES

Contents:

About this collection

The Sand Man

The Snag

Serpent for Celia

The Man Who Made Whistles

Spinster

Brass Teeth

Time Waits for Nolan

Tub Travellers

The Stand-in

ABOUT THIS COLLECTION

These stories are mostly 'commercial'—written to sell and to entertain. The majority have been published in magazines and anthologies and one even won an award.

As the young Smith wrote stories in two genres—male interest and romance—I've anthologised them in two books. VICIOUS TALES FROM MEN'S MAGAZINES and ROMANTIC STORIES FROM WOMEN'S MAGAZINES.

It was strange to troll through tales I'd written over forty years ago. I had no idea what many of them were, let alone how they ended. The only copies surviving, apart from a few tired photocopies, were in the magazines that ran them—magazines I'd stored way back then in a tin trunk in the shed.

In the trunk, I found most of the mags I'd sold to but not all. So all I have of some stories is a notebook listing titles and publications. The magazines I managed to keep are collectors' items now. For instance, The Women's Weekly was then tabloid sized. Woman's Day was larger, too. And the men's mags,published by an Australian outfit called K.G. Murray, are long defunct. As for Argosy, England's finest short story mag of the time, which had the format of a small paperback, even it died the death, probably a victim of TV.

As I wrote on a typewriter back then, the old Smith had to retype the young one's yarns laboriously from each magazine into the computer. Time doesn't destroy good yarns but it makes references and speech patterns outmoded.

So I edited and updated the tales as I went to help contemporary readers enjoy them. I doubt the young wordsmith would mind as the old one, now author of several published books, knows far more about writing than he did. Still, it's been interesting to revisit his first successful tries at fiction and has even inspired me to write several more stories to round out the collections, which appear here for the first time. Stories not that romantic. But they may make you think.

The stories in these collections aren’t the only Smith stories to appear. His more serious or 'literary' stories are in the anthology, TALES OF A COUNTRY TOWN. (As most stories in TALES have won literary awards, perhaps the 'literary' tag can stand.) TALES is published by buzzwordbooks.com.

PUBLICATION CREDITS

As explained, one or two of the earlier stories did not find a home and I have written several more for this project. For the record, published stories I retrieved from the trunk appeared in the following magazines and anthologies:

COME DOWN KILLER — POCKET MAN, March 1960.

THE ROUND METAL TOMB — MAN, Dec 1964.

KIDNEY PUNCH (Published as: THE NURSE WHO HATED) — MAN, July 1966.

SO VERY LIFELIKE — MAN, October 1966.

NIGHT FLIGHT TO AMSTERDAM — MAN, July 1970.

THE MAN WHO MADE WHISTLES — ARGOSY (UK), December 1970.

BRASS TEETH — ABC Lennie Lower Anthology of Humorous Stories, 1989.

SEA SERPENT FOR CELIA — WOMEN'S WEEKLY, December 1965.

THE SNAG — WOMAN'S DAY, January 1971.

THE SAND MAN — WOMEN'S WEEKLY, December 1971. (Winner Women's Weekly inaugural Mary Drake award for fiction.)

SPINSTER — WOMEN'S WEEKLY, November 1973.

THE JUDGE AND THE BABY — CLEO, February 1983.

THE SANDMAN

It was for each their second marriage and first love. At their age, it shattered them, like some cosmic chicken-pox.

He was forty. He thought she might be older. It didn't matter and they never discussed it. All he knew was that nothing he had known could explain the intensity he felt. This feeling was a state—of great sadness and utter joy. Love seemed too light a word for it. There was no way to describe it. He felt it and she knew. It was nothing to do with desire. To be near her, even to look at her, was to be inwardly on fire.

Her first husband had been sadistic. The marriage had dragged on for years. After the divorce, there were children to be put through school. At forty-six, one didn't expect a second chance. Yet her body was still attractive, youthful. And her face still had the clear look of the girl she once had been. She'd never tried to 'preserve' herself and perhaps that was her secret. It surprised her—and froze the smiles of married women friends. Those friends with their fretting husbands and empty, comfortable lives. Behind the conventional laughter each was, somewhere, a small girl. A girl-woman—well encrusted now by neglect or a bewilderment of years. But always with the longing for fulfilment through a man.

It had been more a recognition than a meeting. That first night, they'd cried like kids. It went beyond the possible. She'd felt a thankfulness that engulfed her. It wasn't directed at him. She didn't understand to whom or what she could direct it. But the need to pour out gratitude agonised her.

Once, he said, 'I feel as if lightning will strike us. We're not allowed to have this. Something will happen to us.'

The intensity fluctuated, seemed to pulse. It was not from them but like grace. A melting of tenderness with its own tide and seasons. There were eruptions and times of great stillness. In a moment, a blade of grass could become a universe.

They were married in a country church—a small bare place. There were just her daughters and her son—looking adult and pleased/conspiratorial. He nearly dropped the ring and there were brown spots on the organ keys—in that silent building with its creaking floor and the