Content warning: compulsion

I don’t notice the difference in beguiling flattery coming from your mouth right off. You always turn to wheedling me when you want something. I’ve learned to shut down the listening part of my brain when you get going.

But tonight, the shadows have grown long across the prairie, yet still you haven’t given up asking. I can’t imagine you’d want to visit the corner store with your friends this bad.

I frown, realizing. Turning to you, I say, “You can just ask.”

Your eyes widen as I break the compulsion. “Please help—something’s tellin’ me to ask to go outside.”

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#Readingaloud my original #drabble ‘Compulsive Wheedling.’ Link in bio: summergbaker.blog. #writer #writertok #writingcommunity #reading #fiction
♬ original sound – S.G. Baker — Author

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Beneath the Bluebonnets: Tales of Terror by Texas Women

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From Mary Shelley to Tananarive Due and Mariana Enríquez, women have long shaped horror—often without equal recognition. Living closest to the genre’s edge, women know these fears firsthand: lost autonomy, violence, childbirth, survival.

Set in Texas, a land of haunted histories and increasingly restrictive laws, Beneath the Bluebonnets emerges from the raw intersection of terror and endurance. Written by twelve Texas women writers: R. J. Joseph, Lauren Oertel, L.H. Phillips, Kathleen Kent, Madison Estes, Jess Hagemann, Emma E. Murray, Jae Mazer, Iphigenia Strangeworth, Jacklyn Baker, S.G. Baker and edited by Carmen Gray, this collection is urgent, unflinching, and deeply haunting—stories that refuse to look away.