This is my response to the third Scrivener’s Forge exercise on Character Desire and Suspense. Click on the link to see the exercise details. It precedes, in the story, the reponse to the second exercise. Click here  to see other responses.

Waiting is the mother of change.  Zami shifted in the seat, the wood aching his buttocks. These benches asserted the court’s grandeur but offered little comfort, He reached to scratch his beard but touched new-shaven flesh. Change, he nodded. No longer bearded – no longer Zami, in fact. After testifying against Rashid, he could return to being Vince. At least until he was re-assigned to another mission.

He wasn’t sure he knew any more who Vince was. To be Vince again was frightening – a prospect full of chill nights warmed only by a bag of fish and chips.  But Zami he knew inside out.  Ayesha’s warm and forbidden outline defined his inline.  Ayesha, with whom he had first lain in the warm Andalusian night. Would she come to him again? Would she forgive?