'Seriously,'� one of the girls was gesticulating to her little clique, 'he was just so patronising. I couldn't believe it!'�

Kent listened with an almost morbid fascination, betting with himself as to which direction her arms would flail next, wincing as her nasal voice elongated vowels beyond any reasonable tone of sarcasm. Here, he knew, was as malevolent a coven of titwitches as he could hope to burn.

He was new to the group, he'd avoided Societies in the past but finding an authors group one had proved a temptation he didn't want to pass. So far it was proving to be everything he hoped. Various groups were screaming to his attention.

The groups runners were certainly an earnest bunch, providing a level of organisation and administration most public sector organisations would kill for. For a group that simply read and commented on one another stories, there was an awful lot of paper work. These people were better best avoided, lest they draw you into their world.

There were those usual beasts who had all the talent of Mills and Boon novelist, but threw so much enthusiasm in to it they produced reams of text, in quantities that rivaled the most absurd of religious tomes. Evidently hoping bulk would compensate for quality. Nice enough, but pitiable.

Some were there who thought they knew the crack, but clearly didn't have a fucking clue. If there's one thing worse than an author convinced of his or her own superiority, it's one who has all the talent of Dan Brown. Contemptible.

There was the aforementioned titwitches, who were similar to the above but actually had some talent, the kind of people who actually get published too often, and who others strangely believe to be above run of the mill. These were the real arseholes, who needed to be stopped by any method, up to and including mutilation, torture and execution.

And then there was Milla, the only person he'd found here with real talent. The compositions she brought were marvelously understated, succinct, meaningful, free of cliché and captivating. She was everything the others weren't, tragically shy in the process, and boy did they know it. Every other member recognised her as the one to beat, the enemy, and every member either consciously or subconsciously made it their aim to bring her down with them.

This was only Kent's second visit, and he had already made it his aim to ensure they didn't get away with it.

'Hi everyone,'� few people could bustle like Kerry, 'nice to see you all again. Especially nice to see you've decided to stay,'� she smiled at Kent from behind thick glasses. Kent wasn't even sure if she was actually short sighted, the girl seemed to go out of her way to seems as librarianish as she could. From the unflattering knitted cardigans, to the sensible shoes and practical rucksack, to the constant pile of books. It had to be deliberate.

'Right,'� she continued, 'I hope everyone's read their copies of the stories I gave out last week. I think Mark is up first.'�

Mark stood, and began to read his piece. It was the stuff fan fiction was made of, he came from the eager but talentless group, his story was reliably excruciating. Over earnest, excitable and badly written. Even hearing it read aloud made exclamation marks protest at being overworked.

Then came critiquing, the other over earnests generally praised, offering hints and tips they themselves found useful when constructing their own desperate Lord of the Rings sequels for the internet, using what they thought was an approximation of constructive literary criticism. There was a bit of slating from the talentless brigade but the titwitches were silent, considering it beneath them. Kent stayed quiet, he wanted to save himself.

Then came the second story, this was Abbey's, she was of the talentless brigade, convinced someday her name would be listed beside Virginia Wolfe. Someone she aspired to be, but didn't really understand. She read her story with pride, the classical pretensions alone were almost too much to bare. Her awkward prose clunking along like the Iliad on mogodon. It was essentially Jane Austen, but devoid of the wit, wry observations and slight wickedness of nature that made her books classics. Here, every character was awfully middle class, every one spoke in the same, monotonous, perfect English, there couldn't have been an apostrophe in the entire piece. Some drone about village life in the countryside, the stuff John Major's wet dreams were made of.

The critiquing here shifted in pace, the enthusiasts all acclaimed it, declaring it one of the greatest short stories they'd ever read. Her fellow no hopers loved it. This time the titwitches paid a little attention, laughably and sniffily acknowledging some talent, but dismissing it eventually.

Next it was the titwitches turn, the titwitch in question was called Steve, and his story was a sneering and ridiculing supposed parody. Feminism was his target, and his attack came in the form of a ridiculous little piece claiming men were becoming subjugated. It was the kind of rubbish more commonly spouted by middle aged, waistcoat wearing Daily Mail columnists. It was at once the most repulsive, narrow minded, pretentiously worded things Steve had ever heard or read. Full of ever so clever characters who used words like Lexicon in everyday conversation, repulsive clichés of feminists and a pitiful specimen of a main character who the author clearly wanted to be.

Everyone practically got their dicks out and wanked to the sound of his reading it, his fellow titwitches screamed their praises, flinging words like postmodernism and literary-genius around like confetti. The no hopes joined them, as did the eager lack of talents, one or two seemed a little dubious but were overwhelmed by the force of the praise enough they joined it.

Steve smiled an Asp's grin and congratulated the author on his work, saying he'd never heard anything that made him a firmer believer in Gynophobia.

Finally, it was Milla's turn.

She looked around nervously, she brushed back her blond hair (one of her primary sins was blondness, everyone knew proper authors had dark hair) and began, looking around nervously.

Steve already knew her story was brilliant, he had read it over and over, like the titwitches wishing he was capable of anything nearly half as good, but unlike them not consumed with any kind of jealous envy. She faltered at the sound of pierce whispering from the titwitch camp.

Hooking his leg round Steven smartly clipped the offenders leg from the side with the heel of his shoe. The annoying cunt couldn't tell who was responsible, she fell silent, admonished suitably.

Milla finished, their was silence and she sat down, her head bowed.

No one seemed to be overly keen on commenting and Steve waited, predicting the inevitable. Eventually one of the groups officers, one of those horrendously praiseful people who could find a nice thing to say about Auschwitz if he put his mind to it, offered some hastily thought out compliments. By the sound of his words he would have found it easier to praise the death camp. Steve was happy with this however, he knew (as did Milla) that this person believed Tom Clancy to be a literary genius, and so considered his literary opinions on par with audience members of Trisha.

The other nice and meaningfulls added some words, then the fuckwit fan-fictionalists tried to say something constructive. The talentless superiororists tried to be wittily belittling in their usual inept, harmless manner. Then it was the titwitches turn.

Oh they were scathing, offering such a barrage of abuse they had to have rehearsed it, in turns criticising every element of the story, until between them they had pretty much disemboweled it. That made it Steve's turn.

'I don't think,'� he began, 'I've heard more inept, desperate twaddle in my life.'�

The titwitches nodded in happy agreement, they hadn't clicked. Milla looked to her feet.

'Every single one of you lot, Pinky, Perky, Porky and Pathetic, have to be the most useless lot of amateurs I've ever heard.'�

This stopped their giggling. Milla looked up curiously.

'You've just been presented with a piece that not only urinates on everything else heard here from an Olympian height. Of course you all realise that, which is why you've attempting to savage it, pecking like a waddle of mother hens. Each and every piece I've heard here that hasn't been by her is about good enough to go on a webpage, or possibly Writers Magazine if you're really desperate. To hear the authors of those travesties dare to criticise the story I've just heard, is like listening to Michael Moore talking down to George Orwell. Enjoy spouting your bollocks here, because its the only place people will listen to them.'�

Rant over he sat back. They ripped into him of course, furiously. But it was worth it because a week later Milla quit that group and left the hens to their own devices.

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