"But don't you find it just a tad bit strange?" Cliff Clayton asked his wife, Susan. Even though they were sitting knee to knee on rickety kitchen chairs, they barely could see each other through the decorated and lit pine branches. Two bushy Christmas trees, enveloping the room in a strong, eerily light, were positioned in the small living room, in opposite...
"If you didn't have bad luck, you would have no luck at all." This is what Cassandra heard her whole life. Thirty years later, it still rang true. She was having one of those days, weeks, months. Walking out of the courtroom, Cassie knew that Jake would be mad. She had lost the case. He was going to be pissed. She threw her manila file in the trash. All o...
When Lenny and Johanna arrived at the party at around nine-thirty it was already in full swing. Lenny was not a party type but Johanna loved them. She had been invited to this one by her office manager, Tony Goodchild. He was a young guy, not particularly good looking but Johanna knew that he fancied her like mad. She had never given him any excuse to make...
It appeared to be the beginning of one of those rather disheartening days. Ilsa awoke leisurely, knowing she didn’t have to work later in the day, but felt rather empty when she reached to touch the bed where Richard’s warm body usually lay. Richard, as was his habit lately, had risen with the sun and headed for the office. Ilsa ran her fingers over his pil...
The last two periods at school were PE and I was damned if I was going to attend them. It's not that I'm allergic to exercise; it's just the boring inanity of having to do physical jerks each week just because the teacher likes doing them. I was so out of there. Donna and I slipped out of school and went home. By home, I mean that we both went to my place, m...
Weddings are strange events as they bring together groups of people who have little or nothing in common with each other to celebrate the joining together of a couple that even some of the guests may barely know. I have been to the weddings of cousins who I last met before puberty, where it has been so long since we last met that we didn’t recognise each ot...
A beautiful day is turning into a beautiful evening and Kevin, Paul and Winnie are driving around celebrating their recent birthdays. "Hey guys," begins Winnie, "Why don't we have a sleepover like we used to when we were kids?" Since Winnie had moved to another part of town, she didn't see her old friends as much as she would have liked, and so any opportu...
Freddie (Frederich) von Ewald, who'd recently won an international competition for best erotic story, let it slip during a radio interview that he worked as a dress designer in a studio apartment above his mother's flower shop in Anaheim Street, Long Beach, California. Soon he'd received almost 200 letters from women pleading with him to help them spice up...
I don't even remember how he brought up the topic. Here I was, just landed in Bangkok, on a taxi going sight-seeing. I had only about 6 hours in my layover, enough for a small trip around town. The taxi driver, Philip, started off by asking me if I wanted to go to some other attractions - a little farther. Maybe next time, I said. When I come with more tim...
I stared at the clock on my computer screen as it ticked away each laborious minute of the year-long day I was having. With the interview I had just completed still fresh in my head, I was desperately seeking the inspiration to put the information on paper, though failing miserably. "Finally!" I sighed as the clock marked noon. I suppose I could have left...