The Fair house, Shadyside, Pittsburgh – November 2025. Michael Fair was a successful oncologist at UPMC. His wife, Lynda, a former physician's assistant at his practice, had chosen to stay home. Ten years of marriage, eight years of hoping, and the second floor still stayed silent. They had painted the nursery soft yellow in 2022, hung a mobile of tiny planets because Michael was secretly a space nerd, then closed the doo...

It's the middle of August, and Gupta's cricket team is at the end of its tour, with the last game being played at Northampton County Cricket Ground. In June, he had introduced me to the players at their first game, informing them that I would be theirs if they performed well during the tour. Nineteen pairs of young, hungry eyes devoured my sexily clad body—promises of things to come. And I can't believe that after nearly...

By the Isar in Munich, Pt Two I tried to be nonchalant and look at his face a few times in between taking in his nipples and the tufts of hair in his pits and his pecs and stomach and navel and farther down. We were maybe two feet from each other and every detail of Niklas was clear in the high sun of the early afternoon. He had the tiniest blond hairs on his chest and biceps and stomach and even though he was pretty much...

In Puliyoorkurichi village in rural south India, the Christmas crib is never small. Every year the parish builds life-size figures out of fresh palm leaves and pongal grass: Joseph with a real beard, shepherds carrying actual lambs, and a Baby Jesus so delicate that mothers reach out to stroke its tiny fingers and forget to breathe. The work always begins on the first Sunday of Advent, and the only woman the parish trusts...

Lena tucked a strand of honey-brown hair behind her ear, shelving a stack of romance novels. She winced at the visual assault of tinsel, red bows, and twinkling lights covering every shelf of the small bookstore. The pristine holiday display clashed violently with the gray slush and gritty snow melting onto the mat from a dozen customers' boots—a mess she will have to take care of later. The bell above the door jingled, a...

My wife started the game a few years ago. We weren't going to make the big swinger club party for New Years Eve, so we made sure we attended a smaller house party on the week before Christmas. She got to talking with another woman about how to break the ice and meet new people, and suddenly she invented a new game. She put five types of wrapped hard candies in a bag, and each of the women chose one. She put the same five...

I parked at the end of the street 20 minutes early so I wouldn’t be late, hands sweating on the wheel as I tried to breathe steady. What the fuck am I doing? Who even am I? I almost texted to back out, but I wanted whatever came next, more than I wanted anything rational. At exactly 8 pm, I pulled up in front of his place and got out of my car, clutching my bag to my chest like it held the rest of my life. He opened the d...

Foreword I’m an old Frenchman who doesn’t have much time left to live because of several serious health problems. I've had no sexual ability for eight years, which doesn't bother my wife, who has stopped having any sexual desire since a long time ago. All I can do now is remember my youthful loves and relive them in my mind, which brings back good memories of a distant past. My first romantic adventure was a long time ago...