Mike and Susan’s hometown had been devastated by the recession. Their community’s major industry, a manufacturing plant that had been the local economy’s backbone for decades, simply couldn’t survive the massive financial downturn. Then a wave of spring tornadoes had finished off what few businesses remained. Unemployment soared. Mike and Susan struggled over their budget, and things were pretty obvious. They looked at ea...

My current live-in girlfriend, Cara, and I were sitting down to an intimate Friday evening candlelight dinner, which we then planned to develop into a romantic candlelit evening in our bed. We had just made a major purchase which had been delivered that morning, a spectacular reproduction mahogany four poster Victorian bed. We had every intention of inaugurating it tonight. Cara is about my age, 40 something, around 5’5”...

Doug and Paige worked in the same industry, for two different companies, not really competitors, for the first was a small business, and the second was one of the largest companies in the field. They met at what Doug anticipated to be a mundane briefing. Little did he know that Paige had already scouted him out, and before the first chart had graced the screen she ambushed him with an introduction by a mutual friend servi...