“Kinky Advent Passes?” Jake read with a raised eyebrow. “You’re the one who’s always telling me I’m too ‘vanilla,’” I said, rolling my eyes. I always hated how everyone lorded their sexual prowess over me. So, I wasn’t a slut in college, big deal! “Here’s your chance to dip my toes in the kinky waters. You fill out what you want me to do and fill the advent calendar, and I’ll open one a day for the twelve days leading up...

Chapter One “What is it, honey?” my father asked, and the hue of my cheek went from pink to red. “N-nothing, Daddy,” I said and hurried back to my room. He caught me spying on him in the living room—err, not really spying, but watching him while I thought. “You sure?” he called after me, but I was near a sprint now back to my room. “Yeah, nothing!” I said as I closed my door. My heart raced from the adrenaline dump of wha...

I was still catching my breath when the pounding returned to the door and made me jump before my mom’s harsh screams began again. “What the fuck are you doing in there, Dan?! You have no business being in my daughter’s room for this long! Come out here now and face me like a man, you fucking coward! If you want to walk out of me—fine! I’ll take the house and all the money, everything! You’ll be begging to come back to me!...

Chapter One I have to be quiet tonight. Not because Daddy’s listening—Daddy always listens—but because Mother is home too. Ooof! I knew she was home because I could hear her yelling even from my bedroom on the second floor, with my door closed, and music playing. That woman needs to get laid… Too bad my mom has the personality of skunk and the sex appeal of a porcupine. I know my dad isn’t fucking her now and I could imag...

I could barely focus on school. The pull between anxiety and euphoria was beyond real. I had fantasies about when I returned home and my daddy lifting me up onto the kitchen counter and fucking me like the horny slut that I was. But then I had the much more realistic fear that I would come home to another lecture about how last night I was wrong and how I shouldn’t think about it or masturbate to it anymore. No matter how...

Chapter One I sat on the floor of my bedroom in front of my mirror. It was the morning and the first day of November. Outside, the autumn leaves were wet from last night’s storm and soon, neighbors would begin replacing their Halloween decorations with Thanksgiving. There was a clatter from the kitchen. My mother was home from her overnight shift. I woke in awoke in my bed this morning, both sore and confused. As soon as...

Nick Nick didn’t know how much more he could take. He sat there in a daze as the grown-ups talked. That’s how he felt, like a child sitting at the grown-ups’ table. Only he didn’t belong to anyone. He didn’t have a biological mother because she ran away. He didn’t have a stepmother because he had ruined that relationship over the past week. And now he wished he didn’t have a father. He sat at the hotel kitchen table in a...

I tiptoed into my parents’ room. It was the middle of the night, and if my Mom woke, she’d send me back to my room. If my Daddy caught me, he’d sigh, as he always did and reluctantly wave me in. I know I’m a Daddy’s spoiled girl, and so does he. I knew it was strange to do so at my age, but I still crawled into bed with my parents sometimes when I had nightmares. At 18 years old, I would be mortified if it got out in my h...

Chapter One Maggie The drive home was a quiet one. They listened to the radio mostly, but occasionally spoke to each other as Nick drove the three-and-a-half-hour trip back to Atlanta. They both spent their time contemplating life when they returned from vacation, but more importantly, what the future would look like now that the two of them had come so close in body and mind. Nick, being a 19-year-old boy, was sure to se...

Maggie The following morning, Maggie was woken up by more of Jack’s yelling into his cell phone. She flinched and blinked stressfully until she realized he was on the other side of the room. Apparently, his friend in Michigan was attempting to take sole ownership of the gyms that were in Michigan, and Jack was having none of it. He said he was going to Michigan that morning to “end this friendship and end Adam.” Maggie ha...

Chapter One Maggie “I can’t believe how warm the water is,” Maggie said. “Well, that’s Florida, babe. When you get this much sun and heat all the time, you get warm water,” her husband, Jack, said. Jack wore his sunglasses and carried a can of beer in his hand as he waded into the water. Maggie had bought a black one-piece bathing suit that morning before they all went down to the beach. She wore that instead of the slend...

Chapter One Maggie hated herself at that moment. So much so that in her thoughts, when she cursed herself, she called herself by her given name of ‘Margaret’ instead of what she insisted everyone else calls her, Maggie. She lay there with tears swelling in her eyes, but refused to allow one teardrop to fall down her cheek. You’re so stupid, Margaret. You will not cry. Not in front of your stepson. You’re a grown woman, an...

“Go ahead and set that there, my dear,” Nikki instructed. My dear… I thought as I placed the grocery bag of chips on the kitchen counter. Everything about this visit to my field training officer’s house felt off, but now it felt very wrong. “Okay,” I said and began to empty the bags of chips and bottles of soda from the paper grocery bags. I had already marveled at her impressive whiskey bar in her living room on my way i...

“Oh, my God, Bro, you gotta be lying,” Erin laughed. She had been laughing since I began telling my embarrassing story. I knew she’d get a kick out of it. We had been friends for far too long for us not to know each other’s sense of humor. Any story that involved me humiliating myself was right up her alley. “I’m totally serious. You think I’d make this up?” I said, shaking my head. Erin and I sat next to each other on ou...

“Just roll the dice!” Alice said, shoving my shoulder. “No way!” I said, clutching the dice to my cleavage, “This is how horror movies start!” “Tonya, what horror movies start with a freaking board game?!” Mike yelled from the other side of the coffee table. “The kind where four college kids break into an abandoned house in the woods, find an old chest that has an old-looking board game, and open it see that not only does...