Half an hour later, with a couple of glasses of wine in him and a beer-and-a-half in me, we both loosened up a bit. The two of us had sat at my kitchen table–the dining room table hadn’t been delivered yet–talking about the kind of nonsense any two guys having dinner together might: sports, the economy, the vagaries of middle age, and all the other topics that exist mostly to fill unwanted silences, before eventually circ...

Dedicated to A. Wherever you are now, I hope life has brought you only joy and love. === I puttered around, unpacking my kitchen, but my mind wasn’t on locating the box with the cast-iron skillet or which cabinet the spices should go in. Nor was it occupied by the subject that had taken up most of my waking hours for the past six months, namely the end of my marriage. No, it kept returning, again and again, to the man re-...

I didn’t find Gail there, in the room where our marriage had ended. Oh, it limped along for a little while after that–her desperate pleas to reconcile and the various legal nonsense kept it on life support for months–but there was no marriage there anymore. For a time, we lived as two roommates, albeit roommates who occasionally shared a bed for a quick hatefuck, but that’s not a marriage, is it? I took a quick peek insid...

I used to love our old house. Of course, that was back when it was “our” old house, when there was still an “us” to have a house together. Back before Gail had cheated, back before I’d divorced her, back before our lawyers wrangled over who got what. Months after the divorce, “our” house remained the sole shared marital asset, but not for too much longer. If she hadn’t slept with her co-worker, I’d have called the settlem...

There are three things you need to know about Ariel, my wife. First, she’s gorgeous. I mean, she might not be to everyone’s taste, but she is to mine. Ari is an absolute shortstack of a woman. She’s short even for a Filipina at a smidge under five feet (I’m sure she’ll yell, “Four-eleven-and-a-half, Kyle! Round up!” when she reads this), with the missing height apparently deposited in some truly magnificent curves. Add to...

The inevitable never came. After what felt like hours but was probably closer to a minute, I unclenched just a bit and opened one eye. The bright light was still there; it hadn’t been a flash after all. Trying to locate the source, I peered over my shoulder and found the light at the end of the dock, which had hung overhead as we made love, had flared back to life. Sitting up, I looked back at the house, then towards the...

Everyone screamed. Some screamed louder or longer than others, but we all cried out. Eventually, only a few sounds remained: Heather’s keening wail in the kitchen, Mari’s sobs, Tyler’s stream of profanities, and Lakshmi’s renewed, desolate moans. The heartbeat pounding in my ears threatened to drown them all out. Kyle and Blake had bolted from the room to check on their significant others, knocking over a couple of smalle...

We woke a little late the next morning; almost everyone did. Shy, awkward smiles all around were the order of the day as we made our way downstairs and were later joined by the previous night’s foursome. Shmi had started working on breakfast and seemed to be in a better mood. Ty had gone out back; I heard the ping of an aluminum bat hitting a ball every so often. Kyle and Blake set the table that morning while I relaxed,...

Marissa and I arrived late, just as we always did. To my regular annoyance, and despite my best efforts, Mari couldn't seem to get anywhere on schedule. I thought even our wedding day would be delayed until she showed up right on time with a smile that gently mocked, “told you I’d make it.” This wasn’t our wedding, though; this was a vacation. Specifically, a Labor Day weekend spent at our friend’s lake house, or, more ac...

Linh wanted to give raceplay a try. Just another tool for when she wanted to indulge her humiliation kink, right? Yeah, sure. I love my wife, and I wanted to accommodate her. Almost immediately, though, I got tongue-tied, sounding like a goody-two-shoes trying their first curse words. Now, not only did I feel discomfort from the taboo vulgarities, but public-speaking nightmares bounced in my head. I was even naked! She tr...

I didn’t get any work done that day, nor did I sleep well that night. The following day was better, but by Saturday evening, I realized that I’d had no visitors, and I began to worry. I’d expected someone to come and try to talk me out of exposing Ella’s secret and, in turn, the community’s role in keeping it. That didn’t happen. No one came to talk to me about this or anything else. I thought about reaching out to someon...

“What?” I could barely believe my ears. Bob's revelation stunned me; he was not only complicit in hiding Ella's secrets, but he had convinced our neighbors, too? Bob nodded. “Not all of them. Some of them had already decided to… well, to do nothing, I suppose. Some of them just wanted to mind their own business. Others, like Mary Taylor, had their own reasons, and if their spouses weren’t already of the same mind, they mo...

I stood in front of the office building for almost an hour before he came out. Once, I had wronged him and ruined his life. Now, another had done likewise to me, in the same manner, and almost exactly twelve years apart. I don’t believe in karma, but a primitive part of my brain, the same one that made my ancestors ascribe noises in the dark to monsters and lightning among the clouds to gods, couldn’t help but link his fa...

Cassandra was ready on time, dressed in a blood-red choker, black minidress, biker jacket, and a pair of heavy boots with enough buckles, studs, and zippers to make a Cenobite proud. Her jet-black hair was hanging loose down her back, and red lipstick and cat-eye mascara with an eye of Horus accent finished the look. She gave me a little peck on the cheek as she greeted me, and we were on our way. The party was bigger tha...

My ex-wife was a lying, cheating, gold-digging slut. Some might say that statement lacks nuance. That people are complex. They have desires, dreams, histories, motives, loves and hates. There are reasons that people do the things they do, and reducing them to a short phrase is, well, reductive. And that’s all true. Kim was a person as complex as you or I, with her own wants and needs, with a history that informed who she...