I led Gloria to the guest room at the other end of my single-story house. My bedroom was too personal a space, with my reading glasses on the nightstand and cum stains on the sheets. I'd left those stains while fantasizing about the young woman who now stood before me. In the lamplight, she was all business, setting aside her purse and then retrieving her phone. She also offered me the ridiculous black mask to cover my ey...

I knew Gloria was rotten. Oh yes, I understood that my neighbors' daughter, home from college for the summer, was using me to alleviate the boredom of our small town. Yet I kept letting her in when she knocked at the door uninvited. At first, the twenty-year-old was polite enough, quick to say "please" and "thank you" and to mind her manners. That first visit, she claimed she wanted to check on me and make sure I was doin...

When Donna and I caught the last city bus on that summer night, I was tipsy but nowhere near drunk. Steady in my high heels, I followed my roommate down the aisle, past the blue-collar workers coming off second shift. I wondered why Donna hadn't chosen to sit closer to the front. That was, until I spotted the man sitting alone about two-thirds of the way back. Behind him, the bus was empty. We sat directly across from him...

From your sugared tongue I hunger to be fed words far better left unsaid. On your decadent promises I will greedily dine but a second helping I'll decline, for a woman can sicken from a diet of desire. Alone at the table, I soon tire of being the cake you long to have and to eat. You find each forkful bittersweet. And while I'll always remain your preferred confection, your wife? Well, she's perfection.

Even after I'm permitted to remove my blindfold, the darkness remains absolute. This room is windowless and soundproof. The floor is covered with a thick padding that provides a cushion for my knees. A friend has invited me here so I can revel in what she calls "the room for unbridled sluts." She and her husband are deep into the BDSM scene, and they've specially designed this space on the lower level of their unassuming...

In the weeks that followed, Serena spent almost every night with me. We did little sleeping, often making love several times in the span of a few hours. I quickly grew exhausted. Clothes hung looser on my already thin frame. I also did a poor job of fulfilling my duties as associate pastor, for I was constantly distracted by memories of my first lover. They played in my mind like an endless pornographic movie reel. I coul...

That night, after I'd fulfilled all my obligations at the church, I returned home. Once again, the place was silent, devoid of Serena's presence. I vowed not to answer if she knocked at the door. The mere thought of her made me tremble with fury. Perhaps she realized she'd gone too far and would now leave me alone. I recited the Lord's Prayer while I got ready for bed; my conviction felt stronger than it had since I'd fir...

I let Serena stay. I let her into my bed. In the darkness of my room, we lay side by side. She was naked, while I kept on my briefs in a ridiculous attempt to prevent us from sinning any further. "You'll need to leave before sunrise," I said. "I can't risk any of the neighbors seeing you." "Of course." She withdrew her hand from beneath the covers so she could trail her fingers along my bare chest. "Now do you believe me...

After telling Edna I must have been confused about Serena, I quickly said goodbye and hung up the phone. I doubted the elderly woman would press the issue later. Outside, the rain had stopped, and daylight was beginning its persistent slide toward evening. In the bathroom, I stripped naked and stuffed my clothes in the hamper, out of sight. I made sure the shower spray was hot enough to pinken my skin. With a rough washcl...

I knocked twice on Edna's door, just as I always did when I visited. Since the elderly woman couldn't get around easily and used a walker, she'd given me a key to her house, and I usually let myself inside after alerting her to my arrival. But on that October afternoon in 1985, the door quickly swung open. A young woman I'd never seen before stood to greet me. I realized she must own the Buick Regal parked out front. "You...

I'd just locked up the store and was headed toward the stockroom when I heard Chuck call out to me. I could tell by the tone of his voice that he was pissed. Backtracking a few steps in the short hallway, I looked into his office. "Yeah, boss?" He was sitting at his desk, an invoice in his hand. His eyebrows lifted as he peered at me over his reading glasses. "You screwed up this order, Andrea. Big time." My heart felt li...

I enjoyed the quiet evenings at my local library. The place was a far better choice than hanging out at a bar, though I'd checked out a couple of those, too. Being recently divorced and with my daughter away at college, I found it difficult to adjust to the emptiness in my house. I hadn't lived alone since I turned eighteen, and I discovered I didn't much care for it. So instead of going straight home after work and drink...

Loneliness could do strange things to a person. In this hollow, the silence was interrupted only by birdsong and the bold creek that ran behind my house. I never dreamed I'd be a widow at fifty-two; if anything, I thought Henry would outlive me. Until the day the heart attack took him, he had the strength of an ox. My late husband had come from a well-to-do family, but he made sure we always lived within our means. I used...

"He's slick," the other women warn me. "Don't let him talk his way into your pants." For weeks, I manage to resist his charms. I steel myself against his honey-sweet flirtations. But when he finally catches me alone and at my most vulnerable, he doesn't say a word. In silence, his mouth seeks out mine. I make no protest as he fondles my nipples. His touch is a maddening tease. He grins while slipping a hand inside my pant...

It's been weeks, and my humiliation over Phil leaving me feels just as fresh as it did the moment he walked out of my apartment for the last time. I can't help but replay our final conversation in my head, when he gave me that tired line: It's not you, Annette. It's me. I'm full of self-loathing for missing him. No doubt he's moved on to some other woman already. But while my affection for the man has turned brittle, read...