Strange, the way my brain grows hot, like a radio with fried wiring until all I can hear is you. I long to see you, too so I study your image for hours at a time, aiming to embed your visage into my retinas. Your features remain elusive as if I'm looking at you through a film of water. Behind my closed eyelids, your face wavers and blurs. Far easier to picture are the other women. I can't refrain from touching myself whil...

No one talked about it in our village. The preacher sure didn't bring it up in his sermons. But everyone knew it had been sixty-six years since the last offering. Another would need to be made this spring if we were to have a good harvest. And if none of the young men volunteered, our fields would be cursed. Crops would wither on the vine and rot in the soil. I'd turned nineteen that February. Unlike my older brothers, I...

I should have known something was up when Jade stopped by my house on a Wednesday afternoon. Peering out the living room window, I frowned in confusion. I even blinked several times, as if the girl would disappear from my front porch like a mirage. But she didn't. She stood there long enough for me to notice she wore a babydoll dress so short that I had no idea how she didn't flash everyone who crossed her path. Just as s...

I tried to start every shift calm and unhurried; I found it set the pace for the entire night. Even if a crisis occurred in the next twelve hours, I'd carry that initial composure with me. But on this particular evening in early November, I was running late through no fault of my own, and my tardiness prompted me to rush. Swearing under my breath, I broke into a sprint to reach the exterior door of the in-law suite. Path...

We sit facing each other, so close that our knees touch. Fen stares into my eyes. It's all I can do not to look away. The wooden chair beneath me only adds to my discomfort. It's so different from my lounger, which holds me like an embrace. But it's not a real embrace, is it, Reverie? And that's why you're here. The corner of Fen's mouth ticks upward; I can tell he's suppressing a smile as he watches me squirm. I break ey...

Gloria followed through and provided all the information I'd need to spend an evening with another woman. And she did it via text, because we were barely speaking. It was ridiculous, the way we tried to avoid each other. We ate our meals at different times. I'd begun spending most of my days in my former office, while Gloria holed herself up in the guest room. I assumed she was working, but of course, she didn't invite me...

In the week that followed, I didn't see Gloria. I figured she was spending time with her parents and extended family after her brother's funeral. Though we sent each other texts several times a day, hers revealed little about how she was feeling. And neither of us mentioned what we'd shared the night we first made love. Turning the page of the calendar hanging on my kitchen wall, I studied all the days that made up the mo...

Later that summer, Gloria quit her job at a clothing store in town so she could spend more time filming content for fans. I happily let her use my spare bedroom as a studio, and I was even happier to participate in a series of videos she created for foot fetishists. I had no idea so many men were turned on by feet. And Gloria's were beautiful, dainty with perfect arches. She indulged in routine pedicures, letting generous...

"Feel free to wipe that smile off your face," Gloria told me. I didn't wipe the smile off my face. Instead, it grew wider as I said, "Oh, how the tables have turned!" We stood in what I once considered my home office, back when I still had a job. It was just a small bonus room off the den, but it had a decent desk and a couple of bookcases. Though a narrow window provided a bit of natural illumination, Gloria had strategi...

"Absolutely not," I said, arms folded over my chest. "There's no way in hell I'm doing that." Gloria's mouth settled into a pout while her eyes turned pleading. "Come on, Peter, at least consider it! I've put a lot of thought into this." She held up a flesh-colored dildo with a mushroom head. "I made sure to buy a smaller size so it wouldn't be intimidating!" Despite myself, I studied the sex toy a little more closely. It...

True to her word, Gloria shared the proceeds from our video with me. I'd kept my expectations low, so I was surprised when she presented me with my half. "You made twice this much? From one video?" I asked. "I gained a lot of new subscribers, too!" she said while lingering over a glass of wine at my kitchen table. She'd requested poached salmon with fresh dill for dinner, and I'd made sure the meal was ready by seven that...

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.