Monday February 14, 2011. 5:51 PM. Verna stared at the screen until the next minute rolled, then set her Blackberry down on the table beside her. What was it that Dean Sheridan had said – five o’clock, five-thirty at the latest? Despite the date, she hadn’t expected their dinner to be anything more than professional – the Dean was a pleasant enough companion for a woman of Verna’s age even if he had ‘gone to seed’ as her...

Sunlight peeked through a hole in the canvas above her, and try as she might Alicia couldn’t turn away to avoid it. The strange woman behind her snored loudly, and she finally had to admit that she wasn’t getting back to sleep. The morning air whistled in through the seams in the tent, and she shivered under her blanket. Her second night here, and she was still shocked by how cold the badlands could be. She’d found hersel...

Sherrie took her seat, crossing her legs. This was new territory for her, and she wanted to ensure she was making the best impression. She’d gone for the ripped jeans over the fishnets, a loose-fitting IME T-shirt instead of the bodice that gave her the illusion of curves. She’d tied back her mane of strawberry blonde curls. The final look was… approachable, just another person on the street. And then she decided she had...

Bertie tugged for the third time at his necktie, then finally unwound it and started over. The motions of a Windsor knot still came clumsily to him, but it wouldn’t do for the new Assistant Manager to look sloppy. No matter how many attempts it took, he was going to look the part. It would just take some getting used to. “Bertie! Can I have one of these?” The refrigerator door blocked most of her from view, but a shock of...

“Miss Conti, please see me after class.” The message delivered, Mr. Desaulniers returned to the seat at his desk as the bell rang. As if a cord had been cut, twenty-seven twelfth graders leapt to their feet, reaching for their coats and their phones, already making plans for what little remained of the afternoon. The twenty-eighth student sat frozen in her seat. Behind her, Mona Abdullah whispered, “Ooh, Mika’s in trouble...

Marianne stood at the window, naked but for the sheet wrapped around her torso, and watched her husband and his friends shoot the breeze beside their pickup trucks in the driveway below. She took another draw on her cigarette. Usually the nicotine helped to calm her in moments like this, but she was still angry, still unsatisfied by her last little act of rebellion. “Shit, is he home already?” The flabby man in her bed sh...

The road before her was clear, the finish line almost close enough to touch. She floored the accelerator, the vehicle kicking up clouds of dirt and grit that blinded whatever drivers were still on her tail. She could almost taste sweet victory. Suddenly, everything went still. Dust particles hung in the air. An eerie silence came over her. A small round object was beginning to emerge from the cloud behind her, but it was...

Devin Kilroy hummed as he tended to the Zen garden on his desk. The shifting of the grains beneath his hand helped calm him, the fine movements needed to maintain the patterns he wove. He took a moment between every appointment to trace a few lines in the sand to de-stress. The Director of Human Resources had to be the calm, rational one in a time of conflict. A red light lit up on the telephone in front of him, and Devin...

"Miss Alice took a last heady sniff of the buttercups beneath the window of her former office. Over time her various gardeners had tried to tear them out – poisonous, they’d told her, and a weed to boot – but the flowers would not yield so easily to their efforts. Season after season they would return, their presence a bright yellow sign of unbowed resilience. Miss Alice could respect that. It would be their final season....

“So, when am I going to see you get spanked?” Bertie nearly spat seltzer into his beard. “I beg your pardon?” Leanne smiled politely, as if she’d asked for nothing more than the time. She took another swig of her beer, tapping the bottle on the kitchen table. “You tell me that my sister spanks you at home, and I believe you. But as it stands, I’ve only seen Rachel getting her butt smacked, and you’ve seen me take it a bun...