“Do one about a sex robot,” Marcye said from behind Mark’s chair. Startled, he felt a bit embarrassed at the single idiotic sentence on his laptop screen: “It was the best of fucks, it was the worst of fucks.” That was all he had come up with since lunch. Writer’s block. “It’s been done. Over and over. In literature, on TV, and in the movies. From all angles.” “So?” Marcye took a big sip of her strawberry-banana-chocolate...

“What’s mine is yours. Help yourself to anything. And, stay as long as you need to.” Dan gave his younger brother Kyle a manly hug, the kind where both men are holding a bottle of beer and being careful not to spill a drop. “As long as you want to,” Dan’s wife, Morgan, chimed in. “Dan, did you show Kyle where the clean towels are?” “No. And I will bet a month’s pay he doesn’t give a shit.” Morgan was about to disagree, bu...

Gary slouched low in the driver’s seat of his Tesla, eyes trained on Mister X’s jacked-up GMC pickup parked in Gary’s driveway, a block away. He felt like a private eye on a stakeout. He really needed a fancy camera with a long zoom lens. Instead, he had an Android phone. Just not the same vibe at all. Gotta have the gear to play the part. His mind starting to wander, Gary almost missed Mister X when he came out the front...

It was the night before Thanksgiving. Takeout pizza for dinner, the traditional cutthroat card games (Grandma was the big winner), and, finally, it was nearly midnight, Mom and Grandma were in bed, and it was just the two sisters in Jess’s old bedroom. “I missed you so much,” Brija sighed, pulling great-grandma’s antique quilt over both of them. Jess searched Brija’s eyes, a grave expression on her face. “Do you remember...

“Ooh! Pornography at the University Bookstore!” Startled, I nearly fumbled the copy of Penthouse Letters I had retrieved from the top tier of the magazine rack. A girl with a coy smile, beautiful green eyes, and curly deep-red hair was standing next to me. I pushed at my glasses. She looked extremely familiar. Had she been in one of my classes? “It’s not so bad,” I replied, struggling to keep my cool. Lame! Think! You can...

Corey was coasting through the last semester of his senior year at Durand High, thinking he might just make it all the way to graduation without anybody noticing him. But one morning, as he was at his locker, he felt a light tap on his shoulder. Turning around, he saw Daya Hasni smiling at him. She was a super-smart, very ambitious girl who seemed to be on every club and committee in the universe. “Corey Dietz? Follow me....

It was the summer between my first and second year at college. In June, my Mom came up with an idea that would let me make a little money, do a good deed, and get my lazy ass out of the house—a win-win for everybody. Her recently-divorced friend from church, Sharon, needed minor repairs on her old, boxy two-story house. Her husband had taken care of everything, and he was gone. So I called Sharon for directions, put some...

Janel carefully set down her mug of genmaicha in its accustomed spot on the bookshelf, between a well-worn copy of Delta of Venus inherited from her mother and an equally worn thesaurus. She had one more task before settling in for an evening of reviewing erotica submissions for Lush Stories: choose the night’s background music. Definitely a vinyl night. Sleet and falling leaves outside; tea and analog in the dim, cozy, c...