Sunday morning. I woke beside Maggie in her bed, in her little house, and let my eyes wander over the peeling wallpaper and cracked plaster. Then I rolled towards her, fitting myself against the curve of her back. My hand rested on her thigh, soaking in her warmth, and my face was buried in her hair, soft and faintly scented. We might have stayed like that forever, but without any warning, I sneezed. She jolted awake, bli...

The docks were silent for the weekend. That meant I had two days free from work. When the alarm sounded at five yesterday, I leaned over Maggie and murmured my invitation for a day out together. Even though I was half asleep, the pleasure in her smile was unmistakable and uplifting. So, there we were on Saturday mid-morning, standing on the platform waiting for the train to carry us to Liverpool. Her olive-green dress was...

In the gathering gloom, I stood across the street from the Blossoms Hotel, every instinct screaming at me to turn back toward the safety of the ship. But carnal need had dragged me here, overriding common sense. The hotel was gaunt and filthy, wedged between Victorian terraces – the cramped homes of dockworkers and their families, the poor and despised. Further along the street, gaps opened like missing teeth where teneme...

It began a lifetime ago, early 1966. I’d just turned eighteen, still a child in the eyes of the law back then, but in truth, I’d become a man the day I stepped aboard my first ship in the summer of ’64. Two trains and a taxi had carried me to the quayside at Birkenhead, where my new home was being eased through the cuts, tugs nudging her towards the berth on West Float. When the accommodation ladder finally touched down,...

It was Granny who first told me I must never go anywhere near Dead Horse Cove. Sitting in his armchair by the log fire, Father nodded sagely in agreement. One day, when one of them retold it for the nth time, I spoke up: “Father, why?” “Well, my son, the cliffs are very unstable there. Once, a long time ago, a prime shire went over the edge. The ploughboy wasn’t very experienced and went too close to the cliff edge. He wa...

Dora vanishes into the station, bound for London, and I ease the car back down the approach road, her question still echoing in my mind. All the way back home my thoughts churn – yes or no, yes or no – without resolution. In the kitchen, a mug of coffee cooling between my hands, I remain undecided. Hoping a second opinion might help me, I step out of the cottage and wander along the lane, wondering if Nigel or Penny can h...

My bee stings had definitely been put on the back burner. Lying on Kat’s couch, all I could think about was the erotic display I just witnessed. Underneath the sheet covering me, I had swiftly regrown my own stinger. My hardness begged to be squeezed, and I did that as I replayed Kat’s performance in my mind. I already knew that Kat is intelligent, gorgeous, and kind, but now I also saw her as being highly sensual. Kat ha...

Standing beside my parked car, I gaze at the modest bungalow in front of me. Clad in brown sandstone blocks, it seems solid and reassuring. Within are two people I have travelled north to meet: man and wife. Actually, ‘meet’ is the wrong verb. I have come for her. Since leaving home, I have played out every possible scenario. They are strangers, really, faces I only know from photographs and characters from their text mes...

I picked up my phone, pressed my thumb on the sensor, and waited for the screen to unlock. My glance showed one text, six WhatsApp messages, and ten emails. I tapped open the text. "Hey, love," I called out, "I've had a message from Harry." She turned from the kitchen sink, drying her hands on a tea towel. "Harry, Laurence?" "Yeah. I haven't heard from him since Christmas, perhaps longer. He's inviting me to a class reuni...

Soul love The fiery red head was sleeping peacefully in their bed. Brown, bright eyes took in every inch of her naked body. Morning light made her woman look like she was on display Just for her. Her light brown hair, long and lush, teased her own bare skin as she looked on in wonder, A prize she’d slowly earned. Working hard to care for every need or want she’ll ever have. She was so lost in her thoughts of her that she...

I looked at the open card in my hands—the inside plain except for a few words scrawled in a childish hand: To Auntie Marj. Love from Stephen. She had kept them all. Every birthday, every hastily written note, each small token of childhood affection had been tucked away, saved with quiet care. And now, in the wake of her absence, she had left them to me—along with her written account of our hike and a cloth-bound bundle th...

It feels like a lifetime ago—I was twenty, carefree, and enjoying the quiet lull of summer after the intensity of finals. At the time, I was still a virgin—not by intention, but because the right girl had never crossed my path. Everyone else in this story has long since passed, and aside from Marj, no one ever knew what unfolded during those two remarkable days. When Auntie Marj died, she left a shoebox for me—sealed and...