The city had changed in the few weeks since Frederick last saw her. Warmer now, alive again, yet he moved through it as though under water. Work had piled up, meetings blurred together, and every night he still found himself glancing at the doorway of whatever restaurant or hotel lobby he was in, half-expecting her to appear. He told himself it was over. That what happened between them was a fever—something that burned ho...

The message arrived on a Wednesday evening, just as Alison was undressing for a bath. Four words lit her screen. After hours. My office. No greeting. No signature. No need. She sat on the edge of her bed, towel sliding loose around her hips, staring at the text with a pulse that suddenly wouldn’t steady. She should’ve ignored it—she knew she should. But the thought of Frederick alone in that vast office, waiting for her,...

“Well, that’s everything.” Manuel looked around at the piles of crates and furniture spread around the apartment. He would likely injure his back just opening all those boxes. “Will you stay for dinner? I’d offer you a room, but, well, no bed yet!” “It’s fine, Dad. We need to be going. We both have work tomorrow,” his daughter, Irene, said. “Yes, of course. Well, thank you to you both. I couldn’t have managed this on my o...

The text came late, almost midnight. I saw a blur of emojis and exclamation marks from Jess. Come to the Halloween party tomorrow night!! Everyone’s dressing up. No excuses. I almost ignored it. Work had been hell, my brain was fried, and I hadn’t planned to do anything except sleep. But something about the timing, the date, the restlessness under my skin made me pause. Halloween night. Maybe I needed to let loose. The ne...

The ballroom glittered with light, crystal chandeliers scattering gold across polished glass and perfectly tailored suits. Alison moved through the crowd like she owned it, the kind of woman who drew eyes without ever asking for them. Tonight, her dress was a shade between midnight and ink, clinging in ways that left little to the imagination, her lipstick a deliberate flash of red against the swirl of champagne flutes an...

I. It starts as a whisper not in my ear but under my ribs, a pulse like a black-winged bird beating against bone, a hunger with no tongue yet that still moans your name. Your scent lives in my skin long after you’ve left. Even the sheets smell like your hair, like sweat and smoke and sin. My hands keep moving when I’m alone, searching for the shape of you like a thief in a dark room. II. Obsession is a fever, a cathedral...

The basement laundry room hummed with its steady, mechanical rhythm. Inside the washers, clothes were gently tumbled, while the dryers spun with a low, insistent thud. The sound bounced off the pale concrete walls, mingling with the faint echo of his own breathing. Fluorescent tubes overhead flickered in rhythm, casting a thin, blue-white glow that pooled over the rows of machines. The air carried the faint sweetness of d...

I met Richard the first time he came with his family to meet my cousin. It was an arranged introduction, the kind of meeting that should have settled into memory and disappeared. But Richard didn’t fold into the background the way everyone else did. He cut through the room like a low, steady rhythm: dusky skin, careless stubble, clothes that sat on him as if they had been made to know him. When he smiled, it was small and...

Sunday Obsession Merril sits among the congregation, pulse quickening, panties damp beneath her skirt. Reverend Elias stands at the pulpit, collar stark white, voice rolling like thunder. A bead of sweat glints on his upper lip, catching the church light. August heat presses heavy, box fans stirring it from pew to pew. His wife gets him every night. Why should she have him all to herself? Merril doesn’t need vows or forev...

August 30, 1782 - Paris I got into an argument today at the university. I defended the value of alchemy, which most of my peers view as a relic, surpassed by modern science. It may well be so. Yet I can't help but note a lot of them are also devout Christians. And what is God's creation if not a great alchemical work? What is the Creation of Man if not transmogrification, the transmutation of clay into living flesh? It is...

I see her every morning at the third stoplight. Canvas tote. Blue cardigan. Hair that falls across one eye. Not beautiful. Not ugly. Just a face that keeps returning. She bends once to pick up my bus card. “You’ll need it,” she says. Small voice. Kind. That tiny kindness lodges in my chest like a splinter. At home, the house is a thing that breathes wrong. My wife fills the rooms with polite anger. She wants things done....