Month: August 2021

Ziri pushed back the screen door and clomped onto the front porch. She asked, “What’s a nudist’s biggest problem?” Eldon could tell that she already had an answer, so he said, “People pointing and laughing.” Tess, rocking slowly on the porch swing, said, “Butt crack sunburn.” Arch didn’t look up from his phone. “Society’s laws.” As always from him, relevant […]

Sean switched the TV set off and sat there in the dimming light, not concentrating on much of anything. The one-bedroom beach condo on the ocean he’d retreated to a week previously had once seemed compact and cozy. Now it felt claustrophobic and stifling. He stood and shuffled over to the glass door out onto the balcony overlooking Crescent Beach. […]

The pandemic took a toll on my love life. For the last couple years, I thought I’d found the guy that I was going to marry. Ross was tall, handsome, fun loving, had a great sense of humor, and given that he seemed madly in love with me, clearly had good taste in women. He was also amazing in bed.

Seeing the videos and reading about the fires in California, Oregon and Washington this summer reminded me of the summer of ’06 when I spent time backpacking in all three states. As I remembered my time there, I wondered how things have changed in the last decade and a half….

Terra Underwood started working at Tech Co. in January. The call back was the best Christmas and New Year’s gift combined she could have ever imagined. Her first day was a whirlwind. She got her desk, quota and supplies within the first twenty minutes and was set to work with little preamble.

“Oh, and one other thing—I know you’re all over 18. Most of you are on summer break from college. Others, I don’t know, working some 9 to 5. You feel like real adults—but while you are here, there is absolutely no sneaking out past hours!” Camren rose from her bunk. The moonlight poured through a four paned window, adding a […]

We spill out of the club in a wash of laughter and Samara stumbles across the parking lot in her red heels, a drunken African goddess. Rekha grabs a fistful of her dreadlocks, wrenches her head back, licks her ebony face and playfully slaps her ass. Pounding dance music, acrid cigarette smoke and the clamor of voices cling to us […]

The seven of had made a pact and come hell or highwater they were going to through with it. They’d talked about it over dinner at Famous’ Steakhouse. They’d dressed to the nine’s for the occasion, the guys in suits and blazers, ties and vests, the girls in evening formalwear, tight dresses and elegant blouses, bared backs and swept-up, teased […]

Autumn was Amy’s favorite time of year with Halloween being her favorite night. She loved the idea of putting on a costume and becoming someone else, if only for a night. Amy was well aware that she is considered a plain girl; genetics had not been kind to her. She had inherited what she considers her family’s worst traits: dull […]

I have been going to college for some time now. I’m a young woman who comes from Mexico. I am kind of new to America. It’s alright out here. I don’t mind. The weather bothers me sometimes, though. It makes you want to come up with ways to keep warm. My name is Sierra Caliente. My last name means heat. […]