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What We Own by Eileen Marie Toth
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A distant wind's picking up outside. I'm shivering, shivering, but I can't go yet because I'm about to give my key back to Albert who's downstairs and I need to get everything that's mine in this room, this one room that's his, before he really wakes up and shakes himself off and realizes I'm leaving, because I'm not feeling anything right now and that's the best time for me to do anything bold, rash, real. . .
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Late Night Business by Corey Mesler
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"Be careful," Kathy said, turning out her bedside lamp and turning away from her husband. Tom smiled ruefully. Kathy didn't love him anymore, he knew, but things could be worse. He figured her for a sticker, a woman who would be loyal because she had said she would, in a church, in front of family and friends, a long time ago. Their childlessness hurt her, he knew. It was too late. Everything was too late . . .
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Views Views Views by Karen Kasaba
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Now, watching you through layers of glass you seem caught in time, like a taxidermy bird. And smaller, like the pelican encased at the Museum, not the shocking fact of nature I faced on the dock. It was never about the way you looked—like a genius, like a madman—or the way you spoke in faux-profound Zen koans. It was about me moving through the darkness of a new self in a new town, and you were the one with a flashlight.
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hammer-Thing by G. L. Griffith
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Now Willie-Boy resembles one of those hunter dogs, a lab or spaniel, on all fours, nose buried to the earth, scent of something, digging frantically; only this is in reverse: to bury, not unearth; the sand flies behind him and against him; slashed by Yucca buccata, his arms stinging, the blood trailing; his hands are two rotating scoops that gouge the cold earth, chafing his delicate fingers; fingers that once played the piano so beautifully for Poor George; fingers than once formed him and caressed him like wet clay on the wheel; fingers that now claw the strange earth . . .
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Laid by Holly Farris
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It's the first Christmas we don't have a tree. Mama says, but I don't believe, that Chase is old enough to hunt for an orange in my stocking, play new trains awhile, before he lays in his baby crib, where he wiggles most times without much clothes like a pink fishing worm. She and J.B., that's her boyfriend, say they have a big holiday planned . . .
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In the Dream by Deirdre Day-MacLeod
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When I come home and my mother lifts the yellow dress I am naked beneath it and she tells me that this is the kind of thing bad girls do and she spanks me. I am someone who knows too much. At two when we bathed together I told her that her nipples were like doorbells. And I am precocious they say and I am precious they don't say and I am fragile and bad and shame burns a shadow on the street . . .
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Alarm by Josh Capps
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Soon, things were picking up above me. Rose finished a rush of words, topping it off with a shriek, and something got knocked over. One of her few pieces of furniture, maybe. There was a crash and more shouting. There was a familiar buckle in my stomach. I pushed on Shane, but he didn't budge. He was going deeper. Even his snoring seemed muffled. A door got slammed, and there were footsteps on the stairs outside my window. I saw a figure pass by . . .
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In the Dark by Martin Ott
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"So, you're saying if I stick my tongue in the outlet, this light bulb will glow?"
Jenny nodded, wondering how mad her dad would get if he knew they were alone together again . . .
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Performance Anxiety by Marjorie Carlson Davis
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She stops. Her head rests on smooth material. Her nose fills with a foreign, lemony scent. She looks up, backs away. This is not her father; it is some white-haired stranger in a dark suit. The man chuckles. Her father, two seats away, chuckles. "Here, Katie, I'm right here," he says. Katie runs to her father, crawls into his lap, and hides her head in his familiar odor. She is four years old, and this is her first embarrassing moment, her first conscious memory of a performance gone wrong . . .
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Risk Factors by Wes Grey
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With a sharp grip on my arm and another on the tendons between my neck and shoulder, Grisscoe steered me into a corner away from the action. "Look, bucko, you're either one of the Musketeers or you're not. No dabbling. You can go back to your suite and say goodbye to the inner circle, or you can partake in this." He spread his arm, palm extended, with a flourish that swept the room. My eyes locked on Larry-boy, leaning back on a leather sofa with his pants around his ankles and getting a blowjob from one of the call girls. "You only get to make this decision once," Grisscoe said. "Understand?"
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Notes on contributors
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