By the time Sue reached the door, she was already soaked to the skin. The rain fell in sheets turning the unpaved parts of the driveway into a river. A huddled figure sat in a domed porter's chair by the door. Only his battered frock coat and crumpled hat were visible in the gloom, both were as decrepit as the chair itself. "Your first visit," he said as she entered the lobby. "Yes," Sue replied. "It was not a question,"...

Strange how pure chance can change a life. If I hadn't chosen to join John in Paris for Christmas, if I hadn't flown through Denver, if I hadn't gone to the bookstore to kill time, if I hadn't seen the book on display, if I hadn't bought a copy, if I hadn't been seated next to Solene on the plane. My husband, John, is a civil engineer. His company was working on a big project in Paris and for some reason it was necessary...

My father was the Earl's engine keeper before he was raised in the peerage, and we lived in the steam house which was separated from the main hall on account of the noise and smell and most importantly, the risk of an explosion. This danger never worried my father, after all, Stephenson himself had inspected the engine house and the boiler while visiting his lordship. But the fact that we lived in constant danger of being...

German sauna culture has a particular etiquette. Nudity is expected and usually required. Some people say this is because chemicals from the swimming pool might evaporate but it was the rule long before people worried about such things. Being nude in the company of strangers is supposed to be a liberating experience that breaks down barriers. It is not a sexual experience, or at least it isn't supposed to be and nothing o...

That Prague's old city was never torn down to be rebuilt in concrete was perhaps the only positive legacy of communist misrule. Not that this was intentional of course. Given the chance, the party would have razed St Nicholas Cathedral and everything around it. But the sputtering economy and Moscow's greedy hands in the Czech treasury had kept most of the party's ambitions in check. Lacking the funds needed to actually te...

It was not the purpose of the masqued ball to engage anonymously. Many of the guests had known each other from childhood and most would be instantly recognized by the rest of the company. The point of the masquerade was not to be anonymous but to be given license to behave as if one was anonymous, as if the social order was entirely dissolved. At the masquerade, king and commoner became commoner and king, and this provide...

"It's not like I am being paid to fuck" Lisa's Uber arrived for her before I had chance to respond. It's exactly like being paid to fuck, I had wanted to scream, What else do you call it? It was the same old argument. We had shared our two bed Mountain View rental for three years during which Lisa's career had taken off while I was barely managing to keep my head above water. Lisa spent her vacations in Barbados and Hawai...

If you are looking for a story about romantic sex in which the heroine has one breathless orgasm after another then pass on. This is not the tale for you are looking for. If you are looking to me to tell you to follow in my path, I certainly won't. I have spent far too much of my life telling other people how to live their lives by living them the way that I was living my own to make that mistake. I am not looking for you...

If you talked to my family, they would probably say that kink was the cause of the collapse of my first marriage. But that gets cause and effect back to front. I turned to kink after I realized my marriage wasn't working. The last straw was when our pastor told me it was my responsibility to make it work. It was like something just snapped inside. I had been telling myself the same thing for ten years and when I heard it...

The rules of the game are simple. The contestants are divided into two teams. Both teams perform on stage at the same time. Whichever team gets the most audience appreciation wins and gets to play the next round. Appreciation means 'money' which the audience throw onto whichever stage they find most entertaining. All the money from the audience goes into the pot. Half the pot is paid out to the winners of each round, the...

"Bastard!" I turned to see the plastic cup exploding on impact, spilling a vivid red stain on the wall's white. A clean shaven man in a Tuxedo gawped at the remains of the missile that had been intended for him. Finding the assailant did not take very long. She was out on the balcony muttering obscenities under her breath. The snow had driven the rest of the party back indoors but the crowds below were preparing to welcom...

[When I found that a journalist friend of mine had been to report on Iron Henge I was naturally anxious to read the story. After some persuasion she sent me the story spiked by her editor, followed a few weeks later by the (much longer) 'original draft'. Then when I mentioned that Lush was doing a fall equinox competition she sent me the 'extended edition' that follows. For obvious reasons, all names have been changed.] C...

I thumbed through the sheaf of contact prints to see if Eve had been playing attention in class. All the institute staff knew Eve, she was a well-known professional model with a resume and portfolio to match. The cover model for the latest Victoria's Secret catalog and more besides. Many models talk about moving from the front of the lens to the rear as their looks fade, few succeed. Giving Eve a place on the course had r...

"I am as embarrassed about this as you." Lisa looked up at the tangled mess hovering at eye level. Two eyes on stalks protruded from the gyrating white tentacles. "I don't believe this." Lisa said in astonishment. "Believe me, I know.", the hovering mass replied, "Not to put too fine a point on it, I am called into existence by your collective disbelief." "I thought it was meant to be faith," Lisa replied. It was all too...

I took another look at the instant message from Mark. "Bastard!" I muttered to myself under my breath. The queue for the wine bar shuffled forward as a middle aged couple were shown to a table. At this rate it would be half an hour before I could get a drink. Not that I particularly wanted to start drinking at two o'clock in the afternoon. But the choices in Terminal C were limited; McDonalds, Starbucks or the Wine Bar. I...