In 2010, Emily Revard, age twenty-eight, received her Ph.D. in physics from a very good university in New York City.  She was among the few women at the university who earned a Ph.D. in physics that year. Ten years of hard work and near-poverty came to an end -- because she also was offered and accepted a job at that same university.   It was in her field of particle physics and with the salary of a grown-up. The girl fro...

"I, Margaret Williams, pledge to God, myself, my future husband, and my family that I will remain sexually pure until I am united in holy matrimony.” It was 1978 and seven girls and five boys took the pledge on a hot summer night in the basement of the Salvation Church in the small Kansas town of Arapaho. Maggie had just begun her senior year in Arapaho's only high school. Sue Parsons, her best friend, giggled and whisper...

Maggie's brother, Bob, learned he had cancer during his physical examination while retiring from the Army. He was forty-seven years old, a big, muscular, macho guy with a bluff manner and a confident air. Maggie was forty-two. Both had married young. Both were divorced, Maggie only recently from her preacher husband. She was working in a refugee camp in Thailand. As adults, their paths had rarely crossed and Maggie didn't...

"My daughter Rachel wants to come for a visit." It was morning and Maggie and Tim were seated at his kitchen table drinking coffee. Tim's Thai maid bustled around, cutting up a papaya and boiling rice for congee, the rice soup they both enjoyed. “No problem," Tim answered. “She's welcome to stay here.” “But I'm worried. She doesn't know the kind of life I lead. I am still married to her father.” Maggie nervously played wi...

Maggie's first thought on waking up in an unfamiliar room was, I've lost my clothes.   She turned over in the bed to see the man sleeping beside her, his back turned to her.  He had hair on his shoulders, curly black hair on his head, and a bulge around his waistline.  I remember that he's a lawyer from Boston and this was his first day in Thailand, but I've forgotten his name.     She was contemplating her situation when...

"How many men have you fucked?" Brian asked. They were laying on their backs, naked, in a large, luxurious bed in the Stanley Hotel in Nairobi, Kenya."That's a personal question, you impertinent twerp," answered Maggie tartly, but with a smile on her face."I'm interested in the sex life of a MILF." He kissed her on the cheek."Am I your surrogate mother?"Brian smiled back. "No, I've not yearned to fuck my mother - although...

Maggie's customers included the Christians of Faith (COF) organization in Omaha. She audited their books every three months, a job of three days for which they paid her one thousand dollars plus the cost of a modest hotel room. By the standards of the small town in Kansas where she lived with her husband, an evangelical preacher, that was good money.She was in Omaha working her way through the accounts one afternoon in 20...

Maggie woke up with the sun shining through the window. She was naked. So was Charles, lying beside her on his back. His large, languid penis and pendulous testicles reminded her of a description by Sylvia Plath: "turkey neck and gizzards". She got out of bed and looked out the window. The sun reflected off the gentle waves of the sea. The white sand and shale rock beach was empty; the water rushing through caves guarding...

Before Rory left her alone in a hotel room on Skiathos, he told her that he had a friend on the island of Skopelos."Actually, he's my boss. A professor of archaeology and a nice, gentle guy. I'll call him and see if he has time to show you around."Maggie was gushing tears -- her idyllic twenty-four hour love affair with Rory at an end. "I don't know," she wailed. "I'm sorry I'm crying. It's so silly. But what will he thin...

“Would you like to go to Greece?” The question broke Maggie out of her focus on the column of numbers on the computer screen in front of her. “Excuse me?” she asked, puzzled. Dorothy, the president of the Christian charity, had posed the question. “I’m serious,” she explained. “I’m organizing a tour of our major contributors to visit Greece this summer. I’m calling the tour ‘In the Steps of Saint Paul.’ I need an assistan...

Naked, Maggie stood in front of the floor length mirror in her bedroom. "Fifteen years," she said to herself. "Fifteen years ago today I graduated from high school. The class of 1969."She looked critically at herself. She was still slender and was more attractive than she had been in high school with character lines making an ordinary face interesting. Her breasts were small. Her nipples were no longer rosy red tips but w...