It took me a week to edit the footage into a twenty-minute film I was happy with. The so-called easy-to-use software was not. On first viewing, the raw footage was a turn on, but repeated editing dulled the senses until I was just watching two people I knew fucking. I bet the only people who don’t watch porn for entertainment are the people who make it for a living. I invited Annabelle to my place for a meal and to debut...

I’ve started writing this twice before – third time lucky, I hope. I have no intention of sending this anywhere. I’m trying to write her out of my head. It’s been three weeks since we last met. I’ve blocked her calls and emails. Now I can close my eyes and not see her, not hear her, not want her. No, that last part is not true. That will take much longer. I know I’m not making sense, so I guess I should rewind. I met Anna...

Gina Thornton suspects her husband Howard is having an affair, but she is afraid to confront him because she fears the consequences. Dangerous artist Jack Mc Millian, has crashed into her life, but Gina can’t consummate her passion for him until she knows exactly what Howard has done. When Gina arrived home late that afternoon, guilt had got the better of her and she jumped in the bath and scrubbed herself as if she could...

Gina Thornton rang the bell and knocked on the door for the third and final time. This was her last call on her first day of community volunteering, and she was not sure if there would be a second day. With both kids at university, Gina thought it would be a wonderful opportunity to get back into the marquee rental business she started with her husband Howard twenty-five years ago. The business was her idea when she disco...

You’ve seen those adverts offering the chance to discover your ancestry by providing a DNA sample for analysis. By the time you’ve filled in your details, they’ve upsold you with a load of extras you don’t need. The kit comes through the post next week. You do the test, post it back, and a month later you get the results and discover you are 0.004% related to someone in Papua, New Guinea. Then a week after, you receive an...

There’s a stereotype in England that Northerners are unfriendly to Southerners, and Yorkshiremen are unfriendly to anyone not from Yorkshire. I don’t know if it is true for the menfolk, but it is definitely not the case for their women, if the hospitality I received last year is anything to go by. I should say something about myself first. I’m Brian Wells, just knocking sixty and owner of a carpet cleaning business, Docto...

“Thank you for agreeing to help me with this, Victoria. I don't think I could do it by myself, but I guess it's time.” “You don't need to apologise for anything, Frank. I know it's difficult, and it's only been two weeks since Jessica… well, it's not been a long time. I'm glad to help.” Victoria took Frank's hand as they entered the bedroom. It had been the master bedroom, but as her cancer got worse, Jessica insisted Fra...

Breaking up with a knockout girlfriend is not the typical way to start the sexual adventure of a lifetime, but I’m happy to say it was for me. If Chantelle hadn’t dumped me, I would never have met Marjorie and Edith. Now, I know what you are thinking from the names alone. Yes, Chantelle was twenty-nine, slim, attractive and high maintenance, and Marjorie and Edith could not have had ten years between them before they were...

My village pub hosts a quiz every Wednesday evening. In the winter, only a dozen locals turn out, but summer numbers are swollen by campers from the nearby country park and other tourists. We’d moved to the village from London a few years ago. Most locals welcomed us, being incomers themselves. The exceptions were a few die-hards who resented change. Their ringleader Brynn, my pub quiz nemesis, was perched on his usual se...

I got more than I bargained for at my local car boot sale. As I wandered the aisles of unwanted household items, looking at kitchen utensils for my two student flats, a young woman put a set of almost new saucepans on a tarpaulin in front of her car. She knelt to organise her display more attractively and did so in a way she was not intending. Her black shoulder-length hair hung forward, obscuring her face as she rearrang...

I reread the last letter and put it on the top of the pile. Twenty-two love letters written to my father over thirty years ago by a woman who was not my mother. They started friendly, a bit formal even, in the early days of their illicit relationship. But after he’d fucked her, they were full of her passion for him, then later her worry for the child he’d made her pregnant with, and finally her despair when he abandoned h...

Rain rattled against the window like rice on a drum skin, and the house groaned as the wind wheezed through gaps around the old doors. Emily tried again to convince herself she was not scared; the old Emily would not have been, but the old Emily had gone and the new one was stumbling in the dark. This weekend was supposed to be another step on her road to recovery, but she’d fallen at the first hurdle. She’d gone to bed e...