It was a warm sunny day in October. Sophie and I spent a perfect afternoon together, walking in the park, sitting by the river, talking about everything and nothing. We’d only been dating three months, and the excitement of being together was still fresh....
I had never been publicly humiliated by a girl until I met Rachel. And that night changed my life forever. When I was fresh out of college, I waited tables for a couple of years at a swanky central London club called Enricos. The place attracted some high...
Lucy slept late on Saturday morning and it wasn’t until after nine that she was awoken by knocking on her bedroom door. “Honey, are you up yet?” “No Dad,” she called out sleepily. The door opened, and his head appeared. “We’re off now sweetheart. Back tom...
When I was twenty-one, I worked as a waiter in an upmarket bar that often hosted bachelorette parties and had a contract with a couple of male strippers. I was just serving drinks of course, running table service, but the waiter’s uniform wasn’t that diff...
Miss Chastain’s office was a spacious room on the first floor, with windows on three sides overlooking the playing fields. The afternoon had become blisteringly hot, and she had the wooden blinds pulled down over the open windows. Four o’clock was the hou...
My wife is Thai, and before we came to settle permanently in the UK, we lived for a few years on the island of Ko Lanta, where she worked as a medic, in a traditional wooden house near the sea. When we had been married for six months, her younger sister K...
It was a bright, warm morning early in September, and the playing fields of St Mary’s sparkled in the autumn sunlight. In the distance, a class of girls was playing hockey. As we turned the corner of the main building, heading for Miss Chastaine’s room fo...
I Only a few of use knew the place. Behind the music room, past the tennis courts, then a snaking, furtive path under the apple trees, where the short grass of the sports fields gave way to untended meadow. To the far side of the school grounds, a hundred...
Friday morning. The store was quiet. A couple of people looking at kitchens. Furniture deserted. I was busy in beds, plumping the pillows when I heard a gentle cough. “Can I help you?” “I’m looking for a bed," she replied. “Queen size. Brass frame. For me...
I followed Martina into the living room of her small basement flat. "Take a seat," she said. "Be with you in mo." She flung her gym bag in the corner and disappeared though a bead curtain into the next room, apparently the bedroom. I caught a glimpse of...
The first time I noticed Martina, she was kneeling on a yoga mat waiting for class to begin. It was a small group, mostly middle-aged ladies, and she stood out straight away as the only other young person in the room. As I rolled out my mat, I noticed her...
