It started as my challenge in the park: Outlast twenty moves, win twenty dollars. Her husband accepted. It seemed they were out for dinner; begrudgingly, she held his suit jacket. I initially took her flirtatious glances as disinterest in chess. But then she suggested a move with a nod and I knew her strategies transcended the game. I was right. The first time we fucked, she shoved her ring in my cunt then licked my essen...

She asks to see his palm. He considers her for a moment then upturns his right hand and places it against her naked belly, still glistening with a sheen of sweat. He had first noticed her in the university bookstore. She didn’t strike him as a student. She wasn’t. Her voice had been carrying as if it had wings, bouncing over the rows and rows of books. It wasn’t a shrill voice, nor was it loud, just powerful and forward....

I am here because I choose to be here. I am where I want to be. It is not by any force other than my own free will that the actions dictating my state are what they are. I do not believe in a singular event or circumstance taking on weight so dense that it changes the course of one’s path. Call it destiny, call it fate. It is mere fact that any one person can enter your life with such impact that they forever remain just...