She waits silently for what's next. On her lover's command her husband had tied her wrists to the chandelier - leaving her with her feet just touching the carpet. Then he sits and watches as her lover, John, comes up behind her, slowly removes her dress, kisses her neck, ear lobes, unclips her bra, and squeezes her breasts with his strong hands. He rolls her nipples in his fingers and squeezes just to the point of pain. T...

A few weeks had passed since Dan had dropped Kelly off near her house. He’d thought about her, not every day but often enough. It would be an overstatement to say that he was enamored. He had no desire for a relationship in general, and certainly not with a married woman. And whatever this thing was between them, it wasn’t about romance. It was physical. Sex. Though something more than that, too. The relationship fed a pe...

The next Friday, Dan left the office early. He had to get to the dry cleaners before they closed to retrieve his tuxedo. He was attending a charity event being held at the Chicago Cultural Center and was supposed to meet some co-workers and clients there. After retrieving his tuxedo, he went home, showered, and got dressed, before calling for an Uber back down to the Loop. The consulting company Dan worked for was activel...

These are the stories of Kelly MacGuire. She was in her mid-thirties when Dan met her, had been married four years, and had one child, Evelyn, two years into the marriage. She used to work as a consultant to the computer industry for the Chicago office of a major consultancy, where she met her husband, Mike. However, after Evelyn was born, she never went back to work full-time. She did, however, remain working on a contra...

Wedding time. Not Dan's, of course, but that of Marc Chapman's sister, Belinda. Dan and Marc had gone to college together, and he had gotten to know the Chapman family well during the summer months. Though Dan and Marc did not know each other in high school, they did grow up in nearby towns; as such, they saw each other frequently when they were home from school. The actual ceremony was to be held in a Catholic church in...

Dan sat at a broad, round table a few steps from the lobby bar, a vodka-and-soda set before him. Perspiration beaded the sides of the tumbler and soaked the napkin beneath it. The ice was almost melted, yet the glass was full. Next to it was Dan's iPhone, earbuds tucked into his ears. "I understand that, John. That was exactly the point I raised yesterday morning before you told me to hop on a plane and come out here. The...

The incessant ringing of his iPhone pulled Dan from a restless slumber. Eyes still closed, warding off the light that filtered through the shades, he clumsily felt around the bedside table until his fingers closed around the device. "What?" he managed to grumble, his mouth parched from last night's Christmas celebration. "Dude, are you up? I've been trying to call you all morning.” Steve. "What…what are you talking about?...

The engine ticked lightly, rhythmically, having only recently completed a twenty-mile journey. Rain dripped from the frame of the car, from the edges of its bumpers. The windows were blurred, save for the two arches where the wipers had recently swept drops from the tempered glass. The car didn't belong there. Not in that parking lot. Not in that town. The rain having passed, the titanium gloss of the newly acquired Merce...

Dan spent last weekend up at his parents' house in the suburbs. It was one of those dead weekends. Many of his friends were out of town, working, or too tired to go out. On Friday before he left, he called Steve Morgan's cell phone again in one last-ditch effort to try to get something going but was greeted only by voicemail. He hung up without leaving a message, threw some clothes in a backpack, and drove up to his paren...

One Saturday afternoon in September 2021, Dan was lying on his couch watching college football when his phone rang. He checked the caller ID; Scott, a friend of his from work was on the other end, and he hit the button to answer the phone. “Yo.” “What’s up? What are you doing?” Scott responded. "Just watching the end of the USC game. What are you doing?" "I've been in the office all day and need to meet Lauren for dinner...

My name is Zainab Habiba bin Khalifa al Makhtoom al Sura and my father’s family are distant relatives of the billionaire al Sura family. When I was eighteen, I was selected by Walid al Sura of the main branch of the family to be his fourth and youngest wife. He was forty-seven at the time, nearly thirty years my senior. Just before the wedding, I had a chance encounter with a stranger in the First Class lounge at the inte...