Fiction

 

 

Shampoo
by Jim Story

It was the closet that turned things around.

After his wife left, what Freddie Prendergast regretted most was the $230 collect call from Phoenix to their old apartment in Brooklyn. He'd accepted the call because she promised to reimburse him and besides, her sultry tone had triggered libidinous memories.  Read Story

 

The Lucidity of Sunlight
by Justin Phillips

I stopped lighting candles and turned to look at her when I realized that we were already the center of our own flickering little galaxy. Her eyes gleamed like emerald stars as she said: "I don't ever want to leave this room." And I said: "We never will, I promise. We'll stay together here till the stars have long ago collapsed to cinders," as I crossed over to the silk sheets and lay at the foot of the bed. The lilac fumes of the candles were mixing with the scent of our sated bodies and to me this sweet hybrid smell was the unmistakable signature of our love. I wanted to distill it and give it to the world as a panacea in little green bottles like eyes labeled: Amor Aeturnus. Then she said: "You shouldn't promise what you know isn't to be," as her fingers danced like a spider along the seam of my back, "that's how you got into trouble before."  Read Story