It wasn’t unusual for Madison and him to share the bed.   His marriage to Amelia had ended in a bitter, messy feud fueled by screaming, slammed doors, and insults hurled alongside coffee cups and picture frames.  The court had sided with James and awarded him both full custody and a restraining order, citing Amelia’s history of verbal abuse and physical aggression.  Madison had only been nine at the time, and she’d had nightmar...

He’d asked about Little Red Riding Hood. It was the myth that inevitably came up when she mentioned her specialty. She rattled off the interpretations: obeying one’s parents; the dangers of the primeval forest; the wolf as stand-in for the sexual dangers that faced an adolescent girl. James laughed. She was three drinks in; he ordered her a fourth. It was nice to be able to talk to someone who was intelligent and interested, and who...

Sanneke DeJaegher knew the office building like the back of her hand; she’d worked there, once upon a time.  She’d helped run it, as the Director of Human Resources, before retiring to a more consultation-based role.  That experience as an executive director served her well now, two years later, as she strode through the line of glass doors and into the lobby, briefcase in hand and her pale cream suit tailored to razor-sha...

I went back the next morning. I had to; I needed those records. It had nothing to do with how everything had played itself through my head in echo that night, or how I’d lain awake long after cumming, wondering what would have happened ‘if’. If I’d come to the stairwell a few minutes earlier, or a few minutes later. If I had dared to go down another level. If I’d seen them. If they’d seen me. Regardle...

Once upon a time, a very naughty Miss Santa had two very eager elves to help take care of her package. Pictured from left to right, the Vanderbilt family: Sanneke DeJaegher, Jessica Vanderbilt, Jia Chen. Not pictured: Emily Menton (but you can see her stocking above the fireplace). Artwork courtesy of Dieleth.   Click image to display full-size....