Fiction

There was a great deal of anticipation surrounding the arrival of the new junior-high teacher. Olivia Gibbs: first, because she was new and from the East, which automatically lent her cultural superiority in the eyes of Mosly's self-effacing citizenry; and, secondly, because, from her resume, it was clear Miss Gibbs had travelled widely and would…

The two men had not met in years. They had never really known one another, except by reputation and through mutual friends. Both had received important prizes and fellowships in recent years, and so they greeted one another now with a certain wariness and tentative respect. Arthur's new home was something of a showpiece, really…

Arthur isn't convinced his wife is going shopping. She rarely buys anything. It's months until Christmas, nowhere near his birthday, yet this is the third Saturday in a row she's gone. "Shopping," she says, buttoning up her blouse. A warm mist from her shower floats into their bedroom. "Just shopping." It's a good sign she's…

We used to drive around in the car at night, we didn't have anything else to do. We didn't like to be in our apartment. There weren't places we could sit and do things. If I read my homework on the bed, there wasn't anywhere for my mother to go. The sofa in the living…

Elizabeth's next-door neighbors were having a barbecue. Though Elizabeth and Henry had lived in the house since his retirement three years before, they had only once eaten dinner next door, and the neighbors had only once visited them. After Henry's car accident, the Newcombs had called several times, but when Henry returned, they again only…

She is sickened at all she knows: -about the many ways to make gray with watercolors, creeping up on it from yellow and blue and red with a lot of water or down from black or purple. And brown, brown can edge into gray too somehow. -about corruption in the unions, every union she can…

This is what Ernest whispers to her. "You ever had a man to go down on you? How you like me to be going down on you? How you like that? You like Ernest to eat you out? "You ever suck black cock? How you like suckin me off?" When Miss Foote calls on her,…

"Hi babe" Hidalgo always said. Then as always wordlessly we made love. I was brutal just short of ruining the sex. Then we would lie almost dead. "I've got to go!" I cried suddenly, pulling on my clothes, checking to see they were right-side-out, and running home to Algot who was sick. Hidalgo said he…

Mrs. Lovelady, in a morning-fresh white uniform, helped Lisa's mother-in-law, Mrs. Worthy, into the car. Lisa could only stand by and watch. The bucket seat was too low and dangerously tilted for Mrs. Worthy as she was now, and Lisa wished she had listened to David, and had come in his car instead of her…