By Victoria Looseleaf

August 16, 1977

To my way of thinking, his stomach is distended, but he's rich, a titled Jewish Austrian Englishman and he wants to publish my first novel.

Thrust away, in, out, pant, pant. I excuse myself to go to the bathroom and pop a percodan. He doesn't miss me because my girlfriend is also in the borrowed Bel Air bed, sucking away at his gristled cock. → Read more

By Steven Kane

What Happened is, me and Mack and Johnny D. built this fort in the woods off Power Street. They were building this new jail-that's where we got the wood. One Sunday we went under the fence. But they had so much wood I bet they never noticed. I never heard about it anyway. → Read more

by Shane Cooper

It was about 6:30 pm when I noticed I was hungry again. I got out of the car and started walking around Venice Beach. After not a whole lot of luck finding an ATM, I noticed a college type guy heading down into an alley by Pick-n-Save, so I decided he'd be the guy and I followed him. I got right up behind him before he noticed me. He turned around and said "Yes?" I said "Excuse me, but can you come here, I'm going to kick your ass." He looked scared, I stepped closer, and punched him in the neck. He fell over, and I knelt down and bashed his head again and again on the slimy concrete in the forming pool of his own blood. I then kicked his now soft skull repeatedly against the brick wall, being carefull not to cake up the bottoms of my shoes with skin. "That'll do." → Read more

He was lying on the bed head back staring
at the blank white square of the ceiling.
Hello, I said. It's Jim.
His mouth moved. A sound of boiling water came out.
I took a seat in the chair & leaned over toward him.
He blinked twice then again & several times.
Finally: Are you comfortable, dad?
"About as comfortable as I can be."
He had on green socks clean new pajamas.
More time. Silence. It's chilly in here, I said. → Read more

By Harry Mathews

For Lynn Crawford

At a distance, the backlit object resembles a decorative table-top gadget, one that must be upended to allow its load of small pellets to start cascading, through a liquid as transparent and dense as shower gel, down an arrangement of slides, spiral grooves, or more complex detours. Here the arrangement is that of a beehive, in which each hexagonal cell allows passage through at least one, usually two, and sometimes three of its walls. → Read more

By Ursule Molinaro

Mrs. Feathergill is watching Mrs. Moreno destroy herself. It has become a one-hour slot in Mrs. Feathergill's mornings. From eleven to noon.

It's not that she wishes Mrs. Moreno ill. She barely knows the woman, except for an occasional Good Afternoon, when they happen to check their mailboxes at the same time. A Hello, How are you? if they happen to pass carts in the supermarket. → Read more

By Shawn Schepps
Michael took me to the emergency room. I don't remember how he got my clothes back on. → Read more

By Ann Rower

Now that they have a thing called Date Rape they also have a new word for plain old fashioned rape (not to be confused with my favorite vegetable, broccoli rape). It's called Stranger Rape as in Truth is Stranger than Fiction. But not really stranger than flopping down on my stomach on my bed on Bleecker Street after I got home and not feeling anything at all. That was stranger. A boyfriend coming over and saying he just couldn't stand the idea of touching me anymore. That was stranger. But I remember telling a girlfriend about how it seemed almost a victory because I actually talked my way out of getting raped by this guy.

Who? → Read more

Imagine that slowly the world that you could see began to narrow... shrinking until it was a slit... well lighted, intense colors-no matter which way you turned... where you walked or ran to, the slit remained. Closing your eyes... your dreams and thoughts took on the sense of the slit. It was inescapable. It became the world. You got used to it and were able to learn some of the things you used to know-through and in the slit. You spoke with others. Their slit was the same as yours. It became usual and no one remembered otherwise. You found that you waited irresistibly for something ghastly to happen in the slit to stimulate you. Other people shared this same experience. You began to ask for the ghastly things to happen and considered doing something yourself to make them happen. → Read more

By Lewis Shiner

"See?" Michael said. "You did, in fact, tell me to go to hell." He played the tape again."Yeah, but you were the one that was shouting." Marianne folded her arms across her chest."I was not."Marianne punched up peak level displays and froze the next section of the tape. "See? Into the red."Michael sighed. "I'm tired of fighting. Can't we watch that time we made love at the beach?"