Fiction...

FRIENDS & Lovers is pleased to offer short stories, book excerpts, and other works of fiction for your reading pleasure.

All fiction appearing on this site is copyright either the individual author; FRIENDS & Lovers the Relationships Guide and/or or Home & Leisure Publishing, Inc.

• 1406
  I still wasn't sure why she wanted me to drive out to the house but whatever her reasons, I had to do something. The settlement I'd gotten from our divorce was all but gone and at thirty-eight, I wasn't about to go back to delivering pizzas...
• Ariadne
  I suppose you could attribute it to my curious nature but I can't stand a secret. The quickest way to irritate me is to say, "I've got a secret, but I can't tell you." It really drives me nuts!
• Blind Date
  My friend Sherry thought it’d be just peachy keen if I blind dated this second removed cousin of hers while he was in town. I didn’t say okay right from the top because I’m not much of a social butterfly...
• Broken Chains
  From the first moment I was doomed. Looking back, I'm amazed that I succumbed so quickly. I'm anything but weak-willed - yet it's as if I had no defense against her...
• Crazy Love
  You know, I thought all of my teenage ways of daydreaming and pinning for a guy were left behind when I graduated high school. Obviously, they weren't because right now I'm doing both of those things..
• Daddy's Pick
  The tire flapped and scrubbed as Ginger Curtis looked for a spot to pull over. Finding one, she eased the car onto the shoulder of the road and cut the engine off...
• Dream Lover
  She stirred her coffee while looking absently out the window at the traffic on Main Street. No words were necessary now. The look that had passed between them was all the introduction that they required...
• Flush
  I am sitting on the edge of the tub naked, holding it in my hand. Each night I wait until I hear that particular little catch of breath, a small soft noise that she makes before her breathing goes slow and regular. What is that noise? I worry about it...
• The House of Gentle Men
  From the beginning, the child growing inside her seemed aware of the need for secrecy. It took her monthly flow quietly, swelled her fingers quietly, introduced quietly a craving for mayhaw jelly and Karo syrup straight from the bottle...
• Jeanne and Ian
  She said "If only I was her mother..."
• Lip Service
  That night I was meeting Paul at a donor's house for a dinner party organized to help raise yet more money. So after taking a shower and drying off, I put on a long, hunter green velvet skirt with a scarlet silk blouse...
• The Love Lottery
  "Intelligent, sensitive artist. Unstable creative type. Friend of little children and dogs. Enemy of bankers and landlords. Seeking pretty, slender lady with soft heart and sense of humor..."
• Love On Wheels
  Set in the turn-of-the-century, a small town in the city of Vancouver, in southwestern British Columbia, Canada. Here, is the story of a deeply moving love affair between Tristan Haze, a critically acclaimed Canadian writer and his lifetime love, Victoria Clair, only daughter of a popular chocolate maker...
• Lust Dance
  He looks at her, tries to remember what drove him to possess her. She seems oblivious to his scrutiny, pulling at wayward straggles of bristly hair on her legs, pinching the skin between mid and forefinger. She looks like a monkey searching for fleas...
• The Metaphysical Touch
  In 1991 Emily Piper, a graduate student at Berkeley, has nearly finished her dissertation on metaphysics when her life is changed by, the great Berkeley-Oakland fire that destroyed over three thousand homes...
• New Beginnings
  My wedding was small, but I wanted it that way. We spent our honeymoon hiking the mountains of Colorado, off the beaten trails. I love the outdoors, and we stayed at the most quaint bed and breakfasts we could find...
• Newlywed's Labyrinth
  One night, when a newlywed couple were sound asleep in their bed, the husband dreamt he was visited by a genie who told him, "I will grant you any wish your heart desires..."
• Noa and Noah
  Noa's decision to stop buying kosher meat, without letting her husband Noah know, was, on the face of it, a sudden impulse. One afternoon, on her way home from the park, she passed the butcher shop near her house, as she did almost every day...
• Parchment
  Thus, his latest work was complete. He applied closure to his work by affixing his signature at the bottom of the once pristine piece of paper, which now housed many a poetic phrase, more than a few scratches, scribbles, and coffee mug stains...
• The Plan
  "That's right ," she said sobbing. "You get out of here before I kill you." She walked over closer to him and he ignored her and her threat...
• Run-Of-The-Mill, One-In-A-Million
  I had just gotten to my brother's apartment, after somehow managing to sprain both my ankles playing basketball...
• Russian Hands and Roman Fingers
  "Look at him. Isn't he the hunk of the century? And you think you've got him all to yourself?" Linda leaned over Shasta's shoulder, and all but breathed those words in her ear. Shasta wiggled uncomfortably...
• Temptations of the Gods
  The beach at Kos had no name, yet this did not distinguish it particularly from any other beach that lined the 45-kilometer stretch along the brilliant Aegean Sea. Melanie emerged from the Theodoropoulos Hotel at 9:00 that morning...
• Under the Oak Tree
  There was something about her. Maybe it was her smile, or the way her eyes twinkled when she spoke. Maybe it was her walk, and the way she carried herself. It was not one thing. It was everything...
• Unspoken
  I promised myself I would never tell. It matters little now if I do, secrets are made to be told, but where to start?
• Wings
  Anne: Lizbeth, Lizbeth. Are you okay? Is he gone? Did he hurt you?