Forward

This is an anthology of short stories that I wrote between 2008 and 2010. What species are these kinky women who willingly submit to bondage, humiliation, and pain? They have their reasons. But one must wonder why they chose to solve their problems in the ways that they did if each didn’t have at least some tendency toward masochism.

These stories are not presented in the order in which they are written, but in the approximate order of the development of an intimate relationship, from stories about the first date to stories about mature marriages.

Like many relationships, they get darker toward the end.

In “A Most Surprising Date”, a young woman hypothesizes that the most desirable man is the one who is best able to compete against other men. Being a good experimental psychologist, she puts her hypothesis to an empirical test.

In “Suzie’s Lessons”, a woman with an odd breast fetish submits to a nerdish young man for his use and abuse. But he can’t satisfy her until someone tells him how to act dominant.

In “Riding the Devil’s Horse”, a woman is intrigued by medieval torture devices. She asks the man she lives with to build one of them and torture her with it, all in the name of research.

In “Notes from Roissy, Cleveland, Ohio”, a young wife is shocked when she reads her parents’ diaries and discovers that they acted out scenes from The Story of O. Can that kind of thing be done in the Midwest?