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Great Books of the Western Bedroom

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Artie Shaw gave Ava Gardner a reading list in preparation for their honeymoon that included The Brothers Karamazov, The Origin of the Species, Das Kapital and The Magic Mountain.

Waist Deep in Tissue Packs

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It didn't matter if they burned or not.

You're Never Going to Break My Heart

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Like any lovable lump of hidden rocks, these hills she breathes life into, blinking existence, are all well worth jumping up and over again and again. Just ask the little kids. Their endless landscape of discovery…

42 Mirrors

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What becomes the identity of a woman who has been denied all her rights and thrown into a mental institution?

He Sure Can Play Piano with Those Giant Lobster Hands

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He sure can play piano With those giant lobster hands In his ratty raccoon coat And his old black cowboy hat His boots of Spanish leather And face like sultry weather His raspy croaking voice Picking out the words so choice They reall

Extortionist

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They leaned against the hood of his pickup, which sat heavy on its wheels, the back of it filled with the things that he’d held out of the yard sale three days earlier. “When’re you leaving?” she asked. “Early. Get on down the road. Shut ’er down ea

Smoke

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We both lost our appetites, her sense of taste destroyed by the tide of smoke sweeping across her tongue, wiping out her taste buds. Mine was limited to the four tastes the tongue alone could discern,

Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water (the update)

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tough noogies

The First Day on Snowshoes

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I can hear my heart in this empty field; I feel it burn against the wall of my chest.

Prior...More

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He was drinking heavily again and complaining that there was nothing fresh worth writing about.

Autobiography of a Head Bully, excerpts

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On Saturday nights, they dream of you. You are the gas station they can’t own, the lottery they can’t win. You are beating up their boss, giving him a headache that will last through Wednesday morning, keep him home half the week.

VCR CIA

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When VCRs were invented in the 1970s, the first big user segment was people who wanted to watch porno films in the comfort of their own home. Troy and Lynn's upstairs neighbor, James, an enlisted man in the Navy stationed at Pearl Harbor, had a vast porn…

Anonymous Gamblers

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1. They Don't Know When To Fold 'Em Gambling junkies are lit on losing their ass and almost can't wait to unload their money, and then reel on home and bounce off the walls or whatever. For these guys, losing's the jackpot, and deep in the hole for…

Zimmerland

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He was just walking along, making sure that no white, Hispanic, Native American or Asian people were doing anything illegal when he noticed the young black man walking down the street. He hadn't meant to.

Cucumbertini

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“Really? And you write…?” asked her breasts in the black dress, making excellent eye contact. He smiled at them.

A Saturday Prize-fight in Cannington

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Lovell saw his chance, and more quickly than anyone thought possible delivered a sharp blow to Linehan's hitherto untouched jaw. The Irishman collapsed, and stayed down for the full count of thirty. The courtyard was then filled with shouts of incredulit

Joey's War

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Joey tried to shoot the cop with his air gun but the cop sprayed Joey with pepper spray.

The Further Chronicles of Mars (tribute to Ray Bradbury)

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And in the dark caves a new secret, hidden from flyby probes and the imagination of men. In these new caves, names for the loved ones, Bradbury, Clarke, Rover

Vow

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“You buy shit, it’s gonna smell like shit,” he said. “You should’ve come to me like I told you and got a good deal with my nephew.”

Duck Sauce

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In principle, Sergeant Brock Lumley resisted superstition, but if you were to stop him on any given day he was patrolling Baghdad streets with his rifle squad and ask him to open the front left ammo pouch on his flak vest, he’d get this look on his face..

For You

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Why should you go through that for me?

Crack in the Cosmos

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There’s a crack in the cosmos, and pink is leaking through. There’s a crack in the cosmos, fix the sink, the toilet leak. There are many cracks in the cosmos, numerous. This is how time escapes. Good grief, they’re going to suck the cream

Right Now You're Being So Sloshed{revisited}

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amongst the other gentlygathering flotsam up against my internal dictionary's borders. Doesn't matter much if the deed is life rushing itself through a tube that poured us out together like this, or just mutual need that…

Pretend Friend

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no rule says an imaginary friend has to be a good one

Dusk

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Her memory was a faded pastiche of the past, and indeed the present sat uneasily in the middle of the dreams that governed her mind; so it was that often she would forget the day, the time, the year.

Either Side of the Glass

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Why do you lie? the old woman repeats when her mouth is not busy filling the waste bin. We sit as far away from her wheedle and wretch as the small waiting room allows. A young woman glares at us through the mental health clinic's safety glass…

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 10

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Sounds terrific, but are there any strings attached?

Indentured Servitude

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"I’m wearing a white sundress with little strings tied at the shoulders, sheer white panties, and a lace push up bra." It sounded good, sexy, likable. The kind of outfit a girl he’d fall in love with would wear- if he was prone to love, that is. "That sou

The High Price Of Wisdom

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Billy took acid and blatzed into a 7-11, holding his dick like he hoped the store guy would think the thing was an Uzi. The guy laughed his ass off, reached under the counter, and pulled out a .38…

"What It Means to Exodus" Or, "Brrrraaaawww"

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"I have consulted the Internet," the man remarks, squatting low, sorting through a mountain of tablets. He snags two and stands slowly, confidently, and I realize suddenly that he is Moses. Two iPads, cradled surely in each wrist, glow with lists.