Posts

The Playlist

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Mia loved that her boyfriend Derek made her a workout playlist. It was the sweetest thing he had done in months, maybe ever, and she found herself smiling at her phone on the bus ride to the gym. Just trust me , he had texted alongside a winking emoji. It will get you through every set. Listen to the whole thing. No skipping. She had promised. She always kept her promises to Derek, even when his requests were a little weird, because he was sweet and devoted and only ever wanted what was best for her. Or so she thought. LA Fitness was packed at six in the evening, the post-work rush in full swing. Treadmills hummed in long mechanical rows. The free weight section clanged with the percussion of barbells dropping onto rubber matting. The air smelled the way it always did, a cocktail of sweat and chalk and overpriced cologne, the perfume of a hundred bodies trying to outrun their day jobs. Mia did her usual quick scan as she walked in, nodding to the front desk girl, swiping her membershi...
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Daddy Material

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Programmed

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The New Policy

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Uh-uh-uh! hands off, Mark! Did I say you could touch? I don't think so. I know, I know... you're used to the old Sarah. The sweet, shy girl who was just so grateful to have a boyfriend. The one who wore baggy jeans and let you paw at her whenever you wanted. But look at me now. Seriously, look at this ass. Do you really think these glutes were built for a soft, pathetic grip like yours?" "I've spent six months sweating, squatting, and transforming myself into pure perfection. I walk down the street now and necks snap. CEOs buy me drinks. Trainers offer me free sessions just to watch me bend over. And you? You're still just... you. The same boring guy on the same boring couch." "So here's the new reality, babe. You see this ass? This round, hard, gravity-defying masterpiece? It's strictly 'Look, Don't Touch' for you from now on. You don't get to smudge the artwork. You don't get to act like you own a Ferrari just because...
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The Empathy Delete

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Lily used to cry at commercials. Literally sob at those shelter dog ads with the Sarah McLachlan music. She apologized when people bumped into her. She stayed late at work covering for others. She was everyone's therapist, everyone's doormat, everyone's sweet, reliable Lily. Then she signed up for the trial. "Emotional Regulation Therapy," they called it. A simple injection to help with her anxiety. What they didn't mention was that her anxiety came from caring too fucking much, and the serum would fix that by deleting her capacity to care at all. The first sign came Tuesday. A coworker spilled coffee on Lily's laptop, destroying her presentation. Old Lily would have said "it's fine!" while internally spiralling. New Lily just stared at her and said, "You're going to replace that." No smile. No reassurance. The coworker's face crumpled. Lily felt... nothing. Actually, no—she felt a tiny spark of something warm. Something lik...
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The Velvet Stage

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Ava Hawkes stood outside The Velvet Room at 9:47 PM on a Tuesday in March, staring at the neon sign that bathed the cracked sidewalk in pink light. The silhouette of a woman's arching body flickered above the door, one leg extended, back curved in a pose of pure seduction. Rain had started falling, light and cold, soaking through her cheap jacket. She was forty-two years old. A journalist. Or she had been, until the newspaper folded three months ago and took her career with it. Twenty years of investigative reporting, of breaking stories, of mattering, all gone in a single afternoon meeting where they'd handed her a severance check that wouldn't even cover two months of rent. Ava didn't look like a stripper. She knew this with painful, humiliating certainty as she caught her reflection in the tinted glass door. Her body was what her ex-husband had called "athletic" when he was being generous, and "built like a twelve-year-old boy" when he was drunk a...
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