Ballast and Bread
Gail had been in Caherdaniel for fourteen months by then, and most of that time she had spent telling herself that starting over at…
Playful and teasing first time stories
Stories in First Time tagged playful and teasing, ranked by how many readers finish them. Reads run 19 to 24 minutes. Writers to know: North Craft, Opal Fiction and Midnight Works. Readers usually start with “Ballast and Bread” and “The Stylist and the Salon Owner”. Some are free to read in full; the rest open with a free preview.
Playful and teasing first time stories, ranked by readers
01 02 The Stylist and the Salon Owner
My name is Cherie Denton, I'm twenty-four years old, and two years ago I married a woman.
03 The Bake-Off After Hours
Tulani sat in her apartment on the Sunday evening and listened to the quiet.
04 The Crawlspace Pact
Nicky Middleton had her arm in the stock tank up to the shoulder, breaking ice out of it with a hammer, when her phone buzzed against her…
05 Tasting the Quiet
Adelaide had a system, and the system worked.
06 The Off-Season Arrangement
Georgia had turned twenty-eight in October, and the birthday had hit her harder than she expected.
07 The Dare List
Lea walks to the barn from her cabin at half past five, before the sun has done anything worth bragging about, and the high desert air has…
08 The Barge Date
So there I was, standing on the landing stage at Pier Head at seven o'clock on a Thursday evening, holding a bottle of wine my sister…
09 The Bouquet Test
I turned sixty-four in March and my niece threw me a party at the diner, and somewhere between the cake and the toasts I realized I'd been…
10 The Wrong Sign
So here's how my Tuesday went.
11 The Plus-One
The envelope came on a Tuesday, which should have been my first warning.
12 The Vanilla Date
The gym smelled like rubber and chalk and somebody's leftover protein bar.
13 The House Key
I'm Cathy, I'm forty-three, and I deliver packages for a living.
14 The Doorbell
The trail up to the hut nearly killed me, and I mean that in the most dramatic way possible.
15 Ashes and Birdcages
Teresa had owned the birdcage for six years and could not remember, most days, how she had come to own it in the first place.
16 A Sweet Lesson
The band was playing something slow and the fairy lights were doing their thing over the fountain, and I stood there with a glass of…
17 The Wrong Apartment, Right Mistake
You'd think a guy my age would have figured out by now that delivering groceries to strangers is basically paid loneliness.