The Grease Rag
The call came in on a Tuesday.
First Time stories
First Time stories. First Time stories, from quick reads to long series. Reads run 19 to 24 minutes. Writers to know: North Craft, Roan Diary and Midnight Gallery. Readers usually start with “The Corkscrew Bid” and “Horsehair and Mustard”. Ranked by how many readers finish them. Some are free to read in full; the rest open with a free preview.
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First Time stories, ranked by readers
61 62 The Foreman's Wager
Six months ago I signed divorce papers in a strip mall lawyer's office next to a nail salon.
63 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.
64 Yoga and Whiskey
I'm Britney, I'm thirty-four, and I teach yoga, which means I spend my days telling strangers to breathe while I quietly panic about my…
65 Arctic Book Club
The book club was supposed to start at seven.
66 Public Fantasy Gone Wrong
Sally had been working up to it all weekend.
67 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…
68 The Diving Bell
I drove up to the cottage on a Thursday in late April, and the first thing I saw was the lake, gray and flat as an ironing board.
69 The Watch Fire
*This one came from a quiet place, something about the intimacy of a shared secret at a loud event, and how the best first times are often…
70 A New Kind of Delivery
Ray had been doing the Thursday run to The Anchor Tap for six months now, and in all that time he could count on one hand the number of…
71 Bridge Job
Logan Forrest had been a veterinarian for film sets for eleven years, and in all that time he had never once wandered into Newman's Pawn &…
72 The Last Block Party
I'm Stacey Zimmer, twenty-eight years old, and I spent last September alone on my porch with a glass of wine and a spreadsheet open on my…
73 The Promotion Blow
Bonnie Kessler was twenty-three years old and she had never given a blowjob.
74 A Weekend to Surrender
The lodge sat at the end of a gravel road that the bureau plowed maybe twice a winter, and by the time Donny backed his truck up to the…
75 Sawdust and Sparks
I'm twenty-four years old and I've spent most of the last three years actively avoiding anything that looks like a date.
76 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.
77 The Putting Green
I'm Art, I'm forty-three years old, and I've been the superintendent at Fairview Hills Public Golf Course for eleven years.
78 One Night, Two Strangers
George had rehearsed the whole thing twice in the shower and once more in the hallway mirror, and he still felt like a man about to give a…
79 Pit Lane First
The gig ran long.
80 Rest Stop Rules
*This one's about what happens when two people who know every inch of each other decide to act like strangers.