Through These Walls
I came through the apartment door with both hands full of groceries and my elbow trying to work the deadbolt behind me, which is a skill I…
Mature stories
Mature stories. Mature stories, from quick reads to long series. Reads run 22 to 26 minutes. Writers to know: Vermilion Fiction, Drift Diary and Observer of Starling. Readers usually start with “The Talent Show Confession” and “The Quiet End”. 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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Mature stories, ranked by readers
61 62 The Call at Langford
*This story is a slow burn about a man who's done with surprises and a woman who's full of them.
63 The Cartographer’s Trade
The gallery was one of those converted bank buildings downtown, all marble and tall windows, and I only went because the archive society…
64 The Bathhouse Experiment
The date was on a Thursday.
65 Swinging at the Record Store
I was twenty-three that fall and I'd been working at the coffee roastery in Ford's Crossing for almost two years, which in a town that…
66 The Cookbook Dare
I was elbow deep in a box of somebody's dead aunt's paperbacks when Cari pulled the cookbook out of a crate of church donations.
67 The Birthday Lesson
The quarterly reports had gone soft on me.
68 The Oil Lamp Confession
Hilary heard the press before she saw it, the way she always did, the big Heidelberg humming through the floor of the press room like a…
69 Tugboat Chili
The pier at Seaspray Point smelled like rope and salt and cold diesel, and I stood at the end of it for a good two minutes before I walked…
70 Double Hook
The shop was called The Lure, which I always thought was a pun that thought too much of itself.
71 The Night We Found Our Song
I'm fifty-two years old and I went to a club alone on a Tuesday.
72 With the Metronome
I didn't join Cal at the depot because I was lonely.
73 Whiskey in the Rig
The cargo terminal at the regional airport was the kind of place nobody built on purpose, a big steel barn with a loading dock on one end…
74 Late Shift Love Match
My name is Dianne, I'm thirty-four years old, and I've been married to Sonny for five years.
75 The Layover Lesson
*This one came from a canceled flight and a bottle of good Syrah at a gate.
76 The Biscuit Shot
My name is Niko Bigshot, I'm forty-eight years old, and in October of last year I did something stupid and wonderful at the same time.
77 The Plus-One Clause
Kelli had been staring at the invitation for four days when she finally made the call.
78 The Last Shift Before Friday
The pool closed at six, same as it had all summer.
79 Barge Tiebreaker
I turned fifty-two in March and my youngest moved out in June, which means I spent the summer learning how quiet a three bedroom house can…
80 The Late Shift at the Kiln
The gallery didn't look like much from the street.
Mature, by tag
Dry and wry matureCoworkers matureDark and intense matureTender and slow matureA couple who have been dating a while, not married matureStrangers matureFunny and chatty maturePlayful and teasing matureNeighbors matureWarm and nostalgic matureLeather matureLatex matureWriters known for it
Vermilion Fiction, Drift Diary, Observer of Starling, Moss Harbor