Prodigal Son

==========

By M. Pennanti



Mason Crawford was a failure, but life had always gone easy on him. He was smart, but not quite enough to earn any scholarships. He was attractive, but not quite enough to be a model. He was athletic, but not quite enough to go professional. His entire existence had been one step shy of standing out. Mostly, he had never really bothered to try. So it was har

Ugly American
===========
By M. Pennanti
Colton Reichenbach was bored to shit
with China. The air in the city was virtually unbreathable and there
was fuck all to do. He scowled at the umpteenth temple his "Real
China" tour had taken him to. The city was a warren, but the
area the temple occupied somehow managed to feel both overcrowded and
desolate. He really should have gone to Thailand. Colton wasn't gay,
of course, but he heard about things that sounded interesting.
He wandered aro

Desolation
========
By M. Pennanti
I first met my monster when I was a
young boy. I was playing by myself in the winter snow and she popped
up from behind my half-constructed wall, causing me to fall backwards
onto my butt. The snow protected me from the ground and my snowpants
protected me from the snow, but I felt simultaneously startled and
annoyed.
"Hiya," the monster-girl
said.
She was a strange tangle of spiky
animal features smashed into a humanoid shape and covered in scales.
I

Happily Ever After
==============
By M. Pennanti
Kenneth Wells laughed politely and
sipped overpriced wine. He glanced around at the chic restaurant
packed with wealth and beauty. Powerful men in tuxedos doted upon
gorgeous women. The ladies in little black dresses fawned back, their
slender necks covered in expensive jewels that marked them as
treasured pets. There was plenty of shapely female flesh on display
that night, but Ken only had eyes for Yulia.
Yuliana Volkova was his sun. She
provide

Debtors' Prison
============
By M. Pennanti
Alan sank back into silk sheets and
soft pillows, totally exhausted from the third round of sex. He felt
like he could sleep for a week. Xanthe stretched her arms and wings
above him and looked down, regarding him the same way a raptor does a
field mouse. The tip of the succubus' tongue slid out and slowly
traveled across her upper lip.
"Are you completely satisfied,
Alan?"
He groaned. "I don't think I can
go again. I'm sore in places I

Please Don't Feed the Animals
=======================
By M.Pennanti
Rob trudged along the sunny beach and
felt sorry for himself. The waves crashed serenely into the land and
slid up the sand towards his feet. The air was warm, but not quite
hot. It was by all accounts a perfect day to stroll along the ocean,
but Rob didn't let that stop him from sulking. He also was supposed
to be keeping an eye on his little sister Sara, but he didn't let
that stop him either. Sometimes a man, after nineteen y

The Thrill of Cross-Species Dating
==========================
By M. Pennanti
"I can't tell if you wanna fuck me
or if you're about to run away," Darla purred to the handsome
young rabbit across from her. The dimly lit bar was only moderately
busy, so she didn't have to raise her voice much in order to be heard
above the din. Recently renovated, the modern venue evinced an
antique style with elaborate flourishes such as intricate parquet
flooring, soaring wooden columns, and shiny brass

Apotheosis
========
By M. Pennanti
April Green was not amused. She walked
behind a group of gossiping girls dressed up as slutty cats who were
taking up the entire sidewalk. They shuffled. Slowly. April
grit her teeth and reminded herself that a jury would not agree that
obnoxious behavior justified multiple homicide. April hadn't enjoyed
Halloween since she was a little kid, but she found the wanton
drunkenness particularly repugnant in her normally quiet college
town.
Today sucked for several

Hard Science
==========
By M. Pennanti
Alice Strand ate her lunch and stared
at her nemesis, a hollowed out cylinder comprised of largely
mysterious components. The device had a number of protrusions that
reminded her of metallic blisters. She hadn't been able to determine
if they functioned as a control surface, access panel, or design
aesthetic. In truth, she hadn't been able to determine anything,
other than it blinked and had no discernible power source.
A too-cheery voice cut through the ca

Second Chance
============
By M. Pennanti
Dying was not what Greg Bayer had
expected it to be. Death often could be a surprise, but a beat up SUV
falling out of the sky seemed unfair. Greg stood next to the crushed
remains of his car and winced at the mess. He glanced up at the
bridge where the vehicle had plowed through the guardrail, then down
to the dusty street where the lights and sirens of a police car could
already be noted in the distance.
The road was deserted and it had just
been horri

Addict
=====
By M. Pennanti
Simon spotted her from across the dusty
old high school gymnasium the moment he walked into the Drug Addicts
Anonymous meeting. She was as tall and thin as any model, with sharp
features and long, luxurious hair, but her cheekbones were overly
pronounced and made her appear gaunt. She moved sluggishly, arms
crossed in front of her. Her beauty had clearly been muted by
something, possibly heroin, but she was still a looker. The girl was
definitely pretty enough to be o