It’s not a bad life playing piano in a smart restaurant. That is if you like playing the piano better than working in an office. You need to be tolerant. Public taste is predictable but your repertoire has to cover a wide range of mood and sentiment; especially if you take requests. Also, you have to balance being impressive enough to command respect and unobtrusive enough not to fuck up the conversations. read more

It was never too late for a first time. That’s what Lacy thought. read more

Her body wobbles next to mine as I lie, awake in the dark, pondering the miracle of my being here with her. Her thunderous breathing regulates my thoughts, the heavy intake and expiration of breath like a train crashing through the night. Her side of the bed leans dangerously close to the floor, while I lie light as a feather on mine, trying a funambulist’s act not to roll down against her. I think irrelevantly of Power Plates, the micro-muscular structure solicited as people balance precariously on the machine, pretending to be astronauts. I am like them, but my balance is fragile and my body is now weary. It is the winter of my life and she lies beside me, the most unlikely mound of flesh I have ever considered and the one I love most. read more

Just when all seemed well with the world, once Jack and Jill have fallen in love, have moved in together, have bought their first apartment, have decided to marry and have a baby – or two, have moved gently up the jobs and housing ladder, have established a circle of good friends and a dinner-party-giving social life, have holidayed in Cuba or other cool middle-class destinations, have swapped their left-leaning politics for more centrist ones, have organised their granddaughter’s naming day, have reached the extraordinarily ripe age of fifty-two and forty-nine respectively and are, indeed, a ‘perfect couple’, Jack and Jill, at the top of their hill, just then, when everything seems just peachy, then things… oh dear… then that’s when things can go awfully wrong. read more

I had rented a cabin north of Billings on the edge of the Bull Mountains. My line of work gets slow in winter and I wanted the time out to do some writing. The snow started toward the end of October, kind of early but not unusual and nothing serious. There was something of a wind chill though. So as I drove down the dirt road from my cabin to the highway I was intrigued to see a figure trudging along. We arrived at my junction at the same time. read more

It killed him to see her like that, spread across the bed like a gisant. He was twenty-four, and she, at forty-three, was supposed to be the mature one, the one with her ducks in a row. But he believed she needed him in all of the same ways and for all of the same reasons the twenty-somethings did. But her needing him stung in a unique way. It was the sting of a woman’s need and not a girl’s. You see, young women, they have their whole lives in front of them. read more

I’m always afraid just before I fuck you. read more

In every wardrobe hides an item of clothing that magically confers a gift on its owner: the exquisitely cut suit in which you are a warrior; a pair of heels that reconstruct your walk into a look-but-don’t-touch strut (with matching attitude); the softest mohair jumper whose feel on bare skin is a soothing balm that warms you both inside and out. These can transform your appearance and behaviour and so should be treated with circumspection and respect, for they can lead to unsettling… adventures. read more

My good friend Belle worked in the Book & Burger in a small town not far from Missoula. She was a sparky and good hearted woman – quite petite in a chunky way – with a mane of very blonde hair. She was well-liked locally but her real source of respect and fame was her way with cars. She fixed, drove and raced them with great skill. To be specific, she – and her family – were obsessed with the Dodge. By family, I mean parents, uncles, cousins. Her ex-husband was not so keen. The cars were her children so maybe that’s why he became an ex. read more

There was no siren, no news bulletin, our town just filled like a glass under the tap, before anyone could say the first word of alarm. read more