A Beginner’s Guide to Famiglia
Lily
The drive back was nice. Beautiful weather, light traffic, Audioslave blaring out my speakers, a handsome raven-haired hunk in the passenger’s seat singing along. We were prepared to face the music when we got to Winfield Manor, but we had one stop to make first.
The cemetery came into view, and we parked out front before we started walking through the tombstones hand-in-hand. I’d woken up and known who the first peopl...
2025-06-30 15:21:08 +0000 UTC
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A Beginner's Guide to Boat Stuff
Lily
I’d said it. I’d admitted it. I was a bisexual woman, and I had a wicked hot boyfriend, and he was being honest with me and he wasn’t ashamed to be seen with me! Olivia always had been, and it felt like that was true of most of the people I dated, but Cris… Oh, Cris.
We’d made brunch after we got back, then went for a swim, then he’d carried me to his bed and fucked my brains out again. I was laying the...
2025-06-25 17:42:26 +0000 UTC
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Month 12: June
Samantha
It didn’t rain at my father’s funeral. Instead, we got mist. A moderate fog, the last gasp of the vernal days before we all began to burn in the furnace of California’s summer. The dampness settled over my skin, frizzing my now shoulder length hair as I shivered inside my black dress. I clung to Eli’s arm as they lowered Paul into the grave plot. I squeezed Eli tight as they began to put dirt over the coffin. Tears ran d...
2025-06-23 16:19:38 +0000 UTC
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A Beginner's Guide to the Morning After
Crispin
For the second day in a row, I woke up to Lily DiGiacomo’s curvy, delicate body wrapped around mine as she breathed into the crook of my neck. This time, though? No guilt. No embarrassment. Just pure fucking joy.
I almost didn’t want to believe it was real, didn’t want to believe it wasn’t another dream I’d wake up from at any minute, but… No. No, the smell of her was too strong for this to be...
2025-06-18 17:27:08 +0000 UTC
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Author's Note: Aaaaannnndddd here we are! The moment you've all been waiting for. Time for everything to change, and everyone to get a much-needed wake-up call. Thank you for coming with me on this journey as I tell you the story of the two most stubborn people on the planet. We're coming up on the halfway point, so thank you for sticking it out and thank you for continuing to read!
A Beginner’s Guide to Coming Clean
Lily
“Now now, then,...
2025-06-11 17:42:52 +0000 UTC
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A Beginner's Guide to Gentlemanly Conduct
Crispin
I found Lily laying on the living room couch, curled up under a blanket and scrolling her phone with a distraught expression. Doom-spiralling, probably. Given the state of the world, I couldn’t exactly blame her. “Hey,” I said. “Wanna go into town, get some dinner?”
“D-dinner?” she said, clicking her phone off and slamming it onto the pillow.
“Yeah, I’m hungry and there’s no food in this house....
2025-06-04 15:27:07 +0000 UTC
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Author's Note: Happy Pride Month! Hope you're hungry, because you're getting multiple chapters this week!
A Beginner's Guide to Taking the Plunge
Lily
I’d expected something a bit like Crispin’s family house in the city from their beach house. Based on the sheer amount of praise he had for the place, logically, it must’ve been as ostentatious and huge and over-designed as their main house. And it was nice, incredibly nice, and very large, but there was somethi...
2025-06-02 20:40:57 +0000 UTC
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A Beginner's Guide to Strategic Exits
Crispin
18 Hours Earlier
“Hey,” Sarah O’Neil said as she approached me, every ounce as beautiful as when I’d last laid eyes on her.
“Uh… Hi,” I said, putting down my phone and standing up straight, a cold, metallic clamp gripping my spine. “Been a while.”
“It has,” Sarah said. “Can we talk?”
A torrent of memories struck me: at this very country club, nearly a dec...
2025-05-28 15:59:34 +0000 UTC
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author's note: hello, all! Just a heads up, this is a short story I wrote for Pride Month coming up! I had so much fun with it I'll probably do more with the characters and setting in the future! It's also available for sale on Itch!
By the Horns by Helena Stacy
Hope you like it!
***
The author sat in a coffee shop, all by her lonesome at a plain metal table tucked into ...
2025-05-27 18:34:26 +0000 UTC
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Author's Note: aaaaaaannnnnndddddd here we go. Fun fact: this chapter contains the first scene I ever wrote for this story. See if you can guess which one.
A Beginner’s Guide to Bi Awakenings
Lily
I stood in my bathroom putting the finishing touches on my lipstick. Never thought I’d be the kind of girl who wore lipstick every day, but here we were. I had five different shades of red and pink to compliment the outfit of the day, no matter what it...
2025-05-21 17:52:08 +0000 UTC
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Hello, all! Just a heads up that I'm looking for an agent for BGC! Unfortunately, this means I have to take down most of the online version, BUT I am leaving chapters 1-5 up as a sneak-preview! Thank you so much for your support!
2025-05-19 17:01:47 +0000 UTC
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A Beginner’s Guide to Sunday Service
Crispin
The Morning of the Museum Trip
Holy Absolution was a nice church, if a bit more casual than I was used to. A lot of the parishioners were aging hippies by the look of them- no judgement, obviously, just wasn’t the vibe I usually saw in church. The part where it was Episcopalian instead of Catholic tripped me up too, though the services were almost identical. Albeit… Longer.
“I’m just sayin...
2025-05-19 15:54:37 +0000 UTC
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A Beginner's Guide to Therapy
Lily
Now
Two weeks after that fateful day at the museum, I walked up to my therapist’s office in a long, sheer pink skirt and white tank top for my monthly session. My hands were trembling as I gripped my purse tightly, and memories called out to me like a siren’s call. Memories of my first time here.
7 Years Ago
Therapists’ offices all looked the same to me. Beige rug, a red couch, a fe...
2025-05-15 16:15:51 +0000 UTC
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Author's note: hello! Heard y'all like multiple posts per week so here's another chapter!
Also, just a heads up: I'm looking for an agent for "Beginner's Guide to Catfishing" so I can have it traditionally published! This does mean I'll have to take down the online version once I start submitting (probably next week), so thank you everyone for your support! "Gold Digging" will continue its online serialization uninterrupted, and I'll probably leave...
2025-05-14 17:08:38 +0000 UTC
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A Beginner's Guide to Making Amends
Crispin
“So this is the first place on the list?” I asked.
“Ten-four on that one, my dude,” Rachel said, looking at her phone as we stood outside of the bar.
“Isn’t this the place where we kissed for the first time?” Rose asked Kyle.
“I believe it is, yeah,” Kyle said.
“Small world,” Lisa said.
“Evidently so,” I shrugged. Lily had been banned from nine dif...
2025-05-13 17:10:16 +0000 UTC
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Lily
“They bought it! They really bought it! High five!” I said, raising my palm and anticipating the sensation of Cris’ skin touching mine.
Unfortunately, no skin-on-skin occurred: Crispin was too busy looking at me like I’d sprouted a second head.
We sat in the backseats of his limo, Naomi driving us in the direction of my house. I’d already explained the whole thing to her, wiggling with excitement at how convincing I’d been.
“Come on...
2025-05-08 16:47:35 +0000 UTC
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Eli
A lone shard of sunlight snuck through the blinds of Samantha’s… Of our bedroom window. I still had these moments where I had to remind myself I wasn’t a guest here, that this was my home as much as it was Samantha’s. The ray of light refracted off of Samantha’s black hair, her head buried in my chest as she clinged to me in her sleep.
Every fiber of my being wanted to stay with her in bed all day. Never let her go. Alas, that was not in the cards: I had exams ...
2025-05-06 17:00:28 +0000 UTC
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A Beginner’s Guide to Parental Approval
Crispin
13 Years Ago
I walked arm in arm with Julia Henderson, humming to myself as I brought her to the front door of her family’s mansion. We wore matching white tuxedos to prom, had danced the night away, and enjoyed a healthy afterparty together. All in all, it was a solid first date, and I was hoping we could see more of each other over the summer before college took us in separate di...
2025-05-02 19:56:25 +0000 UTC
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A Beginner’s Guide to Makeovers
Lily
3 Years Ago
“What are you wearing?” Olivia said, eyes narrow, frown deep-set, fists on her hips.
I stood in my kitchen, bathed in sunlight and awash with the marinara and garlic and oregano smell of the pasta sauce cooking on my stove. My shoulders went slack and I struggled to make eye contact. “Um… A dress. Does it look good?”
“Lily, honey, sweetheart, no. It does not,” Olivia said, strutting f...
2025-04-25 17:08:43 +0000 UTC
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A Beginner’s Guide to Childhood Friends
Crispin
Lily and I sat next to each other in Rose and Kyle’s living room. The place was homey: the walls were plastered with photos of the two of them, the dishwasher was running, a muted baseball game played on the television, coffee brewed in a percolator, and our hosts wore pajamas. For Kyle, that meant a pair of checkered black and yellow pajama pants and no shirt, and for Rose that meant a baggy Harvard tee she’d owned since colle...
2025-04-25 17:06:01 +0000 UTC
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A Beginner’s Guide to Weathering Storms
Lily
I stared at Crispin blankly as he finished providing context for the utterly insane thing he’d said upon walking into my office. This absurd, well-intentioned, shockingly honorable man with his striking green eyes hidden behind a pair of sunglasses had used me, of all people, as a means to get his father off his back. The only question was-
“Sorry, but why me, exactly?” I asked. “Like, of all the girls y...
2025-04-18 16:19:28 +0000 UTC
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A Beginner’s Guide to the War at Home
Crispin
Twelve Hours Earlier
I woke up and started my day the way I always like to: with my head between a girl’s legs, tongue sliding over her pussy lips, smelling that sweet, sweet vagina smell and listening to the music of her pleasure. I held onto her breasts with both hands, tweaking her nipples as I worked her clit with my tongue.
“Cris!” She screamed. “CRIS! I’m- OHHH!”
I w...
2025-04-16 19:04:58 +0000 UTC
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A Beginner’s Guide to First Impressions
Lily
“Presenting Crispin Eric Winfield IV, of the Boston Winfields, and his betrothed, Lily Arianna DiGiacomo of… The North End,” a perturbed, graying butler with stooped shoulders and a wispy beard announced as we entered the country club ballroom. He said it with a clear note of disdain in his voice and a blatant scowl on his face, and I tried very hard not to roll my eyes at this unprofessional chucklefuck.
...
2025-04-11 16:36:26 +0000 UTC
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Month 10: April
Samantha
“How was therapy?” ;Bethany asked while she spotted me.
I laid on the bench-press, attempting to force a comically small amount of weight over my head with mixed results. Bethany loomed over me in a hot pink sports bra and matching yoga pants, all of which led to a very difficult sight not to stare at. She was dripping with sweat and had her six-pack abs and defined biceps on full display, and even with her hair up in a mes...
2025-04-08 16:53:33 +0000 UTC
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Briar Rose
I found Mallory’s study how I’d last seen it a few years ago: a bland, nondescript room with a mahogany desk and a truly staggering number of filing cabinets. The place had been scrubbed clean of any trace of my late mother, meaning the evidence was more likely in Mallory’s office, but I still couldn’t leave without checking.
Under the bed was the most logical place to start, but it bore no fruit. In the closet was nothing but a row of identical gray pants...
2025-03-28 16:43:49 +0000 UTC
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Kyle
I’d once thought Rose’s former bedroom at our place was the most sterile, lifeless thing I’d ever seen. Looking at Mallory’s place, it seemed my fiance came by it honestly. It was all so aggressively beige: the wallpaper, the bedspread, the carpet. The bed was a cot like you’d see at a summer camp, and the rest of the place was filing cabinets. Legit, I’d never seen so many filing cabinets in one place. Tall steel columns lined the walls on all sides- the closet was fil...
2025-03-21 17:28:52 +0000 UTC
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Briar Rose
“You realize of course that this is completely deranged, yes?” Ruth as she drank in the sight of me in a black catering uniform with a black pill-box hat covering my hair. We stood in her driveway, sunset only now beginning.
“I don’t see how this is any crazier than anything else she’s done up until this point,” Lisa said, clad in an identical uniform and helping load the food into the back of her SUV.
“I agree with my wife,” Rachel sai...
2025-03-14 15:47:52 +0000 UTC
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Okay, last week I talked about how Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series handles the concept of Love at First Sight in regard to its romantic subplots, which was super fun (you should read it). This week, however, we’re not talking about the gushy stuff, we’re talking about the hype as fuck stuff.
So, if you talk to any Wheel of Time fan, you’ll find two of the most praised aspects of the series are how it handles both long-term character growth for its en...
2025-03-11 17:58:35 +0000 UTC
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Kyle
I waited in the lobby of the sterile, all-white doctors’ office while Rose had her consultation. I was set to drive her back to work once her consultation was finished, and I passed the time reading the sports section of the Globe. Nathan and I had already petitioned in pursuit of my wrongful termination case, and we were due in court tomorrow morning. The request for information would go through soon thereafter. Besides that, I’d already applied for my business owner...
2025-03-07 16:23:52 +0000 UTC
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Month 9: March
Eli
“I’m worried about her,” I said, standing behind the counter at the shop, drumming my fingers on the surface.
“When aren’t you worried about her?” Tio Miguel said as he flipped through a volume of Love & Rockets. He and the boys had come by to drop off some formalwear and cologne before I went to pick up Samantha for her birthday dinner. Nothing too fancy- we were just gonna see a horror movie, then go home s...
2025-03-04 18:34:35 +0000 UTC
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