Author: Alison Tyler (cover by Riendo.)

About: Alison Tyler, with "Rubbernecking," shows off her talents as a writer by teasing the reader with a rubberotic display of discovery and exhibitionism. "Rubbernecking" is one of those cheeky stories that keeps the reader smiling until the last sentence.

—Ashley Lister, ERWA

Excerpt:

I enjoyed the lingerie, the pretty frilly items. I liked to look at the sex toys, the cuffs and blindfolds, gags, paddles, and masks. But the rubber items, those were the ones that stretched over my day, snapping through my mind when I least expected it. Anything, everything, could take me back to those windows.

The lemon-yellow dishwashing gloves resting innocently on the stainless steel sink in the break room would make me think of elbow-length black rubber gloves I’d seen pinned to a wall in that window. A ball of multicolored rubber bands residing lazily on a coworker’s desk would remind me of a red rubber ball gag strapped to the face of an unseeing mannequin. The burnt-licorice scent of tires as I walked through the parking garage would make me want to press my nose to the window shielding the displays and see if I could inhale the scent through that wall of glass. The visions built within me, until I could hardly each day wait to get back home, to my empty apartment, to my world of privacy.

Keys thrown onto the coffee table.

Pencil skirt discarded on the way down the hall.

A shoe here.

A shoe there.

A rabid rush to the center of the mattress, to the safety of my own fantasy world.