Tag Archives: Pittsburgh Flash Fiction Gazette

“Missed Connection” on The Pittsburgh Flash Fiction Gazette

My erotic flash fiction piece “Missed Connection” has been published in The Pittsburgh Flash Fiction Gazette:

http://pittsburghflashfictiongazette.net/fiction-missed-connection-lori-schafer/ (Adult Content)

A couple of months ago, I wrote a post about my short-short “Delayed Connection,” which was then the home-page story on Romance Flash. In it I describe how the original idea for that very sweet, very romantic story came to me from this one, “Missed Connection,” which is a much more sexual and also strangely sadder piece.

The original premise was actually not, as you might think, the chance meeting at the airport. Rather it was about the confession with which the story begins. Because I think we can all relate to that, to the regrets we have over the “one that got away,” over never making a move when we had the chance. How afraid we were to share our feelings, for fear of being rejected, yet how simultaneously eager we were to admit them, on the unlikely chance that our emotional and/or physical affection would be returned. The narrator here has taken the bold and incredibly foolish step of actually making the confession – in writing, no less – not in the middle of the acquaintance, but after it’s too late for anything to happen between her and her object of desire.

What could possibly motivate a character to do something like that? There’s nothing in it for her, obviously, nothing to be gained but an increase in her pain and humiliation, so why would she do it? The answer is simply that she wanted him to know. At the very last, she wanted him to know how attractive he was to her, and what kind of fantasies he inspired, even if it meant exposing her deepest secrets to someone who had already left her behind. It’s a remarkably unselfish act. Stupid, surely, but unselfish.

I’d like to say that she’s rewarded for making this unusual parting gift, and perhaps, in a way, she is. In the end, she still doesn’t get what she wanted. But maybe she feels a little better about not getting it. And if you find yourself grieving over a lost love, you would be a fool to hope for more than that.

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You can also read “Missed Connection” in my recently released collection of erotic short short stories To All the Penises I’ve Ever Known: Erotic Shorts by Lori Schafer, only $0.99 in digital formats on Amazon (Universal Link), Barnes and Noble, Smashwords, ITunes, and Lulu. Large print paperback is only $5.99!

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I’m Going to Be a Featured Author on The Pittsburgh Flash Fiction Gazette Next Month!

Last Date: A Story About Loss

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My flash fiction piece “Last Date” has been published in The Pittsburgh Flash Fiction Gazette. (Note: Although the story is not overly explicit, the Gazette contains adult content).

http://pittsburghflashfictiongazette.net/fiction-last-date-by-lori-schafer/

There’s actually a lot going on in this little piece. I didn’t even realize it myself until I re-read it just now, a few months after writing it. I thought it was mostly about love and aging; that is, how aging alters our experience of love, which is a theme on which I’ve focused a great deal in my recent work. And it is about that, of course, but what really strikes me now is that, in a very big way, it’s also about loss. The lost love. The lost chance. The loss of libido. The loss of youth.

I can only conclude that I must have been very sad when I wrote this piece. That some small part of me must still wonder, must still be dwelling on what might have been; not just in love, but in life itself. Perhaps it’s like that for all of us as we grow older. Perhaps we all reach a point at which we realize that certain paths are no longer open to us, or at least that they’re now packed with obstacles that simply didn’t exist in our youth.

I think that’s why I started writing again after such a lengthy hiatus. Because in my stories and novels I can explore any path I choose; even those which, for whatever reason, are no longer open to me. I can live the life that, in reality, I chose not to live; take the chances I didn’t take; recapture the opportunities I failed to grasp. And it comforts me sometimes to arrive at the end of that imaginary road-not-taken and conclude that I didn’t miss much after all. That I didn’t have to give up what I have in order to pursue some shadow of a dream that would never pan out in the real world, anyway; that the real charm of the fantasy lies in its very unreality.

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“Last Date” is one of the stories featured in my collection Romance Shorts: Love Stories by Lori Schafer, FREE in digital formats for a limited time on Amazon (Universal Link) , ITunes , Barnes and Noble , Kobo , Smashwords and Lulu . For more information, please visit the book’s webpage or subscribe to my newsletter.

To All the Penises I’ve Ever Known

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My essay “To All the Penises I’ve Ever Known”” has been published in The Pittsburgh Flash Fiction Gazette. (Note: Although the story is not overly explicit, the Gazette contains adult content).

http://pittsburghflashfictiongazette.net/sexy-fiction-to-all-the-penises-ive-ever-known-by-lori-schafer/

This “open letter” was one of the first short pieces I wrote after deciding to become a writer. Of course, once I’d written it, I had no idea what to do with it. Clearly it wasn’t a story for the literary journals – although I did try a few. It was too graphic for most online magazines, and not graphic enough for “adult” sites. Then I happened to stumble across The Pittsburgh Flash Fiction Gazette. Featured on its front page were a flash fiction story and a handful of naked ladies. That, I knew then, was the right market for this piece.

Sexuality can be a difficult subject to tackle, and it’s something I’ve struggled a lot with in my books. Not because I’m uncomfortable writing about it, but because sex in literature is often relegated to the realms of pornography or erotica, and my work, while often sexually explicit, rarely falls neatly into either of those categories. Sex in writing does not have to be all about titillation. It doesn’t have to be all about arousal and consummation, nor about the quest for some idealized partner and the ever-elusive simultaneous orgasm. It doesn’t even have to be dramatic. It can be stupid. It can be funny. Why not? Sex makes us stupid and funny. There are many ways of exploring sexuality, that endlessly fascinating aspect of our lives as human beings. “To All the Penises I’ve Ever Known” was one of mine.

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You can also read my essay in my recently released collection of erotic short short stories To All the Penises I’ve Ever Known: Erotic Shorts by Lori Schafer, only $0.99 in digital formats on Amazon (Universal Link), Barnes and Noble, Smashwords, ITunes, and Lulu. Large print paperback is only $5.99!

Would you like to be notified when I have a new release? Please sign up for my newsletter.