Category: Rated R

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EP217: The Kindness of Strangers

by Nancy Kress.
narrated by Kate Baker.
Discuss on our forums.
All stories by Nancy Kress
All stories read by Kate Baker.

When morning finally dawns, Rochester isn’t there anymore.

Jenny stands beside Eric, gazing south from the rising ground that yesterday was a fallow field. Maybe the whole city hasn’t vanished. Certainly the tall buildings are gone, Xerox Square and Lincoln Tower and the few others that just last night poked above the horizon, touched by the red fire of the setting September sun. But, unlike Denver or Tokyo or Seattle, Rochester, New York sits – sat – on flat ground and there’s no point from which the whole city could be seen at once. And it was such a small city.

“Maybe they only took downtown,” Jenny says to Eric, “and Penfield is still there or Gates or Brighton…”

Rated R for sexual situations and alien-caused genocide.

 
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Sep 24, 2009 | 0 comments View Post
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EP216: βoyfriend

by Madeline Ashby
read by Tina Connolly

Violet snapped three photos of herself from various angles, sent them, and waited for her boyfriend’s response. He rang her up—a slow vibrating purr, unlike the staccato door-knocking of her mother’s ringvibe—and said: “Me likey. Now take it off.”

Violet frowned. “You were _supposed_ to dig up the backstory on the dress.”

“Well, you can’t blame me for getting a little distracted. Besides, isn’t it bad luck for me to see?”

“That’s only for weddings, not prom.”

Rated R for language, teen-adult situations, and virtual steadies. Also, Norm’s sexy talk.

 
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Sep 17, 2009 | 0 comments View Post
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EP214: Sinner, Baker, Fablist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast

by Eugie Foster
Narrated by Lawrence Santoro

Each morning is a decision. Should I put on the brown mask or the blue? Should I be a tradesman or an assassin today?

Whatever the queen demands, of course, I am. But so often she ignores me, and I am left to figure out for myself who to be.

Dozens upon dozens of faces to choose from.

1. Marigold is for murder.

Rated R for sex, masks, and violence.

 
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Sep 03, 2009 | 13 comments View Post
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EP213: A Monkey Will Never Get Rid of Its Black Hands

By Rachel Swirsky.
Read by Alasdair Stuart.
All stories by Rachel Swirsky
All stories read by Alasdair Stuart

Papa and Uncle Fomba told me if I didn’t join the army, they’d kill me. They didn’t. They cut off my hands.

This was after U.S. forces marched on Syria, but before we invaded Lebanon. On every city block, posters of Uncle Sam entreated every Tom, Duc, and Haroun to get blown up in the name of freedom. Papa and Fomba gave me two weeks to enlist. I ran for Canada instead. They caught me.

Rated R for amputation fads.

 
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Aug 27, 2009 | 2 comments View Post
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EP212: Skinhorse Goes to Mars

by Jay Lake

Read by Mike Boris

When I met Skinhorse, my first thought was old. Which was weird. Nobody gets old these days. We all die young, some of us after living a long time, if we’re lucky.

He was in Piet’s Number Seven, a bar-cum-caravanserai in an illegal orbit trailing far enough behind Vesta to be ignorable. Piet’s had been instantiated in an old volatiles bladder that had done the Jovian run a few too many times before falling into the surplus circuit. You could store entire cities in Piet’s cubage, which made for a somewhat attenuated bar experience. Plus the place had one of those gravity cans — yes, those gravity cans — which meant your drink stayed stuck down long as you were near a Higgs carpet.

So there I was annoying myself with three perfectly disrespectable rock jocks, each of us out to fleece the others, when this cadaver starts to stand over me. We’re all forever young or forever dead, but this armstrong looked like he’d shaved about half a cent too deep across his whole body, then restored his dermis with spray-on thermal insulation.

Rated R for strong language, strong violence, and world-spanning tumors.

 
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Aug 20, 2009 | 13 comments View Post
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EP207: Wonder Maul Doll

By Kameron Hurley
Read by Kim the Comic Book Goddess

Appeared originally in From the Trenches

We set down in Pekoi as part of the organics inquisition team, still stinking of the last city. We’re all muscle. Not brains. The brains are out eating at the foreigners’ push downtown, and they don’t care if we whore around the tourist dregs half the night so long as somebody’s sober enough to haul them out come morning. When the brains aren’t eating, they’re pretending to give us directions in the field, telling us where to sniff out organics. They’re writing reports about
how dangerous Pekoi is to the civilized world.

We’re swapping off some boy in a backwater push the locals cleared out for us. We’re sitting around a low table. I pass off another card to Kep. Luce swaps out a suit. She has to sit on one leg to lean over the table. It’s hot in the low room, so humid that moths clutter aroundour feet, too heavy to fly.

The boy’s making little mewling sounds again. Somebody should shut him up, but not me. This is my hand. I’m ahead.

Rated R for violence and sexual situations.

 
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Jul 19, 2009 | 19 comments View Post
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EP188: 29 Union Leaders Can’t Be Wrong

By Genevieve Valentine.
Read by Chris Lester (of Metamor City).

First appeared in Strange Horizons, November 2007

Guest Host: Jeffrey R. DeRego

Audible.com Promotion!

Get your free audiobook at: http://audible.com/escapepodsff

“This is normal,” the doctor says, and, “Give yourself time, it’s
key,” and, “The hospital psychiatrist will be speaking to you about
some support groups.”

“What about Marlene?”

“She’s speaking with one of our counselors,” the doctor says. “Full
transplant is usually something of a shock to the loved one, at
first.”

“How long until I can see her?”

“That’s up to her,” the doctor says. “Can you squeeze the orange for me?”

As long as he doesn’t look, it’s fine.

Rated R. Contains adult situations and violence.

 
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Feb 27, 2009 | 38 comments View Post
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EP187: Summer in Paris, Light from the Sky

By Ken Scholes.
Read by Alex Wilson (of Telltale Weekly).

Adolf Hitler came to Paris in June 1941 feeling the weight of his years in his legs and the taste of a dying dream in his mouth. He spent most of that first day walking up and down the Champs Elysées, working the stiffness out of his bones and muscles while he looked at the shops and the people. Some of the dull ache was from the wooden benches on the train from Hamburg; most of it was age. And beneath the discomfort of his body, his soul ached too.

He’d never been here before, he thought as the Parisians slipped past in the noon-time sun. He snorted at the revelation. A fine painter you are, he told himself.

Rated R. Contains sexual violence. Also may be offensive to some for historical reasons.

 
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Feb 07, 2009 | 89 comments View Post
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Escape Pod Flash Fiction Contest, Honorable Mention: From Liquid to Glass

By J. R. Blackwell.

Read by Rachel Swirsky (of PodCastle).

He smelled like new cars and cologne, he moved with a measured rhythm. His mouth tasted like mint toothpaste. She looked over his shoulder through the white light of the window. She was sweating into her sheets, her breath silent, and her lips thin and tight.

Rated R. Contains sex and melancholia.

 
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Dec 01, 2008 | 10 comments View Post
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EP183: Beans and Marbles

(Update: Reposted with editing mistakes corrected. My apologies for the errors.)

By Floris M. Kleijne.
Read by Stephen Eley.

First appeared in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, August 2005.

When Flight Control assigned us utility privileges, I don’t think they
expected me to brew espresso in the centrifugal head. But the weight of the
espresso machine was well within the parameters they’d set, as was my use of
a couple of ounces of fresh water and a fraction of the ship’s power supply
each day, so there was nothing, really, they could say or do about it.
Privileges are privileges, and if the purpose was to give both of us
something to keep us happy, it worked for me. My morning espresso ritual
kept me sane. I looked forward to it every day.

Richard, however, wasn’t quite as tolerant as Flight Control.

Rated R. Contains violence, strong language, and disturbed individuals. Who use strong language and violence.

 
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Nov 09, 2008 | 48 comments View Post
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