Under the Olive Groves

Dmitry

For six long years I've loved a woman who can't return my love. She's married to someone else, and, what's worse, that someone is my dissertation advisor, mentor, and friend. Cue a miracle: a legal technicality suggests my beloved may not even be married. When a trip to New Orleans acts as a rebirth for us both, we grow bold.

Our love isn't the only emboldened thing. She wants me to take charge in the bedroom, and I find I like playing the part of assured lover.

But now her husband is on the warpath, out to destroy my reputation, my career, and my future. I'm willing to pay the ultimate price for her, but will she want to be with me when I'm no longer a rising meteor?

Lucy

For awhile my marriage has been on the rocks. Now peculiar circumstances leave me to face a conundrum-how can I smoothly transition to dating my husband's PhD student, who's hotness itself? Not only will the world condemn me but my husband will drop him, causing his career to tank.

Amidst these personal upheavals someone sabotages all my hard work on the sites I landscape, ripping up and stealing the olive trees I've had planted. Since to me the olive symbolizes my business achievements, the attack seems personal.

Can I learn to trust my lover enough to work with him as a team? Or has my longstanding isolation in my marriage made me think in terms of myself alone?