Ribbons
ShortStory 4,236 words Recommended by 3 award/anthology sources
"Monday’s lover tugs at Jan’s ribbon with his teeth. Jan doesn’t yell at the lover to stop. The guy just received bad news from the front—a friend lost to a bomb, perhaps, a sibling blown to bits; Jan doesn’t ask. He tells the lover, instead, to be careful: We don’t want my head rolling off now, do we? We’ve all heard of them, after all, the stories of women taking it off and their heads falling to the ground."
Content warnings 1
war
Quasar links out; the story lives on Uncanny, where the author gets the click.