A maid obsessed who emulates God through hard work must offer acts of contrition to her employer, who erotically punishes her daily when she fails to achieve perfection in her work.

A writer thinks about the not-so-fine moments of his career right before an exposé about his inappropriate conduct toward various women goes live.

After losing a fight, a professional wrestler navigates loss, guilt, and self-worth and explores his love-hate relationship with fighting.

When a young college student's father gives him money for tuition, the student spends it away and lies to his mother for money. His father catches him, but the student remains unsure if his mother knows the truth.

A man walks with a writer around London who tells him about the novel he wrote that was lost which can never be matched in beauty by any other.

After spending his adult life under the shadow of his father, a former NSA whistleblower, a man comes to terms with his complicated family history and what he wants for his own future.

A man recalls his intimate friendship with his former English professor, who resolved to fuel his unsatisfied desire for playwriting during the time they were apart. In their reunion decades later, instead of the brilliant play he promised, the professor shows his former student a disturbing product of his mental instability.

Stinging from his recently cut-off engagement, a young man retreats to a small town in the mountains of Virginia to work as city editor of the local newspaper. Alternately entranced and disgusted with his hermit-like nocturnal life, he finds peace and pleasure listening to the St. Anthony Chorale.

A Confederate officer begrudgingly fights in the American Civil War until his disastrous last battle helps seal the fate of the war for good. After the war, he constantly repents for his critical mistakes until, decades later, he comes to a shocking revelation about the fateful battle.

A gay man is rejected by his father and thrown out of his home, which forces him to rebuild his life. Years later, the man realizes that his father was indirectly responsible for his success, and that he is surrounded by many deep and loving relationships.