The Perfect Man

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Paige Racette has spent her entire career imagining the perfect man. She’s described a different version of him over and over in her romance novels. But when Josiah Wells starts using her novels as a blueprint for the way to romance her, she finds the attention creepy, not attractive. Then Wells escalates, adding violence to his role-playing. Paige must escape the perfect man—maybe with the help of another man, one a little more flawed, a little less perfect. A little more human. Chosen as one of the best short stories of 2003, “The Perfect Man” shows that perfection might be overrated.