Male POV Short Stories & Novels

Elise Van Doren and I had been together for fifteen years, but she still refused to marry me. Then we had a bitter argument about it. The next day, the television station sent me to the county clerk's office to do live interviews with newlyweds. When I got to a young groom, the question the system pulled from the live comments was, "What's the cruelest thing your wife has ever said to you?" I was sure someone was just trying to stir up trouble, and I almost skipped it. But the young man smiled shyly at the camera. "Nothing, really. She can never bring herself to be harsh with me. The meanest thing she's ever called me was 'you silly boy' when I burned my hand. "She's fourteen years older than me, and she treasures me. She always says that since I got together with her so young, she's going to spoil me rotten. That's why I chose my twenty-second birthday to marry her." The live comments went wild over how sweet they were. Even I smiled. I was about to congratulate him when a woman came up and threw herself into his arms. "Honey, what are you talking about?" My blood ran cold. The microphone slipped from my fingers and hit the floor. The woman was Elise. My girlfriend. The night before, she'd looked me in the eye and said, "You want to talk about dignity? If you had any, would you have been my lapdog at seventeen, begging me to be with you? You're paranoid all the time. Hell, I'm starting to think you're the one with another woman on the side!"

A viral post pops up on my feed. "Did you betray anyone?" One reply underneath catches my attention. "My best friend, I guess. But honestly, it's not my fault. His girlfriend is exactly my type. The moment he introduced me to her, I fell for her. "At our graduation party, I got them both wasted and made my move on her. That lucky bastard had no idea how good he had it. "Later, I lied and told him I wanted to go abroad. By then, they were already married, but the truth was, I was only a state away, staying with his wife while she was pregnant with my child. "His wife comes to see us all the time now. The three of us are so happy together. "Technically speaking, I'm not the other man. The marriage certificate between his wife and me is the real one. We just never had a wedding. "There's nothing wrong with fighting for love. Don't give up just because the person you like is already taken!" Attached to the comment is a photo of a man and woman holding hands, their fingers intertwined. The faint scar on her wrist gives her away. The woman in that photo is my wife, Clara Lowden.

My boss, Walton Frazier, loves tricking me into wearing tight shirts and having the top three buttons undone before forcing me to entertain the female clients. Then, he drops hints to said that I'm young and have a great physique, only to wait with bated breath for the clients to start touching me. His excuse is that he wants to test the clients' characters to see if they really are worthy to work with. As soon as the clients fall for the trap hook, line, and sinker, Walton will rush out toward them in a righteous manner and slam his wine glass onto the table. After that, he'll start lecturing me as though I've done something awfully wrong. "Is there not a prideful bone in your body? Do you want to hit your sales target that badly that you're willing to forsake your pride as a man?" Walton chooses to trample all over me just so he can build his manly and righteous persona. This time, he specifically prepares a suit with a deep V-line that's made of light material. Then, he forces me to toast to a client with an extremely rich and powerful background in that suit. He even threatens to dock off three months' worth of perfect attendance pay if I don't do this. When I notice the familiar cold-looking yet striking face at the main seat, I can't help but smile. If my older sister, Mable Cobb, were to see me toasting to her in this kind of outfit, I have a feeling she'll clean out the trash for me and make me the boss of this company by tomorrow.

After five years of dating, my girlfriend, Rachel Meyers, cancels our wedding 52 times. The first time, her intern, Ethan Cole, messes up a form at the law firm where she works. She rushes back to fix it, leaving me stranded on the beach for the entire day. The second time, during the wedding ceremony, she hears that Ethan is being bullied by another attorney. She abandons everything to help him, leaving me to become the laughingstock of our guests. After that, no matter when we hold the wedding, Ethan always seems to have some kind of emergency that demands her attention. Eventually, I grow numb and decide to break up with her. But on the day I move out of Westerbay, Rachel loses her mind trying to find me.

I was kidnapped alongside my daughter, and we were sold to a circus troupe touring the entire country. Rebecca, my daughter, had her limbs cut off, and she was stuffed into a vase to be admired and toyed with. I had my spine smashed and trained like an animal with no free will. When my wife and mother finally saved me, the lower half of my body was ruined, and Rebecca had died from the torture. My mother had bawled as she held me tightly, and her black hair turned white overnight. My wife sent all the members of the circus into an underground gambling ring and swore that they would live lives worse than death. Before I was sent into the emergency room, I kept saying, “Rebecca is dead, but she’s still in the case. Please bring her back.” I only allowed myself to faint after getting their promise. However, when the anesthesia faded away, I heard my wife and mother mumbling. “Mom, we didn’t have to be so cruel. Rebecca is still young. What if something really happens to her?” “Don’t worry. The circus is full of our hired hands. Rebecca will be fine. We did all this for Jacob. He hasn’t felt safe since he came into our house and always thinks that Lucius would hurt him.” “Lucius is now disabled. Jacob would inherit 50% of the shares. As for Lucius, as long as I’m still around, I can take care of him forever!” My tears wet the pillow. My family were the real murderers all along.

It is the night before our wedding when my fiancee, Whitney Sullivan, reunites with her childhood sweetheart, Steven Foster, a mercenary who has been missing for five years. He is brought to our doorstep by his teammates, bloodied and barely clinging to life after being poisoned with a deadly aphrodisiac on a mission. Whitney, usually so aloof and controlled, immediately breaks down. She locks the door, defying my efforts to stop her, and stays with Steven all night long. I choose to stay outside the door, never closing my eyes. I confront her the following morning with a torrent of accusations, only for her to stand in front of Steven protectively and say shamelessly, "I couldn't just stand by and watch Steven die. Isn't it just my virginity? What's the harm in letting loose the night before the wedding?" In that instant, all my affection for her is utterly destroyed.

To help her childhood sweetheart, David Middleton, take my place studying abroad, my wife, Sharon Griffin, destroys my records and deliberately fills in false information, ensuring that I'm permanently denied a visa. She even severely injured my hands before sending me to the Behavioral Reform Center. My mother-in-law, Paula Brown, who has always treated me with affection, takes Sharon's side. "Kyle is so ungrateful. We gave him everything, and he still wanted to get a PhD abroad to find his biological parents. Who's going to take care of me if he's gone?" Sharon snorts. "He's just vain. When he found out I'd turned down Westbridge's offer of admission, he gave me the silent treatment and threatened to divorce me. If I let him go abroad, he'd think he could do whatever he wanted. "As my husband, he has everything he could ever need, yet he still wants to take David's opportunities away from him. Maybe the Behavioral Reform Center can teach him to appreciate what he has." A semester later, Sharon goes to the airport to pick up David, who's returning from his studies abroad. For the first time in a long while, she asks her assistant, Adam Norris, "It's been so long. Has Kyle learned his lesson? Tell him he can come home for the winter break." She doesn't know that I've already died on the very first day she sent me to that reform center.

My cousin, John Anderson, always paid me in tens rather than in thousands. He owned a renovation company, and my team and I always worked hard for his projects. However, he only transferred me thirty dollars for sand and concrete that were worth three thousand dollars. Besides that, he only transferred me one thousand five hundred dollars to finance customized doors and windows worth one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. I did not harp on that. Instead, I bore the cost in full, as he was my cousin. That was until his wife, Rory Anderson, scolded me in front of all the workers. “Peter’s a bloodsucker. He never informs us whenever he buys new materials. He must have scammed a lot of money from us! I saw that he got himself a new house and a new car. I bet these are all bought with money he took from us!” John smoked next to us and sighed, “Never mind. He’s family after all.” I was furious when I heard that. I paid more than six hundred thousand dollars’ worth of material fees for him, and he was accusing me of stealing his money? The next client had a mansion and wanted natural marbles worth hundreds of thousands of dollars for his living room floor. John approved the request but only transferred me a thousand dollars to get it sorted out. So, I went to the brick factory located in the countryside and got a truckload of used red bricks from pigpens. Then, I used them for the client’s flooring.

Nadine Sullivan doesn't come home to have dinner with me on my birthday. Instead, she transfers 100 dollars to me and sends me a text, saying, "I love you." Coincidentally, a resident doctor at her hospital updates his social media with a photo. It's a screenshot of her transferring 10,000 dollars to him. She's also texted him, "I love you to the moon and back." I don't throw a tantrum or kick up a fuss. All I do is leave the city without hesitation. The first day after my departure, I hear that Nadine is unfazed. She says, "He'll be back after a few days." The first month after my departure, Nadine calls me. "I'll transfer 100 thousand dollars to you, alright? Can you come back now?" I've never wanted her money, though.

I was sent abroad to work. After three years, I finally helped my fiancee secure a highly challenging and significant client. When I returned home, she drove me out of the house. Her eyes gleamed with disdain as she looked at me while carrying a child. “I’ve got a husband and a child. You went abroad and left me all alone for three years. How could you come back to me? You’d better come to your senses and resign from the company tomorrow!” She trampled upon my dignity and love. Then, I realized that our five-year romance had come to an end.

In my previous lifetime, the entire medical world had acknowledged me as Godhand. But I was forced to become a scapegoat for my genius younger brother, Matthew Lachman, in a medical malpractice case, which resulted in me getting my medical license revoked and being sentenced to seven years in prison Before I was set to go to jail, my fiancee, Winona Green, personally severed my tendon in my dominant wrist just so she could force me to sign the papers. Since then, I was tormented and bullied relentlessly in jail. In the end, I died in my cold and dark cell out of depression. When I open my eyes again, I've returned to the day I'm set to go to jail as a wronged person. This time, I no longer remain depressed. I decide to continue living properly so that I can clear my name one day. In the prison, I use my amazing medical skills to save the inmates' lives and build my own connections. Since I've been on my best behavior, my sentence keeps getting reduced. That's how I get released from prison in advance. After my release, I hide my identity and open an auto repair shop on the streets. One day, my entire family barges into my shop. My mother kneels in a puddle of grease as she says pleadingly, "Jamie, Matthew is ill. You're the only one who can perform the high-precision surgery on him. Please save him!" Meanwhile, Winona clutches the engagement contract from before. With tears running down her cheeks, she promises me, "I will marry you right away as long as you can save Matthew's life!" I merely lift my hand, which is trembling so much that I can barely hold a wrench properly. A self-deprecating smile is plastered on my face this time. "Have you forgotten that you're the ones who have personally crippled my hand? Since you want me to perform that surgery so badly, does that mean you actually want Matthew dead instead?"

On the first of every month, Dad calculated my allowance based on how well I followed his rules the month before. "You get 10 dollars for checking in with us every morning and evening, but you only did it for 10 days last month, so that's 100 dollars. "And since you missed the rest, you don't get the 200-dollar bonus. "With your regular allowance of 100, your total for this month comes to 200. "Send me a written explanation for every day you missed. I'll transfer the money once I'm satisfied with it." My voice shook. "Dad, I was studying for finals last month. I had to get to the library before sunrise just to find a seat. That's why I missed some of the calls." Tears stung my eyes. "A train ticket home for Christmas is 300 bucks. I need more than 200. Dad, please. Can't you just…" He cut me off. "I set up these rules for a reason, Logan. You need to learn that money isn't handed to you just because you ask for it. Why can't you see that I'm trying to teach you some responsibility?" Then he hung up. Just when I felt completely helpless, a thug approached me. He said he knew a way I could make some quick cash and told me to follow him.

After six years of working as a corpse porter, I finally saved enough money to treat my sister, Maeve Xander, for her liver cancer. Maeve, however, casually refused the surgery. “I’m not actually sick. Mom and Dad aren’t dead either. I staged that car accident. You’re the only one who ended up seriously hurt and disabled.” Then my wife, Laurel Jinks, also confessed, “I’m not bankrupt. Every time I said I had to work late, it was because I didn’t want to cram into that filthy basement with you. I was going back to my mansion. I originally planned to punish you for three more years, but you reek of dead bodies. Maeve and I just can’t take the smell anymore.” A wave of pure absurdity washed over me as my body froze with the hand holding my credit card still in the air. Maeve snatched the card from my hand and tossed it into the trash. “That card is empty. I gave all the money you made carrying corpses to homeless people. Think of it as doing good deeds for the child you lost. After all, taking money from the dead is cursed. It’s bad luck all the way down. We shouldn’t touch that filthy money.” A chill ran down my spine. I did not understand why they treated me this way. Then, I saw my parents. They were standing far away from me, as if I were a plague. I completely broke down. “You bullied Cameron because you are the only son of the Xander family, so we wanted to teach you a lesson. If you promise to never bully Cameron again, we’ll still consider you our son. If you do not promise, we’ll cut you off, and you’ll be dead to us.” Just as my heart sank and I fell into despair, a sympathetic voice from the system sounded in my mind. [Jude, do you wish to abandon this mission and leave this world?]

My wife, wanting to spend a romantic birthday date with her first love, added a dose of sleeping medication to the milk bottle of our sick, crying daughter. The medicine took effect, and our daughter drifted into a deep sleep, which allowed them to enjoy a romantic, undisturbed date together. When I came home, I found our daughter still sleeping. By the time we arrived at the hospital, it was too late. I called my wife, but she answered with irritation. "Is it because I'm celebrating Shawn's birthday that you must ruin it? I'll go home after the celebration is over." Then, she turned off her phone. Little did she know that, for the sake of one romantic date, she had taken our daughter's life.

The day my attending physician gave me the critical illness notice, my wife Jane Hesler secretly mortgaged the house to the bank without telling me. The money she borrowed was not for my medical treatment, but was transferred to her first love, Anthony Shane — all because he said he needed funds for his business. I called her. "The house is for our daughter. You can't touch it." Her voice on the other end of the line was full of anger. "If you'd been able to come up with the money, would I have had to mortgage the house? Anthony's business needs funding; what's wrong with me contributing some money as a partner? Let me tell you something. I can live a thriving life without you." After hanging up, the doctor asked me with a grave expression, "Are you sure you don't want further treatment?” I nodded, putting on a bitter smile. "Yes."

Stella Watson hurt Liam Sheridan ninety-nine times before he finally decided to leave. As the eldest heir of the Sheridan family, he was mocked by the city’s elite as Stella’s lapdog. Only Liam knew he stayed because she looked like Suzy York, the woman he loved and lost. Stella loved Liam’s half-brother, just as Liam loved Stella’s half-sister. Liam let Stella hurt him ninety-nine times in the hope that he could finally let go of Suzy. But when a chandelier fell, Stella, who had always treated him like a weed, threw herself over him to protect him. Liam froze. Then he remembered Stella’s friend saying the beauty mark by her eye had appeared only recently. He thought of the suspicious ruling after the car accident years ago and finally realized that the woman living as Stella was an impostor the Watson family had put in her place.

My father, Cameron Howard, and I are transported to an ancient world together. The system tells us that if we can each win over a target, we'll be able to return home. My mission is to win the heart of a ruthless princess, and Dad's mission is to conquer a hot-tempered queen. The princess breaks two of my ribs and ties me behind a horse that drags me for miles. The queen decides Dad isn't kneeling straight enough. So, she crushes his knees with iron tongs and forces burning charcoal into his mouth until he loses his voice. For three years, we live miserably. Just as the system announces "Mission failed", the princess standing before me suddenly smiles. She tears off the mask covering her face. The person underneath the mask is my wife, Abigail Finch. She walks over to the throne and pats the fierce queen on the shoulder. "Mom, haven't you had enough? Cameron and Oscar are almost dead from everything you've put them through." The queen removes her disguise and looks up. It's my mother, Elisha Sweeney. She claps her hands toward the officials filling the throne room. "Alright, everyone. You can get up now. That's a wrap." Dad and I exchange stunned looks. Mom gently squeezes my crippled hand and sighs. "Does it hurt, Oscar? You and your dad made Kenneth Ingram's life miserable every day. You even drove his son, Joel Ingram, into bankruptcy. You've suffered enough now. Consider the score settled." The officials throughout the court remove their wigs, revealing walkie-talkies and sweat-soaked T-shirts beneath their costumes. But none of them know that the transmigration is fake, but the system is real. In the final moments of our lives, Dad and I make a pact with the system. We offer up both of our souls as the sacrifice in exchange for a lifetime of wealth, peace, and happiness for them.

Before our marriage, my wife was the kind of woman everyone envied. She was strikingly beautiful and had graduated from a top university. Young as she was, she had already made a name for herself in finance, with a brilliant career ahead of her. I hated women like her: independent, proud, sharp-edged, decisive, and strong-willed. She was the dazzling center of attention wherever she went. So I set about systematically grinding away every last edge she had. After the wedding, I used "taking care of the family" as an excuse to pressure her into leaving a key position in a fast-rising career. I took control of her bank accounts and tamed her into a docile cat that only knew how to say yes. Then I deliberately crushed her confidence, vetoing every decision she made, nitpicking even the smallest daily tasks. I belittled her abilities in front of others and dismissed everything she contributed. Over and over, I wore down her willpower and pride until she had given up every piece of herself. I even made her the CFO of my company and dumped documents on her to sign, ensuring she would be the one to take the fall. I thought I could never lose. Until federal agents knocked on my office door and slapped a stack of evidence on my desk. "Mr. Tyler Hayes, you'll need to come with us." I frowned, flipped through the evidence, and froze. No wonder she had become so obedient. Looking back, the signs had been there all along.

The school bully bullies a female student, then pins the blame on me. I immediately call the police, only for my own mother to give testimony for him instead. "You may be my son, but I can't bend the law or cover for you! What you did was against the law. I'll only have you sent away for a few years to straighten you out." Due to her false testimony, I am thrown into prison for three years. Three years later, my mother looks at me with remorse and says, "I owed the bully's father my life. You've paid off that debt with three years of your life. From now on, we can put everything behind us and live a happy life!" Upon hearing her words, I scoff and throw my lawyer's complaint at her. "No, I'll live a happy life. "And you'd better prepare yourself for my appeal to overturn the verdict! You owed him a debt. That doesn't mean I had to pay for it."

I helped my older brother, Andrew Miller, hide the fact that he'd secretly gone out to meet someone he'd met online from our parents. He never came home the next day. Everyone around us said he'd run off to become a wealthy woman's sugar baby. Our parents refused to believe it. They searched high and low for him, but he was nowhere to be found. … Ten years later, the police found him deep in the mountains. His body was littered with injuries, and he was barely lucid. When he looked at us, it was as if he had no idea who we were. Less than six months after his return, he finally couldn't take the nightmares anymore and jumped from the roof of our apartment building. After he died, our parents fell ill and passed away soon after. I couldn't stop wondering if things would have turned out differently if I hadn't lied for him that day. … When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the very afternoon he'd left home. Andrew was wearing a white shirt as he crouched in front of me. "Daniel, cover for me, okay? Don't tell Mom and Dad. I'm going to meet someone. I'll be back soon." My whole body started shaking as I blurted, "Andrew, no. You can't go anywhere!"