"Lady Distressed" by Mary Anne Mohanraj (mohanraj@mills.edu). Jane (or Janet) has been persuaded to go to one of those Medieval Faires, where her date has abandoned her for greener pastures - or, more specifically, for a lass in a red skirt in a haystack. One of the courtly workers comforts Jane, and soon she no longer begrudges her date his greener pastures.

This story is not nearly as dorky as I have made it sound. It's really fascinating. I'd call it charming, but then all you macho readers would stay away from it. Instead I'll point out that it has hot sex in a really interesting context.

In addition, the author blends the vocabulary words seamlessly. In many of the other stories the "big words" jumped out at me as unusual; but in this story they blended in with other equally sophisticated words and invariably expressed exactly the meaning that the author intended.