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My fantasy was to escape from the corporate grind. After a taste of freedom and months of hare-brained schemes, I begged to be captured again.

One man's unlikely journey from servant and prisoner of war to bodybuilding champion — with an epic, trans-continental love story along the way.

Before his rapid rise to the top of the Catholic Church, Pius II had a secret passion for scandalous stories. And they may have been inspired by his own life.

Drawing on ancient Tibetan practices and a very human need for companionship, these people believe they have figured out how to create sentient beings within their own bodies.

As a shy teen, my cure for loneliness was a weird and wonderful world where we created fake celebrity profiles — and formed surprisingly intimate connections.

The grisly murder of Athol McCowan gripped a sleepy coastal region in Australia. But even more shocking was how the killer's exhumed pet dog served as star witness in the trial.

When I became a mom at 19, my depression spiraled out of control until I reached a delirious state. I was very much alive, but certain I'd been dead for years.

I thought I had nothing to learn from people who obsessed over expensive children's toys. I couldn't have been more wrong.

He pioneered a version of this ancient sport in which animals aren't hurt. His last wish: someone to carry on his legacy.

Mean girls and cliques were a startling change from working with her primatologist parents. Fortunately, she'd learned a bit about navigating vicious social structures.

For several years in my 20s, off and on, I was a professional statue. Statue was both a noun and a verb. I was a statue; statuing was what I did. My job was, basically, not to react. Unless one of the tourists gave me what I wanted — a tip in the plastic lemonade pitcher at my feet — I gave them nothing.

After years of terror and abuse, the simple act of speaking paralyzed her with fear.

Privacy is rare, quiet hours are sacred, and don't even think about hooking up. Meet the grown-ups who call the glorified dormitories of PodShare home.

Entertaining kids with inflated animals is tough — and when you're a math-team nerd competing for gigs against your charismatic crush, it can blow up your entire life.

At 11, Estella killed her rapist and fled to the US. Fifty years later, she's revealing the story that made her the resilient woman she is.