4,320 words (25-30 minutes)
Genre(s): Science Fiction, Time Travel, Social Satire
First published in Fantastic Adventures in May, 1951

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Nice Girl with 5 Husbands is a mind-bending time-travel story wrapped in a thought-provoking social satire. Tom Dorset, an artist struggling with creative stagnation, unknowingly steps into a time wind in the desert, which transports him 100 years into the future. There, he encounters a society vastly different from his own—a utopian community where polyamorous relationships are the norm, technology is seamlessly integrated into daily life, and people live in an effortless harmony that he struggles to comprehend.

Tom quickly becomes enamored with Lois Wolver, an effortlessly confident and charismatic woman with five husbands and multiple co-wives. While she invites him to stay and adapt, his unease grows, especially as strange inconsistencies appear. Just as he begins to accept the possibility of staying, another time wind reverses, flinging him back to his own era—leaving him forever haunted by the society he glimpsed but could never fully understand.

Leiber cleverly blends romantic intrigue, philosophical speculation, and time-travel paradoxes to create a story that lingers in the mind, questioning the structures of love, family, and time itself.