Doctor Stephen Frost and Doctor Rachel Davidson were two of the most esteemed residents of Indianapolis, Indiana.

They devoted themselves to causes praised by other residents, whether they stood left or right of the centre. They supported the arts and the restoration of historic neighbourhoods. They supported college scholarships for worthy young people from low-income families of all ethnic backgrounds. But their principal philanthropic interests were medical. Stephen, an orthopaedic surgeon, devoted several hours of one Saturday each month to performing free surgeries for the indigent. Rachel, a cardiologist, spent several hours of one Sunday each month in the same way. She was Jewish. Though generally not observant, she treated Saturday the way Christians treat Sunday.

When he walked into Nebraska, I thought here is someone sturdy enough to withstand the press of wind and sky. Where the shed leaned east, he walked straight, and his hair was colored like the October cornstalks.

He was called Aaron—a name mountain-tall. He had hazel eyes like clear running streams.

In sophomore year of college, Leo had a girlfriend, the relationship short but intense. So short that they’d gotten together and went their separate ways in between two therapist’s appointments — so about three weeks, at that point. Intense enough that for the first time since his parents broke the news about their separation, it wasn’t the first thing he thought about when he opened his eyes in the morning; instead it was how much he’d like to lick her into orgasm again.

Daniel could feel his desire mounting. The hairs on his body were slowly stiffening, and worse, between his legs something else was beginning to uncurl. The image of a periscope breasting the waves came to mind. Desperately, he conjured up algebraic equations, Archimedes’ Principle, Boyle’s Law, but it was no good. His situation would soon become apparent to the whole class.
“Cramp!” he proclaimed, jack-knifing to hide his privates, and quickly throwing on his robe before heading for the cubicle.

Last month I went on three dates. I met them all on Bumble, the dating AP where girls make the first move.

Dov, 53. A Hollywood TV writer who went to Brown. Jewish. Normally I’m not into Jewish men. It’s too Jewie. Maybe if I wasn’t Jewish myself. Dov was better looking than his pictures. His lower lip reminded me of my junior high school crush. But did I want to kiss that lip? We sat on La Bea at Blue Jam Café. He wore a baseball cap like he did in all his profile pictures. Must be bald under that cap. Short. I wasn’t surprised about that since he didn’t write his height on his profile.

“What are you working on now?” I asked as I sipped on iced mint tea while we sat in the sun.

Around February of 2001 I was housed on the infamous 2000 floor of the men’s L.A. County Jail.

I lived in 2200 Delta Row amongst three other inmates, in a small four-man cell with a collect phone that hung on the back wall. The phone was on 24/7.

Around that time I was just waiting for my sentence to be handed down. The delay was because my trial counsel had suffered a stroke right after my trial, and I was going to need another lawyer to be assigned to me by the public defender’s office in order to receive a so-called fair sentencing hearing.

Agramonte was her playground when she was a child. Hand-in-hand with her mother, wearing her Sunday best right after church, Ines would arrive. Her mother would wash three gravestones while she used the time to stroke cats that she had named, treated them as she would any friend, talked to them as equals.

I shall call her Janet because I have forgotten her name, if I ever knew it, and because the name has acquired over the years an erotic charge. It suggests suburban tidiness, make-up and artificial manners, designed as a surface to disguise lively desire living beneath.

This Janet was no prim one. She came from the edge of the estate, noted for broken windows out of which shouts and screams often issued, and front gardens loaded with cast-offs and heavyweight litter. She nevertheless qualifies for her suburban pseudonym because she was neat, groomed and sexy, and didn’t shout.

It was like belonging to a sect. There were rules, there was doctrine, there were obligations. There were more things not to be done than to be done. Sin hung over us like English weather. It burrowed into us like a slow death. We were mauled inwardly and outwardly. We didn’t have a chance.

The smell of wedding fever is a heady melange of sweat and a cocktail of perfumes gone stale. This church is an ancient place which has become the final rest of figures notable in their day, names now forgotten by most, their engraved tablets dulled with age.