By Regan Smith

Last night I banged a librarian with an STD. Her name was Trixie, which was not what I expected when I decided to bang a librarian. I was hoping for something a little more meek and innocent, possibly with some religious or pop-culture connotations, so that afterwards I could make a joke to my friends like "I just totally porked the Virgin out of that Mary!" or "My dick showed Adrienne its Eye of the Tiger all right!"

I took her to the Bull Moose Lounge for karaoke and jag bombs and arranged for us to sing "What's Up?" by 4 Non Blondes. She said that she was shy about singing songs she didn't know, so I pulled my antler stool up closer to her and asked "Oh really, what else are you shy about?" But she was in the middle of pounding her sixth shot and didn't hear me.

By the time we were called up on stage there were several runs in her tights and she had a little dribble of Jagermeister dried to her chin. I wiped off the dribble seductively and whispered "Why don't you let your hair down, baby?" She looked up at me with major drunky eyes and started to pull out a binder, but her short, frizzy hair was still held in place by a bunch of bobby pins with glitter on them, which she fumbled with for a minute until the music started playing and the host handed us our microphones.

I tried to get a read on what she might sound like in bed, taking special note of her pitch and vocal range and deciding whether her moans would be loud and passionate enough to convince the chick in 4A I was trying to bone of my awesome sex skills. But not knowing the song she quickly got lost and followed the lyrics on the screen haltingly through squinted eyes.

"Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh..." she sang. "Hey, hey, hey..."

Afterward when I had paid for the nine jag bombs and plate of chili fries she knocked out of the waitresses hand with the bathroom door, I took her back to my apartment and asked if she wanted to read from the collection of poems I had ripped out of my sister's old Cosmopolitans."Do you maybe have some reading glasses you'd like to put on?" I asked, and started to get excited when she began fumbling in her purse. But instead of glasses she pulled out a tube of red lipstick, which she smeared mostly on her lips before leaning over and trying to go down on me through my jeans.

This afternoon when I went to return some books Trixie pretended not to know who I was and handed me a return receipt without looking up. When I got out to my car I took the wadded piece of paper out of my pocket and smoothed it on the dashboard. On it were the words "sorry 4got to tell U i have gonurea" and a late fee for $2.25.

By John Jodzio

An old guy died at the orgy. He was naked except for a pooka shell necklace and a nametag that said "Ron." I kept trying to close his eyes, but his eyes would not stay closed.

"Ron is ruining everything!" I yelled.

I yelled this because earlier in the week my pet snake Tito had died. I'd come to this orgy to grieve his passing. I'd come to this orgy to honor Tito's memory by putting on a Venetian mask and sticking my penis into a bunch of living, breathing people and perhaps a semi-warm dessert or casserole. I had NOT come to this orgy to find a dead man in my favorite sex chair, absolutely ruining my reverent sexual tribute to my pet snake.

I was NOT okay.

Maybe food will help, I thought. Food had made things better once or twice. I walked over to the snack table. Most people came to these orgies for the face melting sex and the good cardio workout, but the snacks were very underrated.

"It's like death is following me," I told Kelly as I loaded up a plate. "It's like death is following me around and I can't shake it."

I began to eat, but quickly realized that everything I was eating had no taste. Tiger prawns, profiteroles, bacon wrapped figs -- I just kept on chewing and swallowing hoping for some burst of flavor, but there was nothing there.

"Maybe I'll just go home," I told Kelly. "Maybe I should just go home and honor Tito's memory by curling up on my couch and watching some vintage German porn."

"Stay," she said. "Stay for just a little while longer."

I looked at Ron across the room, so pale and so dead. Then I looked at Kelly and her sympathetic nipples, which looked so long and so alive. She moved closer and kissed me. Fine, I said to myself, fine, I'll stay one more hour.

I began to take off my clothes. I unbuttoned my shirt and then slid off my pants. Finally I removed the black tube sock that I was wearing on my dick to mourn Tito's passing. After I was naked I took Kelly's hand and we jumped into the sweating, slithering, moaning mass of humanity and I did my pet snake Tito's memory proud.

By Diane Pham

1. Empowerment

2. If the Elevator Isn't Going Up, Then It's Going Down

I am of the belief that a person isn't truly ready for a relationship until they love themselves to be happy alone. (I guess that means that the only healthy relationships are the ones where mutual resentment is possible.) But in all this time I've spent self-actualizing, I've fallen behind; while my peers have been sampling the metaphorical buffet of of condom embellishments and thrilling, new orifices, I had stupidly focused all my attention inward. Now, all I have to contribute to the bedroom is a wholly unexciting sense of self-worth and a knowledge of roughly 10 sexual positions, of which only 4 are enjoyable.

3. Empowerment?

There aren't that many men that I actually want to sleep with. And I would have slept with them before I became slutty, if they would have let me. So how can I be slutty if there's no one to have sex with? If not the people I actually want to sleep with, that only leaves the men I don't want to sleep with. Having sex with men I don't want to have sex with doesn't sound like much fun. I guess I'm supposed to want to sleep with more men? How do I make myself want that? Am I even ready for that? Is my underwear collection adequate? Does my bra have to match my panties every day? Every day? Is a padded bra really just a bait & switch scam? What if my sexy panties don't breath well? What if it doesn't matter? What if it does? WHAT IF I DIE?

4. The Dance

Am I strong enough to be a slut?

By C Vance

1. with alchemic attention, Geoff and James tried to make love in the bathtub like love was crystal meth: cheap, illegal, labor intensive and so the whole god damned neighborhood could smell it.

2. childhood nostalgia of spitting into promised palms -- shaking them into unbreakable bonds -- inspired Jonathan and Rebecca to fold frictional flesh upon itself until it was impossible to tell who was who -- what was bush, what was beard. lying there until congealed fluids held them tight like old promises beyond the point either wanted the other's secrets.

3. after reading Pygmalion, Paul unspooled outdated VHS porn to duct-tape into the visage of every woman therein -- a chimera accomplishing everything but conversation.

5. Gwen and Stacy tried to make it out of words. foundation built by pleasantries. first floor formed by stated love with windows where passion left things unsaid. second floor the same but without windows; only a fire escape. third floor sits lopsided--- one side refusing growth as the other pulls overused words from below to try to jenga it into something monumental.

6. made from faulty mechanics -- clockwork of premature precision -- by Ray and Laurie for forty years until the former cog cracked and batteries provided a sustained alternative to the last lonely years of lovelessness.

7. with pioneering spirit, Brenda and Rob bungeed comforter corners to the bed frame to make thrusts a series of failed escapes and forced recoils back to this world. it wasn't any better. both too tired to escape the bonds Monday morning, waiting for work to call wondering where they were.

8. Anastasia used spoons and a decorative rock.

9. then there was Jenny who tried to make it from things left behind mornings after failed cooperative attempts: shellacked condoms scraped from hardwood floors, stale smells, cigarette butts, stripped buttons and bad-breath goodbyes of someday-soon statements. all compiled into an altar trying to remember one unified good someone out of so many nameless nobodies.

-Uncompromise with only your left side like a stroke victim.

-Hum a pop song with me in your mouth.

-Sparkle.

documented in scars to forever remember in case one unreasonable action felt like love made.

11. a mistake was made by Harold and Cherice; kept and mislabeled Love.

13. they thought they had it, Stella and Andy, but wanted to manufacture better by penetrating each other with objects loved: antique china dolls, power tools, her grandfather's lopsided armoire's leg, microbrew bottles... on and on until they became these things and were no long the self the other originally had.

14. we tried with chemical stimulants, mail order enhancements and marathoned attempts through cramped muscles and lack of lube; self-made or otherwise. we tried through screams, through wailed Hank Williams songs, through the silence our bodies broke in collision. we tried in barroom bathrooms, high school dugouts, library bookshelves and Sunday morning pews. we tried and tried and tried and failed -- but that never stopped us from enjoying the process.

By Heidi Lepisto

If Karla were a sentence, Rick thinks, she'd be compound-complex. Fascinating diagnoses - Bipolar I, schizophrenic vacations. Without medication - five personalities, all suicidal. Over-educated. Pyromaniac.

"Might quit medication," raking fingers through her shocking hair.

"Phallic symbol. Looks like a you-know-what. Could be used as a weapon. No one here should have weapons."

"So we cut out yo tongue, Wiley?" Francis asked.

"What the hell for?" Ervin asks Karla. He fears fire. Independence Day hospitalizes him. Today, July third. Checked in early.

"Meds ruin my libido."

Great, she'll fornicate, then blow the place to smithereens. Talk about afterglow.

Mooney, Xanax-docile, addresses the bookcase. "Don' know why they say 'makin' love.' Might make a baby, you unlucky. Can't make no love." A virgin at fifty-two.

Mrs. Wiley bounces, a seated pee-dance. "Phallic symbols. M16s? Rods shooting bullets. Like a you-know-what firing AIDS in there." She's birthed six children.

"Is this relevant?" All Howard ever says.

"S'much as Karla's libido. Who cares she gets any?"

"I get it, Francis. Doesn't register. That's the problem."

Rick coughs. "We should discuss Karla's medication."

"'Should' is a shame word, Doc." Howard. A breakthrough.

"May we discuss it?"

"Why? Ain't worth dyin' to want to get laid."

"You never been laid, Mooney."

The long being unfurls from the paisley hide-a-bed.

Whitney. Silent. Seventeen. Bipolar II. Undefined affair with a teacher. Teacher suspended. Sixteen the age of consent, but the teacher boundaries. Mother drove her here, pushed her, breech, from a squealing Kia.

Rick's exhausted; his jaw's stubbled. "Whitney?"

"It isn't actually about, um, doing it." Looks at Mrs. Wiley. "Sex."

She's a rowan tree. Spreading, top-heavy.

"How?" Rick's head pounds. He wants this.

Her eyes grey. Steel? Or fog?

"It's kissing." Thrusts a pixie chin.

"Have your lips ever throbbed, blood-full, from kisses? You ever fought for breath while a tongue fluttered the roof of your mouth?"

Wrists skyward, white scars like compound fractures. "Do you know how vanilla would taste if it were a man? Tongues. Folding and clean, like white silk in the rain. No violence. They call it soul kissing because it is. Souls."

"Tongues are phallic symbols."

"No. Penises are symbols. Tongues are the real thing."

"So we-all been gittin' it from Ole Wiley this whole time?"

She could snap in the wind. Rick tightens. "Shut up, Francis."

"Doctor Upton, you remember every time you did it?"

"Some women got machines. Call 'em jackrabbits, though."

She stands. Reedy. Could get music out of her. Comes to Rick. Kneels. Boundaries explode. Strokes his raspy throat. Bites his lower lip, barely. Tongues him.

Maybe he and the teacher can be cellmates.

"See? Cause." She points to her lips. Then eyes Rick's lap. "Effect. Deductive reasoning. Stay on your meds, Karla, or something's going to blow up in your face.

By John Kipling

This is how low I've sunk.

I have no idea what the "D" stands for, but I'm guessing he's Captain Douchebag. Maybe he's just a plain old Richard, but whoever he is, I am not impressed by the way the masked man absentmindedly gestures with a wedge of focaccia while staring at my breast plate.

"And then, wouldn't you know it, she wants me to save her dog too." He tells my chest. "Like saving her kids wasn't enough."

Earlier, I had joked to Infinity Girl that if we were really going to Superhero Speed Dating then it should take only ten minutes for ten "mini dates" instead of an hour. If we are truly super, shouldn't one minute, instead of five, be enough to tell if a guy is worth the trouble? Two sidekicks, one masquerading villain, one lesbian Amazon, and one Captain Douchebag later, my joke stings like a one-two punch of poetic justice and bad stand up comedy.

"So," he says wiping his focaccia flavored fingers on a napkin. "You're an Amazon."

"Oh, you're from Iceland?"

I shrug, picking up my Peach-tini. "Uh-huh," I say before sipping.

While the Big D launches into a story about the time he met Bjork backstage at a concert, I realize that I have no right to judge. I didn't exactly come here tonight to find Super McPerfect Guy or Mr. Long Term Commitment. As terrible as it sounds, I just want to get laid. But as a public official, not unlike a politician or a professional athlete, satisfying that intense craving can be tricky. A hero can't simply meet a random, handsome firefighter, get lost in a moment of naked limbs while clutching that impressive extension ladder without the press and bloggers hounding her the next day.

How is it that the rest of society, who doesn't lift a finger to make the world a better place, can have as much meaningless sex as it wants, but as soon as I wink at a cute reporter from Channel 11, my ethics and morals are publicly addressed? All I have ever wanted to do is to help people, to make a difference. Why should an over the top, big budget, summer blockbuster with lots of explosions (or at least one really good one) make me less of a hero?

The digital egg timer on the table shows me that my time with Captain Douchebag is coming to an end and my smile becomes genuine. As the final seconds of this bomb count down, my nature takes over and I hope that Capital D finds his one night team up with that super someone else.

Whomever I meet tonight, I'm saving some hope for me. I've earned it.

By Nate Watters

2:30 in the morning. Only a white sheet covers us. Still, I am sweating. It's too damn hot. I hear distant engines rev. Probably boys racing down Blaisdell.

Boys and their races.

Is that what this is all about? I glance at my boy, who sleeps soundly with his back to me. He always sleeps on his right side, with his left arm tucked under is pillow and head. At least that has not changed.

He only smiled then left. He told me to wait for him. I waited. After seven months, he returned. He had changed, as most people do. He shaved his head, he wore bead bracelets, he ate no meat, and he abstained from "sexual activity."

After I laughed, then realized he had told no joke. I screamed. I cried. I threw little Buddha statues at a mirror.

I know, seven years of bad luck, but at the time it seemed inevitable anyway.

My tirade lasted longer than I want to admit. He listened, unrelenting and ever abstaining.

How could he do this to me? We had such a good thing going. I mean, I waited for him. For seven months I told myself the man you want to marry is worth the wait. Sure he was pretentious at times, he was thoughtless at other times, but he always made up for his faults with his brilliance in the kitchen and in the sack. Now, here he lies next to me, in that said sack, only now he is one big, thoughtful, humble, limp dick. I guess he is not useless, at least he still can make those perfect chicken dumplings.

"Yeah? Well, love is about filing each other's needs. How you gonna fill that need?"

He giggled at my unintentional innuendo. I wanted to knock his teeth out. Remarkably, I only shouted at him.

"Shut up! I want to have sex. I want you! What's wrong? Do you not want me? Is that it?" Then I started to sob.

He rushed to me and cupped my teary, mascara stained face in his hands, those damn beads rested in my ear.

"I can still love you. I can still make love to you." He pulled me close, then whispered in my ears as we sunk to the kitchen floor.

He held me close as we talked about the last seven months. He had learned new massage techniques and he had mastered curry. I had been given a raise and bought a bike.

It was good.

Yet, I lie here wondering and its getting late. How long can I wait, or should I just give up? I need to get back to sleep. I roll over, the sheet sticks to my hips and uncovers my naked boyfriend. He turns toward me, and I look over my shoulder at his body. I can't help but notice that he is extremely happy to see whoever fills his dreams. It's so damn hot. Well, boys will be boys. At least I hope so.

By Sally Schalk

"Hi Eve, it's Lizzie."

I never called her Lizzie. That seemed reserved for those who knew her before. Before she delivered four kids in five years and still reigned as the hottie of our street. She shot them out like bee bees, never gaining a layer. Jim put rose petals on their sheets, she told us, beaming, at Women's Group. Our faces masked I-want-what-she's-having with polite surprise. Jim was handsome, a real comer. He bought her a red convertible. All eyes were on Liz when she blew by, kids unbuckled, scattered like dice in the back.

"Can you and Jerry come for dinner and a swim tonight?"

I ravaged my drawer looking for the Gottex, a gift from my Florida mother. Alas, a Gottex body didn't come with the package. I sighed.

On boozy summer days, everyone watched Liz as she tidied up the dock, her sweet tush arching toward the waning sun, a tattoo peeking out. On the boat after dark, our men watched when we swam. I wore underwear. Liz, of course, did not.

When she told me "I had breast augmentation," I stuffed a chuckle. I didn't know that?

I dove into wet, blessed silence.

Liz snapped my suit strap. "Martini!" she said, sipping. I saw her cell phone flashing poolside. Lucinda Williams sang "Be my lover, don't play no game, just play me John Coltrane."

I looked at the phone. She glanced at the fire pit, fixing hazily on Jim.

"It's Preston."

"That car salesman?"

"Who doesn't?" I asked

Tiring, I went to the men.

Suddenly Jim dropped his cigar and shot toward Liz like a Scud missile. He grabbed her, snarling, a hectic red stain rising on his neck. Liz extricated herself, breasts exposed. He chased her up the deck's stairs to the hot tub.

"You slut!" he spat. He threw her against a table. I grabbed a teetering Merlot. The hot tub roared. He slammed her head against the house. Jerry got between them.

Jim became a whirling dervish, throwing potted plants over the deck. He eyed the bird bath, beautiful and handmade, embedded with colored mirrored glass and a sculpted leaping trout.

"Come with us." I said. She went to pack a bag. I took a slug of wine from the bottle. Jim sank into a chaise.

We waited in the car. "Where is she?" I said.

I went back in. Candles still burned. Soil marked the carpeting. Outside, swirling jewel-toned lights illuminated the pool. The patio under the deck was littered with ceramic debris, glittering bits of glass and the trout's dead eyes. I went back to the master bedroom. The door was ajar.

They pushed against the foot of the enormous bed, naked and passionately kissing. Her hands moved furiously up and down, kneading and scratching his wet skin. They murmured and moaned, pelvises pressing. At my sharp intake of breath, she looked over his shoulder and straight into my eyes. With a sly half smile and a split second shake of her head, she stretched out a spectacular leg and kicked the door shut.