“Your turn,” I said. “Strip.” Steve stood up. He slowly unbuttoned his shirt, shrugged it off, then kicked off his shoes. When his hands went to his waist, I stopped him. “I’ll help,” I said. I unbuttoned the fly, lowered the zipper. His pants started to sag, revealing the top band of his underwear and a bulge below. I pushed the pants aside and cupped the bulge, which was still growing. I pressed my face against the clot...

The minutes passed. Steve and I lay there on our backs, our breathing slowly getting back to normal. I slowly stroked his thigh with the back of my hand, just trying to keep contact with his warm skin. “It’s been a long time since I had sex that intense,” I said. “In fact I can’t remember EVER having sex that intense.” “Me either,” he said. “I thought I would never stop coming.” He lifted his head enough to look at our bo...

A few months after my divorce I moved down the coast a short way from San Francisco, to a smallish town where I hoped to get some of the quiet I had long craved. The divorce had not been especially angry or bitter; after a while my wife and I simply had nothing to say to each other, and while we rarely argued, the long silences at had home become oppressive to us and to our teenage kids. Luckily they were old enough so th...