MEMOIR OF AN EROTIC MINIMALIST

1. I forget how many star tattoos Sylvia had, but nipples were her favorite body part. When she ended it, I wrote a poem:

The lips of ambition
bit the tit of our passion,
and drew until blue.

2. The sun warmed the plastic stall. As "We Are The Champions" swelled, the moldering curtain was swept aside and Wanda joined me for the last chorus.

3. I took Tereza's virginity on the Fourth of July.
Our neighbor's stereo repeated the same Alanis Morrissette song for at least 45 minutes.

4. A year or so after letting our little fling die out, Bingo and I finally had sex, drunkenly, while her boyfriend (my downstairs neighbor) was out of town.

5. The best part of sleeping with Olivia was when Elway helped me take my socks off.

6. Margaret began having an asthma attack during the second round. I felt proud.

7. Once Simone told me that blowing into the vagina could cause a fatal embolism, I became morbidly obsessed with the idea. During cunnilingus.

8. After we took turns whacking each other with my belt, Chun-li told me she bet I'd make a good boyfriend, for someone else.

9. Whenever I hear "Invitation to the Blues" I think of Annie: we tore up the literature room of the library one Halloween and decided not to sleep together. Three years later, we met up at a party on campus, and with drunken speed requited our passion on the back of the hill.

10. Jane and I were just friends, nothing more, though I was disappointed to find that she'd taken out her nipple ring since the last time we'd hooked up.

11. After we finally did it, I glanced at Justine's planner while she was out of the room. She had written "I think he & I understand each other sexually better than anyone I?ve known."

12. Artemis told me a thing she wanted us to do with a vibrator, but couldn't just yet because her only one was so large she was afraid it would smash my nuts. I think that was when I fell for her.

13. My first time was on my waterbed listening to Beethoven with a girl I'd loved for several years, but who was just coming to love me. I had enough time to realize that somehow I'd known how it would feel.

-Correspondent Aaron X.