The Naked Guy
By Katherine Luck

“Will you just write the word already? It’s not dirty, it’s just a body part. Every guy’s got one—nobody’s gonna care what you call it!”
I took the director off of speaker phone five minutes ago. People were starting to come up from the costume shop to stare into my cubicle and snicker.
“No way! I refuse to write anything about the…y’know. The unit. No girth or length or whatever. We can’t even call it ‘the unit!’ It’s probably an obscenity or something, and the theater’ll get fined.”
I’m on the phone with the director of our theatre’s upcoming production of The Naked Guy. I’m three days late placing the casting call for the lead character on the online callboard. I need to find a good-looking guy in his twenties who’s comfortable with full frontal male nudity for the entirety of ninety minutes. For the play.

Ruby Gets An Exam
By Katherine Luck

I lost my innocence (such as it was) at fourteen on a hot summer morning in Texas. The instrument of my downfall was a very handsome, very young ob-gyn from out of town—one Dr. Dick, after whom my mama was raucously pining.
Fine, hot dust sifted like brown sugar through the window as I sat sulking in the front seat of our temporarily-not-broke-down Oldsmobile, arms crossed tight over my t-shirt. Dipped in a pissed-off silence, Mama drove.
“I don’t see why you won’t willingly do this little thing and help your own mama out. Ain’t nothing to it—just like going to the dentist. Only at the other end.”
“I hate the dentist and I don’t wanna do it, Mama! Why don’t you just tell him you gots the hots for him? I’ll do it for you, if you’re scared.”
Mama’s cheeks went white under her circular rouge job.

Scattered and passionate, Janey struggles to transform the addiction. Her creativity supports her intention but her weak will tells her the addiction cannot be contained. Still, this writing seems so powerful; if only she could manage it. Pens of blue, black, green and red are scattered all over her floor like sprinkles on a cake. Notebooks stacked on the futon, floor, closet shelves and dresser pester and mock her, accenting the sprinkles but harassing her about the terrible habit, this pleasurable anguish. Not one piece of her ever-multiplying collection of writings has been finished. Her struggle is constant; she continues to fight. Empowered by her new orange notebook, she reaches for a red pen and tells herself, "This time will be different. This time I will control you."

Some doggerel, both sad and true:

I love the virgin Tina
We walk round the marina
cross the bay from Alameda

Tina is a virgin
not by choice or notion

She's a dog very rare
Coming from Animal Care

She was abandoned and mixed
And Animal Care insisted:
She must be fixed!

But that's only their version.

Now, here's how I became a virgin
At the hands of an evil surgeon

His name is Doctor Tom Lieu
As he felt compelled to do
with his knife, and for life
he permanently fixed me too.

Left me with a big aversion
to Tom lieu, the evil surgeon
Now Tina and I together
forever will be -- a virgin.

The unbroken, Arye Michael Bender, as told by Tina-the-Beast -- a virgin

I’m no different than other women. Every morning I look in the mirror to judge what’s there, and one recent morning I saw it. That obvious, very visible lack of something. Clearly, I needed a new lipstick.

Heading straight for the upscale makeup counter in the upscale mall, I confronted a bazillion lipsticks, propped up and showcased like fresh tulips-hoo boy! At least three associates were on the counter. Piece of cake, I thought. I’ll just choose one of these and be on my way.

Hah! Not before I got a lesson in what it means to be a woman of a certain age.

Once knew a sodomite
who plied his trade at night.
No matter how hard
he might try to fight,
He remained
a nightime sodomite

He loved The Virgin Mary.
They shared a house
out on the prairie.
He begged, "After we marry???"
She replied, "Only very rarely."

- Arye Michael Bender -

This is a story that I wrote last year about going to a hotel for business. I made it into a joke. I hope you enjoy it. Let me know what you think...

So, your job takes you to a different town, and by George, you have to stay over night. Yahoo, right?

NOPE!!!

So after a long day of boring meetings, and walking mile upon mile, in stupid new shoes, that you thought would look great. Your feet now look like a small army of bruised raisins, thanks new shoes. And let us not forget, the Hair gel went limp an hour after the day started, and by noon, you looked like Phyllis Diller-eeeek.

Hello, this is the continuation of the Motel experience from the great depths of darkness.

Ok, so now I managed to get the motel room from the ever unforgiving counter clerk from the" let me make you life miserable" class.

Now, climbing up 3 flights of stairs would not be bad, but have you ever noticed that somehow, during the day, when you were not looking, some little creature came, and filled your luggage full of heavy air!!!! Oh yes, no extra items, but by 5pm, they weigh triple what they did when you put them in the car. And your feet, well, by now, they are beyond a group of moldy dried out prunes stuck together, and now just are like two appendages that have all of the world's most painful hot coals placed upon them., ok, so we have made it to the room. Yay. What a great thing. Right....

WRONG!!!!!!

Dear high-water-wearing domestic gentleman,

I am posting this letter to the open ranges of the World Wide Web in a vain attempt to both help you, my fellow "man," and to selfishly sooth my reason-wearied mind. You, the one shopping at Market of Choice, paying $6.99 a pound for grilled vegetables that would cost you $1.37 to roast yourself. You, the one sifting through the columnular bins of $40 dollar imported South African Muscat. You, the driver of a shiny new, as their site says, "teensy," silver Volvo C30 (which I am ashamed to admit, I envy). To you, I ask:

Why, oh why, are you wearing a jeans outfit with denim pantalons that are 3 inches too short?