April 16, 2002
Nevada City, Ca.

A couple of days ago, I was holed up by a wood stove at my Snuggle Bunny's place outside of Santa Fe. The high desert had several inches of wet snow. The pinyon and juniper trees were loaded and the air outside was silent. It was quiet inside, too. I was there alone since the Snuggle Bunny was in Laguna Beach with her new lover. She had phoned with the news before I left St. Louis.

"We haven't been together in six months," she reminded me. "I know we had this visit planned for a long time, but I have to tell you something. I'm seeing someone else."

There's a pause. I've only been laid once in 20,000 miles and this was a sure thing. On the other hand, eliminating the Santa Fe visit would add time to a jammed research schedule and although we have steamy- hot jungle sex, she's not really my type. My response was gentle.

"Don't feel bad," I said. "You're wise not to base personal decisions on me. If you have a new boyfriend, well then...."

"It's not a man," she said.

"Unbelievable," I thought. "Four times in three months. The lesbians are after me."

It began on New Year's. I was at a club in St. Louis when an old girlfriend visiting from New York points me toward her girlfriend and commands "Feel Her Tits!" Later the girlfriend grabs my paqette and shoves her tongue down my throat.

Same New Year's Party, two blondes invite me to dance and within seconds, we're on a spotlighted platform while both women rub my hands all over their tightly knit bodies. So fucking hot, I can't believe it! But I stay cool. Try to figure out what's happening and what I should do. Then one leans over and says, "My brother is a cop."

"Am I breaking a law?"

"No, but that's his girlfriend's ass you're grabbing and he's coming here when he gets off duty."
I somehow managed not to get laid that night. Weeks later at a Mardi Gras party, I was chatting up a cute brunette when her blonde friend moves in close, so close that all three of us are rubbing thighs. The encounter continues for several minutes before the blonde's husband moves in (swinging) to break it up.

So while the ultimate male fantasy keeps presenting itself, I'm still not getting even simple sex.
And now the Snuggle Bunny in Santa Fe has a new lover.

She's a divorced English woman, an acupuncture student and a sometimes photo stringer for the Associated Press in New York. "You've probably seen some of her pictures," the Snuggle Bunny said on the phone. "You'd really like her. I just know you two would get along great."

"Well, I do already have the trip in the schedule," I said.

I followed with a respectful letter acknowledging her privacy, but one that explored the possibility she seemed to be offering. The Snuggle Bunny and I drove up to an old mining town and met the New Girlfriend at a bar. After two pints of ale, the New Girlfriend was acting like she was going to spill out of her panties. And it was directed at me! When we're outside, she can't keep her hands off my ass.

I told her that if she liked the back pockets, she'd love what was in the front pocket. A dinner was arranged for the following evening and that night I teased the Snuggle Bunny that the one sure outcome of the weekend was that I'd return her to the straight side. Then I chased her around the house, threatening her with a rubber stamp that says:

Running Water Press
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Dinner Wednesday was filet of fish and vegetable. It was, if I may say, a tour de force of food styling. On each plate, I first shaped a mound of rice to approximate the mons pubis. The poached filets were laid over the rice in a manner resembling the labia and, for the clitoris, I imbedded a tiny red Jalepeno at one end of the mound.

After supper I was in the bathroom washing up when I knocked over my shower bag and condoms spilled all over the floor. I wondered if it were a good sign or bad sign.

Bad sign, apparently.

The farthest we got was sandwich dancing to the Gypsy Kings. The women got too drunk and began to obsess on the minor scandal their romance was causing at the acupuncture school they both attend.

Somebody put on Mahler and they got all neurotic and weepy. It was a mess.

Now I'm assembling for another research season, another 20,000 lonely miles accompanied solely by this consolation: Love lasts but a moment. A good story is forever.