You can tell he has the virus the day he puts his hands on your face when he kisses you, warm fingertips canting your head a few degrees bit off north, which feels sweet, not terrible at all, but is not something he’s done in twenty years of kissing you. He’s picked this up from someone else, someone infected. Later, the realization that you will both die, and soon, but first: Did the other woman…

You can train a man on most things he needs to know using regular table food, my Auntie Gin says. See this? She pinches an inch of skin above her hip. That’s lard that got that there. That’s the beginning of I don’t give a good goddamn, and I will fuck strangers in your absence. Be a witness to my warning, is my philosophy.

Last night my friend Mary masturbated in the church sanctuary where all of us girls were supposed to be sleeping. I think I am the only one who heard the crinkle of her Barbie-brand sleeping bag and the squelch of her fingers, kneading between her legs. Later, after I thought she was finished, she started moaning loudly. I think everyone heard, but when I rolled over to her sleeping bag, she was asleep. I clutched…

Things started out well enough. The tin of butter cookies was graciously received, as was the punch bowl of lemonade—refreshments that wouldn’t tint the tongue, or the hands. The church basement was warm, not the dank dungeon some had feared, and was plastered with kids’ coloring sheets of lambs and foot-washing. Some members were heartened to see one picture of Jesus’ calves and ankles filled in with Vivid Tangerine crayon. The meeting was called to…

You do not know that I have written him something inappropriate. He does not know it either. This is how I cross the line from friendship into foreplay: chronic limp. A text that reads “I have written you something inappropriate” that once read “Pants: Y/N?”

This is a very short story indeed, but you should still read it.

Every October, our father, smelling of cigarettes and Valvoline, would tell us to scour the five acres of land in front of our house for all the switches that had sliced our backsides throughout the year.