From Jeff Mann’s “Key West”:

We got to the Oasis at sunset. John’s friends Richard and Charlie had heartily recommended this guesthouse, and we were soon to toast their good taste. The Oasis was delightful: a clothing-optional, all-male compound, full of enormous banana fronds, ficus, palms, bougainvillea, and blooming hibiscus, with many-leveled decks, two pools and a huge hot tub. Our room, located right behind the big pool, sported a broad four-poster and a walk-in shower stall that could have hosted several friendly couples. Wine was served by the pool, and we indulged in several glasses. “We’re on vacation” is, after all, a fine excuse for all kinds of immoderation. Later, at the Half Shell Raw Bar, we enthusiastically gulped pina coladas and devoured conch fritters, broiled scallops, cole slaw, and flan. How fine, I thought, to have a lover who shares my devotion to good food, who matches me appetite for appetite.

We made love at midnight, then again at dawn, the eager sex of a professional couple who are usually too exhausted at work-day’s end to feel erotic, who must make up for lost time during vacation. About the guesthouse that first morning a terrific thunderstorm tore, wind and wind and sheets of rain. Listening to the elements, sunk in the deliciousness of a half-drowse, I pressed myself closer against John’s bare back, feeling warm, safe and protected, insulated from such savagery.

When the storm passed, we stepped out to the rain-puddled but sunny deck to share a continental breakfast and check out the fellow guests. A friend back home had predicted that a clothing-optional place would be a magnet for, well, the ill-favored “The last time I stayed at such a place,” Tom had wailed, “I dubbed the hot tub ‘Troll Soup!’” To our pleasure, however, as we sunbathed by the pool, several sexy boys strolled by in various stages of undress, all of them up for a chat.

From Jen Burke’s “Finding Room”:

As I brew tea for you and coffee for me, I start to wonder if dirty socks decorate the bathroom floor or stray hairs punctuate the sink. I wonder if you’re the type to notice these things. I realize that I’m nervous, so I focus on your jaw line as it moves to tell your story.

I sit quite still at the table with my coffee, my elbows and feet fixed in place, resisting the urge to run and see what is possibly lurking in my bathroom after my rush to get ready for our dinner. Make-up smudges on the mirror? Torn nylons on the floor? You, meanwhile, stay in constant activity, a counterpoint to my enforced calm.

As you talk, you graze by my bookshelves and book piles, sipping tea, pausing to read, interrupting yourself to tell me about what you did manage to read or wish you had, all the time refusing to mince words about the dissolution of a marriage. Your marriage. The one you’ve talked about intermittently through the night as you ate with me.

Still meandering around the shelves, you take a book that is about foes, about opposites and silent screams, and you won’t put it down. “I heard about this author, but I’ve never seen this book,” you said, trailing off from the description of your son’s death through alcohol poisoning. This is your habit, to mention tragedy in unconnected spurts.

You can find Maria on MySpace here and read her current call for essays on femme identity here. Pick up Queer Shorts, her new anthology, at MergePress.com.