She seemed surprised—she was currently having marathon sex in every possible position with a beautiful, well-endowed man. I believe she was telling the truth.

(Shortly after our dinner, she was checked into a psychiatric clinic. Don’t ask me what the moral is there.)

At dinner that night we met she shrugged, yawned, and said, “Well, why don’t you write a story about a man with a really small dick?”

So I did. To me, the idea was far more intriguing than to write about the amazing fornication that she was describing.

“Pinkie” is definitely fiction, but the character is confirmation that any writer in a relationship needs her partner to be understanding, to have a sense of humor, and to have a strong sense of self.

My husband’s a good sport about the heat he takes over this story and others that I’ve published. Neighbors ask him at barbecues about his pubic hair and penis size. Everyone assumes that we’re screwing all the time, but usually I’m telling him to be quiet so I can write.

I’m as fond of “Pinkie” as the day he introduced himself to me. Once he plunked his glorious derriere down at my desk and started to talk, I became fascinated with the problem of a woman’s prejudices against him. I’ve written a lot about female bodies that don’t cooperate, but I hadn’t yet written about a man’s biological challenges. I enjoyed turning the tables.

Fleshlight

Joe Maynard

I’m not sure whether or not it’s a dubious honor that Ms. Porn Magazine Editor asked me to test-drive a tasty little item called the Fleshlight, but what hooked me was her telling me that the inventor spent two million dollars developing the thing. It’s amazing that a budget normally reserved for the space program or the Pentagon was funneled into a sex toy, but whatever. Capitalism minus the cold war, I guess. Figuring that guys like tools, the inventor designed the stealth exterior to look like a flashlight. But inside, Ms. Editor tells me, the tactile matter is damn near identical to the texture of actual labia and vulva flesh: the mother-goddess of ersatz pussies.

I rush to my girlfriend’s house and proudly exhibit Fleshlight on her kitchen table. “Yup,” she agrees. “Looks like a flashlight.” But when I unscrew the top, there’s this bubble-gum-pink, puffy sphere with what appears to be a coin slot. We poke at it with our fingers: Hmm. Feels wet, but doesn’t really make your finger wet—like that “goo” stuff for kids that comes in a little plastic trash can, only sub-stantially more “adult.”

“What’s that smell?” Girlfriend sniffs inquiringly through her mid-January Kleenex-buffed nose.

I breathe in deeply myself. “Vanilla?”

“Christ on a crutch!” she squeals. “You’re not gonna put your dick in that thing?”

“Why not? You wanna watch?”

“Yuck. Do it at your house.”