Drink your coffee -- people in Africa are sleeping.

'What about stress? Are you using your stress-management techniques when things seem to be getting on top of you?' 'Nothing is getting on top of me.' As I said it, a totally inappropriate picture popped into my mind. 'What are you feeling?' Jake's breath warm against my face, my bruised lips tingling from his kisses. 'Tell me what it feels like with me inside you.'

I don't know if real courage lies in storming barricades or simply not denying the truth.

I hadn't liked him at first. He did sort of grow on you after a while. Like the cosmopolitans. Or maybe because of the cosmopolitans.

He shifted over without comment, lifting the blankets, and I scrambled into the warm sheets beside him. He smelled like soap and sleep and bare skin. He smelled familiar. Not the deja vu familiar of Guy or Mel. Familiar like...the ache in your chest of homesickness, of longing for harbor after weeks of rough seas or craving a fire's warmth after snow--or wanting back something you should never have given away.

I thought I recognized you." Really? He remembered me looking like Swamp Thing? How flattering.

I'm a thirty-something gay man with a dodgy heart. I sell books for a living. Who wants to read about that?