be with a lug like me. I'm rough as a cob--and I'm ...shy. I got no finesse. All I got is a tough face and a big...fear in me of being hurt...being sold short. Leave us not talk about it now. I do my best soul-baring in the dark." He paused-and I knew I should keep my mouth shut and my hands busy. But I thought my heart would burst. A Mozart symphony shimmered like a golden rain in the small apartment--and I remember thinking: Dear God! Don't let me cry! I felt such a surge of tenderness and desire I was breathless.

Somehow I finished the salad--and Bill praised it. We destroyed the steak and sat, drinking hot, black coffee with our cigarettes. Mozart was well into the "Marriage" when we slicked up the remains of our dinner and drifted into the living room. Bill poured brandy and we sat, yakking--about nothing much--on the surface of words. But we were telling our hearts in quiet, casual ways. And I thought, looking at Bill: This is the why of my life. This is what I have been living for. Not hoping for. Not expecting. Not even dreaming about except in a confused way this last month. Here is my heart's core--the glory of my youth--why God gave me breath. And I might--so easily--so carelessly have passed it byl

A little accident--a no-thing in the procession of stupid days--and I would not be sitting here--warm--replete with good food and fine brandy. And not giving a damn about good food or fine brandy--but only the need....the need!

"Tag--" said Bill, stirring at last, and putting his brandy snifter down. "You aren't expected home tonight. I told Ma Ferguson when I got off work that you and I were going out for a night on the town. She suggested we...visit her new girl but I said you were interested in "chesty brunettes." As you know, Ferguson's new broad is a floppy blonde."

"So..." I swallowed the last of my brandy, feeling high as the world and twice as handsome. And then I was cold sober. I stood up and looked at him. I started to say: "How about some soul-baring--in the dark?" And it seemed so cheap-so sharpy--so mean. And I didn't want to be smart or cheap or sharp. The thing in my heart bubbled up and choked me. My lips trembled and I looked at Bill blindly.

"You too?" he said softly, and came to me quickly-taking me, holding me, kissing me--and my tears were salt on our mouths.

LITERARY scene

An Informal column of reviews of fiction and non-fiction books on themes of sex variation

GENE DAMON

In early 1963, Putnam, braving several hundred years of the censors' wrath, published John Cleland's semi-pornographic classic, MEMOIRS OF A WOMAN OF PLEASURE, better known as FANNY HILL. On the heels of Henry Miller and others of similar skills, this is a pretty innocuous bit of "sexy" stuff. Cashing in on all the gravy, a small West Coast publisher, Brandon House, put Fanny in 95¢ paperback form in October, 1963.

Brandon House claims it to be a "French" edition but comparison of the text shows it to be nearly identical to the Putnam version. The book contains Lesbian and male homosexual activity but just the "titillating" kind--no real subjective value. It's fun to read though and assureedly reaffirms that human nature is a pretty static affair. People don't really change much basically from century to century. "Henry Treece, British historical novelist of some repu tation, has twice in recent years placed a homosexual interpretation on the mythological figures of history. In 1961, in JASON, Random House, also Signet, 1962, Mr. Treece retold the Quest of the Golden Fleece tale depicting Hercules as a strong man with a strong yen for "weaker" boys. His latest book, ELECTRA, London, Bodley Head, 1963; also as THE AMBER PRINCESS, Random House, 1963, is an altered version of the private lives of Electra, Agamemnon, Clytemnestra and Orestes and life in the Palace of Mycenae. In Mr. Treece's eyes Electra is a Lesbian (although she prostitutes herself to support her many travels).

Among the unhappy and unusual "inmates". of THE UNCOMFORTABLE INN, by Dachine Rainer, Abelard-Schuman, 1960, is a male homosexual. This is another novel in the new and unfortunate trend to writing thready novels with non-action plots and characters who slip and slither rather than walk, all the more unfortunate when the writer has real talent as Miss Rainer certainly does.

mattachine REVIEW