"The Sad, Bad Man" by BronwenSM (bronwen@anon.nymserver.com). Accustomed to the friendly variety of sex in a typical small town in the British Isles, Our Narrator has moved to London, where the risks are greater and hence the pickins are slimmer. Masturbation is no long-term solution, she says; it's like living on bar snacks. So she commutes back home for sex on weekends - until she meets Liam, which, incidentally, was John Wayne's name in "The Quiet Man," in which he returned from the United States to Ireland and beat the snot out of whoever played Maureen O'Hara's brother before they boinked happily ever after.

Ah, theirs was a lust "as beautiful as a horse galloping up a hill on a bright morning, as the big breaker that throws you onto the beach. Beyond horny. Almost as pure as love." And then they fucked like magpies in heat - Bronwen says like a runaway train, but I know a better simile when I hear one. Thereafter, weekend followed weekend. Nearly every weekend they ran into each other. Never, not once, did they arrange to meet. But they met just the same.

He drank too much, he owned nothing, he had a child he never saw. His life was without form, their talk was shallow. But sex with him was like a country western song in a pickup truck at a bus station - or like a fire burning, to use the author's more prosaic words.

So how do we get from there to the last three lines: "Oh, love, you were a sad, bad man but I for one will never forget you. And you taught me one vital lesson. Always wear your heart on your sleeve. That way, at least it's legible." I guess you'll just have to read the story to find out.

This is the best Bronwen story I have seen so far. And that's saying a lot.