She came to me in the late 1986, when I was involved with a crazy man. She was, too. We became friends.

Her lover was a collector of erotica, for which he claimed a highbrow appreciation. My lover was a simple porn dog, sniffing out images in the cheapest places they could be had, drooling over them in bed, in the bathroom.

We were both invited into representational sexuality by these benign hosts. We were both deeply affected by what we saw; what we read; what we imagined as we read. When we met, we would analyze our sex lives in light of what her lover called “the erotic sensibility” what my lover called “sexual heeling”, “following at the feet of the mystery”.

Yearning for more than understanding, we began to fashion our sexual episodes into stories. We reimagined them, sometimes from our own perspective, sometimes from the perspective of our lovers. One of us would initiate a story. The other would embellish it. Our stories emerged as counterpoint monologues, linked together by the wisdom of chaos, complimenting each other’s so completely that we realized we were loving each other’s lovers.

We coalesced into Shenar.

Shenar began recording our stories. She felt something important was passing between us, and should, perhaps, pass beyond us.

When we had no more stories to tell, Shenar stopped writing.

Together, one day, months after we had laid Shenar’s manuscript to rest, we looked at each other and remembered the old stories, because we were ripe with new stories to tell.

We knew it was time to read Shenar’s stories aloud.