Naked Ray Bradbury Guy had a huge dick. He was exotic model style attractive but would never have made it into an underwear ad because there was no way a snug, sexy jockey short could have jockeyed his johnson into any contained photographic package. Even if he had been perfect in every way I would have passed on a permanent penetrative partnership based solely on the size of his penis, which was, in its own way, perfectly in keeping with the alien themes in our brief relationship.

I met Naked Ray Bradbury Guy during Hurricane Charley. We all holed up in my big strong house to entertain ourselves by candlelight and I was introduced to a tall, dark, handsome friend of a friend who, as it happened, would be moving away in a couple of weeks, which was perfect because I was on a bit of a smash ’em and trash ’em streak.

The usual signals were sent and it became clear we would each happily consent to sex. He hastened such circumstances by plucking The Martian Chronicles from the shelf in my room and reading aloud. Do you mind if I read to you? No, I suppose I don’t.

Ohio’s Rocket Summer was hardly at an end when he broke off to undress. He said that comfort was integral to the full effect of reading The Martian Chronicles aloud. I was a bit mystified but went with it. There was a hurricane wailing outside, and we had nowhere else to go so we got naked and took turns reading stories to each other by candlelight. I did for one moment feel bad about using the tattered old 1970s copy that had belonged to my father as nerdgasm foreplay, but I pushed the thought from my mind before it caused me any serious psychosexual difficulties.

This went on for about a week. We didn’t go out to eat, we didn’t watch movies, we didn’t do anything else together. We simply read The Martian Chronicles naked, had sex a few times, and departed each other’s company.

There is a limit to oddball passive activities I will engage in naked with someone I barely know, but I can confidently say that reading one of the greatest science fiction story collections of all time out loud to a partner belongs at the very top of a Nude To Do List. (Even if half the thrill was the surprise, or the pure weirdness of it.)

Once we finished reading The Martian Chronicles I became bored with him, but I knew he would be moving in a matter of days so I didn’t mention it. He came over one night and suggested we watch Naruto naked. Watching Naruto in any way didn’t appeal to me, but the thought of watching such awful anime while naked grossed me out. It was one of those moments when a person who had once been a crunchy bunch of carrots turns into a heap of slimy stewed spinach before your eyes, turning your stomach and clenching your vagina firmly shut.

I told him I had a headache. We didn’t watch Naruto. We didn’t get naked.

He was transferring to a school a couple of hours away and since he drove a motorcycle I agreed to follow him with his possessions in my car. He lived about twenty minutes outside of town in a big house in the swamp. I had never been there and almost missed the turn onto his dirt road, so I took the corner a little too fast and skidded out because the road was muddy, ran right over the stop sign, down into a ditch, and uprooted a tree with the front end of my car. I called him up and he came out to the corner but was utterly useless.

Then a couple swampmen came by in their truck and pulled my car out of the ditch. I’ve never been sexually attracted to rednecks or swampdwellers but these gentlemen were clear evidence of the fact that the size of one’s penis has nothing to do with one’s manly heroisms. As it turned out my car was fine.

When I left Naked Ray Bradbury Guy at his new dwelling he attempted some poignant farewell and gave me his wrist mala, one of those bracelets of buddhist prayer beads. I thought it was dumb and decided he was kind of a ridiculous hippie for trying to be buddhist, but I accepted the mala graciously and still have it to this day. It amuses me that every time I see such prayer beads the only things I think of are Martians, nudity, and an abnormally large penis. There were 28 stories in The Martian Chronicles, and the mala has 27 beads and a gold tassle. Now there’s something to meditate on.