THE ANAL-RETENTIVE LINE EDITOR SHORT STORY DENNIS COOPER Contents Acknowled gments iv Begin Reading 1 About the Author Other Books by Dennis Cooper Credits Cover Copyright About the Publisher ACKNOWLEDGMENTS “Jerk” previously appeared in the book Jerk (Artspace Books, 1993). “Ugly Man” and “The Boy on the Far Left” previously appeared in Scott Treleaven’s art catalog Some Boys Wander by Mistake (Kavi Gupta Gallery, John Connelly Pres- ents, and Marc Selwyn Fine Art, 2007) and in Dennis Cooper: Writing at the Edge (Sussex Academic Press, 2008). “Graduate Seminar,” “Santa Claus vs. Johnny Crawford,” “The Worst (1960– 1971),” and “Three Boys Who Thought Experimental Fiction Was for Puss- ies” previously appeared in Dennis Cooper: Writing at the Edge (Sussex Academic Press, 2008). “Knife/Tape/Rope” was originally the text of a performance art work of the same name created and di- rected by Ishmael Houston-Jones in 1985. “One Night in 1979 . . .” previously appeared in the anthology Thrills, Pills, Chills, and Heartache: Ad- ventures in the First Person (Alyson Press, 2004). V ACKNOWLEDGMENTS THE ANAL-RETENTIVE LINE EDITOR . . . I shoved my tongue deep inside his hot, tight ass [Editor’s note: Many problems here. Unless your character is Gene Simmons, he’d be lucky to insert his tongue an eighth of an inch inside the ass, which, taking into account the volume of the cavity in question, doesn’t qualify as deep. If he is a Gene Simmons type, you need to say so. Also, human asses aren’t hot. Unless your character has spanked the ass in question vigorously—and there is no mention of that—or they are in a sauna—which they are not—the exterior would be luke-