Joshua Severance

The first year we were married we called each other by the name of sexual parts or acts. She was Blowjob or Tuna. She called me Hosebag. Her vagina was Lucy, my penis was Ricky. And sometimes at restaurants she'd say, What's Ricky having, and I'd say, What's on the menu for Lucy.

We bought a house in an old neighborhood in a town in South Carolina where people still wanted to live at the country club. We got it for what we'd been paying in rent. Upstairs there was a large room that we figured had once been for a live-in housekeeper. The paint was gray from time and from a chimney fire. But underneath was old white pine with a rich grain that comes from slow growing. I began sanding away the paint, and later on, when I'd nearly finished and was living alone, my friends would show up on Wednesday nights and let themselves in and come upstairs without knocking. I began calling the upstairs room The Bar None.