Our desire to be liked and loved is passionate, unequivocal, and it makes us vulnerable to every rejection. Maybe a mild protest or an attempt to avoid seeing or even a thought that she had somehow brought this behavior on herself: too short skirt? Too tight jeans? And she would have retreated from the park in a state of emotional collapse, vowing never to go there again. I was surprised that the magazine accepted it because it was about a young woman with her baby in a big city park counterattacking a man who exposes himself-counterattacking with curses and screams that send him running.ДЄ вЂњlikeableвЂќ young woman would never have been that loud. Hard to imagine now.Д«ut back to Playgirl and my story. This was on the edge of an era when short story writers like John Updike and John Cheever could support a family off the money magazines paid for their short fiction. I was surprised when it was accepted, and even more surprised when I was paid a fair wage for my work-something like five hundred dollars ( roughly $2500 today). It seems strange now that the story I sold-вЂќ Girl AloneвЂњ-would not have been published anywhere else at that time. ItвЂ™s now aimed at gay and bisexual men with lots of naked male photos and ads for on-line sex. It still exists, although youвЂ™ve probably never seen it or heard of it.

For a while, the magazine was an attempt to offer a jazzier version of Ms. I sold a story once to a magazine called Playgirl. Playgirl magazine: May, 1974 вЂ“ вЂњGirl AloneвЂќ began on page 109.

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