Standing at the back sliding doors to her apartment felt as surreal as anything else that had happened in the previous hour. It was a moment of truth, and in a sense, I was standing at the doors of destiny. When she finally slid open the door, I was confronted by her shapely form clad in a soft, white short bathrobe. Her hair was loosely tied back in a bun. Tara avoided looking me directly in the face, but curtly beckoned...

Sometimes reality goes above and beyond one’s own inner fantasy life. I was near the end of my college years, was working a summer job that was a mix of groundskeeping and, in the afternoons and early evenings, filling the role of a makeshift lifeguard at the apartment complex community pool. I’d get hot and sweaty cutting grass and hauling garbage in the mornings and then strip down to my swim trunks in the afternoon and...