Safe Sex - Dan Calhoun

Safe Sex is hardly ever safe. A confused drifter crosses paths with a charismatic hustler and ends up at teenager’s house. A grad school dropout struggles to make sense of her life and figure out how to live harmoniously with her boyfriend. A lonely gay man stuck in Kansas begins a sexual and emotional relationship with a straight woman. A high school girl, reeling after the suicide of a former friend she taunted, seeks understanding from her fundamentalist Christian aunt and then a classmate. An intelligent gay man struggles with expressing the psychological implications of living with HIV as cuts himself off from family and friends. A white man—haunted by a past transgression— investigates the murder of a Black trans woman and the lack of police interest, discovering the world isn’t as neat as he believes. This collection—five stories and a novella—explores the intersections of gender, race, orientation, religion, secularism, sex and death, attempting to make sense of what it means to be an American in the 21st century.