Lesbian Love Stories

Although there are some bright moments in these 30 short stories, the parade of characters ruminating on details of their relationships (past, present and possible) turns tedious all too soon. Typical is Lorrie Sprecher's ``Sister Safety-Pin,'' in which two friends, agonizing over whether or not to have sex, make a list of reasons pro and con. In Barbara Wilson's ``Is This Enough For You?'' two women who meet at an academic conference weigh their sudden mutual attraction against the impact it would have on their current relationships. Jess Wells follows a couple's romancetry `marriage' or `romance'? to avoid repet'n. aa by describing their dinners at ``A Favorite Haunt,'' from the early, passionate days through anniversaries ranging from angry to bittersweet. Merrill Mushroom's delightful ``How to Engage in Courting Rituals missing punctuation? aa/nope/pk 1950s Butch-Style in the Bar'' offers rules of behavior on playingparallelism. aa the jukebox (``Experiment at home with jukebox poses . . . Be extra casual . . .'') and offering a cigarette (``snapping the pack so that three cigarettes shoot up a distance of , , and 1 respectively''). Zahava edited the first volume of Lesbian Love Stories. (Apr.)