By Wendy K. Mages

He’s never showered with his wife. Not when they first met. Not when they were newlyweds. Not ever. So, last night, when the stranger in the hotel bar invited him up and wanted to slather and lather with verbena-scented gel, temptation triumphed. Now, he showers incessantly, but is never cleansed.

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Wendy K. Mages, a Mercy University Professor, is a Pushcart Prize nominee and an award-winning poet and author. She earned her doctorate in Human Development and Psychology at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and her master’s in Theatre at Northwestern University. As a complement to her research on the effect of the arts on learning and development, she performs at storytelling events and festivals in the US and abroad. To learn more about her and her work, and to find links to her published stories and poetry, please visit her Mercy University Faculty page https://www.mercy.edu/directory/wendy-mages and her website, Wendy Mages: Storyteller 

Instagram: @WendyMages_Storyteller; Threads: @WendyMages_Storyteller

BlueSky: @wendymages.bsky.social; LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/wendy-mages