Linda Franklin had not been to bed with every boy in the junior college of Wattsville, but at nineteen she had known physical intimacy with a high percentage of those boys who knew enough to appreciate her amply endowed body.

As first sentences go, it’s a good one. It treats Linda Franklin’s promiscuity like a familiar subject, it shows a touch of wit in its sober contradiction of a preposterous assertion (“had not been to bed with every boy in the junior college”), and its categorical precision (“a high percentage of those boys who . . .”) tells us we...

Nelda Kaufield greeted Don with, “You’re late,” when he walked in the front door. Her tone was harsh, nasty. She was a trim, slender woman, dressed in a faultless suit, her make-up perfect. She offered no warmth. “It’s almost as though you don’t want to come home.”

“I do want to come home,” he said patiently. “Where are the kids?”

“Out in the backyard,” she snapped. Her voice carried a tone of bitterness and sarcasm, the only weapons in her verbal arsenal.

We won’t be spending a lot of time with Nelda. Her very name is a chastity belt, and...

The following afternoon, when Linda stopped by his desk, Don said, “Can you baby sit for me again tonight?”

Don adheres to the view once solemnly expressed to me by a college roommate: “Dave, never pass up a chance for a piece of ass.” What Linda doesn’t know is that Don, his wife still out of town, has deposited his two children at the home of a colleague for a few days. He has hatched a plan to get Linda alone again. He comes clean later, as they pull up in front of his house.

“Linda, there’s something I should...

“May I speak to you for a moment, Mr. Kaufield?” Bill Alleyn’s rich baritone voice broke in on the bitter thoughts Don Kaufield was thinking as he watched Linda Franklin leave the classroom with Vern Tolliver. For the past three weeks, Linda had ignored Don.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “Who the hell is Bill Alleyn?” Bill was introduced in chapter 1 of Campus Sexpot as an innocent new student with “a rich baritone voice” and “a mature handsomeness.” It was so quiet an introduction that I omitted it, and there has been no further reference to him...

The facts of life as first told to me:

Source: Alex Neumann, age 11

My age: 11

Place: On the roof of my clubhouse

The Facts: “The man puts his thing inside the woman’s hole and goes.”

I was appalled, yes, but I accepted it. I knew it would be something like this. But why? I had to ask. Why would the man piss inside the woman? Alex said, “Because it feels good.”

Around this time, my father, perhaps sensing that the subject was in the air, sat me down for the big talk during an afternoon of hunting. I...

Let’s go back to the Friday-night dance for a moment. I attended every one of these after-game affairs over a four-year period, but I never gave any thought to the faculty chaperones or their conversations. I should have, judging from the evidence of Campus Sexpot. Don Kaufield and a colleague, Paul Skell, share the duty on this occasion, and Paul gives us a glimpse of his world-view. He’s worth a listen.

“If these kids ever knew how to dance,” Paul remarked, “they’ve forgotten it.”

“It doesn’t look like anything I’d call dancing,” Don replied.

“Fornication in a vertical plane,” Paul...

What is a small town? Let’s turn to the local newspaper for an answer — the Union Democrat, est. 1854. We’ll pick a date and see what tendrils the stories send out. January 4, 1962, is a good one, for in that issue’s Campus Letter, written by the newspaper editor’s teenage daughter, we find the first public discussion of our subject:

Dale Koby, former Sonora High English teacher, has written a book, “Campus Sexpot.” It is the most talked about literature in school. You could make a fortune by selling copies of it for $10 or more, because there aren’t many...

In Campus Sexpot, there are no magazines or newspapers.

In Campus Sexpot, there is no money.

In Campus Sexpot, there are no sports.

Porn happens in a vacuum. Just as sexual arousal chases all other considerations from the mind, a writer with sex as his subject neglects the rest of human experience.

In Campus Sexpot, there is no food, not even at the Europa restaurant, where you would expect to find some.

In Campus Sexpot, there is no television. No Rawhide, no 77 Sunset Strip, no This Is Your Life.

In Campus Sexpot, there is no music. No Elvis, no...

There is no teaching in Campus Sexpot.

This surprises me since Koby evidently worked hard at it. Many former students remember him positively, talking about his classroom enthusiasm and his knowledge of literature. On one weekend he drove a group of seniors to U.C. Davis for a reading enrichment program, so that they could hear university professors lecture on Henry James and Joseph Conrad. One student who was sick for much of the term gratefully recalls Koby delivering assignments to his bedside. But the teaching profession merits just two mentions in Campus Sexpot. In one, the always upbeat Paul Skell...

When Bill Alleyn entered Campus Sexpot and sprinkled virtue dust all over the place, those readers who asked, “Does this mean no more good parts?” were right to be concerned. Linda’s rape in the chapter immediately following her date with Bill is certainly not a good part. In the next chapter, Don’s fight with his wife is not a good part. Yes, unfortunately Nelda returns to the story for a brief visit and a long argument, and Don works his pipe pretty hard. Only one character, Mike Allota, is still getting “any,” but he can’t be relied on, for when...

“Just Wondering,” says the headline of a light piece in the Sonora High Wildcat of February 17, 1961. Among the whimsical questions posed in the article is “Just wondering who’s sorry that Mr. Koby left.” This could be a lament (He brought Beowulf to life!) or a Koby-neutral question for the ages (We pass through this world and no one gives any thought to our leaving). But most likely it was written with a wink (How could anyone be sorry? He was a kook!). Whatever the meaning, it was the middle of the school year and Koby was gone.

Why...

“The boy wants to be a minister and he doesn’t give a damn about people.” Judge Carkeet handed down this opinion early in my college days, when I was considering this calling. He spoke the words to my brother, who waited several years before passing them on to me. They gave me a jolt even then, all the more because I knew they described me well, at least at the age in question. I wondered about the comment for years afterward. Was it prompted by a passing disappointment and quickly forgotten, or did it represent a deeply held, unvarying view?...