Love Ain't Nothing but Sex Misspelled Read Online Free Page B

probate with our skin intact, or take a correspondence course in electrical wiring just so we don't have to pay an electrician to do our house, or go to college for four years to acquire the obscure knowledge that will permit us to make a living in one or another proscribed field of endeavor. But about the most mysterious subject of all, love, we bumble and careen and hope for the best; without proper education, without proper tools, without even a goal that can be named. And more often than not it poisons our lives. The wrong men and the wrong women get together and proceed to kill each other piece by piece.
    This is all I know of love: like the leopard we must pick the right path, and we must never confuse what the body needs with what the soul demands. Beyond these idle thoughts, I know no more than you.
    As a troll, as an alien creature, I know that having an affair with me is not the same as having an affair with an orthodontist or a salesman of mobile homes or a guy going for his degree in P.E. That's my arrogance.
    I hope to God you have yours.
    Final words about this book.
    In the original edition of LOVE AIN'T NOTHING BUT SEX MISSPELLED, published in hardcover in 1968, there were 22 stories. For this edition, I've dropped nine of those stories. They are good stories, some of them I consider among my best. But they are available elsewhere, in other books of mine currently in print. I have grown highly sensitive to the odd remarks about duplications of stories in my collections, and so I have taken extra-special pains to make sure there are no duplications, or if there are any, they're at a minimum and they've been included to maintain the theme of the book.
    So I've added three new, uncollected pieces to the 13 from the original version of this book. Usually, a short story collection bulks out at about 60,000 words. LOVE, first time around, came to 165,300 words, almost the equivalent of three books. I've deleted 51,900 words of stories and added 16,400 to the remaining 115,400 words' worth of material from the hardcover. That makes a total of 131,800 words of stories, plus this introduction of approximately 8000 words, for your money's worth of 139,800. Something well over two ordinary collections' size. And no room for complaints from those who've bought my other books.
    For those curious as to which stories were dropped, the following list with the titles of the other Ellison books shows where they can be found.
    "Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes

DEATHBIRD STORIES
    I HAVE NO MOUTH AND I MUST SCREAM
    "The Night of Delicate Terrors

GENTLEMAN JUNKIE
    "Final Shtick"

GENTLEMAN JUNKIE
    "O Ye of Little Faith

DEATHBIRD STORIES
ALONE AGAINST TOMORROW
    "Delusion for a Dragon-Slayer
    I HAVE NO MOUTH AND I MUST SCREAM
    "Lonelyache

ALONE AGAINST TOMORROW
    I HAVE NO MOUTH AND I MUST SCREAM
    "The Face of Helene Bournouw

DEATHBIRD STORIES
    "Ernest and the Machine God

OVER THE EDGE
DEATHBIRD STORIES
    "All the Sounds of Fear

ALONE AGAINST TOMORROW
ELLISON WONDERLAND
    As for the stories I've included, some may seem to you less thematic than others. "Blind Bird, Blind Bird, Go Away from Me!" is a war story, and I suppose might easily have gone into another sort of collection. But I intended this book to cover a wide spectrum on the subject of love; and friendship, a sense of duty, love of those who depend on you ... that's love, too. As is the love-turned-to hate demonstrated in "Daniel White for the Greater Good" and "The Universe of Robert Blake" (not the actor, though we're friends and I probably used the name unconsciously years before we met) and "A Prayer for No One's Enemy." These are all stories peripherally concerned with love, and they are included here because this hook was, and remains, one of my personal favorites. And each tale to be told reflects another part of my fumbling attempts to understand the mystery of love.
    These stories have helped change my opinion of myself where human knowledge is concerned. They total up