Post-Mys(t)ery

Editors Meriwether & Wharton were too busy panting and depantsing in their preface/afterword to Men of Mystery to have said much about their editorial principles, but from their practice we may infer that they constituted their anthology of fictionalized "sexcrimes" from what was recent and at hand. That at any rate would explain how they managed to omit the finest specimen of this genre, Aaron Travis' "The Hit," which first appeared twenty-three years ago in Stroke and was later expanded to the novella Kip. The novella remains out of print (two copies as part of Big Shots selling through Amazon at $121.23 and up!). The original short story, however, is included in Susie Bright's The Best American Erotica 2003 since it was rated the number one erotic story of the last ten years by that anthology's readers.