Here you will find answers we have already purchased; we call them orphans because we hope to find art to illustrate them. We update this page most Mondays, and remove answers as we find art. To learn more about the project, please see our submission guidelines.

Answers posted Monday, June 30, 2008:

Answer 206:

Q: What is your most embarrassing moment?

A: Senior prom, 1987. Never tasted booze. But my date oh-so-thoughtfully brought a bottle of Andre champagne for the limo ride. A chaperone must have seen me stumbling, as one hour into prom my parents materialized amid a sea of tuxedos and gowns - in their bathrobes and slippers.

Details for artist: This took place on May 2, 1987 in Oceanside, California.

Answer 205:

Q: If you could take back one thing you have done, what would it be?

A: My hand as it reached for her breast, and she inhaled to let my fingers slip between it and her bra. That small space was all the room I needed to maneuver out of a happy marriage. A few seconds of pleasure for a lifetime of regret.

Details for artist: This took place underneath the Verrazano Bridge in Brooklyn, New York, overlooking the lights and the water below. It was a small car. I was in the driver’s seat, she in the passenger’s.

Answers posted Monday, June 6, 2008:

Answer 202:

Q: What were the strangest circumstances under which you have been intimate?

A: I was 17. We were on our way back from a Cure concert in Philadelphia. My boyfriend went down on me while I was driving at 80 mph on the freeway. He was very good at what he did. We both thought my best friend was asleep in the back seat. When I came, I clamped my free hand over my mouth, but secretly hoped she could hear.

Details for artist: I was quite a good girl so this behavior completely surprised me. I had long, black hair and was dressed in all black. My boyfriend also wore all black and all three of us had on lipstick as per the evening’s Goth theme.

Answers posted Monday, May 19, 2008:

Answer 195:

Q: What is the worst betrayal you have ever experienced?

A: Going down on my boyfriend of four years in the living room. As I kneel before him, he moans and says, “Laurie has this little trick…” Which is how I learn that he’s been cheating.

Details for artist: I am a woman. This occurred in late winter, 2005, in the living room of a townhome on the Gulf Coast of Florida.

Answer 187:

Q (open): what is your strangest fantasy?

A: I was 16 when I was raped by a 24-year-old man. I want my husband to try to rape me, but we will have a safe word, and I wont be drunk. I want to know that it wasn’t my fault, that I can be stronger than my past. That I can fight off a man who is stronger than I am. I want to feel like I did everything I could have to stop him.

Answers posted Monday, May 12, 2008:

Answer 185:

Q: What door do you wish you never opened?

A: My divorce attorney, who was married, took me out for coffee. Suddenly, I felt a hand on my upper leg. It was no mistake; he was under my skirt. His hand was so warm. My husband hadn’t touched me for years.

Details for artist: The incident took place in Bakersfield, California, at a small café near Truxtun Avenue downtown. The place mostly served the lunch crowd, but was a bit out of the way so it was usually not crowded. There was a lot of artwork on the walls. I have long, red hair and green eyes, and I weighed 105 pounds. The table was small and round and for two people. I remember exactly what I wore – a white cotton peasant blouse with a muted, printed skirt. The attorney had dark hair, dark eyes and strong features with some scars on his face from acne when he was a teenager.

Answer 183:

Q: What is the most gracious act of kindness you have witnessed?

A: Nineteen years old. On the El. Drunk, depressed, inconsolable. Yes, me: sobbing. Over love; over everything. She took my hand, this stranger. Pulled me up, away. A diner. Cheesecake. Her story: Fleeing Iran, fleeing abuse. A refugee. Rebuilding a life. “It can be done,” she said. “It can be done.”

Details for artist: Spring, 1992, on a not-very-crowded El car in Chicago, heading towards Evanston. We sat diagonally across from each other on bench seats. I am Caucasian, small, with long dark hair, probably was wearing a flowered tank-top and cut-off shorts; she was Muslim, late 40s, conservative yet professional-looking, in dark blue business attire.

Answers posted Monday, April 28, 2008:

Answer 173:

Q (open): Growing up, how did you know you were poor?

A: Around 1986, deep Arkansas Delta. Lots of cotton fields around our small town. Mama never said we were poor as we dug in the ugly orange plaid couch for change. She wanted bread for potted meat sandwiches. A buddy of daddy’s was outside, thanking him for buying a round last night at ‘The Getaway Club.’ I cut my finger on a protruding spring.

Details for artist: This took place when I was a young girl, under 10. Our house was visibly poor but neat, thanks to my mother. We had an old, orange plaid couch with sagging cushions and the old wood trim on the arms. This is where we searched for the loose change. My father always wore a T-shirt with one pocket and some type of baseball cap. The drinking buddy wore a John Deere cap and overalls, nice car - apparently more money than we had.

Answers posted Monday, April 21, 2008:

Answer 165:

Q: What is the most gracious act of kindness you have witnessed?

A: My father’s former mistress enters his room at Hospice House, not knowing my mother and I are with him. I expect my mother to freak out in a rage. Instead, Mom walks over to The Other Woman and embraces her in a prolonged hug. Dad watches and weeps.

Details for artist: I am a woman. This took place at the Hospice House Concord, New Hampshire, in November 2000.

Answer 164:

Q: What is the most painful moment you have experienced?

A: I did everything to help my daughter prepare for the SAT. We argued the night before because she stayed out late. Sarcastically, regretfully, I advised her to forgo the test and fill out a Walmart application. She ran away the morning of the test.

Details for artist: April 2003, late evening. The next morning she was gone from our home in Columbia, Maryland.

Answer 163:

Q: What is the most painful moment you have experienced?

A: My uncle stumbled into the apartment. My 8-year-old cousin told him to lie down, drink water, and eat some bread to curb the inevitable hangover. She is used to caring for drunk parents. Why did she have to lose her innocence so early?

Details for artist: This took place in my aunt and uncle’s house in 1998.

Answer 161:

Q: What is the worst betrayal you have ever experienced?

A: June of 1991, Beaufort, South Carolina. After sharing many sexual intimacies with several of my fellow Marines, I was picked up, arrested, and ultimately booted out of the Marines with an “Other Than Honorable” discharge. One of my screw-buddies had freaked out and confided in our deck sergeant, who in turn called the MPs. That almost destroyed me. I’ll never forgive that guy, or the Marine Corps, for judging me to be less than the man I know I am.

Details for artist: I met the guy two weeks after we first left each other messages in a store men’s room. The first time we met we were both so nervous we could only sit there and talk briefly. I threw up that night because I was so nervous. Several months later, we were rounded up by military police at the very same place we first met. The next day I remember overhearing the officer who would plea my case in military court as he talked to someone on the phone. “It’s no problem. Just some ‘faggot.’ We’ll do him fast, and then we can tee off on time.”

Answers posted Monday, April 14, 2008:

Answer 159:

Q: What is your greatest accomplishment?

A: I haven’t had a drink in 72 hours. A lot can happen in 72 hours. Cities are built and destroyed. World records are broken. Lives begin and end. Millions of babies are born, thrust into living, their faces all red and scrunched, arms and legs reaching out for something, for anything.

Details for artist: I am a female. This took place inside a fourth-floor walk-up apartment in Harlem, Summer of 2005.

Answers posted Monday, April 7, 2008:

Answer 151:

Q: What is the most bizarre thing you have seen or done?

A: While traveling on business with my boss, a famous fashion designer, we had to share a hotel room in Hong Kong. I woke up in the dark, opened my eyes, and realized she was masturbating in the bed next to mine. Paralyzed with shock, I pretended to still be asleep.

Details for artist: I am a woman. This took place at the Peninsula Hotel in Hong Kong, 1986.

Answers posted Monday, March 31, 2008:

Answer 149:

Q: What were the strangest circumstances under which you have been intimate?

A: Summer Theatre.
Summer love.
A long play with nothing to do.
In a fit of youth we take our lust to the catwalk above backstage.
Then to the grid over stage.
I look down between his legs at the actors acting below.

Don’t drip.

Details for artist: It was the summer of 2003. The South. We were working backstage. If you’ve ever been on a stage with fly space there is a grid near the ceiling above the stage, which generally consists of 4-inch-wide beams about 3 inches apart from one another. It’s scary.

Answer 146:

Q: What was the single most terrifying day of your life?

A: Sunset, Little Grassy Lake.
Debby and I wade waist deep, alone, holding hands:
Teen-fire.
Motorcycles roar up then stop.
Black-jacketed bikers dismount and charge,
Grab Debby,
Strip her naked,
Drag her to the beach,
Touch girl parts I have never seen.
She wails: “Gene!”
I stand helpless, moaning.
They leave.

Details for artist: The incident occurred at Little Grassy Lake State Park, in southern Illinois. There is a heavily wooded public campground there and a steeply-hilled sand beach for swimming. The Park is surrounded by the 40,000-acre Shawneee National Forest, a beautiful wilderness. The girl of the story lived in a nearby town. I believe we were 13 or 14. We were wading around close to sunset, waiting for her sister to pick her up, when along came about 30 motorcycles. When the leader spotted us, he turned to his men and they dismounted, ran down the hill and encircled us. They dragged the girl onto the beach and stripped her. A terrifying, booted man waded into the water and held me by the shoulders. They fondled her silently but did not rape her. My impression was that the leader changed his mind because so many tents were nearby. They drove off. I picked up the girl’s swimsuit and gave it to her, then walked a few yards away and turned my back. I was sobbing; she was silent. She dressed and walked into the woods. Her sister arrived in the dark, and she ran up the hill. I never saw her again.

Answers posted Monday, March 24, 2008:

Answer 141:

Q (open): Adapted from a longer Common Ties story, Last Right.

A: She had esophageal cancer.
Wanted to end the pain from a high hotel window.
Asked if I’d drive.
I did.
We exchanged I love yous.
I drove away.
Now, I feel neither punishment nor reward.
But I am not at peace.

Answers posted Monday, March 17, 2008:

Answer 139:

Q: What is the most gracious act of kindness you have witnessed?

A: Group foster home, empty dining hall, a little girl sits, fried liver before her. A boy, wiping tables.
Boy: Whassa matter? Don’t like liver?
Girl shakes head, fighting tears.
Boy (checking for adults): Here. (Making a face, he gobbles her liver, gives her a shove.) Go on.

Details for artist: The incident took place in the early ’70s in a dingy dining hall with eight long tables in rows. The little girl was six, the boy about 12 or 12, probably native Alaskan, since most of the Home’s inmates were. A door and a large pass-thru window led into the kitchen on one end of the room and on the other end another door led outside. All the other kids and staff had left the dining hall to return to their dorms for the night. The older boys had cleanup duty that week.

Answers posted Monday, Jan. 07, 2008:

Answer 82:

Q: What is the most painful moment you have experienced?

A: My cancer-ridden wife should have slipped gently into eternity. I had no warning that she would spring upright and yowl, jaws impossibly wide, teeth full-bared in a snarl, arms and legs thrashing, or that I would have to pin her down, my mouth clamped on hers in a violent farewell.

Details for artist: This shattering event took place March 16, 2001, exactly as I have described it. Doctors assured me that my 54-year-old wife, who was on a morphine pump, was experiencing no pain. It seems that she was responding to a great fear of death.