I just wanted to lock blond men's heads inside my legs. So on my wedding day, I thought my future in headlocking was secured. The sphere of sweaty hair trapped in my legs' enduring circle, the two soles must touch. In geometry there's something called the Great Circle—that was me, an endless equator, a queen. I'd locked many blond heads. Then Ned Seed arrived, all game. He'd be my husband, I decided.

Looking back, what a shame I couldn't talk honestly about my fetish to my classmates and family at the wedding reception. Things're different today. We have come so far.

At the photographer's count of three, I joked: "Ahm gonna squish his head to freakinshit tonight!" They laughed, even Ned. Only Mary-Carol Grosch turned like a steel platen and said, "Patty, I never liked you."

I didn't care. Trembling in my skin for the night of headlocking to come.

The years sag with vanity. In truth, I didn't care whose head I locked, so maybe the marriage was a slight misstep. Americans get married too easily; it's like sneezing. Our outrageously developed taste for waste.

You realize a story's completeness only when the last chapter arrives. Ned fled to Oahu with Mary-Carol, but she left him later. I heard he's bald now. He fell at a mall and got set up nice on disability. My current fetish is just playing the Lotto. This apology is for no one but me. Really sorry I forgot you were a human being. Hey, Ned. Hi.

Stacey Levine is the author of several books of fiction, including 2011's The Girl with Brown Fur. She won a Stranger Genius Award in 2009.