Steve and I were in the same Probationary Class at the Rescue Squad. We share that freshman bond of being "the new guys" at the same time, but differ in just about every other way possible. He is gregarious and amiable, immediately forming new friendships among his crewmates, while I remain mostly quiet and aloof, taking my usual twelve months to really feel at home in a new crowd. Steve has lived in the vicinity for years and seems to know everyone, but has no medical background, while I am a relative newcomer with the rusty skills and bloody stories of a onetime Emergency Medical Technician. He is the kind of person who uses people's names when he talks to them, and I'm not.

Often I find myself irritated with people who display such easy extroversion, a response that I acknowledge is completely rooted in jealousy. But despite our differences, I genuinely like Steve. And it's a good thing, too, because Steve reads this journal. He is first person on the rescue squad who has confessed to knowing about it.

People I know eventually find out about the Tales. I canned a former feature in which I charted my weekly indulgences in the Deadly Sins after my then-coworkers began asking prickly questions about my Lust scores. I once had to race home and slam up a new essay after I foolishly told a new client about the site on the same day the featured entry was about how I refused to name my penis. I've accepted that as much as I would like the Tales to be unsullied by contact with the real world, the real world has the messy habit of bursting in on your irrational fantasies and telling them in a loud voice how things are going to be from now on. The journal and my life are conjoined twins that share the same internal organs. They may be capable of speaking with different voices and even harboring separate thoughts, but they profoundly influence each other.

I was working an extra shift at the rescue squad on Friday night, Steve's duty night. Steve requested Friday because he believed, correctly, that this night's crew had a more go-for-the-gusto attitude. In short, there are lots of guys on Friday night -- guys who like heavy rescue and could carry me up a flight of steps with one hand hooked in my belt loops. In contrast, I chose my crew believing (correctly, for the most part) that it was comprised of earnest go-with-the-flow types, who would first discuss various means of getting me up the flight of steps and them try a couple different ones as a group, noting which caused my head to bang against the floor.

I was somewhat intimidated by Steve's crew, but owing to that bond we share, felt comfortable hanging around with him. We all ate dinner at the picnic table behind the squad. Steve was telling us that his priest had asked to share some of the details of his last marriage to couples in counseling, as an example of what not to do. I asked what he had done in his marriage that was so bad. "My wife was a succubus," he replied. "Do you know what a succubus is?"

I do, I told him. A very large guy across the table said that he didn't know and didn't care, as it sounded like some kind of bullshit you'd learn sitting around with your geek friends and playing Dungeons and Dragons. This is precisely how I learned what a succubus is, back in sixth grade, and I was tempted to point out that some basic knowledge of mythology might be one of the benefits of playing Dungeons and Dragons as a child, but it seemed inappropriate and he was a very large guy.

Later, Steve and I were washing our plates in the kitchen. "You know how I knew you'd have heard of a succubus?" he asked. How, I asked him. I anticipated he would point to the small leather pouches I wear on my upper arm, Senegalese talismans to ward off evil.

He leaned in. "Because I read your webpage," he said in conspiratorial tones.

Well. I knew this moment would come, but was still caught off guard. My first thought was that now I'd never get around to writing an entry about the bush-league crush I had on another rescue squad member. (I was surprised to realize that it closely resembled my prolonged crush on Elizabeth during my Peace Corps tenure, another situation in which I was trying to fit into an intimidating new group of people.) Now I couldn't presume to share my inner life in the safe space behind the firewall of anonymity from rescue squad colleagues. It was like Steve, playing the part of Dorothy, had swept aside the curtain and exposed me, playing the part of the guy who is playing the part of the Wizard.

Exposed. Now there is little choice but 1) change the content of the entries to reflect internal censorship on issues I'd rather not share with my rescue squad colleagues, or 2) resign myself to being honest with the people around me. Split the twins, or try to meld them into one. Medical science and rationality advocate the former option, claiming that the children (Public and Private) cannot develop in the same body. Morality tells us that to sever them is to deny one or the other its very heart, and that we should teach them to embrace the agonizing task of occupying the same place at the same time.