Unrequited Love — Richard Williams

Unrequited Love and Other Tales of Romance, by Richard H. Williams, sweeps across several literary genres. This anthology contains eleven stories. The first story, from which the book takes its name, Unrequited Love, reveals the relation between a professor and his favorite student. Although he has fallen in love with this woman, she does not reciprocate. Some Fun with the Dental Hygienist makes it clear that a trip to the dentist may not be unpleasant. Love Lost, Love Regained describes a teacher's love affair with a student, how she breaks off her relation with him, and how he regains a former love. In Love as Therapy a young soldier falls in love with a forty-five-year-old widow. She is still depressed from the loss of her husband, but this new relation serves as therapy for her. Star Crossed Lovers reveals a love relation between a married black woman and a single white man. When her husband is released from jail, he threatens their relation. In the story titled Joy, through flashbacks the relation between a professor and his student is revealed. The relation between these two and three other friends is revealed through a flash forward. Lake Rogue is about a rough, crude, muscle bound man who tries to reclaim a former mistress who is now engaged to be married. In I Do Some Cheating for Colette, a college professor violates several university rules to aid a student. In On Reading Nonfiction, a new Professor of English Literature arrives at a southern university and has simultaneous affairs with two attractive students. He makes a presentation of his research at a campus auditorium which receives rave reviews, and his mistresses reward him accordingly for doing so well. A golf range instructor and a luscious redheaded woman who takes lessons from him retreat to Bare Ass Beach and then, being pursued by hoodlums, flee to a cemetery in the story titled Lefty Saved Us. In My Second Cousin a boy and a girl of age eleven kiss while playing spin-the-bottle. Then they meet again at a party twenty years later.