Why Do Men Fall Asleep After Sex? by Mark Leyner Page A

them from flopping around, sort of like a sports bra for your balls. Most importantly, it can hold a hard plastic shell to protect you if you are participating in contact sports.
    DO STEROIDS SHRINK YOUR TESTICLES?
    You may get big in some places on steroids, but it’s true that other places might get smaller. Anabolic steroids or anabolicandrogenic steroids are synthetic derivatives of the male hormone testosterone. There are many side effects of short- and long-term use of these steroids. Male athletes who use anabolic steroids report increased sexual drive, aggression, acne, and increased body hair. Other attractive effects are reduced sperm count, impotence, breast development, and shrinking of the testicles. Steroid use can be extremely dangerous and can lead to premature heart attacks or strokes.
    So if your intention in taking steroids is to look like some sort of Herculean Road Warrior, remember—you just may end up with man-boobs and micro-balls instead.

CHAPTER 4
    NO, I’M NOT A VETERINARIAN!
    We had just completed a long couples session and after I had cleaned up the mess of ketchup and pudding that Leyner had smeared all over the walls, we strolled across the park to grab some lunch.
    As we were about to cross the street, we noticed an elegantly accoutered woman hovering next to her defecating Doberman, her cupped hand engloved in a blue
New York Times
bag.
    Leyner leaped to her side. “Let me get that for you,” he offered gallantly and bare-handed the steaming poop, flinging it into a nearby trash receptacle.
    The shocked woman gazed at Leyner with unmistakable affection. “That was remarkable. Bruno never lets anyone near his—” She blushed and averted her eyes. “His…movements. He’s very sensitive about that. You have a way with animals, sir.” She offered her hand for Leyner to kiss. Leyner obliged and offered his. “I’ll pass,” she demurred.
    She and the empty-boweled Bruno receded into the distance.
    We then chanced upon, seated on a park bench, a man in his midfifties in a frayed thrift-store suit playing chess with a more impeccably dressed chimpanzee, attired in a freshly pressed white shirt and a red bow tie.
    We quietly ate our lunch, our eyes riveted to the game of chess which, from my limited knowledge of the game, was being played at an extremely high level.
    The man had opened with the classic Ruy Lopez—white king’s pawn to king four, etc., etc., etc. Soon he had control over the center of the board and had placed the chimp’s black queen in a desperately untenable position. The chimp seemed baffled by his predicament, when he noticed Leyner staring him down. He leaped from his seat, rushed toward Leyner, and began to furiously and frantically pick at the hairs on the back of Leyner’s neck.
    Leyner embraced the chimp, groomed him with reciprocal affection, and whispered something into his new friend’s ear.
    The chimp bounced off Leyner’s lap, returned to the board, and began a focused series of tactically brilliant moves that soon left the man no choice but to resign in stunned and abject defeat.
    Putting his iPod headphones back on and cranking up Salt-N-Pepa’s “Push It,” the chimp turned toward Leyner and proudly pumped a victorious fist in the air.
    Leyner stood and silently saluted his simian soul mate.
    “Leyner…I’m impressed…I’ve never seen this side of you before…. You’re like Dr. Friggin’ Doolittle,” I said.
    Leyner acknowledged the compliment with a modest bow of the head. And we returned to the office.
    DO ANIMALS COMMIT SUICIDE?
    Heaven knows, animals would be completely justified in becoming suicidally depressed. There’s the brutal hierarchy of the food chain out there on the savannah, and the benumbing life of captivity in some squalid zoo where junior high school jocks toss Hot Tamales and Ex-Lax into your cage, or having some goofy owner who insists on dressing you in a little madras doggie vest. It’s all more than enough to