It starts with a light, soft touch, one tentacle gently reaching out, hesitant, hopeful, hanging lightly in the air. There’s a pause. Skin touches skin. One softly strokes the other and slides closer, and then, carefully, they wrap themselves together, stroking, probing, entwining. They glisten as they move, and because they are snails, everything happens very slowly. The rubbing, the rapture, the intensity of it all—snail sex is extraordinarily lovely to look at. (If you aren’t at your office desk or on a train where people can see your screen, I’ve got one about a garden snail named Chip who’s trying to lose his virginity, or take a quick peek—30 seconds will do—of this coupling in a garden.)

Garden