Winston K. Marks 17 min read

At forty-six, ex-All-American tackle Bert Baxter is a man's man who can read any male customer like a book, but put a woman in front of him and he's licked before she opens the catalog.

Winston K. Marks's 1958 story spins a wry social-SF tale from a rugged salesman badly out of his depth. Light, ironic golden-age SF. Read it for a droll story about a he-man undone by the one thing he'll never understand, and the strange turn it takes.

In its time

Published in 1958, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

17 min read (a short story, a single idea, delivered and gone).