A PLACE I’VE NEVER BEEN by...

A PLACE I’VE NEVER BEEN by David Leavitt (Penguin: $8.95) ; THE BODY, ITS DANGERS AND OTHER STORIES by Allen Barnett (St. Martin’s Press: $8.95). These two collections of short stories explore “l’amour in all its infinite variety”--and its attendant difficulties in the era of AIDS. The author of the highly praised “Family Dancing,” Leavitt writes fine, polished prose that is refreshingly free of the drip-dry nihilism of his Brat Pack contemporaries. In the title story, he creates a sensitive portrait of a lonely heterosexual woman who lavishes her affection on a gay man who’s too busy worrying about his HIV status to recognize her plight. Leavitt often describes the end of love with wry insight: In “My Marriage to Vengeance,” a bright lesbian finds her freedom in the aftermath of her ex-lover’s posh society wedding. The plucky narrator of “AYOR” suddenly discovers that the long-cherished memories of a one-sided affair have lost their potency: The man he once adored turns out to be shallow, vain and boring. In his impressive debut anthology, Barnett chronicles the lives of people who know they are HIV-positive: Unlike Boccaccio’s raconteurs, they don’t have luxury of withdrawing from the city until the plague passes. The men sharing a Fire Island summer house in “The Times As it Knows Us” look to each other for support as they watch the tribe of their friends dwindle. In “Succor,” an erudite young man bitterly realizes how completely the disease has usurped his life: “The only thing I know anymore is AIDS. I know more about this epidemic than I can recall of my college major.”