There's a short story called "The Obelisk" I remember being assigned to read in college. I don't remember much except that two strangers have a homosexual encounter behind the obelisk and one of them smacks his lips. /t
The Obelisk – short stories
tales from E.M.Forster’s reserve collection
The Obelisk is a collection of stories taken from The Life to Come (1972), works not published during Forster’s lifetime, which ended in 1970, not long after the famous trials of Lady Chatterley’s Lover and Last Exit to Brooklyn. One reason is that they all deal quite explicitly with homo-erotic topics which would not have been tolerated in print before 1970. The other reason might be that they fall so far below the artistic standards of his other work.
The ObeliskSome are mild satires of middle-class snobbery and hypocrisy set in a slightly indeterminate era which might be Edwardian or Georgian at the beginning of the last century. Others are satires of Biblical and mythical subjects treated in a manner which is supposed to be amusing, but which conjure up an embarrassing attitude poised somewhere midway between lyricism and schoolboy smuttiness. If these stories belonged to Forster’s desk drawer, there might be some good arguments for having left them there.
In the title story a conventional married couple meet two slightly dubious sailors on a day out. The wife enjoys a snatched liaison with one of them, but then is shocked to discover that her husband might have done the same thing with the other.
https://mantex.co.uk/the-obelisk-short-stories/
Durham flat bottom boats were used to haul raw (pig) iron down the Delaware to forges and factories near Philly/Trenton.