Best Gay Erotica 2008

by Richard Labonté

  Tim! You just met this guy, put on a condom and shut up!

  My cock is slipping into his asshole. That feels so nice. Hey, my brain is quieting down! I’m actually in the experience of fucking another man! I’m starting to feel pretty good about myself. I think I’m a pretty great guy. I’m proud of myself finding this sex with another man. I know if my Mom were here, she would be proud of me too.

  My Mom appears inside of my head with gobs of leftover Tuna Helper dripping through her fingers. “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, you dirty faggot son o’ mine that will never give me grandchildren?”

  Oh god, I’m losing my hard-on! Quick, think of smooth-skinned eighteen-year-old boys in wet underwear splashing in the fountains of Trafalgar Square in London.

  Ashamed, Mom? No, not for this. I’m ashamed it’s so hard for me to cry. I’m ashamed I shouted at that checkout person at SavOn’s when I bought all these clothespins! I’m ashamed I sometimes torture the men I love. But I’m not ashamed that I like assfucking. Mom, I’m pretty busy so would you please get out of my head?

  We turn the fuck upside down. I see his chest and body, his face telling me that he likes being here. His dick is getting really big and red. Every second, it looks more like Bill Clinton’s face when he’s jogging. Does he want me to cum in him, inside the condom? I’m getting close. Maybe I should pull out. Should I ask him? I’ll just tell him. Then the ball is in his court. “I’m gonna cum!”

  I’m gonna cum with bells and buzzers.

  I’m gonna cum with my long curly hair.

  I gonna cum with a fresh-baked pie in my hand.

  I’m gonna cum with gratitude for your long legs.

  I’m gonna cum with desire for the future.

  I’m gonna cum with the memory of us in Fourth Grade.

  I’m gonna cum with my eyes open.

  I’m gonna cum with love for our bodies.

  I’m gonna cum with my fear of death.

  I’m gonna cum and I’m not gonna go a minute later.

  I’m gonna cum…

  I’m gonna cum…

  I’m gonna cum…

  I’m gonna cum…

  I’m gonna cum…

  I’m gonna cum…

  THE BEST SEX BETWEEN THEM

  Andy Quan

  They know that they shouldn’t. But the things that we know don’t always help us.

  “Would this be all right?” Geoffrey looks at Max searchingly.

  “It’s up to you.” Max’s expression is neither happy nor sad.

  “Why is it always up to me?”

  They step toward each other, not without hesitation, and kiss.

  Sex had never been great between Geoffrey and Max. Their physical attraction to each other had been but it didn’t seem to translate to the right chemistry. Geoffrey may have been in his forties but his body was boyish and thin with soft skin and barely a hair on his torso. For Max, it was a perfect combination of the sex appeal of wisdom and a fantasy of a young university student.

  Max, on the other hand, was thick: solid neck and shoulders, a jutting chest covered with salt-and-pepper hair, and barrel-shaped thighs.

  “You make my throat dry,” Geoffrey told Max the first time they had sex. He was often given over to extravagant statements; he was an ad man who wanted to write novels.

  The words didn’t make sense to Max but the context did. Kissing was good. In fact, it was excellent: the shape of their mouths a perfect match; they would take turns naturally, licking the outside gums of the other, sucking on the other’s tongue, nibbling the other’s bottom lip. They lost themselves in that motion.

  But the first weeks, unusually, Max couldn’t come. He couldn’t explain why, but he liked Geoffrey so much that it made him nervous. It short-circuited the simple order of being aroused, sexual play, and a burst of semen from the tip of one’s cock.

  “You don’t mind, do you?” asked Max and Geoffrey admitted that if this is the way sex was going to be between them, it might be a problem.

  “I like some sort of equality. It’s not just about me wanting you to come. It’s that I think you’ll be more satisfied if you’ve had an orgasm too.”

  “But I don’t mind.”

  Max was telling the truth but Geoffrey was unconvinced.

  Geoffrey pulls up Max’s rugby shirt and balances it up onto the shelf of Max’s chest while he takes a great mouthful of the body that is revealed. He licks and softly bites Max’s pectoral muscles, these broad round shapes. If they were vessels, they would be made of metal, thick-walled, and unable to be easily lifted when filled with water. A great chest has always been an obsession of Geoffrey’s. Will he ever again find one as beautiful as this: one you can grab onto, that makes you think of strength, and makes your cock stand out sharp as a salute? They stay like that for a time before Max stretches up to lift off his shirt completely, then reaches down and eases Geoffrey out of his. It’s already unbuttoned so Max eases Geoffrey’s arms back, pushes gently at the fabric of the business shirt, and it wrinkles down onto the floor, Geoffrey’s mouth never having lost contact with Max’s chest.

  The problem of orgasm (or lack of one) didn’t last but instead changed into something else. It was Geoffrey this time, and at first he thought it was mental. It was the first time that his combination of antiretroviral therapy was failing and though his doctor advised him not to over-worry, he found it an impossible state, like failing to clear your mind when meditating because you are thinking the whole time about clearing your mind. So Geoffrey thought it was stress that was causing a pronounced lack of sexual drive. But after weeks, when the doctor assured him that the new medication regimen was working, he wondered if the dip in his libido could be due to his new meds.

  He knew that Max was frustrated and he knew that only months into a new relationship was not a good time to draw away from sex. But he couldn’t seem to do anything about it. He and Max would masturbate together; they would kiss too. But the level and intensity of lovemaking was underwhelming.

  When they came back—desire, energy—the problems were resolved only for a time. Each of them was like a singer who didn’t have time to warm his vocal chords properly before a performance. He sings his way through stumblingly but the orchestra plays its final notes before he can find his way. They were never in synch.

  “Have you talked about it?”

  Geoffrey was seeing a counselor. He’d never done it before but he’d worried about things not working with Max. He didn’t want to quit therapy unless he knew he’d put in a good effort. He was too old to give up too easily and a relationship that had only lasted a year seemed trivial. Plus he couldn’t be certain that the problem wasn’t something deep-seated and invisible to him but an issue that came from him rather than being mutual.

  “Well, what would you like him to do? Really. Is there some situation that you can describe, some way that you would like him to be when you’re having sex?”

  He liked this counselor. He liked the questions that poked and prodded and made him think and talk or come to sudden revelations like this one:

  “I’d like him to take charge. I’d like him to throw me onto the bed and make love to me instead of me making love to him.” Geoffrey thought about big, strong Max: the odd juxtaposition of his size, and his gentle disposition. Was he hoping for something that Max just couldn’t give?

  Max has closed his eyes. Geoffrey is still working on his chest. It’s a long foreplay before they’ll get to crotch level. Geoffrey treats it as a separate sexual act, as if sexual orientations were divided into a much wider spectrum than homo, hetero and bi and he’s discovered that there are only certain men with chests he can make love to. It helps when they are broad (just like it helps, frankly, to have a large penis) and it also depends on the shape and size of the nipples. Small and flat doesn’t really work; the mouth glides over them, there’s nothing to bite, there’s little to differentiate them from the surrounding skin. What works is jutting. What works is fleshy. O
f course, Geoffrey has also met men who have the perfect chests for worship but aren’t interested in participating, being focused on other body parts, other motions, or being the active partner. With Max, Geoffrey’s pretty much found nirvana. He can make patterns of his soft bite marks on Max’s chest, the hairs of the chest brushing over Geoffrey’s lips like a comb. He can suckle for long minutes the round coins of flesh with small fingertips pointing out of them, protrusions just large enough to nibble, to inhale. He licks and nips at them until these parts of Max’s chest have turned the pink of roses.

  It’s a blow job of a different type but has a similar effect on Max, a direct pleasure circuit between what is happening on the surface of his pectoral muscles and the tip of his penis, out of which precum is forming, enough to coat its head but not enough to actually form a drop that falls onto the floor. If Max could ask for more, he’d ask to be bitten harder, a real clamp-down. But Geoffrey seems too afraid to do it. He backs off just when things are getting good. Still, Max’s cock is hard with blood. He’s responding to pleasure.

  Geoffrey can feel this pleasure in the grip of his hand and is excited by it. The thought comes to him (which he loses, purposely, moments later) that this may be the most magnificent chest he’s ever made love to and that he may never be able to do it again.

  Sex was easy, Geoffrey told himself, though the truth was that it was plentiful, but not simple. Still, it could be found in saunas and sex clubs, in cruising grounds, in the locker rooms of swimming pools and gymnasiums. But someone to fall asleep with, someone to lie beside, and someone whose arms in which you can awake—how often do you find that? Geoffrey thinks that he’s found quite a lot of sex in his forty-some years. But partners have been few. Trade-offs, he thinks. Everything is a trade-off . In this case, the items are sleeping together and having good sex. If he was challenged on this, he would have to back down. They did have sex. They sometimes had good sex. Sex and sleeping together were not opposite things. In fact, they were quite complementary. So he would have been forced to clarify: in this relationship, what was important to him was waking up in Max’s arms, the intimacy of shared sleep, falling asleep to his partner’s breathing. Really hot fucking wasn’t something that could be expected or demanded. Maybe, in the end, it wasn’t even that important. At least that’s what he told himself.

  The precum is flowing for both of them now, Max more than Geoffrey. They’ve rimmed each other; then Geoffrey has inserted one, then two fingers into Max and is now feeling the smooth walls of the rectum while his other hand plays with the hair on Max’s belly.

  They’ll return to habits soon. For Geoffrey, it will be to lie on his back, with Max kneeling over him with his balls positioned over Geoffrey’s mouth. Geoffrey will suck and lick and look up at Max’s great form: the most beautiful view of a man, Geoffrey thinks. If he’s not careful, Geoffrey will come right then, Max’s hand reaching back to jerk him off. But he’ll be able to restrain himself enough to slide his body and head down after one last suck on Max’s balls, a lick of his arsehole. Then he’ll flip himself around and get up, push Max down onto his hands and knees and fuck him slowly while reaching around and massaging his belly, especially between his belly button and crotch, the way that Max likes and requested the first time they fucked.

  They will feel delicious and comfortable that they know each other’s bodies, customs, and fantasies so well.

  It was Max who was frustrated with the sex. But it was Geoffrey who decided to end the relationship.

  “Are you happy with this?” he’d asked angrily one morning. They’d snarked at each other for days.

  “No, I’m not,” replied Max.

  “Then you’d better figure out what you want out of this.”

  But that was the problem. Max didn’t know. He was in love with Geoffrey—frustrating, crazy-making, annoying Geoffrey—and that was enough. He didn’t demand the future. He didn’t want something out of it. The present was enough to deal with, with its imperfections and lopsidedness.

  Though Geoffrey didn’t exactly know what he wanted either, he knew from the weight felt across his shoulders that he didn’t want this.

  Geoffrey is an awkward bottom, sometimes finding it hard to relax, unable to be penetrated if a cock is too thick or too long. So he has always marveled at how open Max is, how relaxed and flexible his anus is. Not only that but his flexibility in general. Such a big man but he can lift his knees up so they touch his shoulders and then even stretch his legs out nearly straight from there.

  The condoms are out. A wrapper falls away easily. Lubricant is pumped onto a palm and then smeared onto latex, and onto skin. Geoffrey enters Max easily in one plain motion, simpler than speech, quicker than argument. The slight friction between their body parts creates heat like swallowing a mouthful of whiskey.

  He fucks him for a while in Max’s favorite position, kneeling over with Geoffrey’s hand on his belly. But this time, they’re really going to make it last, they’ll fuck as long as they can, as hard as they can—in no particular order: lying on the bed from the side, one of Max’s legs lifted and resting on Geoffrey’s shoulder; standing, Max’s right hand balancing against the corner of a wardrobe for balance, Geoffrey behind him, his hands on each side of Max’s shoulders, thrusting; Geoffrey lying on his back, Max on top facing him, leaning down occasionally to kiss.

  Like a concerto that returns to the theme of its opening bars, they return to their first tableau: the same action and postures. Max squeezes all of the muscles inside of him, like holding in laughter. He feels his sphincter and anus constrict around Geoffrey’s cock. Geoffrey gasps and moans at the same time.

  It’s as good as it’s ever been. Why couldn’t sex have been as unencumbered when they were together? Geoffrey is free of a dozen worries and a dozen insecurities—among them: Do we always have to do it the same way? Do I always have to be the top? Am I enjoying this? Worst of all but perhaps hidden, even to Geoffrey himself: if it’s good, really good, does it mean that we should be together forever?

  Max feels the same liberty and joy. Gone is the worry of whether Geoffrey loves him as much as he loves Geoffrey. Of whether Max is attractive enough. Or whether he is truly the ideal lover that Geoffrey wanted. He’s happy, so very much so, to fall into the motion of truly great sex; that Geoffrey is not holding back; that there is force in these thin but strong arms, grabbing him and making him into an object of pleasure.

  They shouldn’t really be doing this in any case, this forbidden act of sleeping with one’s ex, of making the messy messier, of complicating matters considerably and doing what all your friends say you shouldn’t do. Breaking taboos can cause even more excitement. Not that they’ll do it again—in different ways, they both know that. It makes this last time all the more sweet.

  It was just a visit to pick up the last of his possessions but Geoffrey senses that he won’t return. He doesn’t feel sad but there’s an empty, unanswered feeling, like wandering into the entryway of a run-down old home, and calling out to see if anyone is there.

  With some difficulty, he opens the front door to leave Max’s apartment building. His hands are each carrying a few large plastic bags, and on top of this he’s balancing a small box of miscellanea. He manages to put it all into his car then frets—there he goes again—turning circles in his mind:

  Will what they did make it harder to be…friends? Is that what they’d be? Cordial ex-boyfriends? In contact?

  Yes, it will make things more difficult. But, he decides—his heart beating fast and at an erratic pace—it was worth it. Well worth it.

  Max, meanwhile, doesn’t think as much, or at least, he pretends not to. There are things that he’s putting out of his mind already: the lead-up, the background story, the dialogue. It won’t happen right away but eventually he’ll be left with just memories of the physical act and the windstorm of emotions that accompanied it. Now, he remembers Geoffrey’s head, the dead weight of it, on his right side on top of where his chest
and stomach meet, resting on his torso after this last sex, this best sex they’ve ever had. He knows that it’s ridiculous but honestly it feels like there’s still an indentation there, as if in a down pillow after a deep, motionless sleep. It will take time to fill in again, for his body to regain form.

  UNDERGROUND OPERATOR

  Andrew McCarthy

  Nowhere in New York City is July’s inescapable heat more viscerally punishing than below ground, where the atmospheric pressure rises with the descent into the subway. The potent odor of decay and fermented urine, occasionally peppered with bleach or ammonia by maintenance staff, offers little comfort to the unfortunate traveler who is eager to be elsewhere. Worst are evening rush hours, when trains are packed with fatigued commuters, collectively worn down by the day’s work and the unforgiving humidity.

  Even subway sounds are assaulting: the unintelligible squawk box announcements, the high-pitched gnashing of metal wheels on curving rails, the thunderous rattle of train bodies squeezing their rectangular shapes through winding tunnels. Before a train arrives at a station with its familiar screeching, ironically signaling a relief from some of the subway’s other sensory hostilities, platform inhabitants contemplate their abilities to overcome the suffering inherent with waiting for and riding the train.

  Will I find a newspaper on the platform bench so I have something to read, or use to wave warm air from side to side in an attempt to cool down? Is there any water left in the bottle in my bag? Do I have a rag to wipe the sweat off of my face, or to slide under my shirt to sponge off my damp back? When the train finally comes, will I get a seat? Most importantly: will the train be air-conditioned? The answer must always be yes in order to preserve sanity.