2017 Top Ten Gay Romance

by J. M. Snyder

  “I promise.”

  Tip wondered why he’d never realized before just how creepy this place was. The Blacksmythe’s Forge displayed gruesome torture implements—Tip didn’t believe for one moment they were really ploughshares—and the windows of the Draggon’s Denne held macabre ceramic likenesses of all manner of unearthly beasts.

  “I’ll catch you up, dears. This place does the loveliest little pottery dragons…” Aunty May’s voice disappeared, along with the rest of her, into a rather twee-looking shop.

  Steve shrugged. “She does like her dragons,” he said distractedly. “I think they remind her of her sister…Ah! Here’s Aunty June’s shop.”

  They stepped into Tye & Dye, Steve with a confident stride and Tip with a sort of anxious scurry. There were no customers inside. Tip found himself darting nervous glances at the floor, expecting to see hordes of small, crawling insects who had, up to now, been enjoying their summer holidays on the Isle of Wight in rather more human form. For all he knew, he’d been committing mass murder with every step.

  Aunty June (or, as Tip had dubbed her in his head, the Wicked Witch of the Wight) looked much as she had the last time he’d seen her. Same iron-grey hair, ruthlessly subdued into a bun at the back of her head. Same incongruously bright tie-dyed clothing. Same sour expression on her face at the sight of Tip. “Oh, it’s you, is it?” she muttered. “I suppose you want me to reverse the curse, eh?”

  “Um, whatever happened to poor old Aunty June, she’s been so worried?” Tip hissed to Steve.

  “Speak up, young man!” she snapped, advancing on Tip menacingly. “If you’ve got something to say, then let’s hear it!”

  Tip tried to take a step back, but found himself restrained by Steve’s arm around his waist. For once, he didn’t find it comforting.

  “Aunty June!” A broad smile on his face, Steve spoke in tones made heartier for the benefit of the hard of thinking. “Lovely to see you again!”

  “Hmmph.” The witch folded her arms. “April’s boy, is it? I always knew she’d go to the bad, hanging around with those mainland types. I told her, if you get yourself in the family way, don’t expect me to help raise the brat.”

  Steve’s tone didn’t falter. If anything, it grew fonder, in a mock-exasperated, old-people-you-can’t-take-them-anywhere sort of way. “I’m April’s grandson, Aunty. Stephen. We talked on the phone, remember? Now, we know you’ve been feeling awful about what happened to Tip—”

  “It’s probably just that she meant to turn me into a slug. And then step on me,” Tip muttered under his breath.

  “—so we’ve brought him along so you and he can have a little talk about reversing the spell you cast.”

  “Um, actually I’m really not sure I want to—” Tip began.

  The witch huffed impatiently. “Well, let’s get on with it, then, I haven’t got all day.” To Tip’s horror, she pushed up her sleeves with dye-stained hands and started to mumble an incantation.

  “Wait!” he yelped, Steve’s tightening arms around him making it come out more squeakily than he’d intended.

  “Er, Aunty?” Steve said, sounding uncertain for the first time since Tip had met him. “I did promise him—” He broke off as the air seemed to crackle, and Tip was torn bodily from his arms by an unseen hand and dumped, hard, on the floor.

  As metaphors for his life went, Tip thought groggily, it wasn’t an inaccurate one. Blinking to clear his vision, he hastily examined his limbs and torso. So far, so human.

  “Tip!” Steve threw himself to his knees and took Tip in his arms. “Are you all right? Aunty June,” he said angrily, turning to face his aunt, “I really think you ought to stop this hair-trigger hexing. What have you done to him now?”

  Aunty June humphed, her arms folded. “There’s gratitude. You come here wanting a curse removed, and now you’re complaining about it.” She stomped off to the back of the shop, muttering as she went about the shortcomings of the younger generation. Tip was fairly sure he could hear something along the lines of “Waste of good magic, if you ask me,” but he tried not to let it get to him.

  “Um, Steve?” Tip asked plaintively. “Can I go home now?” He paused. “I mean, I’m all right to go, aren’t I? I haven’t sprouted antlers or antennae or anything, have I?”

  Steve smiled, and stroked Tip’s hair. “You look as adorable as ever.”

  Tip felt a melting sensation deep inside, and tried to remember that he was actually rather annoyed with Steve for bringing him here to be hexed. He opened his mouth to speak—and then jumped as the shop bell rang. Aunty May bustled in, her arms full of brightly wrapped packages. “Oh,” she said cheerily, “have I missed anything?”

  * * * *

  Leaving Aunty May, who inexplicably wanted to spend some time with her sister, back in the shop, Tip and Steve headed back to the car park in an awkward silence. Now that Steve had finally realized Tip wasn’t best pleased with him, he was keeping his distance. Tip was dismayed to discover that was much worse than the annoyance itself.

  Once they’d climbed into the car, Steve looked at Tip. “So, er, where to?”

  Tip sighed. Suddenly he felt very, very tired. “I think I’d like to go home. To the café—I’ve got a room in the farmhouse. You know, Janey and Mike’s place.”

  As Steve nodded sadly, Tip discovered a whole new seam of self-loathing in the worked-out mine of his soul. “Or,” he found himself blurting out, “we could go for lunch together somewhere? I haven’t had a proper meal in days.” Right on cue, his stomach rumbled. Tip made a mental note to reward it with tiramisu. And steak. And chocolate, and sausages, and everything, in fact, except for bloody lettuce.

  Steve brightened instantly, and Tip found his own mood joyfully following suit. “Excellent idea! Can you recommend anywhere?”

  “What, on the wages Janey pays me?” Tip grinned. “The closest I get to a meal out is the specials at the café when they’re getting to their sell-by date.”

  “Well, there’s a place near here I’ve heard good things about—the Pointer Inn—although apparently it can be hard to get a table if you don’t book ahead. Still, no harm in trying, is there?”

  In Tip’s experience, there could be plenty of harm in trying, if your definition of harm included embarrassment so acute that spontaneous combustion from shame became a real possibility. He’d reckoned, however, without the power of Steve’s smile, which could apparently reduce restaurant staff to jelly and produce empty tables as if by magic.

  Tip frowned at his leather-bound menu. If it was magic, he wanted nothing to do with it.

  “Having trouble choosing?” Steve asked, turning the full wattage of that devastating smile in Tip’s direction.

  “I’ll just have what you’re having,” Tip said dreamily, barely registering his own words.

  Sanity returned fifteen minutes later, as Tip toyed with a starter that was almost bigger than he was, and tried not to think about the main course. “So, when this place was recommended to you, did they praise the food’s quality or its quantity?” he asked cynically.

  “Both, actually.” Steve licked his lips in a way that should be illegal in a public place. “Are you going to eat that?”

  There was, Tip discovered, something undeniably erotic about watching a man eat. Or at least, there was about watching Steve eat. Something about the unabashed pleasure on his face as he savoured the onion gravy, or was it the masterful way he carved his liver and bacon? At any rate, Tip found himself staring mesmerized at his companion, his own meal entirely forgotten.

  “I thought you were hungry,” Steve said with a grin. “Eat up, this is delicious.”

  “It is, isn’t it?” Tip replied dreamily, making patterns in the gravy with his fork.

  “You know, the ancient Roman physician Galen thought the liver was the seat of all passions,” Steve purred suggestively. “Let me help you out with that,” he added, leaning over to spear Tip’s liver.

  “Um. I really don’t thi
nk I’m going to want dessert,” Tip said, abandoning all pretence of eating. “Can we go? Now?”

  * * * *

  The road back to Newchurch had never seemed so long, winding and insanely full of tourists insisting on travelling at twenty miles an hour. Steve drove with a restraint that was theoretically commendable but in practice, in Tip’s considered opinion, bloody frustrating. “Does your Aunty June drive?” he asked.

  Steve braked good-naturedly as the driver in front dithered over a turning, then decided not to risk it. “Yes, why?”

  “Then I’m surprised the island isn’t entirely populated by tortoises. Actually, I wonder if anyone’s ever checked whether the number of tourists departing by ferry equals the number that arrived? She could have been decimating the population for years.”

  “I think there might have been something about it in the papers by now if so,” Steve said in a reassuring tone. “People do tend to complain about it if their relatives go missing.”

  “Probably silenced by agents of the English Tourist Board, ruthlessly suppressing anything that might be bad for business. Or maybe there’s a confederation of witches, covering up for each other…” A thought had finally struck Tip like a clump of wet seaweed. “Um, you know how your Aunty June’s a witch? And your Aunty May, too? So does that mean you’re a, a man-witch?”

  Steve grinned. “You make me sound like a particularly meaty baguette—it’s not just a sandwich, it’s a man-wich.”

  Despite his worries, the imagery made Tip gulp. He couldn’t deny a powerful urge to get his lips round Steve’s meaty baguette…Recollecting himself, Tip gave Steve a stern look. “You haven’t answered the question.”

  “Oh—no, I’m afraid it only passes down the female line. I’ve got about as much magic in me as David Blaine’s boxers.” He sounded regretful, so Tip made sure his sigh of relief was inaudible.

  “So, er, what do you do, Steve?” Tip asked.

  “Honey.”

  “You want me to call you Honey?” It sounded a bit American, but Tip couldn’t say he had any strong objections. He’d draw the line at Pumpkin, however. That was just wrong, on so many levels.

  “I mean,” Steve went on, “I produce honey. Well, not me personally. The bees tend to take care of that side of things. But I harvest it, put it in jars, and market it. We’re doing rather well, actually.”

  Tip stared. “You’re a beekeeper?”

  “Well, on an industrial scale, but yes, essentially that’s what I am.” Steve grinned. “I hope you’re not allergic or something.”

  It was fate, Tip decided. Destiny had brought him this man, and if he had to be a tortoise for a while, well, it was a price worth paying. “No! No, actually I’ve always had a bit of a thing for beekeeping. Do you…” Tip cleared his throat as his voice went a little hoarse. “Do you wear all the gear? The protective suit, and the veil, and everything?”

  “Oh, yes. And the gloves, of course. I’ve got a pair of sheepskin leather gauntlets—I like to be able to feel what I’m doing, if you know what I mean.” Steve’s smile turned wicked. “I could show you them some time, if you don’t mind getting on a ferry. You could even try things on if you like.”

  Tip’s throat was almost too dry to speak. Leather gauntlets…veils…“Drive. Faster,” he managed to croak out.

  Still grinning, Steve slammed the car into gear and overtook three carloads of tourists at once.

  * * * *

  Janey and Mike were clearing tables as Tip and Steve reached Tiptree’s Treats. “Tip!” she called out. “Are you all sorted, now?”

  “I, um…tell you later,” Tip garbled out. “We’re, um…”

  “Busy,” Steve put in firmly, dragging him across the room by one hand. “Extremely busy. Important matters to, ah, attend to.”

  Janey cocked an eyebrow, her hands on her hips. “Well, I suppose you’d better go and attend to them, then. Try not to disturb the customers.”

  “Hope your little problem doesn’t crop up!” Mike called, and just as they got to the stairs, Tip distinctly heard him whistle a couple of bars of “Bestiality’s Best, Boys” in the jaunty tones of a man who’d never been cock-blocked by an unscheduled species shift.

  Smug git.

  They stumbled into Tip’s bedroom with barely the presence of mind to close the door. Still, if Janey or Mike wandered by and got an eyeful, they had only themselves to blame. They’d had fair warning.

  “Finally,” Steve groaned. “No aunties, no sisters, no interruptions.” He ripped off his shirt, and as that magnificent chest was bared, Tip’s knees managed a little magic of their own, transforming bone and cartilage into jelly.

  Fortunately Steve caught him on the way down, once again swinging Tip up into muscular arms as if he weighed no more than a fainting Hollywood damsel. Which, as it happened, was pretty much the case, but Tip had never been able to view it as an advantage until now. Every muscle in his body went blissfully limp, making the contrast with a certain part of his anatomy even more dramatic.

  Steve laid Tip reverently down on the bed. “I can’t wait to get you naked again,” he growled, undoing Tip’s jeans one-handed while leaning down to press hot, breathy kisses into his throat.

  Tip moaned, rational speech entirely beyond him—and whimpered as the kisses disappeared. Before he could find the words to protest, he found his jeans being dragged off his hips, taking his boxer shorts with them. The friction of their passing was torture to his needy cock, but he had no time to dwell on it as Steve was lifting him up to pull off his shirt. “God, yes,” Steve murmured, one hand roving all over Tip’s body, stroking and kneading, while the other worked frantically at his belt buckle. What was more, Steve’s trousers slid off with nary an interruption to the caresses; Tip had to admire a man who could multi-task like that.

  Through a supreme effort of will, Tip managed to lift spaghetti-like arms and wrap them around Steve’s neck in an attempt to pull the man closer. Despite his efforts having more of the force of a gentle hint than any actual, well, force, it worked. Steve lay down beside him, the bedsprings creaking a startled warning.

  Steve’s cock felt like a red-hot poker searing Tip’s thigh, branding him as Steve’s own. Tip gasped as Steve nuzzled into his throat once more and resumed kissing and sucking. The kisses moved slowly, sensually downward. Tip was in agonies, desperate for that mouth to reach its ultimate destination. “Please…” he mewled, and was rewarded with yet more teasing until finally, finally, soft lips closed over the head of his cock.

  Tip’s head reeled with the ecstasy of it. Steve’s mouth was doing wicked, wanton things to him. “Don’t stop!” he panted. He was overloaded with sensation; he felt light-headed, almost as if he were underwater.

  Wait a minute…

  Tip’s cry of alarm turned to a sort of embarrassed cluck, and all ecstasy stopped abruptly as he very literally retreated back into his shell.

  After he’d wobbled back and forth, see-sawing on his carapace, for a couple of queasy moments, Tip stuck his head out once more and glared at his lover as best he could across the expanse of his plastron.

  “Ah,” Steve said, looking a bit sheepish and finally reaching out to turn him over. “Looks like Aunty June’s spells really aren’t up to scratch anymore. Still,” he said, sprawling on the bed and pumping his cock idly in a way that left Tip seething with chelonian frustration, “look on the bright side.”

  There was a bright side? Tip hissed in a way that he hoped expressed just how dubious he was about that.

  “Well, if half the time I take you out for dinner you lose your appetite, and the rest of the time you end up turning into a tortoise, it looks like you’re going to be a really cheap date.”

  Tip clucked with the derision that comment deserved.

  “And,” Steve added with a winning smile, “what with all this coitus interruptus, just think how amazing it’s going to be when we finally manage to go all the way.”

  There was that, Tip thought r
esignedly.

  Bowing to the inevitable, he lumbered up Steve’s hip and onto the man’s groin. If nothing else, he was willing to bet Steve had never had a plastron job before.

  THE END

  Strange Fortune by Jessie Pinkham

  Chapter 1

  If he had to get kidnapped, Jake figured he was lucky to end up in the hands of incompetent kidnappers. Either they hadn’t taken the time to research him at all or they knew he’d been military and couldn’t be bothered to be extra careful. Whatever the reason it worked well for him.

  After a day and a half of pretending to be docile he made his move. They sent in a beta to bring him food, another dumb move on their part unless this was an exceptionally strong beta. It was almost insulting. Jake may have needed medical retirement but he was still an alpha and former special forces. It wasn’t hard to subdue this so-called guard.

  When the guy was knocked out cold Jake checked for weapons. None. Apparently the kidnappers took some precautions. He’d just have to make do and get down the hall to the next guard before anyone noticed the dinner delivery was taking longer than usual. Food deliveries were always very quick affairs and he wanted the element of surprise.

  This plan was somewhat derailed when he saw through a small window that a man was curled up looking miserable in the room next to where he had been held. Maybe Jake wasn’t the only person kidnapped? He couldn’t very well leave the poor guy behind, even though odds were good that another person would just make it that much harder to escape.

  The door was locked, so he had to go back to grab the keyring off the unconscious guard. Shit, someone was going to get suspicious soon.

  “You wanna get out of here?” asked Jake as soon as the door swung open.

  The guy tried to get up but couldn’t. He looked terrible and had to have been in this abandoned warehouse for longer than Jake. Damn it, this escape was not at all going according to plan and for the first time Jake began to worry.

  He barely heard the guy say, “I can’t.”