2017 Top Ten Gay Romance

by J. M. Snyder

  But where was Beast?

  Touring the large room, Beau took note of all the books, the objets d’art, the antiques—and a stunningly clean fireplace, as though a fire had never been burned there.

  Beau could understand why.

  At the back of the drawing room was a door that led to a dark passage. Beau could see light at the end of the tunnel, so he followed it.

  The passage led to a kitchen and it was there Beau discovered his beast.

  Beast sat at a large, heavy table crafted from planks of what looked like aged oak. Straw-bottomed, ladder-back chairs were strewn around the table. The kitchen had exposed brick walls and big, restaurant sized appliances—a six-burner range, double ovens, a glass-fronted refrigerator.

  Beast sat at the table, staring ahead. Before him, two plates of food rested. Upon each was a low bowl, filled with what looked like beef stew. Beau could make out the tender meat, carrots, pearl onions, and red potatoes. But no smell came to him; the bowls had gone cold.

  Beast had not yet noticed him standing there, almost behind him, but enough for Beau to see his face in profile. He could see the numbness in his features, the sadness, and despair. It was amazing how all the horrible scarring had done nothing to muffle the emotions that face displayed.

  Before he announced himself, before he moved to Beast to offer him some comfort and reassurance, he wanted to make sure he said the right thing. He didn’t want to sound full of pity, but compassion.

  Beast looked over at him, suddenly and without warning. “This is a quiet house. You can’t sneak up on me.”

  Beau smiled, forcing down the giddy feeling of fear Beast’s monstrous features elicited in spite of Beau’s desire to tamp them down. “I was getting hungry.” He gestured toward the bowls. “Is that for me?”

  Beast smiled, revealing rows of perfect white teeth. “One of them anyway.” He stood up with the bowls. “But they’re cold. I’ll just zap them and we can eat.” Beast moved across the room to the counter, where a stainless steel microwave sat. He glanced back at Beau. “Unless of course you don’t want to eat with me. My face has a way of taking away an appetite, or so I hear.” He shook his head, laughing bitterly. “Sorry. Self-pity is almost as ugly as my face.” He put both bowls in the appliance and pressed some buttons and the microwave hummed to life. Staring at it and not Beau, Beast said, “But I won’t mind if you want to take yours up to your room.”

  Beau sat down at the table, across from where Beast had been sitting. “No. I’ll eat here with you. I’m sick of the invalid routine. We can talk.”

  Beast bustled about the kitchen. Beau could tell he was happy that Beau was taking the step of sitting across from him while eating. It was a tiny gesture, but one fraught with meaning, a meaning poor Beast may have been starving for.

  Beast poured two glasses of red wine and set them on the table with a pair of linen napkins and cutlery. The microwave at last beeped and Beast set before Beau a steaming bowl of stew. The steam brought rich, savory notes to Beau’s nose: garlic and thyme, burgundy wine, the earthy aroma of mushrooms, which Beau now noticed several different varieties floating in the thick, luscious sauce.

  The two men tucked into the stew and ate in companionable silence. Beau thought about how he had once read that a relationship was not measured so much by what one person had to say to another, but in how comfortable each person could be with quiet, with simply being together.

  Beau knew they had a lot to talk about, but he didn’t want to press. He made certain to look over at Beast, to meet his eyes as they ate, demonstrating to the man how little difference his deformity made.

  “This is delicious.”

  “I like to cook. I like to feed people. But it’s been a long time, since—” Beast’s gaze looked faraway, at the night pressing against the glass of the big window over the sink.

  Beau sipped his wine. “You don’t have to tell me,” he said, quietly. “But I hope you know you can.” He gave Beast a very pointed stare. “I’d like to know more about you.”

  Beast nodded, a smile playing about his lips.

  Beau was just about finished with stew and emboldened by his third glass of red, a very good French burgundy, when he said, “I don’t want to call you Beast. That’s not fair. Beasts are cruel, cunning, predators, vicious. You are none of those things. In fact, from my few days here, I can already see you are the exact opposite of all of them.” Beau smiled and he could see the intensity of Beast’s gaze. Was he surprised? He hoped he was grateful—and would see what Beau was getting ready to request as the first step onto a bridge, a bridge toward each other.

  He hoped he would not seem patronizing.

  But he had to ask. “So what is your name?” As he asked the question, he realized he had never told Beast what people called him. What, he wondered, did Beast call him in his own mind? Boy? “I guess before you tell me, I should have the courtesy to tell you who I am.” He paused and said, “Beau. It’s short for Beauregard. My mother was from the south, you understand.” He grinned.

  Beast grinned back. He took a sip of wine. “My mother was from the north, Montreal by way of Nice. French through and through. You sure you want to know my name? Knowing may open a door, may make it harder for you to leave, as you soon will. It might be easier if you think you stayed with a beast in the mountains, who was nice enough to help you get better when you needed it.”

  “I want to know who you are.”

  “Jeanne-Marie.”

  “That’s a lovely name. A lovely name for a lovely man.”

  Jeanne-Marie cast his gaze down at his empty bowl. “Don’t make fun of me.”

  “Why would you say that?”

  “Because,” Jeanne-Marie looked up at him, then and Beau could see his eyes were bright with unshed tears. “Because we both know I am about as far from lovely as you can get.” He stood and began hurriedly gathering the bowls, cutlery, and glasses. He took them to the sink where he began rinsing them. Without looking at Beau, he said, “I know you’re grateful. You don’t have to overdo it.”

  Beau sat, stunned. He wondered how the conversation had taken such a devastating turn in such a short time, with the utterance of only a few words. He meant what he had said.

  He got up and crossed the room, stood behind Jeanne-Marie before doing something that would either rend them apart or bring them closer. But Beau had never been one to shy away from a challenge, so he moved forward, until the front of his body aligned with Jeanne-Marie’s back.

  And then he wrapped his arms around him.

  At first, Jeanne-Marie stiffened, his entire torso tightening with what Beau thought had to be tension. Where Beau’s hand rested on Jeanne-Marie’s chest, he could feel the hammering of the man’s heart.

  Then, Jeanne-Marie, gently, tried to move away, to free himself from Beau’s hug. He struggled a bit to free himself, but Beau refused to let go.

  Beau gently kissed the scarred neck.

  “Don’t do this,” Jeanne-Marie whispered. “Don’t do this to yourself. It’s disgusting.” His words came out choked, a whisper. Beau could feel the tremors—sobs—coursing through Jeanne-Marie.

  Beau held on all the tighter, letting his head rest on Jeanne-Marie’s broad back. “Shhh….” Beau whispered, moving in close enough so that their two bodies became one. He gently rubbed his hands over Jeanne-Marie’s firm chest and flat stomach.

  Jeanne-Marie switched off the water, letting a bowl clatter to the sink. Slowly, he allowed himself to relax in Beau’s embrace. “I dare not turn around,” he whispered.

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t want this moment to end.” Jeanne-Marie let out a long, quivering breath, like a sigh. “It’s been so long since anyone has touched me.”

  Beau hugged him tighter. “You can turn around.”

  “No. No.”

  Beau understood. He let go of Jeanne-Marie for long enough to cross to the opposite wall, where the light switch was. He turned off the light and the
room was plunged into darkness, lit dimly by a silvery opalescence from the moon, which had risen as they ate.

  He came back to him in the dark and when he reached Jeanne-Marie, who was still standing, turned away and clutching the counter, Beau reached up and ever so gently turned him so he was facing Beau.

  Lightly, Beau reached up and touched Jeanne-Marie’s face in the darkness, letting his hand glide gently but surely across the topography of smooth scars. They were not repulsive or disgusting.

  They were beautiful. Because they were Jeanne-Marie.

  When Beau had first seen Jeanne-Marie’s face, he had to be honest with himself and admit he could never imagine he would do what he did next. But it was easy. He stood on tiptoe and planted a feathery, light kiss upon the other man’s lips.

  “Don’t,” Jeanne-Marie said, his words coming out a strangled sob.

  So Beau, knowing Jeanne-Marie meant the opposite of what he had said, kissed him again, more deeply this time. And Jeanne-Marie responded—passionately, as though he were a man dying of thirst in a desert. Their tongues fused, their lips latched on to the others’, their eyes shut tightly in pleasure. Their bodies were locked together as if there were some sort of desperation to fuse into one being.

  Beau could feel Jeanne-Marie trembling in his arms, shaking so hard he had to hold on tight to keep him in place. The touch, the kiss, must have had a powerful effect on the man—something perhaps Jeanne-Marie imagined he would never have again.

  Beau at last, deep in a kiss, opened his eyes. He had to look, had to see the man who was causing all sorts of feelings—arousal, fear, lust, and a growing affection—to arise within him.

  What he saw was a horror, but at the same time, he could tolerate it. Jeanne-Marie’s mouth was warm; his lips and tongue felt the same as any other man’s. And the deep valleys and ridges of the scars upon his face, here in the dark, could be perceived by Beau’s artist eyes as a pattern. If he removed himself from what his logical mind told him to feel, which was dismay at the damage that had been wrought, he could see Jeanne-Marie’s face as interesting. And if he allowed the tiny stirrings of love he was beginning to feel for the man to come even more alive with their kiss and passionate embrace, he could also see the unique oddness of his face as something beautiful, something to be treasured because it was a face unlike anyone else’s, save Jeanne-Marie’s.

  At last, one of them had to pull away. And it was not Beau. All at once, Jeanne-Marie disengaged his lips, dropped his arms, and stepped back from Beau. He turned slightly, hiding his face. He spoke to the air in front of him. “This is wrong. You don’t want to do this. You couldn’t. I’m a monster.”

  “Not to me.” Beau placed what he hoped was a comforting hand on Jeanne-Marie’s back. “You’re my good Samaritan; the one who stopped when no one else did. Maybe I could have died in that alley.” Beau buried his face in Jeanne-Marie’s broad back.

  The memory of what had happened to him back in Seattle returned not in bits and pieces, but all at once. Keeping his arms tight around Jeanne-Marie, he saw it all in his mind’s eye—the drizzly day, the shortcut through the alley to get to the pho place, his attackers, in their thug clothes, edging near him in the dark. He remembered how he knew, with a sense living on the streets attuned to danger, that they meant him harm.

  He recalled the taunts, the words hurled as a kind of cruel foreplay to the physical pain and abuse they would level—they had called him faggot, pussy boy. He remembered turning and seeing their faces, the hunger alive in their eyes to witness him hurting. He saw one of them bring out a sock, knotted at the top, and looking heavy. It must have been filled with pennies. One blow to his head, a wave of nausea and dizziness, and then there was no more to remember, because his mind delivered him from the blows and kicks that must have surely followed.

  But more than his mind delivered him. Jeanne-Marie had come along at some point, maybe even scared his attackers away.

  “You saved me.” Beau moved his face away from Jeanne-Marie’s back and repeated, “You saved me.” He kissed his neck again and forced him, with his hands on Jeanne-Marie’s shoulders, to turn around. Beau stared into his eyes with gratitude, with love, with compassion.

  “I did what anyone would do.” Jeanne-Marie pulled Beau to him, positioning Beau’s head so it rested on his chest. Jeanne-Marie stroked his hair and spoke softly. Beau felt the rumble of the deep voice in his chest as much as he heard it.

  “I heard them taunting you, calling you names. ‘The pussy faggot artist from down at the waterfront,’ one of them hissed. I got there just as one of them hit you over the head with a sock filled with coins. He hit you so hard, it opened a big gash on your head. I saw you drop, but I still wasn’t close enough to stop them from kicking you as you lay on the ground.

  “As I got closer, I pulled off the ball cap and sunglasses I wear even in the dark when I go into town, so they could see the full measure of the scars on my face. One of them kicked you again, the other grabbed your stuff, and then they were off running down the alley, laughing. One of them paused long enough to turn and scream, ‘Fuckin’ freak’ at me.

  “I would have gone after them, but when I saw how badly you were hurt, the blood almost obscuring your face, I knew to let them go. Your life was more important than whatever it was they took from you.”

  Jeanne-Marie kissed him again and Beau offered no resistance, accepting the kiss hungrily, reaching up to grab the back of Jeanne-Marie’s neck and pull him closer. “My hero,” he whispered.

  Jeanne-Marie stepped back and actually laughed. He repeated that he had done what anyone would do, but Beau doubted that. No one else would have been as strong or as intimidating—and those qualities were the things that may have saved Beau’s life.

  Jeanne-Marie laughed when they came up for air from their kiss. “For once, I was glad I looked like a monster, or a fuckin’ freak as your friend called me. I think it had a lot to do with scaring those creeps away.”

  “I’m glad you look the way you do,” Beau said quietly. “Not so much because you scared them away, but because those looks are what make you…you.”

  They fell silent and Jeanne-Marie turned back to the dishes he had originally set out to rinse. “You should go back to bed, rest.”

  Beau felt like something had come to an end. The moment had passed and he wanted more. But he didn’t know yet if Jeanne-Marie felt the same. He hazarded a question, “So what happened to you?”

  He watched as Jeanne-Marie’s spine stiffened. “Go. Go back to your room. You ask too much.”

  “But—”

  “I said go.” Jeanne-Marie turned to him. His eyes were once again bright with tears. He blinked rapidly, Beau supposed, to try and rid himself of them. “Please. You’re hurting me.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. Please—just let me be.”

  Beau reached up, to touch his face, to brush away the single tear that had fallen, and Jeanne-Marie slapped his hand away, not hard, but enough to make it clear that he no longer wanted to be touched.

  Beau stared at Jeanne-Marie for a long moment. “I’ll go. But I want you to, if you feel like it, come talk to me later.”

  Jeanne-Marie nodded and turned back to his chores. “I’ll think about that.”

  Chapter 6

  Beau’s bedroom was dark, but the silvery opalescence of the moon caused it to almost glow. Beau lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling, the crown molding, and turning his head to stare out the window, where a huge full moon hung on the horizon. Stars glittered in the black sky.

  Beau could not sleep because he was waiting—for Jeanne-Marie to come to him. It didn’t matter to Beau what they would say or what they would do, he simply wanted the man near him. He hoped to convince Jeanne-Marie somehow that he was worthy of Beau’s love, that Beau could be attracted to him in spite of his disfigurement.

  He knew how hard it was for Jeanne-Marie to believe the truth. He realized that Jeanne-Marie hid here in the
mountains, probably from, at worst, the cruel taunts of the insensitive and, at best, the pity of the compassionate.

  But Jeanne-Marie did not come. The moon rose higher, higher, finally disappearing from his view. The room grew darker.

  Beau felt the weariness beginning to overcome him, felt himself drifting off to sleep. But then there was a noise that caused him to tense, to suck in a breath.

  The door was opening. It creaked just a bit as it slid, nearly silent, open. For some reason, he thought it would be easier for Jeanne-Marie if he, at least for now, feigned sleep. Beau closed his eyes, allowed his breathing to become deep and even.

  He could sense Jeanne-Marie moving closer to the bed, attuned to the footfalls of his bare feet on the wooden floor. At last, even without opening an eye to peek, he knew Jeanne-Marie stood quietly beside the bed. Beau listened to his breathing and could feel his gaze upon him.

  Without a word, Beau shifted, knowing instinctively that this was not a time for words, not the right moment for eye contact. He threw back the sheet and blanket by way of an invitation, rolling over onto his side, whispering a fervent internal prayer that Jeanne-Marie would get his message and would slide into bed beside him.

  It wouldn’t matter what they did. Just having Jeanne-Marie near again, his warmth combining with Beau’s own, would be enough.

  Beau lay on his side, waiting. When finally he felt the opposite side of the bed weighed down, he smiled. Smiled more as he felt Jeanne-Marie’s arms wrap around him in an embrace, pulling him close.

  “Don’t turn over. Let’s just be like this,” Jeanne-Marie whispered in his ear.

  So he had known, maybe all along, that Beau was awake. Beau reached up and grabbed one of Jeanne-Marie’s hands, pressing it into his chest, so he could feel the beating of his heart in response.

  Jeanne-Marie kissed his neck and Beau realized that the flesh pressing against his own was bare. Both were naked and the heat between their two bodies was electric. Beau sighed, moving backward to press himself into Jeanne-Marie.

  Their grip on one another grew in intensity, right along with the quickness of their breaths, the sweat forming on their bodies. They merged, becoming one, and Beau thought of the hackneyed phrase, “making the beast with two backs” for only a moment.