Best Gay Erotica 2013

by Richard Labonté

  “Ah, here we are,” he says as the driver stops in front of a nondescript building on a quiet side street. He sits clutching his violin case until I understand I’m expected to pay the fare. A gentleman in black tie greets us at the door and takes our coats and the violin case. The dining room is small, a dozen tables with crisp white tablecloths and bud vases with a single carnation and a sprig of asparagus fern. The waiter is carrying plates of homey fare, aromatic roast pork and beef, simmered for hours in broth laced with garlic and paprika. It appears Tony has decided on a romantic evening. I scan the room, looking for a thick mop of blond curls among the gray and balding heads. I’m a little puzzled about the rush, since it appears Yuri has yet to arrive. The maitre d’ leads us to a table in a far a corner and motions for us to sit. It’s obviously a mistake. A woman, matronly but not yet old, is already seated, still dressed for the outdoors in a fur hat and unbuttoned overcoat. Tony bends to kiss her cheeks and helps her with her coat. He speaks quietly, in a deferential voice; I understand my name and that I am being introduced. The woman smiles at me, dignified but friendly.

  “I am pleased for you to meet my mother,” he says proudly.

  He orders a sherry for his mother and two tall glasses of pilsner for him and me. They chatter in Czech. I know I am the topic of conversation; his mother is inspecting me, nodding approvingly. Yuri obviously is not expected to join us as there are only place settings for three.

  “I shall order for the table, okay?” he announces. “You must know my favorite foods.”

  He seems to point to every item on the menu as the waiter scribbles furiously on his notepad. We have a while to relax before the meal is served. Tony and his mother share the same blue eyes and dimpled chin. I see what he will look like in a decade or two when the Czech diet has softened his sharp features. He clasps my left hand and his mother’s right, as solemn as a minister about to unite until death do us part.

  “Mama thinks you are very handsome and would have beautiful children,” he says.

  Mama must be very naïve, assuming I’m a paterfamilias who’s taken an inexplicable interest in her son.

  “Mama says I am very lucky to marry an American,” he laughs, scratching my palm with his index finger. “She says we must have a big apartment and she will visit us at Easter and the Christmas holiday. What do you think?” he asks, dazzling me with his ingratiating smile.

  Preposterous, impossible, ridiculous, out of the question, I silently protest as I squeeze his hand. His charms and prodigious appetites aren’t powerful enough to bewitch the jaded cynic I’ve become. But my flight doesn’t depart for three more days. There’s no reason to disappoint him, not just yet. He slips off his shoe and, burrowing his foot under the cuff of my pants, tickles my calf with his toes. I blush, mortified by the blood shamelessly rushing to my penis, undeterred by the matriarch smiling at me across the table. He arches his eyebrow, gently mocking me, his willing captive, knowing there’s time enough to keep stirring his cauldron until, steeped in his intoxicating brew of sex, charm, beauty and affection, refusing him will be impossible and I will happily embrace my fate.

  BAREBACK RIDER

  Michael Bracken

  Every time the rodeo came to town, the local bars were crowded with hard-muscled men clad in tight-fitting Wranglers, snap-button shirts, low-heeled ropers, sweat-stained Stetsons, and belt buckles the size of dinner plates. Following the rodeo circuit were the wannabes and the used-to-bes, the groupies and the clingers-on, and they crowded into the bars along with the cowboys and the rodeo employees. Included in every crowd in every bar were the locals, the men and women who brushed against masculine greatness for one long weekend and lived on the adrenaline rush for the following twelve months.

  Justin Longacre, a bareback rider who frequently finished in the money, rolled into town in his extended cab dually the day before the rodeo’s first event, booked himself a room at the Motel 6 just down the road from the coliseum, and began to prowl the local bars. Justin had the sinewy build of a man who had been stretched tight and held together by sheer determination. Unlike other bareback riders, the abuse he had endured seemed negligible: he’d smashed his face against the skull of a particularly spirited bronc, leaving his nose with a flat spot just above his nostrils, and a bad dismount had broken his left leg, giving him a barely perceptible limp.

  In each of the bars Justin visited, men bought his drinks and women sidled up to him, offering themselves as if they were breeder cows. He always politely tasted the drinks and thanked the women for their attention before moving on, riding the local alcohol circuit the way he rode the southwest rodeo circuit.

  In one bar near the Interstate, a well-lit place that catered to upscale out-of-towners, he had to explain to a buxom young coed what a bareback rider did.

  “It’s just me and the horse,” he said. “No saddle, no stirrups, no reins, just a leather rigging that looks like a suitcase handle on a strap.”

  He explained to the attentive coed that cowboys grab the handle with one hand and throw their free hand in the air to keep from touching themselves or the horse during the ride. The cowboy must mark out when the horse leaves the chute, making sure that both spurs touch the bronc’s shoulders. Then the cowboy spurs the horse from shoulder to rigging, doing his best to score points based on his strength, control, and spurring action during the eight-second ride.

  “That sounds crazy,” the coed said.

  Justin had heard another rider describe it once and he’d repeated the description ever since. “It’s the hardest eight-second ride on earth,” Justin said, “like riding a jackhammer one-handed.”

  The coed lost interest when Justin failed to produce a room key or a desire to pay her bar tab and she wandered away in search of a softer touch. Justin resumed his cruise through the central Texas town’s ample supply of watering holes until he found himself straddling a red leatherette stool and leaning against the worn wood of a bar in a dark hole downtown, about as far away from rodeo people as he could get in distance and ideology.

  “The rodeo must be back in town,” said a soft-skinned young blond who settled onto the stool next to Justin.

  “Yep.”

  “I thought I smelled cow flop.”

  Justin looked the young man over. Steven Pitt had the physique of an office worker, gym-toned but without the hard edges that only backbreaking outdoor work provided. He wore a dark suit, his rep tie still knotted at the collar. His close-cropped hair had been styled recently and his fingernails manicured. The faint aroma of expensive cologne settled around him.

  “You a real cowboy, or a reject from the Village People?”

  Justin stared into the younger man’s eyes. “I’m a bareback rider.”

  Steven looked the cowboy up and down, as if searching for hidden meanings. “Why?”

  “I like the risk,” Justin explained. “Using a saddle just doesn’t feel the same.”

  The young man considered for a moment, and then ordered two shots and beers. After the pug-faced bartender slid the drinks to them, Steven asked, “You in town long?”

  “Just as long as the rodeo’s here,” Justin said. “Then I move on.”

  “Just like that?” asked the young blond. “No commitments?”

  “I’m just looking for a good buck,” Justin said. “I ride and I move on.”

  Steven lowered his voice and leaned into Justin. “You want to ride me?”

  The question hung in the air unanswered until the two men finished their drinks. Justin followed Steven out of the bar and two blocks away to the bedroom of a third-floor walk-up apartment. Under Justin’s watchful eye, Steven stripped off all of his clothes except his tie, revealing a smooth, hairless body tanning-bed tanned the color of honey. Justin grunted his approval and peeled off his own clothes, revealing his own redneck tan. His face, neck, hands, and arms from mid-bicep down had the beef jerky color of a man who worked outdoors, while the rest of his hard body remained pasty white because it neve
r saw sunlight. A dark patch of untamed hair at the juncture of his thighs provided a nest for his thick cock and heavy balls.

  Steven dropped to his knees on the carpet in front of Justin and took the cowboy’s rapidly stiffening cock into his mouth. As his tongue circled Justin’s glans, he cupped Justin’s heavy scrotum in his hands and massaged the cowboy’s testicles. Then he used his middle finger to stroke the sensitive spot behind Justin’s scrotum.

  Justin reached down and held the back of Steven’s head, feeling the stiffness of the young man’s perfectly arranged hair as he pumped his hips against Steven’s face. Soon he exploded in the younger man’s mouth, and Steven swallowed every drop. After the young blond licked Justin clean, he stood, dug through his nightstand for lubricant, and then handed the tube to Justin.

  “Ride me,” Steven whispered as he turned around and bent over his bed. He placed his hands on the down comforter to brace himself. “Ride me hard.”

  Justin squeezed a drop of lubricant onto his finger and then applied it to Steven’s rectum, teasing the younger man’s fancy by pressing the tip of his middle finger against the tight sphincter, but not entering him.

  After Justin withdrew his finger, he pressed the head of his cock against Steven’s lubricated sphincter, pressing forward until he entered him. Then he grabbed Steven’s tie, pulling Steven’s head back as he drove forward, burying his cock deep inside Steven. Justin threw his free hand into the air as he drew back and pressed forward again. And again.

  And Steven bucked, forcing himself backward to meet each of Justin’s powerful thrusts. As Justin continued pounding into him from behind, Steven reached down and took his own turgid penis into his fist. He pumped furiously, coming across his comforter as the tie tightened around his neck and only moments before Justin came inside him.

  Justin had ridden Steven long and hard and well beyond the eight seconds that would be required in the rodeo arena the next afternoon, and he continued holding the younger man’s tie in one hand until his penis stopped throbbing. Then he dismounted, pulling his cock away with a barely audible pop.

  Steven collapsed on the bed, clawing at the tie until he loosened it from his neck. As soon as he caught his breath, Steven rolled over to watch the cowboy.

  Justin dressed, dropped a rodeo guest pass on Steven’s chest, and said, “If you want to see how a real man rides, come tomorrow.”

  Justin let himself out, walked to his truck, and returned to the Motel 6. He eased his dually between two full-sized pickups outfitted with expensive tow packages, bought a diet Dr Pepper from a machine near the motel office, and returned to his room to drink it. Then he showered and climbed into bed alone because he always slept alone.

  The next afternoon, Justin completed his first eight-second ride with a respectable score in the low eighties, and the pickup men swooped in to pull him from the still-bucking horse. After they lowered him to the ground, Justin looked into the stands. As soon as he saw Steven watching him, Justin knew he had a few more good rides ahead of him that weekend. In every town, no matter how big or how small, Justin Longacre always found a good ride. Sometimes it was a horse named Diablo, Crazy Eight, or Snake Eyes, and sometimes it was a man named Brogan, or Charles, or Thad. Justin didn’t care which it was because he always rode bareback.

  He lived to take risks. It was the cowboy way.

  MISSING DADDY

  Xan West

  (For B., my favorite cubby faggot)

  I miss Daddy. It’s just that simple. And not just him—I miss who I was back then. A chubby cub novice, eager, hungry, open. We are supposed to graduate, you know. Those of us whose path to the top begins at the bottom. We are supposed to realize that we have now arrived at where we were headed all along. That we have grown from boy to Daddy in a way that is so fine, so right, where we paid our dues, and never look back with longing.

  The secret truth of it is this: many of us who moved to the other side of the whip did it to approximate what we had longed for and rarely received. We did it not because we had grown up slowly, nurtured by Daddy and now mature, but because we decided to grow up on our own and stop yearning for that kind of Daddy, and get our pleasure instead from being that Daddy to some lucky boy. No one tells those stories, except quietly, to others who tread similar paths. It would not do to talk of the ways we suffered from neglect, betrayal, abandonment, and flat-out abuse as bottoms. It would rip open our mythology, and make our boys doubt our desire for them.

  Theo was before all that. When I was fresh faced, and barely twenty-four. When I still thought that the hard part was figuring out I was a Daddy’s boy. When I was hopeful and certain in my desires. When I still felt whole.

  Theo was my first Daddy. If he was still around, things might be different for me. He was forty-one, an experienced top, a large bear of a man with knowing eyes. This Daddy could see into me, past my bravado to my scared little heart. He could read me like no one since. He just knew how to reach right in and find that kernel of pride he wanted to grow in me. He was the sexiest man I had ever seen. In my memory, he is seven feet tall, but I know he was really five-nine. He had reddish-brown skin, chocolate-brown eyes, and a wicked grin. His beard was thick and wild, and that hair traveled all over his considerable frame. He had large precise hands, and if I close my eyes, I can still feel his paw resting firmly on the back of my neck.

  I worshipped my Daddy, and he soaked in my adoration as his due. Daddy had been on T for four years. Until I saw him naked, I had not even imagined a transman could get so hairy. His legs were hulking trunks covered in fur, and his belly boasted a wiry wandering maze of hair that prickled my cheek when I rested my head on it. His gravelly growl of a voice rumbled danger. When Daddy talked about who I could become, it seemed very far away. A bare-faced transguy who had not even started testosterone, I wanted to be a boy forever. I didn’t see my future in Daddy; I just saw magic and power that I wanted to worship.

  Daddy was a joyous faggot, fully comfortable in his fat body. His unshakeable fat pride steadied my own. He prized me for my size, for my strength, for my pride in myself, and for my ravenous appetite. Daddy was a hedonist, and he taught me the pleasures of indulgence. We could spend hours in the park, lazing in the grass, soaking up the sun, his paw resting possessively on my throat as my head snuggled his furry thigh. We unabashedly cruised together, and he was prone to offering me to his buddies, a loose tribe of faggots, some of them former dykes. They were tough as nails, pleasure seekers who thoroughly took every orifice he offered, and laid their marks across the expanse of my back as if they needed to claim every inch. They fiercely protected their own, and generously shared their bounty with each other. This tribe of queers was made of gloriously twisted kinky fucks, and I ached to belong.

  It seemed like Daddy knew everything and everyone. He talked about the scene I only knew from books, and told the best stories, most of which involved some kind of gang bang. Daddy made me feel proud to be a faggot. That affirmation of self threaded through everything. He knew about my fantasies, the way I ached to cruise for public sex but was scared that no one would touch me. He made me jack off as I described being forced to my knees in an alley, being bent over the sink in a public bathroom, kneeling to service cock after cock at a gloryhole.

  I was Daddy’s boy for nine glorious months. It’s mostly the little things I remember, like flashes, as I unconsciously imitate him, find myself staring at a boy who reminds me of me back then, or pick up a tool he loved. I am imprinted in ways I am not even aware. Sometimes I close my eyes and I am there, smelling Daddy, the scent of him grabbing me as my head rests on his thigh. When I fuck up, I can almost see him, the way he’d cock one brow and tilt his head when he thought I was overstepping. After a scene, I reach out and stroke my boy on his forehead above his nose, right where Daddy’s thumb would find me and bring me calm. I watch my boy touching the marks my teeth have left on his neck and remember the way I cherished how it would ache when I turned my head after Daddy’s tee
th had thoroughly used mine. A delicious reminder. And a public claiming. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and I can taste his tongue in my mouth, the raw abraded feel after he ravaged it. In quiet moments, I can hear him growl “Mine!” in my ear.

  There is one night that I remember vividly, from start to finish. The first night I really knew I belonged. The energy was charged. The air crackled. Daddy took me to his apartment overlooking Golden Gate Park. He had instructed me to pack my biggest dick, and to stuff it into the leather jock he had given me, that pair of old jeans he liked, my best boots, and one of the A-line shirts he liked to call boy-beaters. Just getting dressed for Daddy put me into headspace. I hit the floor and was on my knees two seconds after we walked in. It was like I couldn’t stay up a second longer.

  “Good boy,” he growled.

  He towered over me and slowly put on his gloves. He was stern, and gripped my chin, lifting my head to meet his eyes.

  “I’m going to make you mine tonight, boy. Are you ready?”

  I couldn’t breathe. I melted into his eyes.

  “Yes, Daddy,” I whispered. He smiled wickedly at me and slapped my face, hard. And I could breathe again. He held my gaze and continued to slap me over and over.

  “This is important, boy. This means you belong. You have to earn this. I know you can. You are going to make me proud.”

  He clamped his hand over my mouth and nose, taking my breath. The buttery leather smell seeped into me, and I dropped deep into headspace, giving myself to Daddy. When he lifted his hand away, I felt like I was floating, and yet deeply present. The air was crisper, the colors brighter. Daddy was right. This was important. I needed to pay close attention. Then Daddy pulled me to my feet by my hair. His hands twisted in my hair, he kissed me. Ruthlessly. He took my mouth, ravaging every inch of it, leaving nothing unclaimed, and growling as he did it, his beard rough against my skin.