Night after night, I sense The Great Masturbator staring out into the crowd, seeking someone new to imbed in his neck or shoulder or foot. One day he’ll run out of blank skin for others to inhabit, and he’ll have to settle for those of us already accumulated over the years, especially me. I’m his favorite, after all; I can just tell.
Maybe, at some point, he will even climax once with each of the others in order to cause them to explode and fade away forever. Then he’ll spend the rest of his life with only me, just me, making love night after night with me. Never quite completing our desire, but resting happy in the knowledge that by holding back, we’re sustaining our love in perpetuity.
I live in hope.
READER, I MARRIED HIM
Michael Thomas Ford
“Come on,” Dorrie said, taking Adam by the hand and pulling him toward the back deck. “There’s a guy I want to introduce you to.”
Adam groaned. “Not again,” he said. “The last time you played matchmaker you set me up with a guy who voted for Reagan.”
“How was I supposed to know he was a Republican?” said Dorrie. “He was in a women’s studies class. Anyway, Jay is different. You’re going to love him.”
Adam decided not to argue. He’d been friends with Dorrie long enough to know that it wouldn’t matter anyway. Once she got an idea in her head the only thing you could do was go along with her or stay out of the way and hope you weren’t dragged into whatever crazy idea she was following to its inevitably disastrous conclusion.
I’ll just meet the guy, talk to him for a few minutes, then make an excuse to leave, he thought. I’ll say I have a pile of papers to grade.
The deck was crowded with smokers. Dorrie, fearing the wrath of both her landlord and her vegan roommate, forbade smoking in the house. As a result, quite a number of the party guests were outside lighting up. The air was rich with the scent of pot, and the easy laughter of the deeply stoned echoed through the yard.
Dorrie approached a guy who was leaning against the railing that ran around the porch. Tall and dark haired, with a beard and hair that both wanted cutting, he wore jeans and a faded black T-shirt with the Cheap Trick logo on it. He was alone, but he didn’t seem at all self-conscious or concerned about it. When he saw Dorrie a lopsided smile crossed his face, as if he’d been expecting her.
“Adam,” Dorrie said. “This is Jay. Jay, this is Adam. Go.”
She turned and walked away, leaving them alone. Adam said, “And there goes Hurricane Dorrie, leaving chaos in her wake.”
Jay laughed. “I take it you two have been friends for a long time.”
“About five years,” said Adam. “We met as undergrads. Then we both ended up here for grad school. Different departments, of course.”
“You’re in the MFA program, right?” Jay said.
Adam nodded. “Working on the Great American Novel,” he joked. “What about you?”
“Poli-sci,” Jay answered. “But I’m only doing it because accumulating a mountain of student loan debt I have no intention of paying back is easier than figuring out what I want to be when I grow up.” He took a hit from the joint in his hand, exhaled, and added, “Besides, I like the idea of using government money to buy pot. It’s my personal ‘fuck you’ to Nancy Reagan.”
He held out the joint and Adam took it. “Just say yes,” said Adam, mocking the first lady’s simplistic antidrug message.
“I like your accent,” Jay said as Adam held the smoke in for as long as he could. “It’s sexy.”
“Sexy?” Adam said, choking as he laughed at Jay’s comment. “It’s been called a lot of things, but never sexy.”
“Well, it is,” said Jay. “Where are you from?”
“West Virginia,” Adam answered. “And before you ask, no, my parents aren’t brother and sister.”
“I wasn’t going to ask that,” Jay told him, taking the joint back. “Do I look like I would say something so stupid?”
“Sorry,” said Adam, embarrassed. “I didn’t mean anything by it. I’m just used to people—”
“I was going to guess cousins,” Jay said, interrupting him and grinning.
Adam laughed. “You dick,” he said.
Over the course of the next half hour Adam learned that Jay was twenty-one, from a small town in upstate New York, had a sister who was born on the same date (October 9) but was seven years younger, thought U2 were overrated, didn’t own a television, loved Thai food but was ambivalent about Mexican, and lived by himself in the attic apartment of an elderly lesbian couple who owned a huge Victorian house and rented out the six bedrooms they didn’t use to grad students. Although they normally didn’t rent to men, they’d made an exception for Jay because when he’d come by to ask about the apartment their ancient pugs, Alice and Gertrude, had taken a liking to him.
“I’m the only thing in the house with a penis,” Jay said regarding his living situation. “They just pretend I’m a woman. They call me Bertha Rochester.”
Adam snorted. “That’s brilliant.”
Jay cocked his head. “It is?” he said.
“Totally,” said Adam. “You’re the madwoman in the attic. You know, from Jane Eyre. Bertha Rochester.”
“I just assumed they made it up,” Jay replied. “I didn’t know she was a real person.”
“Well, she isn’t real,” said Adam. “She’s a character in a book. She was Rochester’s first wife, who went crazy and was basically locked in the attic with a nurse to look after her. She ended up burning down the house.”
Jay laughed. “Now that I know that, it’s funny,” he said. “All this time I was annoyed that they thought I would be a Bertha.”
“You’ve really never read Jane Eyre?” Adam asked.
Jay shook his head. “I’m more of a Douglas Adams, Frank Herbert, Stephen King kind of guy,” he said. “Does that disqualify me?”
“From what?” Adam asked.
“From going home with you,” said Jay. “I’d ask you back to my place, but the ladies wouldn’t be too thrilled about sweaty man-sex going on over their heads. And I can get a little loud.”
Adam didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t accustomed to such directness. Also, it had been quite some time since he’d either made or been made such an offer. He found himself tongue-tied.
“It’s okay if you’re not into me,” Jay said. “It wouldn’t be the first time a guy turned me down. But it never hurts to ask.”
“No,” said Adam. “It’s not that. Not at all. You just caught me off guard.”
Jay reached out and grabbed Adam’s belt, pulling him in. He kissed Adam gently, then more intensely as Adam opened his mouth. Adam felt himself start to get hard. Jay’s hand slid down and cupped him.
“So you are into me,” he said.
They didn’t even say good-bye to Dorrie. Leaving the party, they walked the four blocks to the small house Adam shared with another student from the English department, a girl named Valerie who was so quiet and shy that she rarely left her bedroom except to attend class.
“It’s like living with a cat,” Adam said as he unlocked the door.
They headed straight for the bedroom, where Adam shut the door before turning on the stereo and slipping a CD in.
“The Cure?” Jay said as he pulled his T-shirt over his head, exposing a torso thickly covered in hair.
“You like them?” asked Adam, sitting on the edge of the bed and removing his shoes.
“If they put you in the mood, I do,” Jay said, kneeling behind him and beginning to unbutton Adam’s shirt.
Adam leaned into Jay and let him undress him. Jay’s hands moved over Adam’s chest, his fingers stroking the hair there and teasing Adam’s nipples. Then Jay’s mouth was on his neck, biting gently. Jay’s beard tickled. Adam was instantly hard.
Adam lay back on the bed and Jay slid on top of him. Fingers sought out buttons and zippers, and jeans were tossed to the floor. Adam’s boxers followed. He was aroused by the fact that Jay wore
nothing beneath his jeans, and that he didn’t shave.
The night unfolded in slow motion, and Adam experienced it as he might a movie, a long, continuous shot of hands and mouths exploring, of legs and arms entwined, of sweat-slicked skin and damp armpits and tongues easing open musky passages and finally the sweet stickiness and breathlessness of release. Afterward they sprawled in a tangle of sheets, Jay’s head resting on Adam’s belly as he played with Adam’s cock. The CD was on its second time through, and Robert Smith was singing about strange angels dancing in the deepest oceans.
“I love that you’re uncut,” Jay said, his fingers sliding Adam’s foreskin over the head of his dick and then pulling it back again.
“A lot of guys are freaked out by it,” said Adam.
Jay traced the line of fur from Adam’s crotch to his navel, swirling the cum-drenched hair into tiny peaks. “I think it’s beautiful,” he said.
Adam didn’t know how to respond. Calling a cock beautiful seemed somehow inappropriate, but he loved that Jay had said it. “I should get a towel,” he said, and started to get up.
“Stay there,” Jay ordered. He leaned over and picked up his T-shirt, then used it to wipe Adam clean. “Now whenever I wear this I’ll think of the night we met,” he said.
“Such a romantic,” said Adam, running his fingers through Jay’s hair and looking into his eyes, which he saw now were a rich brown color, the black pupils like things caught and held forever in amber.
Jay tossed the shirt on the floor and stretched out beside Adam. Adam looked at their legs, noting the difference between Jay’s tanned skin and dark hair and his own pale skin and red hair. He wondered if Jay wanted to spend the night. He was going to ask, then stopped and asked himself if he wanted Jay to stay. He was a little surprised to find that he did. And because he wanted it, he was now afraid to ask.
“Why do you think it’s so easy for gay men to end up in bed together after they’ve just met?” Jay asked.
Adam, thankful for the distraction of the question, thought for a moment. “I don’t think it’s easy for everyone,” he said.
“Well, no, not everyone,” Jay agreed. “But for a lot of us it is.”
Adam sighed. “I don’t know. I guess maybe sex isn’t as big a deal for us. It doesn’t always have to mean something. It can just be fun.”
“Are you saying what we just did meant nothing to you?” said Jay. “Are you saying you used me?” He pretended to cry.
“I used you and you liked it,” Adam said in a mock-fierce tone. “Now knock it off, or I’ll use you again.”
Jay reached over, took Adam’s hand and laid it on his own chest, their fingers interlocked. Adam felt Jay’s heartbeat beneath his palm.
“I’m actually being serious,” Jay said. “I know this sounds weird, but I find it easier to fuck a guy than to be friends with him.”
“That’s because when you don’t know anything about him, he can be anything you want,” said Adam.
“It sounds like you’ve thought about this before,” Jay said.
“You know how it is,” said Adam. “Sometimes you wake up in the middle of the night, find yourself lying beside someone whose name you can’t remember, and you have to ask yourself how you got there.”
“I almost always know how I got there,” said Jay. “What I’m usually thinking about is how I’m going to get away before he wakes up.”
That answers that question, Adam thought. He decided that Jay was giving him a hint, and he decided to make it easy for him. “I should probably take a shower,” he said. “Do you want one?”
“You go ahead,” said Jay.
Adam got up and padded to the bathroom. He stayed in the shower long enough to give Jay a chance to leave, then got out and returned to the bedroom. When he entered he was surprised to find Jay in bed, propped up against the pillows and reading a book. Adam peered at the cover. It was a battered paperback copy of Jane Eyre.
“I hope you don’t mind,” Jay said without looking up. “I saw it in your bookcase, and since we were talking about it…”
Adam stifled a grin. “I don’t mind at all,” he said. “What do you think of it so far?”
“It’s hard to say,” said Jay. “So far all they’ve done is wander around in some leafless shrubbery, whatever the fuck that is. I thought the whole point of shrubbery was that it had leaves.”
Adam got in on the other side of the bed. “It gets better,” he said.
“When does madwoman Bertha make her grand entrance?” Jay asked.
“Oh, not for quite some time,” said Adam. “But trust me, it’s worth it.”
Jay shut the book. “I think you’re just saying that to trick me into reading this,” he said.
“Are you calling me a liar?” said Adam.
“I don’t know you well enough to know if you’re a liar or not,” Jay answered. “With that accent you’d make a great one, but something tells me you don’t have it in you.”
Adam lifted one eyebrow. “I don’t know if I should be offended or flattered,” he said.
Jay leaned over and kissed him. “You’ll have to decide for yourself,” he said. “But for the record, I meant it as a compliment.”
Adam arranged his pillows and settled in. Reaching over, he turned off the light on the nightstand on his side. To his surprise, Jay stayed where he was, opened the book, and resumed reading. A full two minutes passed before he looked over and saw Adam watching him.
“Is the light bothering you?” he asked. “I can turn it off.”
“It’s fine,” Adam said.
He didn’t know what to make of this man in his bed. They’d known each other only a few hours, but already he felt as if they’d been together for years. He knew somehow that when he closed his eyes he would fall asleep without worry. In fact, the idea of Jay staying beside him, reading, comforted him. He turned on his side, facing Jay, and threw one arm over Jay’s middle. Jay rested the book against Adam’s arm. Beneath the sheet, one of his feet rubbed along Adam’s in casual, familiar touch.
I don’t know what this is or what it’s going to be, Adam thought as he shut his eyes. But I like the way it feels.
SECOND CHANCES
Erin Mcrae and Racheline Maltese
On the long list of stupid things Pete has done in his life, he’s pretty sure none of them are more egregious than answering the door for a date in his shirtsleeves while covered in olive oil and lube. His hands are so slippery, he can barely even turn the knob. He laughs, and then hates himself a little for the dirty internal monologue he can’t avoid. Especially considering his wedding ring is still on and apparently not coming off anytime soon.
“Oh my god,” Isaac says when he sees him. Pete has to hold the door open with his elbow. “What are you doing?”
Pete looks rather sheepishly at his hands. “Um, I was trying to do a thing and it didn’t really work,” he mumbles and feels grateful that Isaac, while appalled, is still interested enough in him or his bad choices to follow him inside.
“Actually, can you grab some paper towels?” Pete asks, pointing at a cabinet under the sink as he leads the way to the kitchen. “I finished the roll I had out, and I’m trying not to make everything worse. Mostly.”
“You did actually remember we had a date tonight, right?” Isaac asks, like he doesn’t think Pete is anything worse than flighty.
“Yeah,” he says, a little miserably, as Isaac digs the paper towels out from the cupboard and sets them on the counter. “I was trying to get my ring off.”
Isaac pauses in the act of shrugging off his coat. “Really?” he asks, surprise in his voice.
“Yeah,” Pete laughs ruefully. “It didn’t want to come off.”
“I can see that,” Isaac says dryly.
“Help me with it?”
“Are you sure?” Isaac asks, suddenly cautious.
“It’s not like Walter’s gonna come back from the grave and do it for me. I mean if he could, we wouldn’t be hav
ing this conversation.”
“Okay, is this you trying to be sweet or just being really, really morbid?”
Pete shrugs. “Yes?”
Three years isn’t long enough to have gotten used to the idea that his husband is dead, but it’s been long enough to develop some fairly fierce coping mechanisms. Facing reality head-on, and speaking the truth of loss aloud, helps. At the least, it keeps him from retreating to a bubble of fantasy and denial.
Isaac chuckles nervously. “Okay then.” He sets his jacket down on the counter, far away from the mess Pete’s made. Then he starts unbuttoning his shirt.
“Whoa, what are you doing?” Pete asks, as Isaac shrugs the shirt off and drapes it over his jacket.
“You got really gross, slippery shit not ever meant to be used in combination all over yourself and your house and we haven’t even fucked yet. I’m leaving my nice date-clothes over here before I join you in your bad choices,” Isaac says, amused, like it was an actual question and not an exclamation of nervous enthusiasm.
“Sorry,” Pete says contritely. He certainly doesn’t want Isaac deciding to put off the fucking further.
After all, it’s why Pete wants to get the ring off in the first place. They’ve been taking things deliberately—not slowly, because that makes them sound like they’re in some kind of daytime drama, which they certainly are not. And while it’s been driving them both crazy in the best way, they’re old enough to be aware their lives are both hot messes and that taking care of their hearts is the kindest thing they can do for each other.
“It’s okay,” Isaac reassures him, clearly working not to laugh. “Just not on my shirt.”
“Yeah. Yeah I noticed that part,” Pete says, reaching for him.
“Hey. Hands. Gross.” Isaac asks, stepping back out of range.
“But skin.” Pete protests.
Isaac, what with the camping-gear store and the outdoorsiness, clearly does not consider the bare skin a big deal. His body’s fantastic, and just this side of intimidating to Pete; it reminds him of just how big of a gap there is between being Isaac, the guy who founded a hot new outdoor-gear brand, and himself, the guy who works for the ad agency Isaac hired.
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