by Rob Rosen
Copyright © 2017 by Rob Rosen.
All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in newspaper, magazine, radio, television or online reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.
Published in the United States by Cleis Press, an imprint of Start Midnight, LLC, 101 Hudson St, Suite 3705, Jersey City, NJ 07302.
Printed in the United States.
Cover design: Scott Idleman/Blink
Cover photograph: iStock
Text design: Frank Wiedemann
First Edition.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Trade paper ISBN: 978-1-62778-220-3
E-book ISBN: 978-1-62778-221-0
For Kenny, forever and always
CONTENTS
Introduction
Shame the Devil • RHIDIAN BRENIG JONES
Red Carpet Jitters • T. R. VERTEN
Collider • M. MCFERREN
Hard Case • LANDON DIXON
Whiteout • RICHARD MICHAELS
Emissary • KENZIE MATHEWS
The Gag Gift • LEE MINXTON
Ghostly Affair • KARL TAGGART
The Ballad of Cowboy Springs • LOUIS FLINT CECI
Coming Home • ANDRA DILL
Ugly-Sexy • GREGORY L. NORRIS
The Instrument • DALE CHASE
Blackout • T. HITMAN
The Last Time I Saw Him • JONATHAN ASCHE
Love on the Rocks • ROB ROSEN
Hemoglobin • RICHARD MAY
Conference Call • MICHAEL ROBERTS
About the Authors
About the Editor
INTRODUCTION
Nerdy particle-physicists and hunky actors, nasty private detectives and even nastier stranded motorists, thieves, alien emissaries, horny songwriters, hornier husbands and fathers, bartenders and models, and ancient vampires . . . these are the men who fill the ensuing pages to the brim with stories both tender and rough, touching and tantalizing. Whether it’s one-night stands or sensual encounters between longtime lovers, twosomes, threeways, some ways you’ll probably never see, um, coming, the stories that follow will surely surprise and entertain you as only a Best Gay Erotica collection can.
Rhidian Brenig Jones temptingly starts us off with “Shame the Devil,” a stunningly told coming-out story of friends who become lovers. T. R. Verten follows with the tale of two closeted Hollywood stars who steal a moment in a bathroom stall, while the paparazzi waits just outside, in “Red Carpet Jitters.” In “Collider,” M. McFerren introduces us to two college buddies and erstwhile lovers who reconnect via a phone call that finally brings to light their past relationship. Noted erotica writer Landon Dixon offers up a blackmailing private dick in “Hard Case,” while Richard Michaels gives us “Whiteout,” which reinforces the notion that helping out a stranded stranger can sometimes lead to dire, unexpected consequences. Jonathan Asche gives us the haunting tale of “The Last Time I Saw Him”; I present a late-night hookup in “Love on the Rocks”; Richard May delivers an epic vampire story in “Hemoglobin”; and Michael Roberts wonderfully finishes us off with “Conference Call,” a phone-sex yarn with a hilarious twist. On the soon-to-be sticky pages in between, you’ll find fabulous accounts of deep-space aliens, frat boys and college studs, ghosts, cowboys, and classical musicians, just to name a few.
With settings as diverse as bars and bathrooms, deserts and alien worlds, frat houses and dorm rooms, and countries both near and far, the stories within are, as always, of the highest literary quality. In short, this is why we deservedly call this anthology Best Gay Erotica of the Year, Volume 3.
Because twice might be nice, but three times is the charm, baby!
Enjoy and happy reading.
Rob Rosen
San Francisco
SHAME THE DEVIL
Rhidian Brenig Jones
“James?”
At the far end of the table we were all sitting at, Katie’s boyfriend was bending a beer mat into quarters. Hands have always done it for me, and his were as well shaped as the rest of him, strong and tan, edged with dark hair. I watched him reduce the mat to confetti, and visualized those long fingers gripping my cock, others moving in my ass as he lowered his head to suck. I wondered whether his stubble would prickle; I’ve had guys who’ve rasped my balls, cheese-grater chins leaving my perineum abraded and sore. Happy days.
“James!”
I dragged my attention back to her. “What?”
“I was just saying, have you heard about the cameras in hotel rooms?”
“What cameras in hotel rooms?”
“You know when the smoking ban came in and they installed smoke detectors? Well, some of them have hidden cameras. They film people having sex and sell the films on the Dark Web.”
“Not on eBay? Damn.”
“I’m serious. This girl in the gym was telling us. It happened to someone she knew. She was a Jehovah’s Witness.”
This lovely non sequitur merited a respectful silence. We all reached for our drinks.
She looked around. “It’s true. And I’ll never have sex in a hotel room again, I can tell you.”
Patrick snorted. “Hear that, pal?”
A muscle jumped in Adam’s jaw. He shoved his chair back and eyebrows rose all around as he crossed the bar to the gents. I’d have followed him—no harm in copping a look—but Katie clutched my arm.
She whispered, “James, d’you think Adam’s acting strange?”
“No more than usual.” This wasn’t entirely true. Adam wasn’t keen on small talk and was generally a serious kind of guy, which was a thoughtful, reserved contrast to his ditzy girlfriend, but he had seemed a bit out of it all night. Katie’s latest bollocks had obviously pissed him off, but he should’ve been used to it by then; Katie, it should be noted, frequently talked bollocks. She’d been panicking a few weeks earlier because she’d swallowed the thing about charging a phone in a microwave. The sharpest knife in the drawer she was not, but she’d provided a sturdy little shoulder to cry on after I’d walked in on my ex buried to the root in an electrician. I liked her a lot.
She leaned toward me. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“D’you think I’m sexy? Be honest.”
As if there was the remotest chance. “You’re asking the wrong man, Kate.”
“No, I’m not. Tell me. Am I sexy?”
“Well, you’ve got knockout tits.”
“James, please.”
I couldn’t judge through straight eyes, but I was versed in the theory, if not the practice. Katie wasn’t sexy. She had a soft, milkmaid prettiness, and I think that was the problem. There was a naïveté about her, a kittenish innocence that evoked a desire to protect, not fuck. Naomi, three seats along, older, skinny, and flat chested, nevertheless gave off a kind of indefinable hotness that even I recognized. “Of course you are. Why d’you ask?”
She’d colored, hectic blotches spreading from cleavage to cheeks. “Adam doesn’t want to have sex. We haven’t for ages.”
Sex with Adam. My insides constricted at the thought of him on his knees, cock in hand, shuffling forward to slide it in. I cleared my throat.
“He doesn’t even want to cuddle. I mean, that’s not normal, is it? We’ve only been together since March.”
A mismatch of such epic proportions, I was surprised they’d lasted three hours, let alone three months. Airheadedness might seem cute at first, but it quickly loses its charm, no matter the E-cup attractions on offer. Adam was, what, twenty-eight
, twenty-nine, and reluctant to fuck? Usually, only one reason: someone else was dropping her drawers behind the scene. I recalled the pain of finding Stephen with his dick in the sparky, and girded metaphorical loins for the misery to come. “Have you talked to him about it?”
“Not really.”
“No, in other words.”
“I’ve been thinking he might be stressed or something, you know how hard he works. I thought he could do with some vitamins, but then I saw this thing on the Internet and—”
“Forget the Internet. Just talk to him.”
“I can’t.”
“You’re going to have to.”
“I can’t. I’d die if he said he didn’t fancy me. James, d’you think I’m fat?”
“Fuck’s sake, Kate.” I flicked a glance at Adam, who had since returned from the loo. He was watching us expressionlessly and I stared until he dropped his eyes. “Does he make you happy?”
The hesitation said it all. “Of course he does.”
“You don’t seem all that sure.”
She fiddled with her bracelet, turning it on her wrist, link by link. “I really like him. He’s so bloody gorgeous, isn’t he? I thought this one would last.”
“It won’t if it’s not meant to. You asked me to be honest? Okay. I don’t think you’re right for each other. But if you don’t want to kick him into touch, you’ll have to talk. Only thing you can do.”
“Would you?”
“No point. I caught Stephen bang to rights. Not much to be said after that.”
It took her a few seconds to process this. “No, I mean would you talk to Adam? Ask him what’s wrong?”
“Are you fucking nuts?”
“You’re going to Ben’s stag do, aren’t you? You could ask him then. If he’s had a few drinks he might . . . well, you know. You could bring it up, kind of . . . casually.”
Twelve guys out on the lash, followed by a strip club. The only things going to be brought up Friday were eleven straight dicks and one yawn.
“Not a chance, Katie. Forget it.”
She looked at me sulkily. “I’d have done it for you.”
“Well, I won’t do it for you. Your relationship; you sort it.”
There he was, along with the rest of the guys, watching as they roared and hooted under the jaundiced eyes of the bouncers. A bony chick with hair extensions and immobile breasts gyrated on the stage, sliding purple talons into her G-string and bending double to wobble her ass at the punters. The tackiness of it, the synthetic pouts and liplicks bored me, and my thoughts drifted to a performance I’d once watched in Berlin. Orange tan, waxed pecs, and glow-white porcelain veneers maybe, but you can’t fake an erection. He’d sauntered between the tables, oiled torso gleaming, laughing and jerking his hips away when some desperate fool made a grab for his dick.
Miss Bambi had finally shed the G-string and was giving its crotch an ecstatic lick. Probably dry as a nun’s fanny. I checked my watch and wondered how much more of this farce I could take.
“Right, boys, get ’em in.” Ben fumbled at the kitty glass and blinked as he knocked it over.
“I’ll get them.” Adam gathered up a handful of notes and shoved them into his pocket.
I stood as well. Anything to relieve the tedium. And be near him.
We squeezed into a relatively quiet corner at the bar, and he waved tenners at the harassed bar staff.
“Probably not your thing,” he remarked.
Well, well, it speaks. “Might be, if dicks were involved.”
He leaned back on one elbow and I sneaked a sideways glance as we watched a policewoman in fishnets clamp a handcuff on a giggling Japanese guy’s wrist. It struck me again that the brooding Heathcliff thing was all well and good, but if Adam ever managed a genuine smile I’d elevate him from pretty damn hot, all things considered and file him under drop-dead fucking gorgeous. Nothing to do with his orientation—I have no tragic fantasies about seducing straight guys—or even his looks, although I’ve always been powerfully attracted to dark-haired men. Cool eyed, slender, tight bodied, charged with the irresistible magnetism of bone-deep masculinity. But there was something more, something indefinable about him that resonated in me. I’d been trying to figure it out since Kate introduced him to us, but it was beyond definition. Perhaps de Montaigne had it right and it was no more than he was he and I was I.
“Not my thing, either,” he said.
“Sorry?”
“Strippers. Not my thing.”
“No?”
“No.”
Because I wasn’t sure how to respond to this, I asked, “Katie get off okay at the airport?” The hens were being turned loose on Newcastle: party central of the northeast.
“Yeah, seems like.”
“Great girl. I was in a bad place once, and she was there for me.”
“So she said.”
Rattled by his offhand tone, I added pointedly, “She’s a good friend.”
“If that’s all she is to you.”
Where had that come from? Christ, was he jealous? Did he have some kind of weird dog in the manger thing going on? He’d finally managed to collar a barmaid, and I was left staring at the back of his beautiful, perplexing head.
A week later, I was trying to decide whether to watch porn or lurk in Grindr, when my phone rang. I ignored it. I’d trained my friends to follow up with an immediate text if anyone was bleeding from the eyes or facing a murder charge.
Laptop on my chest, I lay back on the couch and dipped into a few of my favorite sites. I loved watching a man masturbate, whether onscreen or on my bed. I got off on watching the tension build in the abdomen, the quivering and clench of muscles, thighs falling open to give a glimpse of a sweet hole. A man on his own, lost in what he was doing to himself. Doing it as only he could. There was a particular French guy with a fractional turn in one eye which, god knows why, I found deeply sexy. Suddenly, my phone chimed a text and my burgeoning erection wilted.
The message was brief:
James, could you give me a ring tomorrow.
Thanks,
Adam
By midday, I reckoned I’d put it off long enough. I stuck my head round the door and told my PA he could go to lunch.
He played his tongue over the stud in his lip. “Want anything from Prêt?”
“I’m okay, thanks.”
“You should eat, James. Got to keep that big body fed.”
“I might be eating out.”
“Ooh. Anywhere nice? Anyone nice? Do I know him?”
Despite the piercings, Mohawk, and eyeliner, Paul was a brilliant PA. I just wished sometimes that his interest in my nonexistent love life was less avid. I shut the door on his smirk and picked up my phone. I didn’t sit—always make a difficult call standing, I say. One thing I was sure of: I had no intention of helping to broker a split between Katie and the Dark Lord. If I had to soothe a bruised heart, my hands would need to be squeaky clean.
“Adam? It’s James.”
“James.” There was silence, and then, “Thanks for calling.”
“No problem.”
I waited out another pause and scowled at a pigeon hunched on the window ledge outside. It had some horrible red growth on its toes. I bloody hate pigeons.
“I was wondering . . . fancy a drink tonight? I, uh, need a word.”
I hesitated for a couple of seconds, wariness feebly battling curiosity, but who was I kidding? “I suppose it’s about Katie.”
“It is, yes, but could we leave it till later?”
“Okay. Where?”
“I was thinking the Ferryman? About eight?”
“Right.”
“James, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention this to her.”
“Any particular reason why not?”
“It’s complicated.”
Bet it isn’t. I agreed to keep my disloyal mouth shut, and smacked the window at the pigeon.
I got there on the dot of eight; call me old-fashioned,
but I like to be punctual. Monday night, and customers were sparse. He was standing at the bar, one foot on the rail, staring into his beer. I walked slowly, the better to appreciate the stretch of his shoulders and the inviting curve of his ass. He might have been a cheating sod, but he was a hot cheating sod, and I had to fight the temptation to blow on the back of his neck.
“All right?” I leaned an elbow on the bar. He smelled good. Always did. Clean. Be good to have him clean in my bed, to breathe in the underlying musk of a warm male body caught in bush and crack, to feel his asshole opening to the probe of my tongue.
“James. Thanks for coming. Pint?”
“Stella. Thanks.” I nodded at the Red Dragon draped on the wall, an unheard-of English tribute to Wales, who’d reached the semifinals of Euro 16. England had been kicked out after playing like donkeys. “How d’you think it’s going to go?”
“Don’t know. Wales might do it. They’ve got Bale.”
“You think he’s up to Ronaldo?”
“Doubtful.” He smiled, and I felt a quick slithering in my guts. “Want to go outside?”
The pub stood on the site of an old ferryman’s hut. A penny to cross until a Victorian bridge put him out of business. I followed him to a table at the farthest end of the beer garden, and we looked out over the river to the far bank, where a gang of kids was messing around in the pebbly shallows. It was safe enough when the water was low.
He asked abruptly, “Have you heard of homeopathic crystals?” He ran a finger up the condensation on his glass. “Crystals that have homeopathic traces in their structure so you get the power of homeopathy harnessed to the energy of the crystal. Goes without saying they’re a con. Some psychologist set up a site. Huge success, till he revealed it was just an experiment to test the sucker potential of the public. He refunded their money, but people refused to believe they didn’t exist. There’s this theory out there that big pharma’s conspired to keep them off the market.”
He sipped his pint, and I guessed what was coming next.
“Katie’s been trying to get hold of them for me.”
“She means well. She reckons you’re stressed. Work or something.”
“Work doesn’t stress me.” He steepled his fingers over his mouth and blew slowly through them. “I’m going to finish with her, James.”