Best Gay Romance 2012, page 16
Backing away from the stairs, Buster watches the two for a minute, but then loses sight of them amid the flood of fans emerging from the pit. When he sees The Boy again, Pugnacious is nowhere around. Maybe they were indeed strangers in, as Frank Sinatra would have said, the night. Maybe they’ve made a date to meet later, perhaps outside the theater. Or maybe the two are in fact boyfriends, and Pugnacious has gone to rescue their jackets from the coatroom. Does it really matter?
Buster manages to catch The Boy’s eye, and the kid makes his way over. He’s smiling broadly. Buster’s glance furtively checks out the kid’s crotch. No lingering erection to be seen.
“Hey,” says The Boy.
“I’ve got to tell you,” Buster says, “that I’ve been working here for over fifteen years, and that’s the very first time I ever saw a blow job in the pit.”
The Boy’s grin becomes even wider. Buster imagines kissing those lips. “Was it good?” The Boy asks.
“Magnificent,” says Buster.
The Boy throws his arms around Buster and holds him tight. Just for a second. Then he lets go and is on his way, up the aisle and into the night.
Love, Buster thinks, it’s wonderful. Right, Charlie?
THE BACHELORS
Gregory L. Norris
Episode One
Dudes, everywhere you turned. Bachelors, an army of dicks, dicks in crisp suits and wingtips, and one with a T-shirt worn under a tuxedo jacket. That dude, that Bachelor-dick, wore black high-tops with cobalt blue soles. It set him apart from all the other Ken dolls and clones, all the other cocks in this intoxicating sausage-fest, thought Jake. He didn’t particularly care for High-Tops, whose name was Brody or Brendan or some other trendy he-man jock’s name beginning with B. There was something about him that, though flashy, spoke of a lack of genuineness.
Still, Jake shook the man’s hand. He shook a lot of hands, hands familiar with jacking on an equal number of dicks, scratching at meaty, low-hanging ball-bags; hands set to play a month-long game to win the right to finger-fuck the hole of the hot blonde called Ami, this season’s Debutante. Until fingers were granted permission to go there, Jake figured all those hands would be soaping up dicks in the Dude Ranch’s showers or under cover of darkness. Anywhere a dude could find a little private dude-time away from the cameras.
Jake resisted the urge to scratch his balls or adjust his dick, as others were doing, establishing their Alpha-maleness. The army of dudes, of dicks, formed a column twenty-five strong. The mix of colognes and the natural smell of men, of real men, infused the air with hypnotic, potent energy. Jake’s dick reacted in the same way that dicks in locker rooms tend to, swelling into a half-hard state. His balls melted and sank halfway to his knees in his black dress pants. Locker-room boners, he knew from playing hoops and summer league baseball, were common practice when a dude drank in the powerful musk of his fellow competitors. One of the Bachelors, Jarod, had gotten a taste of the major leagues for two seasons and had probably popped his share of boners in the clubhouse. He’d likely jerked off in the showers, squirting his nut discreetly in a cascade of soapy bubbles. Another, Chris, claimed to have played football in college. Lacrosse, too. Dude was tall and trim in his designer suit. Jake believed him. The cameras turned in their direction. Jake’s dick pulsed. He reached into his pocket and discreetly tucked it down, hoping the lenses were more interested in High-Tops or the baseball god or the rest of the walking dicks with feet. The testosterone in the air was tangible, a smell of real men having real-man conversations, thinking real-man thoughts: sports, beer and, above all, the Debutante, the prize that awaited the last dick standing at the end of the game.
“Hey, dude,” a voice growled behind him.
Jake turned to see a youngish man, probably mid-to-late twenties, if he had to guess. Tall, but not gigantic like the former football and lacrosse dude. Dirty-blond hair, bright blue eyes, and a smile that instantly earned Jake’s attention, as well as Jake’s dick’s, which wiggled out of position and back to the front of his pants as he accepted the offer of a handshake.
“Jake Collins,” he said, meeting the hand, which the dude would use to milk millions of individual sperm, squirting them down the drain or into the sweaty cotton of a dirty sock over the course of Dudes and the Debutante. He matched the other Bachelor’s smile.
“Kasey. Kasey Alden. Nice to meet you.”
Jake tipped the man his chin and held on to the shake, liking the warmth and strength in the dude’s grip. “Hope you feel that way at the end of the show.”
“Truly. So what’s your story?”
The camera was back in his face. “I run a landscaping business in Colorado,” Jake said, mugging it up. One of these dudes would get sent packing, become a fan favorite, and be cast in next season’s Boy Next Door and the Bachelorettes, the flip side of Dudes and the Debutante. Just in case, Jake figured it wouldn’t hurt to make the most of his face time.
“You?”
Their hands separated. “I’m an airline pilot,” Kasey said.
“Seriously?”
Kasey mugged, too, by indicating the set of pilot’s wings pinned to his lapel.
“Good deal, dude,” Jake said.
“So, have you met Ami?”
“Not yet, but I’m anxious to. Like every other dude here.”
“You want a drink?”
Jake drew in a breath. His lungs filled with Casey’s scent, a masculine mix of clean skin, deodorant, and a man’s soap, green in color and packaged for rugged Irish rogues. “Sure, that would be great.”
Kasey returned with two longnecks and handed one to Jake. “Cheers.”
“To the Debutante,” Jake said. Their bottles clinked together.
Jake knocked back a swig and caught Kasey’s eye on him. The way the other man’s throat knotted under the influence of a decent swallow made Jake’s balls sag farther, and his dick stiffen fully.
By night’s end, the bloodbath was complete. Ami the Debutante pinned Bachelor Buttons on fifteen of the eligible Bachelors’ lapels and sent the other ten packing. Both Jake and Kasey survived the massacre, as did the baseball jock, the Giant, the dude in the high-tops, and a house full of proud peacocks, most of whom, Jake imagined, would pump their loads later that night into discarded socks and top sheets as the long, otherwise dry competition commenced.
Episode Two
He and Kasey paired up as roommates and were joined by High-Tops in what came to be known around the Dude Ranch as the Blue Room. And it was blue, all right—Jake’s nuts ached for release, but he didn’t dare act on his impulses, beyond giving them a tug. First night in a strange bed, in an unfamiliar town, and he rightly assumed that neither Kasey nor High-Tops—Baxter was his name—would have an easier time of passing out than he.
“You asleep?” Kasey asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
Jake rolled over. His cock complained mightily at being driven into the mattress without the benefit of a decent stroke. “No, dude, you?”
“No, can’t sleep.”
“Same here.”
“Fuck,” Kasey sighed. “She was smoking hot.”
Jake reached a hand into his boxer-briefs. Precome coated his fingers. “Truly, dude. Wish we’d gotten more face time.”
“Yeah, or one of those one-on-one dates. Maybe tomorrow.”
“Maybe tomorrow,” Jake said.
“Maybe you two dickheads will stop yammering so I can get some sleep,” Baxter grumbled from the third bed in the Blue Room.
They maneuvered around one another in perfectly coordinated steps. Kasey showered while Jake brushed his teeth.
“Hope we’re both wearing Bachelor Buttons, bro,” Kasey called out from behind the shower curtain.
Jake smiled, tipped his gaze up and focused on his reflection: his baby-blues, a shade grayer than Kasey’s, his classically handsome face with square jaw, his neat chestnut hair in its athlete’s cut. Bare-chested, he admired his torso with its T-pattern of hair. It was clear why he was still here. Ditto for Kasey.
“You’d better be,” Jake answered between foamy spits.
Kasey chuckled into the water stream. Jake tried not to think of him in there, soaping his balls, pulling on his dick. They’d both gone to bed in their underwear, Kasey wearing tighty-whities that showcased magnificent legs and big bare feet that were sexy in a way that particular part of another man’s anatomy wasn’t supposed to be. Jake’s cock strained beneath his towel.
“You almost done in there, dude?”
“Maybe,” Kasey said, mischief clear in his voice. “If you’re in that much of a hurry, come on in and we’ll conserve water.”
Jake closed his eyes. Visions played out, rapid-fire, superimposed on his inner eyelids.
“I’d be afraid to drop the soap,” he said lightly through suddenly desiccated lips.
“That’s right, you’d better be afraid.” Kasey drew back the curtain, a smirk on his face. In the mirror, Jake watched the other man perform a helicopter-motion with his dick. That dick, wreathed in lush pubic hair, stood stiffly above a decent-sized sac of nuts, a pair of twins as loose and impressive as Jake’s.
“Don’t tempt me,” Jake joked.
Truth was, Kasey had already tempted him. Jake wore his coolness well, but the emotions swirling secretly inside him were as confusing as they were exhilarating. In a short time, he’d come to like this Bachelor-pilot as much as the best of wingmen past. It was easy to like Kasey, and Kasey—still rotating his dong in clockwise turns above his balls—had made it clear he felt similarly. Not every dude was this easy to get along with, or so effortless to share a bathroom with.
Baxter wasn’t.
“When the two of you are done jerking each other’s chains, I’d like to get in there and make myself irresistible for the Debutante,” the third wheel called through the closed bathroom door, tossing verbal cold water on their brief morning fun.
Kasey stopped helicoptering. Jake willed his dick to soften because, sure enough, there was a camera waiting just outside the door.
On Jake’s way out of the bathroom and Baxter’s way in, Baxter said, “Why don’t you two dudes get a private room?”
Later Jake realized, as the men gathered in the Dude Ranch’s lounge, that calculated comment made perfect sense.
There would be a group date, host Errol Powers announced. Six of the fifteen would join Ami at French Chalk, one of L.A.’s finest eateries.
Chris and the baseball dude high-fived. Fists pumped, as did chests. The men gathered in groups of four or more, contenders drawing together. Baxter, an aspiring hip-hop recording artist, and a guy with big spiked hair, the two obvious lone wolves, stood alone.
Jake and Kasey moseyed toward one of the foursomes where Chris, Baseball, and two of the proudest peacocks waited in anticipation of the Debutante’s arrival. At this fine, early hour, shorts, scruffy faces, baseball caps, hairy legs and bare feet were the norm. The scent of maleness hung stronger in the air than during the previous night, undiluted by cologne.
“Gentlemen,” Kasey said.
Chris tipped his chin, that universal gesture between dudes. “Boys, how’s it hanging?”
“Good,” Jake said. “Just eager to find my name on that group date card.”
“Yeah?” Baseball asked, a cocky smile on his handsome mug. “Because we figured with you and him and your, you know, bromance…”
Jake’s face screwed into a scowl. “Huh?”
Chris wrapped an arm around Jake, the other around Kasey, and pulled them into a hug. “Hip-Hop over there, that dude…” He indicated Baxter. “He’s spreading rumors that the two of you are sweet on one another.”
Jake extricated himself from Chris’s bear hug and pulled Hip-Hop /High-Tops Baxter aside. The cameras followed. “What the fuck’s your problem?”
“It was a joke, nothing serious. It’s just that you two nut-bags have been joined at the hip since you met. Hey, I’m kind of jealous. Nobody here likes me.”
“And you wonder why?”
Ami appeared, dressed in a flowing sundress with a revealing peasant top, and the confrontation shorted out. She handed the date card over to Errol Powers, who read the names: Chris, Baseball, Spikes, the construction worker dude, the Cowboy and High-Tops.
“At least we’ll have some peace up there,” Kasey said, spinning lemons into lemonade.
They hung out, talked, ate a quiet meal in their shorts and bare feet with the rest of the dejected dudes and, later that night, got Bachelor Buttons in the elimination ceremony, while two more dudes saw their Debutante dreams die.
Episode Three
“I think he’s shady,” said Kasey.
Jake narrowed his gaze on the bathroom door, through which the sound of running water and off-key singing filtered out. “You think?”
“Dude, none of the other guys like him.”
“That’s because Baxter is the worst kind of cocksucker—the kind that doesn’t suck cock.”
Kasey laughed. “True, that. I heard him talking the other night after he got back from the big group date. On the phone. To a chick, I think. Telling her he was only doing this for publicity. To get his career going.”
Jake said, “For real?”
Kasey nodded and scratched at his balls, one of which hung openly along the inside leg of his tighty-whities. Big, hairy low-hanger, meaty and red from being scratched. Jake’s gaze fell into its pull.
“Dude,” he sighed.
“Yeah, I’m gonna tell her, if she gives me some damn alone time today. She needs to be protected from this dickhead.”
Jake broke the spell and glanced up, into Kasey’s beautiful eyes. “Let me tell you something, good buddy. You make the time to be with her, to tell her. If the Debutante is as smart as she seems, she’ll listen to you, and you’ll get today’s one-on-one with her. You deserve it.”
“Thanks, buddy,” Kasey said, tucking his nuts back into place. As he did, his meaty dick made a brief appearance.
The shower, the bad singing, ceased. Hip-Hop Baxter exited the bathroom, a bath towel wrapped around his waist.
“Time to dress up pretty—I’m gonna win that one-on-one date,” he said, all cocky, the cocksucker.
A platoon of dicks surrounded the hot piece of ass, Ami Addison, the eleventh Debutante. The men drank coffee, juice, water, when it was quite clear by the lumps in their board shorts and blue jeans that what they really wanted to be lapping on was the Debutante’s pussy.
“You look amazing,” said Baseball, offering Ami a cup of joe.
She accepted, her body language impossible to misread. Ami was in heat and wandering around what amounted to a modern day stud farm. You couldn’t swing your dick, thought Jake, without hitting a dozen other dude’s dongs.
Chris, the big guy, massaged her bare shoulders. Baseball rubbed her feet. The cameras caught it all in bright and sunny, sexy detail. Ami moaned. Jake figured she would sound pretty much the same when one of the bulls had his tongue or his dick inside her.
Kasey marched over, bold and also confident in his presentation. “Ami, would you do me the honor of spending a few minutes with me?”
Ami extricated herself from the other dudes, who looked none too happy at being third-wheeled and cock-blocked. “Why sure,” she said, all smiles. She wrapped an arm around Kasey’s and walked away with him, to the Grotto.
“I want to tell you something. I think one of the men here is a snake and that he’s playing a dirty game at your expense.”
Ami’s eyes widened. “Who?”
“The hip-hop artist, Baxter,” Kasey said. He explained the rest of what he’d overhead. “I don’t mean to sound like a snitch, but I wouldn’t be able to live with myself unless I did all that I could to guard your heart from a man who’s here with hidden motives.”
“That’s not being a snitch,” she said. “It’s being a gentleman, and I appreciate that.”
She thanked Kasey, stood, and crossed to the gazebo in a corner of the Dude Ranch’s pool area, where the lone wolf waited. The cameras chased her.
“Can I talk with you?” the Debutante asked Baxter.
“Sure, babe, of course,” he said, flashing a length of perfect white teeth.
The conversation, Jake guessed, went something like this:
“They’re saying such and such about you.”
“No, Ami, they’re just jealous and they see me as a serious threat in the competition. They know I’m here because I’m serious about finding true love with you.”
“Not because you’re trying to jump-start your music career?”
“Music? Hell, babe, I’d give that all up for the honor of being your man.”
Jake watched Baxter kiss the back of Ami’s hand. Soon after that, Hip-Hop notched the day’s lone one-on-one date with the Debutante.
The stress steadily drove him mad. Days of being surrounded by dicks and dudes and one lovely Debutante were days of not being able to act on anything, not even in the shower, thanks to the threat of cameras and Baxter and, worse, Kasey. Especially Kasey because, as much as it shocked him to admit it, Jake really liked the dude. Liked him a lot. Dare he think it? He loved that handsome goofball.
Jake excused himself from the gang gathered around the pool under the pretence of wanting to lie down. The cameras were, by and large, following Ami and Baxter as they scaled rock walls together or surfed (and turfed), or took in some sporting event in a luxury skybox. Truth was, he needed to bust a nut. And desperately so.
He kicked off his flip-flops, peeled off his shirt and unhooked his shorts, leaving them and his boxer-briefs in a pile on the floor between his and Kasey’s beds. Under cover of the top sheet, he tugged on his balls. Jake’s dick thickened, feeling twice its usual size as it tented the sheet and pulsed under its own power. He hawked a wad of spit onto his forefinger and thumb and rolled it over his erection. A pearl of juice dribbled out of his pee-slit, adding to the lubrication. He began to pump. An electric sensation jolted his body, teasing Jake’s most sensitive flesh. Earlobes and throat, nipples and nuts, asshole and toes reacted favorably. Moaning, Jake extended his legs and flexed his feet. The toes of his right size-twelve slipped free of the sheet and hung over the edge of the mattress.
