Best Gay Romance 2008, page 18
Was that what I wanted? I wasn’t sure. I couldn’t say the idea wasn’t tempting. I remembered the last time, the regret and the shame on Jason’s face. What would it be worth, to see his expression change to something else? What was I willing to pay for that satisfaction? I said nothing, and after a moment, he read my silence, and sighed also.
“Well, there’s only one way to know, isn’t there?” he said. He sat up, and reached for his clothes where he had tossed them on the floor when we had undressed so hurriedly. I looked at his back, so firm, the muscles rippling the way a young man’s muscles did, his cheeks, when he raised them to slip his boxers on, round and firm and pale, as if they were carved of alabaster. I thought of how sleek they felt when I ran my hand over them, massaging him. I almost reached out to touch him.
Almost.
We drove into the city that same day, hardly talking. We left my car at the beach. “I can bring it in for you later,” he said. He never stopped thinking of ways to make things easier for me. Even now. Even taking me back to Jason.
He stopped at the curb in front of my apartment. I sat, looking for a moment up at the window on the third floor. Jason had promised to look after things, but I could see that the geranium in the window was dead.
I glanced sideways at Douglas. He was trying to smile, but the droop of his jowls and the furrows on his brow turned his smile sad. In the afternoon light, the pouches under his eyes looked like wet teabags.
“It’s all right,” he said, and put his hand atop mine. “Really, I mean it. You can’t know how happy you’ve made me these last couple of months. Whatever you decide now, it won’t take anything away from that. It won’t make me love you any less.”
I looked down at his old man’s hand, knobby and wrinkled. I started to reach for the mirror over the visor, and changed my mind. I didn’t need to look. I didn’t need to see Jason, either. I already knew what he was. And wasn’t.
“Take me home,” I said.
“Home?” He glanced past me, at the apartment building, wanting to be certain, not daring to misunderstand.
“The cottage. Our cottage. Please.”
He was silent for a moment. “You’re sure?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said. I had never in my life been more sure of anything.
He looked at me long and hard. I looked back, full face, not turning my cheek away as I had gotten into the habit of doing. I didn’t need to now. I knew that.
Finally, he leaned across the seat and touched my cheek, the scarred one, with his lips, and I turned my face and found his lips with mine, and kissed him.
He put the car in gear, and drove away from the curb. About halfway to the cottage, he began to sing, “All of Me.”
“You know, you never do get on pitch,” I said with some asperity.
“Well, then, you sing it,” he said.
I did. We sang it together at the tops of our lungs. People in the cars we passed stared. Some of them smiled. Some of them saw into the car, and looked away. Douglas grinned sideways at me, a boyish, devilish grin, and took my hand and put it on his lap.
“Guess what I want to do when we get home,” he said.
“You old goat,” I said, but I did not take my hand away.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
VICTOR J. BANIS, lecturer, former writing instructor, and early rabble-rouser for gay rights and freedom of the press, is author (“…the master’s touch in storytelling…”—Publishers Weekly) of more than one hundred and fifty books, including the novel Longhorns (Carroll & Graf, 2007). Borgos/Wildside Press is reprinting more than twenty of his out-of-print novels, as well as five new books. His verse and shorter pieces have appeared in numerous journals (Blithe House Quarterly) and anthologies including Charmed Lives and Paws and Reflect. A native of Ohio, and a longtime Californian, he lives and writes now in West Virginia’s beautiful Blue Ridge.
DALE CHASE has been happily writing male erotica for nearly a decade, with more than one hundred stories published in various magazines and anthologies. Her first literary effort appeared in the Harrington Gay Men’s Fiction Quarterly. She has completed a collection of Victorian gentlemen’s erotica, The Company He Keeps. Chase lives near San Francisco and is working on a collection of ghostly male erotica.
KAL COBALT is a native Oregonian who recently relocated to Portland. Read more of Kal’s work in Country Boys, Hot Gay Erotica, Velvet Mafia (www.velvetmafia.com), Distant Horizons, edited by Greg Herren, and Best Fantastic Erotica, edited by Cecilia Tan. Find out more at www.kalcobalt.com.
JAMESON CURRIER is the author of a novel, Where the Rainbow Ends, and two collections of short stories, most recently Desire, Lust, Passion, Sex.
JACK FRITSCHER, celebrating his fiftieth year as a published author, hosts the free gay research site www.jackfritscher.com. He is author of Some Dance to Remember: A Memoir-Novel of San Francisco 1970-1982 and Gay San Francisco: Eyewitness Drummer: A Narrative History of the Sex, Art, Politics, and Salon around Drummer Magazine. Email jack@j ackfritscher.com
SHANNA GERMAIN writes in a number of genres, but erotica is her favorite. Her poems, essays, and short stories have appeared in places like Absinthe Literary Review, Best American Erotica 2007, Best Bondage Erotica, Cowboy Lover, He’s on Top, and Salon. She loves to hear from readers; visit her online at www.shannagermain.com.
T. HITMAN is the nom-de-porn of a full-time professional writer who routinely contributes to a number of national magazines and fiction anthologies, and who once worked as a screenwriter for a classic Paramount science fiction series. He’s been writing more romantic fiction since early 2005, after moving into his small cottage in the big woods with his longtime partner and their rescue cat, as evidenced by his autobiographical story, “The Bike Path.”
SHAUN LEVIN’S collection of short stories, A Year of Two Summers, was published in 2005. A novella, Seven Sweet Things, was published in 2003. His stories appear in anthologies as diverse as Between Men, Modern South African Stories, Boyfriends from Hell, Best Gay Erotica 2000, 2002, and 2004, and The Slow Mirror: New Fiction by Jewish Writers. He is the editor of Chroma: A Queer Literary Journal. See more at shaunlevin.com and chromajournal.co.uk.
MATTHEW LOWE is a young Australian writer. His work has appeared in the Griffith Review, Australia’s leading literary journal. In 2006, he received an Express Media Mentorship Award, allowing him to work alongside prominent gay author and poet Andy Quan.
MAX PIERCE’s debut novel is the gothic mystery The Master of Seacliff. When not waxing romantic, Max can be found dividing his time between fiction and journalism, and his musings on gay culture and Hollywood history have appeared online for The Advocate and other national publications. He previously contributed to the vampire anthology Blood Lust. He lives in Los Angeles.
ROB ROSEN lives in San Francisco with his handsome partner, Kenny. He is the author of Sparkle: The Queerest Book You’ll Ever Love and the forthcoming Divas Las Vegas. His short stories have appeared in numerous journals, magazines, websites, and anthologies, most notably: Mentsh: On Being Jewish and Queer; I Do/I Don’t: Queers on Marriage; Best Gay Love Stories 2006; Best Gay Romance; Best Gay Love Stories: New York City; Truckers, and The Queer Collection: Poetry and Prose 2007. Please visit him at his website, www.therobrosen.com, or email him at robrosen@therobrosen.com.
SIMON SHEPPARD is the editor of Homosex: Sixty Years of Gay Erotica, and the author of In Deep: Erotic Stories; Kinkorama: Dispatches From the Front Lines of Perversion; Sex Parties 101, and the award-winning Hotter Than Hell and Other Stories. His work has appeared in about two hundred and fifty anthologies, including many editions of The Best American Erotica and many, many of Best Gay Erotica. He writes the syndicated column “Sex Talk,” the online serial “Dirty Boys Club,” and hangs out romantically at www.simonsheppard.com.
JASON SHULTS‘s work has appeared online in Blithe House Quarterly and Velvet Mafia, and in several print publications, including the anthology Fresh Men: New Voices in Gay Fiction. He owns a bookstore in Tucson, Arizona, and is currently at work on a novel.
J. M. SNYDER writes gay erotic/romantic fiction. Originally self-published, Snyder now works with the e-publishers Amber Heat Press and Aspen Mountain Press. Snyder’s highly erotic short gay fiction has been published online at Ruthie’s Club, Tit-Elation, and Amazon Shorts, as well as in anthologies published by Cleis Press, Haworth Press, and Alyson Books. A full bibliography, as well as free stories, excerpts, purchasing info, and contests, can be found on the author’s website at http://jmsnyder.net.
NATTY SOLTESZ, under the pseudonym “bacteriaburger,” has published fiction on the Nifty Erotic Stories Archive since 2001. Recently he’s contributed to the magazines Men, Mandate, and Handjobs, the websites Clean Sheets and Velvet Mafia and Ultimate Gay Erotica 2008. He’s now working with director Joe Gage on a script for an upcoming porn movie. He lives in Pittsburgh with his lover. Check out his website, www.nattysoltesz.com.
JAY STARRE, residing on English Bay in Vancouver, Canada, writes fiction for gay men’s magazines, including Men and Torso, and has also contributed to more than forty anthologies, including Travelrotica, Manhandled, Bear Lust, and Bad Boys.
ABOUT THE EDITOR
RICHARD LABONTÉ has edited the Best Gay Erotica series since 1997. He writes the occasional newsletter, Books To Watch Out For, and the fortnightly book review column, “Book Marks,” distributed by Q Syndicate. With Lawrence Schimel, he is co-editor of The Future is Queer and First Person Queer, for Arsenal Pulp Press. He has edited Hot Gay Erotica, Country Boys, Best Gay Bondage, Boys in Heat, and Where the Boys Are for Cleis Press, where he is also an editor at large. He lives on Bowen Island, British Columbia, sixty seconds from the Pacific Ocean, and on a farm in rural eastern Ontario, surrounded by two hundred acres of hay fields.
Richard Labonte, Best Gay Romance 2008
