Best Gay Erotica 2007, page 3
Next day I find a town called Paso Robles which ain’t bad, then drive from there to the coast where I see the ocean which is a sight and as I drive north to Cambria where the ranch is it comes and goes to my left and I smell it more than see it because it’s down below the cliff. And then I see cows grazin at the edge and think Claude was right and I hate him for that.
I am given a job and allowed to bunk in a small trailer on the ranch, as the owner, Jim Merchant, seems to know my hard-luck story. The trailer is small and I think maybe I’d be better off outside on the ground but I work at settlin in as much as I can which ain’t much.
Herdin stock in a Jeep is new to me but I do what I’m told and after that get some beers and go down to the ocean and sit on my truck fender and watch the sun set into the waves. It’s like another country here and I feel out of place everywhere I go but can’t tell if it’s the place or me. Don’t belong anymore, not without Jake.
Jim’s a good man and I come to like workin for him but he tries to talk to me when I wish he wouldn’t and I put him off more than not. Other hands mostly give me room; nights I jerk off in the trailer. Then I hear about San Francisco which you can drive north to and there’s bars for everything you want so I go up there one Saturday and find myself in a back room gettin my dick sucked but when I try to fuck the guy he tells me he don’t do that and there is almost a fight but others break it up and I leave. I go to another bar and men come around, call me cowboy, and I tell them I just want to fuck and I go home with one and fuck but he wants me to stay over and I can’t do that so I leave, drive back to Cambria and my trailer. Sunday morning I jerk off, tell Jake maybe he’s better off where he is, then go for a drive south, past Morro Bay and the big rock they’ve got, down to San Luis Obispo, one town runnin into another and none of it matters. I’m back for the sunset, sittin on my truck with my beer. A man runs past me wearin almost nothin, shorts and shoes. He nods as I look and I turn back to the sunset.
Next night he runs past again, nods, but I don’t bite. Night after that he says, “Hey, cowboy,” as he passes and I think if he’d stop I’d wipe that grin off his face. Then after a couple weeks of this he does stop when I wish he wouldn’t but he keeps his distance and asks am I new to the area and I nod, think maybe he wants to fuck.
He gets it outta me I work on the ranch, tells me he’s Gage Toland and teaches school which makes me laugh because I ain’t fuckin no teacher and I tell him I’m Harley Knox and he seems to like that but he don’t press, then runs on.
I drive up to San Francisco Saturday and get me a guy who’s rough as me and we wrestle and fuck and wrestle some more but then he tries to stick his dick in me and I land a punch and all hell breaks loose and I drive back to Cambria bruised across the jaw. Jim Merchant don’t comment when he sees the purple on Monday.
Goddamn runner, Gage, comes by the ocean every night so I finally offer him a beer which he drinks and I ask if that don’t go against his runnin and he says yeah, probably, but he’s earned it. I want to ask him what he wants of me, does he want to fuck, but ain’t sure to do that out here. Then he says would I have a drink with him later on and tells me to meet him at some bar and I think okay, I’ll drink with him and fuck him, so I agree. At the bar he’s in a goddamn western shirt and boots which makes me laugh.
“You don’t say much,” he offers as we drink. I shrug. “It’s appealing, you know,” he says and there are a couple other things after that before I turn to him, tell him I am lookin to fuck and no more.
“Sure,” he says. “You can come to my place.” He starts out but I won’t ride with him, take my truck and follow. Little house up on a hill behind another house. I park beside him, dick hard.
He’s got the door open and I go inside and soon as he closes it, I start in at him, get his jeans down, get him on the floor, put on the rubber, spit myself wet, and do him. Don’t look around, don’t look nowhere but his ass where my dick is buried and where I want to tear his fuckin hole apart. He don’t say noth-in, just lets me ride it out, and when I come it’s a gusher and I pump his butt full while I slap him and when I’m done I pull out and stand up, pull off the rubber, drop it, pull up my jeans. He rolls onto his back and he’s workin his dick and lookin at me but I turn to leave, then hear him grunt so I look back over my shoulder and see the spunk and for a second I remember how Jake looked doin that after I’d fucked him and I want to stop this teacher, tell him he’s makin the biggest fuckin mistake of his life, but I leave instead and in my truck find the pint in the glove box and have me a couple pulls. And next night I don’t go to the ocean; I go to a bar and get drunk.
I hate the teacher takin away the ocean like that but the bar has windows at the back so I can see the sunset and I watch and drink, glad the day’s done. Next night Gage finds me there, says he saw my truck out front and can he buy me a drink. It’s all I can do to not get my dick out and fuck him then and there, turn him up onto the table and give it to him so hard he can’t walk after. I feel it rise in me, hard dick yeah but along with it that somethin else that’s hooked up now, ever since Jake, like fuckin has a price I keep payin but still keep owin.
I nod to the drink, consider just gettin drunk, but I know he wants to fuck because it comes across the table as sure as if it was a dick reachin out to me. Only good part is he don’t talk. He looks from me to the sunset and I wonder how he sees it all but I don’t know how to ask so I don’t.
“Your hands are bruised,” he says when the sun is down. “Hard work.”
“Yeah.”
It’s there between us now, the fuck, and I don’t want to talk about no work or nothin and I’m tired of holdin off and I am about ready to tell him this when he says we can go to his place. I tell him no, to come with me so he gets into my truck and I drive to the ranch and out a road to nowhere and stop there. “Get out,” I say.
He does and I put him onto all fours in the truck bed and fuck him there with the cold air on my ass and it’s a good goddamn fuck, I’ll give him that. Don’t know why, maybe for bein outside, and I don’t think of nothin else while I do it which is maybe my way of bein at peace—with my dick up some ass—and I go at him hard but not rough like the others, don’t want to beat hell out of him and don’t know why, don’t want to know, and when I come it’s a relief, only when I pull out I think how he’s the first I’ve done twice since Jake and I hate him for it but that don’t feel good either.
He rolls over, sits up, says I drove the come out of him and how we’re a good fit so there we are in the truck bed, sittin back on our haunches bare-dicked and I am fuckin lost and I look up to the stars and I goddamn want to howl. And Gage, who’s smarter, teacher and all, says it’s okay, it’s okay, even though he don’t know what’s in me. Or maybe he does. Jake knew, just like I knew what was in him and we were different but where it matters we were the same.
“You’re a puzzle, Harley Knox,” Gage says as we pull up our pants and climb out of the truck bed. “You’re like a force mowing down everything in its path and I find I can’t keep from stepping in your way.”
“Better if you did,” I tell him and I feel somethin in me break with those words cause I know that force he talks about and it’s near to knockin me down so instead of gettin in the truck and drivin away, I sit on the tailgate with everything fal-lin into a heap and when I look up at the trees I think they should be comin down too, it’s that bad.
Gage sits down beside me but don’t touch me, which is best as I don’t think I could stand it but he does ask a question. He asks me what happened. No when or where, just what it is, and I see how he’s slippin in through the break in me and I think to stop him only I don’t. And then I tell him.
“I come from Texas and when I was eighteen I got a job on a cattle ranch and another guy did too, one year older, Jake Colley, and we became friends. And more.” Here I have to stop because it’s Jake and me only I’m with somebody else and I have to give that a minute. Then I go on. “Four years wor-kin together and everything else, you know, then one night a drunk driver crosses the line doin seventy and hits Jake head-on, kills them both and me too only I wasn’t there so I’m still walkin around dead. I went kinda crazy after that so I was let go from the job but the owner got me the job here, said I’d best get on with life which I have only I’m caught in between, not there but not here neither.”
“I am so sorry,” Gage says.
“Not your fault.”
“I know, I’m just sorry you’ve had such a loss.”
I don’t know what to say next because now he’s gotten inside me where he don’t belong and I see I shoulda stayed quiet about all of it. I don’t want his sorry so I get up, say we need to go. I take him back to his car and before he gets out of my truck he says he’d like to see me again.
“Can’t do that,” I tell him, which is the truth.
He thinks a second, then tries again. “No strings, just sex if that’s what you want.”
I’m not sure about this but I do want to fuck him again. “You know where to find me,” I say and he gets out and I drive to my trailer. Next day I’m back out with the cattle at the edge of the ocean and I bring Jake to mind because he’d of liked this, sittin in the Jeep wonderin if a cow ever slips and falls into the ocean. We’d laugh about the cow on the way down thinkin Oh shit. And we’d fuck, maybe there in the Jeep. And I think of how it feels gettin into him from behind, ridin out a good come, and this gets my dick hard so I get it out cause nobody’s around but the cows and I jerk off looking at the ocean but seein Jake. Then later when I’m drivin across the highway a string of people on bicycles all wearin helmets and shorts goes by and Gage comes to mind when I wish he wouldn’t. But that night I go to the ocean and he runs up and without a word we get into the truck bed and fuck under a blanket so nobody can see.
This happens a bunch more times over the next few weeks and he don’t say a word, just lets me fuck him and there’s come all over the truck bed from him shootin while I do him and the dogs at the ranch start jumpin up there sniffin around and so I have to hose it out and one night after we fuck I tell Gage this which makes him laugh.
“That’s the first thing you’ve said in weeks,” he says which I know but it still embarrasses me and I tell him I’m not good with words, never finished school.
“That doesn’t matter,” he says. “A lot of men are reserved with what they say. I’ve found when they do choose to speak, it’s usually worthwhile compared to ones who prattle away about nothing.”
I don’t know what to say to this. We’re still under the blanket, it’s dark now and Gage runs a hand onto my chest. “You have a wonderful body,” he says, “and the best part is it’s not cultivated at some gym.”
“Cultivated.” I chuckle at this and he does too.
“You’re the real thing, Harley, more than most. I don’t think you realize your appeal.”
Just then a car pulls alongside and we freeze. They turn off the lights and nobody moves so they’re like us, come down to watch the ocean, probably not to fuck though. “What now?” Gage says and I tell him to follow me and we pull our pants up while under the blanket, then stay low and slide out of the truck, fall to the ground, go around the far side then make like we’ve just walked back from somewhere. We get in and drive away and Gage laughs like hell.
I take him home and when he asks me in I say no and we go on like this a while longer, fuck in the truck every night after sunset which I like but then he says a bed ain’t so bad and if I’d stick around there’s more than a quick fuck. “Sex can go on for hours,” he tells me and I like the sound of that, but also don’t. Much as I want it, it also grates on me in a way I can’t tell him because I’m not sure I know but he keeps on about it, then one Friday night when I’ve got a pint instead of beer and have downed about half, I go home with him where he asks me to suck his dick.
I look at him standing there with it hard and see what I haven’t really looked at before, how his chest is smooth, no hair, and he’s lean but muscled and down below his hair is darker than mine and his dick is dribbling juice and I fix on this because I remember Jake that way and he had black hair down there too and that sweet dick. I’d suck him sometimes and he’d come in my mouth and callin this up ain’t my fault, it’s Jake still in me and I can’t suck no cock and I grab Gage, push him onto the bed, fuck him hard. He don’t fight and he comes into the sheets and when we’re done he turns over and looks me in the eye and I see it’s not gonna work like he said and I get up, find my jeans.
He makes a mistake then, puts a hand on me as if to stop me, and I turn, shove him back onto the bed.
“Harley,” he says.
“Don’t say it,” I tell him. “Don’t.”
But he does and I dress and he keeps on until I want to hit him. “Don’t,” I say again and he stops. Then when I’m at the door, him still naked, he says, “Harley, when are you going to allow yourself to live? You’re not the one who died,” and I slug him in the gut but instead of foldin up like I expect, he lands a punch just below my eye which knocks me back but not off my feet and I light into him and we go at it until I’ve got him on the floor, on his back, and he says to me “You can’t beat it out of me. How I feel is how I feel and I want you, Harley, god how I want you. Why’s that so wrong?”
I have no ready answer besides Jake and he’s dead so I know that’s not the answer I can give and I am stopped in my tracks. I look down at Gage who slowly opens his arms which causes me to back off and get up. He just lies there on the floor, bruise already coming up on his cheek, blood at the corner of his mouth, and he takes hold of his dick, starts to work it, and there it is. I hate how it is but I can’t not do it and I get down there and suck him and he pulls at me so I slide around, let him get mine out and we lie there on the floor suckin dick but we don’t come. Then he pulls off after a while, plays with me, handles my balls, and says how good it is but there’s more to life than sex which is a laugh as I’ve got his dick in my mouth. So I pull off and sit up and he says to undress and I do. I crawl onto him, dicks between us, and we roll around some and it gets wet between us and the smell is like in the truck and I think of the dogs sniffin us.
“I want to explore you, Harley,” Gage says as he runs a hand down onto my ass, squeezes me. “I want to know every part of you but right now, before that, I want you to fuck me.”
I sit back and he raises up his legs and I see he wants it from the front which is new to me but I get on a rubber and he’s holdin himself open so his hole is there to see and I put my dick into it, then look up at him. So I fuck while he watches me and I can see on his face how it feels for him. And he says, “It’s okay,” and I think No it’s not but then I’m gonna come.
BENEDICTION
Alana Noel Voth
I’m naked. I can’t see anything; it’s dark. I hope I’m in Cheeseman Park. Mom and I used to go there with Mom’s friend, Ryan. We’d sit at a picnic table and eat chicken and salad. I remember one time after lunch, I was like seven, I went down the slide on my belly just to get that rush in my gut—that thrill of being, for one second, out of control, rushing headlong at the gravel with my hands out and face forward. Later, I buried my legs in the sand, and then my knees rose from the dead.
I used to look at pictures of men in GQ and Esquire and wonder what it would take to get a man to love me. I was ten and obsessed with love. Ryan found me gazing at a black-and-white spread of a male model once and said, “Brenner, what are you looking at?”
I pointed at the male model.
“Listen, Brenner. You like guys; that’s okay. I want you to know it’s okay. Your mom loves you. I love you too. I’m gay. You knew that. Right. So listen, I don’t want to scare you, but it can be…complicated. Know what I mean?”
Mom loved me.
Ryan loved me.
I believed someone else would love me too.
Not that I lived in a perfect world. Grand Junction wasn’t a gay boy’s Utopia. I knew the most insulting thing you could do was call a guy a faggot. By the time I was in kindergarten I knew you could be a leper or a homo, there wasn’t much difference. In first grade, I sealed my fate. I told my classmates when I grew up I’d write books and marry a man. I was by myself after that. Always. Teachers expected me to be attentive and get good grades but then looked at me like I had a booger on my finger and was going to wipe it on them.
It’s dark. I’m naked and lying on some grass; I must be in Cheeseman Park, because I feel the grass blades like a cool prickly blanket beneath my skin. I used to lie in the backyard with nothing on and enjoy the tickle of grass against my ass and shoulders. A sprinkler would come by and douse me with mist. I lay there and played with my dick. My dick would get hard and even have a feeling like coming, except nothing would come out, no jizz.
I’ll imagine my lungs are an accordion—you know, those things that a person plays by pushing it in and then pulling it out and it makes noise like wheezy music.
In and out, in and out, that’s good, that’s good; keep it going.
I hear an owl hooting and try and hoot back. I’ve always wanted to do that. I can’t. Maybe I gurgled. Is it late? I want to feel the sun on my face. I don’t want to be scared. Oh fuck, I’m scared. I miss Ron. Everything hurts: My chest, my throat, my whole body. Feels like I got thrown around in a car. I remember a car going fast. A car accident? They say your life flashes before your eyes. Maybe I should close mine.
I used to close my eyes in Mom’s car. She liked driving her convertible Volkswagen Beetle with the top down. Sometimes we’d drive through town—Mom with her blonde hair blowing behind her, and me waving at everyone like they were friends. On the stereo, Johnny Cash sang: Love is a burning thing, and it makes a fiery ring, bound by wild desire; I fell into a ring of fire.
