Where the Boys Are Read online

  WHERE THE BOYS ARE

  WHERE THE BOYS ARE

  EDITED BY

  RICHARD LABONTÉ

  Copyright © 2007 by Richard Labonté.

  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.

  Cleis Press Inc., P.O. Box 14697, San Francisco, California 94114.

  Printed in the United States.

  Cover design: Scott Idleman

  Cover photograph: Stockbyte/Getty

  Text design: Frank Wiedemann

  Cleis logo art: Juana Alicia

  First Edition.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  “Live from New York” © 2007 by Rachel Kramer Bussel. “Half-Life” © 2007 by Dale Chase. “Local Fame” © 2007 by Ted Cornwell. “One of the Guys” © 2007 by Jameson Currier. “Drug Colors” © 2007 by Erastes. “Tiny Golden Kernel” © 2007 by Lee Houck. “God Hates Techno” © 2007 by Zeke Mangold. “Taming the Trees” © 2007 by Jeff Mann. “The Birds and the Bees” © 2007 by Alpha Martial. “Other Residences, Other Neighborhoods” © 2007 by Douglas A. Martin. “My Evil Twin” © 2007 by Sam J. Miller. “Unable to Hold Back,” by Kemble Scott, © 2007 and excerpted with permission of the publisher from SoMa (Kensington Books, 2007). “Wild Night” © 2007 by Simon Sheppard. “Juniper House” © 2007 by Alana Noel Voth.

  For Asa, from California to Canada, my migrating man

  Contents

  Introduction • RICHARD LABONTÉ

  Live from New York • RACHEL KRAMER BUSSEL

  Unable to Hold Back • KEMBLE SCOTT

  My Evil Twin • SAM J. MILLER

  One of the Guys • JAMESON CURRIER

  Tiny Golden Kernel • LEE HOUCK

  Taming the Trees • JEFF MANN

  Drug Colors • ERASTES

  Other Residences, Other Neighborhoods • DOUGLAS A. MARTIN

  Juniper House • ALANA NOEL VOTH

  Wild Night • SIMON SHEPPARD

  Half-Life • DALE CHASE

  The Birds and the Bees • ALPHA MARTIAL

  God Hates Techno • ZEKE MANGOLD

  Local Fame • TED CORNWELL

  About the Authors

  About the Editor

  INTRODUCTION

  Some of the stories in Where the Boys Are are about physical migration, from small town to big city, from straight neighborhood to gay neighborhood; others are about a more emotional migration, the transition from questioning to queer, from out there alone to, finally, “out” among others.

  And the thread that runs through all of them, of course, is the exploration of that queer moment where you ask yourself where you fit in. And then you go find where that is.

  That moment can come at any age, a reality reflected in this collection. In a majority of these stories, it comes when younger men grapple with an unsettled identity and an inchoate yearning. Those are the kind of fellows, some still teens, others in their twenties, in Rachel Kramer Bussel’s “Live from New York,” Kemble Scott’s “Unable to Hold Back,” Sam J. Miller’s “My Evil Twin,” Jameson Currier’s “One of the Guys,” Zeke Mangold’s “God Hates Techno,” Ted Cornwell’s “Local Fame,” and Alana Noel Voth’s “Juniper House”—seven tales about that first tingle of sexual initiation. About finding where the boys are, and finally fitting in.

  Some of the characters start out in their own queer skins: the Southern lad new to New York in Douglas A. Martin’s “Other Residences, Other Neighborhoods,” who makes the city his sexual playground; another Southern lad new to New York in Lee Houck’s “Tiny Golden Kernel,” for whom sex is easy, love less so; and the edgy Sex Pistols-era London punk in Erastes’ “Drug Colors,” who can have any eager fag-puppy he wants, but yearns for a man less attainable. They’ve found where the boys are; the next step is sorting out the sex, perhaps finding love.

  And for some, the boys aren’t found until later in life: that’s the way it is in Dale Chase’s “Half-Life,” about a married man who confronts his needs after surviving a heart attack. For others, it was wide open early—as in Simon Sheppard’s reflective “Wild Night.”

  The working title for this anthology was City Boys, and it was first conceived as a sort-of sequel to the earlier Cleis collection Country Boys, stories about coming out and being queer away from big cities and their gay enclaves. Despite its different title, it remains an anthology about physical, emotional, and sexual exploration by gay men—about their migration toward urban centers, into their queer identity. Two of the stories here, however, Jeff Mann’s “Taming the Trees” and Alpha Martial’s “The Birds and the Bees,” offer a been-there, done-that twist on the topic: they’re both about gay men in vigorous midlife who learned a lot from their time in the city—but who have decided in the end that they “fit in” better away from the gayborhood. And why not? It’s all part of the life that follows discovering Where the Boys Are. Here are stories of first-time sex and the loves of a lifetime, of being seduced by the city and its sexual possibilities, of learning how to read the codes that define contemporary queer life.

  Many thanks to Jules Chamberlain, a fine friend in the middle of his own migration.

  Richard Labonté

  LIVE FROM NEW YORK

  Rachel Kramer Bussel

  I didn’t expect to get my cock sucked on my first night in New York City, but maybe I should have. It wasn’t that I hadn’t dreamed about the glittery, magical, overpowering gay mecca that everyone in the world seemed to want to get to and make their own. Visions of Christopher Street danced in my head from the time I became too old for sugarplums. I knew there were hot, hunky guys, as well as huge, hairy ones, but that’s pretty much where my imagery stopped; chiseled and flawless or fat and furry, those were the choices. I didn’t know which one was my type, but it didn’t really matter. I truly did not think any of them would want anything to do with me.

  Let me back up a minute. Some people decide to up and move when the weather’s sunny and warm, taking their time driving cross-country, relishing the lazy outdoors. Me, I like to move in the dead of winter. Something about the chilly air stirs up my wanderlust. I’ve lived in plenty of cities in my thirty-plus years, but none can beat the one I return to again and again: New York. I have an apartment here that’s only gone up in worth, but to me, it’s priceless. Whenever I return, I feel the city’s fabric closing tight around me, zipping me in, layering me with the protection only a mixed-up, mashed-up, melting pot of craziness can provide. The night I moved here still rings in my ears, sometimes literally. I’ll hear the cheers of a crowd at a ball game roaring like they get a prize for making the most noise, and remember landing in the Big Apple on New Year’s Eve 1993, with just a backpack on my back and a cock ready, willing and eager; hopeful, even.

  I came here from a hick town most people have never heard of, and even if you had, you’d want to forget about it just as quickly as you could. Sure, the people were generous and good-hearted, as long as you wore the right kinds of clothes, said the right kinds of things, and didn’t act remotely in any way like you might maybe, possibly be gay. Or bi. Or even have considered such possibilities. If you had, and were anything above completely idiotic, you kept your mouth shut.

  So I did, often pressing my lips tightly together as I jerked off to forbidden images that nevertheless came unbidden into my head. This was just before the days when hot man-on-man action was available at the click of a mouse, so I had to make do with the meager offerings of the men around me, and by offerings, I mean
fantasy fodder, not any actual experimentation. I learned fast how to play “spot the gay,” but back then, I was sure I was the only one.

  I was a virgin, in every sense of the word, when my bus pulled into town. I’d never even gone all the way with a girl. Yes, I took the bus from Buttfuck, Middle America to Port Authority, on one of the coldest New Year’s Eves in recent history. I was able to get away by saying I was going to the big bonfire, which was really a place where drunk kids stripped naked, drank vodka, ran into the lake and fucked their brains out. I’d been to enough of those and had to fend off girls wanting me to touch them everywhere to know I couldn’t stand one more night of it.

  But when I got off the bus in the city, I could hear the crowd buzzing. It was ten and the streets all around Times Square, and seemingly in the whole city, were paved with people. People of all kinds, speaking all different languages; families, pretty girls, old men, drag queens, anyone and everyone.

  I tried not to stare in too much awe, and started walking. I found myself entering a Ben & Jerry’s, suddenly eager for something sweet. I walked in and immediately felt self-conscious. This was nothing like my hometown ice-cream shop, and as much as I’d privately derided my neighbors as the biggest hicks around, suddenly I was the biggest hick, at least the biggest one about to buy a vanilla cone. I chose a waffle cone just to somehow differentiate my order, and at the last second, went for chocolate chip. All of a sudden, I felt silly, like I should be eating something more manly, more macho, to celebrate my newfound independence. I was gay but did that mean I had to be a sissy? No sooner had I handed over my four dollars than I felt someone brush against me.

  “That’s a big cone,” a male voice said. For a second, I felt like a child being berated for taking seconds when we had six mouths to feed. But one look at the man stopped me in my tracks. He was older than me, at least twice my age. His skin was tan, and tough, somehow, but his blue eyes were kind. He had dirty-blond stubble, but not a beard, and looked like maybe he worked outdoors. His clothes were nothing special, jeans and a black T-shirt, with sneakers, but he was staring at me so intently I thought I must have done something wrong.

  “Long bus ride, I needed some energy,” I said, wanting to smile but not sure if that was proper. I didn’t even know what this man wanted, but already I’d gotten hard. I really wasn’t looking for sex, at least not directly. I was looking for it by coming to New York, but I figured it could wait a day. For one night, I wanted to be a good old-fashioned American tourist, albeit a gay one, but nobody could tell about that, right? Wrong. This man could tell. And he apparently planned to watch me eat every bite of my cone. He moved aside to let me get some napkins, but when I sat down, he sat too, facing me.

  “I’m Jared,” he said. “I came here on a bus once, too.” I didn’t know then that we were right near Hell’s Kitchen, which wasn’t quite Chelsea or Christopher Street but still had its fair share of homos. I didn’t know then that I’d wind up living mere blocks away with my first boyfriend a year later. I didn’t know that I looked as gay as you could get, everything from my haircut to my Converse sneakers to the hunger on my face, signals I’d later come to read on college boys and those way too young for me who were nevertheless irresistible. They say we can never truly judge ourselves.

  I let Jared watch me eat my cone while people hustled in and out, eager for a last-minute snack before watching the ball drop. He made conversation, told me his life story, something about being a marathon runner; by now, it’s all kind of faded, considering that I never saw him again. You’d think I’d have been listening, rapt with attention, to a real live gay guy. I probably would have, if I’d known that’s who I was talking to. For all the gaydar I assumed I possessed simply as a birthright, I had no clue. I just thought he was friendly, a little lonely, a good sport, so I sat there and ate the huge waffle cone until I could practically breathe vanilla through my nostrils. I threw out the last little bit of the cone and willed my stomach not to heave.

  That cone was probably what kept me from getting drunk off my ass that night; somehow, the flask that Jared had tucked away in his coat pocket didn’t seem appealing. When I declined, he took a small sip, then put it back. “Southern Comfort,” he said, laughing as if to himself. Maybe he thought I was from the South, or that was just what he was drinking, I don’t really know.

  He kept on talking, his steady stream of conversation making me feel gradually more at home, like it was just another noise designed to comfort me. Oh, how true that was, because while I was barely listening, I was still somehow hard as a rock. Maybe it came from just knowing that it was okay to have a dick and have a vague clue what to do with it in this freak-show, anything-goes city where men were beating their chests and chugging beer like the world was going to end and women were stripping like we were at Mardi Gras, except without the beads. Maybe just having a man paying attention to me like that, watching me, waiting, gave me permission to own my hard-on. Or maybe I just needed to have my dick sucked. Who really knows? What I do know is that as it got closer to midnight, Jared got increasingly quiet. We never kissed or anything like that. He just kept looking at me, as if waiting for my okay.

  By the time I finally realized what was going down, as it were, I almost came in my pants. I mean, who really expects shit like this to happen to them? Not me, back then, that was for sure. Jared didn’t look like what I thought the gay guys were supposed to. He didn’t have the uniform, the talk, the walk, the cues I’d picked up watching prime-time TV. He didn’t grab me and throw me up against the bathroom wall of the Ben & Jerry’s, even though later I’d come to find that I liked it quite a bit when men grabbed me and threw me against walls, beds, floors, anything that was hard and firm and would make me meet it with every nerve ending I possessed. My night with Jared, if you can call it a night, though it was really more accurately an encounter, had nothing kinky about it. It was almost gentle, as if the city in all its big gay glory was saying, “Welcome. You’re home. Now go get laid.” Because the quieter Jared got, the closer he came to me, until he was stroking the shorn sides of my head, running his hand over my chest, then lower.

  The crowd was too preoccupied to care what two quiet men off to the side of a barricade were doing, and anyone who noticed either pretended not to or, for all I knew, got quite the peep show. As the hubbub reached fever pitch, with the last minutes of the year practically vanishing before our eyes, Jared sank to his knees and, without a word, unzipped my jeans and took my cock in his mouth. He did it so smoothly and silently—like it was all one motion, zipperhandcockmouth—that I almost forgot I’d never had it done to me before. I’d dreamt and fantasized and wondered and questioned, but nothing could have prepared me for Jared’s expert lips wrapped around my hardness. His hot wet mouth sucking, seeking, soothing. His tongue tracing my length, speaking all the words he couldn’t say. I didn’t need “I want you,” or “I like you,” or “You’re hot,” at least not then. Now, yes, I can’t concede without a little flirtation. But that night, Jared was perfect, not just the way he moved his lips, but the way his body met mine, assuring me everything would be okay. The ball dropped, my balls tightened and rose, and soon I was spurting right into Jared’s mouth.

  I gasped and then all too quickly it was over. I was tucked back in, Jared had wiped his mouth and was staring off into the distance. At what or whom I didn’t ask, and he didn’t tell. It was the highest high and then not so much a low as a plateau, a glimpse into the future of lonely nights following outrageously hot sex. As short as it was, Jared had given me one of the best blow jobs of my life, and not just because I had nothing to compare it to.

  The crowd roared with a New Year’s high of its own; Jared looked at me a bit wistfully, like he wanted to stay and chat but had somewhere else to be. Maybe he did. He gave me the name of a hotel nearby, and when I could make it past the revelers, I walked to my temporary new home, getting a tired smile from the clerk. I was sure he could tell not just that I was gay, but that I
’d just gotten a blow job in Times Square. I was sure everyone could tell and for the first time in my life, I liked that feeling. No more secrets, no more shame, his look seemed to say. We don’t do that here. Welcome to New York. And Happy New Year.

  UNABLE TO HOLD BACK

  Kemble Scott

  Vacne. That was the word Raphe struggled to remember. Those tiny red blotches of nascent pimples surrounding a guy’s mouth. When a friend told Raphe the nickname for it he laughed out loud. Vagina plus acne equals vacne, the minor outbreak caused by a man going down on a woman.

  The man next to him on the BART platform definitely had vacne. He was average height, with black razor stubble. His hair was dark, with just enough gel to keep it professionally in place and defy the notorious winds of downtown.

  The man’s pin stripe suit made Raphe’s mind flash to what happened at the urinals in the bathroom at McDonalds. He always got a sick feeling whenever he remembered that moment. The embarrassment. How awful to be caught looking.

  The incident had cured him of wandering eyes. To be sure of that, Raphe brought his laptop to work at the mailbox shop to keep him busy during the slow times, and to finally start writing his long-delayed novel.

  That was two weeks ago, and Raphe still hadn’t typed a word of his book. He’d get too distracted. First he’d check his e-mail. Then he had to get caught up on the latest news from sfgate.com. Next was a link from a friend to a hysterical story about online dating. “The odds are good, but the goods are odd.” A spam brought him to a site called rotton.com, which led him to learning about a Japanese fetish called bukkake. Sick!

  One day he went to craigslist.org to put up for sale the IKEA carpet he never really liked. He could use the money. While there he began to peruse the other classified ads, eyeing cars he would buy if he ever had money again. He checked the Help Wanted section, but didn’t find anything even remotely worthwhile. Just a Pink Slip Party. He wasn’t that desperate—at least not yet.