Best Gay Erotica 2009 Read online

  I was the best man at Grove’s wedding. He and Lucy were married on a cruise ship somewhere off the Pacific coast of Mexico. Lucy and I planned the wedding on the living room floor of the apartment I shared with her fiancé, watching “Mad about You” and leafing through glossy magazines. To our twenty-year-old sensibilities, it seemed the most romantic thing in the world to be married in a simple shipboard ceremony. We pictured the three of us standing with the captain in his dress whites at the railing overlooking the sunrise and the Mexican Riviera. But by the time Lucy’s mother had wrestled control from us, it became a lavishly produced affair involving more than three hundred seasick guests crowded into the Acapulco ballroom.

  The first thing Lucy’s mother did was to find out the name of the travel agent and demand that the couple-to-be be split up. So, for the three nights prior to the wedding, Lucy roomed with Genie, her maid of honor, and Grove bunked with me on the far side of the ship.

  We spent the first two nights of the cruise drinking and dancing, and Genie and I ended up passed out together in an oversized queen-sized bed in her room while Grove and Lucy slept in mine. But the night before the wedding was different for some reason. The traditional last dance at the disco was an old Sinatra version of “Almost Like Being in Love.” Genie and I had just stepped out onto the floor, her skirt flaring up as I flicked her to the end of my arm. She laughed and twirled back to me, but then Grove was there, tapping her on the shoulder and bowing formally, asking to cut in. I stepped back and held out Genie’s hand to him, but he took my hand instead. Meanwhile Lucy bowed to Genie and the two of them danced around us in lazy circles. Grove and I danced close, his chest pressed against mine, and he laughed and breathed alcohol onto my neck.

  “You’re the best friend I’ve ever had,” he said, “I hope you know that, hope you know I’d do anything for you.” And my stomach fell through nine decks to plunge into the ocean.

  We did a couple of Jäger shots with the bartender after the girls went back to their room, then did a couple of lines of coke before we stumbled back to our cabin.

  “I can’t sleep with her tonight, Chris,” he slurred as we staggered down the corridor. “It’s my last night being single, you know? And I just can’t do…”

  He lurched as the ship slid to one side beneath us, caught himself on my shoulder then righted himself and pushed open the door to our cabin.

  “Coffee,” he whispered, so I called room service and, within minutes, we were sipping hot creamy coffee together on the tiny sofa. Grove drank a cup and a half of coffee, then staggered into the bathroom. He was gone a long time.

  “You okay?” I asked, knocking gently on the door.

  There was a long silence, then he opened the door and looked out at me. He had washed his face and straightened his clothing.

  “You look better,” I said.

  “I feel better. I’m sorry—Christ!—you shouldn’t have to babysit me.”

  He pushed the bathroom door open a bit wider and walked out, remarkably steady. He turned back around and looked at me with eyes so full of emotion that I wanted to run away.

  “I love you, man. I could not do this without you standing beside me every step of the way. I’m terrified. I mean, my god, I’m getting married tomorrow, I mean today, man. I…I don’t know what I would do…you mean so much to me. You’re my best friend in the world.”

  He had this indescribably mournful look in his brimming eyes, and all I wanted in that moment was to hold him so close to me that he would feel safe and loved and a little less terrified, so I reached out a hand across the distance to touch his chest and he stepped back, quickly, deliberately.

  He must have seen the shock on my face because he said, “No—you don’t understand. It’s not what you think.”

  And I stood there and looked at him, still and silent.

  He watched me with those green eyes of his and I felt dizzy, a moment of déjà vu that hit me with such force, I stepped back and sat on the foot of the bed. And he took a step back from me and landed on the sofa.

  We sat there facing each other for a long moment.

  “It’s not what you think,” he said again.

  “What exactly, am I thinking?” I asked, angry or hurt, cheeks flashing red.

  He stared at me for a moment, then I felt his eyes slide through me into the far distance. “I think,” he said from behind those dreamy, unfocused eyes, “I think sometimes I want one thing and then sometimes I want something else.” His eyes snapped back to me, fast, startling me. “I’m not afraid of you.”

  “I know that,” I said, slightly disoriented.

  “There are lines, Christopher. Lines between things, between this and that…” his voice trailed off and he ran his fingers through his hair. “Lines that divide what we do and who we are from what we don’t do and who we’re not.”

  “Grove, I wasn’t trying to—”

  “Oh, I know,” he said, waving his hand dismissively. “I know you weren’t doing anything, it’s just that there’s a line. Here. Tonight.”

  I watched him in silence, feeling the distance opening between us like a sudden chasm.

  “And I’ve already made my decision about who I am and what I’ll do. I mean, I’m getting married tomorrow—”

  “Look, Grove, I’m not trying to do anything here—”

  “I know, I know,” he said again, his voice quavering for a moment. He spotlighted me with those eyes again, boring into me. “This is about me. I’m the one standing on the edge.”

  I locked eyes with him for a long time, waiting for this moment to pass. But it did not. We sat, staring at each other across two feet of beige carpet, across the greatest divide that can ever separate two people. I loved him. And I was completely immobile, knowing that if I moved a millimeter, I would leap across the chasm into his arms and this moment would end with one of us walking out the door forever.

  But then he startled me, reached down and pulled off first one shoe, then the other.

  “No words,” he said flashing me his nervous smile.

  He kicked his shoes toward me, then reached up to unbutton his shirt, tan fingers moving slowly from top to bottom against the white cotton, unhooking each button then moving on to the next, pulling the tails of his shirt out of his pants, then taking the shirt off and tossing it over the back of the chair next to him. He peeled his tight T-shirt up across his belly, his abs, his hairy chest. He pulled it over his head then threw it to the side.

  I could feel the pressure of my erection poking through the alcohol-soaked moment, rubbing against the inside of my boxers.

  He looked at me for a long moment, and I didn’t dare breathe until he leaned forward and reached down to peel his right sock slowly from his foot. He let his fingers trail along the naked arch, flexed his toes, grinned up quickly at me then peeled his left sock off as well.

  When the socks were off, he stood up and began to unbuckle his belt.

  I stood up and reached out to help him, but he caught my hands in his. He pushed them back toward me and said two words: “Don’t touch.”

  And suddenly I understood.

  On the train I feel the incremental slowing of the braking systems that signal the approach to a station. Along this part of the route, the stations are little more than a platform and a ticket booth, standing in the middle of a cluster of ten or fifteen buildings so, less than five minutes after the train coasts to a stop, we are under way again.

  I look across at my companion, who appears to be asleep, and I see the impressively long, thin outline of an erection against the denim of his jeans. The jeans are tight enough, and his ardor bold enough, to see the contours of the head outlined like an invitation.

  I shift uncomfortably in my seat, pulling my coat over my own lap and my own rearing erection. I am not wearing underwear and the friction feels like the tickle of flames along my shaft.

  And I think again of Grove, standing there less than two feet from me, unbuckling his belt and w
atching me with those eyes. He tugged on the belt, pulling it away from him, the leather holding on to each belt loop for an instant until he finally ripped it free in one broad movement, brandished it in the air like a whip, then flicked it across the room.

  He pulled his pants down to his ankles and stepped out of them in a swift motion, then stood back up, the only thing now between my raging erection and his about three seconds worth of white cotton and about two feet of empty space.

  He stood for a moment, then grinned foolishly and crossed his arms, tapping his foot in mock exasperation until I began to pull off my clothes in a flurry. When I was down to my underwear, I took one look at him and pulled them down to my ankles, kicked them away from us and stood completely naked in front of him, my erection bobbing and bouncing between us.

  He looked up and down my body for a long time, his eyes beginning at my feet and traveling up my muscular legs, across the planes of my thick, toned thighs, and into the dark tangle of hair that clustered around my balls. He looked carefully at my cock and for a moment, I could feel the shadow of his regard across the length of my shaft. I shivered involuntarily, drawing his focus up to my face.

  He had this look on his face that I had never seen before, a look of desire and humor and something else, something like resignation.

  He grinned again and dropped his underwear, kicking it to the side.

  I drew in a quick breath and concentrated on not touching his cock as it bobbed in front of him. I had seen it before, but not quite like this. It was short, but thick, with a pale shaft that extended to a particularly thick purplish head. The head was straining like a creature trying to escape the tiny cluster of pubic hair. His balls were large and heavy, hanging low in their shaved pouch.

  Grove reached down and gave himself a couple of strokes, a left-handed grip that was loose and exact at the same time, a practiced move that made my cock jump in response. He grinned at that and began to rub his abdomen with his right hand, pumping with one hand and, with the other, rubbing circles along his belly then his chest, circling his tiny dark nipples for a moment then sliding back along his treasure trail for a two-fisted massage of his cock.

  I watched him rub himself and reached down with my right hand, pulled lightly on my balls, slid my fingernail down the length of my cock, enjoying both the sight of him touching himself and the feel of my own gentle solo prelude.

  He started stroking himself more rhythmically, eyes roaming across my body as if he was storing every contour, every muscle for later recall. He reached up absently and spit into his hand, slid the spit along the hot length of his cock, rolled the saliva across the head with the palm of his hand as though he were chalking a pool cue. I smiled at this, spit in my own hand and mirrored his movements.

  We stood there stroking ourselves and watching each other, our movements synching as the heat began to build in my stomach. Suddenly, in an instant, his eyes snapped shut, he shuddered, and then came in a torrent, globs of searing hot come hitting my stomach, my legs, my toes, and the carpet between us.

  He looked supremely embarrassed and uncomfortable as if he did not expect this to happen, or was chagrined by the speed with which it did.

  I let my hand slack off, but when he saw my erection bobbing there, he said, “But you didn’t come.”

  I shrugged. For a moment, he looked as though he would drop to his knees and take my cock into his mouth. This thought sent a pulse through my cock and, seeing my continuing excitement, Grove stood up, turned around, put his feet together, and bent himself at the waist, palms stretched out against the floor in front of him. “Don’t touch,” he reminded me as I moved behind him.

  I dropped to my knees behind him, my face hovering less than a foot from the spectacular sight he had just thrust at me. His limber body doubled over on itself, thrusting his asscheeks up and apart, and there, buried in a damp wisp of hair, his rosebud sphincter stared out at me. It pulsed slowly in an odd, sentient pattern and the hair around it trembled slightly under my breath. He shifted a fraction closer and it was all I could do not to plunge my tongue into him, but I kept just enough distance between us to keep from touching and I grabbed my rearing cock with renewed vigor. The musky odor of him was sweet and rank at the same time, drifting across the slight divide and invading my senses as I pumped myself faster and faster. I breathed deeply, licked my hand, and stroked myself. I groaned in spite of myself, breaking the silence awkwardly, like a tourist in a foreign library, and I endeavored, in spite of my growing excitement, to memorize the line of fur that ran along the very innermost crevice of him, the tantalizing scent of him, the tiny purple sphincter that winked its carnal code at me. And I stroked myself, my breathing becoming ragged, catching in my throat. Heat rose off my cheeks in waves, and I felt the first explosion of ether behind my eyes that presaged my orgasm. Then it was on me, like a wave, creeping up the startled hairs on my arms and legs and smashing its way out of me. I started to come in spurts that crossed the distance between us, splattering the back of Grove’s thighs, calves, and heels. I let out a long sighing groan, and the ether behind my eyes engulfed me for an instant sending everything else into a flash of blackness.

  And then it was over, and Grove was up and laughing and toweling himself off. And I smeared his come across my chest and stomach and let it dry there as we stood naked on the balcony, watching the stars, and finishing off the lukewarm coffee. I watched Grove’s animated smile as he talked about the stars and the dark outline of the Mexican shoreline in the near distance, and I knew that somehow, despite his clear design, despite his careful construction of the demarcations, we had somehow stepped across the line.

  And so he was married to Lucy and I toasted the happy couple at their reception and I slept alone the next night, curled around a pillow stuffed with feathers and memories. And the next night I slept with a performer from one of the lounge acts, missing breakfast and lunch and finally, that evening in Mazatlan, missing the boat altogether.

  And now, a decade later, I still feel the sting of loss and the menace of boundaries and the sadness of empty train platforms holding me rigidly to my seat, despite the fact that the man with whom I share this lonely compartment is toying playfully with his long, thin cock, eyeing me speculatively and licking his lips. I watch this moment unfold before me in the flickering cinematic images that play in the blank spaces behind my eyes. I am a camera, I think as I begin to record the moment, not on the permanent stock where Grove resides, but on a tape whose quality is marginal, whose images dance with the static of disconnection and shimmer slightly, making it difficult to see the lines that divide individuals. Is that mine? Is that his? Is that me? Is that him? Do I care?

  I unbutton my jeans, unzip my zipper, and pull my hard cock out of my jeans. I watch the smile spread across his thin lips. “Nicht berühren,” I whisper, Don’t touch. I glance at my reflection in the window then look back at this stranger as he kneels on the floor in front of me.

  MASS ASS

  Robert Patrick

  A boy at the baths

  Opened legs thin as laths

  To invite any dick up his ass.

  We clustered to fuck

  This divine piece of luck,

  Ev’ry putz in the place hard as glass.

  We had come off the streets

  Hunting fuckable seats

  Scorning bars and the park’s grubby groves,

  Seeking nooky, not names

  Or good spirits or games

  Where hot crotches abounded in droves.

  The baths was alive

  As if drones in a hive

  Had come crawling for all they could get.

  We crowded the halls

  With a buzz in our balls,

  But no honey was coming as yet.

  We dropped down to see

  That the steam room was free.

  There was no ass to catch unawares,

  And none in the cool,

  Under-used swimming pool.

&n
bsp; We returned to the hall-hell upstairs.

  There were pungent perfumes

  From occasional rooms

  But most doors were annoyingly shut

  As their renters, like me,

  Walked around cockily,

  Rather randomly roaming in rut.

  Every man there possessed

  What the others liked best,

  Whether asshole or hard-on or mouth,

  But it looked like the nest

  Never would come to rest,

  And all hopes of connections went south.

  Though the usual thing

  At the baths was to fling

  Your door open and get yourself some,

  On a night like tonight

  Everyone was uptight

  And nobody was likely to cum.

  Every mind in the dim,

  Dreamy den was a-brim

  With idyllic, ideal, unreal acts,

  Which seemed to eclipse

  Any real lips or hips

  Ever coming to grips with bare facts.

  So the corridors sludged

  As we judged as we trudged

  All around in the shadows in hordes,

  And the testicles hung

  In between our legs swung

  Full of seed as a garden of gourds.

  When the cute youth came in

  Through the masses of men,

  He was hot, clearly not there to swim,

  For he stripped like a whore

  In his wide-open door,

  And we all caught the heat off of him.