Boys In Heat, page 1
Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Introduction
A RECIPE FOR…
HOOKING UP
COCKFIGHTING
DUFFLE
Ventura, California
Willow Creek, California
Santa Cruz, California
MISS VEL’S PLACE
ORBS
INTIMACY
BURNING THE MIDNIGHT OIL
FLUID MECHANICS
TALKING TO MR. MACK
THE KEY-MAKER’S WIFE
TELLING A SWITCH’S STORY
THE MANOR
I
II
III
IV
V
THREE SCENES
ABC
UNMASKED
BURLINGTON
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
ABOUT THE EDITOR
Copyright Page
For Asa Dean Noble,
noble new name, same fine man
INTRODUCTION
Boys rubbing together: ignition is inevitable, and always desirable, as the profound pleasure of friction kicks in.
For some, like the nervous surfer boy in Dallas Angguish’s “Duffle,” fleeing his harshly religious family for the liberating haven of university—and the bed, finally, of his older brother’s pal—it’s a scary new experience; for the virgin in Jonathan Asche’s “Miss Vel’s Place,” discovering he can pop his cherry with the help of a brothel’s male caretaker is a welcome relief. For the Internet boys in J. M. Snyder’s “Hooking Up,” it’s a grand adventure spiced with the uncertainty of matching a webcam face to a real body. And for the cocksure kid in Michael Cain’s “Burning the Midnight Oil,” with a jizz-filled monster in his pants yearning for release, seduction of a fellow student is what the game is all about.
For others, sexual excitement is a way of life: the cum contest in Keith Peck’s “Cockfighting” presents boys playing hard—really, really hard; the gay couple in Syd McGinley’s “Unmasked” add zest to their sex with some Halloween shenanigans; and one of the freewheeling buddies on a road trip in Phillip Mackenzie, Jr.’s “Burlington” delights in picking up an eager boy-toy along the way for a fling; that love-’em-and-leave-’em style is what Kal Cobalt’s “A Recipe For…” is all about as well; and when an Asian teacher/waiter meets a pierced Aussie adventurer on a San Diego nude beach in Clarence Wong’s “Orbs,” sparks fly.
Teachers and students go at it in Dale Chase’s “Fluid Mechanics” and Andrew Warburton’s “The Manor,” two tales that get inside the heads of their characters, adding a dash of darkness to the flame of passion. In Thomas Fuchs’ “Talking to Mr. Mack,” an older man avidly absorbs the stories of hot sex recounted by the hooker he’s hired for an afternoon; in Ted Cornwell’s “The Key-Maker’s Wife,” a smitten underemployed young man discovers, to his explosive relief, that the married man he’s been lusting after for weeks isn’t all that straight; and Drew Gummerson conjures a harsh eastern European milieu where two military men connect sexually while tracking a serial killer in the tender “Intimacy.”
Rounding out the collection are two tales that forsake linear storytelling—but not sex. Arden Hill, in “Telling a Switch’s Story,” gets inside the head of a bottom with a top’s tendencies, and Christopher Schmidt, in “Three Scenes,” considers cruising other boys when the boyfriend’s away, plays nimbly with the word fuck, and dwells on butt.
Boys in Heat…that’s what this book is all about, from playful erotic encounters to muscular carnal sex.
Richard Labonté
Bowen Island, British Columbia
A RECIPE FOR…
Kal Cobalt
For M.P.
You can find your way home, right?” Scott yelled. I didn’t hear him so much as read his lips while the club’s dance music pummeled my eardrums. In the flashes of strobe light, I saw that Scott’s previously perfectly coiffed hair had fallen down over his forehead and at least two buttons of his dress shirt had come undone.
“Yeah,” I yelled back, and nodded in case he hadn’t heard me. It might have been my first night in the big city, but I knew that Scott’s abrupt absence from the dance floor for the last ten minutes plus his debauched look and frantic kiss-off equaled imminent sex at somebody else’s apartment. I was already throwing Scott off his game by staying at his place. Dragging him outside so we could have a conversation about the best way for me to get back home seemed unconscionable on top of that. It couldn’t be that hard to hail a cab.
Twenty minutes later, I was hopelessly lost. I’d headed toward what had looked like the flashing lights of more popular clubs on a main thoroughfare, only to discover that they’d been reflections of police cruiser lights on the cracked panes of an abandoned storefront. Streetlights became less frequent, and when I could see the sidewalk under my feet I saw other things I would rather not have—spent condoms, used syringes. I had no sense of which direction would get me out of the bad side of town the quickest, and then, as if to punish me for my ineptitude, it started to rain. I didn’t even have a hood on my jacket, let alone an umbrella. I hadn’t yet replaced the cell phone my ex took when I moved away, and the neighborhood seemed conspicuously cleansed of pay phones.
Two men rounded a corner ahead of me and headed in my direction, engaged in a harsh, profanity-laced debate. Shoving my hands deep into my pockets to protect them from the rain, I ducked into the nearest alley, figuring nothing could lurk there that was scarier than getting involved in the shoving match coming my way. If they followed me into the alley, I decided, I’d just turn around and hand them my wallet and watch before they asked for it. Try to save us all a little trouble.
Halfway down the alley, there was a lone dim light, and beneath it, the glare of a cigarette’s ember. As I got closer, I could make out the man who was smoking: tall and scrawny, wearing a white, food-stained apron underneath a black leather jacket. He had close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair and deep, hard eyes. He gave me a jerky little half-nod and said, “Hey.”
“Hey,” I said, and glanced behind me to make sure the arguing men weren’t following.
The man in the apron took a deep drag off his cigarette. “Lost?”
I grinned sheepishly. “It’s that obvious?”
He gave me a long, appraising look, and abruptly I wished I’d met him in a club instead of an alley. “Yeah,” he said. “Not from the city, are you?”
“No. I mean, I am now. I mean, I just moved here, today.” The rain began to seep through my jacket, and I couldn’t suppress a shudder.
He raised an eyebrow. “You’re running around the city unsupervised? That doesn’t seem wise.”
I felt my face flush. “It’s a long story.”
He grunted, then took another drag.
“Listen,” I said. “If you have a phone I could use, I’d really appreciate it. I just need a cab back to where I’m staying.”
“Where’s that?”
“With a friend.”
“No, I mean where’s the place?”
I searched my pockets for Scott’s business card. I’d written his home address on the back. “I have it here somewhere.”
He sighed. “What neighborhood?”
“I don’t know,” I confessed, searching my pockets again. “It took us about thirty minutes to get to the club but I’ve been walking for almost that long, and I’m all turned around.”
He shook his head. “Jesus. Well, come on inside, warm up a little at least.” He crushed out his cigarette and opened the door behind him.
“Thank you.” I stepped inside, blinking in surprise at what I saw. I’d understood he was a cook, but somehow I hadn’t quite expected to find myself inside a darkened professional kitchen, all stainless steel and white tile.
“Office is in here.” He led the way, plopping a giant telephone book on the cluttered desk. “Maybe you’ll get lucky and your friend has a listed address.”
“Yeah. Thanks.” I thumbed through the book, trying to ignore my shaking hands. I wasn’t that wet, just miserably cold and unable to warm up thanks to the dampness.
“Here.” He turned on a space heater and nudged it toward me with his foot before lighting up another cigarette.
“God, thank you.” I turned my chair to take full advantage of the heat, resting the phone book on my lap, and soon found Scott’s listing, complete with address.
Immediately, the cook was on the phone, not bothering to remove the cigarette from his mouth. He identified himself as what sounded like “Jaiben,” read off Scott’s address, and asked how long. Within thirty seconds flat, he was off the phone again. “Cab’ll be here in about five.”
“Thank you. I really can’t thank you enough.” I shifted in front of the space heater again, trying to at least leach the dampness out of my jeans.
“No problem,” he said, watching the way I moved around in the chair. “Smoke?”
“No, thank you.”
“Shame,” he said, exhaling a plume. “Warms you up fast.”
I laughed a little. “Well, if I find myself spending a lot of nights lost in this kind of weather, I’ll consider taking it up.”
“You really do need a keeper,” he told me. “The way you look, you should be glad you weren’t mugged in this neighborhood.”
I looked down at myself, at my best attempt to dress properly for a night of clubbing. “I tried,” I pointed out fruitlessly.
He shook his head. “It’s not the way you’re dressed. It’s the whole package. You’v
“Well, thank you for not being one of them,” I said, unsure how else to reply.
He smiled at me. “People who don’t take advantage of you have their reasons.”
Before I could ask what he meant, the phone rang, and he gestured toward the door. “Go around the front. Your cab’s waiting.”
I stood up and extended my hand. “Thank you for all your help.”
He shook my hand firmly, his eyes steady on mine. “You’re welcome.”
“And then what happened?” Scott asked, shaking Tabasco into his Bloody Mary at an alarming rate.
“And then nothing, I got in the cab and came home and went to bed.”
Scott shook his head. “You didn’t come on to him?”
“He just called me a cab and let me get warm.”
“That’s my point.”
“What was I supposed to do, ask him to share the cab?”
“That would’ve been good. Obviously, he was at the end of his shift, he had to get home somehow, right?”
“Wouldn’t he have gone home however he got there? In his car or something?”
Scott sipped his drink. “You’re overthinking. Pickup lines don’t have to make sense.”
“I don’t even know if he was gay.”
“He had to be. He stayed with you all that time, made small talk.”
I shrugged. “Back home, people are just friendly like that.”
“Back home, everybody knew you. They weren’t friendly like that once they found out why you were getting divorced, were they?”
That hurt. “That’s not fair, Scott.”
“I’m not trying to be mean, I’m just saying. Small towns operate differently. You’re either in the fold or outside it. In the city, usually attraction is a prerequisite to otherwise-unmotivated generosity.”
That sounded ugly to me, but at the same time, I liked the idea that the cook had been interested in me—I’d certainly felt an attraction. “Well, what do I do now?”
Scott shook his head. “You go back, of course.”
“What am I supposed to do, just walk into the kitchen?”
Scott looked at me as if I were pathetic. “You really are clueless, aren’t you? You go to the restaurant and tell them you’re looking for a cook who worked last night and you describe him.”
“What, tonight?”
“Do you think you’ll have better luck waiting a month? Yes, tonight.”
Just the thought of that—of walking into a restaurant and asking a total stranger to find someone I was attracted to—made my stomach shudder. “Will you come with me?”
“That pretty much defeats the purpose. You want him to know you’re single.”
“What if he’s not there?”
“What if you break your leg on the way? Don’t borrow trouble.”
“I don’t even know what I’d do if I saw him again.”
Scott rolled his eyes. “You’d say, ‘Hi, I want to thank you for your help last night. Can I treat you to a drink after your shift?’ ”
“How do you know to say stuff like that?”
“Five years in the city.”
“Well, what if he’s not interested?”
“Then he’ll say something like ‘Thanks, but that’s not necessary, and I have to get some sleep,’ and you nod and say something like ‘Okay, well, thanks again, I’ll see you around sometime,’ and you steal some flatware and you go home.”
“Scott!” I laughed despite myself. “I’m not going to steal from him.”
“I’m just saying, you suck it up. That’s all. You have no practice in sucking it up.”
“Okay, okay. I even know his name, or I sort of do. That’ll probably help.”
“What do you mean, you sort of do?”
“Well, it sounded sort of like ‘Jaiben.’ ”
Scott blinked. “How far the fuck did you walk?”
“What?”
“How far the fuck did you walk? Oh, holy fucking shit.” Scott set down his Bloody Mary and raked both hands through his unruly hair. “Oh my fucking god.”
“Scott, this isn’t funny.”
“You have a hard-on for J. Benjamin of J. Benjamin Bistro. Holy shit.” Scott blinked at me. “If he screws you, you have to ask for his truffle torte recipe. Please?”
By the time I got up the nerve to walk through the front doors of J. Benjamin Bistro, I was a wreck. Scott had shown me my crush’s photograph in the paper, the four-star review of the restaurant, the astronomically priced “Chef’s choice” menu. If I’d harbored any hope of the cook being in my league, the show-and-tell from Scott’s scrapbook dashed it.
An impeccably dressed hostess gave me a big but professional smile. “Good evening. Are you meeting a party?”
“No. I’m—well, sort of. I was hoping to talk to Mr. Benjamin for a second.”
Her smile widened. “I’m sorry, sir, but Mr. Benjamin is working in the kitchen this evening and is unavailable. Do you have a business card I can give to him?”
“Uh. No.” Of course he was busy with the dinner rush. I couldn’t help feeling a little angry at Scott; he would have known that, should have stopped me from making a fool of myself. “I was just—I got lost last night and he helped me, and I wanted to thank him.”
“Oh!” She gave me a more sincere smile then. “He told me that story. It was very sweet.” She favored me with a conspiratorial little look. “Would you like to have a seat and I’ll see if he knows when he might be available?”
“That would be great. Thank you.” I dropped into the chair before my knees gave out. I couldn’t even begin to reason out what his storytelling meant.
Soon the hostess was back, still smiling. “It’s a very busy night, but if you have time, he’d like you to have a snack on the house and join him once things slow down enough for him to take a break.”
I managed a stunned smile. “Thank you, that would be—I don’t have anywhere else to be.”
She escorted me to a small table in a corner. Within moments, I had a tall glass of water and an elegant little plate of cheese and fruit before me. I nibbled, trying not to freak out.
Half an hour later, the hostess led me back to the kitchen, where half a dozen cooks worked feverishly over stovetops and counters. “J. Ben?” she called.
“Hey.” He came around the center island, and I lost my breath. Even without the leather jacket, the attraction was still there; the apron clung to his slender frame, and sweat darkened the roots of his hair.
“Hi,” I said. “Um—I didn’t mean to bother you.”
“No bother. I’m going out for a cigarette.” He jerked his head toward the door. “C’mon.”
I followed him out to the alley, which didn’t look nearly as intimidating in the twilight. “I guess I don’t know why I’m here,” I stammered. “I just wanted to thank you for helping me. I wanted you to know I got home okay.”
He leaned back against the alley wall, smirking as he took out his cigarettes. “And got back here okay, too.”
“Well…yeah.” I felt like a complete dork. How had I failed to realize that he was far too experienced to be interested in me? “You really didn’t have to send free food—I should pay you for that. I came to say thank you, you don’t owe me anything.”
He breathed a cigarette to life, waving off my concern. “Don’t worry about it. I was glad you came back.”
“You were? I mean, you are?”
He smiled. “Sure.”
“Mr. Benjamin, I—”
“Nah. Ben.”
I swallowed. “Ben. I came back because, uh…” I swallowed again. All I could think was that he would laugh at me, embarrass me, send me away. “I don’t know if you’re…interested or even if you go this way, but…”
