Table of Contents
For Asa:
still crazy about the boy man
after all these years
INTRODUCTION
B
oy crazy. Crazy about the boy. That’s what self-aware homosexuals are all about, in the beginning, when they’re young, as they pass from adolescence into young adulthood, from their teens into their twenties, when inner need and outer gaze come together to focus, sometimes on the whole world of young men around them, sometimes on a singular, special guy. Some of them have never, or almost never, been kissed by another young man—until now, in this unique erotic collection of young adult fiction, coming-out tales, and accounts of first-time sexual experiences and romantic encounters that build into love everlasting. These are the stories of those boys, and the boys who are crazy about them.
Some of them are college students…
In “The Viking,” a bony, politically progressive post-nerd cynic finds exuberant physical and safe emotional harbor in the muscles of a redheaded football player. In “Army Brat,” the closet doors open for two scholarship musicians whose professor is an unwitting role model. In “War and Peace,” a Dutch student and an American student spurned by their girlfriends learn they have more in common than a cramped apartment near the Berkeley campus. In “To Thine Own Self,” a studious, reticent queer lad lusts for the same theater student his overbearing sister thinks belongs to her. And in “Treasure Map,” a freshman, smitten by the boy across the hall, “will never let him fall.”
Some of them hook up out in the world…
In “Sundelin,” a young man who has “never been with a dude,” but who knows what he so desperately wants, cruises—stalks, really—his barista. In “Mercutio’s Romeo,” a provincial theater production of
Romeo and Juliet
brings Romeo together with…Mercutio. In “Game Boyz,” an afternoon in a video arcade transforms the closeted life of a lad lusting after his straight best friend—when a boy named Zen comes into his life. In “After Stoolball,” two summer farm workers find sexual freedom, and each other, in the lush fields. In “The Pasta Closet,” a young man in his twenties finally has sex with a stud he has desired since boyhood. And in “This Is Not Your Country,” a traveling Canadian escapes his metrosexual companions with a native named Valentino and a motorcycle named Paolo.
For some of them, first crushes and first lusts—but not a first real relationship—come young…
In “Paperboys,” a lad yearns for the companion who wasn’t really gay. In “Larry and His Father,” a lad who builds his body up in pursuit of his school chum learns that he can be both queer and strong.
Some of them were younger once, and remember when…
In “August,” a reticent, love-struck teen’s first time comes one summer on the ocean, with a gentle young fisherman. In “Coming of Age,” a couple who have been together for decades recall the brutal night of violation that led them to each other’s arms. In “A Beautiful Motorcycle,” a junior high student’s one night with the senior who was his sister’s boyfriend lives with him forever.
And in “The Dolphin Temple,” it’s so okay to be gay that the cum of young men, in a queerly fantastical world, is a religious experience.
Boys being crazy about boys: it’s nature’s way if you’re gay.
Richard Labonté
Bowen Island, BC
PAPERBOYS
Natty SoltesZ
T
hey met on an early summer morning with mist over the grass, a young day with no night in sight. Carl had been delivering newspapers since March; it was Nate’s second day. Their routes intersected on Walnut Street. They found they lived just across the railroad tracks from one another, and like the random combination of a lock their friendship tumbled into place.
Sometimes the papers arrived late at the newsstand. They sat waiting in the back of the store, their newsprint-grayed paper-bags protecting their butts from the dusty linoleum. Carl got up and walked past the magazines (the pornos on the top rack tantalizingly wrapped in plastic) to the paperback racks. He leafed through a romance novel, stopping when he hit on a good part, waiting for Nate to investigate.
“What are you reading that for?” Nate asked, and Carl showed him. It was less than three pages of heaving breasts and throbbing manhoods and red-hot centers, but it was enough. Better yet, the romance rack was full of them, all creased to the sweet spots for easy access. They would read next to each other in silent appreciation, crouched on the floor below the view of the clerk, knees sore, secret boners folded into their shorts.
“These make me want to play with myself,” Nate said.
“Gross,” Carl said.
“It’s not gross. Everybody does it. Even my dad plays with himself.”
Nate’s dad Mario collected comics. So did Nate. Carl read them but wasn’t into superhero stuff like Nate and his dad. He liked weirder ones, such as
Tales from the Crypt
and
The Sandman
.
Mario’s den was right below Nate’s bedroom. It smelled like wood and rare books and was strictly off limits.
“He has
Playboy
s down there somewhere but I’ve never been able to find them,” Nate said. He pointed to a vent in his floor. “He can hear everything that goes on up here.”
They were having a sleepover in Nate’s bedroom, and apropos of nothing Nate decided to change his underwear.
“Don’t turn around,” Nate said, standing behind Carl. Carl stayed still as Nate’s cotton briefs laved his smooth thighs. “Don’t look, I’m naked,” Nate said, then Carl heard a slow sliding up, the snap of fresh elastic. “Okay, you can look.” Nate smiled a dimpled smile.
“Should I sleep on the floor?” Carl said.
“No, we can both use my bed; we’ll just stay in our sleeping bags.” When Carl came back from the bathroom Nate was already tucked in.
“Why are you wearing all that?” Nate said.
“I don’t know.”
“I just wear my underwear to bed. Sometimes I even sleep naked.” Nate didn’t let go of the issue. “Don’t you get hot? That’s stupid to wear all those clothes.” Carl conceded, but waited till he was under the covers to strip down.
Nate was the first one up that morning.
“I’ve got a boner,” he said.
“You’re sick,” Carl said.
“It’s right here under my sleeping bag.”
“At least you have underwear on.”
“I don’t anymore. I always take them off in my sleep. See?” Nate pulled his briefs from under his body. He tossed them onto Carl’s face. They were warm. Carl threw them to the floor, acting disgusted. “So yeah,” Nate said. “I’m totally naked with a boner right now.”
“What is wrong with you?”
“Nothing. I get a boner every morning, don’t you?”
“Sometimes.”
“What about right now?”
“No,” Carl lied.
“Now I’m touching mine,” Nate said, his hand rustling in the right spot.
“Oh, my god.”
“I dare you to touch yours then lick your hand.”
“Seriously?”
“That’s not so gross, right? Brandon was daring everyone to do it after gym last year. They all acted like it was sick but I couldn’t figure out what the big deal was.” Then: “I’ll do it if you do it.” Carl followed Nate, sliding his hand under his briefs and laying his cool palm on his warm erection. Nate pulled out his hand, slathering his tongue across his palm and fingers without hesitation. Carl followed suit. It tasted salty but not like anything.
“Now put your hand back on it,” Nate said. They did, lying with breathless silence, their slick palms against their hard-ons.
“C’mon, you’ve got a boner too. Admit it.”
Just then Nate’s dad opened the door. Carl moved his hand off of his crotch too quickly.
“I thought I heard you guys,” he said, looking into Carl’s reddened face.
“Do you believe in ghosts?” Nate asked Carl one waning wasted summer evening on Nate’s back porch.
“Sort of,” Carl said.
“What do you think happens when you die?”
“I think you could stay around if you wanted to.”
“But you wouldn’t necessarily haunt people.”
“Totally. You could haunt people if you wanted to, or you could just hang around. You could live in your same house and go anywhere you used to. You could watch people and they’d never know you were there,” Carl said.
“You could watch them do anything,” Nate said. “You could watch them go to the bathroom.” They laughed.
At home in bed Carl closed his eyes and visualized the walk to Nate and Mario’s house. He placed himself in a corner of their bathroom and watched.
Nate was a grade behind Carl, but they were both in the same building, Groom Junior High. Though best friends, they were removed from one another during school, merely exchanging hellos in the hall.
In the afternoon they’d walk home together with two neighborhood girls, and it was through those girls that Carl learned Nate was declared to have the best butt in his class.