Best Gay Erotica of the Year, Volume 1

by Rob Rosen

  Case tilted his head and took another drag. He knew better than to get involved. Odds were that whoever this Lucas was, he didn’t want to be found—unless he was dead, in which case there wasn’t much anyone could do anyway. When the stranger took a step forward, out of the backlighting and into the darkness that Case’s eyes had already become accustomed to, he sized the guy up. Important to know whether he was a threat, a nuisance or a possible trick. The casual clothes beneath a rumpled overcoat and knock-off shoes were accompanied by a plain, clean-shaven face and thinning, sandy-blond hair. He looked to be in his midthirties. The only other visible details were a plain wedding band and a pin on his lapel, a little gold cross. Nuisance, Case concluded.

  While making this quick, professional assessment, Case was also taking in the man’s evaluation of him. He was likely calculating younger than Case actually was, for starters. Case made good use of that frequent misperception, getting breaks from cops or demanding big bucks from clients who sought underage action. The guy’s gentle expression also said he judged Case to be both no threat and in need.

  He was seriously wrong on both counts.

  “Excuse me,” the nuisance said again, a bit louder but still mildly, taking another step forward.

  “Not interested,” Case flatly answered, exhaling a plume of rich, curling smoke in the intruder’s direction.

  The man waved it away and sighed, deeply. Case imagined careworn wrinkles in the oaf’s brow and the corners of his eyes. The exhaustion was obvious and audible. “No one is. Interested, that is. To help,” came the winded reply. “Damn it, Lucas.”

  Case had no interest in a stranger’s self-pity, but he didn’t own the alley, so he simply turned his face away and flicked ash. This wasn’t how he wanted to spend the sweet, usually quiet hour before dawn, after which he’d head back up to sleep like the dead until late afternoon.

  “I don’t suppose,” the man started once more, “you’ve seen a boy…tall…a teenager? Black hair with heavy bangs?” He paused. “Um…dark brown eyes…pierced lip?”

  Case felt the man’s gaze upon him, and he shrugged. He might have seen the kid. Lots of boys looked like that. Still, he was beginning to reach his saturation point with this smoke-ruining do-gooder.

  The nuisance seemed to sense Case’s impatience, but misinterpreted it. “Hey,” he said, softly, stepping closer and, at six feet or taller, casting Case fully into shadow. “Do you need a place to crash?”

  Case sucked his teeth as he dropped his clove butt and ground it out. He faced the interloper. “Get the fuck out of here.” There was more ridicule than threat in his tone.

  The man reached out a hand, but stopped short of touching as Case began to step around him. “Wait, please.”

  “Look, if I did know this Lucas, I wouldn’t tell you. For all I know, it’s you he’s trying to get away from.”

  The interloper grimaced as Case walked by. “Dear Lord,” he murmured, “help me on this difficult path.”

  With a shake of his head, Case left the alley.

  The man didn’t follow, but his voice grew louder. “Shall I give up on my search and take this chance encounter with another lost soul as a sign? Father and Redeemer, let me know Your will.”

  If there was anything Case loathed more than an imbecile ruining a morning smoke, it was clergy. Plus, he now knew this guy was one of those youth ministers that this part of the city was far too full of, with their “rescue” hostels for runaway queers. Case’s desire for sleep was nudged aside by the itch to teach this prayerful prick a lesson. He turned back and, suppressing the desire to kick Pastor Pain-in-the-Ass in the crotch, spoke quietly, an angelic smile stretching over his small, heart-shaped face. “Amen.”

  Case barely kept a straight face as the sucker’s expression grew hopeful. “Why are you looking for him? Lucas, I mean.” The skills that made him a successful hooker could’ve made him a fine actor in another life.

  “Lucas ran away from home and came to us. I’m a pastor, Mike. I help run Saint Mark’s Rescue. Do you know it?”

  Case nodded. Everyone who hustled on this part of 53rd knew it. Fanny called Saint Mark’s “The Rest Home” because they took in a lot of street kids who weren’t making it and gave them food to eat and a bed to sleep in. But they also told families where their sons were, whether the boys wanted that or not—and mostly it was not. Mix this with a heaping dose of hypocritical Christian brainwashing, and you drove already desperate queer teens into a situation worse than death—or one that led right to it. Better to find a life on the street, like Case had, than suicide.

  “His parents have been trying to reach out to him,” Pastor Mike went on, confirming Case’s every thought, “and we were acting as a bridge between the two when Lucas ran away again, this time from us.”

  No shit, Sherlock, thought Case. With anger steeped in past experience, Case wanted to tell this Saint Mark’s pastor off. But he knew that wouldn’t teach the guy anything. Instead, he used hard-won self-control to reply, “That’s too bad. Sorry, I don’t know him…Mike.” The name came out almost a question, a beckoning whisper.

  The man shivered, turning up his collar against what he’d evidently decided was the cold. “I appreciate your kindness…uh…?” He extended his hand.

  “Jamie,” Case readily supplied. He didn’t offer a last name, playing up the unthreatening persona before taking the older man’s hand, which dwarfed his own. They usually did. He kept his grip light, not wanting this moron to know his strength any more than he wanted him to know his real name, that he’d turned twenty-three last month, or that he lived in the building beside them.

  The pastor firmly shook his hand. “So, Jamie…”

  Case looked up, knowing the effect his blue, almond-shaped eyes had on people, especially set in his dark-complected face. When johns weren’t remarking on how young he looked, they were gawping at what they thought of as exoticness.

  “What are you doing out here so late?” Mike added.

  Case innocently shrugged, taking a step back into the alley. “This is where I work.” He watched Mike take a closer look. It was your average, narrow passage between buildings, full of garbage bins and assorted debris. Farther down, a filthy mattress, half-propped against the far wall, lent credence to the lie.

  Case watched Mike draw the logical conclusion. He could tell that the sight and its implications tweaked the pastor’s compassion. He slipped his hand back into Mike’s and squeezed it. Their eyes met. “Don’t worry,” Case cooed. “Sometimes I make enough to get a room somewhere. Or sometimes a…someone lets me stay the night.” He frowned.

  “What’s wrong?” asked his one-man audience, right on cue.

  “Nothing…just…one time…it was an undercover cop.” He winced. “He didn’t like guys like me.…” He dropped his eyes and let his voice trail off, so his listener could fill in the blanks. Rape? Filthy prison cell?

  Whatever the pastor pictured did the trick, as it were. Mike took Case into his arms and soothed, “Poor, poor child. Such a terrible life. Such…unnatural acts.”

  And there it was, clear as the day that was nearly dawning: the special pity reserved for fags. Homelessness was terrible, selling your body was awful, but homosexuality was worst of all. Case let himself be embraced and pressed his face into the gap in Mike’s coat. He feigned a shudder that could be taken for a silent sob.

  Mike looked down, arms still circling what he no doubt saw as his precious prey, ripe for salvation. Forgotten was Lucas, wherever he was, especially when Case tipped his head back to meet Mike’s watery gray eyes. “Let me take you away,” said Mike.

  There was feigned panic in Case’s long-lashed gaze, even as he relished the expression of desire betrayed in Mike’s invitation. “But I can’t.”

  “Don’t be afraid,” Mike reassured. “God has brought me to you.” Whether Case was actually scared or what he might be frightened of didn’t seem to matter to the man of God. He was no doubt cherishing the rig
hteousness of his mission. He put two fingers beneath Case’s pointed chin, beaming down with what passed for sanctification in his smile.

  Case reacted immediately. Rising onto his toes and quickly slipping a small hand around Mike’s neck, he pulled the older man in for a kiss—a long, unchaste kiss. When he at last released his mouth from the pastor’s, he purred, “God is good.”

  Maybe it was surprise that had opened Mike’s mouth to receive Case’s lustful benediction, but the prideful pastor hadn’t even tried to push him away. “Yes, yes He is,” came the stammered reply. Mike blushed and finally seemed to remember to take his arms from around “Jamie.”

  “Jamie,” meanwhile, was quickly become predatory. Case pressed his body more fully against the pastor’s and slipped his free hand inside Mike’s coat, eyes downcast. “Warm,” he explained. He was quickly rewarded by the return of large, strong arms, holding him close.

  “Everything will be all right now,” Mike assured him. “If you come with me, child.”

  Case shook his head determinedly. Then he looked up once more, dripping with earnestness, determined not to let the self-deceiving asshole forget what had just transpired between them. “I’m glad you’re not mad that I kissed you.”

  Mike forced a chuckle. “You aren’t the first boy to try to kiss me, Jamie.” His voice was oily as it smoothed over Case, who hadn’t tried; he had succeeded. “It isn’t your fault,” the clergyman continued, lowering his voice. His confidence grew as he eased into his pastorly patter. “You don’t know any better. I see that. The Lord forgives, and so do I.”

  Mike pushed gently out of his arms and laid a finger across Case’s moist, parted lips, just as the whore was ready to make another sinful move. “What if you pray with me?” he asked. “Would you do that, Jamie? Pray with me, and perhaps the Lord will help you find your way into His loving embrace. Nothing feels so right as having God inside you, deep inside you.”

  Case turned away to avoid laughing out loud. Did the guy ever listen to himself?

  Mike mistook the reaction for shame and gently turned Case back around. “Just pray with me, child.” He stroked Case’s short, shiny black hair in the city’s predawn darkness. “Let Him help me to help you.”

  Case kept his smirk at bay by pressing his lips tightly together as he nodded assent. Following Mike’s lead, he folded his hands. Mike began: “Dear Lord, we come to you, humble sinners in this, our hour of need.” While Mike’s mouth was working and his hands were busily seeking divine aid, Case quietly knelt on the cold, dirty pavement of the alley. He heard the pastor’s voice catch, and then felt the large hand on his head. “Come to us, O Lord, come.”

  Case made his move. He swiftly unfastened Mike’s belt and opened his fly to dig out his average-sized cock. It was harder than it should have been, given both the occasion and the weather, but it grew even harder once he slid it into his mouth. A shocked gasp was the pastor’s only attempt at protest as Case worked his balls out with practiced skill. His hands were warming what his mouth wasn’t as Mike attempted to restart his prayer. He only got as far as “Oh God.” Case gave a loud slurp as his amen.

  Mike stumbled back until he was leaning against the grimy brick. Case didn’t miss a beat—a matter of professional pride, even in these exceptional circumstances. He sucked and tongued, then pulled up to work the slit of the clean, circumcised prick. He tugged the base of the shaft gently with one hand, while the other massaged the heavy balls. His efforts were rewarded with a groan from above. He flicked his eyes upward. Mike’s head was tipped back, his eyes squeezed shut.

  To keep his fish on the hook, Case took him in, releasing his hands from cock and balls only to tightly grasp the idiot’s hips. As Mike began to leak, Case drew up and down on the pastoral rod, pausing now and again to press his cold nose against the warm crotch. A little gasp at each frigid nuzzle prompted an echoing sound from Case: an encouraging whimper, a lusty whine. Before he was done, Pastor Mike would be hot as hell, inside and out.

  Yet, considered Case as he performed, perhaps hell was not entirely appropriate, for the charlatan did not seem as contemptible as Case had originally thought. He was deluded, yes, but he was no predator. He might have dipped his staff in the well of fornication a time or two, but he had removed his hands from Case’s head to clutch at the soiled blocks at his back.

  So, fine, the man was seriously closeted. His expertise—offered without charge—would help poor Pastor Mike face down that demon.

  Case reached a hand to the back of Mike’s waistband. He sucked hard as he firmly squeezed Mike’s ass. With his free hand, he stroked the hard, leaking shaft and dipped down to nibble the pastor’s sac, careful not to let things get too cold in the open air. He grinned to himself when he felt Mike’s hand on his head again. Before the older man could do more than stroke his hair, Case swallowed him back down, right to the root. Mike held his breath and tensed, and though Case didn’t truly fear the man would bolt before he’d accomplished his little act of charity, he knew it was time to up his game.

  Digging into the loosened trousers, Case let his fingers wander where, according to the Gospel of Pastor Mike, no man’s fingers should ever wander, even as he sucked harder and faster. He pressed a digit to the hole and then down to that sweet spot behind his balls. Mike responded with a hoarse little cry and his hips moved—no doubt to get those fingers right back where he wanted them. Owned, Case thought with a smirk as he hummed around the cock in his mouth. The pastor’s hips moved again, this time with insistence. It was an unambiguous gesture, but Case was running this show. He pushed his body into Mike’s, breathing hard through his nose around the shaft when the upstroke permitted it. Then, withdrawing completely while tickling that dark entrance once again, he raised his eyes and said, “I like this unnatural act.”

  Mike gave a low, stuttered groan, and Case rejoiced in their increasingly public display, now that the streets were no longer as empty as they were when their little encounter began. Too bad Mike was too far gone to recognize the shameful truth that he was getting his dick blown in an alley that anyone could walk into. A momentary desire to have one of the local boys in blue haul them both off almost made Case lose his rhythm. Instead, he gripped Mike’s cock at the base and proceeded to lick and suck the head, teasing hard before he went in for the kill.

  Case’s finishing move—aka sucking your brains out though your cock—had its immediate impact, Pastor Mike’s knees buckling as Case deep-throated him and shoved a finger up his ass. A quick glance up showed a red face grimacing skyward in agony, bliss or perhaps a powerful plea, fingers tangled in Case’s hair. Case knew he could pull off, pull out, prolong the torture, or make the man come like a teenager. Heat was pouring off the guy. Case swallowed around the shaft, which he held in his throat, feeling his muscles work the meat. The sound Mike made in response was barely human, a cat in heat or a clubbing teen on ecstasy.

  Case opted for torture next. Drawing up and sliding down again, he couldn’t help but think of his actions as milking out the truth, bringing the self-deceptive tool to a reality he’d been too long denying. When Mike glanced down, Case’s bright eyes were waiting to meet his. He could feel Mike’s need. One heartbeat passed, then two. Case savored the moment, this control he exerted so easily and so well. The man knew what was happening, what they were doing and what he wanted. That was Case’s price. A third heartbeat, and before Mike’s lips could fully part, Case doubled down.

  With Case’s finger crooked to massage his prostate and the youth’s forehead pressed into Mike’s belly, the pastor at last lost it. The balls in Case’s expert grip tightened and the cock swelled and exploded in orgasm. Case was almost impressed as he swallowed spurt after thick, hot spurt, finally pulling off to let a last shot decorate his face as he stroked the rapidly softening shaft. If there was any denial left in the depleted and defeated figure above him, let him look upon his works and despair—or delight—and then rebuild his life around it. Even the solid wall
behind him couldn’t keep the fallen man from dropping to his hands and knees as he rocked with aftershocks, laboring to catch his breath. “Dear God,” he panted.

  As he fell, Case rose and, looking kindly down upon the beneficiary of his ministrations, brushed grime from his knees. When Mike blinked up at him in the dawning light, Case casually licked a drop of come from the corner of his mouth and quoted, “The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together, and a little child will lead them.” With a wink and thoughts of a second shower and a long, satisfying sleep, Case stepped out of the alley.

  “What?” whined Mike after him, voice rewardingly lost.

  Without breaking stride, Case tossed over his shoulder, “Isaiah, chapter eleven: verse six.”

  WHIP IT OUT

  K. B. Jett

  Fuckbuddies, that’s what we were. Well, something along those lines. Though that’s not what we did—fuck, that is.

  It all started innocently enough. We were at one of those work-related, team-building camps, somewhere out in the middle of the woods, amid the trees and all that fresh air that my city lungs couldn’t quite grow accustomed to.

  There were ten of us and one outhouse; not a good ratio, not by a long shot. That first afternoon, I had to pee and the hut was occupied, so I hightailed out into the woods to find a wide pine tree to hide behind. Only, I didn’t go far enough. Frank, a coworker of mine, had the same idea. He approached from my left and stood a few trees over from me.

  “This sucks, huh?” he said. “I can think of a million things I’d rather be doing on my weekend than pissing in the woods.” I laughed and nodded my agreement, still with my fingers locked on my zipper. Frank waited and then asked, “What, are you pee shy? Go ahead, whip it out.”