Best Gay Romance 2014

by R. D. Cochrane

  “You want a bath, Shep?” Isaac didn’t have dog shampoo but boy shampoo couldn’t hurt. It wasn’t like Isaac bought Axe. “Come along.” Before he opened the door, he remembered Lily and bent to grab Shep’s collar, muttering, “You will not chase my cat.”

  Just in time. Glowering, Lily sat in the doorway between kitchen and living room. Shep made a strangled noise but didn’t struggle. Nevertheless, Lily spat and fled. Still holding on, Isaac led the dog the other way, to the bathroom between his room and Caro’s.

  Washing a dog was far less traumatic than the one time Isaac had tried to bathe Lily, though Shep had at least thirty pounds on her. He seemed to enjoy it. It took six bath towels to get him back to acceptably damp, though, and Isaac eyed Caro’s blowdryer speculatively for a moment. He was sodden himself, hands and arms cruddy with long black and white hairs. Sitting on the floor, he hugged the towel-wrapped dog for a long time. Shep smelled like pomegranates. Lily might have purred, if Lily put up with hugs. “You’re more comforting than my cat, Shep,” he murmured, feeling disloyal, and Shep licked his ear.

  Isaac decided not to risk leaving Shep alone in his room. Too many things for a curious wet dog to get into, too much cat smell—sleeping on his pillow was the acme of Lily’s displays of affection—and the latch wasn’t trustworthy. Leaving the damp, hairy towels to make a nest, he said, “Lie down, Shep.”

  Obliging, Shep curled up, looking dramatic against forestgreen and dusty-rose terry cloth. Isaac pulled his damp, hairy T-shirt off and unclasped his belt, then glanced at the dog regarding him calmly, steadily. It was stupid, but Isaac turned his back before getting naked. “Just us boys,” he muttered, climbing into the tub, praying Shep hadn’t used up all the hot water.

  He hadn’t, but the loose hair he’d left clogged the drain so that scummy water climbed to Isaac’s ankles before he was ready to get out from under the shower. The thought that finally moved him was: What if somebody comes home early? How would Shep react to people noises outside the locked door? How would people react to Shep? Isaac’s dad would be all How brave of you to plunge into the ocean to rescue an innocent puppy! but Caro and their mom were weirdly protective of bad-tempered Lily’s sensibilities. Although Lily was Isaac’s cat. He’d named her, he fed her and cleaned her litter box.

  Shep raised his head with a grin when Isaac emerged from behind the shower curtain. The way the dog looked at him made Isaac stupidly self-conscious. He dried off fast—it was great to be warm again—wrapped his own towel around his waist, grabbed Shep by the collar and stuck his head out the door. Lily was lurking in the hall. She glared until Shep’s head came out at knee height, then dashed away. “See?” said Isaac. “You’d better have owners because there’s no way you could ever live here.” Then, feeling anticipatorily wistful, “I hope they’ll let me visit you.”

  He brought Shep into his bedroom, dressed quickly, then left him with a stern, “Three minutes—no mischief,” to extract the plug of dog hair from the bathtub drain and throw the towels in the washing machine.

  No mischief. Shep hadn’t even climbed onto the bed. “Who’s a good boy? If I had a Milk-Bone it’d be yours right now.” Gazing at Shep, sitting neatly, patiently, eyes shining, Isaac thought, I really want to keep you. What kind of cat guy does that make me? “Let’s get out of here. Have to get you home. Heel, Shep. No chasing the cat.”

  Shep at his heel, he opened the door. Lily had apparently learned her lesson and was nowhere to be seen. Shep followed him obediently through the house, the yard, to the car. He hopped in, maybe a little less eagerly than the first time. Isaac leaned in to ruffle his ears before closing the door. “You’re going home, boy,” he said, wondering if that was really a good thing. What kind of owners let their dog loose on the streets?

  In the driver’s seat, he took two minutes to program Shep’s address into the GPS app of his phone, ignored yet another text from Meg, and then turned it off before it could start giving him directions to the highway. Seventeen minutes later, at a red light on the edge of built-up Pacific Grove, he turned it on again, followed its peremptory turn-by-turns until he reached a pleasant-looking bungalow with a gabled dormer window above the wide, shadowy front porch. There was plenty of room at the curb, no need for fancy parallel parking or the rearview mirror. Parked, engine off, he said, “Shep?”

  From the backseat, an unmistakably human voice said, “Umm. Yeah?”

  The shoulder belt tried to kill Isaac when he whipped around and craned to look between the seats. “What?” he yelped.

  The boy in Isaac’s backseat said uncertainly, “Shep. That’s my name.” The cute boy in cute glasses and nothing else except a leather cord and a house key around his neck. He seemed to realize he was nude in the same instant as Isaac and moved his hands to cover his crotch.

  “You—”

  “Breathe. Listen. Yes, I know. I was a dog a minute ago. Weird, huh? So weird let’s neither of us think about it.” His voice made Isaac tingle. He offered a smile that was half apology, half gratitude. “So as long as I’m in your car and you know my name, what’s yours?”

  “Uh—”

  “No, really.”

  “Isaac.” Isaac swallowed. Boy Shep was extremely cute, his thick black hair tousled into tufts and his caramel-colored eyes magnified by the spectacles. “Look, is that actually your house? Because you’re, uh, naked in my car on a public street.”

  “I am, aren’t I?” Shep glanced out the window. “Yeah, that’s it. But the parents are out of town this week and I’m, like, lacking pockets, so no key.”

  “Around your neck.”

  Raising his eyebrows above the frames of his glasses, Shep lifted one hand to his chest. Nice chest. A little sprinkle of hair down the middle. “Huh,” he said. “Whoever turned me into a dog was thinking ahead.”

  “It had your address on it when it was a tag on your collar. And your name.”

  Shep shrugged. “I’m still stark naked and I have to say the thought of streaking across my front yard and fumbling with the lock in broad daylight doesn’t fill me with joy.”

  Isaac blinked, thinking he wouldn’t mind if Shep never put on clothes again. But that was unreasonable. “It’s ugly,” he said, nodding at the puddle of yellow hoodie on the seat next to Shep, “but you could cover the strategic bits with that. Until you get inside.”

  “I guess. Huh—oh, wait. You’re coming with me.”

  “I am?”

  Shep nodded vigorously. “Don’t even think about driving away.”

  Intensely relieved, Isaac nodded back. “You wanna? I’ll check if there’s people gawking.”

  “Not really, but I guess.”

  Pulling the keys from the ignition and grabbing his phone, Isaac got out. He looked up and down the street, at the houses on either side. He stuck his head back in, said, “Coast looks clear.”

  Wearing the hoodie like a saffron-colored diaper, Shep hopped out of the car and dashed up the path and the porch stairs. Shadow hardly obscured his bare back and brilliant yellow ass while he unlocked the front door. Isaac realized he was short—not dwarfish, but shorter than him. He’d always liked tall guys before, but tall guys weren’t Shep. Isaac beeped the car doors locked and followed. Shep was already inside, poking his head around the open door. “Come on, Isaac!”

  “Sorry,” Isaac began to say, but Shep slammed the door.

  “Naked here,” he blurted, scampering away. The sweatshirt diaper fell off. “Need clothes.”

  No, you don’t, Isaac wanted to say, watching Shep’s cute butt vanish around a corner. Just us boys. No big. No homo. He plucked up the yellow hoodie and started after. No—plenty of homo. I could take mine off, too.

  Around the corner, three doors off the short hallway were closed. “Shep?” Isaac called.

  “Upstairs.”

  The voice came down around another corner. Isaac hadn’t noticed the stairs that started under the stained-glass window at the end of the hall. He climbed halfway, pa
used when he saw the poster on the landing wall where the stairs took a right angle. It had a LOLdog caption but he didn’t read it: the border collie running down a beach looked so much like the dog Shep had been that he choked. Anxious, he clattered up the last few steps, burst through the open door.

  In the center of the attic bedroom, still a boy, Shep was half into a T-shirt. When he pulled it down, the neckband dislodged his glasses and he had to grab for them before they fell out the bottom. The three inches of his boxers exposed by unbelted jeans had a print of gamboling puppies—Isaac couldn’t be sure they were border collies. Before he put the glasses back on, Shep looked up and grinned. “Hey.” His brown eyes were just as pretty naked. Thick black lashes. “Now I’m at less of a disadvantage.”

  Isaac tried to smile back. Before he knew what was happening, Shep was right up close. He grabbed both Isaac’s arms, went up on tiptoes and kissed him.

  Scared out of his wits, Isaac kissed him back. It went on a long time. He needed a place to put his hands, which turned out to be Shep’s butt. Without his actually thinking about it, his fingertips dug in. It felt really good, but not as good as kissing and being kissed.

  Gasping, Shep broke off for a breath but didn’t let Isaac go. He said, “Oh, good, you are gay.”

  “Uh, yeah?”

  “You don’t have a boyfriend already, do you? I don’t want to step on any toes.”

  Shep, Isaac discovered, was standing barefoot on the toes of his sneakers. He inhaled. “There’s a guy—” Jackson. Jackson the surfer. Who he’d forgotten all about until now and who was taken, and if surreally handsome, wasn’t as real as this boy. “No. No, there isn’t. No, I don’t.” Holding on to Shep’s butt, he pulled the real boy closer. “I’d like to, though.”

  “Me, too,” Shep said, and kissed him again.

  That went on, deliciously, until the phone in Isaac’s pocket trilled. Shep said into his open mouth, “Maybe you should get that.”

  “It’s just a text. Just Meg.”

  “Meg?” Not letting go, Shep leaned back to look into Isaac’s eyes. “Meg Stornoway?”

  “You know Meg?”

  “I’m the editor of PG High’s annual lit ’zine, she edits your school’s, so yeah. I think I might be pissed at her now, though, for never introducing me to you.”

  “Uh,” said Isaac as an extremely peculiar feeling rippled down his spine. Without allowing Shep to fall, he fumbled the phone out one-handed, thumbed at icons on the screen. So, the newest Meg text read, is Shep a good kisser? Showing it to Shep, Isaac said, “That bitch. That witch. She turned you into a dog.”

  “Do you wish she hadn’t?” Shep asked.

  Isaac didn’t have an answer so he kissed the adorable boy hanging on to his shoulders. First time he’d initiated one. He might be getting the hang of it. When they were both breathless again, he gasped, “Do you?”

  “I—” Hugging him harder, Shep laid his head on Isaac’s shoulder. “I liked it. I didn’t understand it, because I was a dog, and it was really frustrating when you started talking to me and I didn’t know what the words meant. But I liked it. But I don’t want to do it again. I want to be me, a boy, with a—with an incredibly cute potential boyfriend who saved my life.” His hand gripped Isaac’s ass almost painfully. “That’s you, you know. Saved my life and gave me a bath.”

  “I’m not cute.”

  Shep let go abruptly, took a step back, looking fierce behind his glasses. “A lot you know, Isaac Whatever-your-last-name-is. Your nose is cute. Your eyes are cute. Your lips and five-o’clock shadow and freckles are cute. Your ginger hair. You being just the right bit taller than me is adorable. You taking care of me when I was a dumb animal was beyond cute.”

  Isaac gulped. “You’re the cute one, Shep. My last name is Hadley.”

  Shep snorted. “Mine’s Power. What’re you gonna tell Meg?”

  Isaac looked at the phone still in his hand. He thumbed icons, then the keyboard. The. Best, he typed, and showed it to Shep before hitting SEND. “I don’t have much experience, Shep Power, but I stand by that.”

  “We can practice more if you like,” said Shep.

  Isaac felt his face go hot.

  “Your blushes are cute!” crowed Shep.

  “Umm,” said Isaac, cheeks getting hotter. Then he leaned forward to kiss Shep again. Who still smelled like pomegranate shampoo and maybe a little bit like wet dog.

  THERE’S NO QUESTION IT’S LOVE

  N. S. Beranek

  The old well is located in an odd place. Near the front corner of our lawn, it’s just far enough away from both the street and the driveway to make converting its waist-high bricks into a mailbox holder a pointless endeavor. You’d have to tromp over too much grass to reach it for that to be viable in this place, where it rains more days than it’s dry.

  When I reach him, Bob is leaning over the curving brick, holding a penny between his thumb and forefinger. It’s clear he’s about to drop it through one of the squares in the section of rabbit-wire fencing that we put over the well’s opening to keep small children and animals from falling down it.

  Though it’s obvious what he’s doing, I feel compelled to ask.

  “Making a wish?”

  “No.”

  It takes me a few seconds to process that he’s replied negatively. “No?”

  “No.”

  Okaaaaay, I think. “Then what are you doing?”

  He shrugs. “I don’t know.” He exhales deeply, the sound of a man who feels the weight of the world bearing down on him. “Conditioning myself, I suppose.”

  “To what?”

  “To having nothing happen.” Hand still poised over the opening, he turns and locks eyes with me. His irises are so dark I’d swear he doesn’t have pupils. “Listen,” he commands. He lets the coin drop.

  I hear nothing, as if the penny is still falling, soaring through an endless space, although when we bought the house, the inspector said the well had been closed up years before, most likely because it ran dry. I can’t remember how far he said it was down to the blockage, a mass of construction debris and dirt. A hundred feet? Fifty?

  Finally I ask, “Did you hear it?”

  “No. That’s the point.” Bob reaches into his jeans pocket and pulls out a handful of change. He chooses a quarter and tosses it through the grate. We listen again. There is still nothing. No sound. He returns the change to his pocket and for a second I think that he’s done, but then his arm juts out and I see he’s dangling his car keys and door-lock remote over the hole. Without stopping to think I grab the sleeve of his denim jacket and pull his arm back.

  “Are you out of your mind?” I ask as I wrench the keys from his grip. “Do you know how expensive it would be to replace these?”

  He just looks at me.

  “You’re going to throw your keys down the well—why?” I ask.

  “They’re bigger.” He thinks another moment. “Though that won’t change anything.”

  “And this is to condition yourself to having nothing happen?” I’m openly mocking him now, not even trying to hide my derision. Bob nods. I have the urge to put a hand to my head and tug my hair in frustration. Instead I say, “Pray tell, what does that mean?”

  He shrugs again.

  “Well, then can you at least tell me if you’re aware that you sound like a madman?” It occurs to me right then that I’m cringing, though it’s not because of anything he’s done; he may not be self-aware at this moment, but I’ve just heard myself peppering him with questions. I hate the way I speak, always either asking questions or making statements that I then turn into questions by raising my pitch at the end of the sentence. It’s something I can’t keep from doing; no matter how I intend my phrases when I begin them, they always get distorted this way.

  You talk like a girl, my older brother Ron would accuse when we were kids. I know exactly where he got it, a favorite piece of advice from our maternal grandfather: A man should say only what he means,
and own what he says.

  My sudden realization about what’s really going on with Bob stops me from spiraling off into a prolonged self-pity session inspired by my imperfect childhood.

  “Wait, is this about the story?” I ask. His silence and turning away assure me that I’m right. I roll my eyes at his back. It’s only been a week and a half since he sent his story to a magazine he found listed on a fiction-markets website. He can’t really be upset that he hasn’t gotten a reply, can he?

  I tell myself this is nothing but a cry for attention. Self-pity, indeed. But a moment later I feel the twinge; he’s sad and scared. I have to fix it.

  He’s striding away from me, already halfway across the grass, making a beeline for the porch. I have to jog to catch up with him. “Didn’t they say it would take ninety days at least?”

  “I’m not talking about the magazine.”

  You’re not talking about anything, I think. “Then what?”

  “I sent it to Frannie yesterday,” he says, shouldering open the door. He steps inside and begins pulling off his jacket. “Yesterday, and I still haven’t heard back. Nothing. Not even to say she got it.”

  Frannie used to be our across-the-way neighbor, but three years ago she and her husband Walt moved to the other big city in our state in order to be closer to their grown kids, who both settled there after college. This weekend they’re back for a rare visit. Last night we all went to dinner. When Frannie—an English lit major in college and a voracious reader to this day—heard that Bob’s skin had finally thickened enough to allow him to begin sending his stories out, to risk hearing someone’s opinion besides mine, she graciously offered to give him feedback.

  I feel awful for not realizing that’s what has made him such a basket case. We’ve been together for fifteen years and lived together for almost that long. More than anyone, I know how raw he is where his writing is concerned. Plus I felt his energy rise last night when she made the offer. It would’ve been impossible not to feel it. Probably folks on the International Space Station felt it.