Author: M. Christian
Publisher:
Length: 433 k
Sub-Genres: Gay Romance
Blurb:
The Best ManLove Stories of M. Christian
Sizzling tales of bad boys, bruised hearts, and sweaty
encounters. Lambda Award finalist M. Christian’s stories of men-who-love-men
have been selected for Best Gay Erotica, Best American Erotica, and Best of the
Best Gay Erotica. Eavesdrop on what hot men who are doing hot things with other
hot men say to each other between the sheets ... and up against the wall. Start
reading the fiery ManLove fiction of M. Christian with this personally selected
collection of his best. "A wonderful book … just the thing if you are in the
mood for an enjoyable quickie (or twenty)." -Mathilde Madden, author
Reflection's Edge. [Don't miss the other books in "M. Christian's ManLove
Collection from Sizzler Editions.] And don't miss his Lambda Finalist book,
Dirty Words. "Fairy tales whispered to one another by dark angels whose hearts
and mouths are brimming with lust." -Michael Thomas Ford, Lambda Award winning
author Looking for It.
Sizzler Editions/Attraction
$8.50
Excerpts:
FROM
THE INTRODUCTION BY FELICE PICANO, LAMBDA AWARD WINNER LAMBDA LIFETIME ACHIEVEMNT
AWAR4D
See
what I mean? Short story writing is hard.
M.
Christian's new collection of singular and satisfying short stories,
Filthy Boys, is subtitled
"Outrageous Gay Erotica." Emphasis on "outrageous." Although each of them does
deliver a more than adequate erotic charge, Christian is after bigger game here.
He's writing short stories. You know, like the ones you had to read in
high-school: stories about suburban Connecticut teens and hardscrabble poor
white trash and adventurers desperate to light a fire to stay alive. The ones
you had to discuss in class, using terms like "irony" and "thematic development"
in those seconds before your forehead hit the top of your desk out of total
apathy.
Take
heart. Christian's stories are sexy, smart and a lot more fun.
FROM
THE STORY "STROKE THE FIRE"
"Man's
got a home, then that's where he sleeps. Can't, myself, see how you can stand
the god-derned quiet out there in the flats," Lew had said, listening to the
music of the man's voice.
The
man shrugged, the tip of his cigar bobbing in the soft night. "That it be.
Name's Last. Jeff Last."
Lew
wiped the grime off his hands (and hopefully the fool's grin off his face) and
offered his own. "Lew. Just Lew around here."
The
handshake lasted a bit too long, long enough for the two men to size each other
up. Lew in his Stinkhole clothes was a burly barrel of a man, all beard and
round blue eyes. He looked fat from aways, but if you're ever seen him haul
cornmeal or lumber you'd know that it was iron, fella, strong, strong, iron and
not just insulation against Craggy's winds.
Last
was long and lanky, and while the light was none too good in that narrow little
ways between the public corral and Miller's Fine Feeds, you could tell that he
was a beanpole: Six feet easy, in buckskin and serape. In the dark beneath his
wide brimmed hat, his shaved face was carved and as Craggy as Lew's mountain
home. The handshake had lasted way too long. Now, he thought, how to get this
fine feller up the mountain...
"Gotta
hit the trail if I'm ta make Ridgewood by dawn," Jeff had said, and Lew's heart
had sunk down to his Stinkhole boots.
"Knows
how it is–" he had said, starting to turn, maybe extend a hand, and an
invitation for another time.
"But
you is one fine figure of a man. Might temptin'–"
Lew
stared, unsure of how exactly to respond.
"You
think the same, Lew of the Mountain?" Jeff had said.
Even
in the low light cast from the lanterns of Sal's Lew could see Jeff's fine
figure, out in all it's glory there in the "street" of Stinkhole.
LONG
EXCERPT
FROM
THE STORY "WET"
The
brush was dry so he wet it.
The
strokes at first were always, for some reason, slow and precise. He knows that
nothing will remain of them after it's done, but for some reason it always
starts that way: bands, shades of the same color, going vertical, diagonal,
horizontal. He guesses, when he does think about the act, that it is a getting
acquainted with the brushes, the canvas – his medium.
Why
that should be when he has painted for so very long is a mystery Doud never
examined.
Dry
again – silent, precise strokes now skittering and scratching across the smooth
face of the canvas. Dries so
quickly. He wet the brush again.
Those
first strokes were a climb into the work, he supposes when he does. Painting
those stripes, bands of one color – always that one color – are like the rungs
of a ladder. Going up, into the act, the glow, of creativity ... of making a
work.
The
next movements of the brush were wild, feverish: all precise control lost in the
rising swell of what was fleeting around his mind, just beyond Doud's normal
vision. He knew, certainly, absolutely, that he was trying to pin it down now
with the brush, the color – to make it stick and stay so he can see it clearly:
see if it is pretty or ugly.
Dry
again. He dipped it into his seemingly inexhaustible well and
continued.
Maybe
a man. Yes, perhaps that: like a stroller walking out of a fog, a shape
becoming shoulders, a broad chest, legs, and what could be a waist. Then, with
more movements of the brush, it grew details like leaves from a tree: The curves
of a chest, the tendons in the arms, the contours of muscles and bone, the
texture of smooth skin ... a face.
Dry
again. Doud dipped the brush into his red-filled mouth and tried to capture the
man more fully.
* * * *
The
street was brilliant with a heaven of shines and reflections from a light rain.
The primary neon colors burst from places like Jackson's Hole, the Ten Pin, the 87 Club, Aunt Mary's Diner hit the
street, the sidewalk, the faces of the tall buildings like ... like watercolors, Doud thought, though
his own medium was a lot less flowing and fluid.
The Space didn't have neon, and despite
the beauty of the rain-shellacked street outside, its owner would never ever
pondering lighting its very nondescript doorway with gaudy attraction.
Wellington took extremely cool pride in the austerity of his gallery – going
over its rubber-tiled steps, eggshell walls, industrial lighting, stainless
steel display stands and single office countertop with an eye as precise and
chilly as a level. Doud easily imagined him thinking the photographs,
paintings, and sculptures that paid his rent a distraction from the purity of an
absolutely empty room.
He
hoped for a frozen second that the flash had been lighting beyond the window,
out among the glimmering night street and hunched and brisk people.
Doud
loved the rain and especially lighting. Like the bands of slow, precise color
that started his works, he never really examined why the world being lit for a
second, frozen and trapped in a blink of pure silver, fascinated him. Maybe it
was the raw power of natural electricity – or maybe it was just the close
comfort of being snug and warm for the evening that he associated with rain
outside: lighting was the tiger prowling outside while he warmed his feet, safe
and warm, inside.
But
lighting doesn't come from within (unless you count inspiration): trapped with
the flash, for a second, was his own face in the window glass: wide, large brown
eyes, aquiline nose, brushy brows; curled black hair; deeply tanned and lined
skin; large, strong mouth with hidden teeth. Some thought him Italian, others
American or East Indian. A few guessed at maybe Eskimo or even Polynesian.
Never guessed the truth of New York (son of New Yorkers). Never, ever, guessed
his age.
The
disappointment over a lighting-free night came quick, a gentle slap (because it
was a simple pleasure) and he turned back to the semi-crowded gallery. There he
was, a too-clean looking photographer he instantly knew was either the friend of
an artist or one of them himself (newspaper shooters were usually a lot more
scruffy and exotic). Doud hated to be photographed, hated being frozen in time
and having his image in the hands of, and at the mercy, someone else.
"Yours?"
the photographer said, his face opaqued by the complex of a flash unit, massive
lens, and a matte-black camera body. Dirty blond, almost brown, tall, broad was
all Doud could see.
"Those
are," Doud said, nodding to the right hand wall and the five paintings that were
edge-on and so just the colors of their frames. Doud didn't need to see them,
an artist's privilege of many hours of work.
The
camera came down and he treated Doud with his profile as he scanned the
paintings: Pale, hollow cheeks; bones seemingly as thin as a bird's; wet blue
eyes that, even across the mostly-empty gallery, seemed to see far too much, far
too quickly; a mouth that bloomed with lips that Doud found himself instantly
wanting to kiss; a nose all but invisible against the beauty of his face (which
was fine, having such a profound nose, Doud disliked the same in others); and a
fine and elegant body that seemed to be all chest and shoulders, a rack on which
thin, pale arms and legs dangled with a refined and dignified posture. He was
dressed simply elegant in black pants, a very tight turtleneck and an elegant,
and probably antique, morning coat – a direct polar extreme from Doud's old
sweatshirt, boots and jeans.
It
was a kind of shock to see someone who sported himself so ... dapper was a word
that came out of Doud's memory along with the smell of horses and raw
electricity, the rumble of the "El" trains, and scratchy Al Jolson from a
Gramophone. Dapper? Yes, refined and polished. Quite out of character for The
Space and being an admirer of Doud's work.
"You
probably get asked this a lot–" The man fixed those darting, smiling eyes on
Doud and smiling pure warmth.
"An
awful lot," Doud said with a practiced sigh that spoke of a joke rather than
true exasperation. "Animals," he finished, answering the question.
"I
saw the jar," the photographer said, indicating with a jerk of his camera the
large bell jar stuffed with a cow's severed head on the floor in front of Doud's
wall, "and thought as much."
"The medium is the message," Doud said
with a smile. "People either look at me real funny and think about DNA testing
or they think it's a trick of paint and technique."
"It
is rather ... your studio must really stink."
Doud
laughed, the sound coming from down deep, "Lots of windows, and I keep my stuff
well-covered. Then of course I fix it real good after. Lots of
shellac."
The
man smiled, shifted his camera and stuck out a pale, long-boned hand, "Jona.
Jona Periliak."
"Charmed,"
Doud said. Jona's hand was dry and very warm, almost hot. "Are you here as
well, or just taking shots for a friend?"
"I'm
in the backroom."
Doud
remembered the photographs on his way in that evening, but since he never
supervised his installations he hadn't looked beyond that initial glance.
"Would you mind," Doud said, smiling his best smile and hoping he'd remembered
to gargle and brush his teeth, "showing me?"
The Space had started to fill up since
they'd been talking. The usual wine and cheese crowd of artists and their usual
mixture of friends. They passed carefully by suits and jeans and piercings and
Doc Martens and even a latex bodysuit and a full tux.
The
backroom was sky blue, lit with Wellington's usual baby spots. Maybe a dozen,
maybe fourteen, black and white portraits. Jona looking thoughtful with glasses
and a book. Jona looking sad with gravestones in the background. Jona looking
pained as blood, black as ink (and it could have been) ran down from a sliced
palm. Jona excited, his bare chest slick with sweat and probably oil. Doud
scanned them all, lingering long over excited and pained, giving them his
examining, look – then glanced over at the title of the series: Portrait of the Artists.
Doud
hated photographs: He saw them as a kind of cheat, a kind of
shortcut.
"They're
fine–" Doud said, using a word that also came from penny candy and hoop skirts.
He didn't like photographs for lots of reasons, but Jona was very pretty, very
striking in his pallor and funereal garb. Being self-portraits made it easy to
lie – Jona was very fine, indeed.
"You
don't like them." He didn't seem hurt at all, more like he was calling Doud on
his politeness.
"I
didn't say that. It's not my medium is all. Besides, I meant what I said. I
like the way these are all parts of you."
"I
appreciate that," Jona said, moving the camera behind him so Doud had have a
nice view of his flat stomach and hard chest – at least what he could see
outlined in the black turtleneck.
It
had been a long time for Doud. He could barely remember the face, and couldn't,
for the life of him, think of the last name of the last person he was attracted
to as much as he was attracted to Jona. You'd think, he found himself thinking
with surprising clarity, after all this
time I'd get better at this. At least he wasn't hungry – but he
did feel that other kind of desperation, the one that wanted to make his gently
shaking hands reach up and stroke Jona's soft, pale cheeks and tell him how
beautiful he looked. Go on,
he thought next, say that you appreciate
him ...
"Are
you–" Doud did say, waving at the row of photographs "–going to be here
long?"
"Tonight
or the show?" and before Doud could respond either way, Jona quickly added,
"Just a few minutes and the end of the month."
The Space had started to fill up and
Doud felt himself being pulled by their body heat, their eyes. Going to an
opening was rare, staying as late as he had was ever rarer ... but Jona, and
Jona's beautiful attention, was priceless.
But
the people –
"It's
kind of getting crowded," the pale beauty said with a smile that made a warm
spot on Doud's stomach and his eyes loose focus for a second.
Doud
heard himself say, "Let's go outside."
Buy Links:
About
The Author:
M.Christian has become an acknowledged master of
erotica, with more than 400 stories in such anthologies as Best Gay Erotica,
Best Best Bisexual Erotica, Best American Erotica, and Best Fetish Erotica. He
has had three collections of stories about men who love men published, Body
Work, Filthy Boys, and Dirty Words, which was a Lambda Award finalist. And he is
the author of two man-love novels, the vampire classic, and Me2, a gay thriller.
M. Christian is also a veteran anthologist, and with more than 25 to his credit,
including the Best S/M Erotica series; Pirate Booty; My Love For All That Is
Bizarre: Sherlock Holmes Erotica; The Burning Pen; Garden of Perverse, and
others. Sizzler Editions/Attraction, a glbt imprint, recently issued his
personal selection of his best gay erotica in the ebook, Stroke the Fire. A
genre-busting author, M. Christian has also written non-fiction (Welcome to
Weirdsville, How To Write and Sell Erotica), as well as lesbian, straight,
futuristic, fantasy and horror erotica. All three of his gay male collections,
both novels, and Stroke the Fire have all recently been released as M.
Christian's The ManLove Collection .
a Rafflecopter giveaway
