Best Gay Erotica 2012; Hot Jocks: Gay Erotic Stories; both edited by Richard Labonte; Cleis Press
Berkeley-based Cleis Press offers up more erotic tales with two recently published compilations that will have readers taking matters into their own hands soon after these paperbacks are opened. Both are edited by Richard Labonte, Cleis Press' reliably randy, go-to guy for this type of material �" possibly because he's Canadian, or possibly because he has his finger on the sexual pulse of contemporary gay culture, and it shows with the selections in these two books.
With the 2012 edition of Best Gay Erotica, Labonte teams up with guest judge and popular Los Angeles gay novelist Larry Duplechan to amass an impressive 14 hot-blooded stories that "balance craftsmanship with cocksmanship." It all begins with Seattle writer David May's heady take on a Daddy/Boy relationship set in the halcyon days of 1980s San Francisco (one character laments needing $50, "a quarter of the rent he'd pay in the Castro.") Another standout, "Once Upon a Time, in 1969," is placed in the Castro's early days by Dirk Vanden and is both sexy and wildly melodramatic. Tony Pike's 1976 summer story about an ever-expanding group of horny British boys getting it on is also titillating, as is South African writer Shaun Levin's hot, quick four-pager about the seduction of a straight boy and the ensuing consequences. The heterosexual temptation theme is drawn ever more deliciously in 25-year-old upstate New Yorker Jace Barton's "Training Tyler," which provides a fresh take on the "straight roommate/gay roommate" theme, except here, the "straight" roommate eventually admits to the gay roommate: "I want to fuck you on every piece of furniture in every room in this apartment."
Those who enjoy their sexual stimulation through visual media will greatly enjoy Spanish graphic artist Kardyman's entry "Touched," a sexy short that uses pictures (no text) to convey the hot, hirsute, and heavy sexual attraction between a blonde rock star and a closeted, muscle-bound groupie.
Never to be outdone is Lammy Award-winning editor and erotic writer Simon Sheppard, who contributes a steamy story that's gastronomically sound in its use of raw eggs, jockstraps, and prose like this: "I do ask for the chance to bury my face in your armpit just once more,"as one of Sheppard's characters drools. "You never seem to use deodorant, which makes me very happy, and the smell will linger on my face for hours."
Sheppard, whose work has appeared in more than 300 anthologies, has a story in the "Swimmers" section of Hot Jocks as well, about a championship swimmer and a sadistic boy who insists to the waterlogged jock that he "show you what you really are." This book is effectively categorized by sport, and runs the gamut from football, baseball, hockey, and tennis players to martial artists, wrestlers, bowlers, bodybuilders, and cheerleaders.
As expected, cliches about jocks, sexual frustration, masculinity, and the domination of the weak run rampant throughout this collection. This fact alone might leave the book overlooked on store shelves, but writers like local San Francisco scribe Rob Rosen offer material that rises above the usual raw schlock. His story "Bowling for Boners" about two naked bowlers (one with size 13 shoes!) is adventurous and provocatively unique. Tales of "beautiful" long-distance runners in Martin Delacroix's "Track Meat," and steamy safe sex between gym rats in "Muscle Memory" by female entrant Rachel Kramer Bussel, nicely enmesh with the wriggling singlets in the three stories from the wrestling section, and a hockey story, "Pucking Prince Charming," by Minneapolis short story writer Logan Zachary, that's stroke-worthy with its exacting descriptions of sculpted torsos, furry legs, and the "wet pop" of an eager butthole.
Labonte's goal in editing these sex-drenched niche books has always been "good writing, good wanking," and that's definitely been delivered once again.