Beautiful Boys: Gay Erotic Stories by Richard Labonte (Editor)

face a number of feet away. He caught my eye, and decisively made his way over to me.
     
    “I’m Adrian.”
     
    I introduced myself. “I’ve seen you at the gym but never had the chance to say hello.”
     
    “And how’s your party?” And at that moment, he wrapped his arms around me in a warm embrace. I placed my arms around his back. That’s how it began. I’d like to report a romantic encounter, but it’s not discretion holding me back. It didn’t happen. Instead, never letting me go, we talked, or simply held each other, for hours. I don’t even know what we talked about. But I felt happy and safe.
     
    His body really was one of the most remarkable I’d had contact with. All of his muscles were in perfect definition, a latticework around his stomach and up around his back, his strong chest, his biceps and forearms. Gay men in Sydney work out constantly at gyms, but fewer are athletes; his body was built through activity and sport rather than weights alone.
     
    Whatever combination of our moods, I wasn’t feeling particularly sexual. I let my hands roam over his strong body but with more curiosity than intent. I would occasionally lift my head up toward his, angling for a kiss, for something more, but Adrian kept holding me, jovial and warm, like a friend, seemingly unaware of how beautiful I considered him.
     
    When I told this story recently to a friend, he asked sharply, “Weren’t you embarrassed, both of you? What did other people think of you locked together like that?”
     
    What I remember: one of his friends, Japanese Kaz with the dyed blond hair, dancing with us for a while; and being surprised at the end of the evening that we’d held each other the whole night through. I remembered little else and not a shred of shame.
     
     
    Les and Simon made fun of me for years afterward. Mainly because I would look for Adrian every dance party for the next year or two, hoping to repeat the experience, but the few times I saw him I would only get a short hello; not unfriendly, mind you, but he was with friends, or on his way out, and the experience was not to be repeated.
     
    There was a small possibility that if I’d been more assertive, if I’d known what I wanted, if I’d had the confidence to believe I could have gotten it, I might have had a less chaste encounter. But that was not who I was.
     
    I continued to see Adrian at the gym. We never had long conversations but would ask after each other. He would ask whether I was going to the next dance party. Occasionally I’d find out how his martial arts competitions were going. I Googled him once and found the website of the club. I found a few photos of him, admired his looks, remembered our encounter and idly imagined signing up for his class.
     
    Through the grapevine, I found out more about his personal life. The first time I’d seen Kaz after the party, I’d asked him whether Adrian was gay. “You’ll have to ask him about that,” he’d advised and smiled awkwardly. It came out that he was with a man, another fitness trainer, for about ten years. For part of that time, he was also with a woman for three years. It sounded confusing and not particularly happy.
     
    He also went out to gay clubs and partied too hard. He was sometimes unreliable and missed showing up for his appointments with clients. “I’ve seen him when he looks like he’s still off his face,” said Les, critical again. “Or maybe he was just tired, but I wouldn’t want to train with someone like that. You could hurt yourself.”
     
    I slowed down my partying, and even the events that I went to, I never spotted Adrian again at them. My friends did though—and a few reported his appearing in a crowd and locking them in a big slobbery kiss. They knew I was jealous but assured me that it wasn’t a pleasant experience. One year at the gym, we talked about his upcoming trip to Mykonos and Ibiza. He was planning on partying at some of the biggest clubs in Europe