Beautiful Boys: Gay Erotic Stories by Richard Labonte (Editor) Page B
Authors: Richard Labonte (Editor)
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that Adrian had been hospitalized before and told to stop the treatment but that he’d continued. I worried that he’d been out partying at a club and taken a substance like GHB from which acquaintances had died in the past. But no, he’d been teaching a judo class the night before. So, I wondered if his kidney or liver had shut down from steroids and the tanning hormones and maybe even something he was taking for the cancer.
Death by tanning is one of the stupidest ways I’ve ever heard of to die. I heard of a beautiful man, also gay, also muscular, who had gone in for a nose job and died of a staph infection, and dying from plastic surgery also rates highly. But the facts of his death dishonor Adrian, make him sound monstrous; what I’d heard at the funeral told me that he was caring and loving, and cared and loved, and that he took care of others even though he didn’t take care of himself.
I wonder how being attracted to men played into this story. He certainly struggled with it. He came from a background that if not homophobic, was not supportive. The archetypal story of a gay man not accepting his sexuality mirrors a man who does not accept his own body or skin.
I mourned Adrian and I imagined talking to him. Did anyone ever tell you how beautiful you were? That you had no need for a different skin color and more muscles? Was it self-hatred or careless experimentation? I am angry that you wasted a life.
Another lesson of getting older is how people come and go. Settling into a relationship and a routine, settling out of going to bars and parties, I realize there are acquaintances who I haven’t seen for years, some who moved abroad and I’d find out after the fact. At the gym, Adrian’s memorial photo disappeared surprisingly quickly and the place and its members put back on their workout clothes and gloves, leather filled with sweat and grains of salt.
It seems cliché to say that it seemed like he’d simply gone on another trip to Ibiza or started personal training at another gym. Cruel, too, when others closer to him would still bear their different weight of grief. But it’s easier to think that way. I had such a tiny window into his kind, troubled soul, to a more truthful self beyond his dazzling appearance.
Adrian Miles, I’ll fold this glimpse of you into my hands, tuck into it that one embrace and hide it away.
Good-bye.
ON SPANKING THE MOST BEAUTIFUL BOY IN THE WORLD
Simon Sheppard
He was, yes, the most beautiful boy in the world, assuming that someone liked lithe young blonds with adorable faces. And at least one particular someone, a middle-aged man named Chris, certainly did. Chris adored them, couldn’t help staring at them when they passed him on the street, masturbated to images of them when he was at home alone in front of his computer.
He’d ended up in the cluttered bedroom of the boy—who was also named Kris, but Kris with a K, not a C-H—by sort of a lucky accident. The exact circumstances, though on the amusing side, weren’t really important. What was important was that he was in the very same room as the most beautiful boy in the world, the entire world. What was improbable was that the boy wanted to have sex with him, in fact already had what seemed, again for all the world, to be a hard-on in his sweatpants. What was absolutely wonderful is that the boy, Kris, had told him that he liked to be spanked.
It was all so easy, so perfect, that Chris thought Kris might have been figuring that an exchange of money would be involved. This would not have been horrible. It might even have answered the question of why young, blond Kris had invited over the older man, with his male pattern baldness, slight paunch, and presentable-but-weathered face, when the boy could, presumably, have had just about anyone he chose. But when Chris had gingerly broached the subject, afraid that Kris might be offended but even more afraid of some
Death by tanning is one of the stupidest ways I’ve ever heard of to die. I heard of a beautiful man, also gay, also muscular, who had gone in for a nose job and died of a staph infection, and dying from plastic surgery also rates highly. But the facts of his death dishonor Adrian, make him sound monstrous; what I’d heard at the funeral told me that he was caring and loving, and cared and loved, and that he took care of others even though he didn’t take care of himself.
I wonder how being attracted to men played into this story. He certainly struggled with it. He came from a background that if not homophobic, was not supportive. The archetypal story of a gay man not accepting his sexuality mirrors a man who does not accept his own body or skin.
I mourned Adrian and I imagined talking to him. Did anyone ever tell you how beautiful you were? That you had no need for a different skin color and more muscles? Was it self-hatred or careless experimentation? I am angry that you wasted a life.
Another lesson of getting older is how people come and go. Settling into a relationship and a routine, settling out of going to bars and parties, I realize there are acquaintances who I haven’t seen for years, some who moved abroad and I’d find out after the fact. At the gym, Adrian’s memorial photo disappeared surprisingly quickly and the place and its members put back on their workout clothes and gloves, leather filled with sweat and grains of salt.
It seems cliché to say that it seemed like he’d simply gone on another trip to Ibiza or started personal training at another gym. Cruel, too, when others closer to him would still bear their different weight of grief. But it’s easier to think that way. I had such a tiny window into his kind, troubled soul, to a more truthful self beyond his dazzling appearance.
Adrian Miles, I’ll fold this glimpse of you into my hands, tuck into it that one embrace and hide it away.
Good-bye.
ON SPANKING THE MOST BEAUTIFUL BOY IN THE WORLD
Simon Sheppard
He was, yes, the most beautiful boy in the world, assuming that someone liked lithe young blonds with adorable faces. And at least one particular someone, a middle-aged man named Chris, certainly did. Chris adored them, couldn’t help staring at them when they passed him on the street, masturbated to images of them when he was at home alone in front of his computer.
He’d ended up in the cluttered bedroom of the boy—who was also named Kris, but Kris with a K, not a C-H—by sort of a lucky accident. The exact circumstances, though on the amusing side, weren’t really important. What was important was that he was in the very same room as the most beautiful boy in the world, the entire world. What was improbable was that the boy wanted to have sex with him, in fact already had what seemed, again for all the world, to be a hard-on in his sweatpants. What was absolutely wonderful is that the boy, Kris, had told him that he liked to be spanked.
It was all so easy, so perfect, that Chris thought Kris might have been figuring that an exchange of money would be involved. This would not have been horrible. It might even have answered the question of why young, blond Kris had invited over the older man, with his male pattern baldness, slight paunch, and presentable-but-weathered face, when the boy could, presumably, have had just about anyone he chose. But when Chris had gingerly broached the subject, afraid that Kris might be offended but even more afraid of some
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