Best Gay Romance 2014

  Copyright © 2013 by Timothy J. Lambert and R. D. Cochrane.

  All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in newspaper, magazine, radio, television, or online reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Published in the United States by Cleis Press, Inc.,

  2246 Sixth Street, Berkeley, California 94710.

  Cover design: Scott Idleman/Blink

  Cover photograph: Bart Geerligs/Getty Images

  Text design: Frank Wiedemann

  First Edition.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-62778-024-7

  For Richard Labonté

  CONTENTS

  Introduction • TIMOTHY J. LAMBERT

  Strange Propositions • ERIC GOBER

  My Adventure with Tom Sawyer • JAMESON CURRIER

  True In My Fashion • PAUL BROWNSEY

  Sight • JORDAN TAYLOR

  Falling • JAMES BOOTH

  Thanksgiving • SHAWN ANNISTON

  The Invincible Theatre • FELICE PICANO

  Carver Comes Home • ROB BYRNES

  Spill Your Troubles on Me, Love • GEORGINA LI

  Quality Time • LEWIS DESIMONE

  Brooding Intervals • KEVIN LANGSON

  Dandelions • TONY CALVERT

  Shep: A Dog • ALEX JEFFERS

  There’s No Question It’s Love • N. S. BERANEK

  Save the Last Dance for Me • DAVID PUTERBAUGH

  Afterword • R. D. COCHRANE

  About the Authors

  About the Editors

  INTRODUCTION

  I had a different idea about romance when I was young than I do now. I blame it on prom. The American tradition of prom, for the benefit of readers outside of the United States, is a dance for high school students usually held before graduation. Because it’s a formal event, expectations are high. Luckily, because I was gay, my expectations were low. Yes, I had to look presentable in my rented tuxedo and show my date a good time, but she was a good friend and knew a hotel room wasn’t on our agenda. Plus, she knew that I’d slept with her brother.

  We had a great time. We went out to dinner with friends, made an appearance at the prom and danced, had photos taken, and then we all went to my date’s house where I walked into a surprise party since it was also my birthday that weekend. It was a magical evening. Everybody was dressed up and having fun, and the night was suddenly all about me.

  The bar was set very high for magical moments. In my superficial twenties, I loved it when my date took us to the perfect restaurant, whisked us away for a magical weekend out of town or got us into an exclusive party. An exotic arrangement of flowers with a note meant I was on his mind. How wonderful! Pointing out something I liked in a shop window and having him buy it for me on the spot: unexpected and rewarding!

  Luckily, I mellowed and learned to appreciate simpler things: a quiet walk together on a beach or in a park, a night at the symphony or even a well-expressed compliment.

  As I find myself in what one might refer to as middle age, I realize romance isn’t tangible. While doing seated dumbbell press sets in the gym yesterday I was watching myself in the mirror to make sure my form was correct, and I noticed a guy at the preacher curl bench behind me. He was an adorable blond with icy blue eyes, a Paul Walker and Brad Pitt hybrid. Like me, he was listening to music through earbuds while he worked out. Whatever he was listening to was making him laugh periodically. His set jaw and determined veneer would crack, replaced by a toothy smile and a radiance normally reserved for golden tapestries.

  I watched him and thought, Heaven would be spending the rest of my days thinking of ways to make him smile like that again and again. Getting up and asking him what he was listening to was an obvious conversation starter. But did I do it?

  The best part of romance, in my opinion, is what might happen next. The grand gestures, fanciful planning or glittering prizes are merely vehicles to help us arrive at that pivotal moment where we stop and realize, This is wonderful. Now what? Whatever it is, we’re in it together.

  There’s nothing more romantic than the realization that anything is possible.

  Timothy J. Lambert

  STRANGE PROPOSITIONS

  Eric Gober

  While Jess cruised the cool walkway between the Cinerama Dome and 24 Hour Fitness, I worked noisy Sunset Boulevard. A horn honked, punctuating my frustration. We needed males under thirty, but it was slim pickings this morning. I scanned the intersection at Vine. Among the women and dudes over thirty crossing the street, I spotted a lean guy in a Dodgers cap. I shielded my eyes from sun glare and squinted. Nope. He was just outside the limit, probably thirty-one. Didn’t matter. I knew his type. Even if he were twenty-four, he’d have said no. The guy with the Ray-Bans and trimmed beard, on the other hand, would likely say yes. But he was way too old, at least thirty-four. The blond in the UCLA shirt, however, was perfect, not a day over twenty-two. But I didn’t even try to go after him. He didn’t look the least bit interested in romance. He’d have scoffed at my proposition.

  “Jackpot, Kenny!” Jess click-clacked up the sidewalk, all smiles, waving her clipboard. “I nailed seven guys in a row coming out of the gym.”

  “You mean the quota’s filled?”

  “Yep.” She beamed.

  I shook my head in amazement. How’d she do it? Romantic comedies were always a hard sell to males under thirty. However, tonight’s film was downright impossible—a deadpan love story about seniors. Yet thanks to Jess, seven guys in my age bracket would sit among folks our parents’ age, yawn through a grainy rough cut and exact their revenge afterward when they filled out questionnaires. If the film was mediocre, their votes would seal its fate. Penelope’s Proposal would go straight to video with no coveted theatrical release.

  She planted a hand on her hip. “Now tell me what happened with Trevor.”

  I’d insisted we finish recruiting before I told her about the phone call, but I still wasn’t ready to spill the beans. “Let’s recaffeinate first.”

  She rolled her pretty green eyes at me. “Fine, leave me in suspense till I die.”

  We trekked up the boulevard to Groundwork Coffee, our go-to place for espresso whenever we recruited audiences at the Arclight theaters. I was trying to woo Trevor to L.A. He’d refused to leave Wichita in May when Movie Research Group hired me. I was thrilled to move on from my first job out of college—recruiting shoppers for focus groups at Towne East Mall—and was ready to experience a place more exciting than my native Kansas. But Trevor wanted no part of weird California. He was content to live in a world where by day he and I masqueraded as buddies. Only in the evenings did we strip off our masks and love one another properly for a few hours inside my apartment before he returned to his family’s ranch south of town. I needed more from life, but I also needed him.

  Now my mission was selling him on L.A. I didn’t tout star sightings at glamorous restaurants, sun-bronzed hunks in BMWs and Mercedes, or sparkling pool parties in the Hollywood Hills. I sought the familiar, and L.A. delivered plain tract homes in Northridge, modest horse ranches in Sunland and ordinary parishioners at a Methodist church in Canoga Park. I steered clear of anything overtly gay whenever we talked on the phone. I didn’t mention the extravagant Pride parade in West Hollywood that Jess took me to in June, or her older brother’s wedding in September at a Santa Barbara winery where he’d married his boyfriend now that same-sex marriage was legal in California. I didn’t want to spook Trevor, and my approach seemed to be paying off.

  Jess and I settled at a
high table and sipped our lattes.

  “Well?”

  “He said five months apart has worn him down. He’s coming to L.A.”

  “Yay! When’s he moving?”

  “He’ll be here for Thanksgiving.” I braced myself for her reaction. “But only for a visit.”

  She smacked the tabletop so hard her wooden bracelet clacked. “Ah poo, you need to get him to move out here before the election and marry his behind. The polling numbers are looking bad on Prop 8.”

  “Jess, I told you I’ll never get Trevor to walk down the aisle with me.”

  “What’s the matter with him?”

  “He’s just old fashioned. I don’t mind that.”

  “You guys are really selling yourselves short.” She shook her head. “Maybe in time he’ll change.”

  “I can always hope. Right now though, I just want him to miss me so much he moves out here. Will you help me plan an old-fashioned Thanksgiving dinner for him?”

  “Of course, love. I just want more for you, that’s all.”

  “I know. Me, too. But with Trevor I gotta take what I can get.”

  I felt someone hovering as I unzipped the pup tent’s door flap and poked my head inside. I was at Target in West Hollywood examining gear because I wanted to take Trevor camping in the Angeles National Forest. Nothing turned him on more than the two of us getting naked in a sleeping bag under the stars.

  I extricated myself from the tiny tent and was momentarily startled. A drag queen in a pink satin jumpsuit and platform heels towered over me and batted inch-long false eyelashes. Trapped in her ratted brunette wig were shiny golden stars, two sparkly silver comets, and an iridescent-pink Saturn. She pointed at me with a hot-pink false fingernail. “You were in Borat, weren’t you, honey?”

  “No, sorry, I wasn’t.”

  “Are you sure? No, wait. You were in Jackass Number Two, right?”

  “I think you’ve got me confused with someone else.”

  “No, you’re somebody; I’m sure of it. I know a strange star when I see one. Your kind’s not like the rising stars, falling stars and red-hot supergiants orbiting Planet Hollywood. You don’t give a damn if paparazzi catch you shopping at Target.”

  “Seriously, I just recently moved here from Wichita.”

  “By yourself? That makes you an orphan planet, honey, captured by Hollywood’s gravitational pull. Have you attracted a lovely moon yet to orbit and adore you?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Well, let me help you fix that.” She extended her hand and firmly shook mine. “I’m Venus the Fly Trap.”

  “I’m Kenny.”

  “I want you to catch my show tonight at Fubar. The place ain’t the brightest sector in the constellation we call Southern California, but it’s interesting. My Age of Aquarius show draws every kind to that little black hole in the wall—sexy dark nebulae, cute rogue planets and a brown dwarf who loves to moon everyone. You’re bound to hit it off with somebody.”

  I liked her. She seemed genuinely friendly, and she was outrageously brave. I could never get up the nerve to dress like that, even in private. I was tempted to go, but then I thought of Trevor. “Sorry, Venus, I gotta take a rain check.”

  “Fine, but I’ll be expecting you sometime soon. Don’t stand me up.” She winked good-bye with her long dark lashes and retreated from the camping display.

  Universal City normally yielded an easy, done-by-three-P.M. harvest. However, Jess called me that morning, coughed up a pint of phlegm and wheezed that she looked greener than a witch’s wart. I told her to stay home and not worry. I’d recruit tonight’s screening myself. No one would ever know she wasn’t on the clock. But now it was five P.M., and I was running out of time. Predictably, I’d skewed sampling toward females, and I was desperate to nail a young male. Otherwise, I’d get Jess and myself both fired. So for the hundredth time, I traversed the crowded stretch between Hard Rock’s gigantic flaming guitar and the humongous blue gorilla scaling CityWalk’s neon sign. A movie shoot was wrapping up inside Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. I surveyed the horde of tourists staring into windows trying to catch a glimpse of a star.

  “Excuse me, bud.”

  I turned around and looked straight into the face of a breathtaking dude. His blue eyes, fair skin and cropped dark hair had to be the product of a long line of gorgeous Irishmen.

  “Can I squeeze through?”

  I stepped aside and he brushed past me carrying a plunger and a can of Drano.

  Don’t let him get away, you fool.

  I waved my clipboard and blurted, “You feel like seeing a movie tonight?”

  He stopped and looked at me curiously. “You wanna go on a date with me?”

  “Um—what I meant was do you want to attend a screening tonight? It’s free. All you have to do is fill out a questionnaire afterward.”

  “You going?”

  “No, it’s off limits to me.”

  “What’s it about?”

  “A fading star who falls in love with her young plastic surgeon.”

  “Sounds like a piece of Hollywood crap.”

  I shrugged sheepishly. “Well, your answers to the questionnaire could help flush it down the Hollywood tidy bowl.”

  He grinned and I wanted to melt. He had gorgeous, even white teeth. “All right, I’ll go, but you owe me one.”

  “Great.” I fished a pen from my pocket and steadied my clipboard. “What’s your name?”

  “Nate Murphy.”

  “Age?”

  “Twenty-eight.”

  “Perfect, exactly the age I need. What’s your occupation?”

  “Murphy!” someone yelled. The production crew was exiting Bubba Gump. “It’s a wrap. Time for a beer!”

  Nate waved the plunger at them. “Not tonight!”

  My heart sank. I was going to have to exclude him. “People in the business can’t attend the screening, sorry.”

  “But don’t you need me, bud, to fill your quota?”

  “Oh man, you really know too much about the biz to attend.”

  He shook the can of Drano. “All I know right now is I have to unclog a drain.”

  He stepped close to me and spoke softly into my ear. “Write down plumber. You won’t be telling a lie, and you won’t be sorry if I attend, either.” His breath on my skin made me shudder. I wanted to lean into him and feel his lips on my neck. Instead, I scrawled plumber on my recruiting sheet.

  “If they ask, tell them you’re a wiz with pipes and crescent wrenches.”

  “I will. Cross my heart.”

  “Awesome, screening’s at seven o’clock at the AMC Theaters right over there. Just tell them your name, and you’re in.”

  “Aren’t you going to ask me for my phone number? Or do I have to ask for yours?”

  I was tempted to rattle mine off, but then I thought of Trevor. “No, give me yours.”

  “Will you call?”

  “Definitely,” I said, certain that I wouldn’t and disappointed that it had to be that way.

  I was caged again in my chicken coop of an apartment, cramped on the love seat and watching a TV commercial. Mr. T berated a swishy speed walker, who bore an uncanny resemblance to me, calling him “a disgrace to the man race” and pelting him with Snickers bars until he ran away. The commercial ended, and special election-night news coverage by NBC’s local affiliate returned. I grabbed the remote and pressed MUTE. I didn’t want to hear the update. Gone was the happiness I’d felt when California turned blue on the electoral map and gave Democrats the White House. Numbers were coming in now on California’s ballot propositions. With each update, Proposition 8 pulled farther ahead. Jess had been right. It was going to pass. I wished Trevor were sitting next to me. I wouldn’t feel quite so blue.

  My flip phone rang—it was him. I knew he wasn’t calling to talk about our president-elect. He was apolitical. He had to be either horny or lonely.

  “Hey, what’re you doing up so late?” I asked.

  “Can�
��t sleep.”

  “You wanna have phone sex?”

  “Not tonight.”

  Perfect, he was lonely—tonight we’d be on the same emotional page.

  “I can’t wait for you to get here. I bought a tent and a sleeping bag for us to go camping in the mountains. There are secluded spots along a river—”

  “Kenny, I’m not coming for Thanksgiving.”

  “Oh c’mon, why not?” There was a long pause. “Trevor? Are you there?”

  “I’m seeing someone new.”

  “What! Since when?”

  “September.”

  “But last week when we talked, you said you loved me!”

  “I told you when you left Kansas there were no guarantees.”

  “You also told me you didn’t want to break up.”

  “Because I hoped you’d move back. But I finally gave up on you in August.”

  “Thanks a lot for letting me know.”

  “You know I’d rather be with you than anyone. If you come home, I’ll break it off with him. It’ll be just you and me again.”

  “For two hours a night, two times a week?”

  “Don’t exaggerate.”

  “I’m not!”

  “C’mon, you know I need to be discreet.”

  “Well, I don’t want to be!”

  He sighed. “I don’t even know you anymore, man. California’s ruined you.”

  “No, California’s opening my eyes. Ever since I got here, I’ve done nothing but hole up in my apartment every night and pine for you the way I did in Wichita. What a damn fool. I’m not doing that anymore.”

  “Suit yourself,” he said and hung up on me.

  I snapped my phone shut, threw it across the room and unmuted the TV.

  “We have a projection to make,” said a talking head. “Proposition 2 will pass, giving farm animals the right not to be inhumanely confined. Other closely watched ballot measures remain too close to call. But with new precincts reporting, Proposition 8, which revokes gays’ and lesbians’ right to marry, inches closer to passage.”

  What the hell was the matter with people? How could you vote to treat animals humanely but not fellow human beings? I’d go mad if I sat here and watched that hateful proposition become law. And no way was I staying cooped up thinking about Trevor all night.