Best Gay Romance 2015 Read online

  The old guy seated next to me, in a red flannel shirt and suspenders, offered me popcorn from a paper bag. I declined. “Can I taste your cotton candy?” he asked. What could I say? Rather than let him take a bite, I pulled off a fluffy wad and handed it over. “Yum,” he said. “Good as I remember from childhood.” Whatever.

  Applauding as lion and tamer exited, the emcee in red tails and black boots took his place under the central spotlight. “And now, ladies and gentlemen, the pièce de résistance.” Finally. “The act you’ve all been waiting for. The pride and joy of the traveling Folsom Circus.” This better be good. “The one! The only! The unforgettable—Salvador, The Great Masturbator!” The emcee extended his white-gloved hand up toward the tent’s inner peak.

  We all tilted our heads back and looked up to see the underside of a red-velvet throne with a baroque gold frame. Now, that was something. The throne descended on ropes while bare feet and calves dangled in front of it. Broad, high-arched feet. Thickly muscled calves. My breath quickened. The throne reached ground level, and my heartbeat sped up. Finally, the real deal, something worth the price of admission: an enormous muscle man in a simple Tarzan loincloth. His thighs were huge and perfectly shaped. His six-pack rippled, and his chest muscles—each one stretched like the expanse of the Russian Steppes. Sculpted arms, square jaw, wavy black hair brushed back on the sides to rest on his shoulders. A hero out of the Hercules movies I’d gorged on during adolescence.

  The Great Masturbator’s green eyes glistened under the spotlight. How beautiful he was. How totally beautiful. He looked slowly around the crowd, first scanning the semicircle of lower bleachers, then the middle ones and then the upper ones where I sat in shadow. I could have sworn that his eyes lingered on mine. Mine? No! Ridiculous! Wishful thinking, that’s all. Mine? No. Maybe? I sort of felt his gaze reach to my lips and gently brush them. Was that possible? No way. Yes. Definitely. I swallowed hard as I felt his stare part my lips, even slide into my mouth and down my throat.

  When he moved his eyes away from mine to complete a scan of the upper bleachers, I felt something rip from me, from deep inside, as though a predator had torn out an organ through my throat. The cotton candy slipped from my sweating hands, dropped onto my lap.

  “Careful,” whispered the old guy in suspenders beside me. “Don’t want to get all sticky pants.”

  I shook my head in numb agreement.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” asked the emcee, “are you ready?”

  “Yes,” murmured some in the crowd. “Yes! Yes!” from men and women both.

  Seated in his baroque red-velvet throne, The Great Masturbator splayed the fingers of his right hand, waved it like a magic wand over his loincloth-covered crotch.

  “Do you want to see it?” asked the MC.

  “You betcha!”—from a short-haired, redheaded woman in the front row.

  “Show us already!”—from a heavyset blonde woman on the far left.

  “Whip it out!”—from a middle-aged bald man two rows below me.

  “If you want it,” cried the emcee, “then you gotta beg for it!”

  “C’mon!” called out the short-haired redhead in the front row, “Let’s see!”

  “We paid the price of admission!” cried the heavyset blonde woman, “So give.”

  From the corner of my eye, I could see the old man in suspenders beside me shift the bag of popcorn over his crotch, then slip his hand beneath it.

  “If you really want it,” the emcee ordered the redheaded woman in the front row, “then get on your knees and prove it!”

  Laughing, she did so. She even flapped her hands in abandoned frenzy.

  “That a girl!” cried the emcee. “That’s what we need! Give the lady a hand, ladies and gentlemen. Thanks to her, you will all be granted witness!”

  The spotlight that had been encircling the entire throne now telescoped onto The Great Masturbator’s loincloth. He reached his right hand beneath it, massaged without revealing.

  Sudden silence in the tent. Complete silence.

  He withdrew his right hand, slipped an index finger between his lips, sucked it down to the knuckle, in and out, again and again. The spotlight telescoped onto his finger. He held that wet finger aloft as if testing how the wind blew, lifted his left arm and flexed, traced the right finger along the inside of the bulging left bicep, leaving a snail-track of saliva. The bicep came to life. I don’t mean that it simply pulsed or danced the way biceps do when flexed—it did that, but much more: on the skin’s surface a swirl of colors emerged, a twirling kaleidoscope of grays and blacks and pinks that gradually…took the shape…of a man. A chubby man in profile. On a motorcycle. Naked, but for a helmet.

  The spotlight widened. Holding his left arm aloft, The Great Masturbator returned his right hand beneath the loincloth. The chubby man on the bicep kick-started his motorcycle—we could even hear the engine roar, see exhaust drift out the back and disappear into The Great Masturbator’s hairy armpit. The chubby motorcyclist sat and—oh my god—masturbated. His masturbation rhythm kept pace with that of The Great Masturbator beneath his loincloth until The Great Masturbator stopped. The roar of the motorcycle engine diminished to a whir, the chubby rider heaved and swallowed, and then…slowly dissolved into a swirl of colors, disappearing back into The Great Masturbator’s raised bicep.

  Everyone remained stock-still. What had we just witnessed? What was this? Had some movie camera been projecting images onto that bicep? I looked up at the light beaming from the tent ceiling lamps—no, no colors, just a (an ordinary?) yellow beam.

  The Great Masturbator smiled a wry grin, again scanned the crowd as he’d done at his act’s beginning, and once again, when his eyes reached mine, I felt him linger, lock onto them. This time, my breathing stopped as he did so. Had he reached out and pressed his hand over my nose and mouth, he couldn’t have stopped my breathing more completely. I grew dazed, and the outline of his being grew fuzzy. When he looked away, I felt as if a pressed pillow had been lifted from my face. I let out a rush of withheld air, inhaled deeply.

  The Great Masturbator switched hands now, raised his right bicep, slipped a left finger into mouth, traced saliva along the flexing bicep, then reached his left hand beneath loincloth to masturbate. Again a swirl of colors on his bicep, this time of a mustachioed man, naked and thin, a churro upheld in each hand. As The Great Masturbator continued massaging himself beneath the loincloth, the churro holder slipped one churro into his mouth and fellated it, then bent over, slipped the second churro into his backside and pumped. In and out, in and out with growing frenzy until, as before, The Great Masturbator ceased his own masturbation. Churro Man froze still, dissolved into swirls of color and disappeared on the bicep.

  The crowd began to applaud. I joined in, hesitantly—was this titillating or vulgar? Both? I thought of those tabloid reports of the missing judge on his Harley and the missing dad with his two churros. More than coincidence, clearly, but what did it all mean? Had The Great Masturbator, after reading the tabloid reports, somehow painted movable disappearing tattoos on his biceps? Or had the tabloid reporters simply seen the act I’d just witnessed and made up the stories so as to scandalize?

  As if reading my thoughts, The Great Masturbator stared at me with an almost mocking smile. Woozy, I wobbled in place. He looked away.

  He stood now, and his loincloth bulged.

  “Take it off!” cried the heavyset blonde woman on the far left.

  “You just gotta show us!” yelled the redhead still on her knees down front.

  “Yeah,” yelled the middle-aged man two rows below as he ran palm along his now heavily sweating bald head, “let’s see what you’re packin’!”

  The Great Masturbator lifted his left leg to rest one foot on the red-velvet throne seat. A spotlight shone on thigh muscle. He slipped his right finger into his mouth and this time traced saliva along his thigh. Hand under loincloth, massage.

  The now routine swirl of colors on his left leg tr
ansformed into two wrinkly men lying head-to-foot atop two walkers set apart like sawhorses. Yellow half–tennis balls spun and spun on the walkers’ aluminum feet. Slowly, the men shifted from side-by-side to a clear 69 position, one on his back, the other on hands and knees above. Each fellated the other and this time, groans emanated from The Great Masturbator’s body, moans and slurps and gurgles. As The Great Masturbator sped up his masturbation, the two old men’s heads bobbed faster and faster. The Great Masturbator slowed his rhythm, and the two old men’s head movements slowed as well. The Great Masturbator stopped completely and, predictably, the old men swirled back into colors, faded into flesh. He brought his leg down, stood straight, bowed.

  The old man in suspenders beside me leapt to his feet and applauded. His popcorn spilled (and flew?) everywhere. The rest of the crowd gave a standing ovation, too. As did I, my cotton candy slipping from my lap to the bleacher floor. I’d never seen anything like this before. Had never imagined such a phenomenon. This was really happening; no movie projectors, no gimmicks. Or if there were, they were impossible to detect. It was either the best magic trick ever or the most amazing sex show on earth. Just amazing. Unbelievable. Mesmerizing. “Encore!” I blurted. “Encore!”

  The crowd took up my chant, matching word to applause so that we were now clapping in rhythmic unison. “Encore! Encore! Encore!”

  The Great Masturbator looked at the MC and nodded.

  “He’s consented, ladies and gentlemen!” the emcee declared into the microphone. “The Great Masturbator has consented to one more demonstration of his unique prestidigitation. Please take your seats.”

  We quickly obliged.

  I expected him to look at me, The Great Masturbator. I just felt that he would, that somehow I had come to serve as his…I don’t know…his erotic inspiration, his carnal muse. But he didn’t look at me this time, and I felt a profound disappointment.

  Again the finger-in-mouth ritual. This time a trace along the broad expanse of his right pectoral. Which shape would those color swirls take on next, an orgy? How many men could fit on that enormous half-chest? How would they undulate and in what sort of frenzy?

  The colors gelled into the image of a man’s upper body and head, like a sculptor’s upper torso bust. This time, the face that appeared was The Great Masturbator’s own. A replica of his own square-jawed face, muscled neck and shoulders and arms. Initially, the replica was facing front, but as The Great Masturbator massaged himself beneath loincloth, the replica face turned in profile to look across at the unoccupied left pectoral. The replica’s muscled arms lifted, stretched out hands toward the blank left breast, reaching, straining toward the very sternum, unable to cross its muscle-knot ridges.

  “He’s lonely!” exclaimed the heavy blonde woman at the far left. “That’s what it means! Poor man, he’s lonely.”

  The old man in suspenders beside me sighed and nodded. “Indeed,” he muttered, “aren’t we all?”

  “Take me!” yelled the redheaded woman, her arms out in pleading. “Place me on your chest! I’ll love you forever!”

  The replica face on the half-chest turned full front again. This time, it stared out at me, that replica face with heavy lids, half-hooded eyes of longing. Longing for me? What was I seeing? What was I imagining?

  The replica’s lips, thick now and pouting, opened as if to speak. The Great Masturbator ceased his stroking, and the replica face faded away into his chest.

  The Great Masturbator then slipped the finger into his mouth, all the while locking his eyes onto mine. He traced the wet finger along his left pectoral, above his heart. No swirl of colors. Nothing. Blank skin.

  For the first time, he withdrew his erection from beneath the loincloth and we all spontaneously gasped at the enormity we’d long suspected, the thickness, the smoothness, the perfection of male shape. Women in the audience wept, men shifted in their seats, likely mortified at the contrast between his ideal and their real. The old man beside me snapped his suspenders sharply against his chest, twice, as if testing that he was really awake.

  I felt dizzy.

  The Great Masturbator slid his left index finger into his mouth once more, withdrew it wet, but now extended his left palm out, straight to me as if in invitation to dance. A caress crossed my lips, tickled my tongue and palate, filled my throat, descended deep into my core to my groin, cupped my genitals from within, fondled them, squeezed almost to pain, kept me teetering on the threshold, tugging and pulling harder and slowly yanking my maleness through me until I felt The Great Masturbator’s hand pull them up out my throat and my mouth, turning me inside out, revealing the side of me no one’s ever witnessed, the inside that not even I had seen.

  At the same moment, he pursed his lips as if to whistle, but did not blow out. Instead, he inhaled and I felt the draw. My body lifted. He was sucking me toward him! To his wind tunnel, to his whirlpool vortex, to the very eye of the tornado that was he. I felt myself suspended upside down in midair. I clutched at my seat bottom, but couldn’t grasp it, succeeded only in snatching my dropped pink cotton candy. I flew down over the bleachers, over the sobbing and sweating middle-aged bald man, over the entire crowd; I sailed, completely inside out, down toward The Great Masturbator until I crashed smack against him, flew directly into the heat of his chest, permeated his skin, swam deep into his muscle, reached out my legs, entwined and hooked them around his thick nipple from the underside. My flight stopped. I came to rest. The pink cotton candy hung, suspended inches from my face.

  What had just happened?

  I looked out at the crowd, but not from my former perspective of the last and highest bleacher seat. No, I was not looking from behind at all; now I saw not backs and tops of heads as before, but faces. Blank faces. Faces of expectation. Faces in wait. Not faces that had just watched a man’s solo flight over a crowd, but faces waiting to see something amazing.

  Had they not seen me? Had they not witnessed my immersion into him? I looked to the old man in suspenders on the last row of the bleachers. He casually crossed his skinny legs, not seeming to notice that I was in any way missing. Or that I’d even been sitting there in the first place.

  Had everything actually happened or had I been imagining? Had I fainted at some point? Was this reality or fantasy? Was I dreaming, hallucinating while in a semi-awake stupor? Or was I even lying in a coma somewhere, living exclusively within my own mind?

  No. This was real. It had happened. Every bit of it. Whether others in the audience had witnessed or not, this had happened. I knew because I was there. It had happened to me.

  The Great Masturbator’s finger, wet and glistening, moved toward his chest, toward me. The finger traced along my forehead, my brows, my lips.

  I turned my face to the side, saw that his right pectoral face replica had now reappeared and was staring at me, smiling, with arms outstretched. I lifted my own arms, reached out toward him, and our fingers nearly met at the muscle-knot ridge of his sternum. Nearly. But our fingers couldn’t quite reach. Couldn’t quite touch. I strained, undulated and thrashed within his muscle, his flesh, inside him, against him, all as the beating of his heart quickened and pounded and deafened me. I could smell him, the sweat dripping down his chest over me, his sweat of passion, possession. Still, our fingertips couldn’t touch. Abruptly, The Great Masturbator gave a quick bow to the crowd and left the tent for his dressing room.

  Was he as frustrated as I?

  As he left the tent and strode to his trailer, I quickly receded, faded from his surface into a dark place within him, a quiet spot encompassed by the pulsations of blood-flow through muscle. No sound save those pulsations, a remarkably sustaining sound even as it calmed. I felt strangely at peace and, for the first time in my life, no longer alone.

  Me. He’d chosen me. Of everyone under the big top that night, he’d selected me. Yet…why no climax? Had he been tired, perhaps, from the prior performance? Or might he have delayed the completion of our unity out of some romantic notion? I
was willing to wait in darkness.

  And I did, immobile except for my ability to nibble the forever regenerating pink cotton candy suspended beside my face. I passed time wondering exactly what had happened, in wonderment at all that had happened.

  During his performance the next evening, he drew only me to life, none of the others. Not the chubby motorcyclist, not Churro Man, not the old 69-ers. I felt so proud. I seemed to spend hours on his chest, staring across into his replica eyes, stretching out my arms, reaching to embrace that replica while the real Great Masturbator stroked. Would he stroke to climax this time? And when he did, would our fingers magically clasp on his chest and interlock forever? Would our lips touch?

  But as he’d done the previous night, he stopped abruptly, bowed and left.

  This became our routine. Evening after evening, he’d bring me to life, energizing me more alive than I’d ever been when out of his body and alone. I experienced increasing anguish at seeing my other half just within reach yet never quite within my grasp.

  Night after night.

  In all these months, he’s never stroked to climax, whether unable or choosing not to, I can’t know because I have no way to ask. Having taken possession of me, he’s silenced me.

  I console myself with the thought that he knows what’s best, that his repeated coitus interruptus has actually been for my benefit, for ours: perhaps fulfillment of our desire, even once, would cause me to lose myself and disappear within him forever? That could be it. And that would explain why, over time, he’s taken to summoning me with decreasing frequency—he must be trying to avoid the temptation of achieving a devastating fulfillment that’s too overwhelming to resist. Yes, he wants to keep me with him always. That’s why he never reaches climax with me, that’s why he summons me forth less and less often. Because he treasures me. Yes, that must be it. He cherishes me so much that he can’t bear to achieve fulfillment with me and risk my disappearance.

  That’s what I tell myself every evening as our circus travels from town to town. I now spend the vast majority of my time alone within his chest, comforting my loneliness with my reasoning and the inexhaustible supply of pink cotton candy.