Monday, July 27, 2026

Knit Together

July 2026, Provincetown

I lost my beloved basement workshop and kiln when I moved and downsized from the Midwest to the Northeast. Lacking a productive hobby—and also lacking cold-weather accessories—I took up knitting. Whether the craft seemed masculine or not didn’t concern me. I just thought it nifty that I could grab a ball or two of yarn, manipulate it between a couple of needles, and come away with a scarf, or a hat, or as I got better, something big and useful like a sweater.

Since after the move I was also looking for new friends and people to meet, I joined Manhattan’s biggest LGBTQ+ knitting group. Once a month we’d meet at The Center, where in one of the upper story rooms we’d sit around a large table with our current projects, amiably chatting and comparing notes while we listened to the New York City Gay Men’s Chorus rehearse across the hall. Within the space of a couple of years, because of my general air of responsibility, the group’s founder promoted me to his co-leader. My duties were few: I’d arrive a little early to set up the room, stay to strike the chairs and tables, keep lists of local yarn shops and beginner’s resources for curious new members. The space wasn’t free, so I’d collect a nominal few bucks from everyone at meeting’s end to pay for the rental.

I was really fond of the group. I made good friends through it. Yearly we’d make a big potluck picnic out of Knit in Public Day, which in the city was held underneath tents at Bryant Park—dozens of knitting groups across the city, socializing with each other. But the group began to diminish sometime after the first Trump administration. The Center raised its room rental prices to a point that it no longer felt feasible to continue there. We moved to a local library branch where the room was free but less comfortable. The group that had been fifteen to twenty regulars when I’d started diminished to about six or seven. Within a year, that six or seven had shrunk even further—people just didn’t think the library was as genial a place to meet. We investigated a merge with the knitting group run by drag domestic goddess Brini Maxwell at Club Cumming, but the members didn’t like a bar atmosphere. So, after a three-month run in the autumn of 2019 in which I was the only group member who showed up to our meetings, the other leader and I decided, with regrets, to bring the group to a close.

To be fair, we would have been forced to do it a few months later, when COVID hit.

Ever since, I’ve regretted losing this group of people who’d been so essential to my integration to the city. I’d make a big afternoon and evening of knitting group days: hitting my favorite stores in the vicinity, sitting in the park with a book beforehand, treating myself to dinner at a nice restaurant, then two hours laughing with my fabric art friends.

Then afterward, oh afterward, I’d collect the room rental money and see everyone off. Once they were gone, I’d exit the Center and walk a couple of blocks to a familiar townhouse. Sitting on the front steps, waiting for me, would be a young Brazilian man with coarse, wavy hair to his shoulders. Bud, his name was. His dark eyes would have seen my tall frame coming from a distance; they’d follow me, unblinking, until I stood before the stoop. “Hey, Son,” I’d say.

“Dad.” Just one word, but his bass voice would be heavy with meaning. “I missed you.”

“No, I missed you,” I’d say. Then he’d rise, plant a gentle kiss on my lips, take me by the hand, and lead me inside.

For nearly a decade, Bud and I shared a standing date after knitting group. Not once did I have to reach out and remind him; I would simply receive a text of Tonight?, every third Monday of the month. Though over the years Bud’s facial hair changed—sometimes clean-shaven, sometimes a scruffy beard—his townhouse studio apartment never did. He lived in a narrow room boasting sixteen foot ceilings. Over his kitchen and bathroom area he’d built a wooden loft where he slept; a sofa and a fan whirring by the window, no matter what the weather, acted as the living room space. Over the years I grew familiar with the home’s comfortable clutter—the clothes bunched on coat hangers and hung from below the loft, the tall stacks of home goods piled high along the room’s walls. I wasn’t visiting for the spotlessness of my host.

I was there because he would lead me into the room, sit me gently upon that worn, leather sofa, then kneel before me. With solicitous care, he’d remove my shoes. “I really mean it. I missed you, dad,” he’d say. His lips would press against mine as he unbuttoned my shirt, or tugged at the button of my jeans. “You can’t leave your boy like that.”

“I came back as soon as I could,” I’d assure him. Naked, erect cock lolling to one side, I’d lean back against the leather and watch him undress, one garment at a time, until his dark-skinned body would stand over me. Then he’d hold out his hand and haul me up. My skin sounded like the unspooling of plastic wrap, as it peeled away from the leather.

I remember the ladder to his loft as a good eight feet high. He’d scamper up like a cat climbing a tree. I hate ladders, so I’d take the journey more slowly. He’d tenderly help me up the last few steps and help swing my legs over to join him on the queen-sized mattress at the summit. I’d always land on my back, huffing with delight when he’d straddle me with his brown, hairy legs. There was just enough space between the loft mattress and the high ceilings for him to sit upright. “Do you love your boy, daddy?” he would ask.

I don’t really know if Bud knew my name. If he did, he never used it. When we were together, I was always his dad, and that was good enough for the both of us. I used his, though, in a soft sigh as I cupped his face. “Oh, Buddy-boy,” I’d say, pulling him down for a kiss. “I could never love anyone as much as I love my son.”

He’d lift his hips when our mouths would meet. I’d feel his hand around my shaft, followed by wet warmth as he would lower himself down on me. “I feel the same way about you, Dad,” he’d whisper, knitting the two of us together in an embrace.

***


It’s Saturday, the first night of my Provincetown vacation. I’m staying in a rental place steps off Commercial Street, tucked down an alleyway that runs between t-shirt shops. Surprisingly, there’s very little noise. Once I’ve closed the door and stepped inside, all the bells fade away from the rushing pedicabs. No longer am I assaulted by the raucous cries of parties hallooing in the street as they make their drunken way from the Governor Bradford. All I really hear is the buzz of the air conditioning and the refrigerator’s gentle hum. I lie on my bed and weigh my options.

I could head down the street to the Boatslip. Try my luck at the Dick Dock. I’ve heard, though, that the timing is bad this week: high tide is hitting right around this time, when the Dick Dock action would just be getting started. I’d heard from a friend that he’d gone down the night before and found a dozen guys standing forlornly on the ramp, waiting for the waters to recede. The entire area was submerged.

And to be honest, I’m not really keen on playing Dick Dock games. Last year I’d visited the infamous cruising spot a couple of times and found the site’s erotic culture to be utterly desecrated. Hermits had stood with their eyes on their phones, lighting up the place, to check out TikTok instead of cruising. Young gay men afraid to visit the Dick Dock on their own showed up accompanied by two or three straight women for protection, purportedly to ‘take a tour,’ but in reality shutting down any action with their giggling approach and loud, scandalized murmurs. More men than usual wouldn’t take no for an answer. Several folk conducted loud phone conversations over speaker. I’d never seen such dispiriting behavior. Compared to the Dick Dock years before the pandemic, the last couple of seasons felt like returning to a grand old cathedral in which one grew up and finding it inhabited by a Dollar Tree.

No, rather than throw myself on the mercy of the greatly diminished cruising gods, I’ve decided this trip to take a more focused approach to my sexual tourism. I flop down on my king-sized bed and fire up an app. In Provincetown, a resort densely populated with gay men, it’s not unusual to find yourself surrounded by thirty profiles less than twenty feet away. Already I’ve gotten a few nibbles of interest. But I’ve scarcely had the app running for a full minute before a new message pops up. 

Dad? it says. Are you here in town?!

I recognize the profile picture. Bud.

Immediately, I feel pangs of guilt. I haven’t seen my boy since 2019, in the autumn, when that knitting group finally called it a day. Oh, maybe I’d tried once. I vaguely recall one time before the pandemic when I’d texted him out of the blue to meet. But I’d had to hightail my way from the Village’s far east side to west, and he’d had to cut short his regular swim session to get home to connect with me. Something like that. I remembered we were both off our game that last time we’d seen each other.

He’d contacted me since to lament my absence from time to time. And I’d reached out to him, regretting that I no longer visited his neighborhood. Twenty-five miles usually lies between us. Now, it’s only 416 feet. I’m here, I text. You’re so close.

Please see me! I sit up on the bed, loins stirring. I’m staying on the east end of town. I’m at a party at the Crown and Anchor but can be back at my place in ten minutes.

If he’s down the street at the Crown and Anchor’s Tom of Finland party, I reason, he’ll have to pass by my rental on the way back. I suggest he meets me in ten minutes at a nearby corner, then lunge to my cramped little bathroom for a quick refresh.

Out on the street, surrounded by late-night revelers and the caterwauls of a drag queen from a nearby bar, I fret a little. What if I don’t recognize Bud, after so many years? I needn’t worry. I spy him from a block and a half away, taller than I remember. The long hair is now streaked with gray. Instead of fuzz, he’s cultivated a fashionably thick mustache. Bud was all of twenty-seven or twenty-eight when I first knew him; now he’s in his early forties. For the Tom of Finland party, he has donned a tight pair of leather shorts that highlight a particularly muscular pair of dark-skinned thighs, and a complicated crop top—or maybe it’s a halter?—fastened by long red laces. An expanse of furry belly lies between the two. On his feet are a short pair of zip-up boots. Atop his head perches a traditional leatherman's cap. He removes it to run a hand through his locks as he sees me. “Dad!” he says in a soft voice, delighted.

“Son.”

We step close. Then, out there on the street, beneath the streetlight and in front of everyone, he kisses me softly on the lips.

Everything rushes back as together we walk in the direction of his rental. All those nights perched like nesting birds in heights of his loft bed. The times he hadn’t been able to wait and rode me on his sofa. The warmth of his hand on my skin. The way his accented vowels soften his voice, making every word sound as if murmured for my ears alone. “I can’t believe you’ve made me wait for you so long, Dad” Our hips adjoin as we walk down the street, every step in tandem. We must look like we’re running a three-legged race at an Eagle-sponsored picnic. “How could you do it?”

“I’m so sorry, Son,” I murmur. He squeezes me with affection, in response. “It’s not from lack of wanting you.”

“Are you going to take care of your boy’s hole tonight? Are you going to put that big dick inside me and squirt out a load or two?”

“Oh, fuck,” I groan.

He capitalizes on my helplessness with more dirty talk. “Yeah, my dad is going to give me what I need tonight. I haven’t had a load yet this weekend. I haven’t had your load in years. I’m going to take what’s mine.”

I intend to let him keep that promise.

Constantly, we bump into the other as we stride down the street. Most men out this time of night are strolling toward the party in the center of town. They gauge us as we pass, nodding in acknowledgment, sometimes uttering a short greeting. Some of these strangers only have eyes for Bud in his leather gear, but I get looks as well. It might be because I’ve decided to go commando in my shorts and Bud’s sexy blandishments have created a visible tent. But I catch several appraising eyes of younger men, obviously envying Bud his companion. The realization makes me stand a little taller, and draw back my shoulders. I nod to them in return.

We reach our destination in an area of Commercial populated mostly by little art galleries. Several Cape Cod cottages have been connected into one larger structure; Bud opens a gate and leads me down a brick path through an ivy-strewn garden along its side to a private entrance. One hand rests on my back as he pries open the leather pocket on his backside and painfully fishes out a single key from the tight enclosure. Into a vestibule of closed doors he leads me. The walls are hung with cross stitch and old wooden spoons adorned with gingham bows. To my left, a circular stone staircase spirals down to a pitch black cellar, locked and gated off with an iron fence. It both looks and smells like a cursed hellhole out of Widow’s Bay.

Bud’s room continues the hallway’s theme. Someone’s great-grandma has gone mad in here, adding ruffles to every cushion, bows and gewgaws to every picture frame, doorknob, and decorative jar of shells. A high four-poster bed sits against the far wall, a monument of frills atop flounces atop fandangoes. “Gawrsh,” I say, blinded even in the low light of a single hurricane-style lamp by the clashing red-and-white plaids. I feel as if I’ve fallen into a little girl’s cottagecore fantasy.

He seems to understand my meaning. “It was cheap. And available,” is all he says. When he shoves me into one of the rocking chairs, my feet fly off the floor. He kneels and unties my sneakers. Slips them softly off. Caresses my feet, then removes the socks. “I need you bad, Sir,” he whispers. Forget the fucking decor. The flats of his palms skim up my leg hair. Part my thighs. He pulls at the shoulders of my tee. I raise my arms so that he can undress me. “You made me wait.” I gasp at the pressure of his meaty thumbs on my nipples. When he leans in as if for a kiss, I mirror him. But at the last moment, he pulls away, cocks his head, and declares, “I’m not waiting any more.”

Bud yanks on my hands to raise me upward. My pants fall to the floor at his sharp tug. I’m naked before him. Erect. My cock swings up as if I’m readying a weapon.

“Lie down on the bed,” he commands. Already he’s thrown his Muir cap onto one of the several rocking spindle chairs. He’s fussing with the ties of his halter.

I turn to the bed and discover that the mattress top hits me roughly mid-ribcage. To its side lies a set of wooden steps. Even in this Provincetown rental, I’m still having to climb high to get into Bud’s bed. Underneath the four-poster’s flounced tester, I spread my legs wide and watch as Bud skims out of his halter. When he unbuttons those tight leather shorts and his fat hooded cock springs out, I’m reminded a jack released from his box, or of crescent roll dough bursting from its just-cracked tube.

He’s naked when finally he faces me, expression vulnerable. “Do you remember me now?”

Is he kidding? I don’t doubt his sincerity. But does he honestly think I don’t know who he is, after all those years we met? “Son,” I say with reproach. When I open my arms, he uses one of the bed’s lower horizontal beams to vault himself atop me. The wood protests with a squeal. I hold the younger man’s face with both hands and stare into his eyes. “Bud. I have never forgotten you.”

He blinks to clear his eyes. Nods. Then I feel the full weight of him atop me as we embrace. I’ve missed his deep kisses, the sensation of his facial hair grinding against my own. I’ve missed how his long legs grapple with my own as if we’re trying to pull into the other past the skin, deep to the core. I’ve missed the strength of his arms as he pushes me deeper into the old mattress. We should have been seeing each other these past six years. We should have gone out of our way. Kept in better touch.

No matter. We’re together again, here and now.

Strong fingers wrap around my wrists. He pins my arms above my head, locking them down onto the mattress. I let out a little gasp in which helplessness and excitement interlace. “I remember everything,” he whispers. “I remember Dad likes this.”

Yes. Yes Dad does. Through repeated encounters, without my having to tell him, he’d discovered how urgently I sometimes need to be the passive partner in the encounter. My heart thuds in its cage as he shifts his weight to sit upon my midsection, still holding me down. I make a pretense of struggling a little, just to see if he’ll let me escape.

He doesn’t. A smile flickers across his lips. “You aren’t going anywhere until I get what I want.” My cock rises and thuds against his backside. That little Judas, giving away my pleasure. I haven’t been this excited for a very long time.

You see, new meat is exciting. Getting to see a new cock, to hold it in my hands. Kissing someone for the first time. Exploring new smells, feeling a stranger’s hands on you. I’ve no quarrel with any of that. But getting together with a lover or a friend with benefits, someone you’ve known for months or even years? For me, that blows everything else out of the water. Someone who’s taken the time to learn what I like, to push the buttons I hope they’ll push, who exercises his imagination and timing to make the experience right for me in the same way I try to do for him—that’s what I would prefer over the novelty of an unseen dick, nine times out of ten.

Just a week or two ago I was mourning how all my long-term fuckbuddies had dropped away after the pandemic. In Michigan, I had ongoing relationships with some men for eight, ten, fifteen years. I’d seen Bud nearly a decade. These days, in my neck of the woods, I’ve got nobody regular. Hell, I don’t even have any once-in-a-whilers. So yeah. I miss the excitement of a man like Bud, a handsome fellow who over time has learned my triggers and my limitations, and who plays them like an expert fiddler.

He fiddles now with my dick. My wrists, crossed over the head, he clutches with one hand. The other rises to his mouth. He spits, then covers my shaft in his wetness. My protest is performative; he ignores the rumble of discontent in my chest. “Mine,” he says, squaring his jaw. He gazes at me with possessive pleasure and spits in his hand once more.

“Come on, Son.” I wheedle, pretending to protest my captivity. He continues to study me while his closed hand swivels around my length. Jolts from his electric touch make every muscle twitch and leap. “You can’t do this to an old man.”

“I can do it to my old man. I’ve got that right.” Another load of spit, another groan from my lips. “You can’t hold out on me for so long. You can’t pretend you don’t want that big dick up my hole.”

I’d never pretend that. What I can’t communicate in words, though, as he short-circuits my brain again and again with the expert manipulation of my rod, is that he shouldn’t make me want him so badly. He shouldn’t make me beg for it. He shouldn’t make me crave it so much.

All I can do is writhe and stutter.

Triumph floods his eyes. He spits a final time upon his fingers, raises his hips, and slathers it on his hole. All his weight pushes into my crossed wrists as he presses them painfully into the pillows overhead. I don’t protest. My dick slaps with insistence against his backside as he lowers himself. He seizes it, looks me in the eye, and pauses. “You love your boy, don’t you, Dad?”

I swallow hard and nod even harder. “I sure do, Son.”

“Then fuck me.”

Like I have a choice.

Warmth and wetness engulfs me. I gasp and shudder as slowly he doles out my pleasure, inch by half-inch. I want to lunge into him, a long-starved man diving at the banquet of his dreams, but he’s got me locked in place. “You like that.” It’s more sneer than statement, but I cannot resent my sweet sadist. “I can tell. You want it all?”

I nod. “Please. Please let me in.”

“All the way?”

“All the way,” I agree.

“Is that what Dad wants?” I thought I’d made that part clear, but his question is rhetorical. With a spread of his hips, he absorbs another inch. Sensations begin to overwhelm him. His legs quake around me. “Fuck. That feels good.”

“All the way,” I urge him. “Take it, Son. Take Dad’s dick.”

“Yeah.” He grunts and lowers himself further. I can feel his cheeks stirring my pubes. “Dad’s dick needs this.”

“That’s right.” Power ebbs and flows between us. He’s still got me in his grasp, but now I’m the one giving orders. “Open up, Son.”

We both let out cries of happiness when he settles all the way down. I swell to what feels like twice my ordinary proportions, and am gratified when he lets out a pained huff. He’s making me do this. He’s making me gape his hole. The barbarous pride I feel in his ache is all his doing. I’m just a man flat on his back, being used by his son. Not my fault if he can’t take it.

“Motherfucker,” he says, staring at me. His long locks fall around his face as he begins to rise and fall, connected to me, ass to cock. “Keeping this dick from me for so long. You’re not a good Dad.”

“Yeah?” I raise my neck, look him in the eyes with challenge. “Take it out on me, then.”

“Oh, I’m gonna.”

“Do your worst, kid.”

And he does. I’m surprised at the ferocity of him, the violence with which he impales himself upon me. Time after time I’m certain I’m about to slither out of him, or that he’ll lose control and slam back down at a bad angle. He never does. Not once does my cock’s head leave his chute, though the ridge teases and flicks at the outermost pucker. This fuck is all about him. His needs. Mine are incidental—though trust me, they’re being met in full. He pulls into a fetal position atop me to maneuver himself up and down with an economy of motion.

From above, I feel his sweat drip down on my chest. His dick leaks slime on my abdomen. He’s a big boy down there, thick and uncut, so every slap of his ass causes his meat to land heavily on my belly a quarter-beat later. He accompanies that sweet syncopation with grunts that sound feral to my grateful ears. “Motherfucker,” he says over and over.

He has his way with me in sharp, short thrusts. Gravity seems to be dragging him down into me, the longer we knit our bodies together. His knees weigh on my ribcage; his forehead bores into my own. Bud releases my wrists, then takes my two hands in his own, interlocking our fingers. His hair tickles my ears, now; his lips press against mine. I welcome his tongue between my lips. Now his cock thrusts against me, his precum making my skin slippery enough to slide against. His breath becomes ragged—but mine is, too, the more relentless he is in leading me to my climax.

“Fuck!” The rickety four-poster rattles and squeals with his thrusts, protesting. I expect it to shatter into a hundred thousand splinters at any moment. “Fuck!” His dick chars my stomach as he shoves into it. Then I feel wetness sliding down my side. “Fuck yes!”

“Did you shoot, Son?” I’m pretty sure I know the answer, but I hope to hear his affirmation.

He releases my hands and cups my skull, his hips still rising and falling with the relentlessness of a piston. “Give it to me,” he demands in a cracked voice. “You owe me.”

I do. I owe him six years of seed. He gives me no choice but to pay up.

When I shoot, my juice scalds me on its exit; a column of fire sears its way up my spine and makes me clench and grasp at his hands. Bud holds me down to keep me from thrashing, but I buck and jolt anyway, clenching my teeth to an orgasm that feels a lot more like pain than joy. “That’s right.” He sits up now and holds his hands behind his bed, sitting himself firmly on my staff. “Give me all of that stuff.”

The moment subsides. The room falls quiet. Both of us still panting, we regard each other with steady eyes. I crack into a smile that I’m pleased to see return. He hauls me into sitting upright. For a moment, I fear I might flop back down like a ragdoll. But he scoops me into another embrace and gives me a squeeze. “Thank you, Dad. That was long overdue” I nod weakly over his shoulder. “I’m going to go back to that party and carry you inside me all night.”

Oh, crap. That is the sexiest thing I’ve heard in a while. When he releases me, I swing my legs around and fumble for the wooden stairs that will allow me to dismount the four-poster. He’s already vaulted on the floor, and offers me a gallant hand while I regain my balance. “That is just what I needed, Son,” I tell him. “Thank you.”

“Anything for my dad.” He’s already squeezing back into those ridiculously tight shorts, so I pull on my own clothes and wait for him. Not long after, we’re back out in the cool night air, his arm around me as we head west on Commercial Street. A leather man and his dad, out for a Saturday night in a resort town.

We pause for the last time in front of the Portuguese bakery. “Maybe we could meet up another time this week?” I suggest. It would be a shame to pass up our proximity.

He nods. “Don’t forget me, Dad.” Then, with a last kiss in front of anyone who might be watching, he strides off in the direction of the Crown and Anchor.

Forget Bud? As if I could.

***

Hey! If you've made it this far, chances are you enjoy my sexual memoir pieces. May I suggest you invest in one of my works of sexy erotica? 

If you enjoy vintage-style collections of hot, retro-themed gay fiction penned by some great authors of man on man erotica, please consider supporting me with a purchase of either Dirty Dorms & Fresh Men (which features my story Sleazy A), Hustlers, Hoboes, & Outlaws (which features my story On the Block), Same Sex: Gay Science Fiction Clone Erotica (which features my story Journey's End), Come Young and Old: Gay Age Gap Erotica, (which features my story The Good Dad), Mowing & Blowing: Gay Sex in the Garden (which features my story The Most Dangerous Flower), or Comin' Down the Road: Queer Science Fiction on the Highways & Byways (which features my short novel A Globe, Granite Underfoot).

Sleazy A is also available in epub format from Smashwords and in Kindle format from Amazon.

On the Block is available as an ebook from Amazon and Smashwords.

The publishing house for these projects can be found at Peterschutes.com . There are already many vintage-style pulps on sale over there, with more to come. If you sign up for the site's newsletter, you’ll be eligible to receive a free eBook.

Supporting my erotic fiction helps me maintain this blog and the erotic memoir pieces I've produced here for over a decade. 





Friday, May 1, 2026

Interview: A Globe, Granite Underfoot

My latest novel, A Globe Granite Underfoot, part of the anthology, Comin’ Down the Road: Gay Science Fiction on the Highways and Byways, is now available for purchase!

To mark the occasion, I asked a friend of mine with a background in journalism to have a conversation with me about the novel’s composition and themes. I’ve transcribed it below (and cleaned up a lot of my hemming and hawing).



In a conversation we had a few weeks ago, you told me this was the first book you’ve written using a writing prompt. Maybe first explain what a writing prompt is.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. A lot of writers really hate having to face a blank page and create something from nothing. Some people tend to be good self-starters. Others need a little nudge. A writing prompt can do that by suggesting topics or routes to explore.

In the creative writing workshops I teach, I provide writing prompts in a number of ways. In the more structured classes, a memoir-writing seminar or something along those lines, I’ll give prescriptive prompts for everyone to follow. Like: write an essay about a time in your life in which you were absolutely monstrous, the very worst version of yourself. Everyone participates in this kind of assignment, so we can all compare how we describe ourselves in a moment of extreme stress.

For my more general, free-for-all seminars, for each upcoming week I’ll provide several short prompts in case anyone needs them. They’re entirely optional. A majority of these writers are working on their own short stories or novels and use their time to get feedback on those. But some like a little nudge, so I’ll give it to them with a prompt like, “Here’s a first line: She walked into the room, conscious that every eye was upon her. Keep going from there.” Or I’ll give them something like, Write an account with plenty of sensory detail about what trick-or-treating was like when you were a kid.

Do your students use these prompts? Or are they mostly interested in their own ideas?

Sometimes they do! I’m always astonished when it happens. The trick-or-treating one came to mind because one of my writers took off with it and wrote this really poignant essay about the Halloween they realized she was too old to go out begging for candy, yet she went through with it anyway because she knew the experience meant a lot to her newly-divorced father who didn’t get to see her that often…it was a little heartbreaker of a story.

So yeah, I give these prompts, and sometimes the writers use them and come up with something much grander than I ever had in mind when I sat down to write them up in the weekly seminar email.

Your first question was about how this novel arose from a writing prompt. If we want to be picky, though, all my erotic novels have come from prompts. My publisher, Peter Schutes, will reach out to me from time to time and say, Hey, if you have any interest in any of these topics, I’m creating anthologies for them. Then he’ll list, I don’t know, college athletic teams, guys who do dirty jobs like you’d see on that Mike Rowe program, truck drivers, that kind of stuff. The novels I did before were from broad suggestions like, vintage college dorm hookups, hustlers. He wanted one about gardening and said maybe write about a fussy old orchid collector, and I turned that into The Most Dangerous Flower.

So what was different about the prompt for this story?

It was the first prompt that Peter Schutes gave me that had me saying, no, absolutely not, this is the most irksome request I’ve ever heard. What happened is that last year I was scheduled to appear on a podcast about my previous science fiction novella, Journey’s End. I loved that book, loved writing it, but my stomach was in knots at the prospect of the podcast. Then, at a moment of peak stress, Peter Schutes emailed me and said, Hey, if you’d like to write another science fiction novel, could you write one set on a highway?

I was in a mood, so my first response was, fuck no. Then I spent the rest of the afternoon stomping around in my mind in a high dudgeon, thinking, what the hell kind of science fiction story takes place on a highway? Dumb writing prompt. I’m definitely turning this one down. Then my brain started to think, what kind of science fiction story would take place on a highway? Did the highway have to be on Earth? Where was this highway going? Who was traveling on the highway?

There’s a mental game writers play where they ask themselves questions about a scenario to create a story, and I didn’t even realize I was playing it until I had a fully visualized image in my head of two men on a silent planet, treading carefully along a broken, ancient stone highway, underneath a purple sky. And it was from that image that I wrote A Globe, Granite Underfoot. I told Peter that afternoon that sure, I’d do it. I was in, whole-heartedly.

That title of yours sounds like something Heinlein or Asimov would come up with.

Yeah! I agree! About a chapter in, I wanted to find a title, so I started looking around for literary quotations about journeys. The one that struck me most was by Robert Louis Stevenson, who talked about how he travels specifically to endure hardship, to feel the globe hard and granite underfoot, basically because it reminds him how good he has it otherwise at home. And that fit.

And Stevenson wrote adventure books like Treasure Island, which I know had a big influence on you as a kid.

Absolutely. The discovery seemed very, what’s the word? Propitious. I loved books like Treasure Island growing up. Those big adventures. And that’s what this story is. A tale about two men having an adventure they didn’t necessarily ask for.

With fucking.

With a lot of fucking.

But the Stevenson thing. I can intuit how it influenced the language of this story, which is…I don’t want to say old fashioned, but…

The language is definitely more old-fashioned than in my other stories. High toned, you might say.

Let me explain what the story’s about, so I can address that a little more in depth. A Globe, Granite Underfoot is the story of two men from an archaeological expedition who have been stranded on a planet that’s called Plum. An entire team of people landed on the planet expecting it to be deserted of everything but plant life. They’re researching an ancient, extinct race known only as the Salix, who once occupied Plum and built a big stone highway on it. The researchers want to know why.

Then, their first night, someone dies. The team hears terrible sounds that tell them they’re not the only living beings on Plum. Our two heroes, Ayden and Amodeo, undertake a scouting expedition. When they return to camp, they are confronted with evidence of a bloody massacre and a hasty retreat: the rest of the expedition has taken the shuttle and returned to space, abandoning them.

The rest of the story is about what they do to survive, and how close they become during their ordeal.

Ayden, that’s the younger one who narrates the story, has a background that’s almost straight out of the headlines.

Ayden grew up in a large terrorist cell that’s taken over a significant portion of North and South Carolina. They call themselves the Carolina Free States. They’re extremists, yes, based on today’s ‘sovereign citizen’ conspiracy theorists. Some years before the story, the Carolina Free States activists bombed the sitting state legislatures and most of the large cities in the Carolinas, drove out most of the population, and exist by moving from bunker to underground bunker until the United Settlements government finally rousted them out, when Ayden was in his teens.

Ayden’s the youngest member of his family, so while most of them are sentenced to hard labor for their crimes, he’s really done nothing wrong. Someone takes pity on him and offers to enlist him in the Scholastic Brotherhood, a group fascinated by ancient ruins and civilizations. They’re monks, but have no religious connections. Secular monks. They offer him a chance to start over, give him a new temporary name—Brother Sorrowful—and really give him an opportunity to find out what he can be when he’s not overshadowed by his family. The idea is that when he finally figures out that, he can rename himself for good.

By the time Ayden goes on the expedition in the story, he’s in his mid-twenties and is desperately trying to behave and speak and write like the other monks, which is why the story uses the language it does.

The older Amodeo is supposed to be the leader of the expedition, so as a reader, I expected him to take the lead in everything. But Ayden’s got a skill set of his own that makes him Amodeo’s equal, though there’s two or three decades of difference in their age.

Amodeo has a lot of book learnin’. Ayden has a lot of practical survival knowledge born of years evading government enforcers. They make a good team together.

I laughed at one part where Ayden’s trying to suggest solutions to their problem and says something like, “Everybody knows how to make bombs!” and Amodeo has to patiently explain that no, everybody does not know how to make bombs.

Ayden grew up way, way on the fringes of everything and has insights that so-called normal United Settlements citizens don’t and can’t have. Now he’s trying to make his own connections, order his own life the way he wants, make his own family. His whole perspective is queer.

Yes. The romance between the two men is very sweet, and doesn’t follow the traditional daddy/boy trope because in this scenario, they’re equals. Also, I wanted to ask: is this the first serodiscordant relationship in your writing?

Thank you for noticing. Yes, it is. 

Let me just say that a serodiscordant relationship is one in which one partner is HIV-positive and the other is not. Thanks to PrEP and a growing awareness that U=U, this type of pairing is less fraught and feared than in the past, though we've still a long way to go.

I basically had this entire story mapped out in my head within a day, after I gave into that writing prompt. If you go back to that podcast I did last year, you can hear me enthusing about it with the excitement of a kid with a new toy. But I had one problem in that I needed to provide Ayden and Amodeo a reason for urgently wanting to reunite with the crew who left them on the planet. It wasn’t until midway through that I realized Amedeo carried an infectious disease much like HIV that could be treated, but not cured.

While in the story's timeline he might be all right this week and next week and for the weeks after that, they can't hunker down and stay on this isolated planet indefinitely. The longer he—I mean Amodeo—goes without treatment, the more prone he is to secondary infections. Amodeo’s trying to be stoic about it, but Ayden realizes that it’s urgent they be evacuated. It lights a fire under his butt.

I don’t think Amodeo has actual HIV. I would hope by the time in the future when this story is set, that virus would be a thing of the past. Whatever future infection he has might as well be HIV, though. I was glad not only to have the opportunity to help normalize a serodiscordant sexual relationship within the context of a science fiction story, but to assure people that there are far, far scarier things out there than a positive partner.

Before I leave the story altogether, I want to comment on the ending: was it intended to be so ambiguous?

Yes. Without giving anything away, even though I wrote it, I find the ending is immensely satisfying…

Yes.

…but it doesn’t answer every question.

A sequel, maybe?

Maybe! There was actually a lot I had to leave out of this story that I wish I could expand into a full-length novel. I had ideas about Ayden’s role in the Carolina Free States leadership being betrayed, how his survival skills accelerated his acceptance in to the Brotherhood…all kinds of avenues.

I’m going to make you wrap up with a statement about why you were inspired to donate all proceeds of this printing to The Trevor Project.

In the current political atmosphere, I think it’s important for the LGBTQ+ population to support causes that look out for our own. Particularly those looking out for the most marginalized and for younger people. Ayden is in his mid-twenties, but the feel of this particular story is similar to a young adult novel. That is, of someone with not a lot of life experience who’s thrown in over his head and finds he has the resilience and smarts to survive.

So I declared my intention to donate my advance and royalties for this edition to The Trevor Project, the nonprofit that focuses on intervention and suicide prevention for LGBTQ+ youth. The current US administration had just removed funding for suicide prevention options for our population when I started the story in mid-2025, and The Trevor Project became more necessary and relevant than ever.

Peter Schutes agreed that the idea was a good one, and declared his intention to match my donation with one of his own. So every purchase of a copy will fund a good and essential cause.

I think that’s an excellent way to tie this up. Thank you.

No, thank you for the questions! It’s easier for me to respond conversationally about a work with someone who’s read it, than it is to muster up an essay about Why You Should Read This Thing I Did.

Comin' Down the Road is available from bookshop.org, a site that supports local, independent bookstores, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble, or you may ask your local bookstore to order a copy for you.


**

Hey! If you've made it this far, chances are you enjoy my sexual memoir pieces. May I suggest you invest in one of my works of sexy erotica? 

If you enjoy vintage-style collections of hot, retro-themed gay fiction penned by some great authors of man on man erotica, please consider supporting me with a purchase of either Dirty Dorms & Fresh Men (which features my story Sleazy A), Hustlers, Hoboes, & Outlaws (which features my story On the Block), Same Sex: Gay Science Fiction Clone Erotica (which features my story Journey's End), Come Young and Old: Gay Age Gap Erotica, (which features my story The Good Dad)Mowing & Blowing: Gay Sex in the Garden (which features my story The Most Dangerous Flower), or Comin' Down the Road: Queer Science Fiction on the Highways & Byways (which features my short novel A Globe, Granite Underfoot).

Sleazy A is also available in epub format from Smashwords and in Kindle format from Amazon.

On the Block is available as an ebook from Amazon and Smashwords.

The publishing house for these projects can be found at Peterschutes.com . There are already many vintage-style pulps on sale over there, with more to come. If you sign up for the site's newsletter, you’ll be eligible to receive a free eBook.

Supporting my erotic fiction helps me maintain this blog and the erotic memoir pieces I've produced here for over a decade. 






Friday, April 3, 2026

Coming Soon: A Globe Granite Underfoot


On May 1, Peter Schutes Publishing will release my sixth short erotic novel as half of the two-story duology, Comin' Down the Road: Queer SF on the Highways and Byways

My contribution is a story entitled A Globe Granite Underfoot, a science fiction adventure with horror elements. Set in the distant future on the desolate planet of Plum, the novel focuses on a monastic archaeologist and his young apprentice as they trek down the ruins of a highway built by a long-dead civilization in search of rescue.

Though Plum is purportedly a planet devoid of any fauna, a predator seems to stalk the pair, making its presence known each sunset. As the two men grow more desperate to escape, they draw closer in ways neither expect.

(Though admittedly, if you've read any other of my works of fiction, the ways in which they draw closer might be ways you expect. Bow-chicka-bow-wow!)

This novel was an absolute joy to write. Its title is taken from a quote by author Robert Louis Stevenson, who was considering how he travels to unfamiliar places "to come down off this feather-bed of civilization, and find the globe granite underfoot and strewn with cutting flints"—in other words, to appreciate the comforts of civilization all the more, while relishing the obstacles found in journeys to unfamiliar places. I chose a Stevenson-inspired title because the story reminded me of the tales of high adventure I used to enjoy as a youth, like his Treasure Island

But, you know. With more man-on-man sex.

Globe is set in the same universe of the dystopian, more than a little fascistic universe of the United Settlements of my previous science fiction novel, Journey's End. It's not a sequel, exactly. It's not necessary to read the first in order to understand this one, nor is there any character overlap. Globe is, however, as unabashedly romantic as Journey's End, if not even more so. The stakes are high for the couple, and they face real dangers in their long, frightening, and sometimes beautiful trek.

All proceeds I earn from this edition of A Globe Granite Underfoot I am donating to The Trevor Project, the crisis services, advocacy, and research organization for LGBTQ+ young people. Not only will you be supporting queer art and writing by purchasing a copy, your money will be going directly toward a great cause. Peter Schutes Publishing has made a matching donation as well. 

I hope you'll consider grabbing a copy. Or two! It would make a great gift for the science fiction lover in your life.

Comin' Down the Road is available from bookshop.org, a site that supports local, independent bookstores, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble, or you may ask your local bookstore to order a copy for you.


**

Hey! If you've made it this far, chances are you enjoy my sexual memoir pieces. May I suggest you invest in one of my works of sexy erotica? 

If you enjoy vintage-style collections of hot, retro-themed gay fiction penned by some great authors of man on man erotica, please consider supporting me with a purchase of either Dirty Dorms & Fresh Men (which features my story Sleazy A), Hustlers, Hoboes, & Outlaws (which features my story On the Block), Same Sex: Gay Science Fiction Clone Erotica (which features my story Journey's End), Come Young and Old: Gay Age Gap Erotica, (which features my story The Good Dad), or Mowing & Blowing: Gay Sex in the Garden (which features my story The Most Dangerous Flower.)

Sleazy A is also available in epub format from Smashwords and in Kindle format from Amazon.

On the Block is available as an ebook from Amazon and Smashwords.

The publishing house for these projects can be found at Peterschutes.com . There are already many vintage-style pulps on sale over there, with more to come. If you sign up for the site's newsletter, you’ll be eligible to receive a free eBook.

Supporting my erotic fiction helps me maintain this blog and the erotic memoir pieces I've produced here for over a decade. 











Tuesday, October 7, 2025

Behind the Writing of The Most Dangerous Flower (Out Today!)

I’m very pleased to announce that I’ve got one more title coming out this year—and it’s a sexy tale called The Most Dangerous Flower, appearing in the anthology Mowing and Blowing: Gay Sex in the Garden.


The Most Dangerous Flower
is the story of Johnny Carr, an aging but still stylish resident of The Campbell, an exclusive building on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. For years, Johnny has been the younger companion to a wealthy man named Kenneth, a theatrical producer who collects beautiful things, including Johnny as a younger man. Part of Kenneth’s hoard is a private greenhouse of exotic orchids that’s known throughout the city.

But Dennis has passed away, leaving all his worldly goods to Johnny. Now, as Mr. Carr of The Campbell, Johnny finds himself at a crossroads. After decades of being merely an ornamental accessory to a much wealthier man, he has the means to determine how he wants to live the rest of his life. Is the famed orchid collection really something he can manage on his own, though?

Enter Oscar, nephew to The Campbell’s doorman. An experienced gardener, the handsome and dangerous Oscar offers to tutor Johnny in the specialized art of caring for exotic blooms—but only if he’s willing to get his hands dirty. And since this is an erotic novel, perhaps willing to get some other parts dirty as well.

**

The idea for The Most Dangerous Flower came from a random story prompt suggested by my publisher, when he told me he was considering an anthology about lawn mowers and gardeners. My initial instinct was a big hearty hell no, primarily because I have a visceral reaction to the chore of lawn mowing. Of all the household duties it is my least favorite. My parents volunteered my lawn-mowing services far and wide when I was twelve or thirteen, and all the extra pocket money in the world couldn’t make up for the absolute misery I experienced, getting sunburned and sweaty and covered with grass clippings for a whopping two bucks an hour. (Sunscreen wasn’t a thing in the mid-nineteen-seventies.)

When I became a homeowner myself, strapped as I was for cash, first thing I did was hire someone to mow the lawn. Same for the second home I owned. And when I moved back to the east coast, I moved into a rental unit where I can stand on the front porch and watch someone else cut the damned lawn while I bask in the satisfaction of the perpetually lazy.

I dislike gardening too. But the thing is that as happy as I am not to have to garden or weed, I’m secretly good at it. I grew up with a mother who loved to garden and who made me her assistant. Together we tended roses, planned out bulb plantings, tended to our annuals. From her I learned how to nurture cuttings into houseplants, how to maintain an herb garden, how to coax tomatoes from seedlings. I learned a lot, but I can’t say I enjoy digging in the dirt. Today I don’t keep any plants in my home other than an aloe that resists my every attempt to murder it. But if you were to throw me into a garden and give me no options than to tend to it, I’d manage.

**

My publisher didn’t give up easily, though. “You can come at it from any angle you like,” he emailed, trying to entice me into contributing. “A greenhouse. Growing weed in the ‘70s. A park ranger. A garden party in the South. An effete orchid enthusiast in a New York penthouse. Anything, really.”

Well, he hooked me with that last suggestion. Writing an erotic story about a fussy old cultivator of orchids seemed like a fun challenge. I agreed to come up with a story in a few weeks’’ time.

My ideas really didn’t cohere until I went on vacation aboard a gay cruise, a month later. I found myself spending a lot of my daytimes in the pool area, dozing and reading books (honestly, my favorite way to spend a week off), and observing the interactions between two aging pretty boys and the wealthy men who kept them.

Both of the younger men were in their early forties; their keepers were thirty or more years their senior. All were expensively dressed and accessorized. For a few days I observed how the younger ‘boys’ fetched and tended to their patrons, how they showed off their trained and sculpted bodies in ways meant to compliment the taste and buying power of the older men, how they sat only when invited by their man. 

I found it difficult not to wonder what such a life would feel like. To be kept in a life of luxury, but still plainly be regarded as something purely ornamental, especially at an age when most men are concerned with their achievements and success, with perhaps even an eye to their future legacy.

One night at dinner, when I was seated behind the couples, I heard one of the kept boys complain in a mild mutter to the other that sometimes he wished he could order from the menu what he wanted, rather than eating what his man chose for him. In a start, I realized I had my main character: a former kept boy for the first time making his own decisions.

The next day, while everyone else was enjoying one of our foreign ports, I was in one of the ship’s lounges with my tablet, tapping out what became the first chapter to The Most Dangerous Flower.

The story’s an erotic rom-com. It’s the story of someone who traded his youthful beauty for security, who only discovers the possibility of choice late in life. It’s a tale of a man coming to life again after a long winter’s slumber—and the story’s silly premise gave me plenty of opportunity to stage it a little like a farce.

As always, I treasure the continued support of my readers. Thanks for giving me the freedom to pursue opportunities that blend storytelling with erotic intention. I hope you’ll give The Most Dangerous Flower a read!

You can purchase the handsome, vintage-style paperback edition from the following links:

Amazon: bit.ly/48LuQX5

Barnes & Noble: bit.ly/3Ku5a7z

Thriftbooks: bit.ly/48b5mlP

**

Hey! If you've made it this far, chances are you enjoy my sexual memoir pieces. May I suggest you invest in one of my works of sexy erotica? 

If you enjoy vintage-style collections of hot, retro-themed gay fiction penned by some great authors of man on man erotica, please consider supporting me with a purchase of either Dirty Dorms & Fresh Men (which features my story Sleazy A), Hustlers, Hoboes, & Outlaws (which features my story On the Block), Same Sex: Gay Science Fiction Clone Erotica (which features my story Journey's End), Come Young and Old: Gay Age Gap Erotica, (which features my story The Good Dad), or Mowing & Blowing: Gay Sex in the Garden (which features my story The Most Dangerous Flower.)

Sleazy A is also available in epub format from Smashwords and in Kindle format from Amazon.

On the Block is available as an ebook from Amazon and Smashwords.

The publishing house for these projects can be found at Peterschutes.com . There are already many vintage-style pulps on sale over there, with more to come. If you sign up for the site's newsletter, you’ll be eligible to receive a free eBook.

Supporting my erotic fiction helps me maintain this blog and the erotic memoir pieces I've produced here for over a decade. 



Monday, July 14, 2025

A Catch-Up Post

I apologize for not having posted an essay here lately. The last couple of months have been unexpectedly busy for me and I've had very little time to carve out for sexual adventures, much less writing about them. 

I did have a fun vacation last week, though, so I'll be working on a couple of essays arising from that. 

In the meantime, let me catch you up with a few announcements about some of the various creative endeavors that have been occupying my time.

A New Book



I've got a new story appearing in the anthology Come Young and Old: Gay Age Gap Erotica, out July 29th. This is another in the vintage-style pulp paperback series from Peter Schutes Publishing. As the title might imply, all the stories within deal with older dad types doing dirty things with younger son types. It's raunchy as hell and you'll love it.

My story, The Good Dad, is largely autobiographical in its storytelling, yet culminates in a fictional climax based on one of the few things that's never happened to me, though I wish it would. Some of you might guess what that is. The rest of you will have to read to find out. 

And then track me down to make it happen. (Please?)

Come Young and Old is available for preorder from Amazon.


A New eBook


My novella, On the Block, is available in ebook format  at a number of different outlets. On the Block is set in 1980 and is the story of Nicky, a street hustler trying to escape a small Southern town by latching onto and then seducing a big-city reporter. In previous essays I've talked about how the story's set on a vanished cruising area from my own youth, though Nicky and his adventures are entirely fictional. 

Previously, the story was part of the Hustlers, Hoboes, and Outlaws anthology (still available in paperback, by the way!). 

If you order from Smashwords, throughout the month of July 2025 you can purchase On the Block for a mere $2.50. I don't know anything else that can give you as much pleasure for that price.

Amazon: amzn.to/4kfvxuM

Smashwords: bit.ly/4dAv7wH

Kobo: bit.ly/4ke3onZ

Barnes & Noble: bit.ly/3Z12ZfZ

Apple Books: books.apple.com/us/book/on-t...


Me: Live!


If you're interested in hearing—yes, I said hearing—about my creative process when I'm writing, recently I spent an hour talking with the host of the podcast Art in the Raw. The podcast is an outgrowth of Salon Naturale, a North Texas-based community celebrating queer social nudism and creative expression.

I've enjoyed previous episodes of the show because of the laid-back, in-depth conversations it hosts with queer artists of all stripes. Under my J. W. Steed moniker, I was happy to chat about my early inspirations, my journey to becoming a published writer, and the struggles of shifting from mainstream novels to erotica. While yapping at a hundred miles an hour, I even managed to get in some thoughts about my philosophy of writing, and in particular of writing fiction appealing to the sexual urges. 

Much of the discussion focuses on the science fiction novella, Journey's End, which is available in a stunning paperback edition. 

If you're so inclined, give it a listen. I've linked above to Apple Podcasts, but you can find the project at any of your favorite podcast hubs.


And that's it! I'll try to have a new essay for you good people in a couple of weeks. 


 ***

Hey! If you've made it this far, chances are you enjoy my sexual memoir pieces. May I suggest you invest in one of my works of sexy erotica? 

If you enjoy vintage-style collections of hot, retro-themed gay fiction penned by some great authors of man on man erotica, please consider supporting me with a purchase of either Dirty Dorms & Fresh Men (which features my story Sleazy A), Hustlers, Hoboes, & Outlaws (which features my story On the Block), Same Sex: Gay Science Fiction Clone Erotica (which features my story Journey's End), or Come Young and Old: Gay Age Gap Erotica, (which features my story The Good Dad).

Sleazy A is also available in epub format from Smashwords and in Kindle format from Amazon.

The publishing house for these projects can be found at Peterschutes.com . There are already many vintage-style pulps on sale over there, with more to come. If you sign up for the site's newsletter, you’ll be eligible to receive a free eBook.

Supporting my erotic fiction helps me maintain this blog and the erotic memoir pieces I've produced here for over a decade. 

Thursday, May 1, 2025

Out Now: Journey's End


The first thing you should know about my latest novella, Journey’s End, is that it’s available in paperback today. The other thing you should know about Journey’s End is that I wrote half of it the day my dad died.

But let me backtrack a little.

About a year ago, the publisher of my erotic fiction sent me an email outlining some of the upcoming anthologies he was proposing, to see if I might be interested in contributing. One volume was to feature stories with dad types and horny son types—which, sure. I knew I'd go for that one. That’s my wheelhouse. Another had to do with gardening: landscapers, lawn mowers, men who toiled in the dirt. Yeah, maybe with my miserable experiences taking care of lawns as a teen I could do something with that. There were a couple of other suggestions that I don’t recall, but they really didn’t appeal to my interests. I write erotic novellas purely for the fun of it. It’s a lark for me. I’ll do it as long as I can pick and choose and keep the stories playful and sexy—but if it begins to feel too much like an assignment or old-fashioned homework, I’m not interested.

The last suggestion my publisher made was for a science fiction story. My first reaction was: science fiction and gay erotica? How’s that work, exactly? Was I supposed to write about Luke Dicktaker saving the universe from evil planetary overlord Arse Gobbler? Was I supposed to produce some thinly-veiled Kirk/Spock shipping?

Then I had to chide myself. I’ve been a science fiction fan for decades. Many of my all-time favorite writers, writers I’ve emulated and studied, write speculative fiction. I’ve been a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association and a Nebula voter for a decade and a half…though admittedly, my qualifying works were fantasies. I could do better than writing a story called Star Twink and calling it a day.

(Note: I kinda still want to write a story named Star Twink.)

To my publisher I indicated that the SF anthology sounded interesting and to count me in. Then, as I always do, I proceeded to have a good think.

***

It didn’t take me long to come up with a situation in which I could set a story. Generations in the future, in a universe where mankind has been expanding and resettling in different solar systems, Dr. Jeremy Wollny, a researcher with degrees in geophysics and exobotany, has received a lucrative grant and a team of forty scientists to terraform a newly-discovered planet so it can support human life. After he and his team arrive upon a space station orbiting the planet in question, a pandemic devastates the settled universe, shutting down the project and forcing the settlers of multiple solar systems into isolation. When the lockdowns conclude, Jeremy has no team left—the survivors have slinked back to their home planets and families. He’s also lost his funding.

Jeremy has a boyfriend, however, a younger man named Benny he’d met in a bar on the Mars moon Deimos. During his isolation aboard a transport shuttle on his way to Jeremy, Benny conceptualizes a corporate sponsorship scheme that saves Jeremy’s project. And Jeremy arrives at a solution to his staffing problem: rather than attempt to hire another forty scientists he would have to train, he’ll manufacture forty clones of himself, each retaining a certain portion of his knowledge and expertise.

In Jeremy’s universe, clones are created in a replicator that’s something like a 3D printer that works with biological matter rather than plastics. And clones are made in various classes.

Thirty-seven of Jeremy’s clones are what's known as C-class: physically like their original, but their brains retaining only twenty-five percent of Jeremy's memories and experiences, mostly having to do with technical knowledge. Two of the clones are A-class, retaining forty-five percent of Jeremy’s memories. And Jeremy makes one special, extremely expensive S-class clone of himself that duplicates ninety-eight percent of his neural cortex, to perform his administrative duties on the space station above the planet, while he coordinates the team below. Jeremy and his S-class clone are as identical as scientifically possible.

Shortly before Jeremy and the clones head planetside to begin the slow transformation, he and Benny experience a painful breakup that Jeremy finds difficult to accept. Months later, when the clone accidentally forgets to turn off a video feed in his workspace on the station above, Jeremy is stunned to witness that his S-class clone is fucking his ex-boyfriend.

That discovery is how the story starts. Our hero sees something he shouldn’t, then embarks on a journey of sexual obsession and discovery that takes him to some pretty dark places. When I commenced writing Journey’s End in the summer of 2024, I had a vague idea of the story’s shape and the approximate place I wanted it to land, but I figured that with its solid premise I wouldn’t have a problem finding a way.

I wanted to explore several ideas, as Jeremy sits glued to his video feed, watching his ex have wild, explosive sex with Jeremy’s close look-alike. First, I thought it would be fun to examine how even smart, highly-educated men can find their attention absorbed by sexual obsession. I wanted to probe how even a slight two percent alteration can make a huge difference in identity and experience. And I really wanted to consider how even when we think we have nothing left to discover about ourselves, human nature finds a way to surprise us.

Originally I’d intended Jeremy to pull some kind of Parent Trap shenanigans in which he pretends to be the clone, to trick Benny into bed, but I nixed the idea fairly early on. I didn’t like how non-consensual such a scenario would feel, and thought it would take Jeremy to a place from which there was no redemption. As I wrote the first couple of chapters, I kept reconsidering how the plot would resolve itself.

And then my dad died. As I’ve mentioned before, that event was both sudden—and not. He’d been in and out of the hospital for fainting spells but nothing had been really life-threatening. His latest and last stay had been going on for a week and none of the doctors had expressed any grave concerns, but then one Thursday he was non-responsive and the hospital made urgent calls for me to come in and say my goodbyes. He died late that evening, when I was home asleep.

If you’ve lost someone close, you can imagine how low I was when I woke up to the news that Friday morning. I had theater tickets that evening, and as dumb and selfish as it sounds, I couldn’t figure out whether or not to go. In the end I decided I might as well; the show was the latest revival of Once Upon a Mattress, and its Princess Winifred, Sutton Foster, had been my dad’s favorite actress. His favorite TV show ever was Bunheads. He would’ve loved hearing about me seeing her live on stage again, so going seemed like the right move, even though I was already predicting I’d bawl during the father/son “Man to Man Talk” number. (I did.)

That left the rest of the day to get through. I took my laptop, sat outdoors on my porch, and wrote. And wrote. Over the course of seven or eight hours, the latter half of Journey’s End just poured out of me. I suddenly found a path to redemption for Dr. Jeremy Wollny, after all his spying and unhealthy fixations. I wrote one of the steamiest sex scenes I’ve ever penned, and a brutal confrontation that tore at my heart. I wrapped up the novella with a chapter that made me weep from start to finish. By the late afternoon, I was snotty and tear-streaked and absolutely exhausted from emotion, but I was done with that first draft.

What I’d created made me incredibly proud. On the emotional occasion of my father’s passing, I’d managed to shape my story into a meditation of how we can hew close to our progenitors, yet still become our own persons. I’d written about how we honor those we have loved, even when they are no longer in our lives. I’d written a piece of speculative fiction that was unabashedly romantic and moved me deeply, and still managed to have plenty of boisterous carnality.

Journey’s End is out in a handsome paperback edition today as part of the two-story collection Same Sex: Gay Science Fiction Clone Erotica. I invite you to get a copy from any of the online options below, or to order it from your local book vendor. Then enjoy it and let me know your thoughts. 

And thank you for reading!

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