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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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!

***

Order Same Sex: Gay Science Fiction Clone Erotica from Amazon

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All my erotic fiction that's available from Amazon

When Worlds Collide

July 1979

Dragonflies skim above the surface of Young’s Pond, then dart among the tall grasses that grow at its edge. I sit on the ground beneath the canopy of a low-growing American Elm, between the water and a narrow stretch of asphalt leading into the woods. A paperback lies propped open in my lap. Half its cover has been scissored away, as I’d originally fished it out of Woolco’s ten cent cut-out bin. Given the clue that it’s Jane E by a truncated Charlott, a clever person might be able to reckon what I’m reading.

Unrelenting sun and temperatures in the high eighties have banished the squirrels and chipmunks into cooler, shadier retreats. Cicadas huzz in the loblollies that surround the pond’s western end; their drowsy clamor makes my own eyelids droop. Bryan Park takes a siesta during these post-lunch summer hours. The man-to-man cruising action that occupies the park’s northern side won’t resume in full force for several more hours, once the sun descends beyond the ridge of pines.

But I’m here to escape, more than to get off. Every summer, my parents enroll me in whatever free enrichment programs they can find, hoping to add a few more bullet points to my college application resumé as well as to keep me out of their hair. This year, in the break between my ninth and tenth grade, it’s beginner’s Russian at the high school. Like most days, I’d finished my suggested Cyrillic exercises in the morning. And again, like most days, during our sack lunch break I’d hopped on my bike and vamoosed. It’s an ungraded course. I won’t get penalized. I doubt the teacher will note my absence.

No one expects me home for another couple of hours, so here I sit, reading a familiar favorite and sometimes dozing while I assess what trouble I might get into. This cruising area of the park’s not completely dead; every now and then a car will wind up the long drive around the pond, headed for the shady enclosure of pines beyond. The Virginia heat is too oppressive and the day too lazy for me to stir my bones, so when a driver’s head cranes in my direction as he passes, I pretend disinterest and let him continue on.

Then I see the white Cadillac turn from the residential road bordering the park. It’s a decked-out ’76 Eldorado convertible, bigger than the Queen Mary and almost as majestic. Sunlight glints from its chrome surfaces, blinding me as it draws over the bridge my way. The vehicle slows to a stop where I relax. Today, the driver has pulled closed the roof. When he rolls down the passenger side window, I feel the cool cloud of air conditioning from within. I’m jealous. Neither of my parents’ old junkers has A/C.

He’s not wearing a seatbelt—no one wears seatbelts—so he’s easily able to stick out his head, tip up his straw hat, and survey me. He sports a formal shirt and full suit of seersucker. “Good afternoon, young man.”

I nod. I know this fellow, but I’m never willing to look him in the eye. “‘lo.”

“Hot one,” he ventures. His Deep South drawl is as broad and wide as the car he drives. Again, I nod, biting down a comment that he might find it cooler were he wearing something other than a suit. I’m walking a fine line here: I don’t want to engage too much, but at the same time, I’m unwilling to deflect him away. So I toy with my book as if I hope to get back to it, but at the same time I arrange my body so that he’s got a view of my long, skinny legs spread wide in the grass. I can practically hear the man lick his chops, like he’s Wile E. Coyote envisioning roast Road Runner. “You enjoying yourself?”

I allow the comment to pass unremarked. The two of us have performed this dance before, mostly with the same result. Instead of speaking, I rise to my feet, brush dirt from the seat of my shorts, and lean against the elm. My book tumbles into the ground. As I toy with a blade of grass, I finally allow my eyes to meet his, if only for a brief instant. “Are you?”

He has to clear his throat several times before he can speak again. “I’ll be parking in the woods for a spell. If you want to get out of the heat…come find me.”

Shy once more, I nod and look at the ground while I wait for him to leave. The Eldorado’s motor hums as he pulls himself back into the driver’s seat. I watch the battleship maneuver its way past the pond and up beyond the bank of pines beyond.

When he’s out of sight, I seize the handlebars of my bike and, wheels clacking, hop astride to follow.

***

Jules Davenport is my father’s best friend. At least, as far as I can tell. The world of adult friendships mystifies me. During my grade school days I could have elaborated with uncanny precision the degrees of closeness between me and my friends; there wasn’t a year in which I didn’t have a designated absolute bestie. Even now, I can rattle off the names of the honored. Sweet Beth, with whom I shared birthday parties until third grade. Then Adam, who lived in one of the large houses fronting nearby Confederate Avenue with eight older brothers and sisters. Curly-haired Isaac, from fourth to sixth grade, until he’d become more interested in girls. Then Mark, the seminarian’s son. He’s nominally still my best friend, though I feel the closeness fading now we’re in different high schools.

Adults though. Man. Do they really even have friends? My dad has a weekly tennis partner from the university, but fumbling about the court is all they ever do together. My mom sometimes visits with our neighbor Kay from around the corner, but the moment she’s back home, she starts mocking Kay’s hippie affinity for carob and wheat germ. Adult attachments are nothing like the ride-or-die bonds kids maintain, from what I can tell.

If either of my parents have a best friend, though, it’s probably Jules. For years, a couple of nights a week, he has come around in his formal, natty suits for a cup of coffee and a sit-down at the dining room table. Jules is an antique hunter who’ll from time to time take my mother to estate sales; she’ll arrive home with amazed reports of how much he’s spent on a settee or spindly secretary. He’s a professor of genetics at the Medical College of Virginia, the clinical branch of the university where my parents teach. Both he and my dad are on the faculty senate, so they spend long hours in my dad’s home office arguing over strategies to make the lousy university president see things their way. Just hearing that Jules is heading over is my cue either to retreat to my bedroom or leave the house outright, to escape the terminal boredom of having to listen to the grownups debate campus politics.

My mom and dad have both recently turned forty, but Jules is much older. Fuck, with his graying locks and white beard, he seems impossibly ancient. Like, maybe even as crusty as fifty-eight or nine. He lives in a house perhaps a half-mile away, nominally still in our middle-class enclave but perilously close to a transitional neighborhood that used to be red-lined, its inhabitants denied bank loans and mortgages that were anything less than punishing. Because his house is stuffed to the gills with the fussy antiques he collects, so close to a dicey part of town, my dad volunteers to check it twice a day when Jules takes one of his frequent get-aways to Palm Springs, or to Provincetown, or Key West.

Our family moved here in nineteen-seventy, right in the middle of my first grade. Jules has been a constant presence in the house ever since. He’s never anything less than polite to me, with his old-school courtly manners and traditional Southern gentleman mannerisms. And yet I shy away from him whenever he appears at my home—not merely because his arrival presages a lot of boring adult talk about faculty senate affairs.

Because even in grade school, like recognizes like. And fears it.

***

So hot is the afternoon that when I’d sat by the pond, the sweat on my skin evaporated as quickly as it formed. When I slide into the Eldorado’s passenger seat, the blasting air conditioning freezes every moist inch. My clothes adhere in frigid patches. I can’t deny the cool feels good, though.

My bike leans beneath a tree within eyeshot. Jules doesn’t even turn his head when I join him. I don’t always accept these invitations. He can’t take it for granted that he’ll whistle, and I’ll come. But today’s a scorcher, and I need a break.

He’s got the Richmond public radio station playing a piano concerto at a low volume. While I cool off, he pulls from his suit coat pocket a container of white Tic Tacs and helps himself. When he holds out the plastic box, I decline with a shake of my hand. He sucks on the tiny mint for a moment, staring at the empty picnic shelter beyond that bakes in the sun.

Then he makes a decision. “Time to help you out of those clothes, I think.”

I tremble a little when his fingertips brush my waist, but lift my arms high and allow him to draw my t-shirt up my torso. My skin blossoms with gooseflesh. Not from the blast from the vents, but from Jules’ warm breath, close to my chest. His hands run up and down my ribcage; I’m so skinny that he could play the protruding bones like a xylophone. His hands fumble at my waistband, popping open the button to my shorts and tugging down the zipper. I lift my hips so he can maneuver them down my thighs. Next, his thumbs hook the elastic of my white briefs. They join my shorts in a tangle around my ankles. Naked like this, I can’t conceal my arousal. My dick is rigid, pointing to the car’s roof.

But I turn my head away from Jules as he leans in from the driver’s seat to press his lips against my pale skin. If he asks—which he won’t—I’ll tell him I’m keeping an eye out for intruders.

The truth is that I don’t want to witness what he’s doing to me. I don’t want him at all to refer to my home or my family, to acknowledge in any way our years of acquaintance. From sheer willpower and need, between my comforting home life and this seedy realm of intrigue and danger, I like to pretend I’ve erected a wall of unbreakable diamond. One word, one stray smile from Jules might shatter it into thousands of glittering, lethal shards.

***

I might never have wondered about Jules’ sexuality at all, except that when I’m eleven or twelve, over dinner my mother makes an announcement: “Jules Davenport is definitely not a homosexual.” She looks around the table to ascertain that the information has sunk in. “He is a confirmed bachelor.”

Her use of his full name makes a curious proclamation all the more consequential. Why did she say such a thing? I can’t remember. Quavering on the cusp of self-discovery myself, I would never, ever have questioned Jules’ private life. Had my little sister asked? Doubtful. Perhaps my mother simply spoken the thought aloud to quell her own doubts about the man who spent so many evenings at this very table.

Regardless, I don’t take her words at face value. If anything, drawing attention to what she declares Jules isn’t makes me question why anyone would assume Jules is. Would it be because until her recent passing, he lived with his elderly mother? Because of his soft-spoken mannerisms, his formal suits, his Truman Capote drawl? Have people been speculating that he’s light in the loafers due to his unmarried state, his trips to the Keys, his preciseness of speech, the ostentation of his clothing and automobile? He’s never had a wife or even a lady friend. Is it because he prefers the company of men?

Or is it Jules’ home, which even my dad has described as fastidious and feminine? I’ve only seen inside the house once, but it’s so fussy and heavily strewn with doilies that I recoiled, frightened at this glimpse into what I am certain will be my own inevitable future: the domicile of an elderly homosexual with no one in his life and nothing to do but collect monstrosities of mahogany. Already by my late middle school years, I’m policing myself for any manifestations of what makes Jules suspicious to others and eradicating them before they become a habit. Or worse, a problem.

My parents are as broad-minded as anyone. More than most, in fact. But not even my progressive parents would admit to knowing anything as vile and pitiable as a homosexual.

***

Among the pickup trucks, cheap Datsuns, and beat-up gas guzzlers that the local cruisers drive here, the Eldorado stands out. The first time I’d spied it, I knew immediately to whom it belonged. I don’t always make time to climb inside with him. I’m wary about Jules coming to expect my attention. This afternoon, though, I’m unlikely to get many offers. Certainly not one with better air conditioning.

So I endure the touch of his hands on my bare skin, freckled though they are with liver spots. Despite the lingering clinical scent to his seersucker, I rest my forearms across his shoulders when his mouth goes searching for its prize. And though his hair is gray and stiff from whatever potion he uses to slick it down, I run my fingers across it and pull him down upon me, because my aggression always elicits a vibration of pure pleasure from the very back of his throat.

But I keep my gaze out the window, my head lolled back against the seat rest. I only tolerate what’s happening to me.

Tolerate. What bullshit. My erection betrays more than tolerance. So does my quickening pulse, the prickling at my skin, the way my hips automatically move as his mouth slides up and down my cock. I’ve happily submitted to worse from fellows a fraction as polite. I’ve given my body to infinitely uglier men. For the sake of a couple of bills, I’ve spread my legs to brutes who smell like day-old urine, and I’ve done it without a second thought.

Yet I treat Jules as if he’s Lon Chaney’s Quasimodo. I know it’s wrong.

I am growing up queer in a time when queerness is outlawed, in a place where no one dares admit any sexual expression that’s not hetero. Pride in being gay is absolutely unimaginable. Even with another of my kind, I am utterly alone. There are no school clubs for me, no discussion groups to join, no public consensus on the proper ways to behave or the correct words to describe myself. In a wilderness where none of us may embrace our identities, I’ll find nether mentors nor guides. I’m constantly starting from scratch. Developing my own ethic. Hewing my own moral compass out of raw materials. This secret life of mine is the ultimate DIY.

I’ve never yet heard the phrase pity fuck, but I’ve arrived at the concept on my own. Yet I see no harm in allowing someone undesirable a chance at my body, on occasion. Giving myself strikes me as a kind thing to do. Perhaps in my old age, someone will return the favor. These periodic trysts with Jules aren’t charity, though. Pretending that Jules is too loathsome to deserve me does him a disservice.

No, what we share in these moments, stolen beneath a canopy of pine, is greater than youth condescending to age. Worlds collide whenever I allow Jules to remove my clothing—and that frightens me. Our proximity is a taboo; we cross a line whenever I climb into his car. In the Eldorado’s cool, liminal space between fantasy and reality, we can make real the carnal dreams no one suspects behind our everyday facades.

Every time I’m here, though, I’m aware that beneath this convertible roof, the impenetrable wall of diamond I’ve erected between my two existences becomes soap bubble thin. I am afraid to stir or even to move, lest it pop.

My breathing becomes ragged. My right hand clutches at the window ledge; my left pulls the back of Jules’ head onto me as I plunge myself to the back of his throat. He gags, but quickly recovers to gobble my copious spurts, swallowing each with a satisfied gargle. When I subside, the air conditioning once again chills my clammy skin. Jules sits up, draws a handkerchief from his suit pocket, and dabs at his forehead. He tries to wipe away at me, but I hastily retrieve my tee from the floor and swab myself off with that.

Please don’t talk to me, I silently pray as I pull up my shorts. Please, no questions. Please just let me go. Two planetary bodies may temporarily have veered close, but it’s time for them to resume their separate orbits.

I want to bolt out and slam the door behind me, but I have been instilled with the manners of a junior Southern gentleman. So I pause, hands folded in my lap. “Thanks,” I murmur, staring straight ahead.

He’s equally diffident, though he laughs slightly with embarrassment as he continues sponging away at himself with the handkerchief. Perhaps struggling with similar feelings, he to looks elsewhere. “And I thank you,” is his grave reply.

Finally, I can clamber from the car and reclaim my bike from beneath the nearby tree. When I pedal down the road in the direction of the pond, Jane E stuffed in my back pocket, my legs seem a little shaky. Moments later, I hear the Eldorado’s engine purring close.

When I look over my shoulder to gauge how much of the road it occupies, for a split second my eyes connect with Jules’. Almost immediately, we look away.

But when he passes, I can see him nod into the rear view mirror, once, with deliberation.

Like has recognized like.

***

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), or Same Sex: Gay Science Fiction Clone Erotica (which features my story Journey's End).

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. 

Coming Soon: Journey's End

 

See these bad boys all lined up in a row? They're advance paperback copies of my latest novella, Journey's End, which will be available May 1.

Journey's End is one of two short novels available in the duology Same Sex: Gay Science Fiction Clone Erotica. Science fiction and erotica, you ask? They go together quite smoothly!

My contribution is a tale of sexual fixation set in a distant, future solar system, where a scientist in charge of a team terraforming a planet for colonization makes the discovery that on the satellite station orbiting above the planet, Benny, his estranged ex-boyfriend, is fucking the researcher's clone. Consumed with jealousy and wracked with guilt from subterfuge, he spies on the pair's lovemaking through a video link, while obsessively he combs through his past to make sense of the new couple's sexual heat.

Until an opportunity comes along that might very well give him a chance to prove to Benny who, between himself and the despised clone, is the better man....

I'm incredibly proud of Journey's End. I've been publishing stories for nearly twenty-five years now, and consider this one among the very best I've written. And by purchasing Same Sex, you'll also be able to read author Frank Slater's Billy Club, a boisterous near-future tale in which street toughs attempt to score with a new breed of cloned law enforcement models.

If you've enjoyed the abundance of free erotic memoir I've posted over the years, or if you agree that it's vital more than ever to support queer speech and queer art, please consider pre-ordering a copy of Same Sex. If you pre-order today, a strapping delivery man will convey to your address both saucy stories packaged in that undeniably handsome cover on the first of May.

(I can't guarantee the strapping delivery man. But it might happen!)

I'll have more to say about the emotional writing process of Journey's End before it releases. Writing the thing was a wild ride, I'll tell you. I hope you'll choose to add this latest volume of my fiction to your shelves. Pre-order links are below.

Preorder Same Sex: Gay Science Fiction Clone Erotica from Amazon

Preorder Same Sex: Gay Science Fiction Clone Erotica from Bookshop.org

**

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) or Hustlers, Hoboes, & Outlaws (which features my story On the Block). 

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.