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.
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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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