Kiss

Inspiration

From my mate Rock. Nice one.

Depressed

Majorca Flats -- 286

Colin said, “End of interview,” and gave the time and switched off the camera. “Cody, thank you for coming forward. I know you would've preferred to keep this quiet. Lots of rape victims don't want to talk about what's been done to them. And that's understandable. But your courage will allow us to catch him, to stop this happening again.” He looked at Cody waiting for a response. When none came, he said, “I'll fill out the report form and you can sign it. And I'll send you a copy of the video. Detectives will be in touch. If you would like to talk to me again, here's my number.” He passed across a piece of paper with his name and a mobile number written on it. “Where can we contact you?”

Cody mumbled something.

“Pardon?”

Cody shouted, “FUCK! FUCK!” Then more quietly added, “I'm not going to be married much longer, right? And I don't know where I'll be staying. But just in case, here's the number,” and he gave his home phone. He'd never given that to Luigi, and Luigi felt a quick surge of anger when he remembered that.

Colin turned to look at Luigi.

“If he needs a place to stay, he can stay with me.” Luigi's voice was firm. The past was the past. For now Cody needed support. Later, they would decide what would happen. He gave his mobile number to the policeman.

First Majorca Flats post       Previous MF post (#285)       Next MF post(#287)

Episodes 1 to 220 (without pictures, 10 episodes per chapter)

Joel Selwood

Joel Selwood, a footy player with the current top dogs, Geelong*.  The usual boring, boring:  nope, he's not gay.  He can't help that -- some people are just born straight.  But he's a beaut bloke, no?


*pronounced J'long with the emphasis on the 'long'.

Men cuddling

We need love.  Straight or gay (and these blokes are most likely straight).

Science is not a liberal conspiracy

Majorca Flats -- 285

Shaggin' wagon, by Holliex33

 “So'm I, Coads. Hey, let's talk about this later.” Luigi looked deep into Cody's eyes. “And we'll get him. And he will pay.”

Looking at Luigi, no one doubted that if he got his hands on the murderer, the man who'd hurt his lover, he would pay. His Sicilian ancestry was visible in his face: strong, resolute, grim; and his eyes were black with anger and the desire for vengeance.

“It is an offence to take justice into your own hands. The police will catch him and he will be handed over for trial and he will pay the penalties for his crimes.” Colin's tone was cool and firm.

Luigi just looked at him. Colin said, “I know you're angry. And I know that you believe the police won't do their job. But we will. And we're the experts. And this is a case of murder. Multiple murder.”

Luigi nodded reluctantly.

Turning back to Cody, Colin asked, “Could you describe the van?”

“It was an old Combi shaggin'-waggon. A bit rusted. Inside it was fitted out like a campervan, with a bench and cupboards and curtains. He put me in a kind of chest which was underneath the seat.”

“Do you by any chance remember the number?”

Cody shook his head. “Wait,” he said, “on the side was the name 'St Joseph's' or 'St Michael's', saint something, anyway, like it was a school van or an orphanage or maybe some Catholic parish van, something like that. It was worn, I dunno, twenty years old? Maybe older. There was rust in places.”

First Majorca Flats post       Previous MF post (#284)       Next MF post(#286)

Episodes 1 to 220 (without pictures, 10 episodes per chapter)

Kako Esteves

Majorca Flats -- 284

Colin put the camera on again. “The police are here to fight crime. And you're not the criminal here, Cody. You haven't broken any laws. And he has. He's almost certainly killed four men already—that we know about. And that's a crime. Rape is a crime. Abduction and kidnapping is a crime. Cutting you is a crime.” He looked at Cody. “Cody … if you help us, we'll get him. We'll stop him doing it again. And again. And again. It took courage to come forward, Cody. The police won't let you down.”

He waited for a response from Cody, but there was silence.

He sighed. “We haven't got an artist here or the software to draw a picture of this man. Can you give us a description of him?”

“He was my height, he was slim, with sort of rubbery folds on his face. You know how some people's wrinkles are very tiny and thin, and others look like bloodhounds. Well, he had folds on his chin but they were thick. His eyes ...” Cody paused and took another swallow of water, “ … they were grey maybe or blue—it was hard to tell because it was dark and his pupils were dilated—and his eyebrows were very bushy. His hair was a mixture of grey and black ...”

“... Yeah,” interrupted Luigi, “salt-and-pepper.”

“You saw him?” asked Colin, sharply.

“Yes,” said Luigi flatly. “I saw him taking Cody. I thought Cody was with … someone he'd picked up.” I turned to Cody. “I saw you coming out of the bar. With him. And help you get into his Combi van. I should have gone up then and non of this would have happened.”

Cody looked at Luigi and sighed. “I'm sorry, Lou. I'm so sorry.”

First Majorca Flats post       Previous MF post (#283)       Next MF post(#285)

Episodes 1 to 220 (without pictures, 10 episodes per chapter)

Bliss

I loves ya

Chris Hemsworth

Ozzie actor and hunk.  Here he's acting Thor.

So let's get this straight ...

Footy -- Chapter 23

To his surprise, he fell asleep, a drugged slumber that brought him no relief from his grief or his lassitude. Sean MacDonald had never been in love before. Losing Will was worse than the loss of a first love, though. With him, Sean had felt that he was part of the broad congregation of humanity. It hadn’t mattered that his mother’d been a druggie and his father a brutal alcoholic failure. It didn’t matter that he had an unimportant job that everyone looked down on. He’d been alive, and the light of love had cast the shadows away. 

After he woke, he once again lay motionless on his bed. His eyes moved from one corner to the next, noting absently that there was a spider web here, and small damp stain there, that the center light threw displeasing shadows in the corners. Yet nothing registered. The flick of his eyes around the room, from one side to the other, had no purpose. 

There seemed to be nothing that would ease the pain. A few months ago, before Jasper and Will, he might have watched Katy Submits, and smoked a few joints. He might have drunk the bottle of vodka that he kept in the cupboard underneath the hotplate and the kettle. But he knew for a certainty that none of these things would make it hurt any less. And he was not going to turn into either of his parents. Whatever happened, he would survive. Inside him, an insistent quiet voice spoke. No, it said. You’ve failed. You’re just like your hopeless loser parents. And you’re a homo. And where the fuck did that get you? Loser. Failure. Spaz.

You can read the rest of the chapter here.

Majorca Flats -- 283

There was a minute of complete silence.

“The first thing we do after this is to call an ambulance,” said Colin, his mouth a grim line of distaste and anger, though it wasn't clear who he was angry with. “And you're going to need a police guard. You saw his face. You know too much about him.”

“You can't guard me forever.” Cody's voice was very quiet.

“But we can catch the bastard. And we will. Believe me, Cody, we will nail him.”

“Police don't care about us. About gay or bi blokes.” Cody shrugged fatalistically. “You couldn't give a flying rat's clacker for us.”

Colin looked at him. “I care,” he said. He reached up and turned off the video camera. He waited until they were all looking at him. “That's why I recorded this.  Normally a complaint made to the police isn't recorded.  But I wanted to make sure a record is made.”

Luigi was suspicious.  How had he known that this was about the Mount Macedon murderer?

First Majorca Flats post       Previous MF post (#282)       Next MF post(#284)

Episodes 1 to 220 (without pictures, 10 episodes per chapter)

Borders

This is a café on the border between Belgium and The Netherlands.  The white crosses mark the border.

Steve Jobs

Sexy Waiter

Cute as. Yum.

From Queerty

But I expect he's straight.

Majorca Flats -- 282

 “My hands were tied together, and my feet. Then he came in. He didn't put on the light. He just—oh, God! —he just …” Cody stopped and swallowed. “He tied my legs back to the bed-head and he … fuck … he fucked me.” He stopped unable to continue. The silence in the room was broken only by soft voices from the house behind and by the temple-bell calls of magpies outside.

Cody swallowed the water. He looked at Colin, all at once angry. “I suppose you think that we like that sort of thing! That we enjoy being raped!”

Colin shook his head. “No. No one likes to be raped.” His face was wary.

Cody looked down at the table top. There was a tense silence. At last he said, “He didn't use lube. He just … Then after that, every time he did it, it hurt. And he would shout and mutter things at me. 'You're a foul pervert!' 'This is your punishment from God', stuff like that. Only he was getting off on it. He was hard, rigid with excitement. Oh, fucking Jesus, I don't think I'll ever be able to have sex again.” He stopped again. “When I close my eyes,” he said at last, “I see his face. His eyes. Staring at me. Filled with hate. And he made me look at him. He cut me every time he fucked me.” Cody pulled off his T-shirt and turned so that they could see the cuts on his body. “And when I closed my eyes and refused to look at him … he … cut a chunk ... out of me.” Cody jerkily pulled down the boardies Michael had lent him and showed them his buttocks, almost as if he were proud of it, as if he wanted to rub their face in the reality. The square inch hole in his flesh was scabbed but had started to bleed again.

First Majorca Flats post       Previous MF post (#281)       Next MF post(#283)

Episodes 1 to 220 (without pictures, 10 episodes per chapter)

Love

Look at the look oh his face! Love. It makes the world survivable.

Sublime

Greek god

It was the curly hair which made me think of it.

Majorca Flats -- 281

 “I was at a bar on Brunswick street. It's not a gay bar.” He said this without expression, his voice dead, his eyes down. “The Labour in Vain. I was having a beer when this man sat down next to me. He started to chat me up. He seemed very nice. He was good looking. I went on chatting. I was … lonely.” Here he turned his head and looked at Luigi. His eyes were filled with profound pain.

Luigi's own face was drawn. “Go on, love. Keep going. We can do this.”

Colin looked at him but didn't intervene. Once again Luigi felt the oddness of the interview. But he reminded himself that Cody wasn't a suspect. He was the victim. And this was just a preliminary interview. He was certain the detectives when they interviewed Cody would be much more hostile.

“He offered to buy me a beer. I accepted … but then … I felt dizzy. He said, 'Better get you home, you've had enough,' or something like that. He seemed so nice, so caring. And I wasn't thinking, it was like I was drugged. He took me out to a combi van. And when I woke up I was in a room without windows. Maybe at the back of a garage, something like that. It was completely dark. There was a window but it was boarded up on the inside.” He stopped. “Could I have some water, please?”

First Majorca Flats post       Previous MF post (#280)       Next MF post(#282)

Episodes 1 to 220 (without pictures, 10 episodes per chapter)

Railing kiss

Christian Oppression

From Joe my God via Truth Wins Out.

Majorca Flats -- 280

The police constable set up the video camera on a tripod. “It's my hobby,” he explained.

“Colin takes all the team photos and videos,” added Michael.

It all seemed rather intimate and personal to Luigi. He had imagined some anonymous windowless room, like they showed on TV, with hostile sneering policemen. This homely police station with its single low-ranking policeman and its worn furniture and desk hardly gave the impression of cutting-edge detection.

Colin smiled at Cody. “Let's begin.” He turned on the video camera, tested the view and the sound and set it to record.

“Senior constable Colin de Graves at Macedon Police station, Thursday ____________. Please, Cody, could you give me your full name and address.”

Luigi looked Colin in surprise. This was a grand name. The de Graves family was very prominent in the state. Why was a young de Graves a mere constable in a small country town when he could be someone and something important and glamorous in the city? A lawyer? A politician in training?

In a monotone, Cody answered, not looking at either the camera or Colin.

“Can you tell me what happened?” His voice was calm and kind and without judgement.

First Majorca Flats post       Previous MF post (#279)       Next MF post(#281)

Episodes 1 to 220 (without pictures, 10 episodes per chapter)

Black & Deep Desires, chapter 13

“And did she keep on putting Rex in there?” Glenda wanted to drum her fingers on the table in her impatience. 

“Oh, yes. But the funny thing about Alice Guilfoyle was how she wasn’t satisfied with anything for long. After a while, the maze wasn’t enough. That was when she started to put the blindfold on him.” 

Glenda shivered with morbid anticipation. “Blindfold?” 

“A silk scarf. A black silk scarf, it was. Said to belong to her husband. I think it was partly that, the fact that it belonged to his dead father, that got to Rex. She did it to keep her power over him, that’s how I see it. It was hard to know why she did the things she did. But I think as long as she knew the maze and he didn’t, she had control. I can see her now ...” He screwed up his eyes; “I can see her taking him across the lawns. It was her shape that I remember. Like a beast, with those massive shoulders. Like a bear’s shoulders. Sort of hulking. Her head was sunk right down into her body.” His lips drew back from his teeth. “And this little kid trotting along beside her. He didn’t have a choice - she’d hold so hard to his hand and practically drag him. And she moved fast. She could move allright. Not like you or me. She sort of swivelled herself along. Hard to describe. I remember one day the wind blew her skirts up and I saw these great bags of fat hanging over her knees, white as lard, the veins like blue roots in the fat. And him trotting to keep up, half running. I used to see a lot of what went on because I’d follow to find out what she was going to do with him. I was afraid. I remember being afraid for him; I thought if I was there, close by, I could save him. I think I had it in my head that - I don’t know - that one day she’d kill him. 

When she came out of the maze alone, she was like a creature that’s eaten something. Horrible. I tell you, girl, that woman had evil in her.”

You can read more of my lady's thriller here.

Fabrissou

I discovered this great gay artist, Fabrissou.  He's French and his cartoons are very much in the French style.  He draws sexy blokes.  You'll like this one.

Majorca Flats -- 279

 “Hey, Col!” Michael smiled at the man who opened the door. He was in uniform but without his cap.

“Mikie babe!” Colin shook his hand vigorously then turned to Luigi and Cody.

“Ah, Colin, this is Luigi. This is Cody.”

“G'day! Come inside.”

They went in to the building. The police station was a single room in the front of the building, with a desk and police public service notices on the walls. There was a table with four shabby chairs round it. Through the open door leading to the back of the house came a toddler's wail.

“Sorry about that,” said Colin. “It's my daughter and she's sick as. And feeling very sorry for herself.”

Luigi nodded. Cody just stared at the table.

“Right, let's begin. Is it OK if I record this? I'll take notes but the recording helps jog my memory. And anyway, the detective branch will want a record. I'm going to use my personal video camera because, well, we're such a small police station, we don't have an official one.”

When Cody didn't answer, Luigi put his hand on Cody's arm, and said quietly, “Come on, love, we'll get through this.” He was determined not to let the fact that he was in a police station stop him showing his love. And anyway, Cody needed him to be there for him.

Cody nodded. “OK,” he muttered.

First Majorca Flats post       Previous MF post (#278)       Next MF post(#280)

Episodes 1 to 220 (without pictures, 10 episodes per chapter)

Majorca Flats -- 278

 “If you follow me in your car, I'll show you the way,” said Michael.

“All right,” said Luigi.

They drove in convoy down the mountain to the rolling hills at the base. They turned up a side street lined with pin oaks and came in a few moments to a 1930s wooden house with the blue police notice outside.

As the car pulled over to the edge of the road outside the police station, Cody said, “I can't do this, Lou. I can't expose myself to the police, to the media. I can't.”

“Coads, you are already on the police books. Your wife has already reported you missing. And you are at risk from this bloke until he is caught.”

Cody stared away out of the window, obviously finding the tree in its autumn dress in front of the police station compellingly fascinating. He swallowed and the muscles in his jaw moved but he said nothing.

“You said you'd got your life back. And you were grateful. You have to face up to this Coads. To put it behind you. You have a whole life ahead of you. It seems that nothing will ever be right again. But it will, love. This is the low point. From now on it'll gradually get better.”

“Promise?” Cody turned to look at Luigi. His eyes were dark with despair.

Luigi locked eyes with Cody but couldn't bring himself to speak or even nod.

After a moment Cody opened the passenger door and got out. Without a word, his head bent, he went up to Michael who was waiting at the gate in the hedge in front of the police station.

Heart dark with foreboding and sorrow, Luigi climbed out of the car and joined them.

First Majorca Flats post       Previous MF post (#277)       Next MF post(#279)

Episodes 1 to 220 (without pictures, 10 episodes per chapter)

Footy, chapter 22

I've uploaded it to my website.

But Will picked it up. “You didn’t get on?”

“You could say that. He used to beat us with his fists when he was drunk or drugged up. I was covered with bruises all my childhood. They took me to a home a couple of times, after one of his beatin’s.” The bare recital of the facts didn’t do the reality justice.

Sean didn’t want to meet Will’s eyes, afraid of what he might see there. So he forced himself to look up. Instead of contempt he saw compassion and love. His heart filled with gratitude and tenderness. “My mother was a druggie,” he said. “She died of an overdose. I found her body. I was fourteen.” This time, he was quite unable to bring himself to look at Will. He stared out through the plate glass windows at the dark sea. He felt Will’s hand cover his.

“Shit, I’m sorry, Seanie.” Will had never called him that to his face before.

Reluctantly, Sean met Will’s eyes. Will’s face was filled with pity and sorrow and love. All at once, Sean knew that the person he wanted to spend the rest of his life with was right here in front of him. He’d always had a vague plan to get married, one day, and have a family. But the dreams were fuzzy, the spaces between the outlines unfilled. And memories of his own parents’ marriage kept on intruding. It was true – they did seem to have had a lot of sex. And perhaps, once, they had loved each other. But when he had gotten a more adult awareness of sexual love, he had looked in vain for some sort of affection between them. He hadn’t realised what a hole that had left in him till now.

He had kept on hoping his family would become ordinary – his parents going off to work each day, and coming home and having supper, and going on outings and camping trips. His ideas of what constituted a happy marriage were constructed out of the thin rubbish purveyed by TV, by the shiny women’s magazines his mother would buy when she got the welfare cheque before she shot up, she as mesmerized by the glossy falsehoods as he had been.

He had never truly believed he would find someone he wanted to marry. He smiled at himself—as usual, Sean MacDonald was being different. He wondered how his brothers would take it. And then, with a pang, he wondered whether Will wanted him that way.

On their route back to the motel, Will wanted to hold Sean’s hand, to sling his arm round his shoulders, but he resisted the impulse. He contented himself with putting his hand on Sean’s shoulder as they went into their room.

“Bed,” he said.

“Old man!” said Sean, grinning.

“Who said anything about sleep?” countered Will, his eyes warm toffee.


You can read the chapter here.

Blake Riley

Physique magazines

For a while, almost the only "gay" magazines published were physique magazines.


Here's a short history of the genre.


I thought this quote revealing:

Since in our society male-male contact is only justified under the cover of violence, models were often shown wrestling, which led to a whole new subgenre.

Not much change even today, really.

Saturday Night Thoughts

It's late at night here.  Late-ish, anyway.  And I've just watched a Hercule Poirot and imbibed several glasses of champagne which has left me a little,  well maudlin is the best word.

Alcohol hasn't always affected me like that.  Once it made me happy, and sometimes, when I forget, it still does.  But there are so many wounds, so many scars.  It becomes harder to be joyful.

One mustn't grumble and complain, since it's unseemly, as well as offensive (I have so much: a roof over my head, food and drink in my belly, a wife who loves me, children, and enough money to buy books and records).  Yet once it was easier to bounce back from the stumbling blocks life throws up.  Now I know that the world is far from perfect and in fact never will be perfect.  I used to believe it could be made better, that things could be improved.  Now I don't.   I miss those whom I loved who have died or gone away.  I miss my youth, my good health, my joie de vivre.

All this makes hope harder to hold on to.  And without hope, what point is there?

Primal

All by myself

This very handsome bloke is Nick Sterling. Nice.

Majorca Flats -- 277

 “Cody, this is my dad, Charles. Dad, Cody.” Michael's dad was a handsome man in his late fifties, with a mane of blond hair and an air of authority and power.

“How d'ye do?” he said, reaching out his right hand.

“Pleased to meet you, Mr. ...” answered Cody, shaking hands.

“Mason. But please call me Charles. As I said to Michael on the way down, I don't think there will be any problem with this first interview with the police. Later on there may well be. The police have a serious problem with homophobia and racism in their ranks. It's not as bad as it was. But it's still there. So I'll call the office at 8.30 and get somebody allocated to your case. He or she will sit in on all your interviews. I'd do it myself, but my speciality these days is commercial law, and anyway, I'm in court most of this week.”

“Thank you.” Cody knew what he had to say but he was too shocked and depressed to put any enthusiasm into his conversation.

“Dad, this is Luigi. Luigi, my dad, Charles Mason.”

“G'day, Mr Mason.”

Charles Mason shook Luigi's hand. His gaze was sharp. Luigi felt he would be a formidable questioner in court. But there was also goodwill and kindness in his face, and Luigi was able to thank him for his help with a sincerity and gratitude that Cody hadn't been able to.

First Majorca Flats post       Previous MF post (#276)       Next MF post(#278)

Episodes 1 to 220 (without pictures, 10 episodes per chapter)

Summer night. A Haiku

I sit late at night
drinking, thinking of him who
has abandoned me

Image from Wolf and Wilde

Doing the splits

Roberto Bollé -- a ballet dancer.  Look at the flexibility.  Look at the musculature.  Ballet dancers don't look overmuscled, but they are very strong, a wiry sustained strength, not the kind body builders have.

He's also handsome as.

It's been nearly 20 years since I last danced, but I remember how good it feels to do a class and feel the exhaustion and exhilaration afterwards, when your body and your mind are cleaned of stress and feel loose and relaxed.

Transformers

The helmets make them look like transformers (you know --  those robots who can transform into machines)   and they mean we can't see what they look like.  On the other hand,  their "girdles" (as I'm told they're called) are extraordinarily sexy, especially if they're white and see-through, with their jockstraps underneath.

Sadly, I don't know who these blokes are or which teams are playing.  But they are beaut as.

And once again, precisely because football or soccer or footy players are ueber-men, they are permitted to hug and kiss each other.

Philip Fusco

Holy Goddess!  Send him hither, I beg thee.

You can see more images of Philip Fusco, here.

Four Friends

The supposed acme of straight male bonding -- the circle jerk. Except this one is in a straight line.

Majorca Flats -- 276

 “Hello” The tone was tentative. An early-morning phone call was seldom good news.

“Phillippa, it's me.” Cody's voice trembled.

“Oh God! What happened? Where've you been? I've been out of my mind with worry. I went to the police!”

“I was,” Cody stopped and swallowed, “taken by the Mount Macedon murderer. He held me captive. I escaped this morning.”

“How? But what happened, Co? Where did he hold you? Why? How did you escape?”

“Phil, slow down. I was ...” and then he started to cry. He was unable to continue.

Luigi took the phone from him. “Hey, I'm Luigi. Remember, we met a while ago.”

“Yes, I remember. We were taking Tyler for a walk.”

“Yes. I'm Cody's friend. I'm bringing him home as soon as we've spoken to the police. He's in a terrible state.”

“Where are you?” asked Phillippa.

“In Mt Macedon. We're just going to the police now. And a doctor, too.”

“What happened! Did he hurt Cody?”

“Yes. Cody will explain as soon as he gets home.” As he said this, Michael came in through the cottage's back door, with an older man, clearly his father. “We have to go now. Phillippa, don't call Cody's mobile. The killer's got it. Call this number.”

Phillippa was too upset to think clearly. “What is the number?” she asked, not thinking that it would show up in her mobile's call log.

Patiently, Luigi gave it to her. Only then did she start to weep.

After he closed his phone, he sat for a minute grieving for the impending collapse in Cody's marriage, and for all the unhappiness and sorrow which was being unleashed.

First Majorca Flats post       Previous MF post (#275)       Next MF post(#277)

Episodes 1 to 220 (without pictures, 10 episodes per chapter)

Barely there

Barely there. Beaut.

Sex toys

Sex should be fun as well as (sometimes) transcending and magical. These guys' cocks are toys to give them pleasure. But note the one guy's hand resting on the other's, in intimate trust and friendship.

Footy, Chapter 21

 I won’t go to a bar again. Will made this promise to himself every few months. The most recent occasion had been just six weeks before, after his previous visit to the The Peel. Every time he picked up a bloke, he would feel guilty the next day. He knew his inability to keep away showed how weak he was, what a pathetic failure. No matter how much he enjoyed the sex, he had no easy way to deal with the toxic mix of guilt and desire he experienced.

Yet when he had caught sight of Sean, he had immediately forgotten his doubts. He had guessed from the stiff way Sean was standing that he had never been in a gay pub before. The mixture of toughness and vulnerability in Sean’s face intrigued him. The draw wasn’t just physical, though there was no denying that Sean was handsome, slim and muscular.

Will had a weakness for rough trade. Perhaps it was because he felt that what he did was unworthy, that he wasn't a real man. Real men didn't have sex with other men. Real men were heterosexual. But if you weren't a real man, you could compensate by being tough, by showing a macho front to the world. He never felt that he himself did it convincingly. It always felt to him that he was playing a game, that it was some kind of façade, that he was a fake and a fraud, and that everybody knew it or would discover it one day.

He knew that others probably played these rôles too. But with them, the illusion seemed more convincing. Sean looked like a real man. Tough. Manly. Together. Self-sufficient. To Will it seemed that if he could persuade such a paragon to love him, he would enjoy a vicarious sense of manliness, of validation and self-worth. When a masculine man was screwing him, Will could pretend that he was loved, and that his partner’s masculinity validated his own. Taking a dick deep inside him made him feel manlier, more real. He was far too intelligent not to see the irony in this—but it made no difference to how he behaved. It merely made him despise himself the more thoroughly.

He had almost given up with Sean right after he’d started talking to him. Sean had seemed distant and hostile. Even though this was part of the fantasy, part of what turned him on, Sean had seemed so antagonistic that Will had wondered why the other man was even in a gay pub. For a moment, a cold wash of fear had made his hair stand on end. Was Sean the kind of man who would let himself be picked up only to beat you up later? But when Will had looked into Sean’s eyes, he had seen a need and a vulnerability mirroring his own, and his fears had faded. He had sensed at once Sean's attraction to him, an attraction he seemed to feel despite himself. Sean’s latent aggression became a thrilling spice enhancing their rapport. The sexual thirst and restrained belligerence in Sean made him overwhelmingly desirable.

The surprise came only later, after Sean had fucked him and had gotten up to leave, wordlessly, his face sullen. Bitter at yet another heartless encounter, angry at Sean and sickened by his own needs, Will had rebuked him, and had been startled and touched by Sean's response.

Read the rest of the chapter here.