A Softcore Life

It was New Year's Day. Midnight had long since gone, and I was sitting on a sofa with my best friend Alex. His boyfriend's family had hosted the party, and they were all upstairs, either fast asleep or passed out. That included Alex's boyfriend Karl. The two of us had vowed, as we often do, to keep the party going for as long as we could. It had been 2010 now for five or six hours, and we were comparing war stories. And when I say war, I refer of course to our love lives.

I thought I'd win this game, being the token single friend, and a bit of a lush at that, but Alex both surprised and impressed me. Sure, he had been with the same man for two years, which to me seemed an incomprehensibly long time to be in a relationship, but he'd had a lot of fun before settling down. I was halfway through telling my kinkiest story (it involved a tutor from my university days and a bout of spanking), when he interrupted.

"Sorry," he slurred, "but I can beat that."

"Go on then," I said, a little miffed that he'd butted in. I loved my spanking story.

"This one guy I dated really liked watersports."

"Huh?" I was drunk, so forgive me if I was a little slow on the uptake. "What does jetskiing have to do with sex?"

Alex looked at me like I was retarded, and made a "pssss" noise. I slowly figured it out.

"You pissed on him? Ew!" A second later: "Awesome! Did he piss on you?"

"Yeah."

"How was it?"

Al shrugged.

"Warm. Wet."

I sniggered into my wineglass, saw that it was empty, and reached for one of the bottles on the floor. There were several.

"Top up?"

"Fuck yeah," Al held his glass out. "Karl had better be in the mood to be drunkenly raped when I go up there."

"Who wouldn't," I joked, but it's probably true. Al is possibly the gayest man I have ever met, but he is also cute as a button and a randy bastard. The two of us are a great example of how terrible timing can result in great friends. We’d met online, back when I was living in Montreal and craving English boys. We arranged to meet up when I got back, for a drink. I’m fairly sure that I’m not the only guy in the world for whom “a drink” is code.

When I eventually came home, Al had started seeing Karl. Karl and I just happened to be at the same university, and so I kept running into the two of them more or less on my doorstep. While I didn’t care too much for Karl (he was handsome, but bored me to tears), I instantly loved Al. Not in any way that was romantic, or even sexual. It was more one of those happy, inexplicable occurrences where you meet a kindred spirit. I found myself wondering how I could have gone all those years in my hometown with him just roads away, living almost identical lives.

"I'm glad we never did it," I said out loud. "We couldn't talk like this if we'd done it."

"You're right," Al said. "You'd have got yours then be gone with the wind. Fuck and run."

“What?”

“You know,” he tilted his head and raised one perfectly groomed eyebrow. “It’s what you always do. If we’d got together, it would have been for one night only. That’s your expiry date.”

"I don't always do that," I protested. But it was no use, he was right. Al challenged me to count the number of sexual encounters I’d ever had in my life. I told him that I was far too drunk and not equipped with the appropriate machinery to do that sort of arithmetic. The corners of his mouth twitched, which meant that he knew exactly where he was going with this.

“Fine,” he said. “Just tell me how many of those encounters took place within the context of a relationship.”

“Two,” I said lamely after a moment’s thought. Both back when I was eighteen, when having a boyfriend had seemed the only way to prove to my parents that being gay was not just a phase.

“What’s your point, anyway?” I asked. “You know I’ve never been that fussed about having a boyfriend. I like my life the way it is.”

“I know you do, and I’m not about to start telling anyone they need a partner. But sex on tap is pretty nice.” Al paused and finished his wine. I was about to say that I had no complaints on that front, but the truth was pickings were pretty slim, and had been for a while. I had more or less exhausted our town’s supply of single gay men who weren’t illiterate or deformed.

Al looked into the bottom of his glass. “And…”

“And what?”

He wouldn’t quite meet my gaze as he spoke.

“I just think that maybe you’re closing yourself off from an experience which is pretty great.”

I knew then that he wasn’t talking about just having someone to take round to Mum’s for Sunday lunch or have on my arm at parties. He was ever so subtly referring to the confession I had made earlier that night, while playing “I Have Never”, a game I excel at.

I have never been in love.

“I know, I know,” he said, before I could protest or get defensive. “It’s just not happened for you. But perhaps… you could be more open to the idea?”

“You sound like my mother.” It was true. For a woman who had once been horrified by the idea of her son being gay, she seemed even more against the prospect of having a son who was twenty-two and permanently single.

“Who needs love when you have lovers?” I asked.

“That doesn’t count unless you’re French,” Al told me. “Why don’t you make a resolution?”

“A New Year’s resolution,” I echoed, “to fall in love? Al, even my heart isn’t so robotic that I can just tell it what to do.”

“That’s not what I meant. Just get out there more, you know? Shake it about a bit.”

I wondered suddenly if Al had his own reasons for wanting me to do this. Did he see me the way some of my other friends did? The ones that had found their true loves pretty early on and were now all moved in. Like I was the Peter Pan of the group, stubbornly refusing to grow up and get a civil union and adopt a rainbow child from some war-torn country.

“Are you tired of introducing me as your single friend?” I asked.

“Of course not,” he feigned outrage. “You’re my fabulous friend.” The sheer queerness of this statement made me cringe and laugh simultaneously. This caused me to spill my wine.

Al glanced at his watch as I was ineffectually trying to lick some of the Chardonnay from my wrist.

“Time for bed,” he sighed. He pulled his drunk ass up off the sofa and gave me a hug. “Just promise me you’ll think about it?”

“I will,” I nodded, and smiled, then turned him around and gave him a gentle push towards the door. I could hear him calling Karl’s name as he climbed the stairs, and I felt sorry for whoever was crashing in the bedroom next to theirs.

I also felt what may have been the tiniest pang of envy. When I went into the last empty guest room, the bed I crawled into was as cold as the grave.

In which I just say no

"No" is not a word that I like to say very often. I feel that it is a closer of doors, a narrower of minds, and a killer of ideas. I'm much more of a yes man, to borrow Danny Wallace's popular coinage. Throughout my adult life I have made a conscious effort to try as many new things and be involved in as many new experiences as I possibly can.

So it was as much of a surprise to me as it was to anybody else when I found myself turning down offers on Saturday night that, at any other time in my life up until now, I would have snapped up. Hungrily, eagerly and greedily.

"Do you party?" One man asked me in the club. He was of course not inquiring as to whether I like a drink and a dance. He wanted to know whether I partake in ecstasy. I don't, although a dalliance with cocaine was one of the more colourful highlights of my lost year at university.

"Sure!" I would have said, on any night before this one. "How else to make a balanced decision about the dangers of drugs?"

I believe my actual response was a mumbled, "No, thanks", and a shimmy in the opposite direction.

In another bar, me and Al made some new friends in Lou and Rachael, a lesbian couple. We were chatting away when Lou cut in:

"Do you like Charlie?"

What is this? I thought. I felt the urge to look for hidden cameras.

"I'm aware of his work," I said, "but I'm not a huge fan." She seemed disappointed.

Later, Al and I were dancing. A large portion of the night had been spent jiving to some of our favourite songs, but by now the music had evolved into that 3am flow of senseless base. I noticed out of the corner of my eye, a guy watching us. He was tall, and as he danced his way over I could see that he was quite handsome. Al and I carried on as if we hadn't noticed, but we both knew what he was doing. He was looking at Al, then me, then back to Al, and so on. He was weighing us up like pieces of meat. And he evidently made his choice, because I felt a strong arm around my waist.

"No chance, wanker," I said loudly, dipping out of his grasp and pulling Al towards the bar. "What a guido, right?"

Al looked at me, then back to our new friend, who was still standing on the dancefloor, and still watching us. There was no denying it. He was very hot.

"Go." Al said.

"No," I said, for the third time that evening. "Bros over hoes, remember?" *

In the past, I would have chased any dragon that promised to keep the party going. I would have fallen into bed with just about any man who showed the slightest bit of interest. And I would have ditched friends to do so. I'm starting to think I'm growing as a person - but don't tell anyone. It might just be a phase.

J. x

* I am obviously kidding. I totally slept with him.

Let's start this year with a bang

First off, let's get all this guff out of the way - Happy New Year! What are your resolutions? Mine is to actually write the book I've been yapping on about for months. I've included an extract below for your amusement. Hot or not?

When I first wake up, my head is pounding and I have no idea where I am. This definitely isn't my hotel room, I know that much. I turn my head to the left, and two things happen: first, my headache subsides, and second, my cock twitches in arousal at what I see. Fast asleep next to me is what I can only describe a He-Man: sandy-coloured hair in an Army-style buzz cut; a strong, handsome profile with long, delicate eyelashes, and full lips which are currently forming a sleepy, sensuous pout. His broad, masculine chest rises and falls gently, and I can't resist the urge to reach over and glide my hand lightly over his strong, defined stomach. A sheet lies over his waist, but I can still see the outline of his cock, semi-erect beneath the cotton.

Who are you, I wonder, but part of me doesn't really care. I'm just glad that in my drunken state last night, I still managed to go home with this stud. I let my fingers drift upwards to his chest, and lay my palm flat against one of his pecs. It's rock hard, and I'm fast approaching the same. My mystery man remains fast asleep, but the corners of his lips twitch into a smile. Judging from the almost visible rate at which his cock is swelling under the sheet, he must be in the middle of a very dirty dream. I massage one of his nipples between my thumb and forefinger, revelling in the sensation of it responding to my touch, hardening to a bright pink point, and I am about to let my hand drift lower when a cough from behind me takes me by surprise.

I turn around, and I very nearly laugh in surprise and delight. To my right is another naked man, built like a brick shithouse, much like the first, but darker in appearance. His hair is jet black, and one heavy curl falls over his eyes. His olive skin is stretched tight over a vascular frame, and if I had to hazard a guess I would have said he was Hispanic. And probably a bodybuilder.

Again, I ask myself; what the hell did I do last night? I can't remember getting up close and personal with any one person in the club, let alone two. This swarthy hunk certainly doesn’t seem too surprised to find a six foot one Brit in his bed, stark bollock naked but for a St Christopher and a smile.

He nods towards our sleeping friend, as if to say; “Wake him up”. I wonder if either of these gentlemen actually speak English, but the thought is only on my mind for a second. By then, I’ve seen this second man’s cock. Thick and veiny, it is crowned by dark hair and my right hand instinctively reaches over. I wrap my hand around him and his handsome, stubbled face breaks out into a leer. I delve under the bedsheet with my left hand and feel for the sleeping man’s cock. It is warm to the touch and slick with precum; I glance over and see that he is now awake, blue eyes staring up at me in lust. He bucks his hips slightly and I tighten my grip. The man moans, and his partner runs a strong hand down my lean torso, cupping my balls, and then stroking the length of my shaft with his middle finger. My entire body trembles at this briefest physical contact, and with both hands I begin to gently tug on both men’s cocks.

The early morning silence of the bedroom is broken by our lazy, lustful grunts. I pick up the pace, and soon all three of us are out of breath, skin glistening with a fine layer of sweat. The Latino continues to stroke my cock in time with my own hands, and his fair-haired partner massages my chest, then my stomach, then my inner thighs. The Latino comes first, with a deep groan; he turns onto his side and shoots hot semen all over my stomach. I keep a firm grip on his cock, squeezing every last drop from him, all the while pumping away at his boyfriend, who thrusting into my hand with increasing fervour. A few moments later, his eyes clench shut and his soft, pink mouth forms a perfect ‘O’. He comes in total silence, ejaculating so hard that a drop hits the base of his throat and then runs down his chest. The sight of this is too much for me, and I give in to the pleasure of the darker man’s hand. I begin to fuck his fist, grabbing a handful of his thick dark hair and pulling him in to kiss me. His stubbled upper lip grates against my own as our tongues push and grind against each other. The other man leans in and bites my earlobe, something which I must have revealed last night as something of an erogenous zone for me. With his hot breath in my ear, and his lover forcefully kissing me, I feel my entire body tense up. And then I am coming like mad, hips bucking like a fucking epileptic, and my entire chest is covered in spunk.

All three of us lie back, panting uncontrollably. I don’t know how much time passes by; maybe I pass out for a little while. When my brain starts to function again, I realise that both men are lapping up the semen from my chest and stomach. This tickles slightly, and a lusty giggle escapes from my lips. The fairer of the two men kisses me sloppily on the lips, then hops off the bed. A moment later I can hear him singing in Spanish in the shower.

Time to go home, I guess. I’m reluctant to leave this bed, especially with the Latino still so enthusiastically caressing my balls. When I eventually stand up, my legs are shaky at first: no doubt a result of numerous cocktails and a night of sexual acrobatics. Damn, I wish I could remember! I locate my underwear on the sofa in the next room, then track down my t-shirt and shoes. But I’m buggered if I can find my jeans. I search the apartment, before spotting them, on the other side of the locked patio doors, on the verandah. Evidently I’d been in a rush to get my kit off, and I could hardly blame myself; my two new friends were a pair of sexy beasts.

The Hispanic stud comes out of the bedroom, still naked, to unlock the door for me. His cock hangs pendulous and spent between his legs, and for a moment I am hypnotised. He smiles warmly at me, and it’s all the thanks I need. English is overrated, I decide.

I kiss him innocently on the cheek, then give his cock a gentle squeeze, and walk out into the sunshine. The notion occurs to me that I have no idea where I am. How big is Ibiza, anyway? Luckily, I turn a corner and see a familiar stretch of sand and sun loungers. My hotel can’t be any more than five minutes walk from here.

I can't stop myself from grinning as I stroll off into the glorious morning in last night's clothes. Not only has this been the best holiday ever; it's been a fucking great year.

Erotic? Cringeworthy?

J. x

The Pleasure Index, Cont'd

Here are a few of my other favourite things from this year that I can't believe I omitted from the first list.

Modern Family. When I first saw the ads for this mockumentary comedy, I cringed. Here we go again, I thought. Another ham-fisted American attempt to pigeonhole characters into sexual stereotypes. I watched it and loved it. Cameron and Mitchell, the gay characters, do fulfil some cliches - they live a cloying modern lifestyle, in a committed relationship with their adopted baby. But who cares? They are also hilarious, as is just about every other character on the show, from the patriarch's exuberant and much younger second wife Gloria, to her wise-cracking son, to the more conventional nuclear family of Phil, Claire and their three kids, who are just as dysfunctional. What I love about Modern Family is that for all its "wacky" genre tropes, the way in which everybody interacts is incredibly realistic.

This Rolling Stone cover: How on earth did I forget this? Sookie, Bill and Eric, naked and drenched in blood. It sums up everything that is great about True Blood - gratuitous sex and violence. I have often joked that this show is good porn with a good story. Which is why I can't praise it enough. For something to be as sexually provocative as it is satisfying in terms of character and plot is a huge achievement for any writer. Which leads me to my next item...

"Sweet Tooth" by Philip Ellis. A friend recommended this ebook of short stories to me, and I sped through it. These pieces range from short and sweet pieces such as Nine Lives, in which a cat and dog reminisce about the good old days, to much more adult fare, like Toffee, a cautionary tale about talking to strangers, and The Girlfriend, a funnier tale about a man and his imaginary fancy woman. My personal favourite was Black Rabbit, which is told from the perspective of a magician's assistant who finds herself replaced by a younger model.

http://e-quills.co.uk/product_info.php?products_id=2&osCsid=8tt73ku91hv3p4degssqghskh5

Glee, Season 2. Gwyneth Paltrow singing Cee-Lo Green. I was so baffled and charmed I fell over.

Jemima Valentino. A writer I stumbled across on the Twittersphere who I can genuinely say is very talented. The first story of hers that I read, "Broken", sent shivers down my spine. She keeps teasing me with suggestions that a novel may be on the cards in the New Year. I live in hope. You can follow Jemima at http://jemimavalentino.blogspot.com - I would recommend spending a little time in her virtual company.

And there we have it, folks. My entire year, condensed into a blog post and a half. I've excluded some of my favourite episodes as they are quite graphic and will probably work their way into my Little Black Blog sometime in the New Year in the form of "Red Shoe Diaries"-style vignettes.

In the meantime, have yourselves a merry little Christmas. Make the Yuletide gay. That pun is so obvious I won't even make it rude for you.

J. x

The Pleasure Index

December really does seem to be a month of lists. Shopping lists, to-do lists, wish lists... I'm a huge fan of The Huffington Post, and all month the majority of their content, particularly in the Books section, seems to be countdowns and best-of lists. What's been this year's greatest novel, who are the top ten writers of the decade, and who will take the title of biggest publishing story since the Millennium: will it be Twilight, Harry Potter, eBooks, or those cheeky fraudsters JT Leroy and James Frey?

So I've put together a list of my own. Be it literary, musical, visual or sensual, here are the things that made me happy in 2010.

"Teenage Dream" by Katy Perry. I was a fan of hers already, but this love letter to youth and optimism makes me smile every time I hear it. The pitch-perfect (and shamelessly autotuned) boyband version in Glee also makes me weak at the knees.

Hurts. The musical partnership burst onto the scene this Spring with their New Romantic throwback hit, "Better Than Love". A few months later I invested in their album, Happiness, and was swept away. Every song on this record has epic scope, spinning tales of broken hearts, personal tragedies and fragments of hope. Highlights include "Devotion" featuring Kylie Minogue, "Stay" and "Evelyn". This album was the soundtrack to me falling in love this year, and getting my heart trodden on.

Twitter. I joined this month out of boredom and curiosity. So far, I have the impression of it being a kind of Facebook for celebrities, spammers and perverts of a very particular sort (they like to post 'twitpics' of their own naked parts). A constant source of amusement.

First dates. I've had a lot this year, as part of my resolution was to get "out there". I became something of a dating machine, and may well have got hooked on that feeling you have about half an hour before you meet someone; the butterflies, the hopes, the shiver of lust.

"My Horizontal Life" by Chelsea Handler. Never before has the written word had me in fits of giggles. I'd not heard of Chelsea before she hosted the VMAs this year, but she seems to have become ubiquitous since then, gaining particular notoriety for her choice words against Angelina Jolie. I have nothing against Ange, but I'm not sure she could sit down and write a memoir as searingly funny as this, without a single note of pretension.

Bulgaria. This is where I learned that skinny-dipping at sunrise is an effective preventative measure against hangovers.

True Blood, Season Three. The loveable, if daftly named Sookie Stackhouse returned to my screen and my heart this summer, bringing her impossibly sexy co-stars with her. This was the year that everybody began to doubt vampire Bill's devotion to Sook, which meant that his tall, blond, Scandinavian rival Eric got more screen time. Yay! We also got werewolves this year - naked ones. And Sam showed a darker, manlier side. Not to mention the actual storylines, which revolved around a centuries-old vendetta and Sookie finally discovering the source of her unusual powers. All in all, I am physically on tenterhooks until the guys, gals and gays of Bon Temps return for Season Four in 2011.

Thai food. I overdosed on conventional curry while staying in India this Autumn, but can't get enough of this lighter, fresher tasting cuisine. A Thai green curry is even simple enough for novices to make - perfect.

The bookstall on my local market. I am a sucker for a deal, and with each almost-new paperback averaging around two pounds each, I easily became addicted. Some great finds this year included Out by Natsuo Kirino, a Japanese thriller, Hey Nostradamus! by Douglas Coupland, an existential soap opera, and Summer Crossing by Truman Capote, a slim novel which holds the seeds of Breakfast at Tiffany's.

Vodka. Has never let me down, and never will.

Heartbreaker. A French comedy about the art of seduction. I watched it on a plane, after a day and night of sleep deprevation, and it still impressed me.

The Taj Mahal. I expected to be underwhelmed. I anticipated an anticlimax. I have never been more happy to be proven wrong. In fact, my entire Indian experience was one great pleasure, if you exclude the cursed gifts which I have mentioned in a previous post. My best friend and I were in Rajasthan a mere week before Russell Brand and Katy Perry visited. Always nice to be able to say we did it first.

Ke$ha. It's not often that I find myself wishing a celebrity was my friend. Next to this wonderful woman, my own antics would appear self-contained and conservative. Her songs are pretty good too.

Guilty Pleasure Reads - December 2010

I've been revisiting some of my teen favourites this month. For a lot of people, that may mean returning to Hogwarts, or Narnia. For me, it means falling back in love with Steve and Ghost, the best friends, lovers and rock stars from the weird and wonderful Lost Souls by Poppy Z. Brite.

A vampire story in part, Lost Souls tells of how a young girl is impregnated by a bloodsucker. She does not survive the pregnancy, and her half-breed child, christened Nothing, is left with a human family in the heartland of America, to grow up ignorant of his origins. Luckily, this grim beginning gives way to a colourful opus of blood-drenched Americana. Nothing runs away from home, hitches

a ride with a van full of vamps (unaware that one of them is his father), and together they go on a road trip to Missing Mile, North Carolina, which is the hometown of Nothing's favourite band, Lost Souls. The Lost Souls musicians are dealing with their own complicated problems - Steve loves to hate his ex-girlfriend Ann, and Ghost, his best friend, is cursed to hear the thoughts and dream the nightmares of those closest to him.

Events spiral out of control, Ann joins the vampires on their hedonistic voyage, and Steve and Ghost must pursue them to New Orleans for a deadly showdown. I cannot even begin to describe how good this book is, nor how it made me feel. A complete antidote to more modern teen vampire tales such as Twilight and The Vampire Diaries, Poppy Z. Brite's world is one of isolation, of bitterness and longing. Even the most human of the characters have demons, but what I love about Brite's prose is that even in the midst of death and destruction, you just know she is having the most wicked fun.

Her follow up horror novel, Drawing Blood, brings the reader back to Missing Mile. A young man fresh from social care returns to the house where his father killed his entire family, and there he crosses paths with a criminal on the run. Naturally, they fall in love, and together face the spectres from their pasts.

Perhaps the most extreme of Brite's books is Exquisite Corpse, in which two serial killers meet by chance on a hot New Orleans night, and realise they may be soulmates. They join forces to find the perfect prey, and then conspire to commit the perfect murder...

Gruesome, unsettling fare, the lot of it. And when I was fifteen, I couldn't get enough of it. I will never throw these three paperbacks away, because even the quickest flick through their pages takes me back to the first time I ever read those words, met those characters, and realised that I too could be controversial, provocative, sensational. Who knows what I might have been, had I not read those books. But I thank the Lord and Poppy Z. Brite that I did!

J. x

Life on Venus

I sometimes think the Midlands is a boring place to live, but then I get propositioned by a transvestite and I have to reassess the way I see the world.

For a moment, I considered it. I mean, it was a man, dressed as a woman, but it would still be a man, so I wouldn't be betraying myself or my sexual orientation. That logic made sense in my head. Unfortunately this particular cross-dresser was not a Sweet Transvestite in the vein of Frank-N-Furter from The Rocky Horror Show. But still, a part of me was curious. Would I get a funny story out of it? Yes, certainly. Would it be worth it? Perhaps not.

But I have always seen myself, a little conceitedly, as a very sexual being. Who cares who's going down on you, a voice in my head says, as long as they're doing it right!

I'm open minded. I watch a lot of freaky porn. So I said yes. This is it, my inner hedonist cried, you are about to cross your greatest taboo yet. You will soon know what it means to be free and uninhibited by society's sexual dogma.

Then I looked down. He/she was wearing ugly, sensible shoes. Thick, hairy legs were visible through laddered stockings. Their satin dress bulged and stretched unflatteringly, and a monobrow peered out at me from beneath a heavily fringed wig which looked like it had originally belonged to Lady Gaga. And I realised; this wasn't erotic, or liberating. It was sad and a tiny bit grotesque.

I backtracked so quickly I gave myself whiplash.

J.x