Review Tuesday: Horrorsexual by M. Christian - #GayErotica #Horror #ReviewTuesday

Horrorsexual: The Queer Erotic Fright Fiction of M.Christian

Sizzler Editions, 2020

If anyone asked, you’d probably say that erotica has little in common with horror stories. After all, erotica is supposed to make you feel good, with steamy anticipatory tension, ecstatic crises and pleasantly sated endings. Horror, in contrast, is designed to produce discomfort. If the reader doesn’t feel queasy, unbalanced, disturbed or disgusted, the author hasn’t done his or her job.

Still, when you peer a bit closer, you’ll see the two genres share some characteristics. They both intend to excite the emotions. Both often use shock to their advantage – the most arousing sex tales are the ones that break taboos. Furthermore, sex on the edge, sex that pushes the limits of the acceptable, sex that’s so intense it breaks down barriers – the best and most memorable sex – can be truly scary. Sex strips us bare and makes us vulnerable, and being naked is dangerous.

Nobody appreciates the synergy between sex and horror better than M. Christian. He has been writing stories that are simultaneously thrilling and terrifying for decades. Horrorsexual collects some of the best of his work in the genre, focusing on tales involving gay men – or creatures that masquerade as such.

The eleven short stories in this collection are wonderfully varied. My two favorites, “That Sweet Smell” and “Friday Night at the Calvary Hotel”, illustrate the huge emotional and thematic range of this author. The former chronicles the complex relationship between JJ, a powerful columnist, king-of-the-city type, and his minion Sidney who both admires and hates him. The palpable menace in this tale made me shudder, though there’s very little overt violence and essentially no sex. That doesn’t matter; the tension between JJ and Sidney is sexual regardless. Their dominance/submissive dynamic is distilled in Sidney’s lighting of JJ’s cigarettes.

I looked at the end of the cigarette. Paper wrapped around tobacco. His strong fingers crushed the far end, making tiny flakes of brown stick out the front, towards me. My right hand was in my pants pocket, tight around my lighter. I fought the urge to pull it out, to push it towards him, to open it, flick alive a hot flame, and do it for him. I fought hard, trying to concentrate on anything except the cigarette or JJ's eyes.

I knew it, and he knew it: It wasn't just flame to tobacco. It was more than JJ's cigarette that was being pushed into my face. The place was cloudy with smoke; breathing in was like taking a drag. I could imagine the end of it in his mouth, lips around the paper, sucking in deep drags of smoke. The tip of his tongue resting on the warm end, just for a moment. Sometimes the smoke would be as warm as blood, like breathing in the essence of life. I didn't want to light it. I wanted to take it in my own mouth and draw it in deep, mix his warm smoke with my own blood, just for once taste the air that he breathed all the time.

Despite its lack of gore, this story is dark indeed.

“Friday Night at the Calvary Hotel”, in contrast, has blood and pain, death and semen, yet the tone is almost uplifting. An impoverished and desperate man answers an ad seeking an accomplice in a crucifixion scene. In return for a large amount of money, he meets his nameless employer – young, handsome, cheerful, not at all what you’d expect from a lunatic – in a run-down hotel, and literally nails the other man to the cross he has constructed.

Though the setup is creepy, the purity of the stranger’s desire shines through.

There was a long—very long—minute, as he stared at what I'd made. "Something like that," he said, finally, turning his head slowly to look back over his shoulder at me, that wry little smile back on his lips.

"Ah," was all I could say, struck more stupid than usual.

"This is wonderful," he said, stepping up and running his hands over the smooth wood. "A perfect job."

I wanted to "aw shucks" and start in about the hours of sanding, the three coats of lacquer, the buffing. But then I remembered why he’d had me build it, and what he wanted to use it for.

He rubbed it a long time, like he was communing with it. Watching him stroke it, I noticed something about his hands. I asked, "Is this your (ahem) first time? I mean … doing this kind of thing?"

It took him a long minute to pull himself away. "Oh, no, not at all. It’s just something I developed—well, I guess you could say 'a taste for'—a long time ago. Every once in awhile I like to indulge myself, you know, when I can get away from the family business."

With these two stories as psychic anchors, the book ranges widely over the landscapes of lust and fear. “Suddenly, Last Thursday” is a eloquent, slow-building tale about cannibalism and madness. “Chickenhawk” offers a kinky revenge tale in which the protagonist, a thirty year old dwarf who can pass for fifteen, entraps then punishes the pedophiles who pick him up. “Whatever Happened To...” is kinkier still, featuring a consensual but extreme D/s relationship between two aged drag queens. In “Bitch”, a paunchy, middle-aged, worn-out queer nurses his bitter envy against the beautiful young men in the building across from his – the “peacocks” as he calls them – only to have his secret wish for their destruction come true. In the psychologically potent “Echoes”, a gay man trying to escape from his guilt about murdering his partner discovers that every new lover kisses, sucks cock or screws in exactly the same way as his dead ex. “Wet” and “Empty” are both vampire stories, though the vamps don’t follow Stoker’s rules. The moods of these two pieces are quite different, though both involve some disgustingly bloody and visceral scenes.

These are not simple stories, easy to untangle and assimilate. Sometimes I’d finish one, then immediately go back to read it a second time, to clarify the author’s thoughts or my own, or simply to revel again in the dark mood and evocative language. One story, “Counting”, a scifi tale set in horrific dystopia, I never did completely figure out. Nevertheless, it impressed me with its vivid descriptions of San Francisco after a total collapse of civilization:

My first month, and my first riot in the new place. I was caught outside, unable to recognize the neighborhood's tell-tales, the rhythm of the block: when the stores would be allowed to open, when the local Militia had to make its quota, and when the insane would be released from their camps to clean and scour the streets of anything valuable or edible.

I was walking back from work, head still in the maze of junctions, cross-connectors, light-boosts and mirror-boxes, trying to deduce a ghost echo in the inner-office trunk lines. I was too full of Mr. Buckner's system to notice the closed windows or the quiet. Running people are like smoke: a city-signal. Seeing them sprint past, chests rising, breath fogging the cool evening, looking behind as they ran, I turned as well. A wave rounded Market – a panicked sea of old Militia coats flapping, feet wrapped in threadbare carpets, eyes red and desperate. A thousand, probably much more, screaming and crying as only people can when they've tasted panic. I got no more than twenty feet before the wave broke over me.

A man, black but scarred from a fire so now a ghost of himself, struck back at me as he passed. From behind, a woman, cradling a ruined arm, pushed me. I didn't have their momentum, hadn't seen what they'd seen, what had triggered their panic. I was treading water, and was doomed to drown.

A pack of wild children, a tribe drawn out of the alleys and shadows by the smell of sickness and opportunity, was suddenly around me – hungry eyes appraising my clean clothes, my worth, and the contents of my worker's bag. A cramp in my side came on so suddenly that I thought for a fraction of a scream that they'd knifed me with a piece of glass, a rusty sliver of iron or steel. Meat for the Dark Markets, old clothes for the camps. My breath was glass knives. My eyes were tiny and wind-burned from the cool night. My feet smashed, broke with each clawing stride.

They were jaguars. They were leopards. They were animals born and bred on the streets. I was the sick one in the herd that day. They sensed I was going for the alley. Stupid. I was so stupid. I moved, like drying clay, so slow, and they were there, blocking me in, forcing me towards the alley, to bring me down – and slice my throat.

The one story that didn’t really work for me was “Matches”, a fantasy about dying, leaving your worn-out body behind, and finding your perfect match in heaven. When a shabby apartment building blows up due to a gas leak, the overweight, sad, disappointed loner in Apartment 1A, who hasn’t had a lover in years, is temporarily liberated from his miserable existence. Beautiful and free, he soars skyward toward his equally exquisite and well-hung mate – until he’s resuscitated and slams back into the broken shell of his earthly form. Though the end was genuinely painful, the premise struck me as silly.

Horrorsexual also includes excerpts from M. Christian’s three gay horror novels: Me 2, Finger’s Breadth and The Very Bloody Marys. I’ve read all three (you can find my review of Finger’s Breadth here), and they fit the theme of the collection, but novels and short stories are very different sorts of beast. The excerpts leave a lot of loose ends. Of course, I’m sure the author hopes you’ll be sufficiently intrigued to buy one or more of these titles.

Horrorsexual will arouse you, challenge you, maybe scare you a bit. It will definitely raise a few questions in your mind about the nature of sex and of reality. It’s not a book for everyone, but if you’re curious, open-minded and brave, I recommend it.

The Moving Finger

By M.Christian

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on; nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it. -- The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

I may have said this before but it's always worth repeating: here's a hearty thank you to Lisabet for the opportunity to write a little piece for her excellent blog.

This time, Lisabet has asked me to write a bit about the how my newest novel, Finger's Breadth, came to be.

In a nutshell, Finger's Breadth is ... well, maybe too weird for a nutshell (perhaps even too much for a coconut shell) but I'll give it a shot. Basically, it's a near-future gay erotic horror/thriller with a hefty dose of social commentary. Less-than-basically, it's a series of characters dealing with "the cutter:" the nickname given to a mysterious figure drugging random men and amputating the first digit of their little finger.

I told you it was weird.

In many ways I see Finger's Breadth as a thematic sequel to my previous novel, Me2. In that book I had a lot of fun playing with the idea of identity. Less-than-basically that because of peer pressure, mass-produced lifestyles and fantasies, we are all becoming more or less interchangeable.

I say "thematic sequel" because after writing Me2 I was itching to challenge myself with a new project – one that allowed me to explore human nature again. With Finger's Breadth, I tried to reach down even deeper and get even dirtier with how we relate to one another: socially, sexually, you name it.

The seeds that would eventually sprout become Finger's Breadth came from a wide variety of sources – or threads that would become the quilt if you don't like plant metaphors – but, botany or fabric, they have more in common than you might think. One of them came from my fascination good versus evil. Yeah, yeah, I know: lots of people have done – and will do – the exact same thing. But I've always been frustrated at how cowardly a lot of authors have been on the subject -- cowardly, because very few people seem to be willing to honestly look at the question.

I did a bit of that in an old story of mine, called "Counting," where a man has the shocking revelation that his lover, who he'd always thought of as a revolutionary hero, was simply someone who enjoyed killing – and, though intelligence or circumstance, was simply killing for the 'right' side.

The world is simply not full of people who wring their hands together and cackle manically. Most of the time the either don't think about their actions, justify them in some way, or take a twisted form of pride in being that kind of person. What complicates the situation even more is how each of these states can slip and slide – often in the space of a few minutes.

For example, I've always wanted to do a book – maybe my next one – about a man who accidentally hurts another person. But instead of living with the guilt he goes out of his way to prove to himself, and the rest of the world, that the person harmed deserved it in some way. What would make the book fun to write would be putting the poor fellow, and the reader, through an emotional and spiritual roller coaster: with each revelation the unfortunate victim going from lily-white innocent to dark-hearted monster to troubled-soul to disturbed-psycho.

With Finger's Breadth I played a lot with that: where no one is really good or evil, black or white, victim or victimizer. People have their own reasons for what they do, and often the "purity" of their thinking does that very same slip and slide across their emotional landscape.

Another thread -- or kernel -- came from peer pressure. Alas, that term has been thrown around far too much ... so much that it's lost a lot of its power. Overused or not, though, we all are governed by the need to conform. Sometimes that conformity is obvious, but other times its so subtle we may not even be aware of it. In its darkest manifestation the end result is "just following orders" but there are many other disturbing shades of it. With Finger's Breadth I wanted to really explore the power of conformity – even pushing it to the point where, as the number of amputations rises, men would begin to self-amputate to fit in. Like I said, I told you it was weird.

But there are other manifestations of peer pressure – and as I wrote the book I discovered more and more places in the characters' lives (as well as our own) where it tugs and pushes and pulls us around. I'm not going to chat about those – read the book, damnit – but let me just say that, as with Me2, it took me a few months to get over writing Finger's Breadth ... and it has altered how I look at the world, and more importantly the people, around me.

The final thread (or kernel) -- or at least the final one I want to chat with you about today -- that came into writing the novel is that sexuality, gay or straight or bi, is not always a bright world with an orgasmically shiny sun high in the sky – but rather there's a very strange dimension to the human sex drive. Barebacking, in particular, was a jumping off point for Finger's Breadth but it wasn't the only sexual behavior that inspired me. For those who don't know, "barebacking" – or at least one form of it – is for people, particularly gay men, to participate in unprotected sex. The reasons for it are extremely varied but two types kept nagging at me: when it was done as a thrill-seeking behavior – Russian Roulette with HIV – and when it was done as a sexual rite-of-passage. The last one nicely dovetails with the whole peer pressure thing again: that people would willingly infect themselves to fit in.

Even though these jumping-off points for the book seem a bit dark – and I'm the first to admit I didn't write Finger's Breadth to be a shiny, happy novel – I also want to say that many of the characters in the book found at the end of it that they'd had their eyes opened. Yes, often that awakening is a harsh one – like having a painful peak behind the curtain of how we all act and react together as social animals – but in most cases they leave the book seeing everything a bit clearer.

A part of writing this book is that I also wanted to leave the reader with a moment of clarity. Maybe I'm being pretentious in that I want to change how people look at the world, but I tell myself that – success or failure – it's still worthwhile to try.

But a larger part of Finger's Breadth came not because of any mission but because – like with everything I write – I though the idea would be lots of fun to explore, the novel loads of fun to write. And, guess what, I did have a fantastic time writing the book – and I can only hope that anyone else, moment of clarity or not, will enjoy it as well.

******

You can get your own copy of Finger's Breadth at Amazon.com and read my review here. ~ Lisabet

REVIEW - Finger's Breadth by M.Christian

Finger's Breadth by M. Christian

Zumaya Publications LLC, 2011

Most men are within a finger's breadth of being mad. - Diogenes

A lunatic is loose in San Francisco, seducing gay men, drugging them, then slicing off the tip of one of their fingers at the first joint. At first, terror grips the city. Bars and clubs catering to the gay community close; no one dares venture out at night, for fear of encountering the Cutter. A chance hook-up with an attractive stranger could make you the next victim.

As time goes on, though, and more men join the ranks of those with nine-and-half-fingers, the mood shifts. Fear morphs into a sort of desperate heat. New venues open, more vibrant and raw than ever. Men with all their fingers intact become objects of suspicion – perhaps they are the one responsible for the plague of mutilation. The gay community develops new rituals to deal with the horror. But who is the Cutter, and why does he pursue his macabre crusade?

In Finger's Breadth, M. Christian has created a creepy and compelling narrative that, like so much of his work, defies categorization. The book offers elements of horror, erotica, science fiction and social commentary. Christian's San Francisco is recognizable but weirdly skewed from the real city. Its dark streets are haunted by free-lance cops and merciless predators, newly-outed kids fresh from the boonies and jaded veterans of a thousand blow jobs.

There's no single hero. The novel proceeds as a series of vignettes, views of the world through the eyes of various men affected by the explosion of violence. Snippets from newspapers and radio programs move the plot forward. Each character holds a piece of the truth without necessarily being aware of that fact. By the end, the reader has a pretty clear idea of what's going on, but Christian never actually comes right out and explains.

M. Christian understands the dynamics of fear as well as the fascination of extremes. He transcribes chilling Internet chat sessions, between a man who might or might not be the Cutter, and a man who longs to be.

TRANCHERMAN191: I'll only ask one more time. Why do you hope it's me?

CONRADICAL02: i don't know!

TRANCHERMAN191: You do know. You just won't say it.

CONRADICAL02: i want more. i want something different. Is that why you do it?

TRANCHERMAN191: Answer my question or stop bothering me.

CONRADICAL02: i want something different. i want 2 do what you do.

TRANCHERMAN191: Because?

CONRADICAL02: i want it to mean something. Sex, i mean. Or something like that. It doesnt do anything. Its fun. But it doesnt last. It's what everyone else does. Its not special. i like it, but i mean, its like what everyone else does. Is that what you mean?

TRANCHERMAN191: Go on.

CONRADICAL02: i dont know. Fuck. Its not enough. ive done it all kinds of ways but its not...it doesn't stay. Thats not right. Fuck, i dont know. i want to feel more. i want to be more. i dont want just tricks. i want risky. i want to do more than fuck and suck. i want to feel real big real powerful. Nasty. i want to be different like you.

TRANCHERMAN191: You don't know anything about me.

Finger's Breadth is simultaneously terrifying and arousing. M. Christian has tapped into the subterranean founts of desire, where the primal urges - lust, anger, fear, hunger - flow together. At the same time, the book dwells on more existential issue - the need for meaning and recognition, the urge to belong to a tribe. Like his previous work, the controversial novel Me 2, this book considers how far one might go today in order to fit in.

If you're looking for an easy, sunny, sexy book with a happy ending, don't pick up Finger's Breadth. If, on the other hand, you want a scary but enlightening ride through the twisted labyrinth of the human psyche, I highly recommend this book.

Funny But You Don't Look It...

By M.Christian (Guest Blogger)

Before I say anything I want to toss out a hearty and well-deserved thank you to Lisabet Sarai to giving me this very nice opportunity to ... well, chat about whatever I'm going to chat about.

To be honest I'm at a bit of a loss about what that might be. I mean – hell – I'm a writer, right? So this kind of thing should, at least, be second nature. To be honest, though, I've never liked talking about myself. Part of it is privacy, sure, but a lot of it is that I've always wanted my work to stand on its own: that people should (hopefully) buy my stuff because they like it – and not just because they like me.

But Lisabet asked me a question that's been making me scratch my head – always a good thing. But first a tiny bit of background: while I write in a lot of genres – non-fiction, mysteries, romance, horror, science fiction, and a lot of smut – I also have written more than a few books and stories out there with gay or lesbian characters.

But here's the kicker: I'm straight.

Part of why all this happened is because of simple logistics. As any serious writer can tell you, you cannot really plan for a career in this business: you take what comes your way and, if you're lucky, that can lead to work and, even luckier, even more work. In my case I had a lot of great experiences selling stories and editing anthologies for various gay and lesbian publishers ... which, in turn, got me a few in-roads when it came time to write novels. Gay or lesbian novels, naturally.

One thing I have to mention before I go any further is that I never, ever lied about who and what I am when I worked with these publishers. Sure, I don't like to talk that much about myself (so you won't find me on Facebook or Twitter, by the way) but I was always clear with them about my sexual 'reality.'

There was one time, though, that I have to share. I had a really great relationship with one publisher ... such a sweet, wonderful man ... and one day he asked a mutual friend what kind of men I liked. This friend-in-common answered, honestly: "Women." That made me very upset – not that I had been 'outed' as straight – but that I may have hurt this man who meant so much to me, that he may have thought I'd been leading him on or lying about who I was. It was simply a sin of omission: I thought he knew about me.

I immediately got on the phone and, much crying later, we were laughing about the whole thing. I told him, blinking back even more tears, that his respect and support of my work meant more to me than anything I could name, and that because of that I wished – and still do – that I could be gay to love him even more. He has since moved on but I think about him a lot. I loved him then and I love him now.

But why I've written about gay and lesbian characters is more than just a writer taking the opportunities he's handed. As I've written so many of these stories and books I've become pretty comfortable using them – to a point where I really need to get in touch with my heterosexual side (that's a joke, son).

Kidding aside, I really have gotten to a point where a lot of my projects simply work better with gay or lesbian characters. Part of that is because of this 'thing' I've been on. It started with the -- kind of -- infamous novel I did called Me2. Originally written for Alyson Books, but being re-issued by Renaissance Books very soon, the book is about identity and ... well, I cant really say much more without giving too much away. Just buy the book, okay?

Beyond the fact that it was commissioned by a gay publisher I really don't think I could have done the book with a straight-focus. I've thought a lot about that but each time come to the same conclusion: the book has a much more intimate feeling, more claustrophobic by having it be gay: like having the theme stand in a hall of mirrors.

My new book, Fingers Breadth, is the same. This time the book is about ... well, again I won't say much. But it does deal with what happens to people under pressure – and how, within all of us, there's a real disturbing truth when that pressure gets to a certain point. Again, I really feel that the book simply works better with gay characters – for pretty much the same reason. The characters in the book interact with people who, at a deeply social and sexual level, themselves – making the book feel very constrained and, to use the word again, claustrophobic.

Another book I wrote also had queer characters but, this time, my thinking was different. Painted Doll, first put out by Lethe Books but also coming soon in a new edition by Renaissance, is – basically – a cyberpunk/noir erotic tale of a woman-on-the-run forced by circumstance to pose as a kind of dominatrix. For Painted Doll I made the character a lesbian because I thought it would be a good, and pretty obvious, juxtaposition between the life she had to leave behind and the one she's had to adopt.

Before you think that this is getting to be a bit ... much, what with all the gay and lesbian characters, I do want to say that I really, honestly, have written a book without a major gay character. Published by Phaze, Brushes is an erotic romance about the people surrounding a famous artist – and how their misconceptions and prejudices about him have affected their lives.

... and (sheepishly) I have to admit that my other two books have ... (ahem) gay characters – and not just queer but also vampires. In all honesty they were written for gay publishers, but both Running Dry and Very Bloody Marys does mean that I'm batting a lot for the other team ... at least in terms of my writing.

Does this bother me? Not a lot, to be honest: I'm a writer and writers write. If we are lucky we can choose what we write -- but for a lot of us we take what we can get. This is not a complaint ... far from it: I have absolutely, totally, thoroughly enjoyed writing these books, as well as everything else I've done, and it means a tremendous deal to me when I get fan mail or positive reviews. I would have no problem writing these kinds of books ... until I couldn't write anymore.

But part of the reason why I think I have enjoyed writing these kinds of things is because they were part of a personal journey of exploration: I simply didn't know I could write these kinds of things until I tried .... let alone that they would be as well-received as they've been.

Like I said, writers write – but it's also very important to push yourself, to try new things to step outside of your comfort zone. Weirdly, me saying that writing gay or lesbian books 'doesn't bother me' actually does bother ne a bit – because at some level it means that I may have become a teeny-tiny bit complacent.

Because of this ... well, I won't say that I won't never, ever, write a gay or lesbian book again but it is a factor that is going to sit in the back of my mind going forward. As a lot of writers have discovered, you never know what you may be good at until you try. I've had some luck writing gay books, for which I am profoundly grateful, but going forward I really do think I'm going to try to do things differently.

Will it work? I hope so. But the other maxim I believe in – right up there with 'writers write' – is that a writer never fails ... unless they stop writing.

And, with me, there's absolutely no chance of that.

Here, for your delectation, is an excerpt (Chapter One) from Finger's Breadth.

Looking from the window of the coffee shop. Watching from the windshield of a parked car. Staring from the glass of a very rare unbroken bus kiosk. Glaring from the side of a passing bus.

A brief summer rain had painted the city that night in reflections. Fanning saw himself everywhere, and eve- rywhere he saw himself his expression said the same thing—Why haven’t you caught him yet?

In his ear, a Bluetooth bud whispered the Officer- Wertz inquiry’s soundtrack; in his pocket, the video was playing on his phone. He didn’t need to hear or see it. No one would, but if asked he could probably rattle off every verb, every noun, every linguistic bit from when Knorr started it to when he stopped it. Knorr was good at what he did, just like the lab mice who studied crime scenes and picked up tiny bits of DNA with their finely honed tweezers.

Welcome to the decentralized world of the new San Francisco Police Department, where your specialty was all you did and generality was extinct.

Fanning was a freelancer but was supposed to be good at what he did, too. Sneering at himself reflected in the coffee shop window, he gripped the phone in his pocket. If he’d been stronger, or the plastic less durable, it would have cracked.

Glowering for an instant at his reflection in the windshield of the parked car, he pulled the phone out and flipped through a few key digital pages. As with the inquiry, he didn’t need to look at it again, but he did anyway. Better than sharing the street with his scowling mirror images.

It hadn’t changed—Wertz’s home address and where he worked were still the same. The first was across town, in the Mission. The second was just down the street, at a Gap Store.

Ten a.m. to six p.m. His shift hadn’t changed, either. But it was 6:17, and there was no sign of Wertz.

Fanning paced the wet sidewalk, searching up and down the street but mostly the blue-and-white bright- ness of the Gap store. In his ears, Wertz’s voice clicked into silence; then, as it was set on “loop,” it began again.

Just like the others. Same MO, same kind of pick-up place, same amount of Eurodin in Wertz’s system, the lab mice doing their usual fine and precise work, and the same mutilation—right hand little finger amputated at the first joint.

Again, his phone threatened to break in his hand, but again, he wasn’t strong or determined enough to do it. The beat cops who’d found Wertz sound asleep on the J Church train; the lab mice who’d analyzed the drug in his system; Knorr, who’d asked his carefully prepared and expert questions...

But then there was Fanning, who was supposed to assemble piece after piece after piece after piece until they made a picture of someone’s face.

Cutter’s face.

Looking up from where he’d been looking down, he saw a silhouette come between the blue-and-white of the

Gap store. A dark shape that was about the right height, about the right build, about the right age, to be whom he was looking for. Fanning carefully released his tight grip on his phone and stepped back into a nearby alley, one carefully chosen for its heavy solitude.

Heavy solitude was just what Fanning wanted.

#

His age had ticked over to forty half a decade ago, bringing with it eye surgery, regular arthritis treatments and a pre-diabetic monitoring pump sewn into his belly. He didn’t run as fast as he used to, didn’t snap back like he used to, didn’t hit as hard as he used to, but he still could get the job done. The shape that had been about the right height, about the right build, about the right age, became less about and more exact as Wertz passed. The night was cold as well as wet, so Fanning felt more coat than skin when he grabbed Wertz and spun him off his feet into an echoing crash down deep in the inky canyon of the alley.

Wertz, again according to his file, had ticked over to twenty, also half a decade ago, so he had perfect eyes, good joints, and a strong heart. Maybe, if he went to the gym, even some muscles. Fanning got to the back of the alley as fast as he could without running. Wertz was pull- ing himself out of some deep-blue biodegradable trash bags, the logo of the city Green Commission warped by his body landing hard on them.

Wertz began to say something. When Fanning’s fist landed fast and meaty in the young man’s gut, the air he’d prepared for speaking rushed out in a gagging spasm.

“Talk when you’re fucking talked to,” Fanning said, down-deep, carefully prepared vocal thunder. Knorr was good, but Fanning knew how to talk, too. “You fucking lied, didn’t you?”

Wertz was in darkness, but there was just enough light spilling from the businesses and streetlights to give his young face ghostly definition. The shape of his eyes, nose, lips revealed to Fanning that the guy was twisted up with confusion and, best of all, fear.

“You lied,” Fanning said, even lower, even closer to Wertz, giving him no time to think.

Wertz said something, the exact words lost to sud- den traffic sounds leaking from the street. Even though Fanning couldn’t tell what he said, he knew enough—a voice to that confusion and, still best of all, fear.

“Shut the fuck up,” Fanning said, punctuation added with another punch to the man’s gut. Again his breath left in a retching rush of air, now tinged with the sharp reek of pre-vomit.

“I said you were lying.” Now was the time to ask the question, to put that confusion and fear to good use. “Weren’t you, you fucking asshole?”

“W—what?” was all Wertz managed to get out.

“Your finger. Your finger! You know what the fuck I’m talking about.”

The young man who’d crashed in the garbage held his hand up—a reflex, ancient and common. But some- thing about it was new, only in the last week or so—four and three-quarters fingers, not a solid five.

“Tell me the truth, asshole. Tell me the fucking truth.”

“I don’t know what...” Wertz’s eyes glistened in the sparse light. Young. Very young. Young enough so he didn’t need eye surgery, arthritis treatments, or a bit of medical hardware just to the right of his navel. Young enough to recover damned quickly. “I told ... told them everything.”

“You’re. Lying.” Each word a vocal bullet, face-to- face, making youth face the harsh reality of determined age.

“No, no...”

“Don’t give me that shit.” Another punch, another effort to drive the point home. “What the fuck hap- pened?”

“I told them...what happened. I did.”

“You let someone just cut part of your fucking finger off? Don’t give me that shit.”

“Drugged. I said...”

“I know you were fucking drugged. I know all about that shit. Tell me what you didn’t tell the cops.”

“I told them...Fuck you, I told them everything.”

Fanning grabbed Wertz. Forty-five years reminded him they were there with a quake down his spine. Teeth tightly clenched, he tried to keep a hissing gasp from slipping out. It took work, but he got Wertz up and out of the garbage in one movement. The next movement was yet another blow to Wertz’s stomach.

Closer than before. Even more intimate in his threat: “You’re. Fucking. Lying.”

“No,” Wertz said. “I didn’t. I didn’t.” He repeated it, over and over, fast and sharp, like a whisper sped up into a near squeal.

“Yes, you fucking did. You’re fucking hiding some- thing.”

Then Fanning realized Wertz really was hiding something.

#

Looking from the mirror behind the bar. Watching from the skyline of antique bottles. Staring from the am- ber liquid in his glass. Glaring from the deep mahogany brownness of the bar top.

No grass, no acid, no meth, no ecstasy, no fun, no flash, no jump—the place had nothing but what was on tap and in that skyline of gin, tequila, vodka below the mirror. It was an antique, a musty relic for musty old relics that were a lot older than Fanning.

It wasn’t his usual kind of place, but it was close. That made it his kind of place that night.

Tapping the glass. The bartender, who looked as pre- served as the contents of his bottles—probably because he consumed as much as his derelict patrons—filled him up again.

Jack Daniel’s wasn’t his drink, but it was all he could think of. That made it his drink for that night.

Fanning sipped, feeling lighter fluid trickle down his throat, threatening to make him cough. Reclaiming his breath, he took a longer, deeper one, then took a longer, deeper drink, bringing the floating ice cubes in contact with the bottom of the glass.

Looking, watching, staring, glaring—his reflections reminded him why the antique bar was his place for the night, the Jack Daniel’s his drink for the moment.

Nothing. Nothing at all. Wertz had been a dead end. Another dead end.

Bad, very bad. But there was something else. Think- ing of it, he drank more of the harsh amber, feeling it land in his stomach like a punch. A grin at that thought, but a bitter and sour one. Just like the ones he’d landed on Wertz.

Even more bitter, still more sour—not like the ones he’d landed on Wertz. He’d told himself before hauling the kid into alley it would be worth it if he could get something, anything out of it. Some bit, some piece, some crumb that would fill in the gaps and put Cutter in his hands.

But there’d been nothing.

One more swallow, and the glass was empty. But there was that something else. Something that made him tap the glass for a third time; for a third time, the per- fectly preserved bartender poured more Jack. The noth- ing that swam around in his head was practical and pragmatic; his failure was bubbling nausea, threatening to spill out onto the mahogany bar, onto the museum- quality carpet. It was his mission, and he’d failed—again.

There was still booze in his glass, but Fanning knew he shouldn’t drink any more. Knew, but he still wanted to. Anything to put it all aside, bury it behind a drunken haze.

Wertz had been hard. Very hard—a determined and ferocious erection that had pushed up against Fanning. Needing, wanting, a dark kind of urgency. Hard because of what Fanning had been doing to him.

Bad, but not the worst. It could mean vomit on the museum-quality carpet, vomit on a mahogany bar; but Fanning still reached out, wrapped sloppy fingers around the glass and took another long drink. Anything was better than remembering that last little detail of the night, the real something else that had pulled him off the street into a place that wasn’t his kind of place, to put a drink in his hand that wasn’t his kind of drink.

Wertz had been hard. Very hard. Fanning had been, too.

Bio: M.Christian is - among many things - an acknowledged master of erotica with more than 400 stories in such anthologies as Best American Erotica, Best Gay Erotica, Best Lesbian Erotica, Best Bisexual Erotica, Best Fetish Erotica, and many, many other anthologies, magazines, and Web sites.

He is the editor of 25 anthologies including the Best S/M Erotica series, The Burning Pen, Guilty Pleasures, The Mammoth Book of Future Cops and The Mammoth Book of Tales of the Road (with Maxim Jakubowksi) and Confessions, Garden of Perverse, and Amazons (with Sage Vivant) as well as many others.

He is the author of the collections Dirty Words, Speaking Parts, The Bachelor Machine, Licks & Promises, Filthy, Love Without Gun Control, Rude Mechanicals, and Coming Together Presents M.Christian, Pornotopia, How To Write And Sell Erotica; and the novels Running Dry, The Very Bloody Marys, Me2, Brushes, Fingers Breadth, and Painted Doll.

Let me throw in the suggestion that if you're interested in sampling some of his work, you should buy the charity collection Coming Together Presents M. Christian. Even if you don't like the stories in that book (which I think is very unlikely), your purchase will benefit Planned Parenthood and their work on behalf of women's health.

~Lisabet