Beautiful Boys: Gay Erotic Stories (14 page)
Read Beautiful Boys: Gay Erotic Stories Online
Authors: Richard Labonte (Editor)
“Nothing.” Chris hadn’t even known he was smiling.
Chris took a while to get himself together. Kris, meanwhile, had wiped off but was still—to Chris’s infinite gratitude—naked. His ass would, clearly, take a while to get back to normal. They made the usual awkward post-trick conversation until Chris was ready to go.
“Well, thanks,” Chris said, heading for the door. He glanced down at the red sweatpants lying in the corner; he would have liked to bury his face in them, inhale the scent into his memory, but it would have been unseemly.
“So when will you be available again?” Kris asked.
“You want to do this some more?” Chris hoped his tone wasn’t too hopeful; wasn’t too desperate, too incredulous. Just matter-of-fact.
“Sure.”
Chris knew that seeing the boy again was improbable—but possible, since stranger things had happened. Things like his having spanked the most beautiful boy in the world until they both came.
At the moment he walked out of the boy’s apartment, Chris felt, no doubt foolishly, that he was walking out of Paradise.
He had, back in college, been something of a classical scholar, though he’d ended up in real estate, and he thought at that moment of the Emperor Hadrian. Hadrian’s young boyfriend, the impossibly beautiful Antinous, had drowned in the Nile, and the emperor had subsequently made him a god, filling his domain with statues of his dead love. If Chris were a sculptor, he mused, he would immortalize Kris in marble. If he were an author, he would write books about his heartbreaking loveliness, scrupulously listing every detail. But Chris was a realtor, and the most he could imagine himself doing would be naming a street in a housing development “Kris Way.” Pathetic.
And now, in any case, he was the one who was drowning.
Tears came again to his eyes and this time, in the dark, he allowed himself to cry.
He was just a fool. A silly old fool.
Just like lovesick Hadrian.
Oh, well.
THE INNER GAME OF CHESS
Cecilia Tan
Richard Partridge would like to state for the record that even though when he sits down at the chessboard he wants his opponent to think he’s much older than he is, he is not actually that many years older than Topher Lin; five, to be exact.
When Richard was fourteen and winning high school chess tournaments and Topher was nine and already cleaning up at regional events, the five years seemed both an enormous gulf—Topher was just a
child!
—and nowhere near enough time to prepare for the little genius’s arrival as an eventual challenger.
child!
—and nowhere near enough time to prepare for the little genius’s arrival as an eventual challenger.
Topher’s own father, the venerable and respected chess master John Lin, had joked at the time that Richard had better hurry up and go pro, or Topher was going to catch him.
Or maybe it wasn’t a joke. Richard certainly hadn’t taken his mentor’s words that way. He had gone pro before he was out of high school.
Now, though, Topher is the one out of high school, a freshman at college somewhere. Richard sits across from him and flashbulbs pop as they reach over the board to shake hands. Topher is Richard’s height now, his glossy black hair carelessly long, as if he’s so busy playing chess that a mundane task like visiting the barber is beneath him. Or maybe his mother still cuts it with him sitting in a kitchen chair. Richard holds on to that image, of skinny-legged twelve-year-old Topher with a bowl over his head, fidgeting because he wants to get back to the study where Richard and Master Lin are having a chess lesson.
The image shreds before Topher’s perfect smile and seductive beauty. Richard catches himself staring. His old mentor’s son has grown up to be fashion-model pretty, half Chinese, half Czech. The sleeves of his suit are a little too short, but instead of looking like his mother bought the suit two years ago and Topher’s been too oblivious to get rid of it, it looks somehow like that must be the fashion these days.
Richard focuses far too much on the boy across from him and way too little on the board between them. Topher demolishes him as the endgame nears. Flashbulbs blind Richard again as he lays down his king in resignation, thinking to himself that the kid isn’t that cute after all. Which is a damn good thing, because Master Lin would surely have a stroke if he had any idea that his former student had any kind of improper thoughts about his young son. Ever.
Richard goes home to his rent-controlled East Village apartment and sulks for about five minutes. Then he dresses, walks to a dance club in Alphabet City he likes, and goes home with a guy who never asks his name, and that’s just fine with him. Topher Lin is gone from his thoughts.
Poof.
Poof.
Two weeks later Richard is forcibly reminded of Topher when he reads the
Chess Monthly
piece about their match. It wasn’t even that important a match, but the writer had blown it all out of proportion, how Richard had been mentored by Master Lin, how he’d slept on the Lins’ couch and helped them rake leaves and mowed their lawn, like some modern-day kung fu training story, except with chess. They’re obviously trying to make some kind of rivals out of them, him and Topher.
Chess Monthly
piece about their match. It wasn’t even that important a match, but the writer had blown it all out of proportion, how Richard had been mentored by Master Lin, how he’d slept on the Lins’ couch and helped them rake leaves and mowed their lawn, like some modern-day kung fu training story, except with chess. They’re obviously trying to make some kind of rivals out of them, him and Topher.
Rival schmival.
Richard throws the magazine into the recycling bin before getting to the part of the article about how Topher is in his first year at Columbia University. Thus he is surprised when he is driving home one night from a house party up in Riverdale, winding his way through the Village to his building, and he sees Topher on a street corner.
Richard throws the magazine into the recycling bin before getting to the part of the article about how Topher is in his first year at Columbia University. Thus he is surprised when he is driving home one night from a house party up in Riverdale, winding his way through the Village to his building, and he sees Topher on a street corner.
It isn’t just that he sees Topher on a street corner. He sees him kissing someone. And it isn’t just that he’s kissing someone. He’s kissing a man. Or a boy. Richard doesn’t stop to check the guy’s ID. He does stop to grab Topher by the scruff of the neck like a naughty puppy and stuff him into the passenger seat of the car, peeling out seconds later with the scent of burned rubber reflecting how scorched he feels inside.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Richard demands, gunning through a yellow light and onto FDR Drive.
Topher, for his part, looks subdued, perhaps sullen, but not openly defiant, except for the fact that he doesn’t answer.
“Just because you’re at college now and away from your parents doesn’t mean you can…can…go crazy,” he rants. “You could get raped. You could get AIDS.”
Richard expects Topher to argue. To shoot back with something like,
Who do you think you are, my father?
Who do you think you are, my father?
But all Topher says, when Richard pauses for a breath, is “I’m sorry to have disappointed you,” with his face turned toward the passenger-side window, as if the side of the road is fascinating to him.
Why
? Richard thinks.
Why do you have to be so perfect, Topher Lin? It’s like you popped out of the womb the prince of the chess world. You won’t even deign to speak to mere peons like me.
? Richard thinks.
Why do you have to be so perfect, Topher Lin? It’s like you popped out of the womb the prince of the chess world. You won’t even deign to speak to mere peons like me.
Now the only sound is the engine and the tires, as Richard takes out his frustrations on the road and the other drivers.
Topher breaks the silence. “I’m over eighteen, you know.”
Richard makes a disgusted noise. “And that makes it okay to play tonsil hockey on the street? Where someone might see you?”
“Someone like who? It’s not as if a photographer from
Chess Monthly
follows me around.” Now Topher stretches in the bucket seat of the sports car, and Richard tries not to look at how long his limbs are, like a cat’s, elongating as he stretches. “It’s not like anyone’s going to recognize me—”
Chess Monthly
follows me around.” Now Topher stretches in the bucket seat of the sports car, and Richard tries not to look at how long his limbs are, like a cat’s, elongating as he stretches. “It’s not like anyone’s going to recognize me—”
“I recognized you!” Richard pulls off the street and screeches to a halt by a fire hydrant.
“But you know me!” Topher meets his stare, finally, and his eyes are wide and shiny like black jade buttons. “Is it an international incident that I do something other than play chess and study?”
“Get out of the car.”
“What?”
“Get out!”
Topher throws up his hands and pushes open the door. He’s barely slammed it before Richard is pulling away. It takes a few blocks for Richard to calm down enough to notice where he is. Upper East Side—safe enough for walking. He drives downtown, thinking about Topher Lin the entire ride.
Topher Lin, for his part, finds the entire thing a puzzle. This whole business about kissing people in general is highly confusing to begin with, which is half what he finds interesting about it. The urge to explore has been there for a while, but living at home and being constantly busy with chess while applying to colleges stifled exploration. Partridge is right, of course. Now that he’s living away from home for the first time, he has a chance to experience some things he hasn’t before, and he is approaching the world just as methodically as he would a new opponent.
He’s just as busy now, of course, if not even more, trying to keep up with both chess and term papers. He definitely doesn’t have time for a girlfriend, and this is one of the reasons kissing boys has become something of a strategy. A girl, Topher has learned, will want to spend two hours going bowling, or walking in the park and eating a meal, or seeing a movie together, before she’ll kiss him. Whereas boys couldn’t care less about appearances or whether you bought them dinner. Much simpler. Also, Topher is somewhat intimidated by the female anatomy and has resolved not to learn about it until he actually
needs
to.
needs
to.
He thinks he’s pretty much figured out boys, though, at least the kind who will kiss him when he wants, and who will help him get off if he returns the favor—usually with mutual hand jobs in a restroom. He rides the train back to the campus now, staring at the window without really seeing the tunnel going by outside as he tries to work through the new puzzle that is Richard Partridge.
Topher’s known him as far back as he can remember, it seems. And Richard was always the one Topher looked up to, the big brother he never had. The one with the cool handheld video game, the high-tech phone, the car—and yet all Richard ever really seemed to care about was chess. It’s not so different now, Topher supposes. Richard has designer suits and an impeccably stylish haircut and a fancier, more expensive car…and why the hell does he care what Topher does, anyway?
Maybe Richard does think about something other than chess. Or is this not about chess at all?
Topher’s thoughts suddenly tumble in another direction, as if he sees the board from a new angle. It’s not about chess, except that it is about Richard and Topher. Now that he glimpses a new way to attack the problem, he wants to try it out right away. He wants to maneuver his queen into position and corner him and see how he reacts.
In the morning, he gets Richard’s phone number and address from the local chess association office.
Poor Richard. He’s so rattled over Topher that he loses a friendly match the next night at the Village chess club. Then it gets worse. He loses his next match in the qualifying rounds for the regional tournament and begins to wonder if he’s also losing his mind. Because all he can think about is Topher. What’s going to happen when Topher, the perfect prince of the chess world, is found out to be gay? Chess and sexuality do not mix, chess and homosexuality especially. Closeted Richard already has nightmares about being murdered in a hotel room in the Czech Republic or some other place even more barbaric than New York. Aren’t there still countries where they have the death penalty for being gay? And are any of them in the international chess federation? Surely they are… Topher’s world would come tumbling down if the chess world learned he was…queer.
He’s in the all-night drugstore on the corner of his block late one night, staring forlornly at the shelf of sleep aids, when someone speaks to him.
“I thought you might be here.”
His blood runs cold at the sound of the young voice behind him. Topher always talks like a lawyer on television, all full sentences, with careful pauses in all the right places. Richard wonders bitterly if it’s because he’s chess royalty, or if it’s the prep school education that makes him talk that way. Or maybe it’s just Topher.
“That is, I was hoping I’d find you here, eventually.”
He turns to see the demon child himself. Okay, not much of a child anymore—they are pretty much of a height, and Topher must tower over his father now. Richard grits his teeth. Topher was simply not supposed to grow up, or if he was, he was supposed to grow into the role of a geeky brainiac, maybe become a recluse like Bobby Fischer or marry the women’s international champion and have a pile of chess genius children. Not grow into a fucking gorgeous Keanu Reeves look-alike. Not grow into a movie idol
who could now beat Richard at chess
.
who could now beat Richard at chess
.
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