Best Gay Romance 2013

Randy Perletti came out of the closet when he was nineteen. His mom cried. His dad stayed silent and retreated to the backyard shed. A few hours later his older sister, Becky, called from her apartment in Pittsburgh.

“How could you do this to them?” she said with all the righteousness she could muster from her three-and-a-half years as a psychology major. “You’re their only son, Randy. Can’t you understand how this would affect them? Don’t you want to get married and have kids someday?”

Randy sighed. For much of his first semester at college he’d been holed up in his dorm room exchanging blow jobs with his well-hung roommate, Chuck. Chuck had undergone a Christian reawakening just a week before, though, and had asked for a room exchange.

Randy was no stranger to curious straight boys and their post–blow job blues. Usually he’d ignore the pain, but this one had left him feeling weirdly courageous. If God took stock in the fact that you liked the smell of your lacrosse-playing roommate’s sweaty balls, well, what did that say about God?

“Love is the most sacred thing you can experience,” Becky continued, “and you want to write it off, just like that.”

“Give me a fucking break, Becky. Just ’cause you have a boyfriend now after, like, eight years of crying into your pillow and listening to Karen Carpenter doesn’t make you an expert on relationships.” Becky didn’t say anything. “I’m gay. Get the fuck over it.” He hung up the phone and headed upstairs.

“To my room,” Randy said, exasperated. His parents watched him, as though fascinated that gay people ascended staircases to rooms.

Fortunately his parents were still in shock that spring when Randy dropped his second bomb and told them he wasn’t going back to school. They even let him move back home. He got a job washing dishes at the diner and another job cleaning buildings on Market Street. He was saving money (he wasn’t sure what for) and still had enough for gas and a weekly lid of pot. He was happy at home in Groom, Pennsylvania, where things were safe and familiar. Most of his high school buddies were still around. A few of them were more than pleased to have him back, for Randy was as discreet as he was up for anything.

“Me, too,” Dom said, and he blushed. Becky was engaged to Dom by then and was in the midst of planning an insanely elaborate ceremony, wringing as much stress and drama from the process as she could. Randy figured it was her punishment to the world for not having noticed her sooner.

Randy was asked to be a groomsman, but stuck to the sidelines as the wedding date neared, grateful that the family’s attention had been diverted from him. Dom seemed glad to acquiesce to Becky’s whims and go with the flow. He wasn’t unfriendly to Randy, nor did he reach out, but as the weeks went by Randy started noticing things: glances that lasted too long, nervous tics whenever they were together in a room. A telepathic dialogue was manifesting itself.

Dom bunked at the Perletti house the night before the wedding, while Becky stayed with her bridesmaids across town. Randy was up late watching TV when Dom came downstairs, wearing a white V-neck T-shirt that hugged his muscles, and blue pajama pants.

“Hey,” he said to Randy. Randy hadn’t expected anyone to be up this late and was wearing just his boxers. He didn’t mind showing off his thin, defined body, which was tanned a golden brown.

Dom seemed half asleep. He rubbed his hands over his close-shorn, sandy-haired head, then shuffled to the kitchen and poured a glass of milk. He sat down on the couch next to Randy.

“Too much coffee at the rehearsal dinner. Well, that and I’m nervous too. First family gathering since…well…you know.” Dom’s head snapped to the TV. He took a too-quick drink of his milk and it spilled down the sides of his mouth.

“Crap,” he said and lifted his shirt to wipe his face. Randy couldn’t help but look. Dom’s stomach was thick but tight, with a blondish happy trail that disappeared into his pajama pants.

“I guess it’s normal to be nervous,” Randy said, shifting his gaze. “Anyway I’m sure Becky would understand if you changed your mind.” Dom smiled. He took another swig from the glass, this one more successful.

“I just wish it was over,” Dom said. Randy gave him a sympathetic smile. After a moment, Dom lifted his shirt again. He wiped his mouth even though there wasn’t anything there, and he did it slowly. He watched Randy gaze at his body as he tugged his shirt back down, until their eyes met and they realized they’d caught each other in the act.

So Becky got hitched and Randy got drunk. The new couple bought a house in Groom just a few blocks from the Perletti house. Dom, who had a bachelor’s degree in communications, took a job managing the Groom Motor Lodge on the highway while Becky looked for work.

One night after the newlyweds came for dinner at the Perletti house, Randy fell asleep in the easy chair while Dom watched TV from the couch. The first thing Randy noticed when he awoke was Dom watching him. Dom quickly averted his eyes back to the TV, his face flushing. Randy reddened himself when he realized what Dom had been staring at—a conspicuous tent in his sweats from the industrial-sized boner he’d sprung in his sleep.

The next Friday Becky recruited her brother to help paint the new couple’s bedroom. When he arrived Dom was already rolling paint onto the walls, and Becky was getting dressed for a job interview in Latrobe.

There was some brief awkwardness after she left, but small talk was one of Randy’s strengths, and he easily maneuvered them into friendly waters.

“I wasn’t expecting anything, I don’t think,” Dom said. “It’s nice though. You know—comfortable. I don’t have to wonder about, like, going out on a Friday night, looking for whatever, getting drunk. That gets old.”

“Good, cause I brought a six-pack. We can split it.” By the time they finished painting they had two beers left. They were cleaning off their brushes and rollers in the utility room, the close quarters heady with the smell of sweaty bodies.

“No,” Dom said, then hesitated. Into the vacuum of his silence rushed sexual tension. Randy hadn’t intended it, but there it was.

“I’ve heard of it,” Dom continued, whacking a brush off the side of the sink. “We could take the rest of the beer.”

“Sure,” Randy said, his heart picking up speed. “Becky won’t care, right? We can leave her a note or something.”

After a ten-minute drive they started the two-mile hike into the woods. They were soaked in sweat again by the time they got to the falls, a forest glen with a creek that dropped off into a deep pool. There was graffiti on the rocks and some strewn-about trash, but it had a secretive charm.

“Sure,” Dom said, emboldened by the beer and the beauty of the place. He stripped down and Randy followed suit. Dom’s tighty-whities hugged the generous curves of his muscular butt and acted like a sling for his beefy cock. Randy was embarrassed to reveal his patterned bikini briefs—a purchase he’d made out of boredom and horniness one night while stuck at the mall with his mom.

Dom swept his eyes up and down Randy’s body and Randy did the same to Dom. Before either could register anything Dom turned and ran for the ledge, springing himself over the waterfall and into the air, crashing into the pool below.

“It’s freezing!” he called. Randy approached the edge. He felt the slick rock beneath his feet. He jumped, fear and release rushing through his body for a drawn-out instant before he plunged into the water.

“Well, the open bar helped.” Dom laughed. “I don’t care what people think of me, anyway,” Randy said. Dom drank the last of his beer.

“Yeah,” Dom said. Birds squawked in the trees. “I was wondering… Like, how did you know you were? I mean, did you ever date girls?”

“Like, you know. Kissing. More than kissing,” Randy said. Dom brought the beer bottle to his lips, tipped it back even though it was empty. Randy took a deep breath. “Did you ever do stuff like that? Like before you met Becky?”

“It’s not much different from kissing a girl,” Randy said, nervously plugging his thumb into the mouth of his beer bottle.

Dom stood up. He tossed his empty bottle into the weeds and turned toward Randy. His half-hard cock tented his transparent briefs. Randy set down his bottle and stood up next to him, his hefty dick also visibly at half-mast.

“Yeah,” Dom said. They moved toward each other, their cocks hardening. When they came together an involuntary, almost reflexive force took over. Their mouths locked and their tongues dueled, desire passing between them thick and hot as molten rock. Randy moved his hands to Dom’s back. Dom placed his hands on the smooth sides of Randy’s torso. Making out with Dom felt natural and breathtaking, but it was just too much. Randy had to break away.

“Thanks,” Dom said, looking at the ground, and the word was a hollow thud. They dressed and headed to the car. The world, having disappeared for a moment, rushed back like a tsunami. They rode home in silence, each mile getting them closer to the lives they’d upended.

The strange thing was that after that day, hard as they tried to avoid each other, Becky seemed to do all she could to bring them together. She went whole hog in enlisting Randy’s help with their house, making dates that Randy always managed to blow off.

“I saw they just opened a record store on Market Street,” she said one night over dinner at the Perlettis’. “You and Dom both like music—you guys should go down there together!”

“Do you like Dom?” Becky asked her brother one night after dinner. Randy was washing dishes while Becky sat at the kitchen table. Dom had already gone home.

“I think he’s about the best-looking guy I’ve ever seen,” Becky said. “Don’t you think he’s good looking?”

“Of course I am. I’m happy for all of us, ’cause if you hadn’t gotten laid soon you would’ve drove us all nuts.”

“Hush up,” Becky said. “I hate it when you talk like that.” She dipped her finger into a candle, coating the tip with hot wax. “I never thought a guy like Dom would look at me, let alone marry me.”

Becky shrugged. “I know I’m not the cutest button in the box. But there was Dom, sitting across from me in my Shakespeare class, and he just…I don’t know…listened to me. Made me feel like I was worth his time. I asked him to go out, and he did. I’d never asked a guy out before. Can you believe that?” Randy toweled off a plate and stacked it with a clink.

“I can,” he said, turning toward his sister. “You don’t give yourself enough credit, Becky. You’ve always been shy, but you’re great. People just don’t get to see it.” Becky smiled and cast her eyes downward. Randy went to bed that night with a heavy heart.

On Labor Day Becky arranged a picnic at their parents’ house. Dom wore a pair of thin khaki shorts that made his ass look like wrapped cantaloupes. In the chaos of aunts and uncles and cousins Randy lost track of his brother-in-law. He had to piss, so he entered the quiet house and went up the stairs to the bathroom. The door was closed and the shower was running. He figured it was his dad, so he walked in and shut the door behind him.

“I gotta pee,” he said after he’d already unzipped. He heard the shower turn off. “Just gimme one second.” The curtain pulled back and Randy turned his head. There was Dom, naked, wet, and already half-hard.

“Shit,” Randy said. “Sorry.” Dom, who’d needed to clean up after knocking whiffleballs around with the kids in the ninety-degree heat, locked eyes with Randy. He didn’t move a muscle except for his cock, which lurched like a thing from the dead until it was standing straight up.

Randy could’ve left the room. It was probably the right thing to do. But instead he stepped forward and wrapped his hand around Dom’s fat cock. He raised his face to meet Dom’s mouth. As they made out their hands moved like wildfire, Dom ripping off Randy’s clothes, Randy feeling every inch of Dom’s body. Randy knelt down, his shorts around his thighs and his hard cock jutting out. He took Dom’s cock in his mouth.

Dom’s lungs deflated. A few passes of Randy’s mouth and throat around his cock and Dom was almost juicing. Randy licked his way up his brother-in-law’s body, munched on his pecs and nipples, then trailed his tongue down Dom’s thigh. He flipped him around. Dom braced himself against the shower wall. Dom’s ass was a gift, big and perfect, and Randy dove in. His pink, deep asshole seemed to invite Randy to dig deeper with his tongue. Dom whimpered and pushed back harder.

Randy stood and dropped his shorts so that his buckle clanged against the floor. He grabbed a bottle of shampoo and lubed himself up. He pressed his cock to Dom’s asshole and in moments he slid inside. Dom stifled a cry but didn’t protest as Randy porked him balls-deep. A minute or so of thrusting and Randy was blasting inside Dom’s virgin butt and Dom was spraying the shower wall.

They didn’t talk as Randy slid out, pulled on his pants, and left. He went to his bedroom and locked the door, caught his breath. When he came back out Dom was with the rest of the family on the patio, freshly showered and freshly fucked. He had a noticeable glow, and even nodded to acknowledge Randy’s entrance.

“It was like you tripped a switch in me,” Dom would say years later about that afternoon. “I instantly knew how sex was supposed to feel. I felt so relieved.” Randy had apparently fucked the fear right out of Dom, and Dom got bold. Two days later he came knocking on Randy’s bedroom door. Randy tossed his liquid-crinkled issue of Mandate on the floor, zipped up, and answered the door.

“I told Becky I was borrowing a record,” he whispered. Dom impulsively leaned forward and kissed him, knocking their mouths together so hard it hurt. “Here,” he said, and handed Randy a key. The plastic, diamond-shaped key ring had the number 428 imprinted on both sides. “I got this room for tonight.”

“After two. I’m supposed to be doing paperwork in the back office but the night clerk won’t notice.” Randy took the key. Dom made it halfway down the hall before Randy thought to call him back. He grabbed the first record off his stack and shoved it in Dom’s hands. Dom looked at it: Abba, Arrival.

Sex at the hotel that night was less furtive than before but even more frenzied. Randy dropped three loads into his brother-in-law in less than two hours—one down his gullet and two in his increasingly insatiable butt.

“I love your dick in me,” Dom admitted as they lay beside each other watching the blank TV, the Zen-like hum of the motel room thrumming through them. Then, “Becky wants a baby.”

For two more weeks they met at the motel, until Randy couldn’t take it anymore and put all he’d saved on a security deposit for an apartment in Pittsburgh. He moved in the middle of the night, telling no one until he called his parents the next day.

That October, Randy heard from his mom that Dom was leaving his sister. No particulars were offered. Randy sensed his mom knew—or at least suspected—more than she was letting on, but he didn’t press the issue.

He lay low all winter. He hadn’t spoken to Dom since he’d left, though on several occasions he’d driven all the way back to Groom just to see if Dom’s car was still parked outside the motel, which it always was.

That spring Randy came home to visit. The divorce had gone through. Becky was even dating a guy named Hugo that she worked with at the state mental hospital in Torrance.

“He likes bird-watching,” Randy’s mother reported. Randy was weeding her garden. “That’s what they do together in their free time, watch birds.”

“Your Aunt Mary called. She wants the whole family up for the Fourth of July. A reunion, she says. It’s a ridiculous idea but you know how she gets.”

“Even today I catch her looking at him. Maybe I just think I do. Who knows?” She shrugged. “Love is love and it doesn’t care about anything but itself.”