(Skip to the text.) Visitors should be aware that some of the sites linked below are intended for mature readers. But not nearly as many as some of you would like.

Online Homoerotic Stories and Novels

Sections below:

* Justin Buchbinder: Gianni.
* Lauren P. Burka: Mate & Whip-Hand.
* Pat Califia: The House Boy's First Day.
* David C.: Cruel Fate.
* Manna Francis: The Administration.
* Jesse Hajicek: The God Eaters.
* Hank and Nick: Cutter Falls.
* Mamih Lapinatapai: West and Brose.
* Marquesate: Her Majesty's Men.
* Richard J. Martin: On the Big Yard.
* Mouse: Jump.
* Parhelion: Cirrus and Sundogs.
* Jennifer Pelland: Snow Day.
* John Preston: Introduction to Lars Eighner's Lavender Blue.
* Ranger: Fleur de Lys.
* Remy: Pride.
* Aaron Travis: Blue Light.
* Shinju Yuri: Your Cover's Blown.

Justin Buchbinder: Gianni. Contemporary fiction. At an adult site. (Site warning.)

I gnawed my fingernails while reading this, convinced that the author would spoil the story during the last few paragraphs. I needn't have worried. This is a tale of a too-sophisticated porn model and male escort who meets a naive, easily manipulated young man. He thinks.
 

I ask him if he's ever had sex before. His breath catches in his lungs. I've checkmated him again and it's like he's been thrust from whatever podium he's climbed up on top of for a moment. Then he spends the next twenty minutes giving me the rundown of the boys he's been with.

It's cute. His attempt to deliver me the educated slut list is commendable, but it's not gonna work. Not with me, at least. I have to admit, he is
much more experienced than I first surmised. And maybe, just maybe, he thinks that he's impressing me, or rendering me submissive. I let him think that. I'm a nice guy sometimes, and I don't mind gifting people with temporary power trips.

Lauren P. Burka: Mate and Whip-Hand. Science fiction. Reprinted by Circlet Press, but now out of print. At adult newsgroups. (Alternative link to Mate.)

As he is placed under investigation in a computer crimes case and his domme girlfriend grows uninterested in him, Terry comforts himself by playing metachess with an anonymous player over the Net. Too late, he realizes that the game is real.
 

The server warned him of immanent checkmate, then forwarded a yield request from black. That was the polite thing to do. Virtual death tended to cause a headache, though the visual effects were interesting.

Terry sent back, "Tell me who you are."

He received another one word message: "Yield."

In another world, Terry bit his lip. "I'll do anything to know who you are."

A message from black: "Lounge, Crystal City Marriott, 21:30."

Terry yielded.

The game recorded mate.

Burka's stories tend to include ethically questionable characters, and "Mate" is no exception. What makes "Mate" and its sequel "Whip-Hand" stand out is the intimate bond between the characters, which remains even when the characters engage in acts that are less than ideal.

Pat Califia: The House Boy's First Day. (Skip down to the poem.) Contemporary narrative poetry. At an adult site. (Site warning.)

Technically this is female homoerotic fiction. Technically. But the "boy" in the title is a butch lesbian in a male role, and the author is now a female-to-male transsexual, so that makes it nearly male homoerotic fiction, doesn't it?

It's poetry too. I'm including it anyway.

The poem (which is reprinted from Gavin Dillard's Between the Cracks: The Daedalus Anthology of Kinky Verse) is from the point of view of a disillusioned leather top who takes on a new submissive. Not that there's any point in doing so, the top thinks.
 

Picking up the remote control hurts me, and
If I have to climb more than one set of stairs in a day,
I have to take a nap. Forget parallel parking.
I know there is gray hair under the bodacious burgundy I've thrown on my hair.
I know this won't work; I have nothing for you.
But I've promised to give it a try,
And my sadism dictates that I give you a chance to fail.

David C.: Cruel Fate. Contemporary fiction. At an adult site. (Site warning.)

A later note: I've reprinted this at my e-zine. Of course.

"I noticed him right away because of his sneakers," the story begins. "I always notice sneakers – not in a good way." A leatherman with heavy tastes meets a young man in a bar who doesn't quite fit into the atmosphere . . . and who won't take no for an answer.
 

"Where's your real bar? Your real hangout?"

"I . . . well, I go to all the bars," he sputtered.

"Sweater bars with ferns, right? Someplace to kill time before you hit the discos?" A pause. The ten ball rolled gently into the corner pocket.

"What are you drinking?" he asked.

"Whiskey."

"I'm on my fourth beer," he chirped. I glanced over; his beer bottle had the same corner torn off the label as the one he had an hour ago.

This could easily have been a simple tale of "meet a trick at a bar," but it's not. The story seems to be in a clichéd setting – a leather bar – but those forest fires smoldering on the hillside above eventually play an eerie role. Likewise, small, sensuous details reveal the characters' personalities and foreshadow the story's themantic depth.
 

And me? Black left. Bare headed, thinning, touch of gray. Sleeveless leather shirt under my biker jacket. And I was wearing my well-worn leather trousers with the snap-off codpiece. And a cigar, smoked down to a nub in danger of lighting my bushy beard. Touch of gray there, too; I was nearing forty-five then. The black hanky in the left pocket was serious, by the way. No backrubs tonight; I was out to make some marks. I'd get some negotiations, of course, especially from the gray-rights. Negotiations always came down to one point: can't you just tie me up and skip the rough stuff? My answer was always, No, tying you up is just the beginning. They'd move on to their next mark pretty quick.

Manna Francis: The Administration. Science fiction. At an adult site. (Site warning. Alternative link.)

A later note: The first novel in the series, Mind Fuck, is now also available in print.

Manna recently swept the awards for original fiction in a zines contest, and I'm not surprised. The best summary of this series that I can offer is the one by the author:

In 2097, Europe is controlled by the totalitarian Administration, which shares political power with powerful corporations. The oppressive government uses torture, violence and the various Divisions of the feared Department of Internal Security to maintain power. The corporations fight amongst themselves, using lethal force under the euphemism of 'corporate sabotage', uniting only to resist attempts by the Administration to extend its control over them.

The inspiration for the Administration series of stories is a maxim of Chris Boucher, script editor of Blakes 7 – There are no bad guys. There are no good guys. There are only better guys, and worse guys.

One of the worse guys is Val Toreth. In a world where torture is a legitimate part of the investigative process, he works for the Investigation and Interrogation Division.

One of the better guys is Keir Warrick, a corporate director. His small corporation, SimTech, is developing a 'sim' system which places users in a fully-immersive virtual reality.

Their world is the dark future dystopia of New London.

Interrogation is a profession that has certain basic requirements. Primarily, the ability to hurt people, sometimes kill them, and not care.

At the time of the merger with Investigation, Toreth had been at the Interrogation Division for a year and he'd enjoyed his work. However, it hadn't taken him long to see where the brighter future lay. He'd worked hard to win a place in the first round of appointments for the newly created post of para-investigator, a job that theoretically combined the skills of both investigator and interrogator.

Plenty of interrogators had applied for the conversion course, and few had made it. The successful ones were on the more socially adept end of the spectrum – those who could be let near citizens of the Administration without the precaution of a damage waiver. At the time, Toreth had heard the term 'high-functioning' used.

Or, as Sara put it in her less tactful moments, the difference between paras and interrogators was that the former weren't quite so dead behind the eyes.

Jesse Hajicek: The God Eaters. Science fantasy. Also available as a trade paperback and PDF e-book. Rated "mature" by the author.

A geeky, bespectacled young man is sent to a prison for criminals with paranormal talents and finds himself sharing a cell with a less-than-welcome roommate. "He kills people," one of the characters explains. "In batches, to save time."

That's not the only trouble the geeky guy faces.
 

The Iavaian's hand engulfed his. "Trevarde. Kieran Trevarde."

"Ashleigh Trine."

Trevarde continued to hold his hand. "You seem like a smart kid. You smart?"

"I guess so."

"So you recognize I could squash you like a bug, right?"

Ashleigh didn't like where this was going. "I can see that."

"All right. You don't give me any attitude, Ash, we'll get along just fine." Trevarde finally let go. He put his arms behind his head and closed his eyes, apparently at ease.

Burrowing back into his blanket, Ashleigh considered this new development. On the whole, he concluded, it was disastrous. Trevarde was apparently extremely dangerous, from the way the guards behaved. Ashleigh was inclined to agree with them. And Trevarde's undeniable charisma added an extra danger, for he was sure that if the tall Iavaian guessed that Ashleigh was attracted to him, an ass-kicking would be a best-case scenario.

The novel has its problems. The characters spend too much time summarizing what has already happened in the story, the depiction of divine forces can be prosaic at times, and the dialogue, though nicely snappy, is so up to date in vocabulary as to jar with the otherworld setting. (It's a bad sign when a fantasy character uses a slang word that didn't exist when I was in college.)

What makes the story worth reading is the complexity of the main characters, the compelling nature of the characters' struggles, and the level of detail. The author doesn't simply say, "He killed a bunch of men without breaking a sweat." He provides the details of how it happened.

 
He darted for the back door, dropping to one knee as it began to open. He had put himself in the shadow of the stove, where his dark shape would blend with the black iron and confuse the eye. He didn't wait to see the man's face. As soon as the door was out of his way, he opened fire.

Luck was with him; his first adversary had pushed at the door, rather than holding it, and when he fell backwards he didn't close it. There were a few scattered thumps and clangs as the Rose boys beyond the dead man tried to find a target, drowned by the thunder of the Hart. Kieran felt their deaths, one after another, like hot breaths on his skin . . .

Hank and Nick: Cutter Falls. Contemporary fiction. Adults only. (Hank's blog. Nick's blog.)

I knew that Cutter Falls was the BDSM series for me when I visited the blog of one of the characters and discovered him chatting about asbestos removal with one of the other characters.

For those of you who have been plunged into bewilderment by the above paragraph, I should explain that Cutter Falls grew out of a Role-Playing Game (RPG), in which its authors exchange blog messages as though they are the characters they're representing. (The main tale, linked above, is told in a traditional fashion, for those of you who are shy about reading RPG entries.) Who exactly the creators were of this world wasn't entirely clear to me at the beginning, and in fact, part of the fun is clicking on the "Friends" linked in Cutter Falls's user info and trying to figure out which people are fictional. (I don't want to know what it says about me that one of the prissy female characters has a blog avatar showing the cover of my favorite cookbook, the 1965 edition of Betty Crocker's New Boys and Girls Cookbook.)

The main action occurs at the Cutter Falls blog linked at the beginning of this review, with additional discussion taking place between the main characters at Schatzi. At times the conversation turns lyrical, as in this response by the dominant to his boy's protest that he trusts the dominant.

You are obviously very, very distracted, mein Jung. You are not tracking me at all, here. I know that you trust me with your flesh beneath my hands, with your bonds cinched tight, with your desire warring heartily along your skin, with your very life balanced in fear of my very next whim. Oh yes, in these ways you do trust me, and have proven so time and again.

More's the shame you do not trust my love, my respect, my very smallest thought of you, for if you did then you would not see the need in 'defending' your stance on anything, be it Dylan or your life or your current predicament, to me.

To me, this provides the power of the series. Yes, there are sex scenes in the ongoing tale at the community blog. But that's not where the story centers: it centers on a man whose daily life is out of control, and on his dominant's efforts to bring him back into line. It's not a comfortable series; one of the main plotlines involves infidelity. But amidst the zillions of dominant/submissive (DS) tales that leave you with the impression that dominants and submissives spend twenty-four hours a day in bed together, the blogs of these characters emphasize the ordinariness of how a full-time DS relationship can work. It is the very ordinariness that makes exchanges like this so moving:

Sir,

So my nearly twelve year old son walks in today and announces that he's changing his name.

"To what," I asked.

"I dunno," he replied.

"What's wrong with Mikey?"

"It sounds so gay Dad!"

[The rest of the discussion.]

Mamih Lapinatapai: West and Brose. Contemporary fiction. No rating, but includes mature content.

This series, which has been running in the Shousetsu Bang*Bang e-zine, begins with the story "Minimum Wage." It's about about a lawyer whose luck is down and who finds he has the added misfortune of taking on a rich client whose wife is suing him in a divorce case – with good reason, it turns out.
 

Evan continues to stare alternately between Colin and M. J. Brose. "I said, sit down, Evan." The edge on [Colin's] voice sharpens and he's about to go around his desk and pull his brother down into a chair when M. J. Brose snakes a hand up around Evan's right arm and pulls him down instead.

Onto his lap.

There is not enough coffee – or to be fair, alcohol – in the world to deal with this, so Colin does the next best thing, which is possibly go over there and lunge right at M. J. Brose with a fist to that bastard's pretty face and to hell with the consequences and the money, it really wasn't worth this much—

Except that's when his father calls him on the cell phone. Colin's ring plays Bach's 1st invention, which is really, really loud in Colin's office. He picks up and says "Hello, father," in the most neutral voice he can possibly manage with Evan sitting in M. J. Brose's lap.

"How's Evan doing?" his father says, like that's the most natural thing in the world to ask, and it is, except M. J. Brose's thighs shift a little so that Evan's weight falls more in between, and he does this thing with his arm around Evan's waist so that it moves right into the small of Evan's back, and somehow Colin is pretty damn sure that M. J. Brose is trying his hardest to get their crotches together, expensive pants and zippers and all, and Colin is so furious there are no words.

The author is a bit too fond of run-on sentences, but they're worth enduring for the final scene, as are the sequels.

Marquesate: Her Majesty's Men. Contemporary military fiction. No rating, but includes mature content. (Entrance to author's site.)

A later note: The author has taken most of this series offline in preparation for print publication. However, the first story in the series, along with some side stories, remain online.

This series is a straightforward romance: there's little plotline outside of the pair's interactions with one another. What makes the tale stand out is the author's stylistic skill and the gradual development of the relationship into unexpected territory.

It's a British army story about two friends who are soldiers. One of them (straight) was tortured on a mission and never talks about what happened. The other one (gay) is attracted by his scars.
 

Anger, that was good, worked wonders; stupid jokes did too. Lots of shoulder clapping, arm wrestling and beer chugging was equally useful. Getting smashed with the best buddy when off duty and drowning, killing, blinding, obliterating thoughts of The Impossible. . . .

Time stretched. One minute. Two minutes. Movement from the opposite stall, which he could sense rather than hear or see, ensconced in his own world of relative safety amidst the stream of water. Soothing his sore muscles, but never washing away his guilt.
 

Richard J. Martin: On the Big Yard. Contemporary narrative poetry. At an  adult site. (Site warning.)

The short tale of a prisoner's encounter with a man who is "a Sistine chapel of convict art."

 
One man walks the yard alone
He wears a shirt that he cannot take off
The ink of a thousand ballpoint pens
Pushed under his skin by the tips of old
guitar strings and sewing needles
In group home midnights
Or D Block lockdowns

Mouse: Jump. Science fiction. No rating, but includes mature content.

Mouse wrote after posting this at her blog that her friends won't touch her original stories. Obviously, she is in dire need of positive feedback so that she'll finish this story.

It's told from the perspective of a police officer whose job is to go into other people's minds.
 

"Um . . . you've got your information, you sure you're going to be able to ride him? He's pretty tough," he says, looking at my eyebrows instead of my eyes.

"Yup. You sure you'll be able to make contact with the mark?" I say, making it a bit sarcastic. This is my job, asshole.

His eyes flicker, and he glares at me. "You do your part, I'll do mine. I didn't even want to call you sick fuckers."

I smile again, knowing that it's not a nice smile. "You sure you want to be pissing off a guy that's going to be living in your head for a few hours?"

He goes slightly ashy at that. My smirk widens.

When the narrator finds out the other man's real motive for allowing him into his mind, matters turn dark.
 

He's fidgety, hands playing with the seat belt, the window. The driver is glancing at him in the rear view mirror from time to time, clearly worried.

Damnit. Why didn't psyche eval catch this? Milton had a treasure trove of memories he didn't want me looking at. This was exactly the kind of person that made a bad courier; he wasn't acting normal at all, too afraid I was going to out him.

Parhelion: Cirrus and Sundogs (assorted fiction). Historical fiction and historical fantasy. Each story is individually rated.

It's hard to know which stories to recommend by this author; I used to bookmark my favorites till I realized I was running out of room. Parhelion's Hollywood series is well worth perusing: four tales about men from the movie-making industry during the period between World War One and World War Two. My favorite is An Angel in Hollywood, featuring an Italian-American whose cousin makes the mistake of gambling with an actor.
 

"Two, please. Ah, how charming." Sidney Beck smiled as he checked his new cards. It did not mean much. He had beamed at everything he had been dealt all evening. His large hands fanned his cards shut before he shoved more chips and markers into the pile in the center of the fancy mahogany table. Across the green baize from him, my Cousin Vincent took a long puff from his stogie and tried to look indifferent. The other poker players seated in the private room in the back of Vincent's nightclub fell silent, waiting for him to make his move.

A fella who had already folded, a character who owned a couple of Southern California department stores, snapped his fingers for me to get him a refill on his drink. While I poured him the house's best substitute for rye at the private bar in the corner of the room, he gave me a smirk that I did not like. I came back over to the poker table and stood by his chair, offering him nothing but a cold eye. Not until the smirk slipped off his plate did I hand over his hooch. Just because I was the stake for this hand of cards was no reason for me to take such guff.

Historical fiction readers who don't normally read fan fiction may nevertheless enjoy Parhelion's Nero Wolfe story, Express. No prior knowledge of the characters is needed; the story is based primarily on a historical event that creeps up on the reader in an chilling fashion.
 

In the end, blowing that tire on the Heron sedan in September of 1938 did almost kill Nero Wolfe and me, but it wasn't because of our running into a tree. It wasn't because of our chasing a murderer, either, or because of the bull, or even because one of us strangled the other during a discussion of my new pal Miss Lily Rowan. No, that tire almost killed us both because, when he decided he had to go to Boston later that month to meet with his friend Professor Joseph Martingale, Wolfe insisted that we take the train.

Parhelion is especially skilled at mixing angst with humor. Humor takes the upper hand in Diary of a Maddened Scientist, subtitled "Personal observations edited from the Laboratory Journal kept by Dr. T. B____, Ph.D., in accordance with the provisions of his NSA grant 2001-22-3320 and NOAA grant 834AS2544." The observations are mainly about the scientist's lab assistant.
 

. . . sustained interrogation of P. elicited the query as to whether or not I had ever had someone "tear my heart out and stomp that sucker flat." I replied that I was unaware that I had a heart to be removed. P.'s response to this admittedly feeble attempt at a witticism was strange. He threw himself upon me – somewhat inconveniently, since I am several inches shorter in height than he is – and proceeded to weep with an intensity that approached hysteria. Concerned, I applied a technique I have observed while switching channels on my television set from the news past 'evening soap operas' to Nova on PBS. I patted his shoulder, rubbed his back, and assured him that everything would be all right although I had, in fact, no evidence that such would be the case. As a placebo, though, my efforts were effective. P. gradually grew calm, and was eventually persuaded to loosen his arms from around me. I find myself wondering whom the inconsiderate individual is who has rejected P.'s romantic attentions since, although maddening, he is also possessed of an affectionate nature and not unreasonable physical endowments. Such matters, however, are none of my concern.

I don't want to boast, but I think I'm having a bad effect on Parhelion. Either that, or our evil little minds think alike. One of Parhelion's latest stories, a historical fantasy tale called Hearth-Devil, features a protagonist who is – ahem – my kind of guy.
 

Caine felt Lammert take a deep breath, felt the back against him tense as if the prester had come to some sort of resolution. "Caine, you know perfectly well I love you, want you. But if I break my vows my life will be purgation, for all sorts of reasons, the more material of which you understand quite well. You would have to take me without my consent, and I really hope you don't."

Caine blinked in the dark. This was the first time he'd heard the twin, blunt declarations in – years? No, since they were roomies at the Institute. Lammert speaking of love made him feel both ill and eager, but such words were hardly the magic talisman against harm the lady's journals would have their female readers believe. And the possibility of rape heated rather than chilled. Caine knew enough, cared enough, was skilled enough that he could easily demand and receive Lammert's bodily pleasure, probably even if his friend put up a determined fight. But Lammert was right, there would be trouble afterwards. So Caine would let go in a minute or two. Just now, though, Lammert's tool was still hardening. Caine stroked gently, holding Lammert tight with his other arm. A mere caress, a flutter of fingers, a child's game. Very restrained, in fact.

Parhelion's description of the story? "A prince one step away from being a sociopath is an odd best friend for a good priest."

Jennifer Pelland: Snow Day. Science fiction. For general audiences.

Somebody at another reviews site pointed out that this short story from the speculative fiction e-zine Strange Horizons never actually reveals the gender of the narrator. Uh-huh. Just squint a little and ignore the references to the fluffy robe and the bubble bath and watching "male/male porn." Let's call the story gay-friendly.

It's about the owner of a robot who shows a mysterious reluctance to shovel the house free of snow.
 

"You do not need to be anywhere. Your pantry is stocked. If your office stays closed, you will not need to leave the house for eight days, at minimum."

"That's not the point, Max," I said, jabbing my fork in his direction. "The point is that I'd really like to not be a prisoner here."

"The shovel is broken."

He is such a stickler for propriety. "Innovate, Max. Burrow your way out. I don't care."

"A tunnel of snow would be unsafe for you to travel through, as it could collapse at any time."

"Max—"

"Would you like to have sex?"

Damn him. He vibrates.

John Preston: Introduction to Lars Eighner's Lavender Blue. Contemporary fiction (sort of). At an adult site, but the content of this page is roughly PG-13. (Site warning.)

A later note: A small sample of Preston's fiction is now online. By no coincidence, it's online at my e-zine. Ignore the adults-only notice; this little snippet, Franny and Her Boys, is PG.

One of the frustrating aspects of the Internet is that the writings of pre-1920 authors are plentiful on the Web, samples from the writings of authors who are currently producing work can be found with a bit of hunting, and recent authors who aren't producing work are usually nowhere to be found.

John Preston, alas, is no longer with us to produce new writings, and neither his publishers nor the online booksellers offer any samples of his fiction. This is a shame, because John Preston's literary output was remarkably diverse: readers of his work can choose between his mainstream journalistic accounts of gay life in Maine and his anthologies of hardcore pornography (the latter issued by a mainstream publisher, just to make the mix interesting). Or readers can choose between his leather cult classic Mr. Benson or his sober essays of literary criticism. Or they can choose both by reading his essay collection My Life as a Pornographer. (The title essay was delivered at Harvard University. As Preston gleefully pointed out to his Harvard audience, he arranged to have the lecture reprinted in Inches magazine.)

Such a Renaissance man deserves to have online readers. Fortunately, one of Preston's more charming aspects as a nonfiction author was the manner in which he often inserted fictional narratives into his articles and essays. So, since I can't offer you any samples of his fiction (I Once Had a Master would be my choice), the above link leads to Preston's imaginary account of the lives of an erotica editor and an erotica author. Much of what he writes is drawn from his own experiences with both careers.

From all accounts of Preston's life, the last sentence of this excerpt stretches the truth.

 
Our writer now has to experience another harsh truth. No one cares as much about a writer's words as he does himself. But he's not dismayed. After all, this is erotica he's published. Even if that boyfriend of old has left him – what was his name? – this will help him find another one. There's a hot new man in town who our author has been longing to get into bed. Certainly he'd be willing to indulge in a little starfucking and take a well-known author into his arms.

Our scribe ever so subtly makes the stranger's acquaintance and manages – with a little less subtlety – to mention that he's the one who wrote the lead fiction piece in this month's Journal [of Gay Erotic Love]. The man doesn't fall into his arms at all. In fact, he beats a quick retreat.

Our writer's shocked. He was sure he'd at least get laid from all this. He asks his best friends about it. Our scribe's politely told that, since he's describing having sex only with demigods in his story, the man obviously was terrified that he could never match up to his expectations. That or else he was much more discreet than that old boyfriend and had no intention of having his most intimate secrets read about in a monthly magazine. It will be a sad but true experience that will repeat itself often now that our writer is being published: pornographers seldom get laid.

Ranger: Fleur de Lys. Historical military fiction. At an adult site. (Site warning. Alternative link to the first six chapters.)

This is a story of friendship and romance between the ranks in the World War One trenches, along with the oft-told tale – oft-told with good reason – of what happened to the remnants of the once-shining generation that survived the horrors of the war.
 

Deverel laughed. He couldn't help it, though he heard the note of hysteria. Somewhere along this line, Rob was – how had he died? Had he been buried? In pieces? Burnt? Left lying, like the thousands of corpses rotting all around them in open ground? Cowan's heavy hand dropped on his neck, shockingly warm.

"Come on son, you'll be allright."

It must have only sounded like 'son', must have been 'sir', not even Cowan would dare address an officer in that way, but Deverel didn't query it. There was a good deal of comfort in that rough and warm hand.

Remy: Pride. Science fiction. At an adult site. (Site warning.)

I have been avoiding for some time now recommending Remy's Northern Corporate Dominion series, simply because I contributed a story to the series myself. But I had a chance to reread "Pride" recently and . . . Well, heck, I've linked directly to the story, so it has nothing to do with anything I've written, right?

The series is an ambitious one, set in a world where the government is run by corporations. As Remy puts it, "When humans are seen only in terms of profit and loss, what happens to humanity?"

The first paragraphs of the story were what initially caught my attention. I won't offer further commentary, because part of the fun of the tale is discovering what will happen next. I'll only note that this story was published just three months after the publication of Remy's first work of fiction. I want to know what trick the author used to learn so quickly how to write stories.
 

The train hissed almost silently through the night on its cushion of air. A few lights twinkled from outlying installations, but the area was largely uninhabited, and the countryside was deserted. Inside the train it was just as dark; the moonlight fell in narrow bars through the ventilation slits at the top of the car. Lukas shifted position inside his crate, and his chains jangled.

I don't usually recommend illegally posted stories, but this is a very old illegal posting – dating back before the invention of the Web, actually - and I'm hoping that it will prompt you all to go out and buy the books of an erotic author who isn't as well known today as he ought to be.

Chances are that you know him under his real name, Steven Saylor. Before Mr. Saylor was writing stories about Roman detectives, he was writing stories about Roman slaves being tortured. Not that big a leap to make.

This particular story has a current-day setting and is considered by some readers to be one of the all-time best gay erotic tales by any author. The narrator, who is a leather top, moves into a new house and makes plans to seduce his neighbor into becoming his slave. "It became a game," says the narrator. "It was my nature to win games."

This game turns out to have unexpected aspects.
 

"And you use this [riding crop] on their naked skin, as if they were animals." His tone was fascinated but detached, as if he were an observer, taking inventory. Boy, he really knew how to ask for it. . . .

I took [the crop] by the handle. Ran the tongue through my fist. Touched the tip against his nipple, and gently tapped his pec. Then I drew it up and cracked it across my thigh to make him flinch.

But he didn't flinch.

Shinju Yuri: Your Cover's Blown. Science fiction (alternate history). No rating, but includes mature content.

This is a steampunk story (i.e. set in an alternative universe where Victorian technology still exists) about a thief who finds it's a bit more difficult than he thought to steal from his latest victim. The contrast between the worldly thief and his seemingly unworldly victim is especially well done.

 
Jennings's house was surprisingly plain. It was a medium-sized brownstone without anything in particular to make you think a genius lived there. Until you rang his doorbell, which tootled "God Save The Queen", wheezing in consumptive agony, and you watched a green marble rattle its way up a series of glass tubes and disappear. . . .

Jennings stared at him blankly for a second, and then his face lit up. "You did come!" he said. "Come in! Oh, mind the—"

Frederick tripped and Jennings pulled him upright with one arm.

"—mail, I forgot to pick it up."

Frederick, who lived in a small flat and did most of his own housekeeping because he had yet to find a maid picky enough to suit him, cast a horrified look around the entryway.

"Sorry about that," said Jennings. "Er. Um. Would you like to look around?"

Frederick opened his mouth, discovered he was about to demand to what the hell Jennings' housekeeper thought she was doing, and closed it again. He was here because Jennings was probably going to blackmail him, and he was going to do something horrible in return, not to hysterically demand scrubbing brushes, strong soap and pails of hot water.

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