This is an excerpt from my erotic novel Rye.

It is not intended for

minors and squares. Rye is a multi-layered story that explores life,
labels, and growth through the context of sexual identity and desire.
In this pdf, I give you a taste of the story by choosing a few selections
that introduce you to the characters and their needs. Each scene has
been truncated, moving things along; this is only about 8% of the
novel. To read the whole story, please visit ryethenovel.com and
purchase a signed copy of Rye for $10. Or purchase for your Kindle
at: amazon.com/dp/B00A2F1VS8

© Sam Rosenthal, 2012.

Rye
Sam Rosenthal
 I love our bodies together, the way Rye feels beneath
my hands.
Strong lean muscles. The slightest curve of breasts. The
smell of her sweat.
I’ve often imagined my ideal girl having the body of a guy
on the college track team. A boyish face, tousled hair, tousled
clothes.
I’ve found it in Rye.
There is something delicate in the way our bodies mix.
The blurring of male and female.
It draws me in, makes me hard.
Red and blue lights speckled across my bedroom, a fire
truck screamed in the Brooklyn night.
Rye said she always felt more like a boy, preferring male
pronouns.
I’ll try to keep this straight.
I kissed Rye’s chest, pulled at the barbell piercing through
his erect nipple. The metal against my teeth, my breath on his
skin; I was mesmerized.
“Matt, go slow,” he said. “I haven’t been with a male in
years. I’m at an unfamiliar place in my life.”
I took Rye as he requested, pressing him to my bed,
fingers tight around his biceps. He watched my every move
with a devilish smile. Cropped dirty blond hair fell across his
eyes. I brushed it aside, his face damp.
His groan mixed with a little snicker, my body against him.
I raised his arms above his head, my face buried in his armpit.
 A wet, moist, earthy smell stung up in the back of my nose.
I kissed his skin. His collarbone. Throat. Chin.
He looked into my eyes, whispered, “Fuck me like we
really are two boys!”
I rolled him onto his belly and pulled down his pants,
kneeling between his legs. I admired his ass, and the soft cunt
down below. My fingers spread on his back, tracing the bones
of his ribs. We’re similar in height and weight.
I want to see him naked beneath me in the woods.

\
Rye found me on-line. I’m thankful for the power of that
dating site algorithm. A thirty-one-year-old androgynous female
interested in a forty-year-old male? I can work with that.
Rye’s profile stated he was gay and yet our messages told
me we were flirting. I tried not to overthink the contradiction,
the pixels were staring me in the face.
Our first kiss was on my couch, my hand on the back of
his neck pulling him to me. I still wasn’t sure if I was what he
wanted, having this cock and all. He smiled and eyed my
crotch. Curious. Hungry.
He explained that when he listed as ‘gay’ he meant that
he dated women. But he kind of started thinking that being
gay meant maybe he should try guys, seeing as how he felt so
much like a guy himself.
He pointed to himself, then to me. “Boy plus boy.
Gay. Get it?”
That’s what he is: genderqueer.

\
I walked to the coffee shop with Rye. Unlike our first
evening, this time we spent the night.
“Oh yeah, Matt,” he said, “I’m sure feminine guys like you
get hit on all the time.”
“I’m not feminine!” I said, pushing him away.
 He laughed. “Come on, don’t deny it. You’re sensitive and
perceptive. And I totally dig your body. Hot and thin and that
cute butt. I understand why they want to deflower it.”
He made a grab for my ass.
“It’s just how I was built,” I said.
I spun out of his grasp and stood in the snow, glaring
at him.

\
Just last week, I got an email from Rye: Waking up
without you this morning was tough. Why are you so far
away? I absolutely adore being in your bed, your tender
mouth and strong hands on my skin. Your cock in my cunt. I
miss you so much. I miss talking and processing with you. I
wish I could be sneaking into your bed at the end of the
evening. Kisses, your boi.
|1|

The computers hum in the small video editing room in my

Brooklyn apartment. My nine-year-old son sleeps down the
hall. He lives with me half the week, with his mom the other
half.
I tap my chin as I watch the footage of Ruth’s interview
for my documentary. The smoke of her cigarette twirls in the
light, curling in waves.
There’s a chirp.
I lean forward in my chair and hit the space bar. The image
freezes. The computer chirps again as I dig down through the
open windows on the screen.
I’m hoping it’s Rye, I’ve been waiting days to catch up
with him. It’s been three months since we met; our video
chats are often the closest we get to being together.
A crunchy, crackling image pops onto my monitor. The
image shakes, Rye’s body a lagging blur, digital static.
His laptop is positioned on his back porch table in
Chicago.
He falls into frame on the wooden bench with a squeak
and a scrappy smile.
I feel a rush in my chest at seeing him again. He’s wearing
that one-piece wrestling outfit I love, the tight spandex
revealing his thin, muscular body. He’s beautiful. Handsome.
Boyishly good looking. Hot as fuck. I miss him.
“Hi Rye, how you doing?”
“I got a new haircut!” he says, excitedly. “As you requested.”
I forget that his voice is sweet and high. It’s not the voice
one expects from a body looking like that: well-defined chest,
sinewy arms, square jaw, his chipped front tooth.
I’m getting a hard-on watching him, thrilled to see him again.
The last time I saw Rye in person was when we said
goodbye three weeks ago. We kissed on the subway platform
as he left for JFK Airport.
Chicago is eight hundred miles away.
He twists in his seat, runs his hand up the stubble on the
back of his neck. “Want to touch it?”
I wave my hand in front of the camera. “I’m reaching
through the screen now...”
He looks down. “Yeah, but do you like it?”
“It’s perfect.”
“I was in front of the class today,” he says, “running my
fingers along the short hairs, it reminded me of you.”
Rye teaches seventh grade gifted science at a magnet
school in a rough part of town.
“I miss holding your hands when we talk,” I say, “holding
you to the bed when we fuck, looking down into your eyes.”
An irresistible smile pulls at the corner of his mouth. I’ve
seen that expression on his face before: half smile, half awe.
A shrill noise crackles in the speakers and feeds back.
“Did you hear that?” he asks eagerly.
“That distortion?”
“Cold, cold. Try harder!” He tightens his lips and lowers
his chin. “Listen carefully.”
“You mean that arooing?” I ask.
“Hot! Hot!” He puts his elbows on the table, climbs forward
and grabs the laptop. The image jitters as he aims the camera
toward the floor.
His dog Genie peeks up. Circling her, one of Rye’s
chickens tiptoes daintily, stretching its wings, cluck-clucking.
The two of them collaborate on that strange, obnoxious song.
Rye joins in with a howl on the chorus.
I smile, amused. “So, you’re thinking it’s a good idea
interrupting my work with dogs and chickens?”
For someone who claims to be a bottom, Rye sure has a
habit of taking control. He’s unruly and undisciplined. I find it
attractive, and a hell of a lot of fun.
 He puts the laptop back on the table, a sheepish grin on
his face. “Working?”
“Yeah.”
“What’re you working on?” he asks.
“What am I usually working on when I’m not editing the
paying stuff?”
“Dunno? Your retirement planning?”
I laugh. “Not with my pitiful income.”
“Then what already?”
“My genderqueer documentary.”

\
We identify as ‘genderqueer.’ GQ isn’t about who I fuck
or my sexual orientation but rather my gender identification.
Rye and I each see our genders existing somewhere along the
gradation between male and female, somewhere outside the
gender binary.
Having a boi like Rye as my lover somehow feels right.

ok. the conversation is snipped right here and then we

jump back into the story…

Genie and the chicken continue their racket.

I watch him on the monitor.
“You look hot in that wrestling outfit.”
It shows off his ribs, his pecs, his nipples poking into the cloth.
“I could take you,” he says.
“Not gonna happen.”
“Yeah, I’ll pin you!” he says. “It’s not that I want you to
lose, I’m merely letting you know you will. Try to fuck me
while also trying to pin me. And I am going to struggle against
you, because I don’t want to lose. But I do want to be
fucked.”
“I need index cards to keep track of these fantasies of yours.”
“You got your cock in your hand?” he asks playfully,
trying to get on my nerves.
 “Nope,” I say, sliding back in my chair. “Shit, Rye, look at
the time. I have to get back to work.”
“Couldn’t we sex chat for a while?” He wobbles his head,
scratches his chin. He gives me that devilish smile. Here we
go. When he gets that tone in his voice and that look on his
face, he wants me to top him.
Rein him in.
“Didn’t I just say I have to go? You need some rules!”
“I like rules, Matt. I do. But I think you dig it when I keep
you from your work.”
“Rye?”
He lowers his eyes. “You like stroking yourself and
perving on my body when we sex chat, don’t you?”
“A boi usually listens to what he’s been told to do,” I say.
“I think you dig being interrupted. Maybe a lot?”
“Maybe… maybe I’m going to turn on the grab, and put
you and Genie in my video.”
“And the chickens,” he says, spinning and kneeling in the
chair. He reaches behind the railing, his hot, spandexed ass
aimed into the camera.
“Rye!” I shout.
“Don’t forget the chickens.” He says. He pouts as he sits
into the chair with a squeak. “Almost caught her.”
“Rye,” I whisper, laying on the tough-guy about as heavy
as I get.
He sits up straight, hands in his lap. “I like that you’re strict
with me. Training me so one day you can take my gay ass.”
The screen goes to static. He cut off the chat.
I stare at the blank window. He’s feisty, but he is a fun boi
to top. I’m lucky I found him.
| 5 | Matt and Rye meet up and fly down south…

The Civil War-era headboard at The Skully House in New

Orleans’ French Quarter softly thumps the wall. I fuck him,
pulling him to me.
He opens his eyes and springs off me, mid-orgasm,
looking down at his crotch. “Matt, I think we need to give her
a little break. Enough of this sweetie pie sex, Sweetie Pie.”
He points to his mouth.

\
He lies naked, belly on sheets, up on elbows, shoulder blades
nearly touching. The candlelight sharpens his facial bones.
“Rye, looking down at you it’s hard to tell if you’re a boy or
a girl. Either way, your mouth sure feels good around my cock.”
I’m kneeling on the bed, rocking a few inches in and out.
His warmth and softness engulfs me.
Rye gazes up at me, mouth full. He catches my smile.
The shine in his eyes.
My palm against the stubble on his head.
My cock nearly touches the back of his throat.
This is only my fourth time with Rye since meeting in
Brooklyn three months ago. Brief moments spent in each
other’s arms… The king-size provides plenty of room for a
weekend of fucking and laughing. The past two days mainly
spent in bed.
Index cards sit on the nightstand; many ‘to-do’s’ have
been checked off.
He moans as I use his lips and mouth; taking him the way
he likes it.
I reach down to his upthrust ass. I dip the tips of my
fingers into his shaved cunt.
 His eyes flash ferocious.
I push his face off me.
“I wasn’t enjoying that, anyway,” he says with a coy
smile.
He adjusts his bangs across his forehead like a cat licking
its paw, nonchalant.
“Naw, you’re just a weary boi passing time...”
“Tick tock.” He looks at his wrist, sighs. “When will that
El get here?”
I wait.
He smiles.
He’s done.
We begin again.

\
I fuck him with three fingers. He’s soaking. He grits his
teeth and bears down onto me, grinding into the bed, gripping
the sheet and clenching his jaw.
I whisper, “This is mine.”
He stares into my eyes, feeling me inside. “Uh-huh.”
I slip my fingers deeper between his legs. “All mine, Rye.”
He rotates his hips, slowly orbiting my hand.
“Yes?” He pleads, nodding slightly, parting his lips,
begging me to fuck them. I finger his rough, spongy inside, he
moans. “Yes?” his voice a whisper.
Hungry seconds tick by.
“This?” I ask, wagging my semi-erect cock in front of
his face.
“My mouth needs…”
“When I’m ready!”
My fingers move fast inside him. Sweat glistens down the
furrows of his spine, his ribs tight against his skin.
He glares. “I’m being good enough.” He rolls his eyes.
“Fuck my mouth”
“Why are you so controlling?” I ask, quietly.
 I step off the bed and slap his cheek.
He smiles, oddly pleased.
I stand on the worn rug and grab him by his armpits,
dragging him to the edge of the bed.
I sniff my fingers.
I crouch down. We’re eye-to-eye. I put my hands gently
around his throat.
He twitches, uncertain.
“Now listen,” I say. “We can get dressed and go out if you
prefer. No? Ok. I’d rather finish with you anyway. Knock it off.”
He smiles sweetly, nodding in agreement. Good boi.
I grab his hair, shove my cock between his lips. He looks
me in the eyes as his tongue finds me. I grow hard again.
I reach over his back to his wet cunt, plunge my fingers
within. Two inside, I hit his clit with a third. He writhes,
twisting on them. I feel his come, wet and warm on my
fingers. He rolls into his orgasm as he sucks.
I focus on his mouth now.
I hold his head as I fuck him deep, cutting off his air for
long moments. In the candlelight, my cock disappears into
him. Our bodies so similar. Just like two guys. Except that my
boi has a girl’s body; and yet he is not completely a girl.
I fuck his face. I slam into him. Using Rye’s mouth rough is
hot, unacceptable, and beautiful.
“I’m going to come,” I whisper, my voice raspy.
I rock his head quickly, sliding his lips on my cock to
finish off. He gags as I thrust one final time. And I come. He
drinks me in.
I pull away, my cock falling from his gorgeous mouth.
Arching his back, he lifts off the bed. I kiss my come off
his lips. Lick his mouth, kiss his forehead. His face.
I push him down into the sheets, crawl onto him, and
hold him; it’s sticky between us. I’m tired. Fulfilled.
He kisses my hands.
 \
A half hour later, I stand behind him at the mirror,
dressing Rye up in my black button-down shirt. I tie his
purple tie. Our eyes upon each other.
I adjust the knot and ask, “When we’re on the street, do
you think people see us as straight, or as two guys?”
“I get so fuckin’ turned on by that,” he says, beaming.
“When we’re together, our genders come through so well.
There’s no question, we really are two gay boys.”

\
We’re out the door into the warm night. Arm in arm.
“How will you feel,” he asks, “if somebody calls us fags?”
“I’ll laugh and shout back, ‘I’m not a fag, my boyfriend is.’”
He chuckles as we pass beneath a flickering gas lamp.
Purple tie and black button-down shirt… I want to hold him
like this forever.
| 8 | they have dinner, then go to a bar for drinks and flirting, they have
a little disagreement about Bon Jovi, then…

I entwine our fingers, an open wine bottle gripped in my

other hand. We walk down the middle of an empty street, long
after midnight, past closed souvenir shops, art galleries and the
occasional drunk. We turn the corner onto a street with a few
sketchy bars and board-ups from Katrina.
Two cats streak past hissing at each other, their claws
scratching against the pavement. I jump then pull Rye to me.
“Beats the rats in Chicago!” He laughs.
We stop under a street lamp. I bring the bottle of wine to
his lips.
He takes it from me. “Matt. Since we met, I’ve started
taking men home back in Chicago.”
“Oh yeah?”
“It’s not been often. Well… Ok. I guess it kind of has.” He
laughs, “Does hearing about other guys threaten you?”
“You know I’m all about polyamory.”
“Me too,” he says. “Though maybe I’m more into
polyfuckery. You realize I’m kind of a horndog? I don’t have to
tell you that, right? I dig sex.”
“That’s the thing with poly,” I say. “I wouldn’t give up
what you and I have, but I also don’t want to shut off my
desires. It’s unnatural to put a lid on that, just because society
thinks it’s improper.”
He looks at me. “Kind of the same I’m saying, isn’t it?”
“Not quite. I think I’m looking for long-term connections.”
Rye smiles. “I think I’m mainly looking to fuck!”
“You’re such a dude.”

\
He nods, blushing. “Where’d you meet your latest
partner?” he asks.
 “I met you in Brooklyn, by the subway stop.”
“The one before me,” he says, with his best annoyed-
school-teacher-scowl.
“At camp,” I say, reaching out to straighten his tie.
“Camp?”
“You remember, those weekend sex retreat things I told
you about.”
“Oh, right. That camp. I was thinking maybe you meant
camping with your son or something.”
I push him up against the lamppost. The light flickers. I
pin him to the wet metal with my crotch. He gasps. I feel his
body through his clothes. I take the bottle from his hand and
set it on the sidewalk.
He watches me, whispers, “I never used to think at all
about cock. And now it’s all I can think of.”
“And then that bitch, she was talking and talking...”
I turn my head. Two rednecks are coming out the door of
a dive bar twenty-feet away. They’re huge. Beat up trucker
caps, denim jackets with ripped off sleeves, oily jeans.
Redneck One stops in his tracks. “Do we gotta put up
with fuckin’ faggots everywhere?”
Us? Faggots? I rationally want to defend myself by
pointing out that Rye is female. But we pass for a couple of
skinny boys fooling around on the street. Fuck!
Rye slaps my hands from his nipples, smacks my
thigh away.
He punches the air, giving them the middle finger.
“Rye!” I quickly push his arm down.
He shoves me aside.
They walk toward us, muttering threats.
“There’s a bird over here with your fuckin’ name on it,
asshole!” Rye shouts.
Is he trying to get us killed? What were we thinking, going
out with Rye dressed like a guy?
Blood pulses through my ears, trucker boots beat the
pavement a few feet away.
“Let’s run,” I whisper, grabbing Rye’s arm.
“Run? I’m not fuckin’ running!” His voice echoes in
the silence.
I push his chest to get him moving. He hits the pole and
the lamp flickers again.
“We scared ‘em,” One says with a drunken slur.
“Hardly worth a night in jail to crush little faggots like
that,” Two says.
“Repent!” One laughs, brushing against me as they pass.
I roll away from the contact to shield Rye, expecting a
punch in the kidney or a knife in the spleen.
“Fuckin’ pussy!” Rye says.
Was that for them, or me?
“Butt fuckers!” One says, with a sneer.
“You bet.”
Rye springs at him.
I catch him with an arm across his chest. His nostrils flare.
“Rye! Stop.”

\
After they turn the corner, I hold his face and kiss him to
reassure myself we survived.
I punch him in the gut.
He doubles over and groans. “What the fuck was that for,
faggot?” he says, puttng up his dukes with elbows in his belly.
“You asshole! You nearly got us killed.”
He rubs his stomach. “Nothing happened.”
I slump to the curb and sit beside him under the street lamp
which has flickered back on again. I drink from the bottle.
“I grew up tough,” Rye says, snatching the bottle from my
lips as he sits. “When I get shit, I give it right back.”
“You’re goddamn insane,” I shout. “I think I’m gonna
puke.”
He shrugs, kisses my forehead, pushes my shoulders
down. My head rests in his lap.
We sit in silence. I notice the stars. I’m starting to breathe
regularly again.
“Ok,” he says. “Now you’ve learned something new about me.”
“That you’re a stupid animal?” I shout.
“I will keep in mind your discomfort with danger.”
“Discomfort with danger?” I jump up and squint, inches
from his face. “Damn it Rye! Those guys…” I drop my head
into my hands. “They were going to kick our asses or kill us. I
can’t let something happen to you.” I hit his shoulders,
knocking him back. “Sometimes maybe you should just keep
your mouth shut!”
He stops grinning. Looks at me in silence.
He’s thinking.
I wait.
He peels the corner of the label off the bottle.
Eventually he looks at me. “I have to be myself in any
situation. Don’t try to take away my voice.”
“Come on, that situation was extreme. I’m picturing you
in some crappy New Orleans hospital, tubes in your gut. And
for what?” There are tears in my eyes.
“In the past other partners squelched…”
“I’m not your other damn partners!” I shout. “I’m not
taking away your voice. I felt I was about to lose you. I… shit!
I thought you were going to die.”
“Oh Matt.” He puts his hand to my cheek. “I’m not gonna
die. You would have protected me.”
“I would’ve goddamn outrun you!”
“I think not.” He smiles, shaking his head. “I’d leave you
in the dust.”
“Race you back to the hotel.”
“It wouldn’t change a thing if we succeed or not…”
“What?”
“I’ve got you, brother, which is quite a lot.”
“Christ! You’re quoting Bon Jovi?” I stand.
 He yanks me back to the curb, hands me the bottle.
“Whoooah-oh,” Rye sings.
“Ok. Now can I tell you to shut up?”
He shakes his index finger, singing, ‘Nooooooo-oh …’
hey, make sure you don’t squelch my voice.”
“Come on! I didn’t want you to die. I love you!”
We look at each other. Shocked.
“Did you just say…?” He squints at me.
“Oh man! I did. Didn’t I?”
“There’s a first,” Rye says.
We kiss.
“Did that sort of surprise you, Rye?” I ask.
“The fact that you don’t like Bon Jovi?”
I smack my thigh. “You know what I meant!”
“It was… um? Unexpected.”
Part 2
| 15 |

I’m daydreaming, balanced on the back legs of my folding

chair, my feet up on the porch railing in front of the cabin.
The scent of leaves and trees is a welcome change from car
exhaust and Brooklyn trashcans.
This is my fifth time at SexxCamp. It’s held twice a
summer, June and August. Three hundred of us out in the
woods at this reclaimed kids’ camp for a weekend of sex-
positive exploration.
BDSMers, genderqueer, poly, pagan, swingers, Tantric,
more.
“Hey Matt,” AJ says as she climbs the steps. “Is Karen
in there?”
“Not my turn to keep track of Karen,” I say.
AJ is one of my cabinmates in Q - The Queer Cabin. She’s
a curvy femme from Philly, in her late-twenties. Karen is her
older and grouchier partner. Karen doesn’t care for the cock,
while AJ makes the occasional exception.
A ratty red Chevy pickup rolls to a stop by the porch,
Karen at the wheel.
“There you are!” AJ says, skipping down the steps to the
truck.
The doors open.
“Thanks,” Tower says, looking over at me. She’s standing
on the passenger-side running board, her hands on the roof.
“I appreciate you pimpin’ me to that guy at check in.”
 Tower is a bald, black transman. Late-twenties, I.D.s gay,
prefers female pronouns and other FtM bois.
“I set up a date for later in the dungeon,” she says, smiling
proudly.
We walk into the cabin and drop her stuff in front of an
unoccupied bed. The cabin is chaotic. Bags of snacks and bins
of clothing, toys, and decorations are scattered on the floor. Q
contains ten beds.
“His name is Seven,” Tower says. “I’m gonna fuck him
with my strap-on!” She holds the big cinnamon-colored cock
out to show me.
I open my eyes wide to let her know that I’m impressed.
Karen kicks open the door, carrying a box fan.
I fall onto my twin bed.
“Do any of you know Rain?” I ask.
“I saw the profile on the site,” Tower says. “What’s with
that weird photo?”
“That’s Eno!” I say. Rain posted a photo of Brian Eno in
makeup and feathers as a profile picture. That got my attention.
“What’s an Eno?” Tower asks.
AJ steps around the stuff on the floor, carrying a
supermarket bag overflowing with snacks. “Rain? Oooh, that’s
a strange one. When I messaged all I got in response was
nonsense. I had to stop replying.” AJ laughs. “It was making
me nuts.”
“We set up a scene for tomorrow,” I say. “Do you know
what Rain’s got?”
“You arranged a scene and you don’t know?” AJ asks.
“And then you’ll meet,” Karen calls from her bed, “and
Rain will turn out to be some fifty-year-old farmer with a big
gut and a wilted dick!”
“Twenty-three,” I say, hoping Karen is just talking shit. “I
saw some hot photos on a blog.” They were shadowy and
cropped to hide Rain’s gender.
“You like the unknown, don’t you?” AJ asks.
 “Not totally unknown. We’ve been messaging for weeks
about this ageplay scene Rain wants to do, pretending the
folks are away.”
AJ sits next to me on my bed. “What would you do if Rain
does turn out to be a guy?”
“Just change how I approach things,” I say.
“You wouldn’t get the hell out of there?”
“With Rain looking like that? I don’t think so.”
“But Matt, isn’t it a bit creepy for you, Rain wanting to do
ageplay, and you having a son?”
I look at her seriously. “As a parent I know the line
between fantasy and reality.”
“You think?” Karen asks. “Maybe parents should steer
clear of the whole ageplay thing.”
“That’s stupid! It’s not like you flog your daughter, just
because AJ likes getting flogged.”
“Karen might,” Tower mumbles.
“Anyway, I can tell the difference,” I say.
“Farmer’s dick,” Karen says. “Up the butt.”
“AJ’s got the butt I desire!” I paw AJ.
Karen throws a withering stare.
| 20 |

I’m in the dining hall, eating my lunch the next day. She
keeps smiling at me. Winking, over at the buffet. She’s the
typical NASCAR/MILF blonde. I’m sure most guys would have
wood for those breasts, the tan, the sun-bleached hair.
I’m focusing on my salad, hoping she gets distracted.
Dear God! She’s walking over with her tray. I figure I look
unconventional enough that I would trigger her never-going-
to-happen-o-meter? It doesn’t mean I’m interested, just
because I’m in shape and biologically male.
“This seat taken?” she asks, pulling it out with her
studded boot and settling in before I can respond.
She tells me about the drive down from Scranton, her
submissive husband arranging the linens and making the bed
back in the cabin, and maybe I’d be interested in a little three-
way after lunch? Don’t worry, hubby will only be a spectator.
I wouldn’t need to do anything with him.
Unless I wanted to.
If I go that way.
She winks.
This is how I want to spend my lunch?
I can’t get it up for people I don’t find appealing, even in
a place like SexxCamp where everyone’s fucking everyone.
And at the same time, I don’t like doing rejection. I always
feel cruel and self-absorbed.
I cough out something polite and convoluted about being
genderqueer.
“Oh,” she says, pride hurt. “Well, I should have figured a
young guy like you wouldn’t be interested in an older lady
anyway.”
 “Young guy?” I mutter. I’m pretty confident I’m older
than she is.
The chair next to me slides, Ruth sits down.
Blondie sees the perfect opportunity to exit.
“Anywho, the offer is there if you change your mind.
Cabin C. Drop by, handsome.”

\
“Ah Matt, who ist that young man?” Ruth asks.
“Young man?” I ask, looking around.
“It ist the one in the dungeon last night I am thinking of.”
I blush. She’s asking about the twenty-four year old dude
from Baltimore I was fooling around with.
“It seems you break a new barrier, perhaps?”
I look at her.
“It ist ok to discuss, it ist me.”
She raises her chin, encouragingly.
“Mark has the kind of body I find attractive.”
“We are all in these bodies that like to feel good.”
“The problem is my brain, not my body. I still worry what
people will think of me if they know I am fooling around
with a guy.”
“If possible, you let go of that. Go with your flow, not
with fearful perceptions. It ist wonderful to explore.”
“I mistook Mark for a girl when I first saw him.”
“Yes, yes! If you find that person attractive, play with him
or her. And make clear, confess you are confused exactly
about who is who. But it doesn’t matter. Tell the truth. Send
your energy out for discovery. There are many options of the
many, many genders of the world.”
| 21 |

“I play the part of the bright but precocious middle school

boy,” Rain says, negotiating the finer details of our scene.
I sit on Thomas the Tank Engine sheets tucked-in on Rain’s
cabin bed. A stuffed brown bear sits squarely atop the pillow.
All that snark and uncertainty was well worth it because it
turns out Rain is the hottest genderqueer boi at camp. The
biology is early-twenties female.
Small breasts, bony hips, blue eyes, faint freckles across
her nose and a dark brown, wavy shock of hair over short,
trimmed sides.
“We’ll pretend my parents are out of town,” Rain says. His
arms and legs straddle the back of a folding chair. “I’ve been
entrusted to your care, you are a reliable family friend; Dad
says you’re an artist to boot. I see my role in this as a recently
sexualized young gay adolescent coming on to you as my
caring adult. I like to see it as a safe and playful crossing of
normally strict boundaries. Even though I’m sexualized, I
don’t let anyone into my pants. I’m stone that way.”
He lifts his eyebrows to make sure I heard this hard limit.
“Can you work with that, Mister?” he asks. “Keep your
hands within the boundaries established by the National
Federation of High School Wrestling.”
“Yeah, I think I have my diagram of that here.” I lie across
the bed and pick my bag off the floor, digging into it for the
paperwork.
“God, I like a man who’s prepared!” Rain says.
I sit up, about to reply.
“My parents keep me way too sheltered,” he whines and
bounces to his feet. He paces the empty cabin, stumbling on
somebody’s bag.
 I call after him, “Your dad’s been a worried man ever
since I knew him in college...”
“I thought you guys met in ‘Nam?” he says from the
bathroom. It sounds like he’s brushing his teeth. “Anyway,
“Our planned activities will derail as I start coming on to
you.”
“Activities.” I say as he returns to crouch on the chair.
“Thanks for reminding me. Here’s the review test.” I toss a
thick, stapled packet of papers across the bed. “It’s for that
private school in the Heights. The one your dad asked me to
help get you into.”
“I think there’s other things you want me to get into,
Mister.” He tilts forward on two legs to grab the papers.
“Homework! Oh so dull!”
I hand him a sharpened pencil from my bag.
“Thanks, I really wanted that,” he says, and pokes me in
the arm.
“Cut it out, Rain!”
I slap the pencil from my arm. It sails from his hand and
lands by the door.
He stares over at it, then at me, then at it, then hopefully at me.
“No!” I shout. “You get it. You’re the one with the
palsy grip.”
He smiles and falls to the floor, crawls on all fours to the
door. He picks up the pencil, rubs it on his shirt, carries it to
me in his teeth.
“It’s all broke,” he says, teeth around the pencil. He spits
it onto the bed.
I point to the chair and he hops into it.
I dig in my bag, he looks hopeful.
I hand him another sharpened pencil, he looks annoyed.
“God, you bastard! I hate a man who’s prepared.” He
pokes me again.
He pounces to the bed, the chair shoots out behind him,
He glares at it severely, then at the paperwork.
 “What’s it like being queer in Brooklyn?” Rain asks, tapping
the pencil on his cheek, buried in a problem.
“It’s pretty great, though some New Yorkers are really
judgemental.”
He turns to me, looking surprised. “Really? In D.C. we’re
never judgemental!”
He scoots onto me, sitting with his legs folded in my lap. He
crushes his knees down, pushes his shoulder against my chest.
I run my fingers under his shirt, down the bones of his
spine. He moves his lips toward me. I lean in for the kiss and
he teasingly turns back to the paperwork.
He’s fucking endearing.

then they do something involving a handjob and cenobites…

| 23 |

The next day after lunch, I’m walking into the breezeway
by the pool. I see Rain talking with someone. I slow down as I
watch him. He’s in a bathing suit top, a towel wraps his waist.
He’s looking really good. Very fuckable! Oh, wait.
Rain’s… Rain’s not into fucking the cock.
Damn shame!
He stands with his knuckles curled on his hips, rocking
side-to-side as he talks with an older man in a leather vest and
leather pants.
You know the kind of guy: Sir Dommy Dom. Serious,
overbearing, everyone with female apparatus is a potential
submissive in his mind.
Leather pants in ninety degree heat? Come on!
Oh, I know. I should cut Sir D some slack. He’s in his late
fifties. That makes him nearly from my pop’s era. I guess you
can’t really expect a guy like that to change. Based on what
I’ve noticed about him at past camps, he’s still trying to prove
who wears the pants. It seems he views gender as a battle he
has to win.
I’d put my money on Rain in that battle.
At the moment, Sir D strikes me as perplexed.
But quite stern.
Are they negotiating? I can’t imagine that, he doesn’t
seem Rain’s type. Then again, what do I really know about
Rain’s type?
Well… aside from liking me.
I start to catch their conversation.
“The thing about hemp rather than nylon…” Sir D says.
“…I was texting my friends back home,” Rain cuts in,
stepping on Sir D’s schtick. “I was telling them what camp
lacks is the really creepy dudes. The ones you find fuckin’
their hamburger bun in the dining hall behind the soda
machine!”
 “There’s a camp rule forbidding sex in the dining area,”
Sir D says in another attempt to top Rain.
“Damn fascists!”
“The fascists had many interesting ideas about restraint…”
“If you want to fuck your hamburger bun,” I say, cutting
in, “you got to take it to your cabin. I mostly drag my buns
out back and use them as bait to attract various woodland
animals.”
“Delicious, sexy woodland animals.” Rain licks his lips.
“The, uh…” Sir D says.
“The four-legged ones?” I ask. “Or the two-legged ones
who wish they had four?”
“You mean you’ve never fucked a chipmunk?” Rain asks,
brow furled. “It’s an experience, let me tell you.”
Sir D tightens his jaw and fumes.
“I’m sorry, Sir,” I say. “A boi is meant to be teetering
dangerously on the edge of annoyance.”
“Especially an adolescent,” Rain adds.
I reach out my hand, he takes it hesitantly.
Sir D shifts menacingly in our direction as I quickly
chaperone Rain away.

\
“People are stupid,” Rain says as we walk arm in arm. “I
hate how that kind of dom thinks they can top anyone with a
cunt. They try to humiliate and take it all the way to
the edge.”
“He didn’t seem like he was taking it all…”
“No, I subdued him with Death Snark. He was stunned. I
was going to devour his corpse.”
“Rain, I thought Death Snark was how you flirt?”
“Flirt. Kill. Death Snark serves many purposes. Honestly,
I’m at the point where I’m no longer apologetic for only
wanting to play with people I find mentally attractive. I was
stockpiling my reserves when you walked up. I was preparing
to deal an especially deadly final Snark Assault.”
“Well, you run along with that stockpile of yours. Oh hey,
how do dudes like us usually say goodbye?”
“We punch each other in the nuts!” Rain says, making a
noodly muscle.
“There’s an idea. You work on that.”
Part 3
| 29 |

It’s been four long weeks since New Orleans. I’m sitting
with Rye on his backporch in Pilsen, his neighborhood on
Chicago’s West Side. He puts his legs across my lap.
“I’m quite sweet on you right now,” he says. “I’m relaxed
when I’m with you. You don’t know me when you’re not around.”
“We need to find a way to be together.”
“I’ll be pretty free this summer.”
“Could you imagine moving to Brooklyn?” I ask.
“Oh? I’m the one who has to move?”
“Well I can’t. My son.”
“I know, I know. And I have my career. Though it does
seem that more and more of my teacher friends are living in
New York these days.”
“And I’m there!”
“But I don’t want that to be my reason to move,” he says.
“If I make a change it has to make sense for my whole life. I’m
not saying that’s the final word on it. We’ll keep having this
conversation.”
He springs out of his seat. “Let me show you the chickens
before it’s too dark.”

\
They strut in and out of their wooden coop.
“That big one’s Red. And over here is our compost bin.”
I press against his thigh as he opens the lid. “I’m into this
wrestling outfit, but I think maybe I’d like it even better if you
took it off.”
“I would…” He looks back at the house. “Roommates.”
“Ok, then. Go to your room, strip and wait for me in
your bed.”
I swat his ass to speed him up. He yips and darts for
the porch.

| 30 |
Rye sits naked on the sheets playing with his maroon
strap-on cock.
His room is minimal. A desk, a chest of drawers covered
with plants, a full-length mirror.
I sit on the bed as I slide off my boots. “What time do you
have to wake up in the morning?”
“Ugh, six-fifteen. Have you met Wrigley?” he asks, holding
the cock out to me.
“Hello!” I say, taking Wrigley from his hands. I put it
between my lips, going down on it. Sucking slowly, trying to
reach the balls. He smiles big as he watches that.
I set it on the nightstand next to the clock. Nine-twenty.
I spread his legs and suck on his lips. A wet, earthy smell
fills my nose. A hint of iron. I explore him, tasting him. I circle
his clit with my tongue. He groans and shifts in the sheets.
He pushes down onto me as he shudders and comes.

\
“Now we’re going to wrestle,” I say, “to put the lie to
rest.”
“Lie?” he asks, opening an eye.
“That you can beat me,” I say.
“Of course I can beat you,” he says.
“Stand over there!”
He obliges; gorgeous.
I strip.
 “Hands on your head!”
His hands clasp his neck behind his ears. He stands still. I
touch the hair growing in each armpit, a nice boyish addition.
I tug the hair on his mound, he twists, squirming in place. I
examine his muscles, my hand on his back, ass, arms.
“I can completely pin you,” he says.
I shove him to the bed and dive on top. He tangles his
legs around me. We struggle, rolling, our hands sliding on
sweaty skin. We grunt and laugh as we fight. We’re evenly
matched. I’m above him, my body skims against his cunt. I
align my cock. His eyes flare, I’m inside him.
“You weren’t even trying,” I say, disappointed.
He bares his teeth.
He wedges his knee into my side, jamming it against me
and throws me out. He smiles a wicked smile. We struggle
and he knocks me down, smashing his forearm across my
chest. He’s harsh! I lie on the bed panting, searching for a
way back inside.
I force him onto his back. I stab my knees into his thighs,
he squirms. I gouge my thumbs into the soft spots beneath his
collarbones and he howls in pain. I penetrate him quickly,
pushing down against his cervix, fucking his last few inches.
“This is harder than I thought!” he says, his breathing
rushed. “I guess I want to fuck more than I want to fight!”
I hold him with my weight on his thighs and his insides.
My thumbs digging into his chest.
He smiles at the pain. “How do you know me so well?”
He tightens around my cock. I feel every bit of him.
I bury my face into his armpit; I inhale his aroma.
I lick sweat from his chest. I suck his nipple, pull the
metal piercing with my teeth, then I lick gently again. I slide
in his wetness.
I push my thumbs in harder.
He gasps. “It’s tough but it’s also amazing.” He floats in
the endorphins, his eyes subdued. “Can you hit me, here?”
 He points to a spot on his chest just below my thumb.
I rest my palm against the bed, taking a deep breath. I
watch, waiting. When he turns to kiss my wrist, I catch him
off guard with a punch to his chest.
He winces.
One hit with every thrust. The intensity grows.
He wrinkles his nose.
“Should I stop?” I ask.
“Fuck, no! It hurts but it feels good.”
I keep pounding him, occasionally digging a knee into his
thigh. His hand circles his clit, his body curves to mine, he
groans and comes fast, his pleasure spiked with pain.
I hammer him, as his orgasm subsides. His body tenses
with each hit, his face scrunched tight. His discomfort sure
looks good as I fuck him.
He drifts on the ache. I get off on that displeased sneer.
“Damn,” I shout, punching a final time as I come.
I kiss him. He attacks my mouth in a frenzy, his fingers
scratch me.
“Fuck!” he shouts. “I like kissing after what you did. It
feels so dirty. And that dirty feels so sweet.”

| 33 |

He stands at the mirror, his back to me. He rotates

his shoulders.
The room is darker than before, illuminated by the clip
lamp on the mirror frame. I feel dazed.
“What time is it?”
He turns to me with a smile.
“Shit!” I shout. “I bruised you.”
“Yes, you did!” he says, examining his chest in the mirror.
“That’s hot.”
“I didn’t mean to,” I whisper.
 “I wanted you to.”
“Does it hurt?”
“Fuck yeah, it hurts!” he says, cramming his thumb into
the spot. “That was the best wrestling match ever.”
His hands go to his thighs, he walks to the bed with
a slight limp.
“You were right,” he says. “I wasn’t trying. I wanted you
too badly. Good job. This time you beat me.”
“‘Beat me’ at wrestling?” I ask. “Or ‘beat me’ meaning
I hurt you?”
“Both, I guess,” he says with a laugh, sitting on the bed.
“I didn’t mean to injure you, Rye.”
“No worries. People get roughed up wrestling.” He pats my
ass. “It was consensual. You knew where the line was. I asked
you to do it.”
“I know. But injuring you has never been on my list of
things to do.”
He wipes a tear as it runs down my cheek. “Don’t do that.
You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Sleeping made me tired.” I laugh. “Turn off that light.
Let’s sleep.”
I feel rotten.

\
The room is dark, he climbs into bed. I pull him to me.
His smell fills my nostrils.
“I understand BDSM,” I say. “I’m not freaked out by that. I
feel bad that I hurt you. You, Rye!”
“I’m fine.”
“I don’t feel good.”
“What else?” he asks.
It rushes up from deep inside and spills out in tears. “I
liked how your face looked.” I sit up and pull myself together.
“I was turned on, coming while you were in pain.”
He pulls me back down, wraps my arms around his chest.
 “We’re in your bed,” I say. “It feels too real.”
“It’s fantasy, Matt. One of the infinite possibilities. I would
never allow somebody to abuse me in my real life.”
The words ‘abuse me’ are not sounding good at all.
“Ok,” I whisper, unconvinced. “Because I love you, Rye.”
He holds my arms.
“And I wouldn’t love myself if I hurt you all the time.”
“No way!” He snickers in the darkness. “I wouldn’t want
you to do that every night.”
I like that idea: Rye every night.