Category: fiction

“You open your safe and find ashes.”

~ Will Forrest ~ Leave a comment

As authors, we are constantly on the receiving end of all sorts of advice about how to promote our work, much of which rely on magical thinking and/or spending a lot of money (or both.) Selling books in person, selling books at a discount, selling yourself as a brand, but for pure return on your investment, nothing beats giving away free books.

I’m not handing out paperbacks on the street, but I’m not the only one who believes in the power of free. Attract abundance by being abundant. Give books to everyone who wants one: that’s how you win fans for life.

Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.”

― Annie Dillard, The Writing Life

Readers win too, because *ahem* book tastes are subjective. I honestly don’t expect everyone in the world to enjoy what I write. I would rather you read my free stories and decide that my work isn’t to your liking than make you pay money for a book that you end up hating. Costco has it right: give away as many free samples as you can. Your fans will find their way to you.

Visit my Free Reads page for bonus material from my series and some standalone shorts. I’ll be adding to the page in the next few months as I build up to the release of a series I’ve been working on for ten years. Mary Mac and her band of merry perverts have some deep lore, y’all. I have stories for years.

Why do they hate us?

~ Will Forrest ~ Leave a comment

So, it’s like that, is it? You really want to read this book that badly, huh? All I did was casually post the meme that inspired it and my Threads blew up. At least compared to my normal bookish content.

I don’t expect any of my other book promo posts to do this well. The mysterious entity we refer to as the social media algorithm (but which is really a bunch of underpaid staffers supporting their billionaire employer’s fascist ideology) doesn’t want to see us win, and will crush your reach if it senses even the slightest chance that you’re going to reach people organically.

Good thing I had a review copy link ready to give people. Even so, I wish I had set up pre-orders, because not everyone wants the responsibility of a review copy. JK there is zero responsibility. I just want people to read the damn thing.

So if you like queer romance full of disaster gays making bad decisions and learning to get over them, adorable twinks who don’t understand how many people want to cherish them, and the trope I like to call Oblivious-to-Lovers where two best friends (who occasionally bang) realize that this is what love looks like for them: I got you, babe.

OMG yes I want to read this book.

WHY I READ* ROMANCE

~ Will Forrest ~ Leave a comment

TL:DR because I don’t trust other fiction.

I toddled down a rabbit hole this morning.  I say toddled because I got myself out so quickly instead of losing 2 hours to doomscrolling.

I was following a series of increasingly strident flags declaring that THIS  is “the great gay American novel.”  And I mean, I like great novels and gay people and am interested in America and anyone who has the nerve to lift the curtain.  But like I always do, I started by reading the worst reviews. That’s where the gold is, the truth, the ick, or in some cases “this was too horny for me and had too many queer characters” in which case it’s a one-click buy. But sometimes it’s:

“FUCK. THIS. BOOK.” 

That’s a one-click read, that review. If it inspires such vitriol then either it’s a masterpiece or a steaming turd.

Ah.  The latter.

Because I’m absolutely not a little bit sorry, but The Great Gay American Novel is not allowed to be a goddamn Kill-Your-Gays trope.  Not a fucking chance.

We’ve heard those stories. They’re called queer history.  Despair, isolation, mental illness, and often the only defence is to destroy all human feeling in your soul so you don’t have to cope with the fact that if everyone knew you for who you are, they wouldn’t just hate you, they would want you dead.

Boring.

Boooooooorrrrrrrring because it’s horrible and spiritually deadening and it still happens in real life all the time and so we don’t need a 700 page novel about a loser who spends the whole book being awful to everyone and experiencing zero emotional growth but he just happens to be a gay man in a book about gay men so that makes it THE GREAT GAY AMERICAN NOVEL. It just feels like more trauma porn: look, here’s a walking, talking tragedy, let’s zoom in closer on all his faults. Now closer. NOW CLOSER. 

Look, I haven’t read this book and under no circumstances will I ever read it (ok, a million dollars but I get half in advance.) I am basing my opinions on one review and the blurb of the book. And an interview in which the author said they didn’t believe in psychology and that people who were broken should essentially just stay broken.

That’s when I realized I’d *never* read the book, nor probably anything else this author has written. The way to help someone who is broken is to see them, hear them, love them, help them. “I see your pain.  Your pain is real.  Pain ends.  I trust you. I believe you.” You don’t shrug and then take character notes.  I refuse to read 700 pages about someone who refuses to grow, who gets no help, and whose main characteristic is being an irredeemable piece of shit.  Just sounds like a novel about straight people.

*and write

Victoriana redux

~ Will Forrest ~ 1 Comment

There’s no denying that I am a snob. As such, I like my Historical Romance to be damn well historical. Attempting to live by my own standards, I mostly muddle about in the Victorian Era, despite all the press about its repressive culture. Michel Foucault has said some things on this, but I’ll save that for my dissertation (and this heavy-duty post of mine from last year.)

Intellectual wanking aside, writing fiction in the idiom of the Victorian age is a lot of fun. I like the diction and writing style, the license to be poetic and to drench my dialogue in innuendo and double entendre. I like as well the scenarios the Victorian era offers. Despite its reputation as an era of repression, it was in fact a time of broad social upheaval and technological advancement with many parallels to our time, including the struggle to implement socially beneficial infrastructure as the epidemic and chronic illnesses of increasingly urban lifestyles were battled with public health measures like sewers and indoor plumbing. 

Deep diving into Victoriana feels a little like visiting Japan. It provides a sweet spot of a lifestyle much like mine, yet with an utterly foreign aesthetic and social imaginary. Britain under Queen Victoria and Japan in general are both cultures built on very precisely managed social facades, behind which can rage stunning perversities. We observe the gentility of a tea ceremony, but flip over the painted scroll hanging on the paper wall and you will find a geisha ‘entertaining’ several octopuses. The Marylebone gentleman speaks in Parliament, dines with his wife, kisses his nanny-educated children goodnight, then goes to the bawdy house and gets his arse resoundingly ‘birched’ like the good old days away at school.

While the Regency is a very popular period for Historical Romance (from Austen to Heyer to Quinn to Hall) it was not a very long time period. Many of its charms linger into the Victorian age. Well-spoken politeness still wins the day, and one’s past can define one’s whole future. Yet by the end of the 19th Century, class structures have notably shifted, introducing new types of people to each other. The middle class has begun to emerge, challenging the nobility’s power through sheer force of numbers. And technology had already begun to change the way everyone lived, at a pace unmatched in prior ages.

Not to mention it’s after Britain’s abolition of slavery, which suits me very well. I certainly can’t erase the wealth acquired through the Transatlantic slave trade, but statistically any titled person i.e. English Duke in the Regency was likely benefitting from the Slave Trade. Yes, that wealth carries over even to our times, but let’s say I prefer to play with the fiction-writing kit that doesn’t include that particular component. My titled 19th Century snobs can still be cruel, remorseless, indifferent to oppression. Today we might call them Tories, and there’s a wealth of contemporary fiction about this same kind of ultra-rich white cis-het culture. I don’t need to write about duels at sword-point for my stories to contain entitled men who feel they have the right to be violent, and who need putting in their place, which is really more where my interest lies.

And then there’s the aesthetic. I like dark suits and slim waistcoats and pocket watches and canes that turn out to be shivs. I like tailcoats and tight white shirts and black hansom cabs slipping through the streets to indecent assignations. Cockneys with knives. Can-can and Burlesque. Laudanum and Absinthe, Impressionism, subways, suffrage, Sarah Bernhardt and steam power, Charcot’s gynecological exhibitions and Aubrey Beardsley’s priapic prints, masturbation both as a symptom of insanity and the means by which one prevented it, and all the while corsets get tighter and tighter. The British Experiment reached its giddy apex, and for a few bold years the sun never did set on its Empire, while quietly it was being said that perhaps its former colony across the Atlantic was about to steal its gilded crown.

Change by the bucketful: unavoidable, terrifying, fascinating.

Common sense

~ Will Forrest ~ Leave a comment
Daily writing prompt
Describe something you learned in high school.
View all responses

“High school?  Shit, I’ve been trying to forget it.  All I learned is that everyone’s so steeped in their own BS by the time they get there that most of us don’t learn a thing. Sure, it’s good for kids to be taught not just science and math but how to read, how to think, how to get to know other people. But the way most high schools are run, they’re not much better than jail.  Just a way to keep kids off the streets so old people feel safe walking about and adults don’t have anyone coming after their jobs.  I mean, if everyone really gave a shit about kids, they’d pass some gun laws.”

Why choose?

~ Will Forrest ~ Leave a comment

Reverse Harem and the (r)evolution of Romance writing

If you aren’t an avid ebook reader, it’s likely you’ve never heard of the genre, which has begun to call itself “why choose” because algorithms are prurient snitches. Yet it’s the strongest trend in self published romance, with no signs of slowing down.

It is also an astonishing indicator of where culture is headed. Because two out of every five ebooks sold are romance, and reverse harem tropes are EVERYWHERE.

So what the heck is it? Nothing more or less than a romance story where the heroine gets ALL the boys. Without having to choose between them, favoring one and only one. Without lying or cheating, with the consent of all the men, which is perhaps the most fantastical aspect of the genre, that three or more cis-het guys could get over their egos enough to get along with their partner’s metamour.

OK so what the heck is a metamour?

It’s the point at which the Why Choose genre gets really interesting. Because, pardon me if I’m wrong, but this is polyamory. A metamour is your lover’s lover. Not your competition, just “the other person who loves the same person as me.”

Meaning the strongest trend in romance writing is a vigorous, fun-loving, open-hearted repudiation of the nuclear family. One of the lynchpins of Western society, blamed repeatedly (and quite sensibly) for maintaining women’s inferior status. Less than half a decade ago, women in the US were being arrested for wearing pants. A wife needed her husband’s permission to open her own bank account. The assumption was nearly universal that all women wanted was safety. That women weren’t sexual, weren’t interested in freedom in being their own person, in existing for any reason besides replicating DNA aka having babies.

Oh, my sweet summer child…

That has never been enough. And hear me out, this is not some Sandberg gaslighting about how every woman miraculously can have it all aka a high paying high pressure job as well as a functional marriage, happy children, and time enough to seek personal meaning. Such women usually have nannies. And they are frequently miserable. The women, not the nannies, though I reckon a fair few of them are less than thrilled with what often functions like a sort of indentured servitude.

This is of course not universal. But that’s the point. Women want different things. Women can finally have what they want. And yes, RH is a book trend. It isn’t a sign of the death of marriage. But it is certainly a sign that the Overton window has shifted hugely in the direction of even more freedom for women. And for men, who must bear the brunt of being denied softness, emotionality, compassion. Who are taught they must defend their tiny tribe against an entire world which wants them dead. Truth is, the world usually isn’t paying attention. Truth is, modern marriage isn’t a siege state. Wives are not chattel, nor are they princesses, to be kept in a tower and denied the world.

Women are raw, and horny, and also nice and pretty and kind, but still red-blooded, salivating, alive. And we are tired of being told what to do.

There is a world filled with possibilities. Even it’s only words on a page or a screen. A world where women get exactly what they want, and men are happy for it to happen. So come on over! Sometimes the grass really is greener even once you’ve hopped the fence.

WHAT RUINED ME Episode 7: ‘The Story of the Eye’ by Georges Bataille

~ Will Forrest ~ 1 Comment

I read this little book on the advice of Björk, and my scandalous older boyfriend who had a serious crush on Björk. To judge from modern reviews, it is still extremely divisive, with many considering it irredeemable trash, and others suggesting it’s wholly allegorical, though that may be a wildly optimistic reading of what is at its heart a very filthy book.

What’s interesting (read: strange and a little frightening) to me now was that on first reading, not a bit of it seemed deviant. Of course the main character lifted her skirt and sat in a saucer of milk within five minutes of meeting the narrator. Of course they abducted a beauty, then drove her out of her mind. Of course they went to Spain and… For those who know what happens by the end, you may wonder how I read the whole thing and barely flinched. I have theories, some of which I’ve illuminated in prior posts.

France wanted to hang Bataille for a while. I blew my college teacher’s mind by even owning a copy of the book, which she borrowed from me. I think I might have made her a mixed tape, but socially, not romantically. Oh, the ’90s.

If memory serves, I bought the book at The Mystic Bookshop, the source of many outrageous ideas and my philosophical oasis growing up in a very staid city in a fairly conservative part of the world.  Thanks, Mystic Mike (as we called the snackable indie boy who worked there) and the whole Mystic crew for letting me spend hours thumbing through Re/Search books I could never afford to purchase.

The Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille. YMMV.

WHAT RUINED ME Episode 5: A copy of Fetish Times

closeup of a woman's back, tied with hemp shibari ropes
~ Will Forrest ~ Leave a comment

There was that time I was coming down after a semi-licit rave at a downtown ballet studio.  I’d only just met the woman whose apartment we were in, though she knew some of my friends. It must have been spring, for the room was full of sunlight.

The woman was a dominatrix. Messily beautiful, twice my age. I am quite sure that if she tried to fuck me I would have said yes. Instead I read the magazine Fetish Times.

It was 1994. The internet was barely a word. No smartphones, no cameras, no 3.5 million search results and nothing to Google it from (sorry Netscape, you did your best.) We still called it cyberpunk, for fuck’s sake.  Then adolescent me picked up one of western culture’s strangest artefacts and the bottom dropped out of the world. Thanks to the imprinting effects of psychedelics, there was no coming back.

I was appalled. I read it cover to cover. No one noticed. They talked about San Francisco in the 1980s, about tweakers on roller-skates and failed revolutions. I read about…stuff.

Why do we want it so weird? Who told me to ask my first lover to pour hot wax on me, the third time I ever had sex?  That was before I’d seen the magazine. He asked what I wanted and that’s what I wanted.  We were barely dating. I just went to his house to fuck. To smoke hash. To read his mind-bendingly seditious books and fantasise about changing the world.

Am I ready?

Are you?

“Is This Seat Taken?”

a woman's beautiful bare legs as she sits in an easy chair by the window
~ Will Forrest ~ Leave a comment

So: your boyfriend who has family connections to your MBA supervisor invites you to an anonymous orgy. You want to go, because you like to fuck, so much that you agree, despite the fact that you will know probably half of the people there. But you try on the expensive mask he had made which really does cover your face well, a tight fitting cap of blood-red leather that extends to the base of your nose and conceals your hair. You look, in the mask and nothing else, totally gorgeous, a fact he tells you continually as he fucks you from behind, watching himself in the mirror over your shoulder. He is not wrong, and thinking of all the other men who will fuck this gorgeous masked woman, you come, shaking so hard he pulls out, thinking he’s hurt you somehow.

Idiot, you think again.

Yet you go to the party. The orgy. You wear the mask and a garter belt and stockings and heels and a long coat and nothing else. He has waxed not just his pubes but his chest, striding about in leather pants with a tear-away crotch. You spend very little time together, because the pants make you laugh, and as a designated sub that’s the kind of disrespect that earns you a shift in the stocks.

You like getting spanked. You do not like humiliation, being hung out for anyone to torment. Too many of the older men who dominate this scene fall back on that trope, one more reason why you are sitting alone in the back corner of the mansion’s front parlor, wondering if it’s possible to ghost on an orgy.

“Is this seat taken?” Before you answer the man sits down anyway on the other end of the little couch. “I just gotta relax for a bit.” He flops back, breathing hard, his half-hard cock laying against his thigh.

You check him out, because it’s that kind of party. A black beaked mask, Dread Pirate Roberts with a hint of Plague Doctor. The fit body of a dedicated college athlete keeping his shit together. No gray hair in the pubes. Who is he?

“Is the master enjoying his evening?”

“Don’t do that master stuff. You can just talk to me. And I don’t know. Yes and no. I’m thinking about going home.”

Ask me. You blush, because no matter how many dicks your boyfriend lets you have here and now, he will not lend his subs. He has told you so himself, because so many in his clique have asked to fuck you. Asked him, not you.

“Me too,” you say. The plague pirate turns to look directly at you, and you shiver, because the mask is only half of his menace, the rest in his dark eyes that seem to swallow you.

“I want your number,” he says.

“Okay. How—”

“I’ll remember it. And if I don’t, it’s my fault, right?”

“Okay.” You tell him your number.  He says it back to you. “You got it.”

“Does your boyfriend, sorry, master, read your messages?”

“God, no.”

“Good.” He stands up and stretches.  Like the slut you are, you stare at his erection.

“Are you leaving?” you ask.

“Yep.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to—”

He turns to you, and you shiver again under his dark gaze. “Not here. I want you paying attention.”

“Oh.”

He winks and walks away. His ass is amazing.

“Who was that?” your boyfriend asks as he approaches.

“I don’t know.”

“What did he want?” He is fiddling with his detachable crotch again. You do not love him. Now you know that you do not like him either.

 “Nothing.”

“Really?”

 “I’m getting one of those headaches.  Do you have any idea where my coat is?”

(2020)

Nearly Double Teamed by the Sentient Manifestations of the Brown Recluse Spider Meme and Angry Reactions to It.

a red and black female Pamphobeteus spider on a darkly shadowed backdrop
~ Will Forrest ~ Leave a comment

One of my favourite things on the internet is the insect and invertebrate-themed meme sharing group Entomemeology.  It has its ups and downs, but now and then things get wild, and we end up, for example, in contests to see who can write the hottest trash for one of our mods to read on video.

That’s how I ended up writing this story. When I saw the kind of work the others were turning in, I knew I couldn’t possibly match their excellence (read: mind-boggling steam level) so I let the story stall.

I hate doing that. One of my themes this year is Cleaning the Plate, by which I mean finishing as many stories as I can, just for the exercise. So please enjoy this possibly baffling glimpse into the mental landscape of a most wonderfully peculiar group of scientists, hobbyists, and allied weirdos.

And for fuck’s sake, if you don’t like the content, don’t report, just tag a mod…

So without further ado, please enjoy…

Nearly Double Teamed by the Sentient Manifestations of the Brown Recluse Spider Meme and Angry Reactions to It.

Entomemeology party girl Tara finds herself in the middle of the hottest debate going when she tries to hook up with the embodied Angry Reactions to the Brown Recluse Meme.  But what people say on their socials and what they want in private aren’t always the same.  Sometimes the one you say you hate is the one you crave the most.

~~~

Everyone knows it’s easy to get into trouble at an Entomemology party.  It doesn’t help that the membership is collectively so fucking hot.  But that night only one guy had my attention.

You know who, and trust me, you would have felt the same.  He was just so confident.  Totally immune to criticism.  Welcome in every conversation, able to make just about anyone laugh.

Not everyone, though.  It seemed like every time I turned around the other one was there, scowling at everything Brown Recluse Meme said.  There’s always been tension between Brown Recluse Meme and Angry Reactions to the Brown Recluse Meme.  Rumors, too, that they were enemies in name only.  Otherwise why did Angry keep hanging around?  The rest of us tried to ignore their flare-ups and shit talking, even when we got sucked into their drama.

It was late and the party was getting a little bugs n’ jugs, so I cut out to the backyard for some fresh air.  There he was.  Not the life of the party but his nemesis, Angry Reactions, chilling on the porch swing in the dark.

“See anything you like?” he asked when he caught me staring.

“Sorry.  I didn’t mean to be rude.”

“No problem, Tara.”

Holy shit, he knew my name.  Somehow it made him easier to approach.  “Mind if sit down?” I nodded to the space beside him.

“It’s a free country.”

The swing wobbled when I sat.  “Is this thing safe?”

“I wouldn’t try fucking on it.”

I laughed nervously.  I’d never noticed how good looking he was, with that hard jaw, those dark eyes.  My fault for spending all my time gawking at Brown Recluse Meme.  No surprise that Angry was resentful.

“So what’s a nice Theraphosid like you doing in a place like this?” he said dryly.

“You mean hanging out with a bunch of science nerds and memelords?  I dunno, I like people who understand me.  Who know how to treat a girl like me.  And I like people who can make me laugh.”

He chuckled, a dark rumble that made me shiver.  “Well, I guess I’m shit out of luck,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“Apparently I have no sense of humor.”

“You have other qualities.”

“Do I?  Like what?”

Shit.  Here’s the thing you should know about me: I can’t help myself.  I see a hot, single meme, even a reaction, sitting alone at a party, I’m going to try and pick him up.  Or her, when the situation’s right.  Angry Reactions to the Brown Recluse Meme was looking at me like he could tear my clothes off with his eyes.

“So what are my other qualities?” he teased, nudging me with his elbow.

“Persistence.  And you’re pretty smart.  And you’re usually right, even if you aren’t very funny.”

“You’re right.  I am persistent.”  He raised his beer to me, toasted himself.  Maybe I should have said arrogant, too.

“Can I ask you a question?” I said instead.

“As long as you don’t care if I answer.”

“What’s the deal with you and Brown Recluse Meme?  Sometimes it’s like you follow him around, looking for ways to roast him.  Why do you even care?”

“Because he’s an asshole.  He needs to be reminded.”

“You don’t even know him.  Or do you?”

He stared at me blankly.  “I just don’t think he’s as funny as everyone else thinks he is.”

“If he bugs you so much, why do you still hang out with us?”

He looked out over the darkened yard, took a long pull off his beer before answering.  “I don’t know, I thought there’d be more to the group.  And don’t get me wrong, sometimes it’s great.  But every meme I meet, there he is, every fucking time, shouting his own name like that’s the answer to everything.”

“Are you sure you’re not just jealous?”

“Excuse me?”

“That he gets all the attention.”

He looked at me, calculating, and I thought I’d gone too far, until he smiled with a sly turn of his lips.  “Right now, I have your attention.  That’s making up for a lot.”

“You’re not serious.”

“I’m always serious.”

“And yet you’re smiling.”

He rolled his eyes, even hotter when he was frustrated.  “Look, do you want to fight?  Or do you want to fuck?”

“So you are serious.”

“I’m leaving.  You should come with me.”  He got up and started for the garden gate, assuming I’d follow.  Slut that I am, of course I did, frantically texting my bestie as I went.

<<Sorry to ghost but major hookup in progress>>

She replied instantly.  <<Whaaaaaaaa who?>>

<<Deets 2moro dont wait up>>

She straight up called me, but I ignored it, set my phone to silent, and hurried after Angry Reaction.  I might never get another chance.

~~~

I was taking a chance.  I knew they had some history.  Tara was worth it, but as soon as I got out front I saw him, sitting on the curb, flicking through his phone.  He glanced up, then looked again.  “Oh, it’s you.”

“What’s up, fuzzy cheeks?”

“Go to hell,” he said with a laugh.

“Is that any way to greet an old friend?”

“It is if he calls me that.  Are you taking off?”

“You know me, life of the party.”  I’d wanted to avoid this.  It wasn’t like I hated him.  If anything I cared too goddamn much.  He got up just as Tara came down the garden path and stepped out under the streetlight.

“Well, well, well,” Brown said, his grin slipping as he looked back and forth between us.  “I knew it was only a matter of time.”

“Hey,” she said to him, blushing badly.

“Hey yourself.”

That’s when the rideshare pulled up.  A big black Lincoln, with a back seat like a couch.  I’d been counting on doing some nasty shit on the way home, but that was getting less likely by the second as the other two stood gawking at each other like a couple of high school kids.

Sometimes a meme’s gotta take things into his own hands.

Tara might have had history with Brown Recluse Meme, but me and him, we have History.  A past I can’t forget.  That I can’t let go.  That wouldn’t have to be the past, if he didn’t make me crazy.  A past that sometimes we pretend is our future, one secret night at a time.

I touched Tara’s shoulder and she startled like she was waking up, turned to me with a funny smile.  “We good?” she asked.

“Yep.  I’ll just be a second.”

She looked at Brown, back at me, then shrugged and headed for the car.  He watched her go, his jaw tense with everything he wasn’t saying.

“So you coming or what?”

He turned to me, his eyes wide.  “I’d ask you if you’re serious, but I know what you’re gonna say.”

I started backing towards the waiting car.  “Tick tock, fuzzy cheeks.”

“Don’t tease me like this, dude.”

“Why, you got a better way?”

~~~

I didn’t need it.

But I sure as fuck wanted it.

Sometimes a meme can’t help himself.  Whatever had started between me and him after that huge fight last summer, calling it complicated didn’t even scratch the surface.  If it had just been him, I’d have been in the car already.  Or if I’d seen Tara first.  Mixing her up in our stupid shit wasn’t going to do anybody good.

But fuck, did I ever want it.

If there’s anything I suck at, it’s not getting involved in stupid shit.  If you know me at all, you know this already.  He knew, because he was the stupid shit most of the time.  He knew and was milking it for all it was worth, grinning in that lop-sided way I always wanted to either punch or kiss.  Maybe both, after the week I’d had.  But I couldn’t do either from twenty feet away.

I didn’t run to him.  I walked really quickly, but definitely didn’t run.  I definitely didn’t melt a little bit when he took my hand.  I am pretty sure I didn’t whimper helplessly as he pulled me close, but after that I can’t say because he is really, really good at kissing.

That sour mouth, incapable of telling a joke, of smiling without it seeming ironic, was still the sweetest thing I’d ever tasted.  It felt so right, like we were made to be together, like I didn’t fully exist without him, even when I hated him.  Even when I hurt him, which always seemed to happen.  But then why was he kissing me so hard, barely stopping to breathe, pushing me against the side of the car?  Why did he always forgive me?

Why did I care, when this was all I ever wanted?  That’s why I do it all, why I never shut up.  Because I want him to remember me, think about me when I’m not around, the way I think about him.

“Oh, hell no.”  Tara had got out of the car and was looking at us not with disgust but plain old boredom.  “I’m so not into getting fucked by dudes who wish they were fucking each other.”

“That’s not what this is,” Angry started, but she cut him off with a gesture.  As for me, what could I say?  If I lied, I was a jerk.  If I was honest…I was a different kind of jerk.  The fact that I couldn’t answer said it all.

“I’m sorry.”

She laughed and touched my face softly, stroking my cheek.  “Call me some time.  When you’re not busy.  You too,” she said to Angry.  “You boys have a nice night.”  And with that she walked away, shaking her head.  Laughing.  It hurt, but I’ve never let rejection slow me down.

The car was waiting.  I got in and Angry followed.  He leaned forward to speak to the driver, slipping him a folded banknote.  “This  is for you to ignore the shit out of everything that’s about to happen back here.”

“I’ll turn off the camera,” the driver offered.

“You do that.” 

~~~

“What the fuck just happened?” I said out loud to no one as the Lincoln pulled away with the two memes and without me.

A chance of a lifetime, and I’d said no.  It felt…fine.  Sensible.  Really boringly grown-up but also really smart.  I’d been the third wheel in a bromance before, and let me tell you, having two dudes call each other’s name while they come in me is not one of my kinks.

But you do you.  I was doing no one at all, unless I got my ass back indoors.  As I headed back down the garden path I skimmed through my messages, most of which were just my bestie screaming in all caps because she’d figured out who I was with.

<<hard nope>> I replied.  <<is bc still there?>>

<<y n he wondered where u went>>

Damn.  And just when I’d given up hope of ever convincing Bart that I was totally his type, even if only for a night.  Forget the memes.  They could work their own shit out.  I had hotter prey in my sights.