Give and Take by Anne Brooke
Anne Brooke has the ability to tell you an entire life in a short story. David is a 45 years old man; he is handsome and wealthy, but he is lonely; his long-lasting life partner, 13 years of life together, has died 2 years before and David has spent this time mourning. But now David realizes that Patrick is dead, but he himself is still alive, and he needs the human touch. With strong determination, David plans a night out, and he also plans to come back home with someone, not the first man he will meet, but at least someone that could be a good bedroom companion for one night. Problem is that David, even if almost middle age and successful, gave me the idea of not being a leader. From bit pieces of memories here and there, we understand that Patrick was the leader in their relationship, and David related to him for the most important decisions, but also for their everyday routine. Now David is unbalanced: he is not a desperate middle age man without any chance to find a lover, but David has not the inner strength to be the initiator of a sexual innuendo. And if he thinks to find a partner in a night club where most of the patrons are 20 something boys, he is on for a big delusion.
But David is lucky, since he connects with Jeff, the barman, that even if younger, appreciates the union of a handsome older man who likes to be ordered around; probably Jeff finds strength in being the top of someone so obviously above him, in so many level, age, wealth, culture…
Nor David or Jeff are searching for a long-term relationship, and maybe that is not what they will find, but in the end, David’s age and experience will make their appearance, letting the reader knows that, even if David likes to be on the bottom, he is clever enough to understand that it’s a tricky game of illusion when your partner is so younger than you.
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Anne Brooke has the ability to tell you an entire life in a short story. David is a 45 years old man; he is handsome and wealthy, but he is lonely; his long-lasting life partner, 13 years of life together, has died 2 years before and David has spent this time mourning. But now David realizes that Patrick is dead, but he himself is still alive, and he needs the human touch. With strong determination, David plans a night out, and he also plans to come back home with someone, not the first man he will meet, but at least someone that could be a good bedroom companion for one night. 
1) Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith. Highsmith has long been one of my literary icons. When it comes to probing the darkest sides of human nature, no one does it better than she. Strangers on a Train is a much better novel than the Hitchcock movie of the same name (although that was not without its charm, among them the very lovely Farley Granger) and has a much darker resolution. Its homoeroticism, too, is much more explicit than in the sanitized Hollywood film that bears the same name. 
2) The Front Runner by Patricia Nell Warren. How many other gay men have had the same experience as I did? I discovered this book on a trip to the mall when I was in high school, surreptitiously bought it when my friend wasn´t looking, and took it to home, hid it between my mattress, and box springs...and absolutely treasured it. It opened my eyes to so much (yes, two men can really love each other-it´s not a sickness or an abnormality) and made me realize I was not alone. 
Tales from the Sexual Underground by Rick R. Reed 
1) Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith. Highsmith has long been one of my literary icons. When it comes to probing the darkest sides of human nature, no one does it better than she. Strangers on a Train is a much better novel than the Hitchcock movie of the same name (although that was not without its charm, among them the very lovely Farley Granger) and has a much darker resolution. Its homoeroticism, too, is much more explicit than in the sanitized Hollywood film that bears the same name. 
2) The Front Runner by Patricia Nell Warren. How many other gay men have had the same experience as I did? I discovered this book on a trip to the mall when I was in high school, surreptitiously bought it when my friend wasn´t looking, and took it to home, hid it between my mattress, and box springs...and absolutely treasured it. It opened my eyes to so much (yes, two men can really love each other-it´s not a sickness or an abnormality) and made me realize I was not alone. 
Tales from the Sexual Underground by Rick R. Reed 
Tricky is a classical example of hustler story: even if Brody, the young man whose voice is narrating us his story in first point of view, is trying to convince the reader that he is happy being a whore, since, as he said, and as his grandfather told him, “If you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life”, it’s clear that he is not happy. Brody was desperately in love with his best friend John, but they were young and John was scared, he was the son of a pastor and he was taught that their love was a sin. John had not the strength to escape his father’s clutches and he married and build the 2.5 sons family everyone expected from him. And Brody instead continues in the path his grandfather and his father taught him, to screw the world to not being screwed, and what way better doing it if not being a whore? Brody is an high paid whore, he doesn’t work on the street, but in posh hotel all around the world; he is independent and he doesn’t really need to work to live, he has almost taken his job as a vocation: he is giving reliefs to all those “Johns” (no pun intended, or maybe just a little), men like his own John, who had no the courage to live the life they desired, and now, years later, are regretting that lack of courage and are searching in Brody their lost chance. 
Tricky is a classical example of hustler story: even if Brody, the young man whose voice is narrating us his story in first point of view, is trying to convince the reader that he is happy being a whore, since, as he said, and as his grandfather told him, “If you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life”, it’s clear that he is not happy. Brody was desperately in love with his best friend John, but they were young and John was scared, he was the son of a pastor and he was taught that their love was a sin. John had not the strength to escape his father’s clutches and he married and build the 2.5 sons family everyone expected from him. And Brody instead continues in the path his grandfather and his father taught him, to screw the world to not being screwed, and what way better doing it if not being a whore? Brody is an high paid whore, he doesn’t work on the street, but in posh hotel all around the world; he is independent and he doesn’t really need to work to live, he has almost taken his job as a vocation: he is giving reliefs to all those “Johns” (no pun intended, or maybe just a little), men like his own John, who had no the courage to live the life they desired, and now, years later, are regretting that lack of courage and are searching in Brody their lost chance.