Africa, for many of us, is still that dark, mysterious continent, as described by a character in one of the stories in this anthology, a vast expanse allowing “the sloughing off of convention and restriction to something more basic, closer to pleasure and desire, when we enter the different world.”
Africa Tails joins a series of meaty gay male anthologies by the well-traveled, gay high-life lived habu that highlight and savor various regions of the world. This twenty-story collection of African tales (focusing on getting tail), ten stories from earlier habu collections and ten stories never before published, celebrates the primeval sensuality of the dark continent in tales of history, intrigue, romance, interracial coupling, triumph, defeat, fetish, and taboo.
The stories are sectionalized by region: north, northwest, central, and south. All are connected to Africa, although not all are set in Africa. Some are contemporary, while several are set in historical times. All are loaded with hot, steamy gay sex.
Enjoy your time in Africa.
From “Dear Joanna”
“I had hoped to have seen more of you before now,” Heyward said, turning hooded eyes to me that seemed to bear a heavier, more suggestive meaning than the words might otherwise, if he hadn’t put a hand my knee under the table as he said it. A chill went up my spine, causing a tightening in my groin that I was unable to control. I looked at him with a new understanding of why he had hired me, and I let myself think of what he would look like undressed—with a paunch surely, but he looked muscular enough—and to wonder about the size of him between his legs.
“We thank you kindly for inviting us here,” Paxton said. “We are, of course, ready and willing for whatever is your pleasure, eh, Peter?”
“Yes, yes, of course,” I answered, very much aware that both men were looking directly at me, assessing me. Was I still on sufferance for this position in the company, I wondered. Was I still to be tested—and in a way that was becoming increasingly obvious? Later I was to understand that wasn’t a question at all.
The dinner was excellent. Not much less than I was used to in the confines of my own family, of course, but as my family had disowned me, I could not count on rising to this level for the foreseeable future—at least until I turned my life around and made a success of it. I thought of Joanna. As a vicar’s daughter, she certainly was suitable enough for the rise back to where I had started. She was so central to my future plans.
“Shall we withdraw to the men’s salon?” Heyward asked, breaking into my contemplation. It wasn’t really a question, though. In the salon, both the cigars and the liquor were excellent and free-flowing. Paxton heavily indulged in both as if this was a rare treat for him, which I’m sure it must have been. For me, it was a memory of all that I had lost and needed to work hard to regain. It seemed like Paxton was a bottomless pit, a sponge soaking all of it up without effect. I’m sorry to say that it had rather more of an effect on my control of myself. Neither Heyward nor Paxton, however, let up on plying me with more. Heyward himself was very limiting in both his smoking and drinking, while being the generous host for Paxton and me.
The conversation also became less formal than it was in the dining room and increasingly pointed. At length, Heyward leaned over to me where the three of us were sitting in a tight circle in high-backed chairs that had the effect of separating us off from the rest of the salon. He placed a hand on my knee again, which I looked at in some distracted sense of familiarity with some connection to my past but one that I was a bit too cloudy from the drink to directly identify. Then he put the other hand on my other knee. He coaxed my thighs apart and boldly looked down at my crotch. Because of the styles of the time, I knew he could see the line of my cock in my trousers and knew that I was hard. He looked up into my eyes and smiled.
“I asked you two to dinner this evening because I always feel so free when the ship has cleared the influence of Europe and moved into the realm of Africa—and especially so as we cross the equator as we did late this afternoon. I feel I am in a whole new world, with customs and rules so much freer than those of Europe. Do the two of you feel it too—the sloughing off of convention and restriction to something more basic, closer to pleasure and desire, when we enter the different world.”
“Yes, always feel it too,” Paxton echoed. “It’s like I feel I am a new man, a freer, separate man from when I’m in England. You too, Peter?”
I was confused. I hadn’t felt anything of the kind until then, but now that they mentioned it . . . and because I knew it was what they wanted me to say, I answered. “Yes, I think I can feel something of that too. Although it’s my first time out of Europe, so I guess it will come more in time.”
“Yes, I think you’ll feel freer, more adventuresome in Africa,” Paxton said.
