Gayly Complicated is a ten-story anthology on the complicated relationships involved in man loving man.
Could anything ever be more complicated for a gay man? Nothing is as complicated as attempting an ongoing sexual relationship of one man with another. The uncertainties and suspicions and jealousies and misunderstandings that arise daily are legion. The difficulty in committing, accepting, and remaining constant, in an environment that cannot, as yet, find legal foundation almost anywhere, are presented for the reader, sometimes in frustrating, wild and rough, ships-passing-in-the-night fashion and more times than not in bittersweet sadness for opportunities lost, intentions misunderstood, loyalty sorely tested. But in these stories, there also are messages of love redeemed and commitment made and honored.
From Coming for the Honeyman.
I parked my pickup truck in the dark shadow of some trees half a block away from the entrance into a tree-lined street of hulky graystone mansions, with DuPont green shutters. They were set comfortably apart from each other and the winding avenue, and I walked up to the house without anyone getting their feathers ruffled. I’d arrived the previous night and was staying at a motel in the suburbs of Wilmington, Delaware, just over the Pennsylvania line. If the caper was sniffed out before I managed to get out of the area altogether, I thought they’d be looking for me in Philadelphia rather than down there.
Although I was here in search of an empty house, as I stealthily approached, my thoughts went to what I had unexpectedly found here the previous day, the day of the wedding, when I had cased the house. I always like to get a sense of the layout of the target in daylight before I hit the house—and I’d found through experience that the second night was the best opportunity. On the day of the wedding, they usually thought well enough of the possibilities to station someone in the house during the ceremony and reception, and by the time everyone had recovered from the party, someone often came back to house sit. The night after the wedding, statistically, was always the best opportunity.
As I approached the house that night, my thoughts went ahead to the pleasantries of spending the money I planned to start raking in. Which led me to thoughts of the honey man. The warm June night was ideal for some action, and I was humming to myself and remembering his hair-rimmed left nipple and the way he had run his right hand around and across it as we had talked about the bees nesting on the house’s wall. That memory, and my hand stroking over my dick through my pants, had me growing happily.
The previous day I had arrived early at the big stone house so typical of this area of Pennsylvania, and getting no answer after ringing the bell at the front door, had gone around to the side gate. I always approached the house in my casings openly and with a story I could tell if I unexpectedly found someone home. When I got to the side gate, I saw a head bobbing in the pool and called out, and the swimmer moved to the edge of the pool and lifted himself up out of the water.
“Ooohhheeeee.” I whistled silently. The man was a real honey. I lifted the clipboard with the fake papers on it, ready to launch into my spiel about notification of delayed delivery on a wedding gift, when he made all of that unnecessary.
“So, are you the guy here about the bee hive Marion and Jim need to get rid of?”
“Ummm,” I answered, not being quick on the uptake.
“I certainly hope you are,” the honey man said. “Because I can’t really stay waiting for this to be taken care of longer than tomorrow night. I need to be in Boston.” All the time he was saying this, he was looking me up and down real carefully. I knew that look. He was interested. And I must say, he looked quite interesting to me too. Honey blond, honey lips, and a great swimmer’s body.
“Sure, let me see the hive,” I said.
He led me around to the side of the house, and sure enough, there was this large hive hanging off the side of the building slightly above head level, with a swarm of bees madly buzzing around it. I was about to say the wrong thing, when the honey man saved me again.
“It’s a pity we can’t just knock the hive off,” he said. “But, with them being protected in this state, Marion and Jim had been looking all over for a beekeeper who would know how to move the hive away altogether. They’re afraid the bees will get into the walls and then into the house.”
“Yes, you have to handle them very carefully,” I said wisely, giving the honey man the most welcome smile I could muster—and looking him up and down in that little Speedo of his so that he knew I was interested in more than the bees.
