Inside his chest, Michael felt a silken skein unwind as if the Blueboy still held the psychic cord that had linked them the night of Michael’s fever. Michael let the Blueboy reel him in, rocking against the young man’s body, feeling a long-feared part of himself build toward release. Soon his warm cum filled the boy’s coldness.

Morning came, and Michael awoke alone, door once more locked from inside. When Keith came to walk Michael to his doctor’s appointment, Michael fought the urge to divulge everything, knowing Keith would only roll his eyes. At the hospital, Michael remained moody and silent as the doctor poked and prodded, only the faintest of smiles coloring his lips when he learned his T-cells were up, his physician impressed by his speedy turnaround.

The weather broke. No calls from the Blueboy came. Michael’s good health became a trophy Keith showed to his volunteer pals. Michael began to work out with them, meet them for herbal tea, attend their potluck dinners of tofu and tahini. He was glad for company if it meant taking his mind off the Blueboy for a while. And it had been years since he found himself welcomed by a group, though in the back of his mind he thought their chatter rang hollow; their friendship—even Keith’s—seemed forced, mere proof of the charity of the unafflicted.

Still he gratefully accepted when Keith arranged part-time work for him at the AIDS Fund, where Michael now spent mornings organizing bingo benefits hosted by drag queens and stuffing envelopes with brochures. Afternoons, Michael climbed the Stairmaster at the gym, sometimes glancing down at his chest, straining to glimpse the silken cord that might at any moment be tugged by an invisible hand. It never was. Evenings, he walked the streets a hustler might haunt, up and down Thirteenth past skinny black drag queens who called out hey white rooster. But the Blueboy was never among them, nor inside the bars that Michael checked each night. Spring was in the air and the Blueboy’s ghost had been sucked back into the dark.

One afternoon Michael entered St. John’s, though he hadn’t been to church since his father’s funeral. Out of habit he genuflected and crossed himself, then took a seat in back. An old woman crept past to the confessional. When she shut the wooden door, Michael raised his eyes to the vaulted ceiling, its filigreed firmament hazy and oiled behind a veneer of candle soot. Michael sighed and scanned the painted saints. What good would it do to take the old woman’s place when she left? The bearded carvings offered no answer. Michael rose, lit a candle before leaving, recalling the distant lights from his dream, how hard it had been to reach them.

And now when night comes, Michael stays up late, dials the number written on the wall above his nightstand. He carries the old black rotary to the window and looks down at the corner where the lost boys gather. Regulars ignore the ringing payphone as they place their palms on open car windows. Occasionally a curious new boy picks up the payphone receiver, and Michael listens in silence as a naïve hello threads through wires to reach his ear.

Fingers point to Michael’s window as the newcomer learns who the caller is. A peal of laughter rises. Michael shrinks from the lost boys’ sight. He sinks to the floor, hears the payphone receiver drop and clatter, yanking against its cord. He shuts his eyes, wondering how can he help himself when each upturned face might be the Blueboy’s come again—his hand lifting the fallen receiver, his voice whispering It’s me. Snowflakes fall on the Blueboy’s cheeks, collect on his lashes. Michael can feel them melting.

Contributors

JONATHAN ASCHE’S work has appeared in numerous magazines, including Playguy, Inches, Torso, Honcho, and In Touch for Men, as well as the anthologies Friction 3, Three the Hard Way, Manhandled, Buttmen 2 and 3, Best Gay Erotica 2004 and 2005, and Hot Gay Erotica. He is also the author of the erotic novels Mindjacker and Moneyshots. He lives in Atlanta with his husband, Tomé, and their neurotic pets.

DAN BOYLE is a Los Angeles–based writer. His first novel, Huddle, published in 2003, is about nine gay men whose team vies for the championship of the West Los Angeles Flag Football League. His second novel, Housecleaning,published in 2007, is about a gay Caltech physicist trying to find a unified principle of the universe who returns to Seattle to care for his mother who is dying of a strange form of dementia in which she falls back in time. A former newspaper reporter, Dan currently works for a large public relations agency covering healthcare.

BILL BRENT knows you aren’t reading this book for the authors’ bios. Follow Bill’s antics at www.LitBoy.com.

DALE CHASE has been writing gay erotica for eight years with over 100 stories published in various anthologies and magazines including translation into German. His first literary effort recently appeared in the Harrington Gay Men’s Fiction Quarterly.

M. CHRISTIAN is the author of the critically acclaimed and best-selling collections Dirty Words, Speaking Parts, The Bachelor Machine, and Filthy; and the novels Running Dry and The Very Bloody Marys. He is the editor of Confessions, Amazons, and Garden of Perverse (with Sage Vivant), The Mammoth Book of Future Cops and The Mammoth Book of Tales of the Road (with Maxim Jakubowski), and over 18 other anthologies. His short fiction has appeared in over 200 books and magazines including Best American Erotica, Best Gay Erotica, Best Lesbian Erotica, Best Transgendered Erotica, Best Fetish Erotica, Best Bondage Erotica and—well, you get the idea. He lives in San Francisco and is only some of what that implies.

TODD GREGORY is a New Orleans native and pornographer who has published many stories in a varied and eclectic selection of Web sites and anthologies. He has also edited the anthologies His Underwear and Blood Lust (with M. Christian). His first novel, Every Frat Boy Wants It, was published by Kensington in 2007; they are also publishing his vampire novella Bloodon the Moon. He is currently working on his next novel, about a gay gym, tentatively titled Muscles.

GREG HERREN is the author of seven novels, including Murder in the Rue Ursulines and the Lambda Literary Award–winning Murder in the Rue Chartres. He has edited numerous anthologies, including FRATSEX, Full Body Contact, and the Lambda Literary Award–winning Love, Bourbon Street: Reflections on New Orleans (with Paul J. Willis, his partner of fifteen years). He has published over fifty short stories, numerous journalism pieces, and currently lives in New Orleans with his longtime partner.

ADAM MCCABE is the pen name of a well-known mystery author. His work has appeared in a number of magazines and anthologies, including Best American Erotica 2000. He and his partner enjoy the research needed to create each story

KELLY MCQUAIN holds an MFA from the University of New Orleans and an MA from Temple University. He has twice won Fellowships from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, as well as Philadelphia City Paper Writing Awards in both fiction and poetry. His stories have appeared in The James White Review, Skin & Ink, Obsessed, The Harrington Gay Men’s Fiction Quarterly, Wilma Loves Betty, Best Gay Erotica, and elsewhere. Recently he juried the Philadelphia International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival. He is an associate professor of creative writing at Community College of Philadelphia.