So Long Anita Bryant and Thanks for Everything!

“I have to leave,” I said, standing awkwardly as my erection faded. I rolled the magazine up into a tight baton, a weapon to protect Jason from my touch. The moonlight painted his face in gentle blue tones, his soft lips difficult to look at, the thought of what shifted in the white sack of his briefs unbearable. His body was just within my grasp, but I backed away, farther out on the dock. “I have to leave,” I repeated, more for myself than for him. “Now. Tonight.”

I turned away and stared down into the black water; my shadowed reflection was joined by his. Ripples distorted our faces.

“The both of us,” he said, his hand on my shoulder. I shuddered from his touch and moved away from him; unfurled the magazine and pointed at the cover. He took it from me without breaking our reflected eye contact.

“I’m one of them,” I said, my throat swollen and raw, tears starting to burn the corners of my eyes. I looked down at my reflection, saw him look at the front cover, then at me, then down into the mirror of the lake. Our eyes met there, in the broken surface of the water, the moon’s light dancing around us in a shattered halo.

Finish reading "So Long Anita Bryant and Thanks for Everything!" in Best Gay Stories 2010 or The Silent Hustler