Sexy Gay Stories - Volume Four - three m/m short stories

felt a smile split my face and a hearty laugh snaked out of me before I could stop it. It felt good to laugh like that. The genuine kind of laugh that started somewhere around your belly button and burned a bright yellow trail on the way out of you. An honest to fucking god happy laugh.
    ‘OK. If Beatrice insists.’
    Recognizing her name, the mighty dog let out a deep woof that made her jowls tremble and her flanks sway. She really was quite gorgeous in an unusual and terrible kind of way. Sort of the way I felt about myself. 
    ‘Will you come with me?’ Simon cocked his head, that lovely brown hair shading his face, and blinked rapidly. He pushed his glasses up onto his nose and I grinned. A nervous tic, a habit, whatever it was, his way with his glasses and his boyish habits were charming. It took all of the fear right out of me.
    ‘You won’t put me in a pit and force me to slather lotion on myself, will you?’ I rose to my full height, gathering my trash. I had a good four inches and twenty pounds on Simon. He was no threat to me. At least physically.
    He blinked rapidly again and frowned. ‘Dear God, no. That’s just … awful.’ He said the word softy as if awful were foreign to him.
    I wished I had the same innocent naiveté with awful. ‘It is,’ I said, trying to keep a straight face. My guess was that he’d never seen the movie. ‘I’ll follow you?’ 
    We walked together, Beatrice leading the way, to the parking lot. My red sports coupe was parked to the far left. I thought about offering him a ride but where would we put the moose he called a pet? 
    ‘I’m the grey Saab. Follow me. Just in case. I’m on Oak. It’s the only yellow house on the street.’
    I nodded. Yellow for sunshine. Yellow for pureness. Yellow for laughter. ‘Got it. I will follow you and if I lose you, I will follow the trail of dog slobber.’ I grinned.
    He jerked back as if slapped and then, slowly, his face split into a smile. An uncertain shy smile but a smile. He had gotten my joke. Beatrice gave a chuff that sounded almost like a laugh. I leaned in and said, ‘I’ll see you soon, gorgeous.’ Then I got in and followed the charcoal grey Saab to the yellow house.
    When I pulled into his drive, it occurred to me that what kind of pictures? might have been a wise question. When I climbed out and waited for him to lock his car and unleash his dog, I realised it didn’t matter. He couldn’t hurt me. I knew it and he knew it. And that was very, very important.
    ‘You have a beautiful face. I‘ve seen you for a few weeks. You seem kind,’ he said shyly and walked past me. Beatrice looked back, breathing harshly as if she had run a race. I followed his broad back, swathed in a faded denim shirt. His words echoed in my head you have a beautiful face, and my scars itched for the first time in years.

    I had been thinking digital. Everything was digital now, right? Digital cameras, digital media, digital music. When Simon pulled out an honest to god camera, I did a double take. It was the equivalent of someone pulling out a typewriter to write a letter. 
    ‘Wow,’ I said, meaning the camera and his work. The large room was three walls of window and one solid wall of black and white prints: a blond young man in a pair of well loved jeans; Beatrice in a large stream, holding a stick and mugging for the camera; an older man with a scruffy beard and an easy smile; a man my age with tousled dark hair and a chiselled abdomen that made me suck in my gut; a young woman who looked an awful lot like Simon jumping in the air. He had caught her hovering, half floating in the low light of day. Surely in the photo it was dusk and she was joking with her brother. If that wasn’t his sister, I would eat my shoe.
    ‘You have a beautiful face,’ he said again and his smile was both appreciative and gentle. It stirred a sadness in my chest and a lump formed in my throat. I cleared it to try to make it go, but the lump stayed stuck. ‘Don’t be intimidated. The camera sees the truth of it all. It will love you ...’ He said it so sincerely, I was tempted to believe him. 
    ‘OK.’ I meant to sound self-assured when I said it. It didn’t happen that way. I sounded breathy and scared and I fisted my hands in my jean pockets to keep from punching something with frustration. I would not be afraid. Not of him or the camera. Not of my scars. Not that I had lost all of my beauty long ago and that his antique 32 millimetre