Free Promotional July 15, 2015

Find them on Amazon.

eBook Discount Promotion

 

 I decided to lower the prices of my two novels to just $0.99 as part of a promotion for my new book The Brat out December 21, 2014.

The eBook is available for pre-order through Amazon.

Per Pound of Flesh: Chapter 13 - Getting Fired Is Never Easy (Excerpt)

    Two weeks had gone by without John hearing from his mother and he told Brandi  that he was feeling nervous about the whole thing as she readied herself for the day in the room that had been his mother’s.  Brandi had thrown lots of stuff out, packed lots of stuff away or moved it into his bedroom, flipped the mattress and changed the sheets but it was all too familiar for him.  It was still his mother’s bed. 
   
He looked in the mirror as he flipped a cigarette end over end against the wood surface where his mother had once done the exact same thing with her own cigarette.
   
“So what are you worried about?  Are you worried he’s some kind of killer or something?”  She stepped behind him and placed her hands on his shoulders just over the straps of his undershirt.  She gripped at them as he looked at himself in the mirror with his head reflected back at him between her breasts covered in a black bra. 
   
“Your mother is a smart woman,” she said.
   
“I know.  But I called her three different times now and I guess before I didn’t really worry about it because she was just working and everything but with the money she gave us--”
   
“--hey don’t worry about it.  In part that money was ours and she just gave it back.  You can’t worry about that stuff.  She’s an adult.”
   
“I just worry about her,” he said.  “She gets so excited about things.”
   
He thought back to Clark, the man who was supposed to be their knight in shining armor, a man who was a liar and a cheat. 
   
“People have to live their own lives.  If it’s as good as she said then we all have it made.  I mean I really don’t want to inherit this dump but it’s something.  When we get our own house we can rent this one.”
   
He flipped open the lighter and sparked the wheel to create a flame.  He held it for a long moment to see the reflection in the mirror until Brandi took hold of his wrist and guided the him up to her mouth where she had placed her own cigarette.
   
“The baby,” he said.
   
“Is fine,” she said.  “It’s my only one.”
   
She used the fire and inhaled deeply before he lit his own cigarette.  He reached for her backside and she let him take it.  He gripped at her slightly enjoying the feel of flesh.  She reached back to him and grabbed the back of his head.
   
“You want to have sex tonight?” he asked.
   
“Let’s see how it goes,” she answered.
   
She stepped out of his grasp and walked from the room.  He had become excited by touching her and he wanted something more but she was teasing him.
   
He looked to the clock and saw it was quarter after eight.  He hated mornings when there was little to do.  He thought about playing video games or else watching television, maybe look for a job.  He hated the idea of looking for another job, another boss, another day trying to get by while he sunk deeper in debt.
   
He got up from the chair and walked from the room, through the trailer and exited through the front door where he found a familiar sight of the trailer park he had known for a little more than four years when Clark had made the down payment on it for him and his mother.  At least then, he thought, she was smart enough to put it in her name so that when his wife found out it couldn’t be taken back. 
   
That was the part that was news to them, his wife, the man had been married and had two children but lied to them both.  He thought of his mother out there with a stranger and he worried about her safety.  He had never met the man so he didn’t know what he looked like but he could imagine the empty hotel rooms and the long roads between them.  He flicked the butt of his cigarette out into the lawn then lit another one.
   
She had received many gifts over the years from men but they had trailed off in her later years when her age, no her spirit, had finally begun to drain.  All of his life she had been fierce, fueled by nicotine and liquor, prescription pills.  When she wanted to rearrange the furniture in the middle of the night he had learned to go along with it.  When she was having a good day it was great.  She had a will and vitality that he knew took a blow from Clark but he didn’t expect it had been terminal.  No, she was the type to get a second wind.
   
His phone rang and he pulled it from his pocket.  It was Dennis.  For a moment he was suspicious of the call, troubled somehow by why he would call so early.  Maybe Dennis had to call off and they could switch like before, he thought.  He answered it.
   
“What’s going on man?” John asked.
   
Dennis sounded about ready to cry.  John could hear the commotion of traffic, the wind.  He was walking.
   
“Are you there?”
   
“Yeah,” Dennis said.
   
“Can you talk?”
   
“Yeah.”
   
John looked to make sure no one was around feeling it was confidential.
   
“I just got fired,” Dennis said.
   
“What?  Why?”
   
“I don’t know.  I mean, I can’t talk about it.”
   
“What’s going on?” John asked.
   
“I have to get out of here,” he said.  “I took the bus to work today and now I’m stuck so I just started walking.  Can you pick me up?”
   
John knew he had hours before his shift at the grocery store and said that he could meet Dennis then asked for him to pick a spot and stay there.  Dennis told him the name of a chain breakfast food restaurant.
   
“I’ll be right there,” John said.  He hung up then headed back to the bedroom and began to search for his shoes, his socks, and a belt.  He picked them up and began to walk with them in his hands.  When he passed Brandi she asked him where he was going.
   
“Out,” he said.
   
“What about Josie?  I thought we could go to the mall.”
   
He stopped at the door and looked back to her.
   
“I can’t,” he said, “a friend needs me.  Go with Rachel if you want.”
   
“Rachel is working today.  You know that.  I thought we could spend some time together.”
   
John hated the mall.  He had a friend in need.  He wanted to make the conversation short.  He wanted to sink any thoughts about it.
   
“You’re always just looking at stuff and walking around.  There’s nothing there we need.”
   
“We can still look,” she said.
   
“Brandi we need to hold on to that money and pay some bills,” he said.  He slid on his socks and shoes then pulled open the door and exited.
   
Twenty minutes later he passed the coffee shop then thirty seconds after that he pulled into the parking lot of a strip mall and made it to the place where Dennis said he would be.  He made his way inside and to the table where Dennis sat staring at a cup of coffee.  He took a seat opposite of him.
   
“What’s going on?  I was speeding all of the way over here.”
   
“Did you get a ticket?”
   
“No, luckily no cops were out.  So what’s going on?”
   
“I got fired.”
   
“You got fired or you thought you got fired so you quit.”
   
“I got fired.  That,” Dennis lowered his voice, “fucking old queen fired me.  And it was all Mitsy’s fault.  I didn’t even make it to the lunch rush.”
   
“What happened?”
   
“He found out,” Dennis looked to John who turned his head quizzically.  “You know, about me.”
   
“Oh,” John said.  “How?”
   
“Mitsy, she saw me with this guy.”
   
“When?”
   
“This morning,” Dennis said, “I didn’t really take the bus.  I didn’t mean to lie to you.  It’s just that--” he began to cry slow long tears that ran down his cheeks.  John reached for napkins in the holder and handed them over. 
   
“He dropped me off this morning and she saw him kissing me in the parking lot.  The bitch couldn’t even wait until after lunch.  She told him almost right away.  I just knew something was up when she was cleaning up with me this morning.  It was just awkward the whole time and she kept staring at me. 
   
“Then work started and things seemed okay.  I was in the middle of getting someone coffee when she asked to meet with him and then right afterwards he calls me in to his office.  I just knew something was wrong. 
   
“So he asks me right away if I’m gay.  And I’m thinking you know like ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ but goes, you know, like, it’s already been told to him that I was and that he didn’t think it reflects well on the business because it’s a Christian business and he’s a Christian businessman.  So he says I had to leave.  Just like that.  He’s such a hypocrite.”
   
“So he just fired you?”
   
“Yeah,” Dennis said.
   
“Isn’t that discrimination?”
   
Dennis shook his head and blew his nose then gripped the napkin tight in his hand as he said, “not in this state.  There’s no protection for homosexuals in anything.  I mean I never expected to be married here but fired.  He’s a fucking miserable sack of shit.”
   
John looked around to the other tables which were mostly empty as the place was between breakfast and lunch.  No one was looking to them, not even a waitress or waiter was in sight.
   
“I don’t even know why I’m crying.  I hated the job.  I mean it sucked.  Michael was such a douche bag.  I bet he dreams about sucking cock.”
   
John smirked at the outburst then looked around again before focusing back on Dennis who dabbed at his cheeks.
   
“What am I going to do for a job?” he asked.  “I needed that money.”
   
“Hey, it’ll be fine.  I mean it’s not like you have to pay rent right?”
   
Dennis let out a deep sigh.  “My parents,” he said, “you don’t think he called them?  I mean I had to put their information on my application in case of emergencies.  If my parents found out.  I mean it was already bad enough when my mom figured out I hadn’t been in my room all night.  By the way I told them I was with you.”
   
“Just take it one step at a time,” John said.
   
“I’m in so much shit if they find out,” he said.  “All of my life I’ve had to hide who I was and now this and I can’t even keep a fucking job.”
   
Dennis looked John in the eye.  He had a look of fear John hadn’t seen before in his life.  He was exposed and vulnerable.  Some part of John wanted to cry with him but he couldn’t.  He felt like doing the opposite, to show some resilience instead.
   
“I haven’t seen a waiter since I sat down,” John said.  “What kind of service do they have here?  You might be able to work here,” John said.
   
“I hate these places,” Dennis said before he laughed then leaned close and asked with a sarcastic tone, “Do you think they are hiring?”

******

   
They were stopped in front of Dennis’s house like they had been when John had asked him if he was still gay after Dennis had come out to him on John’s birthday.  It was all there in John’s mind as he stared at Dennis in the seat next to him.
   
“Well, I wish I could take you out for a drink but my wife really wants to go to the mall and I have work later tonight.”
   
“It’s okay,” Dennis said.
   
“No really, I’m sorry,” John said.
   
“I know,” Dennis said.  “You’ve been really nice to me.”
   
“But if you need me then give me a call.”
   
Dennis opened the car door and began to stand.
   
“No really, call me,” John said.  “If your parents, you know, if they know and you can’t deal with it.”
   
Dennis turned and looked back to him.
   
“I wish I could kiss you,” he said.
   
“I know,” John replied. 
   
“Well, it’s just a dumb fucking job I didn’t like anyway.”
   
“Maybe it’s for the better.”
   
“Maybe,” Dennis said.  He moved the door slightly with his hand to close it then stopped.  It was a moment.  It was an ending.  He pulled it open to steady himself the readied to close the car door.
   
“Hey, take care,” John added.
   
“Thanks I’ll see you later.”
   
Dennis closed the door and turned away from the car as John watched him walk back to his home.  It was a mundane sight that he had seen before but it meant so much more to him in that moment.  He shifted to drive and pulled away from the curb.

Per Pound of Flesh Ch 01 - The Motel

Preview Chapter 01 from Per Pound of Flesh 

$2.99 through Amazon.com
novel with estimated > 60K words

Faced with supporting a wife and baby daughter a young man decides to go into gay porn.

01- The Motel

The swimming pool of a low-end motel just outside Baltimore, MD.  It was close to midnight and the air had cooled significantly, John worked his arms and legs to stay afloat in the deep end.  He was fine to just float, to kick his legs and move his arms in a way that he had once learned from a pamphlet left somewhere by the YMCA.

Swimming lessons were supposed to be last year’s birthday gift but his mother couldn’t get him there on the weekends because she had to work ‘extra-hours’ and now he was fourteen and going to high school next year.  He dreaded the thought of swimming in gym class if he ever had to do it.

His chin just above the surface he stared across the water to the boy he had just met that day, Kevin, who swam away with an easy stroke to the side of the pool.  Kevin was a year younger but he could swim like a fish and John suspected he was smarter too.

“Come here,” Kevin said.

John winced at the invitation because no matter how he tried he knew he would look foolish trying to swim there.  He sighed then began to cross to the side of the pool in his best doggy-paddle.  When he reached the side he grabbed onto it like a life preserver and felt relief when he was able to anchor his body to the stone.

“Are you tired yet?” Kevin asked.

“No, you?”

“No,” Kevin laughed.

“So what else do you want to do?”

“I don’t know.”

They both looked to John’s mother, Kelly, who lay on a deck chair keeping a supervisory watch over them from behind a pair of sunglasses she had been wearing since before the sun went down.

“What else is there to do mom?” John asked.

“Sleep,” she said.  “You guys have been busy playing for the last six hours or so.  Why don’t you guys go to bed?”

“I’m not tired,” John said.

“Me either,” Kevin said.  “I wish you could come back to my room I have an Xbox.”

“Do you have any good games?”

“Lots,” Kevin said.

John bit at his lip as he thought about asking to go to Kevin’s room to play video games because he suspected she wouldn’t let him but they were on vacation so it was worth asking.

“Hey mom can we go to Kevin’s room and play video games?”

“Well, I don’t know.  I’m sure they are going to kick us out any moment but I’m not sure about video games.  Your mom must be worried about you though.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Kevin said.

“John is going to be headed to bed soon.  I’m sure your mom doesn’t want you up all night.  Why don’t you go make sure she doesn’t think you’re lost?”

Kevin looked to John who shrugged his shoulders.

“Can he stay out a little longer?”

She reached for her martini glass and took a sip then held it out in front of her face, swirled the remaining liquid.  She raised the glass in an imagined toast then brought it back to her lips and drank the rest of it.

“No, I think it would be best if he headed back to his room now,” she said.

They looked at each other as they were trumped by her authority.

Preview Chapter 01 from Per Pound of Flesh (Ends Meat) $4.99 through Amazon.com

“Well, okay, but we should go swimming tomorrow morning before we have to leave,” Kevin said.

“Yeah, that would be great.”

Kevin turned and pulled himself from the water.  He walked to the chair where he picked up his towel and began to dry himself.  He looked to John and said goodnight before he wrapped the towel around his shoulders and walked from the pool area, making sure to close the gate behind him.

“Why don’t you get out of the water?  You have to be a prune by now.  Everyone else has gone inside.”  She placed the glass back on the table then reclined back into the most comfortable position.

“Okay,” he replied before he gripped the side of the pool firmly then pulled himself from the water.  He adjusted his trunks and a shiver ran out from his spine.  He looked at his finger tips but he couldn’t make out any detail in the darkness.

The area was dimly lit by the glow of a few lights placed inconveniently around the deck.  The lights were low and weak, the minimum needed for night safety or less.

“It’s cold out here,” he said before crossing his arms and moving to the end of his mother’s chair.  He picked up a towel and began to dry himself.

His mother looked up at him through her sunglasses.  She could only make out his form but she knew what was there.  He had a strong chin, broad shoulders, and naturally athletic build and he was going to be short.  He had put on a little weight over winter but she knew it would be gone in the spring when he got back into sports.  He was going to be a heartbreaker, she thought, just like his father.  He was smart, athletic, and not too cocky.  He was honest and could be very sincere but sometimes, rarely, he had a fit of anger.

“This is the life,” she said.

“It’s nice.”  He wrapped the towel around his waist and picked up the second one which he wrapped around his shoulders before he stepped to the stand beside his mother and picked up her silver, cigarette case.  He took out a cigarette and put it between his lips.

“You’re lucky I’m drunk,” she said.

“Good to know,” John said.  He picked up the matching lighter and lit the cigarette quickly before returning them both within her reach.

He had inhaled cigarette smoke a few times but was wary of lung cancer so he didn’t do it all of the time.  He took a seat in the chair on the other side of the stand.

“Clark is a nice guy,” she said.

“Yeah,” he said.  Clark was the third boyfriend he knew about since his father had left them when he was five years old.  He liked Clark.

“It was nice of him to take us on vacation for a few days.  I don’t get to take you all the places I’d like to.”

It was a thought of regret, regret for something John knew his mother had no control over.  It was a pointless thought to him.  It wasn’t meaningless because it meant she felt bad, no it was just sad.  He didn’t like sad thoughts about things you couldn’t control.

“I can’t believe everyone else had to go inside.  What time is it?”

“I think it’s after eleven.  I’m surprised that one boy stayed out with you as long as he did.”

John nodded.  Most other parents had strict bed times for their children, strict curfews and rules.  If his mother was having a good time then he knew he could have stayed all night at the pool.  He kind of wanted to.  It was nice to swim in the pool after dark because the sun wasn’t out and there was no glare.

Preview Chapter 01 from Per Pound of Flesh (Ends Meat) $4.99 through Amazon.com

In the darkness the world shrank, didn’t seem so large and so impossible.  He closed his eyelids, checked with his thumb to make sure the cigarette was secure in his hand, and let himself relax.  He wasn’t like that long before he heard the sound of a car pulling into the parking lot, shutting off, and the door opening.

If it were Clark, he thought, it would be easy to see them from where he would have to park in front of the motel room door.  He heard the sound of dress shoes on gravel and knew the man was headed their way.

“How are you guys doing?” Clark asked from the other side of the gate.  John and his mother looked to the familiar voice and smiled.

Clark was just over six foot tall with a dark Italian complexion.  He wore a white shirt and canary yellow tie, dark slacks and black dress shoes.  He opened the gate and walked to them easily with a calm, determined gate.  He was a salesman.  She always said her boyfriends were.

“I’m sorry I had to be out all day and we couldn’t do anything.  I promise I’ll make it up to you.”  He stopped at Kelly’s side, leaned in to give her a welcome kiss and took the cigarette from her hand.  He stood and took a puff before handing it back and giving her another second kiss briefly on the lips.

“Have you guys been swimming?”

“John’s been in all day,” she said.

“Probably a prune then,” Clark said.

John winced at the remark because it was what his mother had said.

“I’m fine,” he said.

“Then you probably don’t want to go back in,” Clark replied as he loosened his tie.  He pulled it off and dropped it on the chair, unbuttoned the collar of his shirt.  “Maybe we should throw your mother in.”  He took back the cigarette.

“Oh no you don’t, I’ve just had my nails done today.”

“Okay,” Clark said kicking off his shoes.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“What’s it look like,” Clark replied as he unbuttoned the sleeves of his shirt.  “I’m going to go for a swim.”

“Now?  You don’t have any trunks.”

He pulled off his dress shirt then maneuvered his undershirt around the cigarette and dropped them in her lap, stuck the cigarette between his lips and unfastened his belt.

“Clark,” Kelly said.

He turned away, from where John sat and had been watching them, towards the pool and dropped his pants.  “Nothing no one doesn’t see at home.”  He handed back the cigarette and pulled off his socks before he walked to the pool’s edge.  There John could make out the man’s form in silhouette.  He could see the man’s shoulders, the shape of his back, even his buttocks and maybe, there in the darkness was the man’s penis still covered by thin, white briefs.   Should he be seeing the man’s penis, he asked himself.  Was he supposed to look away?  What was he supposed to do?

Preview Chapter 01 from Per Pound of Flesh (Ends Meat) $4.99 through Amazon.com

The man had made no action to cover himself.  And it was true, Clark had often walked around the house in his underwear or a towel.

Clark jumped into the water in a cannonball type dive.  He popped up and let out a loud yell of relief then a sound of irritated pain before he complained about it not being heated.

“I guess I got used to it,” John said.

Clark swam to the edge and placed his hands there.

“Why don’t you join me?”

John looked to his mother who motioned for him to get into the pool.  He stood and stretched for a moment before he dropped the towels on the chair, took a few steps, and jumped.  Clark laughed at the sight before he quickly swam to the young man.

When John surfaced he was surprised to feel Clark’s hands around his sides to hook under his arm pits and he knew what was coming so he let out a playful yell then closed his mouth before he hit the water as Clark had dunked him sideways into it.  He pulled the boy up and did it to him again on the opposite side.  John let out wild laughter as he popped back up from the water.

For a moment he could feel Clark’s chest against his back, so much larger than his own body, hairy too.   Clark lifted him from the water and pushed him away then swam back some distance, stopped, and began to splash water.  John turned on the man and splashed water back in his direction.  It had been a long time since someone had done something like that and if it had been anyone else John might have been angry about it but Clark, well Clark could get away with those things.

“If we had more people we could play Marco Polo,” Clark said.

“Yeah, we were playing that earlier.  It’s a fun game.”

“Are you a good swimmer?  We could race.”

“No, that’s okay,” John said.

“Come on it will be fun.  I’ll give you a lead.”

John shook his head.

“I don’t know,” he said.  “I’m not really that good.”

“Do you know how?”

John shook his head.

“No sweat maybe we can do it later.  I can show you how.”

John looked to his mother.  It was the type of promise he had heard before but it felt more sincere.  He nodded.

“But let’s just enjoy the quiet huh?”

John nodded then watched as the man swam to the far end of the pool with an easy back stroke.  That was the lesson he should have learned, to do the back stroke.  Clark then pushed off from the wall and swam the length of the pool as John bobbed in the water.  Another lesson to be learned.  John looked to his mother who seemed to be equally entertained as if they were sharing a moment.

They swam for some time with very little contact between them, each mostly sticking to their own area of the pool.  Clark liked to swim from end to end while John clung to the wall or else did a few deep dives which he had taught himself to do.  John had forgotten he was swimming in the same pool as a nearly naked man until it was time to get out.  Very little was said.  It was more an unconscious agreement that all the joy had been drained from the event.  His mother retrieved a towel and carried it to the pool side next to the steps.

By then John was hanging onto the pool side where Clark was exiting.  It wasn’t on purpose, he thought, but as the man exited he couldn’t help but look to him, at him.  There in the light he could make out his buttocks more clearly than before and the way the cloth clung at his crotch.  His mother wrapped the towel around the man attempting to conceal him in yet another form fitting fabric.

They returned to their rooms shortly afterwards.  His mother and Clark together in one room and John in his own room, “to do things that fourteen year old boys do and to let parents do the things they want to do,” Clark had said.  John knew it meant that he had privacy to masturbate and they needed privacy to have sex.

John showered, put on a pair of underwear then lay face down on his bed.  His body felt surprisingly light, his muscles felt loosely attached to his body with a slight burn.  He thought he would be capable of swimming more but his brain was tired.

There in the darkness of his room he heard the slow grunts of his mother and Clark as they had sex.  There was a connecting door between the rooms, a thin one.  He appreciated that they were trying to be quiet, it even made him smile, but it also made him feel unlucky, even miserable to hear them and know the sounds for the rest of his life.

Preview Chapter 01 from Per Pound of Flesh $2.99 through Amazon.com

48 hr Discount Per Pound of Flesh

Amazon.com

Free Book Promotion Dec 24 & 25, 2013

Amazon Profile Link- http://www.amazon.com/Bryan-James/e/B00D31PRG0/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1387475857&sr=8-1

Free Book Promotion- Per Pound of Flesh (gay, erotica)

I decided to do something radical and schedule all of my Amazon free book promotional days then post a schedule of when they will be... 5/5 for the next 90 days. If you get the book/have it and like it or don't like it and want to tell me about it please leave a review or send me a message.

http://www.amazon.com/Pound-Flesh-Ends-Meat-ebook/dp/B00D2KON12/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1372403044&sr=1-1&keywords=per+pound+of+flesh

Per Pound of Flesh: Free Book Promotion

http://www.amazon.com/Pound-Flesh-Ends-Meat-ebook/dp/B00D2KON12/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1372403044&sr=1-1&keywords=per+pound+of+flesh

Inside the Beltway (Serialized Fiction)

As of July 29, 2013 or yesterday, I, Bryan James, have become a regular contributor of a serialized fiction story to the Swish Edition, a podcast and LGBTQ interest site for news, gossip, and entertainment.  

My series is called ‘Inside the Beltway’ and to me is my response, my answer, to the absence I feel without Queer as Folk (QaF) and the L Word.  I had different formations of this story in my head for many years, wanting something fun but also responsible.  I wanted a modern story like QaF and the L Word were for their time.  

There were little grasps at a gay story but nothing quite stepped up.  I loved the Outs but it was short lived and now the new story by Adam Goldman is something entirely different but I bet it will be genius.  There is the homoerotic Teen Wolf and True Blood but it isn’t enough.  Although personally for me I love the Teen Wolf fandom and I’m a Sterek shipper but I know it’s never going to happen.

Inside the Beltway is a serial story that is posted weekly.  It is my attempt at modern characters dealing with the current society.  My focus will be on four main characters, gay men: Bobby, Spencer, Darrell, and Triston.  These characters arose from my own personal experience.

My synopsis:

Four friends Darrell, Spencer, Bobby, and Triston are living in the D.C. are trying to make a living, make careers,and find boyfriends, hookups, and maybe a few casual sex encounters.

Darrell and Spencer know each other from college.  Darrell dropped out to join the Army where he became a linguist.  He was kicked out after it was discovered he was openly gay.  He struggles with his identity as a gay, black man.  

Spencer graduated from college and held several internships until he landed a job with a government consultant group.  He ascended quickly from mailroom to consultant but has reached a plateau in his career and needs a horizontal change.

Bobby, a second generation South Korean in the United States, comes from the Los Angeles/Hollywood area where he attended college while living with his parents.  It was during that time that he came to terms with his sexual identity and began to obsess about fitness and his body.  He traveled to D.C. for an adventure away from his family.  He works part-time as a personal trainer under the table and at department stores.

Triston is an underachiever who majored in Philosophy at college and barely passed his courses.  He is both skeptical and open minded.  He works at an adult store selling sex toys, movies, and other forms of entertainment.  He co-hosts a local munch for kinky people.

While I will attempt to keep things PG-13 I want to also explore the complexity of the character including sex life, kink, BDSM play, and other expressions that I feel people explore and/or want to know more about.  I want to do so accurately and with respect.  Some things I have experienced personally and others I have not but may find some curiosity in the representation.

For the past year I have been, ahem, researching gay life on the internet which is a new aspect of our lives not explored very much in QaF.  What does it mean to be outed on FB or have a sex tape?  What does it mean to have someone contact you after twenty years of not talking?  And how do we cope with losing our anonymity in an increasingly public society?

My exploration of these characters in a city I found to be complex in my brief time there is possible because of the support of The Swish Edition.  

Working with the Swish Edition  is very exciting for me.  I found their podcast by accident one night as I was searching for something new to listen to and before then I didn’t really listen to podcasts.  I started listening about a year and half ago and right away I thought the guys were hilarious, sometimes rude and crude but hilarious.  It was because of them that I got interested in the D.C. area and adventured down there on a job prospect.  I landed the job, though it didn’t last long, but it did give me time.

I used the money from the job to spend time writing Per Pound of Flesh, which I partially dedicated to the show, because they gave me some much needed gay hilarity.  It was because of them that I sought out more podcasts.  They told me about The Outs, Elephant, Nasty Pig, and lots of other gay interest subjects it would have taken me longer to find on my own or may have never found at all.

Our relationship started on a lark when I found a picture in the depths of Tumblr of a sex slave man who looked similar to one of the hosts.  I decided I had to send them the picture so that was when I created my email account and actually began my nom de plume identity.  

Until then it had been a struggle for me because I felt very bound to my accounts, to being the person others wanted me to be.  Bryan James for me is like Don Draper for Dick Whitman.  It is the man I want to be.  The man I am inside without history and context of people who say they knew me when.

I sent the picture, we had a good laugh, and then I connected with them on Twitter when they were having contests for new followers.  I did happen to win a small prize package, this was while I was in the D.C. area.  I had to explain to my roommate why a package might show up with a name that wasn’t mine.  She was amused.

About a year later I decided after much toil to self-publish my first book Per Pound of Flesh and then a second book Controller Cords.  Those two books for me were liberating.  I felt as if I had ripped something from myself and it became a new entity.  I had always feared doing this would be too self-harming but I found out actually that wounds heal.  

I had been working on blog stories previously, two YA stories in fact, but I lost interest in them because somehow I think I got stuck thinking about what YA should be instead of being innovative.  

Writing these two books, but more so self-publishing them, has been a great learning experience and forced me be more bold in social media.  I have taken to Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr to promote myself with minor success.  

I do have another, new story in me that I am writing as well as this weekly serial.  For me it will be the first main character that I have written in a while that focuses on a straight man.  Until I wrote and published Per Pound of Flesh I felt as if I had to represent something.  I had a compulsion to write gay characters.  I still do.  But this is a different story.  There is a gay supporting character who might also be considered a main character but this just feels different.

You can find excerpts of my books published and unpublished on my blog Briefly Told Stories.  I also write essays and reviews on my blog Queer Words Make Stories.

As per originally posted on Mychael Black Books: http://www.mychaelblackbooks.com/guest-bryan-james-2/

Reflections on Per Pound of Flesh

I had first imagined the story some years ago when I was in a large grocery store and I would always see the men who worked in the butcher department.  I began to think about what their lives must be like and how they made living.  I can’t say that I portrayed their life but it was a question that got me started thinking about the story.

The idea started first as a vignette about a young man from the butcher department needing a roommate then being introduced to a coworker who was openly gay and a student at a local community college.

I also wanted to explore the idea of a young couple with a child, something I saw at college.  I imagined a young man with bills to pay, maybe a high school diploma, and a wife.  This isn’t to say that he was worse off for any of these things but as I thought about the job, day after day, year after year it made me think about the daily grind.

Over the years as I thought about this young man struggling to pay bills, raise a child, and achieve satisfaction the character grew as my own life developed.

The story went through many iterations with initially the character falling for a male coworker and the two of them getting an apartment together, possibly a gay romance where they recognize happiness and end up happily ever after but the story wasn’t as interesting to me and the writing stalled.

I kept thinking about it and as I learned about gay-for-pay men in adult film it was an element that appealed to me.  Also, as I watched interviews with these men, watched them in porn, and how people reacted to them I was further interested.

With all of these elements I created John, his wife Brandi, Dennis, and other characters to explore the idea of sexuality, sex, and relationships.  To me John is a bisexual, naive but curious and like many people unconsciously forces himself into dilemmas in order to understand or confront some aspect of himself.

Like many people he has his own internalized feelings and fears the social consequences for what he does because of where he lives and the people he has known in his life.

In part it is the act of sex, the homosexual act of sex, sodomy, and being labeled as gay but it is also being paid for sex, the act of a prostitute and whore to those he knows.

Despite these factors he acts and engages in a pornographic film.  He is labeled by the industry as what is known as ‘gay for pay’ being perceived as a heterosexual man performing in gay sex for money.  This raises his value so he goes along with it.

This book is part one of a larger story and deals with John’s life before porn.  As the story continues I would like to deal with the theme of sex, sexuality, performance, and notoriety.

Adult film, sex work, prostitution, pole dancing, stripping, or any sexual act is simultaneously exonerated and deplored.  We want to look.  We want to know but yet it is still taboo despite the increasing depictions in popular media.  And those who do it, those we watch are often labeled as whores and exiled from society.

Though I am curious about these matters I also want my book to be entertaining and to relax people, to be a distraction after a hard week of work.  I want it to be a simulation but not practice or a guide.

If you are interested check out the preview through Amazon.com on your Kindle or other electronic device.