Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 98643 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 395(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98643 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 395(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
If I hadn’t taken the time to drive from Casper to Eden and seen its raw beauty for myself, I would have given up on the idea of finally finding a place where I could be myself.
Just me.
Not the “gayest of gays in Manhattan” Jules.
Not the “always throws the best parties” Jules.
Not the pretty fuck toy for the “definitely not gay” guys who pretended my ass or mouth that they were sticking their dick into was a woman’s.
Out here I was… nothing. I was a blank canvas. I could remake myself, albeit temporarily, to see if I wanted the future I already had laid out before me or if I wanted to be someone, have something, that was unplanned… untouched.
I could be nothing and maybe something at the same time.
Three assholes beating me up in an alley because I’d dared to have a one-sided conversation with the old man behind the cash register when I’d rhetorically asked him whether the generic, shimmery nail polish ironically called Flushed Fairy would look good on me had made that blank canvas just a little less pristine. I’d noticed the three very not hot cowboys, all wearing plaid shirts, different colored hats, and unbecoming boots when they’d come in the store, but I hadn’t paid them much heed. It hadn’t even occurred to me to do so, and now that scared the shit out of me.
For all my talk of being the self-proclaimed Queen of the Queers in the Big Apple, I’d been one of the few and fortunate nonconformists who’d somehow managed to escape physical confrontations that left members of the queer community in the hospital, or worse, six feet under.
I couldn’t say that anymore, though I knew I was lucky.
Very lucky.
The three men’s intention, at least in the beginning, had been to humiliate me and send me a message, not beat me to death. I’d gotten a punch to the face when they’d first grabbed me as I’d left the store. The blow had left me stunned enough to allow them to drag me around the corner and into the alley. A sharp shove had sent me sprawling onto the dusty ground and then a few kicks to the ribs had followed, but the physical pain had been nothing compared to the emotional pain they’d inflicted when they’d started spitting on me.
Even now, I couldn’t stifle the silent tears as I remembered the leader’s words about my nails and changing the color to meadow yellow. The degradation of being literally pissed on by some stranger in a dirty alley had seemed unimaginable. I’d lived nearly all my life surrounded by people just like me, so whenever I’d seen stories of hate crimes, I’d been morally outraged, but it wasn’t until that moment in the alley that I finally understood what true hatred was and how truly shielded I’d been from it.
I’d wanted to die when I’d heard that zipper being pulled down and then everything had changed. In the few seconds as I’d waited for the hot urine to spray all over me, I’d cried like a child whose fingers had been burned after countless warnings not to touch the flame.
There’d been no piss. There’d only been a few grunts, screams of agony that were abruptly cut off, a cold, deadly voice giving simple, curt orders… and then silence. I hadn’t moved from the little ball I’d curled myself up into because I’d instinctively known I was no longer in the presence of a mere bully. The things someone like that could do to me were inconceivable; they were the kinds of things you could never come back from.
What had followed had been completely inconceivable.
Just not in a bad way. A really, really not bad way.
A deep soothing voice, a gentle touch with work-roughened fingertips, whiskey-colored eyes filled with desire and wonderment, and finally the mouth. That gorgeous mouth that took what it wanted but gave more back. The sensation of those rough little hairs of his short beard as they scraped deliciously over my skin. His demanding but surprisingly soft lips as he’d slanted his mouth over mine. Our tongues had danced like they’d been doing it for a thousand years.
Then that amazing mouth had been torn away like it had been burned by fire.
Except in my case, it wasn’t a burn that had scared him off; it had been the hard dick that had pressed against his when he leaned into me.
“Fuck,” I whispered to myself before realizing where I was. “Fuck!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.
I’d finally found the cowboy I’d been looking for… an actual real live cowboy who kissed me in a way that no man, real or imagined, ever had. Nowhere in my dreams, though, had I been left wanting more as our mouths had parted only to realize my dream man had wanted less.