Wicked Gay Ways

Dear Reader: Welcome to our 2025/2026 winter/spring issue. For this issue we are delighted to feature the work of new writers and visual artists as well as some returning authors. This issue features writers and poets: Ken Anderson, (USA), Brock Archer, (USA), Dr. Lee Campbell, (Britan), Daniel David, (USA), Adam Maxwell, (USA), Oleg Olizev (USA), Red Passion, (Australia), Ethan Ramirez, (USA), Jaime Rodriguez, (USA), Miri Morley Ross, (USA), Mykyta Ryzhykh, (Ukraine/Norway), & Daniel Stride, (New Zealand).

We are also thrilled to feature the work of photographer Jon Ariza de Miguel (The Netherlands). At a time when digital photography is the norm, Jon’s embrace of analog photography is a thrilling contribution to our pages. Original analog prints ,have been digitized for electronic publication. de Miguel’s photos are untitled, as he prefers to let the images and composition tell the story. You can follow him @jonchikdub

Editorial Note

As editors of a queer literary and erotica publication, we find ourselves writing at a moment when the political landscape has turned sharply against the very communities whose creativity, resilience, and erotic imagination have shaped our pages for years. Since the Trump administration first came into power, LGBTQ people—especially transgender, non-binary, and gender-expansive communities—have faced a relentless series of structural and policy-level attacks. These include rolling back health-care protections, reinstating the military ban on trans service members, and promoting federal definitions that attempt to erase transgender existence altogether. These moves are not abstractions; they filter into everyday life as fear, restricted access to services, and heightened vulnerability to violence.

We are deeply troubled by the measurable rise in hostility that has followed these policies. Hate crimes targeting LGBTQ people have surged, with transgender women of color facing the brunt of this violence. The climate created by official actions—administrative erasure, judicial appointments hostile to queer rights, and widespread attempts to curtail our ability to live openly—has emboldened those who would harm us. When the state signals that some lives are less worthy of dignity, safety, or recognition than others, the consequences echo through every street, school, workplace, and intimate space. For a community whose bodies and desires have long been policed, these attacks strike at the very core of our right to exist and to thrive.

As a publication devoted to queer erotic expression, we view eroticism not merely as pleasure, but as a declaration of selfhood, agency, and liberation. To honor queer desire is to honor queer life. At a time when transgender people are being legislated out of visibility and basic rights, our commitment to publishing trans voices—sensuous, defiant, tender, furious, joyful—feels more urgent than ever. We stand with our trans contributors and readers, and we pledge to use our platform to resist erasure, amplify truth, and remind our community that queer imagination remains a radical force no administration can extinguish.

David Acosta & Susan DiPronio, Co Founders and Editors

Wicked Gay Ways

Taken

She took me then

With fierce fingers

Heaving bosom

And glistening thighs

Pleasure

I enter her slit

With a skilled tongue and fingers

Ecstasy floods her

Ecstasy

She pulls me closer

Her breath quick with ecstasy

She moans, undone

Red Passion is a queer writer of short fiction and poetry. Her works are featured or forthcoming in Wicked Gay Ways, Pink Disco Magazine, The Erozine, and the Incision Press Monster F*ck Anthology. She received a highly commended mention in the 2023 Stringybark Erotic Short Story Award and her story was featured in the award’s anthology, The Blue Dragon. She lives in Australia with her partner, dog and two kids. Follow her @red_passion_writings.

Man in the Mirror

In a recent attempt to elevate my mood, I rejoined a gym, so I’m “back in the gym,” yet again. Today was my secondish day back and I was feeling sore from previous workouts, but still eager to lift some weight and chase the lifting endorphins. I biked in my gym fit—An old Nike tank, thin mesh shorts, a jockstrap securing my genitals and framing my ass—to the YMCA in Prospect Park. I had a solid workout, each lift and twist bettering my body—I’m feeling good. The leisurely by nature, Young Men’s Christian Association, offers a nice steam room and sauna to end a good pump. Draped in a towel, I chat with a Canadian in the sauna—How much is your membership might I ask? Do you like the pool? It’s pretty big eh?— and simmer in the steam room, feeling the lingering eyes of a locker room Casanova. Maybe I let the towel slip a little, cleavage forms south of my belly button. Steam slides down my body, I stretch and flex a little, sore of course after a workout, my biceps wink at the guy next to me. I feel his eyes fly everywhere, a frequent flyer to southern states, but I don’t look at him. A look would spark a barter—meet me in the showers or fuck off? But I’ll embrace the purgatory, I thrive in it. It feeds me to feel desired, a reminder that I’m perfectly adequate and not a beige wall.

I take the looks and my peripheral glances of grabbed crouches, and go. Past that feels like an ice wall. A wall I’ve busted through when I was hot enough, but often I cower from the invariable advances, call it fear of the unknown. So, I bolt, in no rush to change back into my clothes in the locker room—a victory lap hurling the final shards of desire, the last looks from strangers, until someone all too familiar sees my nude body: me.

It’s almost too familiar—the hyper judgement of my own flesh—that it compartmentalizes as an old scar that still flails like an open wound. I resolve to covering myself up with my clothes and ending any IV of desire. Not for nothing, I bike home (instead of taking the subway like I had intended), a short-term solution to an old scar.I’ve been rewarding myself after my workouts with a few puffs on a joint. So, on a stranger's stoop I partake, and then schlep my gym bag, and self, back to my walk-up. I enjoy being high in my own space. I can see it differently—finally getting rid of clutter that’s been sitting on my counter, arranging my belts in a new way, realizing the bags and the hats should switch places. After I admire my stoned nesting, I start to admire myself in the mirror. My Bose QuietComfort headphones are still on my ears from the gym, locking me into the music. I start to feel myself, performing a strip tease for myself in the mirror. All good teases must come to an end, and before long I’m just in the jockstrap, socks, and headphones, dancing to The Weekend. I started zapping at my body again, critiquing it for the way my skin looks against the elastic of the jockstrap. Gravity starts pulling me from the state of “feeling myself,” as I become blocked by this wall I’m building between myself. But then, as quickly as I critiqued myself, I just started looking at myself as if I wore someone else.

I instantly forgave any soft skin around the navel, shifting my gaze unto what I desired. My pecs started popping out to say hello back to themselves in the mirror. My blood pumped arm found its way around my body, grabbing my neck and chest. My other arm was pumping something else, and when I imagined myself playing with another’s manhood, I had more appraisal for the throb, for the way the shaft might wax and wane, the unapologetic greedy head. Eventually, the jockstrap was around my ankles—why waste the scent of a good workout.

I wore the jockstrap like a muzzle—inhaling my own scent drove me crazy. My eyes rolled back in my head, and I worshipped my own pleasure. I was both the dom and sub, the top and bottom, rolling the wave in whichever direction I needed for stiff sails—the horizon, the start and end of my pleasure was myself. I was close to my destination, but I ushered myself in the mirror to keep driving. Controlling my illusion. The scenic route unwrapped when I had the jock wrapped around my neck and I choked up on it which flexed my chest like a football player. It was high tide when I—y’a know—all over the mirror. I smiled at the slut after giving him a load. Anyway, this is just a reminder to love yourself.

Adam Maxwell, (he,him) is a queer transplant living in Brooklyn, trying to discern what it means to be a man. His small-town origins splatter perspective on the modern New York City experience through his prose and poetry. Adam gives a voice to the intricacies and intersectionality of being gay in the United States today. 

Devil’s Canyon

The sun lingered faintly behind the clouds with a slight breeze—perfect weather for hiking Devil’s Canyon. He was sitting on the edge of the canyon when I spotted him from my vantage point on the ridge above him. Signs warned hikers not to get too close to the edge, but many ignored the warning, choosing to dangle their feet over the edge as if to offer a ritual dance, an homage to the gods of the underworld.

Like me, he wore heavy hiking boots, cargo shorts, and a T-shirt that stretched across his broad chest and shoulders. He was obviously built, and though I saw him only from a rear angle, he seemed to be very good looking, a guy that I would definitely hit on if I had come across him on campus or at a bar. As I approached him, I could confirm that he was extremely handsome, but I could also see that he appeared distraught. There were no palpable tears, but he seemed to be crying on the inside.

“Mind if I join you?” I asked. He did not speak, only looked at me blankly and barely nodded that it would be OK. He moved his backpack to the other side of his body to make room for me to sit. I offered my hand, “Hi, my name’s Mark.” He looked at me as if to confirm that I had said something, but something that held no meaning for him, and he did not offer his own name or his hand. He just looked down at the canyon as if the rest of the world did not exist.

“Are you OK?” I asked, genuinely concerned. As before, he just looked at me silently with blank eyes. Cautiously, I placed my hand on his leg in an effort to show some compassion. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

At that, he looked at me again with those hollow eyes, battered ebony islands in white caps of an angry sea. Then, he leaned over and kissed me on the lips. Though the kiss felt good, I gently pushed him away because he was just a stranger to me. He stared at me again, almost robotically, and kissed me again. That time, I placed my hands on his chest, but I did not push him away, so he continued to explore the canyon of my mouth.

He removed his T-shirt and then mine, placed them flat on the ground as if to make a blanket, and gently pushed me back on them. He continued to kiss me passionately as I lay on my back. I say ‘passionately’ because he kissed aggressively, exploring my mouth with his tongue, but there was really no passion in it, just a kind of mechanical desperation.

He kissed my face all over and licked his way down to my nipples and then along my treasure trail to my crotch. Slowly, but purposefully, he removed my belt, and unzipped my shorts, freeing my yearning cock. After removing my boots, he pulled off my socks, shorts, and underwear and tossed them aside.

Next, he removed the remainder of his own clothes until we were both completely naked. Returning to his knees, he bent over and engulfed my cock into his mouth. After several minutes of that delightful torture, he rose up and kissed me again. It was difficult to imagine that I could get any harder than I already had, but he seemed to accomplish the impossible. I reached over to grasp his engorged rod, but he gently brushed my hand aside.

Laying his body on top of mine, he continued to kiss me as he rubbed our cocks together in frottage. In due course, he rose up and rubbed my cock against his hole before he finally inserted it into his body. At no point did he seek my permission. To him, my permission was neither needed nor wanted. It was irrelevant.

He mounted me like a cowboy would mount a horse, and he rode me like a wrangler attempting to break a wild stallion. Clearly, this was not his first rodeo. Periodically, he would slow down and lean forward to kiss me again before returning his attention to the saddle.

Hearing voices, I rose up on my elbows to see what was happening, and I saw hikers watching us from the ridge where I had walked. Some took a glance and walked on, perhaps embarrassed, disgusted, or just plain indifferent. Others stopped to watch, but my new friend placed his hands on my shoulders and gently press me back down. It did not matter to him whether others watched or not. Like my permission, voyeurs were irrelevant to him.

He continued to ride me until I finally exploded inside him. “Thank you,” I gasped, clearly out of breath even though he had done all the work. He gave me a couple of minutes to return to Earth, kissed me again, and let me get up to get dressed. As I was pulling up my shorts, my back to him, I thought I heard him whisper, “Thank you,” but when I turned to see if that was him talking, I could not see him. His clothes and backpack were still there, but he was nowhere to be seen. He was just…gone.

Brock Archer, is known mostly for his homoerotic short stories. He has recently published three very hot gay erotic novels. https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brock+archer. His latest book, “Caught: Exhibitionism, Voyeurism, and Consequences”, a collection of short stories and poems with illustrations by Steve Jones, is due out before the end of 2025. Brock Archer is also known internationally for his creative homoerotic art. You can see more of his work @ (www.brockarcher.net).

Behind the Quill

“I say, Evans, The Dew at Dawn is your best collection yet.”

“Thank you, Donald.”

“It’s been nominated for the Kirk Prize. The Kirk Prize! Even third place would keep the lupus from the door.”

“Quite.”

“To think I once mocked your chosen vocation. What did I say? ‘Poetry is for idlers and romantic fools come unmoored from common sense. Drop the dreams, and go in for something practical.’ Yes, that was it. Seemed sound advice, what with your brother’s ironmongery firm expanding onto the Continent, and that opening in Leeds. Well, more fool me. Turns out there’s more to you than meets the eye.”

Donald raised his well-drained pint glass.

“To Charles Evans, spinner of verse and beauty. Our very own Bard of Battersea.”

Evans mustered a feeble smile.

Evans hung his coat upon the hook, and sighed. Walter Donald was not the worst, and the money indeed kept the landlady happy, but the fuss over these poems maddened him. Could they not read them and leave him alone? They’re not even my poems. Not really.

Evans fixed a quick dinner of sausage and scrambled egg, drowning it all in brown sauce. He ate in silence. His eyes drifted to the mantlepiece clock. Seven approached. Nearly time for him.

He left the plate unwashed beside the sink, and settled into his fireside armchair. He pulled out his notebook and pencil, and jotted down ideas. Just ideas. He could flesh them out afterwards.

The mantlepiece clock chimed seven.

Footsteps. Footsteps echoing across the floorboards.

The fire of the ember-coals sprang into life.

“Good evening, Charles.”

That soft Irish accent. Evans put away his notebook.

“Evening.”

The Gentleman reached for the tobacco tin. A struck match, and a grunt of satisfaction. Clay pipe in hand, the visitor settled into the other armchair.

As ever, he was clad in threadbare jacket and tattered trousers. His boots too were cracked and old, and the pipe was of rustic design. The tobacco reek hung strong. But none might confuse the Gentleman with a common tramp.

The thatch of his midnight hair framed a face of unearthly beauty, high cheekbones, and sharp, delicate features. The glow of those bright blue eyes might melt or freeze hearts. The Gentleman had stolen Evans’ affections at their first meeting, and now locked them away for reasons of his own. In exchange he served up the draught of inspiration, the sweet and maddening mead of harpists and bards.

“They love the new poems,” said Evans.

“Of course. Your readers are only human.” A long draw on the pipe. “But I sense something on your mind.”

Evans shrugged. “I feel like a fraud. It wouldn’t be so bad if they just ate up the verse, and sent me cheques for the privilege. But newspapers want interviews. Admirers write me letters. It’s all so exhausting and overwhelming. Especially when I know something they don’t. That I have, well, a muse…”

The Gentleman laughed softly. “Every artist has a muse. Else they would not be artists. But I can leave, if you wish.”

“Leave?”

Another puff upon the pipe.

“I am no Mephistopheles. There is no pact over your immortal soul. You order me to leave, and I shall. Never to return. You shall be even as I found you – struggling, and starving. A creature of the crass and the cliché, churning out hackneyed and saccharine verse for unread journals. A man who wastes his sparse savings on sodomites, and then fears the knock of landlady and policeman alike. Next to that, your current frustrations do not look so bad. Do they, Charles?”

“And yet my work before was mine. All of it. Now…”

“My dear fellow. I thought you knew better. No poetry belongs to the poet. The poet belongs to the poetry. You are merely the means by which its beauty enters this world. Fraud indeed. You overestimate your importance. You are not Faust. You are not even a scruffier Dorian Gray. You are but one fortunate mortal, come upon his dream. His muse.”

“My readers award me importance.”

“They are fools. You know better. Don’t you?”

A glint in those bright blue eyes. A glint like a winter icicle.

“I suppose I do.”

“Excellent. Let us speak no more of this. You have always loved drama, Charles. You might be better suited to the stage than the poet’s pen. But since you raise the subject… do you require my services tonight?”

Services, he calls them. As if he were a tradesman, fixing a loose roof-tile.

Evans recalled the Gentleman’s previous visits. “Most definitely.”

The bedroom door closed; the curtains pulled tight. The ritual began.

Evans pressed his mouth to the Gentleman’s lips. He drank in the sweet sensation, the taste of the tongue. A dangerous act. Deadly, even. And yet Evans knew neither he nor his verse could survive without it. Already he felt his penis stirring, eager and hungry.

He drew off that tattered jacket, and unbuttoned the Gentleman’s shirt.

The lean and taut muscles beneath demanded worship. Such flesh, such a body, it might have been sculpted from marble, more fit for art gallery or cathedral than a poet’s gaslit bedroom. I have him all to myself.

Evans smiled. His doubts had indeed been foolish.

Clutching at the body, so cool to the touch, he licked the proffered chest. The reek of tobacco was gone, and in its place the wistful scent of a lost spring evening.

“You need me, do you not?”

And Evans whispered: “To know you, to taste you… is to need you.”

“Good,” said the Gentleman. “You’re a sensitive man, Charles, so banish those phantoms. I only wish to help.”

“Thank you.”

“A grateful poet is a happy poet.”

Evans’ earlier love-affairs had been rushed and furtive, always laden with the fear of the police and scandal. But with these encounters, he might take his time. The Gentleman preferred it that way.

So do I.

Kneeling on the bed, he savoured the ivory whiteness of the body before him. So smooth and beautiful in the gaslight, it was a masculine form of Renaissance dreams, as filtered through the smouldering genius of the Celts. Women might swoon over such as this. Evans could do more than swoon. Hair black as coal, eyes like sapphires, that face alone invited the loving verse of a thousand sonnets.

Even were he not my well-spring, so I would devour him. So might anyone worthy of a poet’s soul.

He tickled the Gentleman’s testicles, and kissed his erect penis from base to tip. Only once this poem was complete did Evans start the first canto. He took the penis in his mouth.

This earned a moan from his muse.

“Ah, Charles.” The Gentleman caressed Evans’ hair with clever fingers. “I chose you well, and not just for your haunted boyish looks. It has been long since I have known your like. The last was burnt to ashes before the doors of a church, and borne high upon the western wind...”

He murmured something in an unknown tongue.

With skills honed in alleyway and private chamber, Evans licked the penis-head, his lips and mouth working at flesh and foreskin. He glanced up at the Gentleman. The blue eyes were shut, lost perhaps in the mists and visions of another age. But groans sounded from the throat. The dam was breaking, slowly, slowly…

“Ahhhhh.”

With a clutch at the bed-sheets, the Gentleman spilt his seed in Evans’ mouth.

Evans swallowed. Inspiration is salty on the tongue, an ale like no other.

The Gentleman regained his breath. He smiled, teeth white and gleaming.

“It is a perilous game we play, Charles. But without the peril, there is no poetry, and I do not lack in generosity. Let me reward you. I daresay you have earned a fanning of your own flames.”

He lay on his stomach. The Gentleman’s middle-finger was inside his anus, massaging and toying. It stirred Evans to ever-greater peaks of pleasure.

An unearthly spell indeed. But then all poets weaved enchantment. Why should his beautiful muse be any different? Evans moaned into the feather-softness of the pillow.

The Gentleman threw him onto his back, and kissed him.

The playful fierceness surprised Evans, but only for a moment. Even as the strong tongue duelled with his own, he grasped that midnight hair, and curled it around his fingers. He ran his other hand over the Gentleman’s back, stroking the silken skin.

At last, the muse pulled his mouth from Evans’. Grinning, he caressed the poet’s chin.

“I can stop, Charles. Any time you like. Say the word, and I shall leave you to the monastic chastity of your pen and books.”

“No, please no.”

Evans stared up at the ceiling.

“Take me, you perfect bastard. Take me, before I explode.”

They rubbed chemists’ oil onto the Gentleman’s penis, until the flesh ran slick from base to tip. Not what the manufacturer intended, but it works. Evans had tried olive oil before, but never again. That stuff stung.

The Gentleman laughed, and gently stroked himself.

“Ecce homo.”

Evans kissed him. Kissed his chest. Smelt the spring upon the skin.

“Enough,” the poet whispered. “I need your inspiration inside me. Right now.”

**

Evans crouched upon the bed, and offered himself up for defilement. A ritual better than any Sunday service. Church ministers rail against bodily lust. More fool the ministers. The carnal had always inspired Evans’ most spiritual verse.

The Gentleman grasped the poet’s hips, and eased himself inside. A good fit. Evans smiled. A glorious feeling, a penis inside you.

I am no tight little virgin, wincing in pain. I have danced this dance before.

The thrusts came slow and measured, a rhythm both controlled and decadent. Evans mustered his restraint, and let the pleasure build. Better this way. Must not rush. He groaned, even as he felt sweat beading across his skin.

He heard his lover’s laboured breathing, along with other mysterious murmurings. The Gentleman might have been humming a song of yore. But Evans did not inquire further.

The rhythm of the thrusts grew in vigour, and the bodies became ever-more drenched with sweat. At last, Evans felt the tell-tale prickling sensation.

“Ready,” he told his companion. “God, so ready.”

He surrendered to the desires of the flesh. He clutched his own erect penis, and stroked himself with a hunger both eager and frantic.

“Holy God.”

Even as he blasphemed, he felt the Gentleman reaching his own climax. A summiting gasp, and the sweet heat of seed filled Evans’ anus.

Just in time for Evans’ own furious culmination.

Even as the semen spurted forth, and Evans lost himself in the shuddering moment, he felt the fires of raw creation descend upon his soul. The mead of poetry, rich and thick with promise. His muse had come to his bed, and he had given.

And the poor fragile poet was lost for words.

Clad in dressing-gown, and stopping only for milky tea at three, Evans laboured through the night at his desk. His forefinger blistered from the frenzy of writing. The papers before him bore the scrawls of pounding, unforgettable verse. So much beauty to unleash upon this grey and dreary world, and so little time to do it.

“The curse, alas, of the mortal poet,” he told himself.

He smiled and wiped the sweat from his forehead. His mind was still afire, but sex and scribbling had drained his poor body.

The Gentleman still lay upon the bed, naked and relaxed, a figure of sculpted art in the flesh. Hands curled behind his head, but sleep never claimed him. Rather, he stared at the shadows on the ceiling, whispering to himself. Mourning, perhaps, the passing of the ages, and long years of sorrow.

The curse of something more than a mortal poet.

Evans resumed his work.

The mantlepiece clock chimed through the walls.

When Evans looked again at the bed, the Gentleman had vanished.

Daniel Stride has a lifelong love of literature in general, and speculative fiction in particular. He writes both short stories and poetry; his first novel, Wise Phuul, was published in 2016 by a small UK press, Inspired Quill. A sequel, Old Phuul, is due out in the near future. He likes chocolate and cats, and can be found blogging about the works of Tolkien (among other things) at https://phuulishfellow.wordpress.com/. Daniel lives in Dunedin, New Zealand.

The Dark Makes Gods of Anyone

Rawhide, 3 a.m.

No safe word. No rules.

Just the push of bodies,

a door that didn’t close,

his hand on my back,

and then none at all.

Small as a breath held too long.

No light, just heat and noise,

slurping, moaning, wet commands,

bassline bleeding through the wall,

beer breath at my neck,

piss and cologne in the air.

Hands—too many, too much—

inside, across, claiming.

Not gentle. Not asking.

They knelt, but not to pray.

Someone’s fingers slick with spit.

Someone’s tongue in my ear or my mouth,

I don’t know.

Something hard pressed to my back,

a belt buckle, maybe,

a ring, a fist, a knee.

My zipper down, breath on my hole,

wet breathing everywhere,

groaning into my neck like gospel,

grinding like need,

like they were all looking for the one

and maybe thought it was me.

I bit my tongue to stay there,

swallowed myself.

The floor—a sticky mess,

all sorts of remains.

The musk of cock and stale beer

wafted deep in my nose.

My hands were always

searching for surface,

for something solid,

in the dark.

I knew I’d never tell him.

The dark makes gods of anyone.

Then the door cracked,

a slice of light, too clean,

and all their faces turned.

Locals, mostly silent.

One with a wedding ring.

One biting his lip.

My boyfriend not there,

or maybe he was,

but didn’t stop it,

didn’t see me,

or saw enough

to turn away.

No altar, but I bled there.

I rinsed,

but the smell stayed.

Spit. Sweat. Him.

Them.

In the gums, in the throat,

a bruise shaped like nothing.

I came out different.

No one noticed.

The bar was louder than before.

Or maybe I was.

Behind the Badge: Breached and Served

Even steel breaks when bent just right.

Waited, empty, bone-cold.

Ached for years, longing.

Caged, locked—suffocated,

by endless, hopeful want.

Faint, nervous tap—hushed.

Door hinge, old, creaked.

Winter. Dark.

Shadow slipped in—swift.

His shoulders, broad,

framed, deep-shadowed

by TV’s low buzzing light,

and heavy-starched, pressed, blue shirt,

unbuttoned, open, loose.

Chest—full, musk, warm,

thick-haired, coarse, dark,

commanded the booth.

His velvet kisses—plenty, full,

rich, slow, soft-searching.

And calloused, rough hands—firm,

gently gripped, then slow-stroked.

Yellowed long johns, holey, thin,

peeled soft, down to the ankles.

Thick thighs, spread wide.

Ass toned, round, shaven bare,

wanting, raw, spit-ready.

Me, wedged stiff, tight,

deep inside, burning.

Moans, swallowed—half-throated.

Stale air livened, stirred

by sharp, hot, soaked breath

and our scent.

Fierce release,

Sudden—unreal, just realized.

His exit—

Silent. Rushed.

Out. Fast. Ice-cold.

I grinned, sly.

Uncaged, unlocked, free now.

Left him flooded—

claimed—ever mine.

Sunday Mornings at the Arcade

Wall split—

Built, not broken.

Picked slow,

whittled through.

Sacred glory,

fist-wide.

Paint chips on palms.

Fingers, splintered, cut.

A space for

ritual and offering.

Ready. Summoning.

men, Men, MEN.

From the shadows,

ball-capped, faceless;

Latinos, bull-balled.

Grunts, not moans.

Beer breath,

intoxicating.

Bleach and cum sting.

Not filth—

reclaimed reverence.

Fingertip at circle’s edge,

Signaling, calling, daring.

Spine curves.

Knees drop.

Holes tense, pulsing.

Slick. Sweaty. Filthy. Frothing.

Shallow breath, swallowed.

Mouth, ass, ears,

eyes wide open.

Dick lit by dark—

Hooded. Veiny. Heady.

Dark heat,

blistering cold.

Unforgettable.

Throat lubed, dripping,

unflinching, steady.

No gag.

Tears spill.

Snot strings.

Worked. Claimed. Mastered.

But here, in the dark,

I am mine.

Seed settled deep.

Heat burns through,

but cold settles in.

For a second,

I was nothing.

Then everything.

Now, twitching, raw.

Still here, but now unchained.

Not for love,

remade, remade

in my own image.

Remembered by mouth.

Used, yes.

Wrecked, no.

No name. No voice.

Less man—

More queer me.

Unbroken. Forever.

Jaime Rodríguez (he/him) is a Chicano poet from the Rio Grande Valley. His work blends English and Spanish to explore queer desire, cultural silence, and the charged landscapes of the borderlands. Rooted in memory, ritual, and coded language, his poems move through cruising grounds, domestic spaces, and the quiet aftermath of longing.

Lee in Leatherland

Link to poetry film version:

https://filmfreeway.com/LEEINLEATHERLANDNSFWVERSION2025

If I may be so bold as to say that I looked hot in my leather

jacket walking through forests, through trees, in amongst the heather

Still I could not find Tom of Finland

I’d just spent the week in Helsinki chasing ghosts

bulging black-and-white men drawn in ink,

leather gods imagined by Tom of Finland

At first, I couldn’t care less

who was propped against the bar beside me

One gloved hand on a bourbon, the other dangling

like he was waiting for the night to start,

but already bored of the boys, the beat, the bodies

And now back at home in London

These ghosts weren’t in Soho, nor lurking near King’s Cross

and not even in that overpriced gallery in Shoreditch

So here I was—Vauxhall,

under scaffolding and railway arches,

hunting fantasies under fluorescents.

Still no Tom.

Inside, it was sweat, steam, and sex in the air

Harnesses squeaked.


Boots stomped like punctuation marks.


Poppers hissed and bottle caps flicked off like prayers.

The music thumped with all the subtlety of a drunk drag queen,

but I wasn’t really listening

There was no Tom of Finland waiting at the backroom door

Only diluted pop music, overpriced beer

And the unmistakable smell of anticipation soured by reality

Northbound overground

Southbound underground

Say you’re straight but play around

In Vauxhall gay playground

Which leather boy tonight crowned?

Get in the drinks, it’s your round

‘til orders last, bell sound

Then bus it home, northbound

I saw the hairless lads lining the wall

Their polish, their perfume

Their gentle eyes and polite smiles.

But I crave someone with bite, That frisson, that rub,

That filth, that tension,

Flesh meeting flesh with friction

Enough to ignite leather bound erotica

Then, he walked in.

The room changed temperature

Or maybe I did.

He looked like he’d arrived by accident

but belonged more than anyone

Straps pulled across his chest like scaffolding

Thighs thick as scaffolding poles

Cargo shorts hacked off at the knee, fraying, filthy

Tattoos slipping beneath worn leather like secrets I wanted to earn

Your sorrows how they got drowned

Shots you had, pints downed

Tonight, you’re not the one crowned

in striptease, final round

Your mate Jake the Trouser Snake

left the judges spellbound

His mighty rake is Earth renowned

for length, depth, girth, mound

Snakey Jakey knew how

to be clever with his towel

Leather peeled off like he’d done it since birth,

slow, teasing, cheeky

He didn’t wink. He didn’t need to

Every move screamed: I know you’re watching

You should be

The bulge,

Massive

Like a rolled-up flag of a kingdom long lost

The crowd gasped

Your sorrows how they got drowned

Shots you had, pints downed

Tonight, you’re not the one crowned

in striptease, final round

Your mate Jake the Trouser Snake

left the judges spellbound

His mighty rake is Earth renowned

for length, depth, girth, mound

Snakey Jakey knew how

to be clever with his towel

Leather peeled off like he’d done it since birth,

slow, teasing, cheeky

He didn’t wink. He didn’t need to

Every move screamed: I know you’re watching

You should be

The bulge,

Massive

Like a rolled-up flag of a kingdom long lost

The crowd gasped

I stayed silent

In awe. In lust. In disbelief

Thought that he may have frowned

Wind him up, up wound,

when say to Jake, ‘Get your snake

to Bounds Green, Greens Bound’

Condom pack in cupboard found

Tied to bed. Gagged, bound

All night you take Jake the Snake

Get your worth of pink pound!

Get your worth of pink pound!

Then he turned,

slapped his mate’s arse, shouted:

“Oi Lee, the gents in ‘ere smell like damp fucking badger’

What I then get is pure Croydon,

‘Oi, Gav, you see where I left me vape?’

Voice all Asda and alleyway.

And like that, I was grounded

My ears pop

I crash down to earth with a bump

Oh my. And to think, one had fancied that!

And then — he speaks.

Back on Earth, in Vauxhall

Boots sticky on beer.

Leather turned to fabric.

Fantasy folded into reality

His duffel bag tag swung loose:

Jake Chambers, 14 Station Road, Croydon, CR12 4XS

Not quite Tom of Finland

But I’ll remember him,

the boy who stripped the room of breath,

who plucked his brows but scratched his bollocks,

smelled of sweat, and showmanship,

and wore his kink like a crown

Jake the Snake of Croydon

Prince of arches,

Master of bulges,

Blessed and bound

in the gospel of the pink pound

This South London siren with a scuffed chain

and a jawline that didn’t need fantasy

to make me fall a little bit in love

Lee in Leatherland with the beer-breathed Adonis from Zone

Jake the Snake who likes to have his snake and eat it!

Dr. Lee Campbell is an artist and Senior Lecturer at University of the Arts London. He has performed extensively across the world since 2000 including solo performances for the National Poetry Library, Brighton Fringe, Whitstable Biennale and Prague Biennale. He will be headlining Rhymes and Stitches in January 2025 and will be a featured poet at Oxford Poetry Library and Big Trouble, Rochester later in 2025. His debut poetry collection ’See Me: An (Almost) Autobiography’ was published by London Poetry Books in November 2024. Other publications of his poetry include The Atticus Review, Ink, Sweat and Tears, Otherwise, You Are Here - The Journal of Creative Geography, Queerlings, New Note Poetry, Streetcake. The New Normal and Step Away Magazine. His chapbook ‘Queering the Landscape’ was shortlisted for the 2024 Broken Spine Chapbook Poetry Competition. His experimental performance poetry films have been selected for many international film festivals since 2019. 

Peaches

I watch his body move,

and I consider a peach:

he had grown as the blossoms did

before they were drunk by Xu Xian.

He was baby pink

against forest green.

I missed this,

my own face white in the grass,

for which I lament,

but the tea has been served

and I drink too.

I take in the sight of the peach petals

floating in steam.

The pink in his cheeks grows

as I tell him this.

I am a snake, he a man.

Perhaps we had been separated by Heaven

for falling in love again.

I touch his hand, hard and soft,

as I eye the petals on the table:

They have been drained of their color.

He is a nice boy.

Soft as the peach is sweet.

I take a bite of pastry

and wonder what it must be like

to consummate the peach with a bee.

A bee to a peach.

It flutters away once it is satisfied,

content enough to want no more,

but I want to stay.

I suppose that, in that regard, I am the snake again:

his match made,

but lost for circumstance

forbade their union.

He brings me fruit,

a delicate pink

in my brown hand,

and I take a bite.

The juice is sweet enough to drink.

He is a nice boy.

I take his hand in mine,

hard and soft,

and stand him up.

I lead him away from the table

and up the staircase.

To be the bee to his peach.

Sex On The Beach

The miracle move-on drug is in my cocktail

to help this lovesick dirtbag take flight

toward a tequila sunrise.

The bartender pours another drink—

her name is Margaret—

to make me feel seen.

I prefer nicotine.

So I step out to smoke my cigarette

and trace along the smoke ring

that issues from the end.

Margaret watches, rolls her eyes,

and drops another pill in my cocktail.

I drink it.

And an ocean rises around me:

it bears a bowl of fruit,

and a dog is in the background.

He runs amuck in the sand.

I am in my suit;

I swim in the alcoholic waters,

arms cutting through the liquors and having sex on the beach.

The sunset is tequila-colored.

The dunes take on the shape of the dog.

And I see a face:

there is a bar on the beach,

and another bartender is naked, presenting me another.

He was watering flowers

before the bar appeared.

He’s ruining my life.

Pears sit atop the bar,

and I try to share one with that beautiful boy.

He turns away and wears a seashell.

I know what’s underneath.

I say,

Adam to Adam,

can I tell you a secret?

I spit out the pill.

And his face through the incandescence

is sour as the lemon wedge

in my drink.

He turns me out of Eden,

and I let him.

I’ll be back again:

the cherub has been ineffective with his golden sword;

his tool is soft and is worth a pour into the glass.

And I tell the bartender,

I ate of the trees, and the one which has been forbidden.

I am a voyeur to Eve in her innocence,

and, truthfully, I am jealous,

for your bar is not Eden

but a dark paradise

where my intoxication is not trivial

nor a pretty sight.

It is a locker room

there on the sand,

and my nudity is eagerly awaited by you

as I prepare to wash away

the sweat, the sand, and the alcoholic remains

of my day at the beach.

I know you’ll miss me,

so I shall save the pills for you.

The apparition of a face grows weary

as I tell him this.

It is not a lament, but lovesickness.

I am terminal.

And back in the bar,

Margaret bows her head and tells me,

You’ve had enough.

I think she saw what I saw.

Or perhaps she saw God,

and is the prophet to lead me right.

Regardless, I shall drink what she serves.

Good Boys Gospel

Call me a good boy.

I deserve it.

I watch the needle

point to me,

north in regard to the magnetism

of my sex.

The compass undoes itself

by the sway of my hips,

its tip

licking the cardinal points

as if they were verses.

I arch under your gaze,

breath a metronome for your hips,

my skin glazed over with moon fever.

Your hands tremble at my throat,

finding the pulse you once called

yours.

I let you press harder:

—until my vision stutters into snow

—until my hips push from the bed.

I whisper your name

—mine—

like a psalm split open,

my tongue slick with your saltburn,

your teeth at my nape,

your nails a blade

that writes scripture into my spine.

I am your altar,

your orchard,

your heretic lamb—

every bite you take is a sermon,

every bruise a testament.

Call me a good boy

to the marrow

as I open beneath you,

flower and blade both,

a ripe confession on your lips.

I deserve it.

I deserve every trembling syllable,

every trembling kiss,

every last red ache

that you can give.

Ethan James is a poet of queer longing, ritual, and ruin. His work traces desire from the barroom to the bedroom, from honey-slick devotion to psalmic submission. His poems have appeared in The Vagabond’s Verse and in the mouths of men who should have known better.

Beloved Butt Plug 

I love love love my butt plug. My dearest toy, my butt plug is entirely mine, my secreted selfish

pleasure. My infatuation. My autoerotic ecstasy. In those precious moments with my butt plug,

nothing else exists. Nothing else makes any fucking sense. It’s as if, with this vice device, I have

some small, intimate control over a chaotic life. As a novice, I found a reasonably dimensioned

cucumber or finger wouldn’t do, and I considered various handy household products which

exhibited adequate insertable properties, but I was prudently wary of a possible, perhaps

inevitable, trip to the Emergency Room.

My newest butt plug came in three sizes (I came in all three.) and in a black velvet pouch

designed to make the probes even more special. Like Goldilocks the middle one fits just right.

Nice and tight. (Chair, porridge, bed, butt plug.) Its teardrop form is made of shiny slippery

seductive stainless steel with a pretty pink plastic jewel attached to the end which reminds me of

a bicycle reflector. When I spread my cheeks, instead of viewing an unsightly anus, a bit of

fashion accessory appears. Surprise! I explored various curvatures, lengths and diameters. I tried

that soft silicone nonsense, but that version made the whole house smell something funkier than

ass. And I found I enjoyed the unyielding finality of the metal. I didn’t go for the fox tail

attachment as I grew up on a farm and saw far too many filthy tails. And the tail seems so damn

silly (As if any butt plug isn’t silly?). I get the fuzzy fetish, but the juxtaposition of fur and ass

simply does nothing for me. However, recently, I thought about a chain leash clipped to the end

to give it a little yank now and then. Or maybe I could ask someone special to give it a little yank

now and then. Or maybe lead me around the room now and then. Maybe for an entire afternoon

now and then.

Surprisingly, for many years, I was never interested in anal penetration, or rather my

partner and I just never got around to the task. (I would never think to ask a woman to give me a

good pegging with a strap on.) Simply not my style. And regardless of a near buggering by a

couple of other boys in a tent, for the longest time I didn’t crave a dick up my ass (Though I must

admit a dick in my mouth is my obsession – that sensation of a silky smooth glans gliding over

my lips and tongue then nudging the back of my throat.). Despite the tedious preparation and

tidying up afterward never mind the completely ridiculous notion of this source of pleasure, I

love my butt plug. I lube it up and pop it – no, ease it, slip it – in in in, oh my in – then give my

hips a little twist (“Twist and shout! Come on, come on, come, come on, baby, now . . .”). For

home or office, for work or play, up under my “skirt,” I can go all day. It gets me through

monotonous meetings and compiling useless, mind-numbing interoffice memoranda. The most

exquisite experience: I’ve worked my butt plug into its place. It finds and wriggles against my

prostate – thank you very much. Clamps are attached to my nipples (the pinch just tolerable)

with a little chain between the pair that bounces and slides on my chest when I get to rocking

back and forth. I squirt lube in my palm, slather shaft and pointy end, slippery and sloppy on my

cock. I open a window, raise the screen. Slip n’ slide, grunt and buck. “Aw fuck!” I cum at the

sky and gift the world. I cum cum cum deliciously harder and faster on my lovely beloved butt

plug.

Daniel David, writer and artist, lives along the southern shore of Lake Erie in North America. A Pushcart nominee, they were awarded Arts Council Individual Excellence Grants for poetry and the visual arts. Their poetry and prose appear widely in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Their publications include articles in the Journal of Creative Behavior, chapbooks Close to Home and Two Buddha, a novel Flying Over Erie, and a book of poems and drawings titled Drawing Nirvana.

CHANCE ENCOUNTER

That night, in the open field, we rubbed

against each other nude

until, like sticks, we caught

on fire

in a pure, affirming ecstasy.

Then we quietly dressed

and went our lonesome ways.

OBSESSIVE LULLABY

He left around midnight, not saying goodbye—

a sexy young man with a gleam in his eye.

My heart is now crawling and begging to die.

I loved the guy so. Now I’m left high and dry.

All I want is to sit in a chair and ask why.

I really don’t have a legit alibi

for letting myself —all for love— go awry.

Such comedy-drama I can’t justify,

but my heart has a will that I cannot deny,

a longing for love that I can’t satisfy.

All I want is to sit in a chair and just sigh.

A sports coat, a tie, one last pitiful cry—

then I’ll go into town, and I’ll find a new guy

with a smile that’s so sweet I’ll get high as the sky

and a wink that’s so coy that I will not be shy.

I won’t care if he’s true as a June dragonfly

or a bee in a big field of flax in July.

Guess I’ll pull myself up and then give it a try

with another young man with a gleam in his eye.

God, I hope I don’t fall for the first passerby.

Ken Anderson, Island of Wak-Wak Press (Orebro, Sweden) recently released his The Ward at Twilight: Goth Poems, which became a nominee for the 2025 Elgin Award. Red Ogre Review Books (L.A.) released his The Goose Liver Anthology (Mother Goose Meets Edgar Lee Masters’ Spoon River Anthology), and was also a nominee for the 2025 Elgin Award. His first poetry book was The Intense Lover. Coffin Bell Journal nominated his poem “Blood Quartet” for the 2024 Best of the Net anthology. He was a Finalist in the 2021 Saints and Sinners poetry contest.

Inheritance of Stains

Some public bathroom — under a club, maybe a station. Doesn't matter. Just the stink. That industrial rot, bleach over puke, tile sweating under neon. Scrawled on the walls: I suck in this stall, looking for something big, don’t knock, just come in. Mirror’s cracked. Light flickers like it’s about to quit. All as it should be.

He showed up out of nowhere. Short. Strung out skinny. Eyes the color of scrubbed bone. Black tee, jeans loose around the hips like they’d given up. He didn’t smile. Just said:

"Ready?" he asked.

I didn’t answer. I just pulled down my pants, turned around, and bent over the toilet. The tile was cold — cold like fear.

He unzipped right away.

His dick — big. Arched.

He spit into his palm, slicked it up, stepped behind me.

"Tell me if it hurts."

"It won’t," I said.

He went in hard. No slow touches. No warm-up. I rasped — not from pain, but from clarity.

My hands slipped along the dirty toilet. The air burned my throat. The stench — it felt like a blessing.

He was pounding inside me. Deep and steady.

I could feel him taking all of me. Every last piece.

Like he was ripping out everything I didn’t need anymore.

“Fucking whore,” he said.

I nodded.

He sped up. Grabbed me by the neck and hair.

Didn’t choke — just held me. Like a thing. Like an animal.

I shook, melting into the tile, into his rhythm, into this filthy, sticky reality — brighter than any kind of love.

He cummed in me. No rush. With a final thrust.

I cleaned his dick with my mouth, swallowed the last drops of cum.

He stepped out of the stall. Silent. Zipped up. Then said:

"Don’t wash. Let it stay. That’s your name now."

Then he was gone.

I stayed. Still bent, still shaking. The stench of bleach, urine, and something human hung thick in the air. And his scent — sharp, singular — clung to me like memory.

I cried. Not from pain — from the weight of fullness. From the sense that something vital had passed through me and stayed.

I was empty and overflowing at the same time.

And in that strange, cracked moment, my body responded again — unasked, unashamed.

***

Thomas was sitting on a bench near the subway exit, smoking. He stared at his phone, not reading, just waiting. I walked up slowly — he didn’t look up, just said,

“Where were you?”

I sat down beside him. My knees still shaking, my stomach twisted. Something lingered inside me — warm and deep.

“In the bathroom,” I said.

“Alone?”

I looked ahead. People swam past like fish — silent, distracted, unaware.

“No.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. Young. Skinny. But he… had something. Big.”

“How old?”

“Maybe twenty.”

“You let him?”

“Yeah. Over the toilet. No words. It just happened.”

Thomas took a slow drag. The smoke curled around my throat.

“Was he beautiful?”

“Yes. Devastatingly. His image hit me like a wave.”

Silence. A breath.

“He’s still in me,” I said. “I didn’t clean up. I’d carry him in me if I could.”

Thomas turned to me.

“Show me.”

I stood. Stepped behind the corner. Pulled my pants down and spread my cheeks.

He came closer. Squatted down. Ran a finger between my cheeks. I relaxed my hole, and cum started to drip out. Thomas leaned in, pressed his lips to it, and hungrily swallowed every last drop.

“Dirty,” he said. “He went in deep. All the way.”

“Yeah.”

“You like that?”

“With you — yeah. Without you — yeah, too.”

“Slut.”

“Yeah.”

He stood. Pulled me into him. Forehead to the back of my head. His breath was heavy. His heartbeat was steady.

“I love you,” he said. “Because you give yourself to others.”

“Why?”

“Because even after them — you come back to me. Dirty. Worn out. Mine.”

I turned. Kissed him. Open-mouthed. Starved. He grabbed me by the ass — hard enough to leave a memory.

“Let’s go.”

“Where?”

“The park,” he said. “I want to watch you get taken again.”

“Alright. As long as you’re there.”

“Always.”

Oleg Olizev was born in Siberia and defrosted in New York. His recent publications include Panorama: The Journal of Travel, Place, and Nature, BULL: Men’s Fiction, Beyond Queer Words, Cathexis Northwest Press, OFIC Magazine, Stone of Madness Press, Night Picnic, The Ana, Audience Askew, The Argyle Literary Magazine, Untenured, Neon Origami, and Half and One. Website: https://x.com/Olizev_Oleg

What happens during an air raid siren

He moistened my anus with saliva and the light outside went out. The sky and electric poles know perfectly well when it is time for them to collapse and crush the naked bloodied people with their chests pressed against the guns. He takes his cock out of his underpants and sparks fly because the scream cannot be hidden. And I'm screaming like I'm dead. And he screams like a crucified. And we scream as if the Magi did not see the stars in the sky. We silently believe in a miracle like birds slaughtered for the sake of the Christmas table. We sing near the broken table. He tells me to suck his cock deeply because his cock is supposedly huge. I do not argue in comparison with my indifference, everything in this world seems huge. All I need is airy bread and cum on my lips. I am not interested in the tasks of historians and social benefits. I'm at the bottom. We are at the bottom. He slowly inserts his cock into my anus. The god who hovers in his own absence inserts an iron crossbar into the excited member and pours the seed into the scrotum. A God who cannot imagine human life knows perfectly well that nothing will happen after our fucking because I don't even have a vagina or ovaries. Nobody knows anything. My belly is empty. The light is on. Light inside. Inside the gut. Inside the belly. Inside the heart. Inside an indeterminate organ of the body. Fuck me like your faithful dog, God. Strangle me during orgasm God. The last candle in the sounds of minutes is burning for you, Lord. A candle burns in memory of you, Lord. He cums in my ass like an ancient greek hero descended from the pages of a historical atlas. The temple of the naked body is erected much better and the orgasm comes faster during the announced air raid.

Mykyta Ryzhykh (he, him) Author from Ukraine, now living in Tromsø, Norway. Nominated for Pushcart Prize 2023, 2024. Published many times in literary magazines іn Ukrainian and English: Tipton Poetry Journal, Stone Poetry Journal, Neologism Poetry Journal.

Dream Book

My sin isn’t original;

it has been named a thousand times. I see

the world rise

and die

between your thighs.

The taste of rust and earth,

godflesh

before me

I wonder that your skin bends to my touch

that I can impress myself upon the divine

A cloud,

a spell,

speaking tongues to me,

elevate my name.

My tongue

at the core of you,

an incantation

ancient

and ours.

At my altar I have made

a hundred goddesses,

bent them to my will,

heard their confessions

and forgiven

their sins.

At my altar I have spilled

wine and life,

broken open fruit

and drank its juice

with a thirst that threatens

to choke me.

Miri Morley Ross (she, her) is a writer living in New York City. She can be found at mirimorleyross.bluesky.com.