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Richard Labonté edits books, walks dogs and works as a chef's assistant at an addiction recovery center on Bowen Island, off the coast of British Columbia, Canada, after living in Los Angeles and San Francisco from 1979 to 2001. One of the founders of A Different Light Bookstore, he has coordinated the judging for the Lambda Literary Award since 2009. He reviews 100 queer books a year for Q Syndicate, which distributes "Book Marks," his fortnightly column and has edited the Best Gay Erotica series since 1996 (along with a couple of dozen other books for Cleis). Eight of his books, including five editions of Best Gay Erotica, have been Lammy finalists, and three of them have won the award.

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Show-Offs

Gay Erotic StoriesBy Richard Labonte

Cleis Press

Copyright © 2013 Richard Labonte
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9781573448178
The Watchers and the Watched

Some men like to watch, and some men like to be watched. The universe has a way of balancing things out, doesn’t it?
We’re not talking sidewalk cruising here, that natural inclination for one man to appreciate another man’s body in passing, perhaps leading to full-on sex, perhaps fueling, once he’s alone, a climactic fantasy.
No, the stories in this collection are more furtive: the desired body savored voyeuristically through a window, through a crack in the closet door, through a camera lens, sometimes from right across the room; the body desired flaunting manly wares while bathing in a river, playing in a bathhouse, wearing a leaving-nothing-to-the-imagination thong.
Forget “like”: some men need to be watched; some men need to watch. These are their stories.

My story: I was never really a watcher—a cruiser, of course, what gay man isn’t, even if he hasn’t acknowledged a gay bone (or boner) in his body. But in retrospect, I guess I was watched.
I worked retail for many years, clerking at and then managing A Different Light, a lesbian and gay bookstore that at one time had four stores. The first opened in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles in 1979. That’s where (and when) I met Rhonda-a-Go-Go. (Hey, it was the era of the Radical Faeries, and we all had alter egos; mine will never be revealed.) He’d come into the store and hang around; eventually I figured out he was flirting; we were lovers for a few years, have been friends for more than thirty. That’s where, in 1983, I met Fernando, son of Mexican immigrants, University of Southern California film graduate, political activist. He’d come into the store and hang around; eventually I figured out he was flirting; we were together through his HIV, until 1990.
In 1987 I moved to San Francisco to take over management of the store on Castro Street. That’s where I met Asa, a few years later. He’d come in from the bustling sidewalk, walk quickly through the store to the outside back patio, sit for a while in that quiet space, then wander around the store; for a while, staff figured him for a shoplifter, but after a couple of months he was relegated to the doesn’t-buy, likes-to-browse, quirky-guy category.
Turns out—he was watching, I was watched—he came in to be around me, which we figured out eventually. We’ve been around each other now for twenty years. Voyeurism has its benefits….


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