Joseph Mercury - Stories

Senior editor Steve is finally doing things right. His arrangement with the magazine’s art director is exclusive, the sex is intense, no drama. Adult. But old habits die hard when a cocky 21-year-old intern decides to test his best intentions.

Mitch has spent years becoming the White Bull—thick-necked, pale, disciplined, and ready to give everything.

When a charismatic recruiter from Dicker arrives, the isolated all-boys agricultural college in a hidden New York valley feels like the path he was built for. There are no luxury dorms and no girls. There's only brotherhood and sacrifice.

As the Harvest nears, Mitch is drawn deeper into Dicker’s rituals and the sense that he has finally found a place that knows what to do with a body like his.

Jason lives in the house he and Eric bought, talks to the dog, and tells his counselor the dreams. He doesn't tell about the cabinets that stand open on their own, or the whispers, or the footsteps that favor the left foot, the way Eric’s did. Pushed to the brink, Jason returns to the mountain where they once foraged for the Ghost of October, the mushroom that appears only when it chooses.

Ben and Cole are roommates, gym bros, and competitors who don't back down. When Ben impulsively bets his roommate Cole that he can spend the entire month locked in a chastity cage—loser has to clean their apartment for a month—Cole expects him to crack by day two. But as the month drags on, the guys try to outlast each other, until a surprise side bet ups the ante.

John, Hutch, and Putter are the kind of frat bros who use a girl in the middle so they don’t have to name what they’re doing together.

On Halloween there's no girl, but there is a campus legend every freshman has already dared: the grave of Midnight Malcolm, the sodomite witch hanged in 1693.

Call him three times and he comes back to claim what’s his.

Wearing a slutty dress to a Halloween party was supposed to be a joke, but Troy looks good. Stupid good. When his longtime straight crush shows up and doesn't recognize him, the joke turns real.

Brick has a husband and a man on the side, Vincent, the client across the table. On a trip in Italy for a conference, Pompeii is not on the original itinerary, but Brick needs the distraction. Somewhere between the Forum and a tree off the path, he tries to remember which fire he came here to let burn out.

Nate may have found the one. Cal is built like a farmboy, has the wholesome looks of a vintage baseball card, is amazing in bed, and actually texts back. Nate keeps waiting for the catch and not finding one.

Cal even invites Nate out to his family's timeshare at the coast to meet his mother. Diane is progressive, supportive, and fiercely, fiercely devoted. And that's the catch.

In a 1990s cruising park, a young AIDS outreach volunteer approaches a middle-aged man who looks like someone’s dad. What starts as a simple condom hand-off escalates into something more risky as one decision leads to another in a public restroom.

Content Warning: This story contains explicit M/M sexual content, power imbalances, and themes related to the AIDS crisis including cruising, condoms, and unprotected sex. Characters navigate complex realities, including sexual risk.

When a newly observant Jewish family hires an affable jock as their Shabbos goy, the rule is simple: anticipate their needs without being asked. Their wry son expects a weekly inconvenience, until someone starts paying a little too much attention.

A sex comedy of manners.