$15.95
ISBN 155152144X
available through Amazon

Reviewed by William Dean
(03/17/04)

There it is, a second away, so thick and hard, a pearl of precum peering out between the folds of his foreskin. "Take it," is all Mario says before plunging his fat cock down my throat. He thrusts his hips forward, immediately establishing a face fucking rhythm and sending his cock in and out of my throat. "Oh, fucker, take my cock, yeah. Swallow it all, baby."

Short, fast, punchy, and all male, this third in the series of Quickies, published by Arsenal Pulp Press of Vancouver, crackles and sizzles with seventy-two zipper-rippers that are all written at above cruising speed.

There's no doubt that sometimes what really rocks your world is a quickie, in this case a whiplash tale of about a thousand words that crams a lot into a little space. It's an international collection, with most of the writers from Canada and the United States, but also a scattering of folks from the UK and even South Africa.

What I like about Arsenal Pulp Press is their all-inclusiveness and realization that good writing is good writing, no matter what the sexual orientation or the gender of the writer. That premise is fulfilled by the inclusion of not one, but two women authors in Quickies 3: Rachel Kramer Bussel and Linda Little.

Bussel articulates, in her story "Silence," that most difficult and often precious communication in our world so filled with senseless noise:

Once I made the mistake of telling a friend not just about Billy and how wonderful he is, but about how we don't speak when we're fucking. He didn't understand it. It was a big mistake, to think I could confide in someone else. I confide in Billy plenty, every time my cock slides into him, every time I sear him with a look that commands and consecrates. To me, the silence adds to my power over him, and for all I know that's how he feels, but we never get around to dissecting what we have. In a way, it's too special for that, or maybe it's not special enough, but either way it's what works best for us. It forces me to watch more closely for other cues, to see the way his fists clench, or his feet unfurl, the way his cock trembles. He can read my mood in an instant, knowing if I'm feeling playful or angry or just plain horny. Sometimes he's better at knowing how I feel than I am.

Quickies have the literary reputation of being all stroke and choke. You'd think there's no time for introspection in the heat of face or ass fucking, glory-hole pokes, or stolen sucks in alley, doorway, or car, but that's to belie the genuine craft of writers such as these, who can spin your imagination in a first paragraph, make you hard and steamed by the time you reach the quickie's climax, and yet leave a telltale, lingering thought, like a kiss or a bruise in your memory.

Editor James C. Johnstone has collected what some publishers would issue as a Best of, including some of the best-known writers, like Simon Shepard, Andy Quan, Sean Meriwhether, and Stephen Niederweiser, but there's also plenty of newcomers here who will doubtless become bedside names in future anthologies and novels. Quickies often lead to more lengthy tales, in case you hadn't noticed.

We're about to cum in each other's mouths when his boyfriend Daniel walks in. Noah had warned me he might come home early, but I'm still surprised, and I feel awkward. Noah waves to him, like you'd wave to the delivery boy from your post office when he knocks on the door with a parcel, as he holds the back of my head, fucks my face, and shoots his thick warm cum down the back of my throat.

As "Out Front" blurbs on the back cover, Quickies 3 is "as addictive as potato chips, you won't be able to read just one."

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