Hey peeps! We have B.G. Thomas popping in today with his re-release The Real Thing, we have a brilliant guest post where B.G. chats about The Real Thing and we have a great excerpt, so check out the post and enjoy! <3 ~Pixie~
The Real Thing
B.G. Thomas
Bryan Mills has fantasized about cowboys all his life. Real cowboys, that is. He even dresses in what his roommate calls “cowboy drag” when he visits his favorite bar, in the hope of attracting the attentions of a genuine cowboy. But all he usually finds are posers and guys his own age.
Then one night, to his surprise, Curtis Hansen buys him a beer, and Bryan has no doubt this is the real thing. Curtis is a rugged, gorgeous man who is every bit a cowboy. He even owns his own ranch. What follows is about the most amazing night of Bryan’s young life.
But can they move beyond a night of incredible sex when Bryan admits to Curtis that the only horse he’s ever ridden was a birthday party pony? And that he’s nothing but a poser himself? Maybe, just maybe, Curtis can find the real cowboy inside Bryan, and they can ride off into the sunset together!
First Edition published as The Real Thing in Riding Double by Dreamspinner Press, 2011.
B.G. Thomas!
Cowboys: Are They Real Anymore?
So, there I was, a very new writer, looking to get published. I had sold a story or three, and wanted to get more out there. At the time one of the best ways to go was to look for open calls for submissions on anthologies. They didn’t pay much, but it got your work out there and if people read your short story and liked it, they might go out and look up your other work. That was my game plan when I saw the call for cowboy short stories for the anthology “Riding Double” from Dreamspinner Press.
They wanted stories about cowboys, present day as well as historical. Hmmmmm…. I was intrigued. For several reasons.
First of all, of course, because cowboys are pretty darned sexy. Especially in those tight jeans and those boots that make a man’s hindquarters look so delectable.
But also, because cowboys are a hot look in the gay community. They represent masculinity and gay men love that of course. Cowboys, leathermen, construction workers and more. Why do you think we loved The Village People so much?
But there is a bit “poking fun” at men that dress that way. Are they just playing a role? A drag queen I knew would roll her eyes and says, “Ben! Leather or feather, it’s all drag!” Those words drilled themselves into my brain and I couldn’t ever stop thinking about them.
Are there any real cowboys left? Are they just men posing? Surely, they exist! The rodeos…. True, some of those people are only weekend cowboys. But many do own ranches and such. How about the wranglers who live on Dude Ranches, like in my recent novel “Do You Trust Me?” I found it was a topic I wanted to tackle. And thus I wrote “The Real Thing.” Here is the blurb for my story….
Bryan Mills has fantasized about cowboys all his life. Real cowboys, that is. He even dresses in what his roommate calls “cowboy drag” when he visits his favorite bar, in the hope of attracting the attentions of a genuine cowboy. But all he usually finds are posers and guys his own age.
Then one night, to his surprise, Curtis Hansen buys him a beer, and Bryan has no doubt this is the real thing. Curtis is a rugged, gorgeous man who is every bit a cowboy. He even owns his own ranch. What follows is about the most amazing night of Bryan’s young life.
But can they move beyond a night of incredible sex when Bryan admits to Curtis that the only horse he’s ever ridden was a birthday party pony? And that he’s nothing but a poser himself? Maybe, just maybe, Curtis can find the real cowboy inside Bryan, and they can ride off into the sunset together!
I was thrilled to sell that story back in 2010/2011. Turned out to be a popular little story too. I got quite a few IMs on Facebook and emails through my blog from readers. But as it turns out, anthologies seem to be dying. At least in the MM market.
Recently Dreamspinner Press decided to start taking a lot of their anthologies off the market and let authors have their rights back on their stories.
That made me so sad because pretty much everything I’ve written is “in” the B.G. Thomas Universe. Characters and places cross over as a standard for me. And my story “The Real Thing” is no exception. In fact, it introduces a character who goes on to star in his own novel as well as making cameo appearances over and over again. How did I let the story go out of print?
So, I spoke with the Powers That Be at Dreamspinner Press about it. They looked at the story. They agree with me. They decided to re-release it as a standalone story. But they also agreed with me on something else. Why not help a reader out a little bit? I am a much better writer today that I was six or so years ago. Why don’t I go through the story and clean it up a bit? And that is what I did. And I added a couple thousand words as well. Fleshed it out. And it was a joy to do. I love my story and I super-love the characters of Bryan and Curtis!
And there ya go, partners! Available for pre-order now! The re-release of my beloved story (at least by me) “The Real Thing.” I hope you will check it out! Hope I will see you on a little ranch outside of Kansas City. I know Curtis would invite you for dinner!
Okay! I gotta mosey along.
So long. Y’all come back, now!
B.G. “Ben” Thomas
Excerpt
BRYAN MILLS stood in front of the full-length mirror on the inside of his closet and posed. His bedroom was dark, save for a muted bedside table lamp, in an attempt to mimic the lighting of The Watering Hole, his favorite bar. He shifted from one foot to the other, practicing. He wanted to look just right, and he thought he’d finally managed it.
The shirt was perfect: not boring, not too bold. “Slightly worn” was the way the guy at the secondhand shop had described it (which sounded so much better than “used”). Bryan thought the jeans were a work of art. He’d spent days washing them, sandpapering the denim in all the right places, especially between the thighs, over the crotch, and across the ass. He wanted them to have that horse-ridden look. He turned and looked over his shoulder at his butt and thought, Yes, not bad at all.
“I’d fuck it,” he said aloud. “If I was a top.” He grinned.
Bryan spun back around on his heels and lowered his head so that the brim of his hat—a gray Stetson—all but hid his blue eyes, showing little more than his five-o’clock-shadowed jaw. Fetching, if he did say so himself.
He hooked his thumbs in his foremost belt loops, letting his fingers frame both his silver belt buckle—nice but not too over-the-top—and the mound of his crotch. No underwear. He was a grower, not a shower, and underwear mashed his cock and balls almost flat. Anyone who saw him only from the belt down might not even know he was male if he didn’t go commando. At least this way his package looked promising, even if it didn’t look huge.
And the boots? Perfect. Scuffed but not sloppy or overworn.
Hadn’t cowboy boots been the real start of this whole more authentic costume? His “cowboy drag,” as his roommate Tommy—the drag queen “Dixie Wrecked”—liked to say?
The first time Bryan had headed out to The Watering Hole trying to look like the real thing, he’d been proudly wearing a pair of five-hundred-dollar snakeskin cowboy boots. He’d no sooner walked in the door, Loretta Lynn crooning about a cabin on a hill in Butcher Holler from a jukebox, when he’d spotted a pair of men who’d made him hard in less than a minute.
They were hot, and both looked like the real thing to Bryan. One was at least forty for sure, and he guessed the other to be a well-preserved fifty, easily old enough to be his father. Hot enough to make his erection get wet. He moseyed his way over to them, wondering whether they were friends or lovers, trying to decide which man was hotter. Both had facial hair—one a thick mustache like Sam Elliott, the other a goatee. Both were darkly tanned, obviously men who worked outdoors, with deep lines carved around their eyes. Bryan couldn’t help but imagine them on horseback, squinting into the sun.
They were each drinking a pitcher of beer, apparently spurning a glass—
(Even a dirty one, Bryan thought, and grinned at his own joke)
—and both were smiling. And oh, how very pleased he was when he saw the pair were eyeing a small group of men his own age.
Score! They like younger men! And then he quietly edged closer to the stuff of his dreams, hoping to catch their eyes.
Only to discover that he’d totally misinterpreted why the cowboys were paying the young men any attention.
“Is it Halloween?” the older man had asked his companion.
“Looks like it to me,” the friend responded.
“I didn’t know it was Halloween. Here I thought it was July.”
“Yup.” Cowboy Two nodded. “But I know it ain’t time for the rodeo.”
“Just look at that fucked-up shit they’re wearing,” said Cowboy One, pointing with his chin. “Makes ya wonder if they have ladies’ panties underneath.”
Both men burst into laughter.
“Can you imagine getting one of ’em into bed?” Cowboy Two asked.
The older man grimaced. “What do you bet they shave their assholes and spritz ’em with perfume besides?”
They both laughed again.
Almost as if on cue, Loretta’s “Coal Miner’s Daughter” faded on the jukebox, and a faster song began. With a high-pitched “yippee!” the young men began to move animatedly around the small dance floor.
“Have you ever seen anything so damned silly in your whole life?” Cowboy One said of the spectacle.
“They look like a bunch of ballerinas, prancing around like that,” his friend returned.
The young men were wildly kicking and spinning around as they two-stepped.
And to Bryan’s surprise, he couldn’t help but notice that the way they were moving wasn’t the most masculine thing Bryan had ever seen. God, they do look silly.
“And just look at them boots!” the older man said, gesturing with his half-full pitcher. “They might as well be wearin’ ruby slippers.”
And yes, the young men were wearing expensive, fancy boots, one pair a shining red.
Bryan looked down at the older men’s boots to compare them and saw they were worn and scuffed. A wash of humiliation went through him so huge, so consuming, that he slipped out of the bar before either of the laughing men noticed him.
About B.G.
B.G. Thomas lives in Kansas City with his husband of more than a decade and their fabulous dogs Sarah Jane and Oliver. He is blessed to have a lovely daughter as well as many extraordinary friends. He has a great passion for life.
B.G. loves romance, comedies, fantasy, science fiction, and even horror—as far as he is concerned, as long as the stories are character driven and entertaining, it doesn’t matter the genre. He has gone to literature conventions his entire adult life where he’s been lucky enough to meet many of his favorite writers. He has made up stories since he was a child; it is where he finds his joy.
In the nineties, he wrote for gay adult magazines but stopped because the editors wanted all sex without plot. “The sex is never as important as the characters,” he says. “Who cares what they are doing if we don’t care about them?” Excited about the growing male/male romance market, he began writing again. He submitted a novella and was thrilled when it was accepted in four days. Since then the romantic tales have poured out of him. “It’s like I’m somehow making up for a lifetime’s worth of story-telling!”
“Leap, and the net will appear” is his personal philosophy and his message. “It is never too late,” he testifies. “Pursue your dreams. They will come true!”
