Sweat Anthology – Review
Rating: 
Title: Sweat, A Torquere Press Taste Test
Authors: AJ Wilde, Anfernee Williamson and James Buchanan
Publisher: Torquere Press
Purchase URL: Torquere Press
Price: US$2.49
Warnings: explicit m/m sex, graphic language.
Publisher’s description: Sports. Sweaty men grappling with each other for the ball or plying blades with dramatic precision. The Sweat Taste Test tantalizes us with three stories about men and the games they play.
AJ Wilde’s Twenty-Four takes on a physical trainer who needs his lover to do a little more to climb out of depression, before he does something he’ll regret. Anfernee Williamson brings us a story of just how much two football buddies care about each other, and what they’ll do to show it. James Buchanan’s fencing story takes on what happens when two adversaries come together after a match and admire each others’ skills. Among other things.
My Review: Bound together by the theme of sports and sweat, these three short stories offer a nice diversity in a mini collection. As separate stories, each stands complete in tone and style, offering exceptionally well-written prose, believable dialog, some hot sex and interesting, full characters. Successfully bringing together different authors with divergent styles and interests is a difficult task and one many collections do necessarily accomplish well by simply slapping a “theme” on the cover. Here, I found that each story truly complimented one another and the order in which they are presented, I think, plays a large part of its success. This collection of three truly does have a beginning, a middle and an end, the intensity of each perfectly matched to its position within the pages.
TWENTY FOUR by AJ Wild
AJ Wild’s Twenty Four starts off Sweat with a day-in-the-life of a gay couple, fitness trainer Ryan and his boyfriend Daniel. Divided into 24 small vignettes (i.e., 24 hours), the story starts with what seems an idyllic relationship as Ryan wakes for his day next to his lover of three years. As the day progresses, we learn that all is not sweetness and roses for our couple. Daniel has been suffering from a debilitating depression for about a year, his meds leveling his mood to such an extent that he seems unable to do or feel anything and completely neutering his sex drive. Ryan has been standing by Daniel, but the depression has been taking its toll on him as well. He has seen his boyfriend slip further and further from him and his own life has begun to feel the emptiness of distance. Enter Patrick, a hot co-worker of Ryan’s, and the possibilities of another life, one less heavy begin to tempt Ryan into straying. Or into leaving. Will Ryan succumb? Are we witnessing the end of a relationship?
In this emotionally intense story, Wild creates two full characters in Ryan and Daniel, even though we are seeing Daniel mostly through Ryan’s eyes. He manages to do this without ever sacrificing the other character, without creating a villain in the relationship. While we understand Ryan’s disillusionment with Daniel and how Daniel is choosing to deal with his depression, we never see Daniel as pathetic, beyond repair or at fault. The love between them is ever-present and we are never forced to root for one over the other. When Ryan considers straying, we simultaneously wonder what the hell he is thinking and yet completely understand why he is about to make a major leap in his life. This is a difficult trick to pull off and Wild does it exceptionally well. By the end, we feel we’ve been through the ringer with our boys. While we leave on a hopeful note, a sense of sadness that lingers after the story end. There are only two quibbles I have with the piece. The relationship between Ryan and his co-worker Patrick felt a little unfinished and a little forced. We’re never really privy as to why Patrick feels so intensely for Ryan or why Ryan necessarily sees a better life with him. It is not, however, a fatal flaw and perhaps the subject of another story. The other quibble is (without giving too much away) the moment when Ryan and Daniel discuss Patrick. It all seems a little too easy. Again, not a fatal flaw and neither detracts for a well-crafted story about love.
ATHLETIC SHORTS by Anfernee Williamson
The urban energy that is at the heart of Anfernee Williamson’s Althletic Shorts, the story of a neighborhood football game, is infectious and an excellent balance to the melancholic tone of the previous piece. It allows us, as readers, to decompress from Wild’s story, wrapping us in the testosterone-laden atmosphere and excitement of a neighborhood pick-up game, but it doesn’t let us off the hook completely. The first paragraph itself is wonderfully misleading, reading very much like an intense sex scene between two very hot, sweaty men. But looks can be deceiving, as we learn that Carl has just been tackled in a football game by Juan, a hot-shot, younger player who just so happens to give Carl thoughts of a whole different kind of first-down. Williamson creates an exciting and (for someone who knows nothing about football) understandable game between Carl and his friends, and Juan’s younger team, that just drips with sexuality. Expertly mixed in with all this sensuality and Carl’s lust for Juan (who may or may not be straight) is a deeper story of man who is dealing with issues larger than his desires. Carl is thirty now and his attraction to Juan who is a good decade younger and the fact that Juan seriously has “game” has Carl wondering if his best days are behind him.
When Carl exits the game – ostensibly due to an injury – the story takes a nice and unexpected turn as Carl and his best friend Jackson – married with 6 kids – head home. As they walk through the well-observed neighborhood, the two discuss the game, Carl’s feeling about getting older and Carl’s infatuation with Juan. It is in the depiction of this long-term friendship, that the heart and soul of the piece lies. Don’t get me wrong…there is plenty of hot, well-crafted (and unexpected) sex here, but ultimately, this is a wonderfully written story about friendship between two “brothers” who have always been there for each other and always will. It’s about passion, about growing older, and about staying young, and the ending will leave you with a warm smile on your face.
TOUCHE by James Buchanan
James Buchanan’s Touche finishes off the collection perfectly, with a steamy piece set in the world of competitive collegiate fencing. Buchanan clearly knows and loves this world, and his description of the accoutrements and formality of the sport serve the story nicely without ever overwhelming the reader with a barrage of technical details. The characters are appealing and sexy with Mario, a comp-sci major, being the center of the story. Mario comes up on a very good opponent in Davis, a tall, lean and arrogant player from the New Mexico Military Institute and what ensues is an athletic, mental and erotic tête-à-tête, all melded beautifully with the thrust and parry of the epees. But never does Buchanan get heavy handed with the imagery. When the opponents meet off “the field,” we are treated to a match of a totally different kind as the two use their flirting as expertly as their weapons in what seems almost to become a negotiation of sorts for the events that we know will follow. When terms are met, the duo manages to channel their energy in more erotic ways, getting hot and heavy in the privacy of the coach’s office. The sex is hot, the touch is light and Buchanan manages to tap in expertly to the testosterone and homoerotic energy that has always permeated the collegiate world of tight bodies and sharp minds. And Buchanan closes the collection on just the right note, with an ending that just elicits a knowing smirk from the reader.
