The diversity and depth of creativity in the world of gay literature, including gay porn, is a constant source of amazement to me. I had picked up a used copy of what seemed very clearly to be run-of-the-mill gay S/M porn stories…but what the hell…I’d just gotten really into gay short stories and reading a little badly written S/M porn junk might be fun. A waste of time maybe, but well…fun.
I Once Had a Master is indeed porn...sort of. More accurately, it is a group of stories about eroticism, love and…genuine passion! The collection consists of nine stories, several drawn from the author’s real life experiences. All deal one way or another with the gay leather scene which included appropriate amounts of S/M, rough sex. All the stories feature heavy sex; none involve truly weird stuff…no broken bones. Preston maintains throughout the book a very solid connection between sex, pain, and passion…And he never leaves out passion.
“Authenticity”, my favorite, is a mere twelve pages long and, like the best haute cuisine, a magnificent finished product is created from simple stuff, here the simplicities of plot line and spare narration. The tale is for me, a lesson in how-to, a fantasy, and a passionate turn-on. It is “simply the best”, a shining example of the “less is more” philosophy.
“Transitions” is a cautionary tale of a young gay guy attracted to an older leatherman. Initially he is taught the pain/pleasure of the leather S/M scene but in a very vanilla way. As he gets his leather sex bearings he’s invited to work as a paid professional with his mentor whom he ultimately surpasses in skill, inventiveness, and creativity. He earns his own way and is surprised to learn that his former mentor is now in love with him. Student leatherman becomes master leatherman but without compassion...ending is an internally focused egocentric world where his only emotional contact is sex/pain. He cannot connect except through the use of his formidable sexual skills. A bit depressing but the lesson is not lost on many of us in the gay community.
“An Education” is an amusing tale about an editor who attends a convention dealing with sadomasochism. He hooks up with a master and slave duo becoming a secondary slave to everyone’s pleasure. The story culminates in a not very real scene in which the threesome attend a scholarly lecture on the nature of sadomasochism and do some street theater…they enact a genuine S/M sexual encounter in the audience. This is an odd, amusing, unreal but fun tale.
I Once Had a Master is genuine serendipity. Who would have thought that such competent erotic writing existed. I was led to believe that gay writing to be “good” needed to focus away from explicit sex. Not so! This is good writing well worth exploring even if heavy leather is not your scene.
John Preston died in 1994. He left a body of gay writing, much of it erotic. He established one of the first gay community centers in Minneapolis in 1969 when he was 24. He was an editor of The Advocate for two years and wrote about safer sex after learning that he was HIV positive. He created the character of Alex Kane, a macho ex-marine superhero. One wonders if a similar storyline in Queer as Folk is drawn from Preston’s earlier works.
His manuscripts and correspondence were acquired in 1992 by the John Hay Library at Brown University.
If this be porn, let gay writers everywhere seek to emulate!
Postscript: I recently learned that John Preston was the guest speaker at Seacoast Gay Men on more than one occasion…I seem to have paid the price for having come out only after his death…surely bad timing on my part. If I were to seriously study any single gay author this would be the guy.