Stocking Stuffers, by Jamie Hill, is a celebration of identity and the irrepressible drive towards love over habit and indifference. Sometimes sex is just too strong to deny. Sometimes the ordinary routines of life become so much a part of us that we forget who we are. This book is about great sex; it's also about self-discovery.
Ben Mercer thinks he has the most predictable and boring life on the planet. On one particular, snowy day, Ben makes his debut out of bed with a morning erection after a night of hot cowboy dreams. He feeds his dog, Tillie and shovels his mother’s sidewalk. He combs his short, dark hair with his fingertips, and begins work as part-proprietor of the family store, Mercer Mercantile. At the store, he makes coffee for some of his regulars. After lunch he takes a nap, then returns to the store so that his sister, Shannon, can pick up her kids from school. It’s another normal day in Ben's life.
Then something happens. And the events in Hill's book play out as if they're a product of planetary alignment -- in other words, as if they're meant to be. The surprising events are made all the better by the characters and the way they respond to these events. Such events disrupt the normal flow of life; they break through the habits and inspire the erotic. The events that play out remind the reader that he or she doesn't know everything and that life in general holds surprise.
In this case, Dean Caldwell walks into Mercer Mercantile. An old lover, Dean's appearance reignites the erotic in Ben's life:
Ben dropped his head and glanced between his legs to watch Dean grease his cock. Seeing hands play over the slick member excited him, and he bit his lip. Usually, he came when Dean fucked him, the blonde man reaching around and stroking his cock. Today, he’d wait. He’d let Dean come and then he’d trade places. The idea of greasing his own member and sliding it up the silky channel had him hard as a rock.
Dean parted his ass lovingly, “Ready for me?”
It’s clear that Dean and Ben have a history, but how deep that history goes is carefully calibrated and slowly revealed.
Stocking Stuffers has many nice qualities. The dialogue in Hill’s story is perfectly consistent with the characters; Ben’s easy-going, down-home dialogue reads just right for who he is in the world. Also, the action is precisely timed. The story moves like the rhythm of a small town, an embodiment of the story's setting. And while the pace and timing of the book are precise and perfectly designed to excite the reader and to keep the excitement going, so are the characters. Ben is likeable and we respect his choices.
There is no more fertile field than the erotic to illustrate the complexity of human nature. Ben's love for Dean simply will not die. Ben's emotions and actions demonstrate that no love is really lost and that time has no place in the human heart. Indeed, the blend of complexity and erotic tension in the story is what makes it so real:
Dean ran one hand up his jean-clan thigh until he reached Ben’s groin area, squeezing his growing erection. “Tell me again you don’t want this.”
Ben shoved the hand away, looking him firmly in the eye. “Okay. How about, I don’t think we should do this.”
Dean’s face was still so close, he could feel his breath. “I hear you. But we need to talk. Can we get something to eat, and just talk?”
"No, because we won’t.” He had to force himself not to return the kiss. The closeness was agonizing.
“The closeness was agonizing.” In this one simple, elegant sentence, Hill sums up the whole of the story. The sex goes deep and so does the uncertainty. In Hill's world, the erotic is heightened not only by love's purity, but by vulnerability.
Ben shines as a character because of his simplicity and his convictions, and it is painful when Ben's heart is broken, yet again. The reader wants him to be happy, and indeed, I was left hoping for more good surprises to befall Ben. In the end, Hill doesn't disapoint.
Stocking Stuffers, by Jamie Hill, is available from Phaze Books.
Originally published March, 2008