Tenth in the series of eclectic gay male short story collections by habu, the fifteen stories of Grab Bag 10 offer a variety of gay male stories in terms of theme, sexual interest and fetish, setting, and time period. Laid out in the order in which they were written, these are stories composed during the late fall and winter of 2015-16. As usual, several of them reflect the current world swirling around habu at the time they were conceived, so they include stories related to his travels during this period, such as Men of Mykonos,
Becoming Key West, and Director’s Choice They also include seasonal holidays, such as Swinger Christmas, and sports events he attended, such as the male figure skating story, Beware the Coach. This was a period in which habu was writing to little-served sexual fetishes, which helped surface stories of particular exotic fetishes his mind was toying with, such as Searching for the Exotic,
Becoming Key West,
I, Mannequin,
Tea with the Prince,
Fist of Gold, and Misdelivered Mail Male Sex Training. Two stories evoke famous men of the past, the political novelist Gore Vidal in Need to Be Needed, and the movie star Rock Hudson in The Lighthouse Keeper. One, Slave to Two Hung Masters, dredges up habu’s own memories of his Bangkok beginnings. The stories cover the world in setting-from California to New York to Virginia and Florida, in the United States, and, internationally, to London, the Mediterranean, Thailand, East Asia, and Africa. Habu likes to write of the pre-AIDS days of freer, more intimate sex, and thus several of the stories are set in the past. These include 24 Exeter Place, set in a late nineteenth-century London male brothel; Tea with the Prince set in early World War II Japan and China in the 1930s; Fist of Gold, and The Lighthouse Keeper set in the 1950s; and Becoming Key West and Slave to Two Hung Masters set in the 1970s. As with previous Grab Bag collections, habu has striven to make his stories fresh and complex and the homosexual couplings graphic, inventive, and hot. As usual, there should be something here for every taste and something new to explore for everyone seeking stimulation.
