Sidelineland

I’ve been delighted to get turn onto (and turned on by) new homoerotic wrestling fiction lately. One of the awesome consequences of sharing my hobby-writing in the genre, neverland readers have been sharing offline their recommendations for hot fiction. And a few authors have even reached out to call my attention to their published work. Jack Stevens is one of those authors who agreed to let me post a sensationally hot excerpt from his novel Wrestling for Top, published by Ninestar Press, available there as well as on Amazon. I immediately ordered my copy, and I’m super impressed with the writing, the character development, and the intense overly of classic Brit Pro wrestling with an homoeroticism. If you’re into hot fiction with a deep respect for pro wrestling and a sexy, insider love of homoeroticism, check it out!

“Wrestling for Top”

by

Jack Stevens

Published by Ninestar Press

Handsome wrestler Terry ‘Kid Bacchus’ Ryan is popular with the fans in the ring and with the men in the bedroom. But faced with dwindling audiences and fierce competition in Britain, Terry gambles on a tour of Europe with ‘uncle’ Doug, three wrestling buddies, and an unexpected sponsor, Mark who wrestles as the masked  ‘Johnny Deuce’.

Abroad, Terry and his team score on the mats and between the sheets, catching the eye of influential wrestler/promoter Yves Montaigne, who is eager to make Terry a star and lover.

But even as success beckons, Terry is drawn into a world of dark and dangerous sexual fantasies, and to save himself and his wrestling family, Terry must find out who his real enemies are. Are they linked to the death of his father years ago? What part did Uncle Doug play in that? And above all, who really is the man behind the Johnny Deuce mask?

In this extract, Terry and Mark (wrestling in his mask as ‘Johnny Deuce’) meet the German father and son tag team of Bernard and Stefan Shoenfeld.

“Father and son!” Mark scoffed, as he and Terry stood in their corner watching the Germans enter the ring and take up their position in their corner. “Yeah. Right!”

Terry studied their two opponents. Apart from their ring gear there was little family resemblance. Bernard was obviously a wrestling veteran: the hair on his chest grizzled, the hair on his head thick but iron grey, his face well lined, and the single tattoo on his forearm a patch of lines and colours blurred by time. Terry took in the wiry physique and the assurance of his moves as he ducked under the ropes to enter the ring and began limbering up. 

Terry turned his attention to Stefan Shoenfeld. Late teens, possibly very early twenties, his hairless chest and pale blond curls making it hard to judge his age. A good two or three stones heavier than his ‘father’, stocky but in a puppy fat kind of way, he moved around the ring with an adolescent gawkiness that contrasted with his partner, his warm ups confined to grabbing the top rope and leaning back to stretch out arms and back muscles. There was strength there, Terry didn’t doubt, but he already had the feeling that the real threat from this team was going to come from its senior member. 

Once they’d removed their ring jackets – in Bernard’s case, an old school dressing gown – al four wrestlers were given the once over by the referee who ran his hands over their upper bodies and checked the soles of their wrestling boots, a procedure that was more ritual than practical. Mark, of course, was in his Johnny Deuce kit. Terry had gone with white speedos and boots with a single black stripe down the side of each to complement him. The Germans were in matching purple, Bernard in tights, the boy in a leotard cut low over his stomach, their boots polished black leather with purple highlights. Terry let his eyes linger appreciatively on the young lad’s leotard. Cut very low over the stomach and high at the sides over the thighs, showing just a hint of butt cheek round the back. Tight enough to make the arse crack very visible, very tempting. Terry found himself wondering, if he was to hoist the boy up in a suplex or piledriver, pulling at that leotard as he would perfectly legitimately have to, would the sheer lycra be pulled deep into the lad’s tight crack in a classic wedgie, giving the ringsiders an eyeful of more of their local lad’s beefy arse cheeks than they’d ever have dreamed possible?

The wrestlers moved to the centre of the ring, all four with their heads down, frowning as if concentrating on the instructions and warnings the referee was barking at them and nodding as if to show acceptance. By now, Terry at least was well used to pantomiming agreement to a stream of foreign words none of which he understood. The four men shook hands, the bell rang, and Terry slapped Mark on the back as his partner left the ring to take his position on the apron outside the ropes, then turned, crouched and prepared himself to lock up with whichever of the Schoenfelds was staying in the ring to wrestle him first. It was Bernard.  

They circled, Terry grinning as per usual, the German poker-faced. They closed in and locked up, each throwing his arms around the shoulders of the other and leaning in, in an initial test of strength.

Their first session against each other lasted well over five minutes, longer than most rounds in a singles match and rare for a tag – and Terry loved every minute. Bernard was a wrestling genius. Not a movement was wasted, not a fraction of effort misplaced. He flowed from hold to escape to counter hold, over and over. He was what wrestlers called ‘light’, selling his holds as if he was pouring all of his weight and strength into all of them, but actually bringing little real pressure to bear on his opponent.

Terry, after allowing himself to be displayed in the holds, was able to ‘escape’ then respond in kind, showing his own repertoire of moves and routines which Bernard also generously sold, grunting in a way that just managed to suggest to Terry a man in the first stages of working himself to an orgasm.

Terry knew though that this concession to showmanship would probably only last for the first half of the bout, if that. Sooner or later, the veteran was bound to go for a fall or submission.

Even as he realised this, Terry couldn’t help wondering if Bernard would handle his body as skilfully and ruthlessly in bed. He wouldn’t have objected to having that wiry grey chest and belly hair rubbed in his face. He’d bet the German had a thickly hairy ball sac too. He could picture it rasping over his face, his lips, imagine taking the furry balls into his mouth….

It was a loss of focus, just for a second, and the next thing Terry knew he was caught up in a tight headscissors that had come like lightning out of nowhere. Belly down to canvass, Terry’s head was trapped between the German’s thighs, his face pressed tight into that crotch. His daydream of nuzzling Bernard’s balls had come true but too soon, and not at all in the way he’d pictured it. The older man squeezed his legs and pushed his hips upward, the text book way of increasing the pressure on the opponent’s head. It also happened to press Terry’s face still harder into his crotch. Terry slapped frantically at his tormentor’s arse, selling the pain, but also letting his hands linger on the sheer lycra, rubbing them over the knotted glute muscles before slapping them again. With no trunks-line it felt like Bernard was naked. Bernard responded by increasing the pressure still more, pushing his hips up higher so that Terry’s handsome young face was buried still deeper in him, only the thinnest layer of the sheerest lycra between his cock and balls and Terry’s nose and mouth. He wasn’t holding back and Terry felt like his skull was being squeezed to the point where his brains would shoot out of his ears if he didn’t escape or submit. But just for one moment he didn’t care. From his suddenly acquired intimate vantage point Terry now knew for certain that Bernard was wearing nothing under his tights. Terry groaned deeply and the audience around them cheered, taking it as a sign of the young Brit’s suffering in their man’s hold. On the front row of seats, Doug tutted and rolled his eyes. He knew Terry was enjoying himself.

For a good thirty seconds, Terry let Bernard squeeze him between his legs while he made the most of feeling the man’s butt under the silky lycra, and the pressure of the German’s very ample package pressed into his face. Bernard wasn’t hard, not yet, but Terry could definitely feel the contours of something very thick and long grinding into his face as Bernard worked his scissors hold. With his face completely obscured to the audience, Terry opened his mouth and suckled on his tormentor’s balls. Bernard hissed. He could have released then and there if he hadn’t liked what the young Brit had just done. But he didn’t. 

When he thought they’d sold it as long as they could to the audience, Terry gave the obligatory twist and handstand and ‘escaped’ the scissors hold. As both men leapt to their feet and circled each other again the crowd applauded Terry’s skill and Bernard’s near ‘victory’. On the German’s face was an expression of regret. The crowd thought it was because he had lost a possible winning move. Terry knew it was because he was no longer having his ballsac tongued by a good-looking young stud in trunks.

Though he was metaphorically – and literally – having a ball, Terry knew it was time to give his partner his share of the limelight. Besides, he needed a few minutes to let his own ‘enthusiasm’ subside a little before it became far too visible to the punters on the front seats. Terry span away from his opponent, stepped up to his home corner, reached out his hand and let his partner tag in to take his place in the ring.

Bernard too tagged out. Across the ring, Terry tried to catch the veteran’s eye, but Bernard’s attention was wholly fixed on Stefan as he took his ‘father’s’ place and squared up to Johnny Deuce. Really selling the concerned father act, Terry thought as he took in Bernard’s anxious expression. Okay, he was beginning to see where the ‘plot’ of this bout was heading. It was a standard.

As it turned out, he was even more right than he had expected.

As Terry had guessed, Stefan had little of his father’s skill. Stefan charged into Mark like a young bull, actually driving the Brit back into the ropes before he recovered from the unexpected suddenness of the attack and responded in kind. The two quickly went on to exchange a series of forearm smashes to each other’s chests that had zero finesse but had the crowd quickly whipped up and shouting. Mark wrapped his powerful arms around the boy’s head and neck in a heavy lock and dragged him down to the canvass to lay it on hard. Stefan thrashed and pounded the mat, Mark grunted and leaned back, upping the pressure mercilessly, and Bernard leaned as far across the ring as he could in an obviously vain attempt to reach his son’s flailing hand to save him by tagging him out.

Terry grimaced. He could see what was going on. Both inexperienced and both too headstrong to allow the other to look good, Mark and Stefan’s wrestling would descend quickly into undisciplined brawling, far-removed from the skilled technical wrestling he and Bernard had given the crowd. The classic pattern to a bout like this would be for Mark to rough Stefan up some more before tagging Terry back in. Terry would then work the boy over in more imaginative ways, letting him get close to reaching his despairing father’s hand again and again but always pulling him back at the last minute. This would allow Bernard plenty of opportunity to act the concerned / outraged father, and should drive the crowd into a frothing frenzy of righteous indignation at the treatment of the local and youngest man in the ring. Mark would then step back in to score the first fall over Stefan who would then be forced by the rules to begin the second session in spite of his ‘weakened’ state. He would however finally make the tag with his father who would be able to leap in and avenge his son’s punishment and humiliation, taking an equalising fall over Mark.

After that the possibilities were more varied. Ideally there should be at least one moment when all four men were in the ring at once, laying into each other. The poetic justice that the crowd would love would be if Bernard used his skill to gain a second and winning fall over Mark, but Terry doubted very much that Mark would allow that.

Terry’s mind wandered again. Images of Bernard caught up in Mark’s brawny arms being slowly squeezed in a bearhug, his slim, hairy body crushed against Mark’s, experienced maturity helpless and suffering in the grip of brash youth, that heavy purple package squeezed tight up against the heavy tool in Mark’s white trunks. He forced himself to concentrate on the real ring action playing out in front of him. It was not following the plot!

Mark had run a chain of postings on the youngster, repeatedly whipping him across the ring and slamming him back first into three of the ring’s four cornerposts in turn so that the lad fell to the canvass, arching in pain while Bernard made great show of his unhappiness and desperation to help his boy. Stefan reached up pleadingly from the canvass towards Bernard calling out, “Vati,” but Mark stepped in and grabbed the out-stretched hand, pulled him up by it, spun him round and sent him crashing yet again into a turnbuckle. Terry winced. The cornerposts were padded and the impact rarely as bad as wrestlers made them seem. But even so he could tell that Mark was putting all of his strength into hurling the burly boy into them, the whole ring actually shaking from the impact of Stefan’s body against the pads. That agonised look on his face was probably not all acting. And neither, thought Terry as he glanced across at Bernard, was all of the anger on that face either. As Mark’s brutal treatment of his opponent continued Bernard’s expressions and gestures of dismay and anger became less exaggerated, more genuine.

Then Mark made his rookie mistake. Stefan was down yet again. Clapping both hands around his head and ignoring the ref’s pleas to wait until his man got up, Mark hauled the lad back up to his feet and sent him cannon-balling into a corner post, but this time his home corner. The boy smashed front first into the turnbuckle and fell like a sack of potatoes but at the feet of his ‘father’ who only had to lean down to swipe his hand to be allowed to replace him in the ring. Pausing only to lift Stefan to his feet and guide him to a position of safety outside the ropes, Bernard turned to face his son’s tormentor. From across the ring Terry could see the murderous look in Bernard’s eye.

Expecting an even easier time of it against the lighter wrestler, Mark was completely unprepared for the speed at which the veteran launched himself at him. Even Terry barely had time to blink as Bernard threw himself in a forward roll that carried him the length of the ring, bringing him up right behind Mark. Slamming his sinewy forearm into the Englishman’s broad back, Bernard knocked him to the mat, flipped him over and damn nearly had him in a pinfall before the bigger, stronger man just managed to power his way out and back to his feet again. Bernard twisted, tripped him, turned and nearly pinned him again. Again and again the more skilled man took his significantly bigger opponent to the mat and almost pinned him there for the three count, brute strength alone enabling Mark to force his way out each time. Terry could only watch open-mouthed. The speed, skill and stamina of the older man were incredible, and he was giving them all a masterclass in attack wrestling. There was nothing give and take about this. Bernard was furious at what his young tag partner had been subjected to and was out for revenge.  

The crowd roared its approval, and Terry leaned as far over the ropes as he legally could, arm out-stretched, his desperation to tag quite real. He had a bad feeling that what had started out as a good pro bout was now spiralling rapidly out of control.

Stunned and disorientated by the German’s attacks, Mark staggered from one narrow escape to the next, only his greater size and strength saving him each time. But Bernard’s blitzkrieg was wearing him down, and Terry thought it was only seconds now before the vengeful father would have the pin he was looking for. Then, with a roar of fury and frustration, Mark struck. On his knees, with Bernard standing, leaning over him, eager to take hold just as soon as his man got to his feet again, Mark punched up, straight and hard between his attacker’s lycra-clad thighs, driving his fist hard into the veteran’s balls. Bernard collapsed in agony. There was stunned silence across the hall. Even Terry could hardly believe what his partner had done. It wasn’t the illegality, for all that he and Mark were supposed to be good guys. It was the totally unfeigned reality of the move. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that the agony on the face of the man rolling around on the canvass clutching his crotch was completely and utterly real. The hall erupted into outraged thunderous condemnation.

“Johnny! Johnny!” Terry shouted as loud as he could, in a vain attempt to be heard over the punters’ noise, bouncing up and down on the bottom rope, arm outstretched in an attempted tag. But Johnny couldn’t hear him, or wouldn’t listen. Enflamed by being made to look so foolish by the older man, Mark was deaf to everything: his partner’s pleas, the vocal disapproval of the crowd, the referee’s admonitions. All he wanted was Bernard Shoenfeld, and payback time. Reaching down he pulled the older wrestler up to his feet by his grey hair, wrapping his powerful arms round the German’s trim waist and hoisting him bodily off the canvass. For a second Terry thought his earlier wish had come true and Mark was going to lay on a bearhug. Instead, carrying the still stunned German, he turned to face a post and walked, gathering speed until he was running full pelt into the corner. At the last minute he let go of the wrestler, slamming him back first into the corner post, his own weight following on immediately in an impact that drove every last scrap of air out of the veteran’s lungs in a crash that Terry felt reverberate throughout the ring.

Bernard would have fallen to the mat but Mark roughly shoved his hands under the German’s armpits, hoisted him to his feet again, took hold of the top ropes on either side of his opponent’s body, took a step back while still holding on then charged into him, driving his shoulders into the man’s exposed and helpless gut. He stepped back and did it again. Then again. The crowd were on their feet protesting this maltreatment of their favourite, and the referee was trying frantically to stop the brutal punishment without actually getting pulped  between the two wrestlers’ bodies himself. Only after he had delivered six shoulder charges into Bernard’s stomach did Mark leave off, standing back to raise his arms and affect surprise at the anger of referee and crowd alike, while Bernard slid slowly down the turnbuckle padding to the mat, wheezing and clutching his gut and ribs. 

The referee spoke quickly and harshly to Mark, jabbing his fingers at his sweating chest then signalling furiously to the ringside MC who announced something Terry had no way of understanding but which he assumed was some kind of public warning, the first step to disqualification in pro wrestling, and an unthinkable thing for a team of ‘blue eyes’ who were always supposed to follow the rules. He tried to catch Mark’s eye, but Mark was already crouched and regarding the gasping form of his opponent in the corner, impatiently waiting for him to get up again so that he could resume his ruthless assault. The referee had no choice but to begin a count. “Ein, zwei, drei….” Terry thought it was all over. The crowd was shrieking at Bernard to get up. Stefan was shouting at the top of his lungs, urging his father to rise. On the seven count the older man finally stirred. On the eight began to struggle to his feet. He just made it by the nine.

Mark immediately pushed the referee to one side, stepped in, scooped the groggy German up bodily in a crotch hold, paraded him helplessly to the centre of the ring and then slammed him down harshly, back first to the mat. Bernard had time to arch only once in agony, before Mark dropped on him, elbow first into his tenderised gut, then lay across the top half of his body, chest to chest, hands holding down one of his arms, feet the other, keeping him easily pinned to the mat for the full three count of the first fall.

The English were in the lead.

As Stefan leapt over the ropes to dash to help his partner up, Mark swaggered over to his corner of the ring. For the punters, Terry clapped him on the back as if proud of his achievement, nodding and smiling like a loon, but as he leant into him he hissed into Mark’s ear, “What the fuck are you doing?”

“Winning the match. What does it look like?”

“You don’t have to kill a man to do that.”

Mark shrugged. “Shouldn’t step in a ring if he can’t take the lumps, should he?” And his tone changed, became harder. “And he shouldn’t have made me look such a prat.”

My writing collaboration with AR started more than 8 months ago, and it sort of amazes me how strong it’s still going. My writing partner, who prefers to keep a low profile, is a delight to work with, and not just because his 3D artwork is scorching hot. He likes to tell himself that I do all the writing, but it’s not even remotely true. His words and dazzlingly sexy ideas are all over everything we’ve been writing together, and when he illustrates some of them, it’s just seriously delicious icing on the cake.

At one point, we were discussing if either of us ever fantasized about being BG East wrestlers like the ones we’ve both been turned on by over the years. The answer for both of us was “fuck yes, all the fucking time.” Which then morphed into a series of homoerotic wrestling stories we’ve been working on over the months charting the fantasy BG East career of a certain wrestling blogger who ventures into the ring and in front of the camera to put his relentlessly critical reviewer’s perspective to the test as a wrestler. I posted at Sidelineland Stories some “match descriptions” of this wrestling blogger’s first three matches, in a loving homage to the real BG East website that I’ve called my homoerotic wrestling home for so many years. Today, I posted what was actually the first BG East fantasyverse homoerotic wrestling story AR and I co-authored, which chronologically takes place after those first few solo matches for the blogger-turned wrestler. In this new match, he shows up with a hunky, newbie tag team partner to square off against the tag dream team that never quite was IRL, Joshua Goodman and Troy Baker.

I shared the story with another friend a few weeks ago, who teased me a little about writing myself as a babyface hero of my own homoerotic wrestling fantasy. If you’ve read enough of this blog, you know that I actually passionately love babyface heroes. A lot. It probably should come as a surprise to no one that I’d cast myself in that role in the rough and tumble world of a BG East fantasyverse. If you read the story (and the upcoming ones that continue to chronicle the adventure), you’ll see that the protagonist is NOT a jobber. I feel like somewhere over the last 15 years of blogging about homoerotic wrestling, the role of a babyface hero who isn’t a jobber has somehow disappeared from public discourse. EVERYONE has been reduced to being either a jobber or a heel, and, frankly, I think it’s a loss of depth of the homoerotic wrestling universe. I wanted my fantasy avatar to walk that line again, tough, mean even, but not a heel. Let me know if AR and I struck that chord in Tag Team Torture – Bard/Strong vs. Goodman/Baker.

And if you know me, you KNOW I love a story arc and character development, so don’t be surprised if you see this fictional blogger turned BG East star evolve!