Running Into Trouble

A collection of four novellas about gay guys who run outside for exercise and the trouble they encounter along the way. The first story, "The Honeydipper," is about a runner who lives in the inner city with his lover. They have been together for five years and have grown apart. And so, on their five-year anniversary, they move from the inner city, where they live close to the Gay life, to the more sedate suburbs where they think their relationship will have a better chance of surviving. Once settled into the suburbs, the next-door neighbor (a married man) complicates things. The second story, "The God Zeus," is about a new neighbor the runner sees occasionally. From afar he becomes infatuated with this god-like man who likes to putter around his front yard in very little clothes. One day the neighbor materializes from out of the mirror and joins him. They proceed to make passionate love, thus fulfilling his long held fantasies of the man. The third story, "The Woodsman," is about a runner who meets up with a handsome and seductive man dressed like a lumberjack. This man is not aware that he is being observed. He believes he is alone in these woods and begins to have subtle sex with himself. Eventually though, he does spot the runner and they have sex. The fourth story, "The Married Man," is about a runner and his lover of ten years who have grown apart due to inattentiveness. They work different shifts and so they do not see that much of each other during the week. The runner finally meets a cyclist on one his running trails, and finds that he just can't resist the temptation. He does not exactly feel as though he is cheating, since, he surmises, that what he would be giving away is nothing his lover wants anyway.