Transgressive fiction bridges the divide between the titillating, yet (marginally) acceptable, and those boundary lines that leverage prescription with proscription. The lines can shift: by individual, by social attitudes, by cultural mores and social expectations.

It can blast apart our understanding of what’s explicit and undermine social parameters for sensuality and behavioral norms by redefining the rules on a playing field where rules either don’t exist or are so tenuous and transitory the perceived chaos can be enough to trigger a tsunami of reactions.

At the core, revulsion and attraction play bumper cars in a landscape barren of safe words.

In The Wrong Side of Right, Tony has come to terms with his sexuality, but not the consequences of ignoring it with safe offenses and a marginalized existence.

In this scene in the local watering hole where Tony bartends on the weekends, he encounters his first taste of mortal sin … Tank style.

A gloved hand, the leather soft and supple and warm, gripped his wrist hard enough to crunch his bones into meal. Pain radiated clear to his shoulder, the nerves pinched and screeching in terror. He would have squirmed but all thought drained to circle on that single point of agony. If he cried out, no sound made it to his ears, the band pummeling the dancers on the floor into a tribal frenzy with grunge band sonics.

Tony found himself locked into mortal combat, and losing. The polished surface of the bar reflected his horror, eyes gone wild with fear and loathing that he couldn’t fight back. He wasn’t strong enough, or big enough, or brave enough to take on the asshole asserting a little display of dominance for his buddies.

Fighting tears, Tony risked a look at the man’s face, fully expecting to see a sneer or a flush of triumph over the weakling in the apron. What he caught was curiosity and… something else. Unclenching his fist, Tony leaned forward and relaxed into the grip, easing the pain marginally. It was a gesture of submission that could carry consequences he didn’t want to think about. To his surprise, the big man turned his hand palm up. A leather clad thumb stroked the fleshy heel, digging hard until Tony winced and bit his lip, the new torture infinitely subtler yet no less demanding and harsh.

They were in a bubble of intimacy that Tony acknowledged on one level, but refused to accept, even as his own curiosity piqued at why and how this man could so quickly command his compliance.

Why me?

I’m nothing. I’m nobody.

I’m nothing but a victim to him and his gang.

Time seemed to stand still, looping through an endless slalom of agony and release, the ultimate passive aggressive possession of his senses.

Inexplicably, the tall man suddenly freed him from the leather bondage and handed him the Jack Daniels. With trembling hands, Tony fumbled with the cap, lacking even the most basic motor skills to twist it around. Even though his fingers were numb, he managed to palm it open. His tormentor nodded and held out a shot glass. Tony filled it, saying a little prayer of thanks that he didn’t spill one drop, a measure of control that suddenly assumed monumental importance.

The man saluted and drained the amber liquid, then held it out for a refill. Again. And again. And never once did he take his eyes off Tony.

Tony escapes to the employee restroom, terrified, electrified…

After relieving himself, he stood over the sink and dry heaved, the adrenaline draining in a rush, leaving him shaking and in a cold sweat. There was no way he was going back out there. The memory of being trapped and beaten to a pulp for being a queer, a sissy, a queen was still too raw. It shut down everything, even his will to live.

Because no one had come, no one had stood up for him, not his father, or his mother, not his two older brothers or his nerd friends. When the bullies exposed his little secret, he became everybody’s favorite whipping boy but it never stopped the wanting, the yearning, the craving for something dirty and pure and his, his alone.

There were times he still cried, curled into a ball in a corner of the room he now called home, touching himself because nobody else would. Or bribing Jorge for a Friday night blow job that left him disappointed, because every time it happened, it hit home that there might be nothing more than just a quick scratch that never quite reached the itch.

He never heard the biker enter, but he did register the bolt engaging, locking him in with a man who could crack him open like a walnut.

“What’s your name, kid?” The voice was like the man: rough and raw, two-pack-a-day gravelly.

Tony ignored the question, instead choosing to concentrate on his reflection, praying that someone, anyone, would come looking for him. Jorge maybe, because he liked his bitch, and the tequila shooters, and the camaraderie at work. The kid was the closest thing to a friend he had.

The apron sat on the edge of the sink. Tony glanced down at it, then at the huge hand descending on his damaged wrist, the bruising already purpling over the blue veins. He was no lightweight but the biker out-massed him a good fifty pounds, not a bit of it fat. There was little he could do as the man examined his handy work.

He knew enough to not beg. That had stopped years ago. The fear never went away, though.

The man husked, “Sorry about that, sometimes I forget, ya know?”

No, he didn’t know, but it gave him a moment to take a breath. Sorrys often led to something else, usually punishment because the one being sorry didn’t like that kind of vulnerable, and that kind of vulnerable was him waiting for more, like he earned it. Hell, maybe he did.

He used to fight back but that made it sport because there was seldom just one. They ran in packs, the haters, and loners against a mob never fared well, at least not in his experience. So he’d tried passive, hoping for mercy. Shutting it out until the rage and the hate wore down and they’d made their point.

Looking in the mirror he was surprised to see a flare of compassion in the biker’s eyes, as if the man had gotten inside his head, had been where he was, where he still existed.

Tony muttered, “It’s okay,” though it never would be, but that wasn’t something he’d share with the hulk looming over him, pressing his groin into the hard porcelain, the man’s massive erection hard and stiff and prominent even through the thick leather.

The man turned him around and shoved him back against the sink, fumbling with Tony’s zipper, then his own.

“You ever been raped, boy?”

Turning away, Tony mouthed ‘please’ and tried retreating to his safe house, the one in his mind that blanked out everything hateful and ugly.

The biker’s hands pried him loose from his tentative scrabbling for safety, stroking and plumbing his flesh with determination, and sensation swelled from the inside out, responding and slamming the door against fleeing.

“Well, have you?”

“N-no.”

The question terrified him. He had always feared he’d go to his grave a virgin, but the prospect of facing a savage with a cock the size of a semi wasn’t how he dreamed his first time would be. Definitely not when it promised to also be his last.

Tony’s cock betrayed him, growing stiff and thick, dancing against the biker’s huge phallus as the man ground his groin into his belly. The ridge of the porcelain bit into his ass and he reached behind to grip the edges as their cocks tangled and sparred, and he nearly swooned when the biker’s hands pressed both together and pumped hard, fast. Up, down, the beast nearly lifted him off his feet, only to jam him into the floor, his fingers curled around the rough underside of the sink, an anchor in a sea of violence. The grunts and pants and fuck yeah oh that’s good swam in the air like bubbles with words, not tethered to either of them. Just out there.

Tony bit his lip and squeezed his eyes shut tight, tighter, until the explosion behind his eyelids lifted him into orbit and he came, hot and sweet, cursing himself to hell and back because he loved it. He hated it.

Later he could not recall cleaning up or wrapping the apron around his waist, hiding most of the wet spots on his jeans and tee shirt. He did remember watching the big man pause at the door and give him a strange look because he had asked, “Have you?”

“Have I what, kid?”

“Been raped.”

“Not anymore.”

“Gritty, visceral, dark and uplifting. Sexy, voyeuristic and downright dirty in places. These are just a few of the words I’d use to describe this book. And I kept turning each page waiting to get to the next scene…” ~~Susan Mac Nicol, author of The Men of London series

“This highly erotic and powerful story took me by surprise and then some as it plunged me deep into the raw emotional depths of its lead character, Tony…” ~~Alex, Rainbow Book Reviews