Reviewed by Elizabetta

TITLE: Confessions of a Rentboy
AUTHOR: T.R. Verten
PUBLISHER: Burning Book Press at Smashwords
LENGTH: 118 pages
BLURB: Acerbic twenty-something Andy is living the dream in London. Too bad he’s totally broke. The way to getting paid is getting laid — or at least that’s what he discovers when his friend Michelle introduces him to her somewhat-highly-paid and definitely not glamourous world of call girls and boys. Told with frankness and biting humor, Andy sleeps his way through London: for the sex, the glory, and the rent money.

REVIEW:

This novella took a hold of my heart slowly but surely, then broke it into pieces. And still left me hopeful. I just found it… brilliant, and not at all what I was expecting.

I thought it would be and yet another rent-boy pretty-young-thing-rescued-by-handsome-john fairy tale. With lots of smutty rutting about thrown into the mix. Nothing at all wrong with that.

But a book that surprises and moves in another, unexpected direction, and still touches you, becomes remarkable for it.

While there is a lot of sex, a lot of kink of all sorts, it is so well done and so much more than salacious. There is so much more going on. Andrew, our hooker, gives us and in-depth confessional of that life, a breakdown of his clients and their predilections, and his caring for them.

“Getting in their heads, just for that tiny wedge of time. What are their fantasies? Do they tell you? Do the fantasies fuse seamlessly with your own, glorious moonbows of perfect synchronicity?”

But, he is not the requisite pretty boy so often met in these stories. He spends quite some time informing us that he’s really just an average bi-sexual joe, sexually flexible, but nothing special to look at, average body, not even especially smart. And that’s the seduction because of course, he is special. He is a deep observer, he yearns for connection, and because of these traits, we see him grow into a talented deliverer of sexual fantasy. The author serves him up with a strong, engaging narrative voice.

“Bum-boy, on the game in the trade, prozzie, renter. Whore. Faggot? What business is that of yours? If you want to know, I’m rather less picky in my private life. Girls, boys. White, black, Asian. Blondes, brunettes, gingers. Posh, naff. Breathing will do… I like fucking, I don’t mind if it’s how I earn a buck.”

Who is this guy? Andrew is average in his approach to life. He seems to be just drifting along, no real direction, no found vocation other than an undeveloped interest in writing. Until one day when his bestie, Michelle, talks him into helping out with one of her clients. Her john requires a third to watch in a cuckhold role-play scene (there is some m/f action, but the story is firmly in the m/m genre). Andrew swiftly falls to the lure of extra cash and… hey… the guarantee of all the fucking he could want, the guys aren’t exactly beating down his door.

Things start off easily enough. It’s all about the lure of quick, ‘easy’ cash and his first real client is actually rather sweet. We feel Andrew’s nervousness and taste his arousal.

“Endless touching, drifting fingers and fluttery kisses. No one ever treated me that nice, and it was an internal struggle between tears of relief and wanton moans like the heroine of a supermarket bodice-ripper… No man could be that nice, that considerate. Especially not one who was paying for it… until he ducked his head and his pointed tongue found my hole.”

He gets hooked on the occasional tenderness and chases it down. But Andrew’s story is not the hooker with a heart of gold finds white knight rescuer fantasy. It is a real look at someone who is trying to find his place, and wants what we all do, to connect in some way with someone special. He just isn’t very lucky at it. And the reality of this story is that he’s not going to find what he wants by hooking even though he becomes very good at it.

He sees this after servicing an older client who has just lost a long-time lover…

“He kissed my neck the whole time, and I knew he wanted me to be someone else… I went home and wanked in the dark, wondering if anyone would ever love me like that, so much that they kept fucking my memory even after I was long gone.”

“Why can’t I get anyone to love me for longer than an evening?”

He sees this through his unrequited love for a fellow rentboy who uses him, just like all the others.

The systematic stripping of his soul as Andrew descends into the life is painful to watch yet you can’t turn away from it.

I really love the straightforwardness of the story, no melodrama, no manipulation. I love Andy’s voice, his humor… he calls us out at one point:

“Be honest with yourself, dear reader, were you–like me–just in it for the fucking?”

I love his self deprecation and his quiet desperation to be wanted, to be treated with care. But here, he’s not a precious gift, he’s a commodity, something he is constantly reminded of.

I keep thinking about this story, the ballsy, incredibly effective writing and the in-your-face uncompromising honesty of it. The writer gives us a strong male voice that remains true throughout. In the end Andy is seeming to figure things out and we’re left with the tease of a something better for him. Not an HEA but, real. (I did have a little issue with some awkward secondary character treatment. Nick, Andrew’s on-again-off-again, cruel ex-lover comes out of nowhere. And yet, he is another fascinating, broken character who gives us insight to Andrew.)

This is some brilliant stuff, a shining little nugget of storytelling. I truly hope this writer brings us more of her work in the very near future. As yet, there is not nearly enough out there to sample from.

Elizabetta rates it – 

BUY LINKS: Smashwords :: Amazon :: Barnes & Noble

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Elizabetta is one of the official reviewers on The Blog of Sid Love.

To read all her reviews, click the link: ELIZABETTA’S REVIEWS
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