ReadOut Shorts

Briefs

LESBIAN LESSONS

Partners in life and professionally, Tracey Stevens and Katherine Wunder have written the sensible, informed How to Be a Happy Lesbian: A Coming Out Guide (Amazing Dreams Publishing). In this slim volume, the authors cover a considerable amount of material on coming out, relationships, safer sex, and more. The chapter "Romance and the art of making lesbian love" offers step-by-step advice that is clearly written and good-natured (look for the "wild, coconut-humpin' monkey" reference)-like the rest of this book. Additional chapters list great role models and resources for lesbians. A particularly great book for young or emerging lesbians, How to Be . . . would make a great addition to the shelves of even worldly women. In a worthy effort to reach closeted readers, the publisher makes the book available as a free PDF download at www.amazingdreamspublishing.com. -TB

NAUGHTY AND NICE

"Joe," he says when I thought sure he was asleep, "why don't you show me how?" He wiggled his ass, which looked all the whiter on the black sheepskin. "I seen you one Saturday night with Will. I watched you through the loop of the bunkhouse door."

I knew he was telling the truth. I remembered the night he meant. The others had gone off. Will and I had got going before we thought to blow out the lamp.

"Do to me what you done with Will," he says.

A man is only flesh and blood. I figured the old man would kill me if he got wind of it. But I thought I'd have a feel of it. Ain't no harm in that. If they start shooting cowboys for patting each other's rumps, they'll run out of rounds in a hurry.

This snippet from Texas writer Lars Eighner's "A Cowboy Christmas" is one of many spicy scenes in Stocking Stuffers (Circlet Press), a collection of holiday-themed erotica. "This book is for all the boys on Santa's naughty list," book editor David Laurents writes in his intro. A lump of coal, though, goes to the elves that left out "Xmas in the Apple," by Felice Picano (Like People in History and Ambidextrous), the most famous author in the book. Though listed on the table of contents, the tale is mysteriously missing. -TB

CLASS IS A DRAG

Since 1992, Miss Vera's Finishing School for Boys Who Want to Be Girls has provided real-world instruction for men who wish to slip into something feminine as well as trannies in transition. Founder Veronica Vera, a one-time porn-film actress, bills her Manhattan schools as the world's first cross-dressing academy. Now she has written Miss Vera's Cross-Dress for Success: A Resource Guide for Boys Who Want to be Girls (Villard), a handbook that contains a wealth of marvelous advice. "Tranny Beauty Basics" includes this tip: "For beard cover, use Ben Nye's 5 O'Clock Sharp or Joe Blasco Blue Neutralizer #2." Blending light-hearted girl talk and womanly advice, Miss Vera covers makeup techniques and tools, finding the right wig, building a wardrobe, drag queen history, and more. An invaluable 35-page guide includes web resources from the whimsical (Spa Turbans, "for glamour in the bath") to the critical (among them, Transgender Legal, founded by Houston's own Phyllis Randolph Frye). -TB

PRETTY AS A PICTURE

Donald Black adds little to the self-help shelf with his advice tome Escape the Gay Straitjacket (Power Books). In fact, some of his assertions appall, including macho posturing and remarkably amateur psychodreck (domineering mother+weak father=nancy boy). But we think the cover models are awfully fetching, so here they are. Happy Holidays!