Brief Encounters

Title: With Benefits
Author: Jenny Urban
Length: 33 pages, 8600 words.
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Genre: M/M, contemporary, erotica
Rating: B+

Blurb: Ryan takes care of his friend Trevor’s house while he’s out of town, meeting Trevor’s friends and settling into his life. Then Trevor comes home to find Ryan and their friend Ethan in his bed. Ryan only has to watch Trevor and Ethan together to know they’ve been more than friends for a while. But will the three of them be willing to explore the possibilities of being friends with benefits together?

Review: This was a very hot, very explicit and highly enjoyable story. Sex with the lights on, I’d describe it! but also with underlying emotional connection.

It’s essentially a protracted sex scene, albeit over a few days. Initially, I struggled to work out the relationships between the three men involved – I should have read the blurb more carefully – but otherwise the story was well-written enough to avoid the usual pronoun confusion when all the sexual protagonists are “he”!

Ryan and Ethan are having fun in Trevor’s absence, when Trevor arrives home unexpectedly and catches them in bed. From there, it develops into a sexual free-for-all, though within reason. There are no recriminations when Trevor finds the others having sex, it’s not that kind of a situation. This was a very refreshing approach!  The three, highly-sexual and uninhibited men are just having fun together and as a group. No one’s condoning infidelity or seeking lifetime love, just accepting of a consensual, shared physical relationship.

The sex is very hot, the positions and reactions described very vividly and visually. The author skilfully involves all the reader’s senses, increasing the stimulation. There are occasional moments of tension, usually broken by the men themselves and their open honesty about it all. But there’s plenty of humour and banter as well. The characters demonstrate the full-on frankness of sexually-active young men, but I found them all very attractive and engaging.

The story is told mostly from Ryan’s POV, in his individual, inimitable language. He’s an adventurer as much as the next man, but his commentary on the situation lends amusement and character. For example, when he’s been out drinking with his friends: He thought maybe he should quit while he was ahead. Or at least not behind. He tried to stand the empty bottle next to another on the table and couldn’t make it stay up straight. Definitely should quit. He’s a very willing participant in it all but remains rather charmingly surprised at his good luck at being included in the sex games with two such hot men.

And that’s where an emotional impact creates something more than porn-games-with-plot. The author differentiates well between the three characters, showing unique personalities, dialogue and wit, hinting at friendships and relationships already established. Ryan is our main pair of eyes and he’s not privy to everything between Trevor and Ethan, but he allows us to see there’s more going on behind the scenes than the bedroom action. When he comes home and finds Trevor and Ethan together as a couple: Ryan was frozen, unable to move, unable to shake the feeling that he’d intruded on something unbearably private; at the same time, he was desperate to join in.

The story was fun and exciting to read, hot and sweet. The author’s style delivered something far more interesting and lasting than a quickie romp, and the story has stayed in my memory since first reading – and in the smile on my face . I rate it B+.

by pettyprose…my opinion alone.

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