Brief Encounters

Title: Come & Play: Video Games
Author: Juniper Gray
Length: 3,600 words (15 pdf pages)
Publisher: Torquere Press
Genre: m/m contemporary
Rating: B-

Blurb:

Matt Harding is a university student with an open love of video games and a secret curiosity for cock. Things get complicated after he explores this curiosity with his housemate, Rafe, one evening when they’re home alone. Matt must decide whether to fight the attraction he feels for Rafe, or embrace it and find out just where it all might lead.

Review:

This is rather a mash up of GFY (or bi-curious) and friends-to-lovers. Matt and Rafe live with two other guys while attending university. Matt and Rafe are pretty good friends who play a lot of video games together and just hang out. One night, Matt suddenly asks Rafe about being gay, and confesses that he sometimes wonders what he is because watching porn he’s sometimes more interested in the guy’s dick than the woman. He even confesses he might like to try touching another guy, and Rafe agrees to let him experiment on him as he is openly bi. Things are going well and getting heated up when the others come home leading to general awkwardness between the two as Matt tries to forget it. Easier said than done.

I think people who are gamers will enjoy this story because it has a lot of gaming built into. When the story starts it is a description of the two men as gaming characters, rather than as two guys sitting on the couch, but Matt’s real-life thoughts bleed into his focus on the game. It was interesting and I have to say since we only got a gaming system at Christmas, it actually made a lot more sense to me than it would have six months ago. You certainly don’t need to be into gaming to enjoy it though.

Matt seems to be the one leading here, but you only get inside his head so you aren’t sure what Rafe is thinking. You get the impression he likes Matt as more than just a friend, but it’s Matt who seems to be more and more obsessed with Rafe and gay sex. Even when they finally get to some action, it is Matt who pushes for more at the end when Rafe is content to let it be an experiment.

Rafe had opened a door, and Matt wasn’t content with a mere peek inside.

So it was a cute little story about two guys, neither with much experience with guys, even Rafe wasn’t all that experienced, who dance around a bit before one makes a move, however there wasn’t anything more to the story than the relationship, which is not necessarily a bad thing. And as I said, gamers will likely enjoy the lingo and gaming environment depicted.