About Keep You
Written by Cindy Rosenthal
266 pages / 110500 words
ISBN: 1-933389-53-2
Available file types - html, lit, pdf, prc
Jay is a barely legal runaway who needs someone to show him how to survive in LA. Simon is a hard-edged Brit who reluctantly takes Jay on rather than watch him do something that might get him killed. As they learn to know, and love, each other, Jay finds out a lot about Simon’s past, about how Simon likes to feel the whip and about what it will take for he and Simon to become a real couple.
Simon learns a lot from Jay, too. He learns that strength takes more than one form, that Jay needs to deal with his family issues, and that when you love someone, you keep them. Even if it’s the hardest thing he’s ever had to do.
Review
AJ Grant, anthology contributor, writes: Keep You by Cindy Rosenthal tells the story of Simon and Jay, two handsome young men who start their lives together as rent boys, go through hardships with family, emotions, past history, and circumstances and end up - well, you'll have to read to find out how it ends.
A story concept like rent boys is one that can easily lend itself to cliche and lazy writing, but Cindy Rosenthal infuses an old concept with new life. Things that other authors would use as plot devices are, for Cindy Rosenthal, plot points. Sex scenes are not just sex scenes but moments that advance the characters and the story. Obstacles arise naturally, and the characters become more interesting for them.
What stands out most of all is Cindy Rosenthal's writing style. She gives each moment an attention to detail that is breathtaking. Characters and objects are three-dimensional. These characters live in a world that is real to them and, by extension, the reader.
In addition to that there are the novel's steamier elements. Here too Cindy Rosenthal does not disappoint the reader. BDSM is portrayed not as a cheap thrill to gain a hotter rating, but rather as a sexual lifestyle with pleasures, pains (so to speak), and realities that the characters must come to terms with. The use of sex and this kind in particular becomes symbolic for Jay and Simon's relationship as a whole, and those who enjoy BDSM can trust that Cindy Rosenthal can take them through to the end and not let them down.
Keep You is sexy, honest, and real. It's definitely a book you'll want to read.
Sample
Two days after his birthday, Jay Bonney packed some clothes and his money in a backpack, caught a bus to the Greyhound station, and left home for California.
Two days after that he got off the bus in Los Angeles, and two days after that he had a bed in a shelter for homeless and runaway teens. The shelter’s ultimate goal was to reunite kids with their families, and to that end they wanted Jay to call home, even though he tried to refuse.
“I can’t go home,” he told the counselor. “My dad will kill me.” It was a little melodramatic, but close enough to the truth in his mind that he hoped the counselor would believe him.
“What about your mom?” the counselor asked. “Don’t you think she might be worried about you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe? Probably.” Now Jay felt guilty. He’d been trying not to think about his mom, what she must be wondering and how much he missed her.
“Don’t you miss her? Just call her to tell her you’re okay. You don’t have to talk to your dad.”
So he called home, hoping to talk to his mom but getting his younger sister Lily instead.
“Where the hell are you?” she demanded. “When are you coming home? Mom’s freaking out.”
“I’m, um, I’m in L.A.,” Jay told her, a little rattled that she’d answered the phone.
“L.A.? What for? Dad’s pissed.” Jay didn’t know how to answer that, but it didn’t surprise him. His dad spent a lot of time pissed off at him. It was one of the reasons he’d left. “So when are you coming home?” Lily went on. “It’s, like, insane here.”
“I’m. Um. I’m not.” He was glad the counselor had given him some privacy. He didn’t want to have to face her, not after she’d tried so hard to get him to agree to call home. “I like it here. It’s sunny and warm and I like the beach.” He hoped he sounded determined and defiant. In reality he probably sounded scared. “The other kids are, are okay. It’s okay, Lily. I’m okay. Tell Mom, tell her I’m okay.” And he hung up before she could say anything else.
He was a sweet boy, but innocent and inexperienced, and because it was in his nature to trust strangers (because it was only the people he knew who hurt him), when someone said “You owe me money but I know how you can pay me back,” Jay felt reassured that it would work out. But when things started to collapse they crumbled to dust remarkably quickly, and in short order he found himself hustling and homeless and more scared than he'd ever been in his life.
And then he met Simon. Simon Kay was four years older and four inches shorter, and had seen and done (or at least said he'd seen and done) an astonishing array of things in the past six years. He was sun-bleached and suntanned, pierced and proud, a hustler, a single-minded boy, and good at what he did. Simon had a pierced eyebrow, a pierced nipple, and a ring in his cock, and Jay was embarrassed to admit how much that turned him on.
“You strung out?” Simon asked him once, as they sat in a little coffee shop to hide from the rain. Jay felt like he hadn’t slept in weeks, and he figured he looked at least that wrung out.
“Huh?”
“Drugs, kid. You on drugs?” Simon peered at him, then shrugged. “You want a reliable dealer, I know a couple guys. Don’t recommend it, though, pretty thing like you. You end up working for the high, and it’ll kill you.”
“Oh. No. I don’t, um, I don’t take drugs. I’m just really tired.”
“Where you sleeping?”
“I’m not. I mean, I was, uh, I was living in a, a shelter, but they kicked me out, and I’ve been kind of, of, kind of hiding in diners and, and empty buildings. Trying to hide from the cops and not, um, not get killed.” He blushed. He hated that he’d been reduced to sleeping in abandoned buildings and on the beach. He was afraid of getting picked up by the police and afraid of getting robbed and beaten, and now he was afraid to even look at Simon because Simon was so tough and so self-reliant, and Jay was so naïve.
But Simon just said “Huh,” and then “Flatmate fucked off on me. Can move in with me if you want.” Jay looked up and Simon was grinning at him. “Unless you like sleeping on the beach. Get sand in my shorts, me.”