Special Delivery

Special Delivery - Heidi Cullinan Twenty - two year old Sam has been living with his aunt and uncle (or rather, at their basement) since his mother died six years ago. He's working in his uncle's pharmacy and going part time at nursing school. His aunt loathes him, he doesn't have a lot of money, not many friends, and he's a gay boy with a kink for humiliation and submission in a small town where being gay isn't exactly popular. So his life is rather miserable. Enter handsome, sexy trucker Mitch who Sam meets one afternoon in the back alley behind his uncle's pharmacy and immediately falls for. Hard. They have sex in the back of Mitch's truck, the kind of sex that makes Sam look different at his kind of life and leaves him yearning for more. And after a particularly nasty encounter with his aunt, Sam runs away to ride west with Mitch. The ride takes him not only away from his old life, but turns out to be a ride to himself. I loved this book. It's a beautiful road movie that took me to all the places Mitch took Sam with a loving guidance. It's very much character driven, for mostly it's about Sam finding his place in the world. There's a lot of sex in it. But Sam's growing up happens often through letting himself in for new sexual experiences, and Mitch's feelings show more often than not by the way he has sex with Sam. So the sex is integral to the story; it felt never superfluous. There's another man, Randy, whom they encounter in Vegas, and whom I particularly liked. Mitch and Randy used to play with random strangers, always ending up with someone in misery, mostly said stranger. Their friendship (which is a sexual relationship as well) broke over the last boy toy Mitch brought home. At first, Randy thinks Sam is another one of those, but he's soon put right. I loved this different kind of threesome, where all three partners can like and desire each other and still don't need to come to a happy three - ways. There are three different relationships: Mitch and Randy, both tops, both like to be in charge. Sam and Randy - at first there's nothing but sexual desire and mindfuck from Randy's part, but Sam gains Randy's respect and even affection over time. And finally Mitch and Sam, a top who gets around and even wants to be topped from the bottom, and a submissive who wins first the heart and finally even the soul of a jaded, bitter man. All of this was done in a wonderful writing that sucked me right out of my reality and deep inside the story - and that's what a book should do for me to make it a great read. It didn't matter to me though that the beginning was a little too exaggerated, some thoughts and musings of Sam's were repeatedly rehashed,a dn that the secondary characters like Sam's aunt and Sam's friend Emma were mere stereotypes. "Special Delivery" is not a perfect book, but a wonderful book. Like Sam lets himself on for Mitch, I let myself in for that story and oh was I rewarded.