When I saw this picture, I was immediately reminded of the novel The Lord Won’t Mind by Gordon Merrick.

The Lord Won’t Mind was the first overtly gay themed novel I ever read. I managed to get hold of a copy when I was in high school. I saw it in a book catalogue that I regularly got in the mail, and I ordered it. Doing this made me quite nervous. I was terrified someone would find out I had ordered this dirty little queer book. But I simply had to have it.

It came in a plain brown wrapper just like all the other books I had ordered. My mother was seriously out of it at the time, and my father was completely uninterested in books--he hadn’t read a book since he was in school--so he just assumed I had ordered yet another classic. Haha

The novel, which was published in 1970, was about two young men in their early 20’s, Peter and Charlie. I believe they were still in college at the beginning. They were described as handsome with a privileged background. They were the type of young men who hung out in country clubs, drove sports cars and traveled to Europe. One was shy and vulnerable and the other was athletic and outgoing. They immediately developed an intense romantic relationship, but trouble starts when the shy one quickly realizes he’s gay and declares he’s in love with his new friend. The other wants to go on pretending he’s straight and only messes around with boys for fun. The sex scenes were remarkably graphic, and I was pleasantly shocked by that.

When Dad brought the package home from the post office, I took it to my room, opened it up and I began reading. I read and read and read until I was finished. I devoured that book. It was basically a romance novel for gay guys, and I was starved for such a story. I remembered that I literally trembled when I read it the first time, and my heart was skipping beats all over the place. I wanted Peter and Charlie to be real. I wanted them to like me. And I wanted to somehow slip into their story.