With a title that would surely have done numbers on Booktok as a boring 2020s gay romance novel, Victor’s 1965 novel So Sweet, So Soft, So Queer was light years ahead of its time in more ways than one. As far as I can tell, based on its number (PE-344), it was officially Victor’s first published gay novel (AC-DC Lover, also published in 1965 with Private Edition Books, has the number PE-346; according to Victor, The Why Not was also written in 1965, but not published until 1966).
Much like trying to glean historical info from their relative serial numbers, I think the narrative of So Sweet, So Soft is also best contextualized through where it stands in relation to AC-DC Lover. Like AC-DC, So Sweet, So Soft, So Queer tells the story of a young hustler and the many trials he encounters due to his trade and an inflexible disposition, but that’s pretty much where the similarities end.
As with AC-DC’s Lenny, Mike first comes to understand gay sex as a thing to be endured for financial benefit—though with significantly less violence and, in fact, rather enthusiastic consent. Although he eventually gets narratively punished for his dependence upon it, hustling isn’t presented as inherently traumatic and vile in So Sweet, So Soft. It’s just a trade. And in time, Mike’s understanding of same sex desire begins to extend beyond business transactions, and he comes to understand himself as a gay man.
This would already be striking simply for Mike’s decision to align himself with gay identity and community, but perhaps even more astonishing is Mike’s coming to this conclusion with the acknowledgment that his genuine attraction to men and desire for love and affection from them was not an acquired perversion but rather something that had been within him all along, repressed for relatably realistic reasons. In fact, his love interest proves to be the first man he ever took on as a client, reframing his initial entrance into the trade as one defined by his experience of genuine desire for men.
Victor’s mission to humanize here is clear. Gay people can fall in love, gay people can have partnerships, gay people can get depressed for reasons beside sexuality, have jobs, go to the grocery, make ill-advised decisions at 18, pretend to be asleep to avoid awkward conversations about having sex when they’re not in the mood. Just like you!
A novel in 3 acts, the somewhat aimless, somewhat preachy domesticity of the first portion of the novel is significantly offset by the whirlwind of its final 30 pages or so. I’ll be honest, that might be the most stressed a Victor novel has ever made me—at least you know what you’re in for with AC-DC Lover or his ‘66 thriller Good-bye, My Lover from the first chapter or so. What drama! Spoiler alert: They both live at the end. It’s quite socially conservative, insofar as that’s something a groundbreaking midcentury gay novel could be. The novel goes out of its way to describe Mike and his lover Glen as sufficiently masculine, sufficiently normal, sufficiently human. The road to salvation is kink-free monogamy, and anything else will lead to torment and destruction. (I’m reminded of the slightly more tongue-in-cheek version of this that pops up again in The Gay Haunt five years and five millennia of gay publishing developments later.) It does require something of a “not like those other gays” logic to function, but that’s still, of course, a radical departure from the only road to salvation being suicide or the closet. Let’s not get too greedy.
The first edition text of So Sweet, So Soft, So Queer is available through Hommi Publishing. Mike and Glen’s story was also republished as Sweet Tormented Love by Wildside Pressin 2012.
He was waiting for me, his arms open, and I went into them as if it were the most natural thing of my life. It wasn’t the way it had been with the others. This was different, so different that I clung to him desperately in the darkness. Then, when his lips sought and found mine, I understood. I wasn’t playing the nice young “piece of trade”.
I was a man burning for the body of another man, aflame with desire for the body in my arms.
Glen knew it too; he must have known it before I did because there was no doubt or hesitation in the way that he guided me, helping me along this new trail that I was blazing for myself. And if he was a good teacher, I was proving to be as good a student.
It was impossible for me to think clearly or be fully aware of what was happening. I was aware of the body crushing again and again against mine, the warm, eager flesh that my lips found. The room toppled and rolled with us, filled with a symphony of gasps and small cries that I discovered finally were mine. I remember that ecstasy swelled up within me until I thought that I would burst with joy. There was pain too, but that was lost in the delirium that built to a soul-shattering climax deep within me. I cried aloud and fell weakly back against the bed, limp and exhausted.
I lay for what might have been hours in Glen’s arms, his hands stroking me tenderly. My mind began finally to function again, and I saw the situation at last for what it was.
I was as queer as a three dollar bill. All of these weeks of playing the butch trade, and I was as queer as any of those men. I had just done all of the things that they did, and I had loved it. In fact—and this hit me like a blow across the head—I loved Glen!
I sat upright, startled by the thought. This couldn’t be true. This couldn’t be me doing and thinking these things.
Beside me I felt Glen sit up also. “How do you feel,” he asked. He seemed to have read my mind, or at least guessed the train of my thoughts.
I couldn’t answer. I knew suddenly that I couldn’t stay here with him, speak to him, without wanting him all over again, totally and helplessly. I jumped up, searching in the dark for my clothes.
“Mike?” Glen spoke without moving from the bed.
I didn’t answer, but dressed hurriedly, not caring how I looked. I had only one thought, to escape from the awful truth that was racing through my mind. I escaped a moment later, leaving Glen still in bed while I raced madly out of the building, down the street.
I hadn’t the nerve to thumb a ride. I hailed a cab instead and told him to take me back to Emma’s Place. The bar had filled up since we had left, the smoke adding to the awesome darkness. I ordered a double on the rocks, and downed it in two swallows when it came.
That helped, and at last I was able to calm myself slightly, leaning against the bar in the far corner.
It was still hard for me to think clearly. I breathed deeply, letting my mind drift back to the scene in Glen’s bedroom. I had never even been conscious of the desire for that sort of thing in the past—and yet it must have been there. But the satisfaction had not been complete. I had needed, and wanted the rest, the other half of the bargain.
There was only one thing to do, and I couldn’t do it here in Emma’s. I had to find out for myself whether I was really queer or not.
[…]
“You know,” she said, smiling up at me. “I’ve had plenty of men before, but they were all babies compared to you.”
I returned her smile, what could I say? I couldn’t very well tell her that I had had a man only a short time before, and that she had failed to give me the thrill I had known with him.
I got up and began to dress, trying hard not to show how depressed I was. She dressed too, then helped herself to the bathroom while I had a cigarette.
“I don’t suppose I’ll see you again,” she said as we were leaving the apartment.
“Why do you say that?” I asked, my mind not really on my companion.
She gave my arm a squeeze. “Honey,” she said softly. “I know a man in love when I see one.”
“Don’t be silly,” I snapped, annoyed that my feelings had been so obvious to a perfect stranger. “I enjoyed you very much.”
“Oh sure,” she agreed, not bothered by my annoyed tone. “I’m a good one, but I’m not the right one.”
I thought about it for a moment while we waited for a cab to come by. She was right, so who was I kidding. I wondered, though, what she would think if she knew who the right one was.
“You see,” she said as we climbed into the cab that had pulled up. “I’m always right about these things.”
“I’m afraid you are,” I admitted, climbing into the cab beside her. I had the cabbie drive us back to the bar where I had picked her up. As we neared the place, I took a ten dollar bill from my wallet, changed my mind and pulled out two more. I realized, as I glanced at the bills left, that I really didn’t have a great deal of money. Somehow I was sure that I wouldn’t be able to continue my profession, not the way things were going. I handed the thirty dollars to her as she started to get out of the cab. She pushed my hand gently away and gave me a quick smile as she shook her head. She said softly. “Not after the fun I had.” I grinned, and stuffed the money back into my wallet.
When she had gone, I gave the cab driver the address of Glen’s apartment. I didn’t even know if he would still be there, but I had to go there anyway, even if I had to wait the night for him.
If he was surprised to see me, he didn’t show it. He let me in and led the way to the small living room. “Coffee?” he asked, setting his own cup down on the table. Neither of us had said anything yet. I nodded and he started toward the kitchen.
“I take it with sugar,” I said, my voice hoarse and strained. “If we’re…if we’re going to be living together, you should know that.”
