10-Inch Toker

Rich Cummings writes like a drag queen doing Shakespeare—every sentence is camp, but the stakes are real. 10 Inch Toker is vintage gay pulp that knows exactly what it is and winks at you while delivering the goods.

Carey Baxter is the narrator-protagonist every pulp novel wishes it had: perpetually horny, perpetually underestimated, and perpetually armed with ten inches and a sarcastic mouth. Cummings gives him a voice that’s part street-smart Bronx kid, part jaded social critic, and entirely self-aware. When Carey lands at Camp Sha-wan-ga (motto: probably not what you think), he’s expecting orgies. What he gets is bureaucracy, rotating counselors, and the eternal hustle of a cocksucker trying to get his due.

What elevates this above standard stroke-book fare is Cummings’ wit. The prose is sharp, the observations are cynical, and the sex scenes come with punchlines. Carey narrates his own exploitation with the detached amusement of someone who knows the score—he’s a commodity, a convenience, a “mascot,” and he’s going to get what he can out of the arrangement. The result is darkly funny, occasionally poignant, and always propulsive.

The episodic structure—camp, school, the city, the Arkansas farm—keeps the action moving while Carey graduates from novice to entrepreneur to… well, that would be telling. Suffice it to say that by the time Carey introduces himself as “Uncle Carey” to his final marks, you’ve watched a masterclass in pulp storytelling.