…and you can read his story now, as GIGOLO JOHNNY WELLS, Book #3 in the Collection of Classic Erotica, is live on Amazon.

The product description on the book’s Amazon page strikes me as worth sharing here:

“17-year-old Johnny Wells is a very handsome young man.  (You could even call him a babe magnet, but I’m afraid they didn’t have that phrase back in 1961.) He decides to capitalize on his looks and the response they earn from women, invests in a haircut and a good wardrobe, moves out of his slum apartment and into a budget hotel, and reinvents himself as a lover for hire.

“He’s good at it, and the life is good for him.In fact, it transforms him. He takes up reading, becomes devoted to it, and educates himself. His new contacts provide him with polish and sophistication. He moves to a better hotel, puts money in the bank. And then an out-of-the-blue bout of impotence renders him unfit for his profession.

“Next up, true love—and another transformation. Before you know it he’s an advertising copywriter, a rising star on Madison Avenue. A family man.

“But Fate’s not done dealing, and the house rings in a cold deck. The next card he draws is down and dirty…”

Gigolo Johnny Wells was published by Nightstand Books in 1961, and elicited a surprising response from whoever was serving as editor at the time. (Harlan Ellison, I’ve been told, but maybe not. And, really, who cares?) Whoever it was, he loved the book and asked for more. I must have written a sequel, but efforts to find it have failed. (And, really, who cares?)

A note on the name: Several years later, I needed a pen name for a work described as “a cross-cultural survey of comparative sex techniques.” I’d by then long since forgotten having used the name Johnny Wells in this book (which Nightstand had titled “Lover”) and the name I stuck on Eros & Capricorn was John Warren Wells, a name I was to go on fastening onto almost two dozen books of sexually-oriented nonfiction. Let me assure you that Johnny Wells and John Warren Wells are, at best, very distant cousins.

This ebook edition of Gigolo Johnny Wells includes as a bonus the first chapter of the next volume in the Collection of Classic Erotica, April North.