Muscle Beach

Over-endowed Taryn Rearden has a crush on under-endowed Irish bodybuilder, Shamus Little. After a hostile encounter at Muscle Beach, Shamus asks Taryn back to his flat, where the two men find common ground. Both are burdened by size, whether too much or too little. A bet leads to the discovery that size isn't everything.

This work of short erotic fiction is one of several written by Peter in the 1970s that had been lost to time. PS Publishers stumbled across it in a filing cabinet reserved for taxes. The language and expressions in "Muscle Beach" come directly from the thriving gay community in Los Angeles at the time. Although the story is not dated, it is likely written earlier than 1976, when the Big Donut Drive-In Became Randy's Donuts. The story deals with many themes that appear in his novels. The matching of a well-endowed everyman with a perfectly sculpted, under-endowed muscleman appears in the earlier novel "Dark as a Dungeon." Like his contemporary, Tom of Finland, Peter preferred an exaggerated reality. The difference is in the attitude towards size great and small. Extreme size becomes a burden rather than a blessing. Rumors state that Peter suffered from the same problems as the hero of this story, Taryn Rearden.