» Free Fiction

The Promise

March 5, 2010

A tiny little short I wrote about Matt and Jared.  This takes place not long after the end of A to Z, and over a year after the end of Promises.  It’s short and, as Angelo will tell you, “so fuckin’ sweet it’ll make your teeth hurt.”

*****

The whole thing started because I wasn’t paying attention.

It was a Sunday afternoon in March.  I was sitting on the couch, reading.  Jared was grading homework while he watched TV.  That was when, seemingly out of the blue, he hit me with the question.

“Do you think you ever want to get married?”

In my defense, I was completely engrossed in my book.  I was down to the last hundred pages—the murderer was about to be revealed, justice was about to be served, and the hero was about to get the girl.  I definitely was not paying attention to the TV.

Did I ever want to get married?

I didn’t even pause to think about it.  The word “marriage” still held strictly heterosexual connotations for me.  I immediately pictured a tux.  An enormous cake.  Bridesmaids.

A bride.

I said the first thing that came to me—the worst thing I could possibly have said.  I opened my big mouth and said, “Of course not.”

The only response was a stunned silence, and when I looked over at him, the pain and disappointment in his blue eyes made me drop my book.  “What?”

“Nothing.”  He turned away from me, and I could see him trying to get his emotions back under control, trying not to show me how upset he was by my words.  He gathered up the stack of papers he was grading and took them into the dining room.

I finally looked at the TV, and that was when I realized what an idiot I was.  Another state had finally legalized gay marriage.  Not our state, of course.  But the announcement had obviously spurred the question, which had resulted in my unfortunate knee jerk response.  It wasn’t as if the idea of marrying him had never occurred to me.  It just hadn’t occurred to me at that one critical moment when it mattered most.  And now the man I loved more than anything in the world was hurt and angry and hiding in the other room, trying to distance himself from me.

I could just let it go.  I knew Jared.  He would give me a wide berth for the rest of the evening, only speaking if I spoke to him first, and not making eye contact.  When we went to bed, he would start out on his own side.  At some point in the night, he would move closer.  By morning he would be in my arms.  And we would pretend like nothing had happened.

But that wasn’t what I wanted.

I followed him into the dining room.  He hunched a little closer over the papers he was grading, not looking up at me.  I pulled a chair over and sat down facing him, so that his chair was between my knees.  I put my arms around him and buried my face in his mess of curls.  I loved him so much.  I loved the way his hair always smelled like the Colorado wind, and the stubborn way he would cock his head toward me when he was mad, so that I couldn’t quite get my lips onto his neck.  He was doing it now.

“Jared, I didn’t mean it that way.”

“It’s okay,” he said, even though it obviously wasn’t.  “If that’s how you feel—”

“It’s not.”

“—you don’t need to explain yourself.”

“I thought…”  What was I supposed to say?  “I thought you meant something else.”

If I had left him alone, he would have let it blow over.  But now that I was pushing him, he would push back.  He snorted and pulled away from me.  “I can see how a simple yes or no question might confuse you, Matt.”

And even though I felt like an ass, I knew I had to tell him the truth.  “I thought you meant to somebody else.”

He turned and looked at me with so much rage in his eyes that I backed up a little.  “Somebody else? What the hell would make you think—”

“I thought you meant to a girl!”

He froze, and I could see him processing that.  Jared had been aware of his homosexuality since high school.  I had only accepted my own attraction to him a year and a half earlier.  A year and a half wasn’t enough to completely erase thirty-three years of straight thinking.  He knew that.

He sighed, and some of the anger left his face.  He let me put my arms around him again.  This time, when I pulled him close and pushed my face into his hair, he angled his head away from me so I could get to his neck.

“You caught me off guard, Jared.  That’s all.”  He didn’t answer, but he finally relaxed against me.  “Please don’t be mad.  I didn’t mean it the way it sounded.  I promise.”

“It’s okay,” he said again, and this time I knew he meant it.  “It’s not like your answer had to be yes.  I just didn’t expect your ‘no’ to be quite so definitive.”

I pulled back so that I could look into his eyes.  “Is that what you want, Jared?  If so, just name a place.  Pick a place where it’s legal and I’ll book us on a flight right now.”

He blinked at me in surprise.  “Are you serious?”

“Absolutely.  We’ll go next weekend.  Or we can wait until summer and make a vacation out of it.  We can go alone, or we can take the whole family.  Whatever you want.”

He smiled at me then.  Jared smiled at just about everything.  It was one of the things that first attracted me to him.  “It doesn’t matter, Matt.  If we’re married or not, if the state recognizes it or not,” he shrugged, “it means nothing.”  One of his hands went to the back of my neck, and he put his forehead against mine.  “None of it changes the way I feel.”

I knew what he meant.  And yet, I also knew I wanted to do something for him, to prove how much he meant to me.

“Come to bed with me?” I asked him, and he smiled again.

“I have to finish grading these.  You go ahead.  I’ll be right behind you.”

“That’s not what I want tonight,” I said jokingly, and he laughed.

I was sound asleep when he finally joined me.  I woke up to him cuddling up to my back.  I leaned back against him, and he wrapped his arms around me.  “This reminds me of the first night I spent in this bed with you,” I said sleepily.

He was silent for a second or two, and then said lightly, “That was the second night.  The first night you spent in my bed, I was doped to the gills on vicodin, and you were fully clothed.”

He was right.  How had I forgotten that night?  Jared had been in a bike wreck.  Or, to be clear, he had been riding his bike home when he was hit by a car.  I remembered how it felt, seeing him with road rash all over one side of his body, half of his face a mess of bruises, and a gash on his temple that could have been so much worse.  He had been lucky.  “You could have died,” I whispered, and his arms tightened around me.

Looking back, I could almost pinpoint that night as the turning point for me.  That was the night I started to realize how much he meant to me.  The doctor had told me to keep an eye on him overnight, and to call right away if he started experiencing dizziness or nausea.  I had slept in his bed with him, and it had been all I could do not to wrap my arms around him and hold him close.  It hadn’t been a sexual urge, by any means.  I just wanted to know that he was there, and that he was really okay.  I wanted to reassure myself that he was alive and safe.  I wanted to feel him breathing.  Instead I had wrapped my hand around his wrist, so that I could feel his pulse against my fingertips.  I slept like that the whole night.

I was brought back to the present by Jared’s hand sliding down my stomach.

“Matt?”  It was only my name, almost a whisper, but that one word spoke volumes to me.  I knew what he was trying to say.  I heard in his voice an echo of the same tenderness I was feeling for him at that moment.  I turned toward him and pulled him into my arms, and he relaxed against me with a quiet sigh that was part contentment, part arousal.

Sex with women had always been about softness – soft skin and soft hair and soft curves.  There was nothing soft about Jared.  He was all elbows and collarbones and hipbones.  His arms were hard and strong, and his legs even stronger.  His hair was thick and coarse, and seemed to tangle around my fingers of its own accord.  Even his skin wasn’t quite soft, except in that spot just below his ear.  And if I seemed overly fascinated with that part of his body, it wasn’t because of that softness.  It was because when I kissed him there, I could smell him, and I could hear the low, urgent sounds he made as our bodies moved together.  Even now, after all this time, after so many nights spent together in this bed, I was still amazed at how that lack of softness turned me on so much.

I put one hand into his thick curls and angled his head so I could kiss the pale column of his throat.  “Say it for me, Jared,” I whispered into his ear.

His arms went around me, and for once he didn’t tease me.  He didn’t play the game.  He said immediately, “I love you so much.”

“I love you too,” I whispered as I wrapped my hand around both of our shafts at once and slowly started to stroke us together.  “You have no idea how much.”

There were no more words after that.  Just warm lips and his quiet moans, his pale skin against mine, legs tangled together, and slow burning passion that rocked me to my core.   There was no way in the world I was ever letting him go.  I knew that.  I had always known it.  But I wanted him to know it too.

He didn’t say anything after that night, and it seemed like he had forgotten the entire incident.  Maybe he had, but I hadn’t.  I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had failed him somehow, and I had no idea how to make it right.

The following weekend, Jared’s mom Susan asked me to take her and my mother to Boulder for the day.  Brian, Lizzy, and Zach all had birthdays coming up, and they wanted to go shopping.  We parted ways in the mall, and I resigned myself to several hours of boredom.  I was looking for a book store when I saw it: the jewelry store.  And inside, several different couples, shopping for rings.

The figurative light bulb in my head went on.  I knew immediately that was what I was looking for—a symbol.  Something that would show him how I felt.  I felt a little stupid for not having thought of it sooner.

I hoped I could shop without being bothered, but as soon as I started looking at the rings, one of the sales ladies came up to me.   She was about my age.  Pretty, but wearing way too much perfume.

“Can I take anything out of the case for you?”

I pointed out a couple of the rings, and she took them out for me to look at.  I didn’t want it to be fancy, and it definitely couldn’t be too delicate. Anything too soft wouldn’t survive all the mountain biking he did.  “I need it to be tough,” I told her.

“In that case, I would suggest platinum or titanium.  They’ll hold their shape better than plain silver.”

I was able to rule out platinum immediately based on price alone.  I chose titanium bands that were wide and unadorned.  “Can you engrave these?” I asked her.

She cocked her head at me, like she was confused, but said, “Of course.”

“Perfect.”

That same confused head-cock.  “Are you looking for an engagement band in titanium also?  Or do you want to consider white gold?”  She pointed at the next case over, which was full of women’s wedding rings.

I felt myself blush, and my pulse sped up a little.  I hated myself for still being embarrassed by it, but I wasn’t backing out now.  “No,” I made myself say.  “I need two, just like this.”

She wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer.  It actually took her a few seconds to process that.  Then I saw comprehension in her eyes and she smiled.  It seemed genuine, too.  “Of course.”

She pulled out a bunch of little plastic rings and had me try them on until she found my size, then asked, “And what about the other ring?”

I had no idea what to say.  Jared’s hands were not as big as mine, but definitely larger than hers.  She saw my dilemma and said quietly, “Look at the others in the store.”

I looked around at the other men.  Specifically, I looked at their hands.  It was one of the other employees whose hands were closest to Jared’s.  I pointed to him, and she winked at me and whispered conspiratorially, “Don’t worry.  I’ll take care of it.”

I had to make an excuse to go back to Boulder a few days later to pick the rings up.  She gave them to me in little grey boxes—the kind with the hinged lid that you always see in the movies, when the guy gets down on his knee and opens the box while popping the question to his lady.  I didn’t know why, but the boxes bothered me.  I took the rings out and put them in my pocket, then dropped the boxes in the trash on the way to my car.

When I got home, I had a whole new dilemma—where to hide them.  Not that I expected Jared to be snooping around for anything, but I was irrationally worried that he would find them.  I finally tucked them inside a roll of socks and stuffed them in the back of my drawer.  Then I had to figure out when to give them to him.  We were past Valentine’s Day.  His birthday was still months away.  We hadn’t ever celebrated any kind of anniversary.  If we had one at all, it would have been in November.  Unless…

I had to check the title on my Jeep.  I had bought it from Lizzy the day after meeting Jared for the first time.  We had immediately become friends.  Of course, it had taken months for it to develop into anything more than that, and another six weeks for me to accept what those feelings meant.  Nonetheless, the anniversary of the day we met seemed like as good a day as any.

Except that day turned out to be Zach’s birthday.

Whether they liked it or not, Zach and Angelo had officially been adopted as part of our family.  Lizzy invited everybody to her house for dinner to celebrate.  After nearly nine months in Coda, Angelo had finally learned to relax a little around Lizzy, Susan, and my mother.  I even caught him smiling at my mom once.  Everyone was having a great time.

Everyone except me.

I wasn’t faking it well, either.  Jared was watching me out of the corner of his eye, and Angelo looked suspicious.  I couldn’t stop being nervous.  I had the rings in my pocket.  I had no idea what I was waiting for—a perfect moment, or a sign from heaven.

I was in the kitchen trying to decide how to proceed when Angelo came in.  He leaned against the counter next to me and elbowed me in the ribs.  “What the hell’s your problem?” he asked in a tone that would have set anybody who didn’t know him on the defensive.

I did know him, better than Zach even, in some ways.  Normally I wouldn’t have fallen for it.  But tonight I did.  “Nothing!” I snapped.

His eyes got a little bigger, but he just grinned at me.  “Okay, man.  Don’t freak out.”

Angelo was the person I cared about most in the world, second only to Jared.  He knew that.  He just stood there next to me, waiting me out.  I finally reached into my pocket and pulled out the rings.  I opened my hand so he could see them.

He looked at them for just a second, then grinned up at me.  “Gee, Matt.  Didn’t know you felt that way ‘bout me.”

I started to laugh, but right then Zach and Jared walked into the kitchen.  I cut my laugh short and quickly stuck the rings back in my pocket.  I could feel myself blushing.  I knew I looked guilty, and Jared was looking at me suspiciously.

Angelo grabbed Zach’s arm and steered him back toward the door.  “Wait,” Zach started to say, “I came to get—.”

“Later,” I heard Ang say to him as the door swung shut behind them, and Jared and I were left alone in the kitchen.  He turned to face me, standing in front of me, only a foot away, but not touching me.

“What were you and Angelo talking about?”

“Nothing,” I said, trying to sound casual.

He looked at the floor for a minute while he decided what to say, but finally looked up at me again.  “Tell me what’s wrong.”

“Nothing’s wrong.”

He was smiling at me, but it was a strained smile.  “You’ve been acting funny the last couple of weeks, and it’s worse tonight.”  He stepped closer, but he still didn’t touch me.  I looked into his eyes, and I hated what I saw there.  Because I saw fear, and a hint of panic.  His voice shook a little, but he said, “Are you unhappy?”

“No!”  And this was exactly why I wanted to do this.  I didn’t want him to worry that I would leave.  I wanted him to know how much I loved him.  “No,” I said again, and pulled him close to me.  I grabbed a handful of his hair and pulled his head back so that he was looking up into my eyes.  “I’ve never been happier.”

He relaxed a little, and his smile finally made it all the way to his blue eyes.  “Then what is it?”

This was it.  I wished it was a better moment.  I wished I had thought it through more.  I wished we weren’t in Lizzy’s kitchen, with a sink full of dirty dishes behind me.  Still, I felt like it was now or never.

“Do you realize we met exactly two years ago today?” I asked him.

He looked at me in surprise.  “I knew it was this month.”  Of course he was smiling.  “I can’t believe you remembered the day.”

“Impressive, isn’t it?”

“It is, actually.”

I leaned down and kissed neck, then confessed.  “I cheated.  It was on the title to the Jeep.”

He laughed.  “I’m still impressed.  I wouldn’t have thought of that.”

I reached into my pocket and took out the rings.  I took his hand, and placed both rings in it, but closed his fingers over them before he could see what I had given him.  I held his hand closed.  He was looking at me in amusement, his head cocked a little to the side, smiling like always.

“I thought about what you said Jared, and you’re right.  Whether we do it or not, it doesn’t change the way I feel.  But,” I had to stop and take a deep breath, “I wanted you to have something.  I wanted to prove it to you.”

He still looked a little amused, but also curious.  I finally let go of his hand and let him open his fingers and look down at what I had given him.  He stood there for the longest time, looking at those two rings lying one inside the other in the palm of his hand.  He didn’t move.  He didn’t speak.

“Yours is engraved,” I managed to say, although it was hard to make my voice work.

He took the smaller of the two rings and peered at the inside.  It said, “Yours forever.  I promise.”  He took a deep breath, and I could tell he was shaking as much as I was.  I couldn’t see his face, and he wasn’t saying anything in response.  My heart was pounding, and I was starting to worry.  “Jesus Jared,” I said, my voice trembling, “say something.”

Finally he looked up at me, and the smile on his face was beautiful.  There were tears in his eyes.  That was why it had taken him so long to look at me—he hadn’t wanted me to see that.  “Thank you.”

I pulled him against me and buried my face in his thick curls.  “If you ever want to make it official,” I told him quietly, “just say the word.”

He shook his head.  “This is enough.”

“Are you sure?” I asked him.

“I promise.”

A to Z

March 5, 2010

A quick excerpt from A to Z.

*****

Jared brought a six-pack of Dr. Pepper and a couple of fans, and we started painting. Even with the doors open and the fans on, it was hot. Angelo had his shirt off, and I was surprised by how distracting it was. As the hours crept past, I found my eyes drawn to him over and over again. When we first met, I had simply thought he was a punk. That had changed as we became friends. Still, I wondered why it had never occurred to me to really look at him.

He was rail-thin, but his arms were roped with taut muscles. His skin was dark and he had very little hair on his body. He had a starburst pattern tattooed around his navel and another one between his shoulder blades. His pants hung low on his hips. If they were even an inch lower, I was sure I would have been able to see pubic hair. He was painting the top of a doorframe, his head tipped back, and he was laughing at something Jared had just said.

He was beautiful.

A drop of paint fell and landed on his chest. I watched it slide down his chest, over his ribs, and onto the flat plain of his stomach. I could see the soft, downy hairs there and that white paint against his dark skin, and I had a sudden and ridiculous urge to lick it off of him. I was sure that it would taste just like vanilla ice cream. I knew his skin would be soft against my tongue, salty and delicious. I imagined kneeling in front of him, running my tongue over his ribs, sliding my hands up his thighs to grip his ass. I imagined seeing him with his head thrown back in passion. I felt myself growing hard at the thought.

“Zach?” he said suddenly.

I ripped my eyes away from that drop of paint, looked up at his face. Jesus, could he tell I had a fucking hard-on? He was staring at me with that lopsided grin, looking incredibly amused, but I didn’t think it was over the embarrassing bulge in my pants. Jared, on the other hand, was grinning at me like he knew exactly what was going on.

“What?” I sounded defensive, although I hadn’t meant to.

“Did you even hear me?” Angelo asked.

Had I heard him? Had he been talking? All I could remember was the way the paint had rolled over his stomach, and I had to resist the urge to look down at it again.

“Zach, what’s up with you, man?” he asked jokingly.

Jared made a choking sound, and I knew he was trying not to laugh at me. I needed Angelo to put his shirt back on.

“Aren’t you cold?” I asked him.

“No.” He had spotted the paint and was trying to wipe it off. Now he had a white smear across his stomach. At least it didn’t look like ice cream anymore. “Why?”

“It’s cold in here.” In my defense it had finally dropped below eighty-five.

Angelo looked at me like I was crazy. “Then why you sweatin’?”

Jared really did start laughing now. Angelo turned and looked at him in confusion. I did my best to glare daggers at him. He clamped his mouth shut and started putting his brush away.

“What’s so funny?” Angelo asked him.

“Nothing.” But he was obviously struggling to get himself under control. “Listen, it is definitely hot in here. Way too hot for all three of us. I think I better go.”

“Already?” Angelo asked. “Why?”

Jared laughed again. “I gotta go tell Matt he won our bet.” He looked over at Angelo. “Ang, I was listening even if Zach wasn’t, and it’s a great idea.”

Angelo looked extremely pleased, and I was irrationally annoyed that it was Jared who had caused it. “Cool,” Angelo said to him. “We still on for dinner?”

“Sure. Just come on by when you guys are ready.” He was still smiling. He had to walk past me to get to the door, and as he passed me, he said very quietly, “Not blind anymore, are you?” I felt my whole face turn red. “See you later.”

Once Jared was gone, I looked back over at Angelo. He had gone back to painting the top of the door jamb. His skin was moving over the thin, taut muscles in his arms. His head was back. There was a drop of sweat in the little hollow at the base of his throat.

I was getting hard again.

I really needed him to put his shirt back on.

“Hey, it’s almost dinner time anyway,” I said to him. “Let’s go back to the motel and get cleaned up. I could use a shower.” A really, really cold shower.

He shrugged. “Okay.”

First we had to clean the brushes, or they’d be worthless by the time we got back from dinner. We crowded into the mop room and stood next to each other at the utility sink, rinsing out brushes and pans and rollers. There wasn’t much room, and his arm kept brushing mine. At least he had put his shirt back on. Still, I could smell him. He smelled like sweat and shampoo, and paint, and it was sexy as hell. Just standing next to him had me hard all over again. Had he rolled in pheromones that morning or something?

He was talking again and I was finding it very difficult to pay attention.

“The thing I never got ’bout Gone with the Wind was why Scarlett was so crazy over Ashley anyway, you know? Here she’s got Rhett on the line, and all she can think ’bout is Ashley, who’s a total fuckin’ pansy.”

“I never watched it.” I was watching his hands. He was washing out his paint brush, his long, thin fingers working through the bristles, and I thought about what it would feel like to have those fingers tangled in my hair. While I licked paint off of his stomach.

Seriously, this was getting weird.

Giveaway: MARITIME MEN

February 28, 2010

Hello, Dreamspinner readers! With the release of ANCHORS AWEIGH only a little more than a week away, I’m holding a drawing for a copy of the first book in the series — MARITIME MEN. Come on over to my Live Journal blog to see cover art, read summaries and excerpts of both books, and post a (screened!) comment for your chance to win a PDF copy of MARITIME MEN.

Click here: MARITIME MEN Giveaway

Cheers,

Janey Chapel

Another excerpt, this one XXX

February 26, 2010

Jack was walking down the hallway when Dave flew out of the
bathroom, dripping wet with a towel in his hair and totally naked.
He was still semi-erect and was working on going full mast when
Jack asked, “Looking for someone?”

“Yep, you. Get your fine-looking ass into the bedroom. Now.
Daddy wants to play!”

“Oh gawd! Daddy….”

Since Dave was already naked and now cast-iron hard, he
pulled Jack over to the bed and began to undress him. First, he
removed Jack’s shirt, and when Jack stood bare chested, Dave
licked each nipple, giving them a little nibble before he stopped.

Next, he sat down on the bed and reach up to unbuckle Jack’s belt
and pull the zipper of his jeans down slowly. Jack stood there
looking down at Dave, smiling, his breath quickening.

As usual, Jack’s jeans were tight, just as Dave liked them, and
when Dave pulled them down, down came the underwear as well.
Dave pulled off each pant leg and threw the jeans on the floor and
then bent down and removed the shorts that were stretched between
Jack’s legs.

The final act in the striptease was the removal of both
socks.
When Dave looked back up, Jack was fully erect as well. Dave
took Jack in hand and slowly jerked his cock a couple of times,
admiring the length and girth of Jack’s manhood. He slowly
caressed Jack’s balls, which hung nicely underneath, and when he
couldn’t resist any more, he pulled Jack into his mouth and took him
all the way to the root. Dave slowly worked his way back and forth
on Jack, licking all the way.

He ran his hands over Jack’s bare ass,
sending shivers up Jack’s spine. Jack had the smoothest ass that
Dave had ever encountered, and he loved running his hands over it.
Letting Jack loose, Dave swung his legs up onto the bed,
scooted into the center of the mattress and faced away, then he lay
on his back to look up at Jack behind him. As Dave’s head hung
over the edge of the bed, Jack was able to push his cock down
Dave’s throat and fuck his face. Dave lay there enjoying the taste
and feel of Jack’s cock as he watched Jack’s balls swing over his
eyes.

He could see the beautiful curve of Jack’s near perfect ass
where the two mounds of flesh came together.
Jack bent slightly and played with Dave’s nipples, tweaking
each alternately. As the speed of his thrusts increased, he began to
punish the nipples a little more by twisting on them, sending little
shock waves through Dave. Dave’s cock throbbed with need as he
wanted Jack’s mouth and ass wrapped around his cock.

Jack leaned all the way over and—still fucking Dave’s
mouth—went down on Dave, sucking Dave’s cock for all he was
worth. Jack was able to maintain his thrusting with the bobbing of
his head as he sucked Dave.

After a minute, Jack straightened up, and after a few more
thrusts deep into Dave’s throat, he pulled out before he blew his
load. He walked away from the bed for a few seconds and then came
back as Dave had adjusted himself so that his head was now on the
pillows and his feet were pointed toward the footboard.
Jack smiled and crawled onto the bed, landing between Dave’s
thighs. As Dave looked down, Jack began to suck Dave’s cock
again. He ran his hands up Dave’s thighs and continued onto Dave’s
chest where he found his nipples once more.

As he tweaked them,
he continued to deep-throat Dave, finally letting go of Dave’s cock
and going to work on his balls. He ran his tongue over both of them,
taking each into his mouth one at a time, rolling them around before
letting them out. Jack ran his tongue over Dave’s inner thigh and
downward into the crevice where Dave’s ass cheeks came together.
Jack brought his hands down from Dave’s chest and parted Dave’s
ass, running his tongue into the fully accessible pack of nerve
endings that made up Dave’s hole. As slowly as he could, Jack ran
his tongue over and over the opening, teasing the sensitive flesh,
flicking his tongue like a snake. Dave reacted to this attention by
practically levitating off the bed.
“Holy fuck, that feels good! Do me, baby!” Dave moaned.

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“Jack and Dave,” excerpt two!

February 26, 2010

The guy looked about 26 years old, had short, black hair,
brown eyes, and was marginally attractive. “Yeah, what are you
looking for?” he asked in a far-from-friendly manner.
“I’m looking for Jack; is he in?” Dave asked.
“Who are you?” the guy asked.
“Is he here or not?”
“He might be; now who are you?”
“I’m Dave, and you are?”
“I’m Billy,” he said as he looked Dave up and down.
“You gonna answer my question? Is Jack here?”
“I’ll see,” he said, closing the door and leaving Dave standing
in the hallway at the beginning of a slow burn.
After a few seconds, Dave heard raised voices coming from
inside the apartment. The noise didn’t quite rise to the level of a
fight, but it was clear Billy wasn’t happy that Jack had a visitor. As
Dave was getting ready to pound on the door, it opened and Jack
appeared.
“Hi, everything okay?” Dave asked as he tried to look past
Jack to see where Billy was.
Jack rolled his eyes and said, “Yeah, everything is fine. He’s
just upset that you came to see me.”
“This is asinine. You’re an adult; you can damn well see who
the fuck you want to see in your own home.”
“Shh, don’t make things worse.”
“Look, I came over to ask you if you wanted to catch the
midnight show at the movies. Whaddaya say? You up for it on a
Saturday night? My treat.”
Jack looked down at the floor and after a second looked back
up and smiled. “Yeah, that sounds like a lot of fun. Lemme get my
wallet.”
“Can I come in and wait rather than stand out here in the
hallway like the hired help?”
Jack smiled again, opened the door, and walked back to what
Dave assumed was the bedroom. Dave closed the door and stayed
on his feet, listening for the slightest hint that something was going
to get physical.
“Where are you going this late?” Dave heard Billy ask Jack.
“I’m going out to the movies; I’ll be back later,” Jack replied.
“What? No, you’re not. You tell him that it’s too late and that
you’re going to bed. Tell him now!”
“Ouch! Get your hand off; you’re hurting my wrist!” Jack
exclaimed.
That was all Dave needed to hear. He pushed the bedroom
door open and found Billy holding Jack by the wrist and twisting it.

It was a bad move on Billy’s part. Billy’s eyes grew wide when he
saw Dave standing within a foot of him. Jack opened his mouth to
say something, but he didn’t get the chance to utter any words.
Dave swung a right hook that landed just under Billy’s jaw,
lifting him up off the floor slightly and tumbling him backward onto
his ass. Dave stood over the prone man with a look of murder in his
eyes and said, “Keep your fucking hands off of him. Do you
understand?”
“Dave, it’s all right, really. I’m not hurt. Just let him be,
please,” Jack implored Dave.
Dave didn’t take his eyes off Billy, silently daring him to get
up and do something. Billy was smart enough to remain on the floor
and not move.
“If I ever hear you put your hands on Jack again without him
asking you to, I will finish what I just started. Do you understand
me, boy?”
No response came from Billy.
“Do you understand?” Dave asked while taking a step closer to
Billy.
“Yeah, I understand. You had no right to hit me,” he replied.
Dave looked down with contempt and turned to go with Jack.
When they got outside, Jack made it known how he felt.
“Dave, I didn’t need you to do that. I don’t need a knight in
shining armor to come along and save me. You know that right?”
“I never said that you did, but that asshole has no right to hurt
you or try to hurt you, especially on my account. Who the fuck does
he think he is anyway?”
“I told you. He thinks he’s my boyfriend.”
Dave turned his head and spit onto the grass in response. “I
hate bullies and that ass clown is a bully. If he wants to get physical
with someone, he can do it with me, and I’ll clean house with his
ass.”
“Look, you’re getting more upset. Please calm down or I’m
going back to the apartment.”

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“Jack and Dave”

February 26, 2010

Here’s a taste of what to expect in “Jack and Dave.”

Dave headed down the street and turned right at the corner headed toward one of Reading‟s oldest gay bars. The Purple Door had been around for at least thirty years and stood as the symbol of the gay community in the city, and as Dave approached, he had an odd tension in his stomach.

Somehow he felt that once he crossed the threshold of the bar, he was identified to the community at large as a homosexual. Considering this was something he had fought against so hard in the military, crossing through the door was like breaking a curse.

When he walked in, all the heads in the place turned to check out who was coming in. The club had a bar formed in a big oval in the middle of the room with a small dance floor off to one side. There was no band, just pre-recorded music played on loop. The light was low, and it took Dave a minute for his vision to adjust to the atmosphere. As he took a seat at the bar, all eyes were still focused on him as the bartender headed his way.

“What‟ll be?” the cute bartender asked. Weren’t all gay bartenders cute?

“Rum and Coke, please.”

“Sure thing. New around here? I don‟t remember seeing you before.”

“New? Not really. New in here, yes. I just got out of the Marines, and this is my first month home.”

“Ah, that would explain the high and tight,” the bartender said, referring to Dave‟s hair.

“Yeah, I kinda like it, though,” Dave replied.

“Don‟t get me wrong, I like it too. Dan‟s my name,” the bartender said, holding out his hand.

“Hi, Dave, glad to meet you.” “Ah, forgive me for asking, but you are twenty-one or older, right?”

“Yep, wanna see ID?”

“Nah, I‟ll take your word for it. First drink is on the house, Marine,” Dan said.

“Thanks, nice of you,” Dave replied with a smile that seemed to light up the bar. As Dave looked around, he found most of the men in the bar were still staring at him. He nodded a few times, and the guys nodded back or waved. It was obvious that more than one man was intensely interested in Dave, but none approached him directly.

As he finished his drink, Dan brought another and set it down. “This is from Nick over there at the end of the bar,” Dan said and smiled again. “I don‟t think you‟ll be paying for any drinks in here tonight,” he continued with a laugh.

Dave nodded to Nick and smiled. Dan reached down below the bar and did something that turned up the music slightly. As a good song came on, one young man girded his loins and came up to Dave. “Care to dance?”

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Excerpt One

Angel: Author extra

February 24, 2010

Hi, I’m JL Merrow, and I’m just popping in to post a little “extra” relating to my Nap-Size Dream, Angel, which was released today.

Angel is the story of a committed Christian, Don, who falls for a tortured demon, Michael, he knew briefly as a child—and was parted from in horrifying circumstances.

I’ll let Michael introduce himself, and the story, to you.  (This “extra” doesn’t appear in the ebook.)

……..

I was ten years old when I found out I was a demon.

Of course, I’d known there was something different about me and my Mom for years, even then. The way we didn’t hang around in any one place for more than a year at most. The way I wasn’t allowed to be friends with anyone whose family were practicing Christians. Or Jews. Or Muslims or anything else for that matter, even up to the kid whose mom floated around in black lace dresses and called herself a Wiccan. I guess she just wasn’t doing it right.

Anyhow, when you’re a little kid you accept these things, but sooner or later you start to wonder why you have to follow all these rules that no one else does. Why you’re the only kid who’s never been to a wedding or a funeral, never gone to Mass or a bar mitzvah. It was around that time I started noticing that my Mom wasn’t like other moms. I didn’t know what the hell to call it in those days, I guess because the words “batshit insane” don’t figure in a lot of reading primers.

Anyhow, I’d kinda worked out that Mom was weird. It hadn’t occurred to me to think that maybe I was weird—that maybe Mom was weird because of me.

Until the day Donnie Gallagher took me to his church after school.

That was when I got these scars.

……..

I hope you enjoyed that! You can find an excerpt from the story on the main Dreamspinner site by following the link.

First Kiss by Ariel Tachna

February 9, 2010

First kiss

Robin took another sip of his hot chocolate, curling his fingers around the paper mug in the hope of keeping his hands from freezing. He’d thought his gloves were in his pockets, but apparently not. The wind roared down the street, the tall buildings creating a tunnel of vicious proportions and even the three-sided enclosure at the bus stop provided little protection. Shifting back and forth to keep his blood circulating, he wondered how long it would be before the bus arrived.

“Morning.”

Robin looked up and smiled at the only thing besides his drink that had any chance of warming him up on such a frigid day. He’d run into Darren one morning at this bus stop and had started walking the extra block ever since. The man was tall, broad-shouldered, dark-haired. Everything Robin wasn’t. He’d come to terms with being a short, skinny, redheaded twink in college, but that didn’t keep him from occasionally wishing he had the looks to attract a man like Darren. The other man was generous with his smiles, though, and his conversation, and that kept Robin coming back every morning at the same time. Continue reading “First Kiss by Ariel Tachna” »