Blood Sacrifice excerpt by Rick R Reed

In Blood Sacrifice, Rick R Reed asks the question, "What would you give up for immortal life and love?" By day, Elise draws and paints, spilling out the horrific visions of her tortured mind. By night, she walks the streets, selling her body to the highest bidder. And then they come into her life: a trio of impossibly beautiful vampires: Terence, Maria, and Edward. When they encounter Elise, they set an explosive triangle in motion.

Terence wants to drain her blood. Maria just wants Elise . . . as lover and partner through eternity. And Edward, the most recently-converted, wants to prevent her from making the same mistake he made as a young abstract expressionist artist in 1950s Greenwich Village: sacrificing his artistic vision for immortal life. He is the only one of them still human enough to realize what an unholy trade this is.

This terrifying, erotic, suspenseful and richly romantic vampire tale will grip you in a vise of suspense that won't let go until the very last moment...when a shocking turn of events changes everything and demonstrates--truly--what love and sacrifice are all about. Blood Sacrifice is a new digital e-book version of In the Blood and contains exclusive restored material not included in the print edition.

Blood Sacrifice
Untreed Reads Publishing
ISBN:

Excerpt:

Elise Groneman stares out the window, stomach roiling. What she has is like stage fright. She gets it every night, before she ventures out of her tiny Rogers Park studio apartment on Chicago’s far north side. It’s always been amazing to her that just a few minutes’ walk to the north is the suburb of Evanston and a different world; there, the streets are tree-lined and clean, the homes palatial, the condos upscale, the restaurants grand, and the stores exclusive. Affluence and culture preside. Yet here, on Greenview Street, one encounters abject poverty, crime, the detritus of urban desperation: tiny brightly-colored baggies, fast food wrappers, condoms, empty alcohol bottles, even pieces of clothing. The sidewalks are cracked, the grassy areas choked with weeds and garbage. Here in Rogers Park, the normal folks―the ones who travel on the el to work downtown every morning―stay inside, so as not to mingle with people like Elise, or the man outside her window right now, who’s screaming, “What the fuck do I care what you do, bitch? It ain’t no skin off my ass.” Elise glances out and sees the man is alone. A boy cruises by on a bicycle that’s too small for him. The bike is stolen; either that, or he’s a runner for some small time dealer, delivering and making collections. Sometimes, there aren’t many options for moving up the ladder.

But this neighborhood is all Elise can afford, and, unless she picks up more clientele soon, she may even be crowded out of this hovel she begrudgingly calls home. Once, she shared the place with someone else, but those days, for better or worse, are long behind her.

Elise moves to the window, attempting to obliterate memory by the simple act of staring outside. Dusk has fallen and the sky belies the earthbound life before her. The sun is setting, the sky deep violet, filtering down to tangerine and pink near the horizon. If she keeps her eyes trained on the riot of color and shape to the east, she can almost forget where she is.

But the denizens of Greenview Street make sure she stays reminded. They stroll the night in an attempt to escape the heat, the hot, moist air pressing in, smothering. They call to one another, using words she had barely heard, let alone used, back in Shaker Heights, Ohio, where she had grown up: nigga, motherfucka, homey. Fuck used as an adjective, verb, and ejaculation (but rarely, ironically, utilized in a sexual context). Snatches of music filter out from apartment windows. Cruising vehicles pass by, bass thumping hard enough to cause the glass in her windows to vibrate. She has picked up names of artists like Bow Wow, Def Soul, and Trick Daddy as she walks the streets. Elise puts a hand to the screen, testing the air. Will there ever be a breeze again? She wonders if her neighbors would recognize any of the names attached to the music she loves, names like Vivaldi, Smetana, Bach. Other music fills the street: arguments and professions of love shouted with equal force. Headlights illuminate the darkening night, which is also lit by the flare of a match here, neon there, and sodium vapor overall. The world glows orange, filling up not only the streets of the city, but the sky, blotting out the stars.

East of her churn the cold waters of Lake Michigan, and Elise imagines its foam-flecked waves lapping at the shores. She’d like to pad down to the beach at the end of Birchwood Street, kick off her sandals and run across the sand and into the water, its cold obliterating and refreshing. She wishes she had the freedom, but east is not her path. Her way lies south, to Howard Street, purveyor of pawnshops and prostitution.

Her destination.

Elise turns to survey her cramped apartment. Near the ceiling, industrial green paint peels from the walls to reveal other coats of grimy paint no color describes. Metal-frame twin bed, sheets twisted and gray, damp from sweat and humidity. Next to that, Salvation Army-issue scarred oak table, small, with the remains of this night’s meal, a few apple peelings, a knife, and a glass half filled with pale tea, darkening in the dying light.

It’s a place no one would ever call home. Elise’s apartment is utilitarian, a place to work, to sleep, to eat. It’s little more than shelter.

The only sign of human habitation is her work: huge canvases mounted on easels, bits of heavy paper taped to her drawing board. Much of her work is done in charcoal and pencil, but the palette of grays and black remain constant, whether it’s a sketch or a completed painting. Her subject matter, too, is always the same, although the variety of choices she has to explore is endless. Elise likes to draw intensely detailed renderings of crime and accident scenes, aping the cold, clinical detachment one might find in a book of crime scene photographs. Here is a woman, slumped beside a corduroy recliner, a gunshot ripping away half of her head (the blood black in Elise’s rendering), beside her, a half-eaten chicken leg and the Tempo section of the Chicago Tribune, folded neatly and splattered with her gore. There’s a man lying beside a highway, the cars a fast-moving blurred river. His head has been severed from his body. On the wall she has masking-taped a nightmare in quick, staccato slashes: a young woman strangled and left to lie in the pristine environment of an upscale public washroom, clean, shiny ceramic tile, untarnished metal stalls. Another woman, looking bored, checks her lipstick in the mirror. Near Elise’s floor is a small, intricately detailed drawing done in charcoal: two lovers lie in a bed of gore, the aftermath―one presumes―of discovery of their union by a jealous lover. The woman has a sheet discreetly covering her up to the neck. The man lies splayed out in a paroxysm of agony. And why not? His offending penis has been slashed from his body. Is that it on the floor beside the bed, a smudge of black, nearly shapeless?

Where is all the color? Elise herself wonders as she dresses for the evening. Color has been leached out of her world; it is getting increasingly difficult to be able to remember what color was like and thus, increasingly difficult to duplicate its varied hues on paper or canvas. Color, it seems, is but a hazy memory out of her past.

Enough of art analysis, she thinks. It’s her days she has designated to her art. Nighttime is when she prepares for her other job, the occupation that keeps a roof over her head. The job which perhaps is responsible for stealing the color from her vision.

Enough! Enough! Enough! she thinks. Put the introspection behind you. It’s time now, time to become a creature of the night, an animal doing what it must to provide its own sustenance.

She rummages in the apartment’s lone closet, pulling out one of her “uniforms,” clothing that helps identify her occupation as much a mechanic’s jumpsuit, or a waitress’s ruffled apron and polyester dress.

Tonight, she dons a short black skirt bisected by a wide zipper ending in a big silver loop. Over her head, she pulls a white T-shirt, tying it just above her waist. In combination with the low-riding skirt, it perfectly frames her navel. Elise pulls the skin apart and plucks out a piece of lint. She completes her ensemble with dark seamed stockings and spike heels. These are the tools of the trade as much as the brushes, sticks of charcoal, and pencils littering her space.

Elise flips back her long whiskey-colored hair, and leans close to the mirror. She lines her lips with a shade of brown, then fills in with glossy crimson. Cheapens her green eyes with thick black kohl. Elise pulls her hair back, away from her damp neck, and up, pinning it all together with a silver barrette adorned with the smiling face of a skull. Pentagram earrings. Tonight a witch, creature of the night.
Then she turns, hand on doorknob. The night awaits: exhaust fumes, traffic, the chirping of cicadas.

http://www.rickrreed.com
blog - http://rickrreedreality.blogspot.com/

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The Peripheral Son excerpt by Dorien Grey

In The Peripheral Son by Dorien Grey, Dick Hardesty investigates the disappearance of a freelance writer doing simultaneous exposes on both the boxing profession and construction unions. He finds himself handed a Gordian Knot, with no sword to cut it. A plethora of motives and suspects, and a dearth of solid evidence sorely test both Dick's skills and his patience.

The Peripheral Son
Zumaya Boundless (October 31, 2011)
ISBN-10: 1936144107
ISBN-13: 978-1936144105

Excerpt:

Jonathan and Joshua got home around five-fifteen, and I'd already set the table and gotten things set out ready for dinner. After our customary group hug greeting, I went into the kitchen to take ice cubes and a Coke out of the refrigerator for our evening "cocktail." Joshua had raced into his room to start playing, and Jonathan followed me into the kitchen. Seeing the pork chops, box of instant potatoes, the bag of flour and the large iron skillet I'd set out, he looked at me quizzically.

"We're celebrating?" he asked. He knew pork chops, mashed potatoes, and gravy were my idea of the perfect meal, and due to his insistence that Joshua have an all inclusive, well-rounded diet, we didn't have it nearly enough to suit me.

"It's Chubby's birthday," I said, giving a head nod to Joshua's fish tank. Chubby was Joshua's favorite-of-the-moment goldfish which, thanks to the boy's favoritism when it came to being fed, was well on its way to becoming the size of a koi.

He gave me one of his condescending, raised eyebrow looks.

"Riiight. So how come you got home early?"

I handed him his Coke and started fixing my Manhattan. "Tell you about it when we sit down."

Those who think a private investigator's life is all drama and adventure think wrong. As a result, the bulk of my cases were not sufficiently interesting to talk much about, but I had mentioned Victor Koseva's disappearance to Jonathan when I first took the case. I started to fill him in during breaks in the evening news, and got as far as telling him about my meeting Gee Basino, but there were too many distractions, chief among them Joshua's loud protestations that he was starving.

Immediately after the news, we turned off the TV and got up to make dinner.

Another reason we didn't have pork chops, mashed potatoes, and gravy more often was because my penchant for wanting my pork chops crispy, which is to say nearly burnt, inevitably set off the smoke alarm. We used two skillets for the frying—one for my burnt offerings and one for Jonathan's and Joshua's chops. But I always made the gravy; salt and pepper and flour and water, poured into the pans and mixed with the drippings from the pork chops. Gourmet heaven!

* * *

We didn't have a chance to talk until after Joshua was safely tucked into bed. He still insisted we read to him every night even though his own reading skills were truly impressive for a five-year-old, and whichever of us was reading to him had to scoot up to sit beside him so he could watch as we moved our fingers along under the words we were reading.

"So," Jonathan said as we returned to the living room to sit on the couch, "tell me about this boxer. You think he and…Victor…had something going on? I don't imagine that would go over very well in the boxing world."

"I really have no idea what's going on or not going on between them…yet. But you're right; it could be the kiss of death for a boxer out to capture a title."

"But he's hot, you said. So he's probably gay."

I grinned. "Talk about leaping tall buildings in a single bound! There are hot straight guys, too."

"Yeah, but I'll bet this one's gay. And he and Victor are having an affair, and that big guy he's nailed to did something to Victor in order to break it up. Maybe he killed him!"

I reached out to lay my hand on his thigh. "Good logic, Dr. Watson. Whether it's accurate or not remains to be seen. And maybe you've been reading too many murder mysteries."

"Well, you'll figure it out."

"Thanks. I hope you're right."

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Junction X excerpt by Erastes

Set in the very English suburbia of 1962 where everyone has tidy front gardens and lace curtains, Junction X is the story of Edward Johnson, who ostensibly has the perfect life: A beautiful house, a great job, an attractive wife and two well-mannered children. The trouble is he’s been lying to himself all of his life. And first love, when it does come, hits him and hits him hard. Who is the object of his passion? The teenaged son of the new neighbours.

Edward’s world is about to go to hell.

Junction X
Cheyenne Publishing
ISBN: 978-1-937692-06-3 (print)
ISBN: 978-1-937692-07-0 (eBook)

Excerpt:

One Tuesday I had an early meeting out of town, so I used the Bentley, though I didn’t enjoy driving the big car in and around London. By the time I came off the main road, my shoulders aching, I was glad to see the final roundabout at the end of the dual carriageway. As I turned into The Avenue, a leggy figure in a black blazer ran across the road in front of me, hurrying slightly as he heard the engine. It was Alec and, by the quick glance he gave the car as he scurried by, it was obvious that he’d seen me. I remember willing my foot onto the accelerator so I could drive by, but my feet were no longer under my control. Instead, I braked beside him and rolled down the window.

“Need a lift?”

He grinned, his teeth white in the dusk, and hurried around to the other side while I unlocked the door.

“Thanks.”

“I don’t make a habit of kerb crawling, you know.”

“I believe you.”

The ride was too short. In no time at all, we were pulling up outside our respective houses. “Thanks,” he said again, but he made no move to get out. His fingers moved restlessly over the handle of his briefcase, making a fist and then opening out to stroke the brown leather. Brown-white-brown went his knuckles and I couldn’t stop staring at them.

“You’ve got ink on your hand,” I said. “You’re late home.” I sounded like a schoolmaster.

“I’ve joined an evening club. Extra coaching.”

“Do you need it?”

“For Oxford I will.”

“Oh. I didn’t know. What subject?”

“Maths.”

I didn’t say ‘Oh,’ again, like some kind of idiot, but I was surprised. I’d known a lot of mathematicians and they didn’t have faces like Alec’s. Mostly they looked like ferrets in corduroy.

“Where did you go?” he asked, twisting on the seat. I tried to will myself not to look at him, but I had my first lesson in the effects of Alec on my will power that evening. I learned that I didn’t have any. I turned and looked him full in the face and my stomach did that flipping thing again, leaping straight up and kicking me hard in the diaphragm. His new haircut had snipped away those recalcitrant white curls but the shortness around his ears suited him, brought his cheekbones into relief and accentuated the slenderness of his neck. His shirt was undone, his tie stuffed casually into his jacket pocket. I could see a glimpse of collarbone that made my breath burn. He wasn’t wearing anything beneath the thin white shirt that I could see. I knew I should feel uncomfortable even noticing that, but I didn’t, and I felt rebellion surge through me.

“Me? Uni?” He nodded, and his lips parted, which caused my groin to stir. I coughed and shifted uncomfortably. “I did Engineering at Queens.” I braced both hands against the steering wheel and pushed back against the seat.

“Not very useful, in your job.”

“That’s an understatement.” I shrugged. “But then I wasn’t expecting to be a wage slave. I was going to build things. Bridges. Airports.”

You had different dreams.” His voice had changed, and when I looked at him again, he’d turned away and was looking out of the off-side window.

“Oh, I don’t know,” I lied. “I shouldn’t have been surprised that life included a wife and family. Life generally does. It’s not as if I thought I was going to be Isembard Kingdom Brunel.”

The words were out of my mouth before the old dream hit me hard. I had. I had wanted to be Isembard Kingdom Brunel. I realised that I hadn’t admitted that to myself for a long time. I wondered where my life had gone.

“Or anyone like that,” I ended, lamely, wishing I hadn’t said Brunel’s name, wishing I hadn’t tainted Alec with my failed ambition.

He was silent for a while and then said, “Yeah—you’re right. Thanks for the lift.” He opened the door, dropped a leg into the road and waited for a car to pass.

My chest got that tight feeling again and I caught hold of his right arm. “Alec,” I said. He turned to me with an expression that looked like the children on Christmas morning, and I was still too stupid to read it. “I’ve been thinking. There’s the toy fair in Aliston on Sunday the fourteenth.”

He pulled his leg back in and shut the door. “Yeah, I know. Dad can’t go. He has to work.”

“The twins might want to.” I couldn’t help but smile. It seemed conspiratorial. Secret plans being made in a Bentley. It was worthy of Bond.

He grinned a little, the corner of his mouth quirking up. “Would they?”

“Probably.”

“No golf?”

“Of course not. Not if they wanted to go somewhere else.” I made myself sound like Super-Dad, and with that, Alec and I were back to that easy banter. It seemed natural, and I enjoyed talking to him so much, that I hardly cared anymore that he was half my age. It was addictive; I’d not had this with anyone else, not with Valerie, not even with Phil. I wanted more of it.

“I’d like that.” He got out, then stuck his head back into the car and said, “Thanks.”

I think that was the first time that we weren’t awkward with each other. From then on—apart from a few rare notable exceptions—the way we spoke was almost intuitive, sometimes not even needing to finish sentences, or questions.

I sat and watched him walk down the path to his front door, my knuckles whitening as I gripped the steering wheel. I knew then what I was, how I felt and what was wrong-not-wrong with me. For about thirty whole seconds, I didn’t bloody care. My blood was on fire and my skin tingled. I was warm and complete. I felt like a boy who’d just asked the girl of his dreams out on the best date he could afford.

Thirty perfect seconds. Then the real world crept back and the colours bleached a little. Elation is a bubble that lasts for tiny tiny moments but leaves something of its memory in scents and sounds so that later, when you need that boost, you can close your eyes and remember happiness.

Gay Historical Fiction
www.erastes.com
http://cheyennepublishing.com/books/junction.html
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On the Prowl excerpt by Mykola Dementiuk

Take a walk on the wide side with this brand-new novelette, On the Prowl by Mykola Dementiuk, the Lambda Award winner for Best Bisexual Fiction for Times Square! If you like your queer erotica with a taste of the darker parts of life in the Big Apple, then this is a book that will stay with you for a long-long time. A sexual adventure with a large dash of Latino spice, ON THE PROWL is packed with wild, gender-bending characters looking for a good time ... and something more.

On The Prowl
Sizzler Editions (October 1, 2011)
ISBN 9781615089031

Excerpt:

Then I saw him, walking towards me on the overpass and about to enter the park. He held a cigarette in one uplifted hand while he clutched his pack with the other. There was a flitting of his eyes when he passed me by and I was certain he puckered his lips as he teasingly sauntered away. I was halfway on the overpass when I turned, gazed at his curvy bottom and sped right after him.

He was a beautiful dark-skinned feminine Hispanic man, in his twenties, the tight clothes showing off his elegant body. His longish hair certainly looked feminine though worn by a male. And he had a nice bulge in his crotch that signified only one gender to me, he was a certainly a male, all else was meaningless.

Ever since I was young I have always been attracted to males, their bodies meant one thing, to gel with mine, in frantic impatient release, which signified a state of explosive ejaculation. Two men cuming at each other was simply divine. I longed for it and sought it out everywhere I went but, of course, never got it in return. Over the years, a few meaningless shared masturbations in dim lighted Times Square movie theaters were all I was given, from which I always fled afterwards, very ashamed as if I had done something wrong.

I was only a few steps behind him when he turned and hungrily looked at me, blinking his eyes.

"Aye, mira, you scared me," he lisped, faking an alarm which wasn't there – Mira, being a common Hispanic word which meant look but in the common usage could mean anything. He had turned back a few times as he walked, his eyes gazing at me as if meant to say, Mira, can't you hurry up?

I smiled. "You shouldn't be scared of little old me, I'm only after one thing, your dick."

And I tried to grab the bulge at his crotch but she protected herself by turning out of my way.

"Fresh," he said, looking about. "Someone might see."

I shrugged. "Oh, let them, there's never anyone here. Anyway, I don't care. I want you." I tried putting my arms around her but again she pushed herself out of the way. I was right behind her, trying to grab her ass again.

"Mira, stop it, I mean it!"

I paused as she continued walking across the handball courts in the direction of the river then turned to look at me, a wink and glint were in her eyes. What was I supposed to do? I again rubbed my hard crotch and went after her.

I caught up to her and expected another angry refusal but she was shaking her head and trying to adjust her pants.

"Mira, I hate pants, don't you?" she said, twisting the pants at her torso, "Always going the wrong way."

"You should take them off," I said, winking an eye at her. "But the tight pants fit you perfectly, shows off your crotch." I put my hands at her waist and drew her closer to me. Her arms were uplifted and we looked at each other, our lips meeting in an open-mouthed kiss. I felt her tongue lashing against mine as she suddenly shivered, squirmed and doubled over. She broke from me, out of breath.

"Aye, mira, what you do to me?" she said looking down.

I gazed down at her legs in the light colored pants she had on, a large spreading stain was at her crotch; it was obvious she had just cum.

"Oh, my," I leered at her, rubbing my wet mouth. "Naughty, naughty but also very lovely." I winked at her and again tried putting my arms around her but again she pushed me off.

"Mira, no!" she said...

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Caregiver excerpt by Rick R Reed

This excerpt is from Rick R Reed’s latest work, the AIDS-era love story, CAREGIVER. The story is autobiographical in many ways (drawn from his own experiences in 1991 as an AIDS buddy in Tampa, FL). In this scene, the main character, Dan, goes into a public health clinic to get the results of his own HIV test.

It’s 1991, and Dan Calzolaio has just moved to Florida with his lover, Mark, having fled Chicago and Mark’s addictions to begin a new life on the Gulf Coast. Volunteering for the Tampa AIDS Alliance is just one part of that new beginning, and that’s how Dan meets his new buddy, Adam.

Adam Schmidt is not at all what Dan expected. The guy is an original—witty, wry, and sarcastic with a fondness for a smart black dress, Barbra Streisand, and a good mai tai. Adam doesn’t let his imminent death get him down, even through a downward spiral that sees him thrown in jail.

Each step of Adam’s journey teaches Dan new lessons about strength and resilience, but it’s Adam’s lover, Sullivan, to whom Dan feels an almost irresistible pull. Dan knows the attraction isn’t right, even after he dumps his cheating, drug-abusing boyfriend. But then Adam passes away, and it leaves Sullivan and Dan both alone to see if they can turn their love for Adam into something whole and real for each other.

Caregiver
Dreamspinner Press (October 24, 2011)
ISBN-13: 978-1-61372-208-4 (paperback)
ISBN-13: 978-1-61372-209-1 (ebook)

EXCERPT:

A guy about Dan’s own age in T-shirt and jeans came out from behind a door and looked around the waiting room. He spotted Dan and came over to him. Dan recalled the dark-haired man had checked him in when he arrived at the clinic. Dan thought he said his name was Carlos. Carlos leaned down close to Dan and said softly, “The counselor will see you now.”

Dan stood on unsteady legs, wondering why Carlos had bothered to make the trip into the waiting room just to tell him it was his turn to be seen. Calm down. They probably just do that to respect your privacy. It doesn’t mean he was softening the blow of what’s to come.

Dan followed the man back to a warren of small exam rooms and offices. Carlos gestured to one of them. “You can go in and have a seat. Becky will be in to see you in just a minute.”

Dan nodded, his stomach churning and a splash of acid rising to the back of his throat. This was the big moment. It could be life defining. Or death defining, depending on how the results went.

Dan sat after Carlos closed the door, glad there were no mirrors in the room because he was certain the glass would have thrown back the reflection of a man with a pasty white complexion, slick with sweat.

Dan feared he would throw up.

Becky came into the room. She reminded him of his mother, slightly overweight, with permed dark brown hair, and oversized glasses. She looked about fifty and there was a kind aspect to her demeanor that made Dan paradoxically at ease and on guard.

She looked down at his file and then up at him, smiling.

What would she say? How would she put it?

Dan felt himself grow faint.

“Dan. I’m sorry, but your test came back positive for HIV antibodies.”

Dan felt as though he would drop to the floor. He had expected this, knew it was coming, yet it was no easier to bear. His life was over. When would he start getting sick? When would the first ailment make its deadly appearance? Which infection would it be? How long would it take before AIDS extinguished his light?

He searched for words to put in his mouth, but it seemed as though the connection between his brain and his mouth had been severed. He could only stare, slack-jawed, at the motherly woman.

“I’m sorry, honey. But this doesn’t have to be bad news. They are coming up with new treatments all the time! No worries! Before you even get sick, I’m sure they’ll have something for you.” Becky laughed. “You’ll die of old age before that old AIDS monster gets you!” she laughed again.

“Are you sure?” Dan sputtered.

“Sure I’m sure! You’re gonna be just fine! You’ll see.”

“No. I mean, are you sure about the results?”

“Oh yeah, honey. The test doesn’t lie. You’re gay, right?”

Dan nodded, numb.

“And you know what gay stands for, doncha?”

Dan put a hand to his mouth to stifle the wave of hysterical laughter threatening to burst from his lips. He knew what she was going to say.

“Got AIDS yet?” Becky slapped the desk, laughing and Dan joined her, laughing until his sides ached, until tears poured from his eyes. The pair paused in the hilarity for a moment, looked at one another, and started laughing all over again.

“Mr. Calzolaio? Mr. Calzolaio, are you all right?” Becky leaned over him, concern radiating from her warm brown eyes.

Dan shook his head and the room came back into focus. He realized he had slipped away for a moment, maybe even fainted.

“Yes, yes. I think so. I’ve just been so nervous about this.” He looked up into Becky’s face.

“Let me get you some water.”

He grabbed her arm before she left the office. “No. I don’t need water. I need to know. Did you just tell me I was infected?”

Becky looked at him, cocking her head in confusion. “No, honey, that’s not what I said at all.” She hurried back around to the other side of the desk and sat. “I said just the opposite. You’re negative, sweetheart. But your ELISA test did come back positive the first time.”

Dan felt like the floor was coming out from under him once again.

“And when we ran the test a second time, it came back positive again, so we sent it for the Western Blot and that came back negative. That happens sometimes…but you’re okay.” She opened a drawer and handed him a pamphlet. “That explains how the testing works. But if the Western Blot is negative, you’re not infected.”

“You’re sure?”

Becky nodded. “You were worried about this, huh?”

Dan wanted to laugh again. “Yeah, a little bit.”

“Have you been exposed?” Becky peered at him from over the top of her glasses.

“No.” He paused, thinking. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

“Well, I need to tell you—there is what they call a window period, when you could be infected, but the tests don’t yet pick up on the antibodies.” She made sure Dan met her gaze and continued. “That’s why you need to make sure you play very safe.” She reached in the same drawer from which she had taken the pamphlet and pulled out a handful of condoms, setting them down in front of Dan. The bright metallic wrappers made him think she was offering him candy. “Don’t take any risks and make sure you come back in six months and get tested again, just to be certain. Okay?”

Dan thought he would abstain from any sex for the next six months—maybe forever. He stuffed the rubbers into his pocket anyway and stood.

“You gonna be all right?”

“Yeah. I’ll be fine. Thank you.” Dan left the office, feeling curiously numb and relieved all at once. A part of his heart ached because he knew this scene had played out so differently for Adam.


http://www.rickrreed.com
blog - http://rickrreedreality.blogspot.com/

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The Canals of Mars excerpt by Victor J Banis

Two men come together in an enchanted cottage, one of them old and one of them scarred –and begin to see one another and their lives in a different way. The eye is a wonderful thing, but only love can see the truth.

Canals of Mars
MLR Press (August, 2011)
ISBN# 978-1-60820-429-8

Excerpt:

Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but ugly is there for everyone to see. I can afford to speak so flippantly on the subject, since I was, and I say it in all modesty, beautiful indeed.

The operative word there, of course, is, was. Was, before a vial exploded in the lab, and turned that beautiful face into a road map of Mars. In the novels, in the movies, this is where the handsome plastic surgeon rushes to the rescue, and by the next chapter-reel, I am Joan Crawford all over again, and on my way to becoming Mrs. Surgeon. Or, in my gay instance, Mister and Mister Surgeon.

Cut. First off, he was older than the hills and singularly unattractive. And, he was already married and blatantly heterosexual. Don't get me wrong: I have no objections to heterosexuals, so long as they aren't too obvious. And, hell, if he had been able to make me lovely again, I'd have murdered her, had the change, and gone after the old codger regardless.

Three operations later, however, the mirror still showed me the surface of Mars. The craters had shrunk somewhat, and the canals had shifted, but it was still Mars. I balked at going under the knife a fourth time.

"No, it won't be a dramatic improvement," he said when I questioned him.

"In other words, I’m still going to look like something brought back up half eaten," I asked, and the tone in which he assured me that I would look better told me that "better" still was not going to be very good.

Which was where we left it. Notwithstanding the pleasure of lying abed in a hospital—there is nothing quite like the personal touch of your own bedpan, is there—and all that delicious food, I promised I would get back to him, without specifying in which life.

When you are damaged, as I was, they give you lots of money, as if that would compensate for what I had lost. I was grateful, though, that I did not have to work. Not because I am all that fond of lying about vegetating, but because I did not have to face all those slipping-away eyes that I was sure to encounter.

There were not many places one could go, however, without the same problem. Jason threw in the towel and was gone. Jason who loved "the soul of me," who loved me "through and through," was through. I told myself, "good riddance," he was too shallow to be of much use as a lover, and I tried to not to think that I had mostly been just about as shallow most of my life. I definitely tried not to remember that I loved the bastard.

I am fortunate that I am comfortable with my own company, as many are not, and there is a certain bitter comfort in wallowing in self-pity. That wears thin, though, after a while, and the walls of my little apartment seemed to shrink inward with each passing day. So, when Douglas called me, to say he was going to spend a month or two at his cottage on the shore, and would I like to come along, I jumped at the chance. I might not have in the past. I had always understood that Douglas was in love with me—whatever that meant. Jason had been in love with me, too, he said, and what had that amounted to? Who knew what "love" was? I didn't.

In the past, I might have wondered at Douglas' intentions, getting me all alone in that little cottage of his. He was Jason's friend. I liked him well enough on the few occasions when I had met him, and he was a lovely person—just not my type. Not as old as that surgeon, probably, but, really, too old for my tastes, sixty if he was a day, maybe more. I didn't really know. Anyway, what difference does a number make? There comes a point when you're just old, doesn't there? Though I have to admit, if you weren't hung up on age, he was a youthful looking sixty whatever.

They say it's an ill wind, however. With the face I now had, I did not have to worry about whether it was only my beauty that men were after.

I will give him credit. He was one of the few, the first, maybe, since the accident, who did not flinch when he saw me. He even managed to look me straight in the face, and not quickly avert his eyes.

"Pretty awful, isn't it?" I said. He had come out to help me bring my bags in.

He smiled. "I've seen worse," he said. "I used to work in a burn center."

"I hope that wasn't meant to make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside," I said, following him up the wide, shallow steps to the front door.

"No, I've got martinis waiting. That's their job."

They failed, however. All they did was lower the barriers I had so carefully raised. The martinis, and Douglas. He was an elegant man, suave and distinguished. He was also thoughtful and gentle; I hadn't known that about him before. Of course, I had never been alone at his beach cottage with him. Never, really, been alone with him at all.

He talked of all sorts of things, movies and people we both knew and recipes and the shore and the weather and, when I could bear it no longer and the tears began to stream down my cheeks, he stopped talking and just held me. He didn't try to tell me it would be okay. He didn't try to tell me that I was still beautiful. He did not swear it would all get better, or somehow magically go away, or any of the stupid, insensitive things that others had said that had only made me feel worse. He didn't even chide me when I blubbered about the canals of Mars.

He just held me and gently kissed my cheek; not even the good one. He kissed the one that was scarred, kissed Mars' canals as if they were the most natural things on this planet. He was the first person since the accident with the courage to put his lips to my flesh; the first, even, to put his arms around me. Jason had tried, and had paled and turned away before his lips touched me, and said with a sob, as if it were his heart breaking, "I can't, I just can't." Then he left.

Douglas only held me and kissed my cheek, and when the tears stopped at last, he took me upstairs and tucked me into my bed like a little child, and brought me a cup of hot chocolate, and made me drink it, and sat and held my hand until I fell asleep.

#

Evenings, he fixed us martinis and I got into the habit of preparing dinner. I had cooked in the past, but I had gotten away from it. I found now that I enjoyed it. I took unexpected pleasure in fixing the things he liked, the way he liked them. Nothing too fancy: steaks or lobster or burgers on the grill, and when it turned out we both actually loved it, the tuna casserole that Jason had always turned his nose up at. The one with potato chips. I caught Douglas licking the salt off the chips and smacked his hand with the spatula. Later, though, I tried it myself when he wasn't looking, and he caught me at it and smacked my hand.

"I was in the hospital for eight weeks," I told him petulantly. "You're not supposed to hit someone when they're recovering from surgery."

"Bullshit," he said, and offered me a chip to lick. He wasn't always elegant.

We ate sometimes on the terrace when it was warm enough, and at the kitchen table when it wasn't, and some evenings it was cool enough for a fire in the fireplace and we ate in front of it. There was no television, but he had a radio and a stereo, and somehow he had managed to stock a shelf with most of my favorite music. Sometimes he sat beside me, and he would shyly put his arm around me, and I would lean against him and put my head on his shoulder while we listened to music together, and watched the fire. We didn't talk much, but the silence was comfortable. Always, when he said good night, he kissed my cheek. The bad one.

After a week, when he started to turn away from me at my bedroom door, I said, "You don't have to go to your own room."

It took him a moment to realize what I meant. "Are you sure?" he said, uncertain and hopeful all at the same time.

"I'm sure."

I would have turned the lights out, but he wouldn't have it. "Do you have any idea how long I've dreamed of seeing you like this?" he asked. "I never thought I'd be so lucky."

I was naked by this time. He looked me up and down with undisguised pleasure while he undressed. That part of me, at least, was still fine. I was glad, for his sake as well as my own. He deserved beauty. I turned the bad cheek away.

He was naked too now, seemingly unembarrassed by his old man's body. He dropped on to the bed beside me.

"That was when I was beautiful," I said. "And please don't say, 'you still are.'"

"You still are," he said.

Without thinking, I put a hand to my face. "The canals of Mars?" I said.

"Where I shall swim in ecstasy," he said and kissed the scars. I watched and listened and felt carefully with all my senses for some hint of reluctance, of disgust or even discomfort, but if he felt any, he disguised it completely.

He took hold of my hand and rubbed it across the pouch of his belly, where he had thickened about the waist. "If you'll overlook this," he said, and leaned over to kiss my lips.

#

It was good sex. Not great, but good. Of course, sex had been a solitary pastime for me since the accident. Jack off and think of Jason, think of Jason and jack off. Maybe at this point in time, anybody would have made it seem good. I don't know. I don't think so. I suppose that is one of the advantages of age, though: practice makes you, if not perfect, pretty adept. He was. He made love to me. I had never experienced that before. Lots of sex, none hotter than with Jason, but no one had ever made love to me. It was nice. I kissed him when it was over, and kissing him, actually forgot about how I looked. He stayed the night in my bed. I slept comfortably in the crook of his arm.

I realized when I woke in the morning that I had forgotten, too, how old he was.

#

After that, we slept together every night. He could not have been more tender, more loving, and I stirred myself to be as good as I could be for him as well. It got better, our sex. I wanted it to, and it did, it got very much better. I stopped jacking off remembering Jason. I didn't stop remembering Jason, but I stopped jacking off, remembering him. Stopped jacking off altogether, to tell the truth. Who had anything left to shoot, the way we were going at it? He was insatiable. The old goat. It was flattering. Exhausting, but flattering.

One night when we finished, he rolled on his back with a gasp and said, "If you keep it up like that, you're going to kill me. I'm an old man, remember?"

"You're not so old," I said. And, to my surprise, I meant it. I'd been to bed with men forty years his junior who weren't the lover he was. Or, maybe they were. What I really mean is, that I hadn't gotten the pleasure, the same kind of pleasure, from them that I did from him. Maybe that was in part the pleasure that I was giving. I had never thought of it like that before: taking pleasure in giving it. I wanted to make him happy. I wanted to please him. When I did, and he made it quite obvious that I did, it made me happy too.

That was a new one for me.

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Beloved Pilgrim excerpt by Nan Hawthorne

"Why should I warn people about people who love and are devoted to each other?"

In Beloved Pilgrim, by Nan Hawthorne, Elisabeth is a young noblewoman who has chosen to live as a man and come to Constantinople as part of the Crusade of 1101. While staying in a highborn official’s villa, she has fallen in love with the servant assigned to her (though the woman does not realize Elisabeth’s sex). She learns that her nervousness around the young woman has gotten her dismissed and has gone looking for her in the Turkish sector outside the walls of the Sublime Port.

Beloved Pilgrim
Publisher: Shieldwall Books (February 27, 2011)
ISBN-10: 098339850X
ISBN-13: 978-0983398509

Excerpt:

"Where can I find Maliha?" Elisabeth shouted.

The women stood clumped together staring, some weeping.

Elisabeth frantically surveyed them. "Maliha? Where can I find Maliha?"

"I am here," came a familiar voice from the door to a slanting shack. "What the hell do you think coming here?"

Elisabeth shot her eyes toward the sound. "Maliha! There you are! I came to find you!"

"Why? What would you want with me?"

The honey-colored eyes glared at her, full of affronted pride. If Elisabeth had despised the meekness and subservience, her heart pounded at the defiance and fire in those eyes. Her jaw dropped, she felt heat rise in her body, starting in her belly and creeping up. She strode to the woman. "Where can we be alone?" she spat through her teeth.

The honey eyes burned into her dark angry ones. They darted to the other women who were now chattering among themselves. "Come in here, away from those hens." Maliha led her through the flap over the entry and into darkness.

As she turned to face Elisabeth, she found herself clasped hard, strong hands biting into her upper arms. Her cry of protest was cut off as the knight's lips found hers in the darkness and pressed hard. Elisabeth's tongue forced its way into her mouth. She bit it.

Elisabeth jumped back, putting her hand to her mouth and tasting blood. "Why did you do that?"

"Why do you think? Do you think I should want you to force your way into my home and rape me?" Maliha punched her square in the chest. "You wanted me to stop being meek. Well, doesn't this please you, Excellency," she shot, with a sneer in her voice. She hauled off and slugged Elisabeth in the chest with both fists.

"Ow, that hurt!" Elisabeth exclaimed. Then she felt silly. Why should a knight cry out that a mere woman punched him in his chest. But the woman had connected with her nipples, which were already tender with her monthly flux.

She stood a moment, perplexed. Maliha had gone still. Elisabeth's eyes were adjusting and she could see the woman's head-covering had slipped askew, letting the long black hair loose on the right side of her head. Her impulse was to reach toward Maliha and take her into her arms. But instead the dark beauty came forward and placed herself there. The chin tipped up, the lips parted. Her own eyes wide, Elisabeth lowered her head and sank into a kiss of such poignant sweetness she thought she would swoon.

Maliha had had a sudden revelation. There was something about this knight, something that did not fit what she knew of men. The bearing was right but the look in the man's eyes was wrong. Men did not look with such intensity into a woman's eyes, she thought. The kiss had been hard but something was different there too. A man would force the kiss, devouring her. And then there was an odd sense of lumps on the knight's breast, even through the chain mail. Her mind raced back over their encounters in the past few days and certain things presented themselves in a new light. Could it be?

She decided to collect more information, and thus leaned into the man to invite him to kiss her. This time the kiss was softer, more sensual, and Maliha started to explore with her tongue. The feel was much like a ripe peach, soft, yielding, but ardent. It reminded Maliha of an exquisite night she had spent with a female cousin when they were still girls.

Maliha raised her arms and put them around the knight's neck. Elisabeth's own mailed arms slowly snaked around the soft yielding body in her arms. She felt Maliha press her body along her own. She could not think to wonder what had changed. Their tongues met in each other's mouths and sweetly slid across and under each other. She felt Maliha's tongue slide along inside her teeth. She felt as if the juices in her most private place were flowing out of her and down her britches.

www.nanhawthorne.com
(currently writing a M/M romance set in about 1860 America)
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