Time After Time excerpt by J.P. Bowie

In Time After Time by J.P. Bowie, Michael Ballantyne, a young graphic artist living in Los Angeles, bewildered by a series of erotic dreams, is eager to uncover their meaning. When he is informed that he is the sole beneficiary in an unknown man's will and is now the owner of a large estate in Hertfordshire, England, Michael feels that somehow he has been given a key to unlock the dreams' mysteries. This feeling grows stronger when he comes face to face with Jonathan Robertson, a handsome Englishman, who more than just resembles the man in his dreams.

Together they attempt to solve the mystery that surrounds the disappearance and apparent murder of Jonathan Harcourt, the son of the previous owner of Bedford Park.

The mutual attraction they quickly feel for one another is hampered by the sudden arrival of Michael's jealous boyfriend, Steve Miller, and by Jack Trenton, a formidable and uninvited presence who has occupied the lodge by the estate gates.

When Michael, along with his now ex-boyfriend, Steve, is held hostage by Trenton, it becomes clear that Bedford Park holds many more secrets than anyone ever thought. Michael and Jonathan are soon to discover that the keepers of those secrets are dangerous men, willing to stop at nothing in order to make an ancient oath come to pass.

Time After Time
Publisher: MLR Press (June 21, 2009)
ISBN: 9781608201566

CHAPTER ONE

For the umpteenth time in twenty minutes Michael Ballantyne glanced toward the diner entrance to see if his brother Brad had yet deigned to arrive for their lunch date. “Where in hell is he?” he muttered to himself, sucking up half his iced tea in frustration. He caught the waiter’s eye and ordered a burger. No point in waiting any longer – looked like Brad was a no show.

He tried to shuck off the feeling of disappointment that his brother hadn’t even bothered to call him to say he couldn’t make it, but just as the waiter took his order, Michael saw a red-faced Brad dash into the diner and scan the crowded room. On seeing Michael wave at him, he hurried over to the booth.

“Shit, sorry,” he said sliding onto the seat opposite Michael. “Had a client who just wouldn’t get off the phone. What’re you having?”

“Cheeseburger…”

“I’ll have the same,” Brad told the waiter, “and a beer.”

“Drinking at lunch time?”

“I’m taking the afternoon off. I’ve been working way too hard lately.”
Michael chuckled. “Who told you that?”

“I told me that, my boy – and it’s the truth. Five closings in one month, two of ‘em utter bastards – I’m exhausted.” Brad slumped in his seat to emphasize his words.

“You should be pleased – everyone else I know in real estate is bitching about how slow it is.”

“That’s ‘cause they don’t know how to play a bad market.” Brad grinned at his brother. “So, how’re you doin’?”

“Okay.”

“Still seeing Steve?”

“I guess…”

“You guess?”

Michael gazed at his brother’s handsome face, his forehead now creased by a frown. “Well, he’s out of town right now on a business trip trying to find new clients. I haven’t seen very much of him lately. I think he’s losing interest.”

Brad raised an eyebrow. “What a clown. Losing interest in a good looking dude like you – if you weren’t my brother, I’d be putting the make on you myself.”

Michael laughed softly. “You’d have to turn gay too. I don’t think Miranda would approve, do you?”

“Probably not.” Brad touched Michael’s hand. “He’s not good enough for you, bro. Miranda and I both agree on that.”

Michael shrugged. “Steve’s all right. He’s just a businessman first.”

“Huh…” Brad fell silent as the waiter delivered their burgers and his beer. “So, you said you hadn’t been sleeping too well recently. What’s up with that?”

Michael hesitated. Did he really want to tell his brother about the strangely erotic dreams he’d been having? Dreams that would wake him in the middle of the night and keep him awake with the memory of how incredible they were – how incredible the man in the dreams was. He felt his face flush as he remembered.

“What’s wrong?” Brad was staring at him with concern.

“Nothing…it’s just that I’ve been having these strange dreams for the last three weeks or so. It’s a bit embarrassing…”

“How so?”

Michael shifted in his seat and couldn’t meet his brother’s eyes as he answered. “Um… they’re kind of erotic…” He cleared his throat. “You don’t want to hear this.”

“Try me.”

“Well. There’s this guy, and he’s making love to me.”

“And it’s not Steve, I take it,” Brad said through a mouthful of burger.

Michael shook his head. “No, it’s not anyone I know, or have ever known. I’d like to know him,” he added with a shaky laugh. “He’s English, and is quite, uh…incredible.”

“English, huh? So what’s the problem?”

“There’s no problem. I’m just a bit confused as to why I should have the same dream about the same guy, night after night.”

“Some kind of wish fulfillment maybe,” Brad suggested. “I mean, it sounds like your relationship with Steve isn’t going anywhere, so you’re compensating by dreaming of a guy who’ll love you unconditionally.”

Michael stared at his brother. “Okay, when did you become a budding Freud?”

Brad chuckled and picked up a napkin to wipe his mouth. “Nothing very complicated there, Michael. You’re horny, so getting off in your dreams works like a charm.”

“Brad!”

“Well, doesn’t it?”

“Trust you to take it to the lowest common denominator.”

“And trust you to make more of it than it is,” Brad said, grinning. “Every guy has a wet dream now and then, Michael – especially when they’re not getting any.”

Michael groaned and shook his head. “I knew I shouldn’t have told you about this. Now you’re going to give me shit about it every time we’re together. Don’t tell Miranda!”

“Are you kidding? She’ll love this. She’ll think it so romantic that her brother-in-law has a dream man in his life.”

“That’s the problem – he’s not in my life.”

“Nor is Steve by the sounds of things. You know what I think?”

“No, but I know you’re about to tell me.”

“I think you should tell Steve to go to hell. He keeps you dangling there for his own convenience. You know, Miranda and I have talked about this…”

“Oh great,” Michael moaned. “My brother and sister-in-law sit around talking about my love life.”

Brad chuckled. “Or lack of it. But seriously, I haven’t said this before, but Steve’s not the guy for you. He’s just way too self-centered…”

“Well, he’s got a lot on his mind. Running your own business is a full-time commitment…”

“Yeah, yeah,” Brad made a dismissive gesture. “But that night we all had dinner together I couldn’t get over the fact that every time the conversation strayed to something that didn’t directly concern him, his eyes sorta just glazed over, and he lost all interest in what we were saying. I mean what d’you guys talk about when you’re together? Is he remotely interested in what you do?”

“Of course he is.” Michael looked away from his brother’s searching gaze. “Well, I think he is…”

“Well, he should be. Graphic art is…is art for Chrissakes. You’re a talented guy. What does he do? Sells computer parts – no talent needed for that, is there?”

“Brad, you’re being very judgmental all of a sudden.”

Brad’s eyes narrowed as he stared at Michael. “I don’t want to see my little brother get hurt, that’s all. It doesn’t take an analyst to see you’re unhappy. Dreaming about getting laid instead of getting the real thing means you’re compensating for what’s lacking in your life.”

Michael sighed. “Okay I admit I’m a tad ticked off he doesn’t seem to want to spend more time with me, but I really don’t think the dreams have anything to do with Steve. They’ve just started recently…”

“Because you’re frustrated…” Brad gave him a mischievous smile. “Tell me, how d’you feel when you wake up from one of these dreams? Are you, uh…damp?”

“Brad.” Michael felt his face grow hot. “You really are too much.” He looked around the crowded diner praying no one could hear their conversation, but the noise level was reassuringly high.

Brad laughed at his brother’s embarrassment. “Michael, you and I have shared just about everything in our lives. There’s not much you and I don’t know about each other – we’ve slept in the same bed, shared the same tent on camping trips, skinny dipped together – and then there was that time when we…”

“Okay, now you’re really embarrassing me,” Michael hissed under his breath. But what Brad had said was true. Unlike a lot of siblings, he and Brad had always been close – a bond that had grown even stronger after the unexpected death of their parents. Now he gazed fondly at his brother’s smiling face, at the sparkle in his eyes, and knew he could tell him just about anything.

“All right, yes I’m…I’m…”

“Wet.”

Michael groaned. “Yes.”

“And the guy?”

“Incredible, like I said. He’s like a god come to life. Dark hair that falls in curls over his forehead, eyes so dark blue they’re almost cobalt, lips that…Jesus, why am I telling my straight brother all this?”

“Because you want to share, and we always share, remember? You listened to me when Miranda and I were having our problems and despite the fact that I’m straight, I love my gay baby brother, and I want to see you happy – and laid.”

Michael’s laugh was followed by a smile of real affection. “I love you too, big brother – and you’ll be the first to know when it happens.”

“Well, after you, hopefully,” his brother kidded him.

***************

Later, as he entered his apartment, Michael immediately noticed the flashing light on his answering machine. Steve? He could only hope. He hesitated before pressing the message button. What Brad had said about Steve still bothered him. Was he being blind to Steve’s faults simply because he didn’t want the relationship, such as it was, to fail?

“Oh, come on,” he muttered. “Get a grip.” He pressed the button and sighed with disappointment as a voice rasped in his ears. It wasn’t Steve…

“This message is for Mr. Michael Ballantyne. My name is Ronald Fortescue of Fortescue, Reynolds and Haversham, Solicitors. My office is located in London, England, and we represent the estate of Mr. Lionel Burroughs. Mr. Burroughs, I regret to say, passed away quite recently and has left a will that names you, Mr. Ballantyne, as his sole beneficiary.”

Michael stared at the answering machine in disbelief. “What the hell? Is this some kind of joke?”

“If you would care to phone my office as soon as possible, I will make arrangements to inform you of the exact details of Mr. Burroughs will – along with the conditions of your inheritance. Here is my number…”

Michael had to play the message twice more before his shaking fingers could write the number down. This had to be some kind of a hoax, like one of those emails he got now and then telling him he’d won a million dollars on a lottery he’d never entered. But the man had left a phone number… He glanced at his watch. Six o’clock. London was what…eight hours ahead? No point in calling right then. He’d do it first thing in the morning. Should he call Brad and tell him? No…he’d wait until he’d spoken to this Fortescue guy. Maybe the whole thing was one big mistake…they’d gotten the wrong Michael Ballantyne. Yeah, that was it…there had to be a hundred Michael Ballantynes in the Los Angeles phone book. They’d just picked the wrong one.

Quickly, he punched in Brad’s number. “Hi Brad, it’s Michael.”

“No kidding. I do have caller ID y’know.”

“Right. Listen, I just got a weird message on my answering machine.”

“Well, this is LA, Michael.”

“Be serious. Some guy from England is telling me I’ve been left an inheritance or something…”

“Sweet. How much?”

“I don’t know that – but Brad, I’ve never heard of this guy…a Lionel Burroughs. Have you?”

“Burroughs? Nope, can’t say I have.”

“You think he might have been a friend of Mom and Dad’s?”

“I have no idea, Michael. I don’t recall them ever mentioning a Lionel Burroughs. They were only in England that one time, remember?”

Michael remembered only too well. It was shortly after that trip that his parents had been killed in a deadly freeway accident involving multiple vehicles. The memory of that terrible time sent an involuntary shudder through Michael’s body.

“Yes,” he said quietly. “I remember… Anyway,” he continued after clearing his throat, “I have to call this solicitor guy in London tomorrow. I guess he’ll be able to tell me what the connection is.”

“Can’t wait to hear more, bro. Call me soon as you’ve talked to him.”

“Will do… I’ll talk to you later. Tell Miranda ‘hi’.”

With another glance at the phone number he’d written on the notepad he kept by the phone, Michael walked through his bedroom into the bathroom to undress. He had no plans for the evening and was looking forward to lounging in sweats in front of the television with a pizza and beer. He stood for a moment in front of the mirror as he removed his shirt and gazed at himself critically.

What was it about him that Steve found so easy to resist?

He wasn’t bad looking, even Brad said he was good looking. He kept himself in shape, and he always made sure he smelled nice… But it wasn’t enough obviously, he thought despondently. Sighing, he ran a hand through his chestnut brown hair and threw his shirt into the laundry basket. As he met his own green-eyed gaze in the mirror he wondered if Brad had been right about those dreams. Was he simply dreaming up this beautiful guy to replace the man he could tell was slipping away from him?

Wow, that’s really pathetic, he thought, grimacing at his reflection. Yet, those dreams seemed so real – the man felt real, warm and hard bodied under Michael’s hands, his skin so smooth, his lips so soft, his kiss a sweet hunger…

Jesus… Michael stepped back from the mirror. He was hard as a rock. “Pull yourself together,” he muttered. The phone’s strident ring brought him back to reality. He picked up in the bedroom.

“Michael Ballantyne.”

“Mikey, how are you?”

Steve. He was the only one who called him Mikey, and got away with it. Michael hated that particular abbreviation, but from Steve he’d grin and bear it.

“Hey, it’s good to hear your voice.” Michael sat down heavily on the bed. “Where are you?”

“Still in Vancouver, but I’ll be back in a couple of days. Wanna get together?”

“That’d be great…” He paused then said quietly. “I miss you.”

“Yeah…miss you too, Mikey.”

“What are you doing?”

“Right now I’m lying in bed watching Canadian television. It’s even worse than the dreck they serve up in the States. What are you doing?”

“I just got home. Going to kick back and watch some dreck on TV too.” Michael had a vision of Steve lying on the hotel bed, his muscled, quarter-back physique stretched out in all its glory, his blond hair rumpled by the pillow. He was hard again.

“Well, you have a good evening,” Steve was saying. “I’ll call you when I get back.”

No, don’t hang up yet. Talk to me some more… “Oh, okay Steve. Look forward to seeing you when you get back.”

“Right… Take it easy, see ya, Mikey.” And he was gone.

“Damn,” Michael muttered, putting the phone down. Why couldn’t he have thought of something to keep Steve talking on the phone longer? Why hadn’t he told him about the call from England? Surely that would have intrigued him. His hand strayed to his crotch, gripping the hard flesh through his slacks. He lay back on the bed, but the face that swam before his closed eyes, wasn’t Steve’s…it was the man in his dreams.

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Aaron's Wait excerpt by Dorien Grey

In Aaron's Wait by Dorien Grey, the second book in the Elliott Smith Mystery series, Aaron Stiles is dead. He’s been dead for four years but doesn’t seem to know it. He’s waiting for his partner Bill to come home, and until that happens, he’s not going anywhere. The trouble is, Bill Somers won’t be coming home—ever—because he’s dead, too. The official verdict was suicide, but...

The last thing Elliot Smith needs in his latest renovation project is a ghost, especially one who won’t let him sell the place until he solves the mystery of who killed Bill. He has John to help with the spectral side of things, but that just leaves him with the quandary of how to get information on the case. After all, he can hardly explain he’s investigating on behalf of one dead man with the assistance of another.

Aaron's Wait
Zumaya Publications, LLC (July 22, 2009)
ISBN-10: 1934841404
ISBN-13: 978-193484140

Excerpt

While he made it a policy to have as little contact as possible with a building’s tenants during the escrow period, he found himself for some reason compelled to talk personally with Mrs. Reinerio regarding her options. He didn’t have her phone number, so he called the Winters to ask for it, and to let them know of his intentions so they’d not think it strange to have him showing up at the building, and as he expected, they had no objections. Mrs. Winters reported that they had found a small condo in a new retirement complex and would be moving within a month of the closing of escrow. He then called Mrs. Reinerio, who said she would be happy to talk with him, and would be home all day.

He drove over after lunch, noting that the weather was definitely turning cooler. Escrow was to close on a Tuesday but, badly as he wanted to get to work immediately, he knew too well that last minute glitches often pushed the close back a day or so, so to be on the safe side he’d made arrangements for the sandblasters to come in the Monday following the official close date. He was fairly sure they could easily complete the work before the weather got too bad, but it was Chicago, and he didn’t want to take any chances.

He was curious, too, about street parking around the new property during the day and was relieved to see it wasn’t too difficult to find a space. He took his time walking up to the building, pausing again to look at its neighbors. He was pleased to confirm his earlier observation that the entire block appeared to be relatively well maintained.

Climbing the steps to the front door, he rang Mrs. Reinerio’s buzzer.

She had opened her door by the time he entered the hall.

“Come in, Mr. Smith,” she said, warmly.

“Elliott, please,” he replied, as he followed her into her apartment, then waited while she closed the door behind him.

“Please sit,” she said. “May I get you some coffee?”

“If you have some made,” he said, taking the indicated chair.

“Of course. I’ll only be a moment.”

As she left the room, Elliott looked around. He’d seen it during the inspection tour of the building, but now had a chance to concentrate on some of the individual items in the room. It was, he decided, definitely a grandmother’s apartment: comfortable, neat, clean, and heavy with an indefinable air of the past.

She returned a minute or so later with a tray on which were two coffee mugs (“I don’t hold much on ceremony,” she said), a creamer, sugar bowl, and small plate with several pieces of coffee cake, which she put on the coffee table in front of Elliott. Waiting until she had taken her own seat across from him, Elliott got right to the point of his visit.

He outlined what he perceived to be her options, emphasizing that he was renovating the building for resale, and that a rent increase under the new owners was almost inevitable.

She sighed. “I was afraid of that,” she said, looking into her coffee cup, then hastily added: “I know it’s not your fault, and that nothing is forever, but I’ve lived here for twenty-five years now, and…”

“I understand,” Elliott said, and he felt he truly did. He then went on to mention one of his own rental properties which had a vacancy at a comparable rent, and that he would be pleased to have her as a tenant. He assured her he would be happy to assist if she needed help with the move itself.

“That’s very kind of you, Elliott,” she said. “Can I have a little time to think it over?”

“Certainly,” Elliott said. “I just wanted…”

There was a knock at the door, which Mrs. Reinerio apparently did not hear, since she showed no reaction to it.

“I think there’s someone at the door,” he said after a moment.

She looked at him and smiled. “Oh, it’s nothing,” she said. “It’s just Aaron. I recognize the knock.”

A shiver ran from the top of his head to his toes.

“Aaron?” he asked. John had already told him, of course, but confirmation from someone with a pulse still startled him

Her smile never faded and there was no change in the casual tone of her voice as she said: “Aaron Stiles. He lives… lived…upstairs,” she said. “He died four years ago, poor dear.”

“So you’re saying…” Elliott finally managed to say.

She put her cup down and looked at him. “Yes,” she said pleasantly, “I’m afraid you’ve bought yourself a slightly haunted house.”

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Ignited excerpt by Bryl R Tyne

In Ignited by Bryl R Tyne, Val & Kendra are back at it again, and as usual, they have few qualms about public sex... T-girls need love too. Sometimes, need outweighs time or place...

Fireworks in Orlando-the crowds, Val's attitude, the unbearable Florida humidity ... Can Kendra survive the heat? When public make-up sex inside the prop room of a local art studio turns into an excursion into mind-blowing group sex, Val shows Kendra fireworks like she's never experienced!



Ignited
Publisher: Noble Romance Publishing (July, 2009)
ISBN: 9781605920467

Excerpt:

What the f--?

Val poked his head around the door as it opened, grin plastered cheek to cheek. "Here you are."

No shit . . . . "Do you mind?"

Apparently not; he continued to smile and open the door. I'd never understand men. Specifically--him. "For chrissake, Val, close the--Ow!" I knew that dispenser was a safety hazard "Damnit, Val, just get out until I'm through!"

Never discount his relentlessness. I learned that months ago. His persistence is what brought us together in the first place.

"Kendra--"

"The door?"

"Kendra, listen . . . ."

What happened to the days when he would leave me to my fits, to sort things out on my own? Sometimes, I wondered.

"You're not wearing it?"

His surprise at my wearing stretch panties instead of a gaff was understandable. We'd argued about it for weeks. Taking chances in exposing any unwanted facets about myself wasn't something I was fond of. He was certain though, and downloading page after page from medical websites, had taken extremes to prove that gaffs were a risk to my well-being. Looking back, I realized today was not the best day to decide to heed his advice. "I don't want to talk about it."

Arms crossed, he leaned against the now-closed door, waiting for me to finish. He twisted to the wall opposite the sink, as I tucked myself between my legs, making sure all features were in place, and pulled up my panties. After flushing, I stopped in front of the mirror for one last makeup check.

Val embraced me from behind,wrapping me in those arms I might have welcomed earlier, but not now. Refusing me space, he hesitated on my hips as I pushed him away. I tried not to dwell on the stuffiness of the room, closed my eyes, and leaned on the sink.

"You're beautiful, Kendra."

"Don't we have a fireworks show to get to?"

My head nearly banged into the mirror as he leaned over me to plant kisses across the back of my neck. Why'd he have to come on so strong, feel so warm, so inviting -- and hard?" I'm sorry."

For what? Why couldn't I be moody without him coming uncorked? Taking it personal. His insecurities irked me. Or was it just dumb perseverance, like that of a faithful dog? Why he tried so hard to please me, I didn't think I'd ever understand. His presence served only to make the closet-sized room that much stuffier. After shrugging him off me, I motioned him to move so I could swing open the door. "Val, come on. Give it a rest."

Squished behind the halfway-open door, Val grumbled as I edged past him and out of the room. But before I cleared the doorway, he had me by the arm. I struggled, trying to get out of his grasp, only to have him tighten his hold. "Damn it, Val!"

"Kendra, stop it!"

I yanked. Cursing, he followed, hitting the sink hard, tripping over his feet, tumbling after me, and taking us both to the floor. A chair piled high with scarves teetered off-kilter by our fall, and we found ourselves smothered in a cushiony blanket of stage props.

As Val pushed to his knees, I flipped over onto my back, tossing scarves and stoles to the side. His clinginess today had me at my wit's end."What the fuck's wrong with you?"

"Me?"

Exposed and trapped, his hands on either side of my head, I fought to wriggle my skirt over my panties. With one hand, he swiped at the neon tangerine orange boa hanging lopsided from his neck. Highlighted by the bright color, his gaze, heavy and dark, pleading for peace. Expression tight, his pouting, bottom lip teased me. Even his faux sternness was cute. Intending to give him my best dirty look, I broke out laughing instead.

"This isn't funny, Kendra."

"Oh,Val." Wrapping a thin stole around his head, I drew him closer,nose to nose, our gazes locked. "I think baby blue is more your col--" His lips covered mine, stealing my words. My breath followed as he lowered himself onto me. He pressed with his tongue, and wanting nothing more at that moment than him inside me, I pulled on the blue silk draped around him. Jesus, I loved what his mouth did for me; those lips, soft but firm, his tongue sliding over then under mine, enticing me to explore him. Though his shadowed face scraped my chin and burned my lips, I remapped his mouth once again, sure I would never tire of ....

"Val."

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The Final Curtain excerpt by Victor J Banis in the anthology RED by various authors

The Final Curtain by Victor J Banis first appeared in the Winter 2007-2008 issue of the ezine Mysterical-E (http://www.mystericale.com). The story is an exercise in Grand Guignol and is included in the anthology RED. The narrator, a touring actor, has been invited to supper with a local arts patron and her preternaturally beautiful young son, Gaylord.

The anthology RED is by multiple authors including 2009 Lambda Award Finalists Victor J Banis, William Maltese and JP Bowie. A gloriously erotic m/m romance, of any genre, any era. Add just a few little items: red, a drink of ice cold water, a cricket, a pebble, the scent of blood oranges. The result? An anthology as versatile and intriguing as it's authors. Red. Who isn't attracted by the color of passion? Due Out soon.


RED
MLR Press (TBA)


Excerpt:

"We ate, not in the immense and over-furnished dining room, but in what she rather pretentiously called 'the supper room,' just the three of us at a table only large enough to accommodate us and the excess of china and crystal, and covered with a fringed cloth that draped to the floor. One of those hideous electric chandeliers cast a dirty yellow light over everything and a steam radiator cracked arthritic joints. The air was crowded with the smell of the overcooked pork and boiled cabbage we ate.

"That she and I ate, in any case. Gaylord sipped champagne and nibbled daintily at the fruit of a blood orange, his lips growing redder with each tiny bite. From time to time, a stained tongue flicked out to wipe his lips clean. He wore a silk robe of the same red. I seemed to see him through a veil of red, a haze cast by my lust enflamed senses.

"I could not have been more enchanted. I had passed the time since our brief meeting in my dressing room thinking of nothing but that ethereal young man who now sat next to me, saying little, smiling occasionally with fruited lips and glancing at me from under lashes that any demoiselle might envy.

"I had never known such desire for anyone. I can't explain it. I, so long content with near celibacy, was possessed, devoured by my passion. It was all that I could do to keep my emotions under control and engage in polite conversation with his mother. Gaylord said little, and answered whatever was spoken directly to him in faint monosyllables. I dared not drink the wine the flowed so freely. I drank glass after glass of ice cold water, hoping to chill the fever that had seized me—to no avail.

"All of a sudden, I felt something graze my knee under the concealing cloth, and a moment later a hand, the mere fingertips, really, slid lightly up the inside of my thigh.

"I gasped aloud and looked involuntarily in his direction, but he was looking at neither of us, his expression distant, as if instead of that vulgar room he gazed upon jeweled isles. He sank his teeth into the littlest segment of fruit, rolled it about on his tongue, and swallowed visibly.

"'Is something wrong?' she asked me.

"'No, no,' I said hastily. 'Forgive me, I just recalled something I forgot to do. Please, go on—you were saying?'

"I let my own hand drop under the cloth, but no sooner had my fingers touched his than the intruders were withdrawn. After that, I could scarcely concentrate on keeping the conversation alive, and I have no memory of whether I tasted the food at all.

"Only one thing penetrated this stupor into which I had fallen. As the table was being cleared and coffee served by a thick, sullen woman who was apparently cook and housekeeper, my hostess said to me, 'But, really, that hotel is such an embarrassment. Why don't you come stay here with us for the duration of your visit? We have far more room than we need, and I am sure Gaylord would be glad for the company, wouldn't you, my darling?'"

"'Yes,' he said, in little more than a sigh. That single word pierced my heart. I was in love, smitten beyond reason. I could no more have refused the invitation than flown to the moon.

"When the time came to drive me back to my hotel, she said, 'I'll just get my purse,' and left us alone, for the first time that evening.

"This was the moment for which I had waited, and I leapt to my feet, convinced that I would have those carmine tinted lips pressed to mine, but even as I came about the table, he moved away from it and into the foyer. He took an enormous red peony from a bowl of them at the foot of the stairs, and buried his face in its exuberant petals.

"I hesitated, waiting for some signal from him, but it did not come, and after all too few moments, I heard his mother's footsteps descending the stairs.

"He glanced at me then, fleetingly, and smiled an impish, blood red smile. It only made me love him more.

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GayLife.com excerpt by Neil Plakcy

GayLife.com is a sexy comedy of manners the novel Jane Austen might have written—if she were a gay man living in Miami Beach at the turn of the millennium.

Brian Cohen is handsome, funny and smart, but he’s never been able to get all those good characteristics together enough to score a great job or a great boyfriend. He’s in his early thirties, living in the awesome gay candy store called South Beach, but he’s a man without a plan.

Then his best friend Stella, a gorgeous model, hooks him up with a job helping launch a new gay web site, GayLife.com. Brian immediately develops a crush on his handsome, desirable boss, Nick Petrangelis-- but Nick’s happily coupled with a supermodel of his own, Paavo, the Fabulous Finn.

Will the Internet finally connect Brian to the life he’s always dreamed of? Will Nick join the line of hunky men parading through Brian’s bedroom? GayLife.com is more than just a web site—it’s a fast, sexy romp on a narrow island of sand, Art Deco buildings and neon nights.

GayLife.com
Publisher: MLR Press (May 19, 2009)
ISBN-10: 1608200361
ISBN-13: 978-1608200368


Excerpt:

One late afternoon in September of 1999, I moped around the apartment I shared on South Beach, alternately considering graduate school, celibacy, or becoming one of those guys who stands around in the sun directing traffic around highway construction sites. I was unemployed, I’d been dumped by my latest boyfriend, and there was a huge zit about to pop on my forehead.

Then my best friend Stella, who is one of the top models on Miami Beach, called and told me that if I could get an 8 x 10 glossy down to her agent’s before five, she could get me a day’s work as an extra on a photo shoot.

She had talked me into making up the 8 x 10s a few months before, but I wasn’t fashion model material. My teeth are a bit crooked, my eyebrows have a tendency to grow out in points, like Fu Manchu’s mustache, and I don’t have the right cheekbones. Not to say I’m a dog or anything; I mean, I get my share of stares as I walk down Lincoln Road.

“You’ll be in the background,” Stella said. “I told my agent it was a favor he owed me. Now you’ll owe me one.”

“I owe you my life, Stella.” I’d been dumped by a guy a few weeks before, then I’d lost my job due to budget cuts. Right after that, I’d pinched a nerve in my back that kept me flat on my stomach for hours on end. Stella had been my sole support, bringing me chocolate babka and Dr. Brown’s sodas from the Epicure deli, cheering me with gossip from her photo shoots and commiserating with me about my problems.

At least I’d have some cash toward the rent, I figured. I ran the photo down to her agent’s and found out where I had to go. The next morning the zit had magically disappeared, and I reported for duty to Bobby Maduro Stadium, an ancient ballpark that had long ago been used for spring training. It was located in a slummy area of Miami, not too far from the causeway to South Beach, and by the time I showed up at eight, the prop guys had already been hard at work.

They had laid sod over about half the infield, erected a billboard in front of the old scoreboard, and decorated a quarter of the stadium with pennants and posters. I went to wardrobe, where I was fitted for an old-time baseball uniform, white with blue stripes, with blousy pants and a v-necked jersey. They gave me sneakers and a ball cap and sent me out on the field.

A dozen of us were positioned around the sod. One of the others was this guy Blue, a struggling actor who lives on the first floor of my building and waits tables at a café on Lincoln Road. For a while I watched him trying to make time with one of the photographer’s assistants. Then Stella came out in a white dress that looked like Mia Farrow might have worn it in that ill-advised movie version of The Great Gatsby. It was flouncy and ruffled, and she carried a white parasol. The photographer arranged her lounging in the middle of the field, halfway between second base and the pitcher’s mound.

“Fabulous,” he said, moving behind the camera. “Now give me attitude!”

I wasn’t sure what kind of attitude she was supposed to give him, pretending to be some kind of odalisque in the middle of an old-fashioned baseball game, but she seemed to know, and he clicked pictures with an ecstasy I reserve for the bedroom. Until I can get a photographer (or any other man, for that matter) to act like that, I doubt I will be much of a success at high fashion modeling.

The photographer took a bunch of shots of Stella alone, and then called, “Paavo! We are ready for you.”

He may have been ready, but I wasn’t. The man who strolled out of the dugout was the most handsome guy I’ve ever seen. At least 6’2”, with close-cropped blond hair and eyes I later saw were the same shade of blue as the deep water off Key Biscayne. He twirled his shirt over his shoulder with a single finger, and his biceps and abs rippled as he strolled across the verdant field. My jaw dropped open and my knees got weak.

The photographer met him where Stella was lying, and spent the next two hours arranging their bodies and shooting pictures. For my time, I got paid $150, which I was informed would be mailed to me. After turning in my costume to wardrobe and dressing in my own clothes again, I waited for Stella outside the line of big Winnebagos.

She came out a few minutes later, looking perfect as usual, as if she hadn’t spent the better part of the morning sweating in the middle of a baseball field under the hot sun. “Brian! I’m glad you stayed around. I want you to meet someone.”

Paavo emerged from the trailer behind her, and I thought I might pass out. He was even more gorgeous up close and personal than he had been from a distance. “Paavo’s boyfriend is starting a Website,” Stella said. “He needs some help. You need a job. I think it’s a perfect match, don’t you?”

“Hi,” Paavo said, sticking his hand out.

Dumbly, I reached out and shook it. “Nice to meet you,” I mumbled. “You were great out there.”

He frowned. “I take de clothes off and lie around on de ground,” he said. He still retained a slight accent from his native Finland, as if at any moment he might sprout bushy eyebrows and begin bopping around like the Swedish Chef on the Muppets. It didn’t matter; I was in love. Or lust, as Stella pointed out later.
“Here is de card for de Website,” Paavo said, handing me a business card for someone named Nick Petrangelis, whose title was listed as ‘Supreme Webmaster and Grand Pooh-Bah.’ “I call Nick, he vaits for you at de office.”

I didn’t move, so Stella said, “That means now, Brian. You get in your car and you go back across the causeway to the real world.”

“As if South Beach is the real world,” I said.

“It is for us, sweetie.”

≈ ≈ ≈

It was lunchtime by the time I reached Nick Petrangelis’s office. There was no one at the receptionist’s desk so I stood there and called out, “Hello?”

A twenty-something geek in a Pac-Man T-shirt with goofy, dark-rimmed glasses went past on his way to the copier.

“I’m looking for Nick Petrangelis?”

“Second office on the right,” he said, nodding down the hall. “The one that looks like FAO Schwartz exploded in it.”

I got to the second office and peeked around the door jamb. A blond guy, with broad shoulders and big hands, sat behind a cluttered desk, talking on the phone. His sandy blond hair hung down to the collar of his blue and white striped Brooks Brothers shirt.

Though he wasn’t quite as handsome as Paavo, I was smitten. I like my men tall, on the husky side, and there’s something about a button down collar that makes my heart flutter. I loved the sound of his voice, too, a British burr overlaid with New York directness. Though I was there for a job interview, not a date, I couldn’t help wondering how his lips would taste against mine, if he was as sexy naked as he was with his clothes on.

The walls were plastered with posters from every space movie and television show ever screened, from Lost In Space and Star Wars to Plan 9 From Outer Space and Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. One wall had been made into shelves that were packed with action figures and scale models, from the Enterprise to Obi Wan Kenobi, to a bunch of ships and aliens I didn’t recognize.

Nick saw me in the doorway and motioned me in.

“I’m Brian Cohen,” I said in a low voice. “Paavo gave me your card.”

“Sure, sit down,” he said. Into the phone he said, “No, I’m here. I’m listening.”
As soon as he hung up the desk phone, his cellular phone bleeped.

“GayLife.com,” he said. “This is Nick.” He looked at me and shrugged. “Sorry,” he said, after he hung up. “It’s kind of crazy around here. So, Paavo called and said you were looking for a job.”

The desk phone rang again. “Sorry, with the receptionist out sick I’ve got to get this. If I let the programmer or the artist pick up, God knows what’ll happen.”
A tall dyke with spiked purple hair stalked in carrying a bunch of pieces of paper. While Nick was talking, she laid them out on the desk in front of him. “I’m in the middle of three things,” he whispered to her.

“You’re always in the middle of three things,” she said. She looked at me. “If he’s not on the phone, he’s on the Internet or in a meeting or out of the office. How am I supposed to get this goddamned site designed if I don’t get any feedback?”

I didn’t know what to say, so I shrugged. I always find the very aggressive dykes a little scary. I mean, I know we’re supposed to be one big rainbow family, but what do we have in common after all? She likes pussy, I like dick. I have a lot more mutual interests with straight women like Stella. At least we can compare notes on the men we’ve slept with.

With his eyes, Nick motioned me to take a look at the samples. There were five different designs. “They’re for the background of the pages,” the dyke said to me. “I don’t suppose you know anything about the Internet.”

“I know how to find my way to the naked pictures.”

She glared at me. “He has to pick one so I can get on with the layout. I’ve got to know what kind of background I’m working with.”

“Which one’s your favorite?”

While she looked at them, I considered her. She wore an orange crop top that read “I Hate This Place and I’m Leaving Soon,” khaki shorts, and combat boots, and she had three silver hoops in each ear. “I like this one the best,” she said, pointing to a retro fifties design that could have been lifted from the Formica on my parents’ kitchen cabinets. “But it’s too aggressive. I guess we should go with one of these.” She pointed to a couple that I had to agree were kind of boring.

“What about this one?” I pointed to a pattern of stylized symbols. Two male symbols, two female symbols, in a repeating design.

“Don’t you think it’s too strong?” she asked. “I mean, it might detract from the other pictures.”

“Couldn’t you fade it out?” I asked. “I have this friend who knows Photoshop, and he’s always doing effects like that.”

She considered. “Yeah, that might work.” She looked at Nick. “You like that idea?”

He smiled and nodded.

“Good. Thank you. For Christ’s sake.” She gathered her samples and stalked to the door, where she stopped and turned. “I’m Leslie,” she said. “Leslie Shulewitz.”

“Shalom,” I said. “Brian Cohen.”

“I knew it would take getting another Yid in here to get things moving,” she said. “Welcome aboard the SS GayLife.com.”

Nick hung up, but barely had time to say, “Thanks,” before his cell bleated again. Then the desk phone rang. He looked at me and then at the phone.

What the hell, I thought, and picked it up. “GayLife.com.”

The voice on the other end was frantic. “I can’t do this. I can’t. It’s too much!”

“What’s the matter?”

“My computer crashed!” he wailed.

“Bummer, dude. Did you try restarting it?”

“Yes, I restarted it,” he mimicked back at me. “But I hadn’t saved my document and now it’s gone! I promised Leslie I’d have it this afternoon, and now she’ll cut my balls off and make them into a mobile to hang over her desk.”

I decided to avoid Leslie’s office based on that description. “What program were you using? Word?”

I established that he had been using Word, with Windows XP, and got him to open up Windows Explorer. “Do I have to shut down Word first?”

“Nope. Now go to the C:\windows\temp directory. Anything there?”

“A bunch of files that end in .tmp.”

“Good. Now go to View, Arrange Icons, by date. Anything that’s dated today?”

“Yeah, there’s this tilde wrl file.”

“Great! That’s your file. Double click on it, and you should jump to word.”

“It’s there! There’s some junk at the front but I can deal with that. Oh, you’re a genius! I love you! Can I bear your children?”

“Not right now, thanks. Remember to save your stuff as you’re working.”

He gave me a big smooch that I was sure Nick Petrangelis could hear through the phone and hung up. Nick hung up at the same time.

“It’s kind of a zoo around here,” he said.

“I can see.”

“You seem like you know how to handle yourself.”

I shrugged.

“No, you’re good,” he said. “You worked in an office before?”

We had a couple of minutes together before the phone rang again. I ran through my work experience, Nick nodding and asking the occasional question. “I need an office manager,” he said when I was finished. “Someone who can also be my executive assistant, who can pitch in and do whatever needs to be done. A kind of jack of all trades. You think you can do that?”

“I was an assistant stage manager, and a stage manager, in New York. It’s just the kind of thing I did there.”

The phone rang again. I stood up to go. “Listen, I can come back sometime when you’re not busy.”

“No, don’t go,” Nick said. He had a puppy dog look in his blue eyes that I fell for there and then. It was as if Paavo had never existed, nor had the idiot who had dumped me the month before. There was only Nick. A gorgeous man who was already taken.

“Get me a copy of your resume, will you? For the file. We’ll talk about salary and benefits when things calm down, like after five, OK? There’s a ton of stuff on the desk in the office next door,” he said. “See what you can figure out.” He picked up the phone. “GayLife.com, this is Nick.”

I had a job. I looked up at the poster from Lost In Space, and even though I could imagine that robot was waving his metallic claws and saying “Danger, Will Robinson!”, I went next door and got to work.


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The Rest Of Our Lives: A Novel excerpt by Dan Stone

The Rest of Our Lives by Dan Stone is a lighthearted romantic fantasy about the repeatedly reincarnating relationship between ice-blue-eyed, time-stopping, cold weather witch Colm McKenna and hyper-sexy, psychokinetic, hot weather witch Aidan Gallagher. According to Norse legend, the universe came forth from the collision of the energies of fire and frost. One can’t exist without the other, and all of creation is dependent upon the delicate balance between the two. Just as spontaneously combustible Aidan begins to rock frost-flinging Colm’s world with a magical big bang of a romance, the pair learns that they’ve been playing in each other’s back yards for at least a couple of millennia. Aidan becomes increasingly hot for clues about the lessons their karmic connection can teach them, while Colm feels increasingly like a snowball in hell, wondering if multiple incarnations where he’s repeatedly abandoned by his enchanting fireball of a boyfriend, may be one or two bites more than he’s able to chew.

The Rest of Our Lives
Lethe Press (May 25, 2009)
ISBN-10: 1590211472
ISBN-13: 978-1590211472

Excerpt:

The next morning the sun woke me early, a slice of warm, golden delicious light that slipped through our bedroom window. Aidan, usually up before God, was still sleeping. In that soft light, he seemed to literally glow. He looked more like an angel than a witch.

I took advantage of a rare opportunity to study him when he didn’t know I was watching. He was facing me, with one bare arm warming my waist. The crumpled top sheet was draped provocatively over the compelling curve of his bare behind. If I hadn’t known he was asleep I would’ve suspected that he’d arranged himself that way just for effect. But his wide mouth was slightly open, and I could hear the now faint, familiar half whistle/half snore that he made.

He was such a restless sleeper. He moved around constantly during the night and woke frequently. Usually it was me who awoke to find myself looking straight into his always-smiling eyes. But this morning, he was perfectly still. As peaceful looking as I had ever seen him.

I remembered Dr. Nike’s advice to me the day before Aidan and I were leaving, to check in regularly with myself during our time here together. “Just do a ‘PMC’ now and then,” she’d said. A Peace of Mind Check. She’d told me to remember three questions: How am I feeling? What thoughts are behind that feeling? What choice can I make right now that will bring peace of mind?

I looked at Aidan’s body beside me. His arm was lean and solid with surprisingly thick forearms and large hands. Our fingers were nearly the same length but I still felt small in his grasp. My eyes traced his fine lines . . . his faintly freckled shoulder . . . I could just barely feel the rise and fall of his firm belly at my side.

“What else would I need right now to have peace of mind?” I asked myself. As I leaned over to kiss him awake, I couldn’t think of a single thing.


When he realized how late he’d slept he insisted we skip breakfast with the other Tarot Inn guests and see more of the town.

“We’ll grab a couple of slices of breakfast pizza at Spiritus,” he said. “Then we’ll head over to the tower and then the beach for a while before the tea dance.”

But even as we were ascending the cardio workout of a stone stairwell up to the top of Pilgrim Monument, the cloud masses were starting to assemble. They didn’t look friendly.

“I don’t suppose you could blow them back out to sea for a while,” he said as we walked around to the top of the monument with a handful of other tourists casting nervous glances at the sky.

“Who am I, Zeus? What’s wrong with your windmill?”

“Hmm. This could actually be very cool, watching the storm blow in from up here,” he said.

“Cool as in deadly?”

“Cool as in watching the forces of nature flex their muscles and show us their power. Besides,” he said. “Thunderstorms get me hot.”

Less adventurous tourists were already making their way down the stairs. I started to follow but Aidan pulled me back.

“Stay here with me,” he said. “You can get some awesome pictures.”

“We’re going to get soaked and then fried. Streetlights will dim.”

Lightning was already zigzagging out from cast iron cumulonimbus, and a wet wind was spitting in our faces. The drama in the sky and the gray mist starting to shroud the bay were too striking to resist. I pulled my shirt up over my head to protect the camera and started shooting, first just the weather rising and swirling and growling all around us. Then I caught sight of Aidan through the lens. His dark hair was blown back from his face, and his eyes were on fire, wild and determined as a cougar on the prowl.

I shot him from every angle, protecting my camera as best I could as the rain started to pelt and the thunder cracked around us, close enough to raise goose bumps and the hair on the back of my neck. When I refocused on Aidan he was staring right at me. He looked . . . hungry.

“What?” I yelled, looking at him from around the camera, both of us now nearly soaked to the skin.

“Put it away,” he said.

“What for?”

“I don’t want you to drop it,” he said, moving closer.

“I’m not going to drop it,” I said, involuntarily taking a step back.

“You won’t be able to hold onto it,” again moving closer to me. He reached for my camera, gently took it from my hand and slipped it safely into the padded inner pocket of my backpack, which he also slipped off my wet shoulder.

“There’s no one else up here. You know what that means?”

“Death wishes are rarer than we suspected?” He was starting to spook me a little.

“It means we’re alone and two hundred fifty feet above the nearest spectator.” He took hold of the hem of his soaking wet t-shirt and peeled it up and over his head.

“You’re not serious.”

His response was a maniacal grin. He unbuttoned the khaki shorts clinging to his thighs, pushed them and his white Calvins to his feet, and stepped out of them, naked and gleaming wet and wild-eyed, and sporting his own powerfully erect thunderbolt.

There was no mistaking his intention.

“You’re crazy,” I said, as he reached for me.

“Crazed, maybe.” He yanked my own drenched shirt over my head. “There’s a difference.”

“And what would the difference be?” I felt his hands again at my waist, and then unzipping my shorts and rolling them like twin condoms down my legs.

“You,” he said, on his knees now. “The difference is you.”

I don’t know how to describe the rest of what happened up there. It was the first time I could remember feeling so nearly devoured by another person, the first time I had felt such extreme hunger and need coming at me, and from me . . . to the point where I couldn’t tell whose hunger or whose need was driving us . . . pinning us to the stone wall at the top of that tower . . . magnetizing and melting us together. I didn’t know that anything could at once be so violent and so achingly tender.

For every push or shove there was a caress, for every pinch or bite, a sweet kiss. It was a wrestling match and a dance. There were a couple of moments when I could’ve sworn both our feet left the floor, and I couldn’t tell which was the more powerful force—the lightning in the sky behind him or the lightning flashing in his eyes. I had no idea that another body could connect so completely and so perfectly to mine, or that it was possible for two people to arrive at the same awareness at the very same split second, like a single comet streaking across the sky, seen only by two pair of eyes, and to have those most seminal words form simultaneously and appear unmistakably in two minds, transforming everything like the proverbial thunderbolt hitting the tower:

“I love you.”


We finished just as the storm was starting to blow over and with just enough time to wring our soggy shirts and shorts and put them back on before anyone caught us.

“Hey at least we don’t need a shower,” he said as we started down the stairs.

“I still might, after a two hundred fifty-foot walk of shame.”

By the time we wound down the steps of the monument and trudged in sloshy sandals back to the inn, the skies had partially cleared, and we’d at least dried off enough not to drip all over Stuart’s antique rugs.

“Do we need to review the basic principle of coming in out of the rain?” Stuart said from the parlor as we tried to quietly let ourselves in and sneak up to our room.

“We got distracted,” Aidan said, grinning like a milkman who just got lucky.

“Uh huh. Thunderstorms have a way of breaking my concentration, too. You two better get out of those wet clothes. I’ll bring up some extra towels. By the way, tea dance is at four if you want to go with us. You have time for a nap.”

The memory of the scene on top of the tower was still vivid in my mind, and we both seemed a little shy with each other as we undressed in our room.

“Pretty intense, huh?” Aidan said as he quickly hung up his damp clothes and slipped naked under the sheets. He seemed to be studying me.

I took my own wet shirt and shorts into the bathroom and draped them over the shower. When I walked naked back toward the bed he was still looking at me. There seemed to be a question in his eyes, but he wasn’t transmitting. He pulled back the sheet and patted the bed beside him.

As I snuggled in with him I remembered that moment on the tower and the flash of lightning that seemed to drive him into me so deeply, penetrating me physically and emotionally . . . and the words that streaked across both our minds. I wondered what it meant. I had never heard or said or even thought those words with anyone else. I didn’t even know that I felt them until that moment. It certainly hadn’t occurred to me that he felt them. I wasn’t even sure I believed in those words. Were they real? It had only been a thought. A telepathic transmission, not an utterance. A revelation, but not a declaration. I wondered, does it still count if the words “I love you” aren’t said out loud?

Aidan moved beside me, shifted so that my head rested in the curve of his neck, close enough to feel his pulse. Bringing his arm around me he whispered in my ear, out loud, “It counts, Baby.”

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The Geography of Murder excerpt by P.A. Brown

In The Geography of Murder by P.A. Brown, Jason Zachary wakes in bed with a dead man, George Blunt. Blunt was a person of interest to the Santa Barbara Police for allegedly abusing young girls. Now he's dead and young Jason, with his record for hustling and drug abuse is charged with his murder. But something is off for Detective Spider. Can he clear the man he finds himself attracted to? Because Spider has a darker secret than the fact he's gay in the macho police world of the SBPD. Can he keep his secret but still get his man?

Two strong willed men whose desires collide in the dark BDSM world of bondage and pain. One seeks to be controlled, one seeks control. Will they go too far?

(Book cover created by the always talented Deana C. Jamroz)

Geography of Murder
MLR Press (June, 2009)
Print ISBN #978-1-60820-054-2
Ebook ISBN #978-160820-055-9


Excerpt:

“Do I believe in the milk of human kindness? I'm lactose intolerant.” Detective Alexander Spider, SBPD


Jason

I threw my arms over my face to block out the brilliant light that flooded my eyes. I yelped at the sharp burst of pain it brought on and sat up in bed.

"What the fuck--?"

Under me the bed rocked and rolled. Outside I could hear the high-pitched wail of a gull scream and the gentle, slap of water against fiberglass hull. I was on a boat. Whose? I rolled over to escape the relentless light and bumped up against warm flesh. Oh shit,what had I done this time? Another black out? My last memory was leaving the Vault near midnight. I could have sworn I was alone. Wait -- hadn't some cute, hunky blond guy waylaid me in the parking lot?

The guy beside me was definitely not the blond from last night.

I blinked and stared into his slack face, searching for a clue as to who he was and why I was in bed with him.

I blinked again. I tried to place the face. He was old. At least sixty. Wrinkled face. White mat of chest hair over a flabby paunch, tiny shrunken cock. Faded tats up and down his skinny chest and arms.

A leather dog collar. Black leather harness strapped to his thin chest and nothing else. Not the type I usually slept with. Not the type I ever slept with. What would ever possess me to let a loser like this fuck me? I don't think anyone had that much money.

Then a flash of ice poured down my spine and lodged in my gut. The old man was dead.

I scrambled back, but didn't get very far before hands grabbed me under my armpits and hauled me off the bed. I squawked and tried to swing at my attacker who spun me around and threw me to the floor. One hand shoved my face into the teak deck, redolent of varnish and wood,the other one pinned my arms behind my back. Cold metal snicked around my wrists. What--? A knee landed on my kidney knocking the breath out of my lungs, stopping my protest.

Before I could refill my lungs I was jerked to my feet and found myself staring into a pair of cold gray eyes behind wire frame glasses. He had full lips and a lean, lightly freckled face below a harsh Marine cut. He was a redhead. The freckles didn't fit. They gave him a boyish quality that didn't go with his grimness. He was taller than me by several inches. He had a massive chest that would have split bricks.

"Who the fuck are you?"

"Detective Alexander Spider. SBPD. Who are you?"

I gaped at him. "What the hell kind of name is Spider?"

"My father's," he snapped.

I tugged at the handcuffs holding my arms behind my back. My shoulders ached from the unnatural position.

"Who is he?" Spider asked.

It took me about two seconds to realize he meant the body on the bed. I glanced over at the dead man but still didn't recognize him. Not enough to put a name to him. So how had I ended up in bed with him? And whose bed was it? Not mine. I lived in a dump on Los Cerrados Street. I worked at the harbor, at Channel Charters taking tourists out to the Channel Islands for bird-watching trips. I had snuck a trick onto one of the boats more than once. It always impressed the cute twinks and guaranteed a hard fuck, but I hadn't done anything like that last night. Had I?

Spider pushed me around, forcing me to look down at the corpse.

He looked over my shoulder, toward the galley. I caught movement there and realized a second cop was busy photographing everything in sight, including me.

"Who is he?" The detective's voice broke through my confusion. I jerked around to look at him, thinking frantically.

I searched my memory for something, anything that would tell me who the dead guy was and why I was with him. As distasteful as the thought was I even took minute stock of my own body trying to detect any signs I'd been fucked by the guy. Nothing. I couldn't see any signs of sexual activity. So whoever the blond guy I thought I had been with, we hadn't done anything either. No half empty drinks. No used condoms. Thank God there were no lines of coke anywhere or those little glassine packs I get my beans and Oxy in. I could just imagine how that would go over with this law jockey.

He jerked my arm up. Shards of pain shot up my shoulders. "Who is he?" he shouted.

Finally I found my voice. I tried to shake him off, but his grip was like a steel band. "Let me go. I haven't done anything--"

"You always sleep with corpses?" He leaned in so close I could see the dark rims of his irises behind his glasses. His nostrils flared and he showed the tip of his teeth in a feral grin. "Who is he? Why did you kill him?"

"Kill -- I didn't kill anyone. And I don't know who he is."

"What are you doing here? You meet him here or did he bring you? Where'd he find you? Hades? Wildcat? The Vault?"

If I'd been thinking straight I might have wondered how he knew so much about the local bondage scene, but I was too confused, and face it, scared. I was in the middle of something I didn't understand, being grilled by a man who, it was fast becoming clear, wanted to pin this mess on me.

I glared at him, trying to look tough. "Why would I kill somebody I don't know?"

"We'll get to that. What is your name, sir?"

That threw me a bit. I'm not used to being called sir by too many people. Under normal circumstances I might have looked behind me to see if he meant someone else. Instead I opened my mouth to tell him to fuck off. He pulled at my aching arms again, stopping the words in my throat.

"Don't bother," he said. "What's your name? Or do I need to pat you down and find your ID myself?" His gaze slid down my skintight, pocket-less pants and bare chest and his mouth twisted in a grimace. "Guess that would be a waste of time. One last time. Who are you? I want your name."

"Jason," I said. When that didn't satisfy him I added, "Jason Aaron Zachary."

Another cop entered the cabin. Female this time. She ignored me.

"ME's here," she told Spider. "You ready for him?"

"Sure," he said. "Let's get this mutt out of here."

"This mutt isn't going anywhere without a lawyer," I said, bracing my feet as though I thought I could keep the two of them from moving me. It didn't help that Spider looked amused and totally unthreatened.

"Oh, don't worry. You'll get your phone call. You can make two or three for all I care."

"Am I under arrest?"

Spider looked genuinely puzzled at my obtuseness. "Yes," he said, then read me my rights off a card he pulled from a leather folder. When he asked if I understood, I numbly nodded yes.

I vacillated between apathy and terror. I darted glances at the body of the old man on the narrow bunk. It lay on top of a dark navy sheet, which I belatedly realized had darker spots smeared on it. I looked down at my latex-clad legs. Striped Parade pants was about all I had on. What the hell? I only wore my fetish gear on hot dates when I was enticed by someone with deep pockets. My shirt, socks and brand new Captoe boots had vanished at some point. My gaze fell to my crotch and saw the same dark spots. It was the red smear on my stomach that tipped me over. I stared at it in horror. I was covered in still wet blood. His? Mine? Dizziness swept through me. I swayed on my feet, hyperventilating. My stomach threatened to empty itself. Spider grabbed my shoulder and shoved my head down.

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