The Hadrian Enigma: A Forbidden History, excerpt by George Gardiner

LUST, LOVE, REVENGE, & COMING OUT. M/M romance, ancient Roman-style. The Hadrian Enigma is the tale of Caesar’s fatal search for love …

130 years after Christ, but two centuries before Christians receive state recognition, Rome is ruled by pagan values & uninhibited morals.

From a barbarous war’s victory triumph in Rome’s Forum to a drunken orgy at Athens’ Acropolis; from the excitements of a boar hunt in the forests of Bithynia to the steam rooms of a Roman bath house; from the opulent bordellos of Egypt to the privacy of an emperor’s bed chamber, a ruler’s search for love destroys the very person he most adores.

His loved one, Antinous of Bithynia, is found dead one dawn beneath the waters of the River Nile during a pleasure tour of Egypt. Is it a youthful prank gone wrong, suicide, murder, or something far more sinister? Hadrian assigns the barrister & historian Suetonius Tranquillus to urgently investigate. Accompanied by his concubine hetaera sex-worker Surisca of Antioch, Suetonius uncovers more than Caesar wants to know plus more than he wants others to know.

THE HADRIAN ENIGMA is the secret record of Caesar’s investigation into one of history’s most intriguing & suspicious deaths. It depicts an era which sanctions men loving men in a macho culture of pride, honor, & shame.


THE HADRIAN ENIGMA: A Forbidden History
Publisher: GMP Editions (Lulu.com)(2009)
ISBN: 978-0-9807469-0-7


Excerpt:

PROLOGOS

In the 13th Year of Imperator Caesar Divi Traiani filius Traianus Hadrianus Augustus. (Hadrian, ruled 117-138CE)

Stop now. Cease immediately. You are at risk. If you intend reading this history, take great care. Caesar will not be pleased. Hadrian may exile you to some bleak rocky outcrop dashed by stormy seas if he learns of it. Or worse. Reconsider while yet you may.

However, if juicy morsels of gossip have reached your ears and you cannot help yourself, then be it on your own head. You now share in my own plight.

This saga came to its climax three months ago. Its culmination struck Caesar’s traveling Household at the dawn of one of those bleached-out, white hot, stupefying days so common in Egypt. In the molten miasma of liquid heat that morning three months ago his Court’s communal bloodstream froze to ice, as they say. An unexplained death at Court is a sobering matter. The death of a young, vital, handsome favorite augurs even greater concern.

What is to be made of it, we wondered?

Three months later my anxiety grows. My head is now forfeit. Hadrian does not forgive my revelations before his Court. They were truly embarrassing. His reputation for machismo as a Roman Imperator was exposed to view for what it really is. Yes, Caesar’s loving tenderness was revealed. Tenderness is a sentiment an Imperator deems it unwise to exhibit.

This is the path of my chronicle’s journey. By the grace of Fortuna, I hope these words will persuade Hadrian of the integrity of my actions on that fateful day. May they fix my head more securely to my shoulders.

* * * *

Greetings dear reader, whoever you may be.

Your writer is Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, historian of renown, barrister-at-law, and alleged playboy of Rome. ‘Alleged’ because all Rome assumes I have been notably successful in a Roman male’s obligatory career of lively priapic endeavor.

However in this thirteenth year of Caesar’s rule I will have seen a full sixty winters. This means I am six years older than Hadrian himself. Being no spring chicken, my alleged priapic activities wane alarmingly.

My patron and friend of the past twenty years, Gaius Septicius Clarus, the well-known senator and one-time Prefect of the Praetorian Guard, has kindly assigned me a suite at his luxurious villa at Alexandria. Here on Caesar’s behalf I am under house arrest until Hadrian decides what to do with me. As a member of the eques class at least I know what my worst fate may be – a swift beheading or permission to suicide somewhat less messily.

In the meantime I gather my thoughts onto paper about the recent journey through Egypt. These thoughts will either save my neck or make it even less secure. While the memory remains fresh I must record the fate and subsequent apotheosis of the young man at the center of its most disturbing event, Antinous of Bithynia. To some he was Caesar’s beloved companion and Favorite; to others a mere catamite, a toyboy, a typical Greek hustler on the make.

I have written several admired histories for the Empire’s book copiers and their readers. I am best known for my Lives of the Caesars. Perhaps you too know of it? There I show in eight scrolls all I have learned of our first Caesar, Julius, and the following eleven Caesars from Augustus to Domitian. That last monster ruled in my youth at much cost to the lives of members of my family.

In my Lives I tried to tell of Rome’s rulers as they truly were. It has not always been a pretty picture, dear reader, but as you may perceive, I am up to the chore. I leave no unsavory stone unturned, no scandal unexplored. If a Caesar proved to be boring, I might even invent a little.

Thirteen years ago on Hadrian’s succession to the role of Princeps he appointed Septicius to be his Prefect of the Praetorian Guard. I was then appointed to be the Director of imperial correspondence.

For five years I was active at the very center of imperial affairs. No letter, official document, edict, or warrant in Latin or Greek went to the far reaches of the Empire without my oversight.

After some time Hadrian’s wife, Vibia Sabina the Augusta, declared Septicius and I to have insulted her. Sabina is a strong-willed woman, so she cleverly engineered a charge of laesa majestas against us and our subsequent dismissal. Hadrian was obliged to agree with his wife’s claim for public form’s sake.

It’s well known no love is lost between the Imperial couple. Nevertheless both show proper conformity to their marital obligations. After all, he is our Princeps, the First Citizen, who leads us all by example.

Hadrian leads in most things except perhaps in the matter of whelping progeny to populate the Empire or stock the Legions with fighting sons. He and Sabina have bred no children.

Hadrian wed his arranged bride at the usual age when he was twenty-five. As usual, Sabina was thirteen. They do not sleep together. I doubt they have much in common other than their unlikely coupling by the strategies of the imperial succession.

She has been heard to say her husband is a monster!, though she never defines her meaning. She swears she will never bear him a son. And she hasn’t.

Nevertheless despite their mutual antagonism the two maintain a prudent public comportment as the Princeps and his respectful wife. They are role models for all Romans.

My books of Lives of the Caesars focused upon the acquisition of power by the emperors, their uses of that power, and their abuses of power. Of the first twelve Caesars I revealed how only Julius and three of the remaining eleven retained their moral authority.

However, in recording the sexual orientations of all fifteen Imperators up to this very day, the tally declines to but two recognized for their common, garden-variety disposition. The remaining thirteen sought opportunities to be erotic innovators of considerable invention, if not outright ingenuity.

The remote province of Bithynia has been a prominent source of this inventiveness. Earlier when I was secretary for two years to Rome’s ambassador at this backwoods colony on the edge of the Black Sea, I experienced its wild, exotic culture at close hand.

Bithynia seems a place before memory; a place intoxicated with time’s open endlessness. Antique gods, demons, nymphs, or sprites of the forests, waters, skies or inner perceptions seem close to us at Bithynia. They challenge our very sanity. Sacred rites and holy oaths are essential to placate their feverish spirits. Strange, crude, brutal superstitions are veiled behind the token adoration of our sacred Pantheon or the honoring of our Deified Emperors.

Vestiges of customs from some ancient epoch survive beneath today’s normality, often undermining its validity. Ordinary assumptions become blurred, diffuse, flexible, shifting the barriers of understanding in unexpected or disturbing ways.

Male and female categories too become malleable, diaphanous, interchangeable, obverse sides of the same coin. In this heady climate the portals of license open wide. Vistas of voluptuous sensuality arise before us. Bithynia disturbs, shocks, and thrills simultaneously.

As you well know, a Roman male’s function is to subjugate, dominate, and penetrate. This has always been the victorious Roman way. Romans conquer and subdue compelled by their driven virility. Manhood is defined by the right to have sex – that is, to dominate and penetrate, or in earthier terms to fuck, if you forgive street Latin - whether it’s with a woman or a man, an older youth, a slave, an enemy, or a business opponent, though perhaps reluctantly metaphorically in the latter. Some say we Romans have an unimaginative sexual agenda. Others say we are immoral, wanton, crude fornicators.

Subjugation and domination are perceived to be a Roman male’s purpose in life. The way of the phallus rules. This is our ancient heritage, we proclaim. We despise intimate emotion. It is a sign of weakness. Only the meek, slaves, losers, and girls succumb to such defects. They are to be pitied.

Yet there are times when even I seriously wonder about this?

However in Bithynia, perversely, it is the giving and receiving of pleasure which rules. To this rustic breed pleasure is a two-way exchange at minimum, or every-which-way when inclined. Sex is a leisure activity, play, a game, recreation, an exercise in indulgence, a mode of luxury.

Those ancient rulers of Bithynia, the dynasty of her four opulent Nikomedes kings, were lauded across the Middle Sea as dissolute practitioners of this quality of luxury. Since Rome’s annexation of the province our virile Roman tastes have been infiltrating this Dionysian culture only very slowly indeed, if at all.

To Bithynia’s social elites sexual attraction is focused upon the beauty of the object, a person’s visible or moral appeal. This aesthetic ignores class, status, or even gender. The Bithynians are famously gender blind. Human beauty is praised, wooed, and hopefully consummated, regardless of its vehicle.

A century ago that last of the Bithynian kings, the notoriously bawdy Nikomedes IV, happily satisfied this racy itch while entertaining a visiting Roman ambassador. The ambassador was the nineteen year-old Julius Caesar. It seems our handsome future triumphant Roman victor of wars was introduced very personally, very intimately indeed, to the Bithynian mode of luxury. Consequently, his Legions later regaled the founder of the dynasty of the Caesars as being “every woman’s husband and every man’s wife’.

Yet today Rome’s stolid elders reject such license. To Romans, the Bithynians are soft, decadent, compliant, accommodating, too easily subjugated, too readily penetrated.

I am unsure which of these opposing convictions is the more natural under a philosopher’s definition of Nature’s Law? Surely if something occurs in Nature it is natural? Read Epicurus or Lucretius of long ago. But try telling that to Rome’s austere Stoics or those atheist followers of Chrestus who pester us with their prissy ways while defaming our gods and habits! Their abstemious asceticism chills our blood. It is utterly unRoman.

This leads us inevitably to --- What then is love?

Is love the urgent compulsion to have your way with someone, Roman style? Or is love some more ambiguous sensation, Bithynian style? Our thinkers search exhaustively for the answer. Even today’s philosophers Plutarch or Epictetus display uncertainty.

Take Hadrian and Antinous. Was this a love? Was it Roman style or Bithynian style?

Caesar’s promotion of his former companion to the status of Divus - godlike - positively compels our query.

His edict about the young man’s divine nature, as depicted by statues of the muscular stud as a New Apollo which are popping up all over the place, or the commemorative medallions being minted with his chiseled features, or the many reports of miracles attributed to his role as Osiris Resurrected, or the discovery of his new star in the heavens, plus the cult burgeoning everywhere in his name, make debate almost compulsory.

Was the five year liaison of these two a mere bizarre, brazen, delirious debauchery? Or was it a romance to touch our minds and hearts? Was it of Cupid, who Greeks call Eros, or was it of Venus, who they call Aphrodite? It was certainly a striking phenomenon.

Consequently I dedicate these scrolls of A Forbidden History to our Great Caesar. With luck they will persuade Hadrian how my revelations before the Court at Egypt three months ago were necessary to his peace of mind. The revelations do not warrant my head being cleaved from my shoulders.

In preparing my chronicle for the public record I have interviewed courtiers at the highest echelons of the Imperium. I have searched into times gone by to explore the hidden pasts of key participants.

I and my aide-in-detection, the beguiling Syrian beauty Surisca of Antioch, have probed the Court’s incessant gossip mill to weave together this tale’s dense tapestry.

Surisca is a captivating daughter of Aphrodite. She is a sweet courtesan enchantress of striking charms and superior intelligence whose worldly perception provided sharp insights into these concealed treasons. Surisca became my eyes, my logic, and even my heart.

I will relate these events as I experienced them. I will recount this saga as in a novella or romance by, say, Titus Petronius Niger of long ago. Incorrigible Petronius lived in the days of Caesar Nero and fell victim to that ruler’s vile temper. His lively Satyrica parodied the truths of that despised tyrant’s rule to warn us of the dangers of despotism. He paid the price for his witticism. But my tale is no comical parody. It will communicate the events of the life and death of Antinous as they occurred, plainly.

In this Forbidden History I will take a role as a character in the unfolding scenario. I, Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, an historical biographer, will appear as but a single performer in my saga.

The treason against Hadrian began long ago, Surisca and I discovered. It began a quarter-century ago at the very edge of Europa on its northern frontier of Dacia. This was an entire decade prior to Hadrian’s ascendancy as Caesar and five years before Antinous had even been born. At that distant time at least one contender in my saga was compelled to invoke the remainder of this chronicle’s savage drama.

But I am ahead of myself. First we must travel back to Middle Egypt three months ago to revisit the climax of these events. This opens the door to all else.

Here my tale begins ----

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Men With Their Hands excerpt by Raymond Luczak

Growing up different is never easy, but Michael, a deaf young man from a small town, knows that he must find his true family beyond his biological one. He struggles and fails to find others of his kind until he attends college in New York City. There, we meet a variety of people from a deaf gay family of sorts: Eddie, an older accountant aching for love; Lee, an effeminate dishwasher with a pronounced weakness for red-haired men; Vince, a charismatic dancer who lives intensely no matter the state of his health; Neil, a brooding woodcarver who becomes a deaf woman s obsession; Stan, a lanky stock boy at the A&P on Christopher Street; Ted, a hard of hearing college student with ambivalent feelings about the deaf community; and Rex, an ASL interpreter who avoids his own emotions during the early days of the AIDS epidemic. It is through these people that Michael, no longer a smalltown boy, begins to create a new family of his own. Taking place from 1978 to 2003, his story will open your eyes and heart to what it means to be different in an indifferent world.

Raymond Luczak's novel MEN WITH THEIR HANDS won first place in the Project: QueerLit 2006 Contest and a first-place grant for Full-Length Fiction 2003 from the Arch and Bruce Brown Foundation.

Men With Their Hands
Publisher: Queer Mojo (A Rebel Satori Imprint) (November 1, 2009)
ISBN-10: 1608640248
ISBN-13: 978-1608640249


Excerpt:

Sneaking away on a hot May afternoon, Michael carries his brother Gordy’s Boy Scout Handbook and a flashlight into his bedroom closet, and slides the door shut. It is pitch-black under the plastic-bagged longcoats and tweed jackets; a thin lining of dust is heavy on the shoulders. He doesn’t turn on his flashlight yet: He must turn up his body aids. He thinks he can hear his own heart throbbing so madly next to the microphones on his body aids, but he is immediately distracted by the lintballed dust itching his nose. Michael has just turned fourteen. The year is 1980.

His eyes adjust to the darkness. He can see a few cracks in the plaster wall, the dust clinging to his sweaty legs, and the different gradations of dust all around him. Aimee and Frankie, his younger sister and brother, also like to hide in here. But today everyone is gone, for it is balmy out; he hopes his absence is not noticed.

He shifts his crouching position for more comfort before he aims his flashlight away from the bottom of the closet door and opens the handbook. He finds the page titled INDIAN MANUAL ALPHABET, and stares at its twenty-six handshapes. His parents, teachers, and speech therapists have told him not to learn any signs.

Yet he finds the handshapes irresistible. He searches for M, and looks at it on his hand.

M? he wonders. Why like that?

Then he notices the N on the page. He sees the difference: M has three fingers folded over the thumb; N, two. Yes, it resembles the claws of those two letters. He runs through the alphabet slowly, trying to see how or why the handshape was created for each letter. He runs through it again and again, until he feels fairly sure he has it down.

His name? “M-i-c-u-a-e-l O-s-b-o-r-n-e.”

He checks the spelling again, and realizes his H fingers should lean sideways. He spells his name again until he can spell it quickly.

THUD.THUD.THUD. Michael jolts from the banging on the door. His arm has gotten too sore from holding it up so high that he drops his flashlight. He stuffs the handbook behind a pile of shoes just as his younger sister Aimee slides the door open. “Michael! What are you doing in there? We were looking all over for you. We’re going to Burger
Chef. You wanna come?”

***

In the station wagon they cruise through Olney to Burger Chef. Michael tries to act nonchalant as he watches for that older deaf man. He doesn’t know his name, and he notices that his parents always pretend he is not there whenever he is. He takes in the metronomic fingerspelling on the man’s hand as two young girls watch and giggle with him in that secret language.

***

Two days later, Michael takes his ten-speed bike and pedals furiously into town, up this way and that, seeking that deaf man at every bench he has seen him sit on while passing out the manual alphabet cards. At last, he sees him strolling out of the A&P near St. Rosita’s Church, and slows down after him until he sits on a bench in front of a tavern.

The man’s face changes suddenly into a question. He points to him and then his own ear and to his mouth. “You deaf?”

Michael is immobilized. He gets off his bike and brings it up to behind the bench. He fingerspells slowly, “A-g-a-i-n.”

The man points to Michael’s hand and brings his own fingertips together against the palm of his other hand. “Again.” He gestures fingerspelling and looks exhausted by the whole idea, and then smiles. “Again.”

“Again?” The sign feels different.

The man nods with a grin on his face. He points to Michael and then to his own throat, and shakes his head no-no.

“You don’t want me to use my voice?”

The man shakes his head, and points to his own lips. He squints his eyes as if lipreading is too painful for him.

Michael is hit by a desire to run away, but the blue flames of the man’s eyes beckon him to stay. “W-h-a-t—”

“What.” The man shows him the sign, a simple slash across the palm.

“Y-o-u-r—”

“Your.”

“N-a-m-e—”

“Name. My name T-o-n-y R-a-t-h-e-s. Yours—what?”

“My name M-i-c-h-a-e-l O-s-b-o-r-n-e.”

“Good. Better hearies think they know fingerspell names.”

“What was that?” Michael has reverted back to his voice.

Tony closes his eyes shut and points to his throat: Still a no-no. Finally, he opens his eyes and smiles. “You m-u-s-t must l-e-a-r-n learn.” He points to the fingertips of his V and then his eyes: Wherever his V looks, his eyes also follow.

“What?”

“L-o-o-k.” He demonstrates the various uses of that V as a pair of eyes.

“W-a-t-c-h. S-t-a-r-e.” As he does this, Michael notices a slight change in his eyes when a girl of about six years old walks past with her mother. “She w-i-l-l will grow b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l beautiful w-o-m a-n woman. You l-i-k-e like g-i-r-l-s girls?”

“Yes,” Michael lies. He still dreams about Nick, a varsity quarterback who used to be his best friend when they were younger.

“H-o-w o-l-d how old you?”

“1-4.”

“No. Fourteen.” He holds up the closed fingers of his 4 towards himself, then beckons him. Michael copies it quickly and opens up like a flower blooming.

The afternoon evaporates in the melting of Michael’s voice. He is ecstatic when he arrives home.

***

“Michael.” Mom and Dad sit morosely at the kitchen table. “Michael.” It’s the first time that Michael has ever thought of them old, or looking beaten.

“What?” Michael signs, and then remembers his voice. “What?”

“You’re not supposed to be talking hands with that man.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s not good for your speech, and then we’ll never understand you.”

Michael storms upstairs and buries his face on the bed. His face is hot inside the pillow where he has constantly dreamed a world all his own. He’d know every sign in the world. He would be so clear that everyone would see the fallacy of speaking with their voices and clamor to sign instead.

No one in his family would tattle-tale to Mom and Dad about his signing. He would gossip to them if they lapsed into using their voices. No speech therapist would admonish him gently when he tried to gesture by way of explaining something. He would feel more confident about using his voice without worrying about enunciation.

None of his classmates would stare at his earmolds or the cords out of his collar. Everyone would wear hearing aids and take those early morning two-hour trips to Lansel for audiological exams . . .

***

He wakes up at seven in the morning with a strong urge to pee. He clambers downstairs and is relieved to find that no one else is up yet.
When he steps out of the bathroom, Dad is drinking a glass of orange juice. “Morning.”

“Good morning.” Dad’s eyes seem so sad as Michael lipreads. “How are you today?”

“Okay. I guess.”

Dad’s face turns past Michael, and he turns to find Mom saying, “Good morning, Michael.”

“I’m not sorry,” Michael says abruptly. “I’m not going to be.”

Dad turns away as if slapped in the face.

"Michael . . .”

“Mom. Dad. It’s too frustrating for me. It’s nothing for you to talk with your voices. For me, it’s just hard work.” Michael glares at them sullenly before he tiptoes upstairs and slips back into bed.

***

Two hours later Michael changes from his old gym shorts into another pair, one with two pockets, and a fresh T-shirt. He eats a bowl of cereal and downs a glass of orange juice. Frankie runs back into the kitchen as he puts his dirty dishes into the sink of suds and says excitedly, “Judy ran away!” Judy is their huge German shepherd usually chained to a pole in one corner of the backyard.

“Where’s she now?”

“The Crowleys up the street got her. Gordy’s bringing her back.”

“Really.” For some reason he can’t feel more excited about all this.

“What’s wrong with you? You never talk to me.”

“What’s there to talk about?”

“Aren’t you going up the street with me?”

“Oh, do I have to?”

As they walk out the door, Judy comes prancing into the house, the chain of her leash banging loudly along on the floor, and slurps water from her pan. Gordy comes in and shakes his head.

While Frankie tries to slip the lock off the leash on the panting Judy, Michael is already sneaking away on his ten-speed toward town.

***

All morning he doesn’t see Tony anywhere.

After lunch he tries again, but still no sign of him.

***

Two days later he finds Tony sitting on the same bench. “How you?”

“Fine.”

“What?”

“Voice no-no. Fine f-i-n-e fine.”

“Fine. Oh. Fine.”

Michael learns Tony is a janitor at the elementary public school, and has lived alone since 1969. Tony invites him to his apartment, just above the tavern.

Michael walks upstairs after him. The place is well-kept. He finds it rather odd that the living room and bedroom should have so many stuffed animals placed about; he has never known of an older man having such things.

They sit in the living room and continue chatting while they drink lemonade. “How d-o you understand T-V?”

“C-l-o-s-e-d c-a-p-t-i-o-n.” He points to the huge brown box with a few knobs on it, and turns on the TV. He turns the channel until he finds a program with white captions set in black strips at the bottom of the screen.

Michael is entranced. “Where c-a-n you g-e-t it?”

“S-e-a-r-s.” He looks under his coffee table and pulls out the catalog. He opens it to the right page easily, and as Michael looks at the price, he notices how well-worn the print has become from much perusal. Expensive, but better than nothing. Michael nods, memorizing the page number so he can point it out in the catalog later to Mom and Dad.

He puts it down on the coffee table, and finds Tony sitting on a chair. “Like girls? What k-i-n-d?”

Michael hesitates. No one’s ever asked him so pointedly about that; besides, he knows he is still in love with Nick.

“I d-o-n-t k-n-o-w.”

“You don’t-know? Come-on. You know what you like.”

“What do you like?”

“You not bla-bla-bla out-there? You-and-me, good-friends.”

Michael nods hesitantly.

“Me-like girls y-o-u-n-g. Understand?”

He nods again.

Tony says, “Wait.” He enters his bedroom, and Michael turns up his hearing aids to hear his actions better. All he can comprehend out of the various sounds he hears is a door opening and closing.

Tony carries out a pictorial magazine and opens up to the middle.

Michael blanches: The girl can’t be older than nine years old.

“Sorry. Me-misunderstood you. You not tell? You not tell, promise you not bla-bla, don’t-want lose job, deaf find job hard—”

“Stop!” he shouts at the top of his voice.

Tony stands still, fear quivering in his eyes.

“I’m sorry. I don’t want any more personal questions.” Michael is not sure how to sign all of that; at least Tony is lipreading him very intensely.

“Sorry. You not t-e-l-l?”

He shakes his head. “M-u-s-t g-o.”

“Me understand. T-a-l-k again?”

“M-a-y-b-e.”

Michael gets on his bike and pedals as far as he can go, and he finds himself on the winding road to Olney Lake. He stops at the Thomas Bridge over the Abbott River, and watches the shimmering rays reflecting back into his face.

He pedals laboriously back home.

***

Four months later, on a September Saturday afternoon, one of his older sisters Glenna runs upstairs and tells Michael, “The police wants to talk to you!”

“What?” Michael puts his mark in his book, and follows his sister Glenna to the kitchen. He sees Mom looking on very anxiously while Aimee and Frankie sit on one side of the kitchen table.

A tall, stocky uniformed man with a trimmed moustache and a slight beer belly extends his hand. “Hello, Michael. I’m Officer Bowie, and this is Officer Wilson.”

Michael feels the warm thickness of their hands and whispers, “Hello.”

“We have some questions to ask you. For the sake of our records, we have to ask you some preliminary questions.”

Michael stares with a puzzled face. “What was that?”

“Your friend Anthony Rathes—you know Tony the deaf guy here in Olney—was arrested for having dirty pictures in his house.”

Michael looks at Mom, and then Glenna. What should I say?

“Do you know him?”

“Yes . . .”

“Did you know he had dirty pictures?”

“No.”

“He says you told on him.”

Mom says, “He can’t use the phone yet.”

“Oh.” Officer Bowie is relieved. “That clears up a lot of things. Someone else called and told us about his stuff. But did you know he had that stuff?”

He swallows some air before he says, “Yes.”

“Did he do anything to you? You know?”

“No! He just showed me a magazine and I told him I didn’t want to see him any more! I just wanted to learn sign language! That’s all, that’s all!”

“Calm down, it’s okay. You’re not in trouble.”

Mom asks, “Michael, why didn’t you tell someone?”

“He’s deaf like me.”

Everyone in the kitchen seems still for a second upon hearing this. Michael blinks his eyes to fight his tears.

“Can you talk with your hands?” Officer Bowie wriggles his fingers.

“Some. A little bit.”

“Could you come along with us and try talking with him?”

“No! I don’t want to!”

“So he did do something to you.”

“No! You got it all wrong. He asked me if I liked girls, and I thought he meant girls my age, but I misunderstood him. He thought I liked girls the way he liked them.”

***

When Michael rides through downtown, he sometimes stops across the street from Tony’s building and stares up at his window; all his stuffed animals have been taken away. He wonders whether Tony will find a deaf jailmate like himself, so neither one of them will ever be lonely. He wonders again if he himself will end up like him, and hungers more than anything to sneak away again, so he could commit that sweet crime of language without any hearies watching.


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LA Bytes excerpt by Pat Brown

In PA Brown’s LA Bytes,Los Angeles' Ste. Anne's Medical Center has been hacked by a brilliant, malicious cracker. Christopher Bellamere has been hired to find out who is behind the break in. When tampered medical records nearly kill Homicide Detective David Eric Laine, the stakes go up and Chris goes after the cracker with all his skills.


LA Bytes
Publisher: MLR Press, LLC (February 25, 2010)
ISBN: 978-1-60820-040-5



Excerpt:

Chapter 1

Monday, 10:55 am Ste Anne's Medical Center, Rowena Avenue, Silver Lake, Los Angeles

Christopher Bellamere studied the traffic on Hyperion Avenue, eight stories below. A blanket of brown smog lay over the nearby Golden State Freeway. Behind him, Terry Corwin, the network manager at Ste. Anne's, fiddled with his Blackberry and carried on whispered conversations with himself. Terry was the anxious type.

"What are you saying?" Terry asked him. "Please don't tell me what I think you're telling me. I know I saw some anomalies, but they only started last night. You gotta be wrong."

"I'm not. You were right in your initial assessment." Chris pivoted to face him. Terry wore a custom made suit Chris recognized as a Dolce and Gabbana. Chris remembered him from CalTech where he'd been more of a T-shirt and ripped jeans kind of guy. He never had that kind of taste -- or discretionary funds. Chris was glad he'd worn his newest Versace to this meet. He hated to be upstaged. Still, he felt bad for the news he had to deliver.

"You were hacked. By someone who knew what they were doing."

"A virus? Trojan?--"

"Nothing I've ever seen. It's got enough of a unique signature to suggest it was written just for your system."

Terry shoved his glasses up his nose. "Who?"

"Don't know that," Chris said. "Whoever it was, they're good. Covered their tracks well."

"But you were able to spot them?"

"They're not that good." Chris held up his hand to forestall Terry's next question. "There's more. The attack came from inside your network. And my guess is, it's still occurring."

Terry slumped into one of the swivel chairs crowding the oak and brass table. He stared down at the report Chris had given him earlier. "How much damage?"

"Hard to say at this point."

"Any indication our patient records were compromised?"

"That will take more time to determine."

"How much time?"

"Can't say at this point."

Terry swelled up like an angry cat. "When can you say? I need answers on this fast. We have an audit coming up, otherwise I wouldn't have called you in. I'd have taken care of it myself."

"I'll need at least two more days."

"I'm good with that, but I'll have to clear it with management. And they're not likely to be as accommodating."

Chris nodded. He'd expected that. He gathered his laptop and tucked it into his carrying case. He'd make himself scarce while Terry argued with the suits about the catastrophe that had hit on Terry's watch.

Terry held up his hand.

"Don't go yet." His fingers fluttered over his tie after hanging up. "We need to talk. Let's go to my office. I've got some decent coffee. You can fill me in on how you're going to approach this so I have something more concrete to take upstairs."

Chris glanced at his watch. David would be done at the doctor's downstairs in about twenty minutes. He had time. "Sure."

He followed Terry out to the elevator. They didn't speak on the short ride down to the second floor. Terry's office mirrored his attire. His dark cherry veneer desk was clutter-free except for an IBM laptop and a picture of his wife, Cathy. They had no kids as far as Chris knew. Terry and he hadn't done much socializing over the years. He hadn't been invited to the wedding and hadn't invited Terry to his, either.

On a sideboard was a drip coffee pot, an assortment of free trade coffees and the usual mix of large and small mugs. "What's your flavor?" Terry asked, holding up the coffee filter.

"Something dark.".

"Sumatran?"

Chris nodded and looked around the small office. The walls were covered in framed certificates that spoke of Terry's long years in the industry. He'd been a real go-getter at CalTech. That drive apparently hadn't left him. There were several O'Keeffe prints showcasing New Mexico. Under the certificates and prints, something he never would have expected, an acoustic guitar with the patina of long use leaning against the wall.

Terry followed Chris's gaze. "I took it up about a year ago. Play some jazz and blues."

Chris approached the instrument. He didn't touch it, but he did notice half the dozen photos taken at small clubs on the wall above the guitar. In each one Terry was part of a trio of musicians. In them, he had eschewed his suit in favor of jeans, a T-shirt and a neon headband.

"Where do you play?"

Terry grinned. "Around town, did a couple of gigs in San Francisco." His frown returned. "Just what did you find in our system?"

Chris continued to stare at the images. You thought you knew a guy. "Besides the signs of file activity you mean? Password cracking tools. Some pretty sophisticated stuff. It can be deconstructed, which might point to who wrote it, but I'll need time to do it."

Terry opened his briefcase and drew out several pages which he handed to Chris. "This is what your final contract will look like. Check it over, let me know if you have any problems with it."

Chris skimmed the contents quickly. It looked like a standard boilerplate non-disclosure work-for-hire four-week contract. He'd signed a similar, shorter one for the initial assessment. No unusual term that would limit his ability to do his job or bind him up afterward.

"Take it home," Terry said. "Read it over. Have your lawyer vet it."

Chris held out his hand. They shook. "I'll let you know tomorrow." He glanced at the guitar one more time. For some reason it intrigued him. "Let me know when your next gig is. I'll bring David. He loves jazz."

Terry nodded, he seemed too preoccupied to pay attention. Chris could tell his mind was already back on his computer problems. Chris stuffed the contract into his laptop case. He strode across the dove gray carpet toward the elevator. Once inside, he pulled out his Blackberry. No messages. At least he wasn't late picking up his husband. David hated tardiness.

David's doctor had an office in a building attached to the main hospital. David, who hated needles, was due to get his allergy shot. Chris made the appointment for him, knowing David would avoid it as long as he was left to his own devices.
The receptionist showed him into a small consulting room off the main waiting room.

David scowled up at him. "They're not here yet. We have to wait."

The fierce look on David's face didn't faze him. He dropped into an uncomfortable chair beside his husband of ten months. "Who's not here?"

"The pharmacy." David's scowl deepened. "And my shot."

Chris rolled his eyes. "You mean I get to watch the tough as nails homicide detective take his medicine? Think of all the good that comes of it -- you won't be sniffling and carrying on when the animals jump on you. And we'll save a fortune on Kleenex. You're always after us to save, right?"

"Right, a fifty dollar bottle of wine is acceptable, but a two dollar box of Kleenex isn't?"

Chris grinned. After several seconds, David followed suit. The smile lifted his dour face and reminded Chris of why he loved this man.

One of the clinic nurses bustled in. A diminutive Korean, she smiled when she saw Chris and glanced at their joined hands. "Come to comfort the patient?"

Everyone, it seemed, knew about David's aversion to needles. David quickly disengaged his hand from Chris's.

David refused to watch as she uncapped the syringe and swabbed his arm with alcohol. He winced as she deftly slid the needle into his arm and depressed the plunger. She covered the puncture mark with a circular Band-Aid.

David rubbed the spot. The nurse deposited the used syringe in a sharps container and left the room.

"There, that wasn't so bad, was it?--" He waited for David to stand. Chris reached for his arm, carefully avoiding the injection site. David shook his head. Suddenly he blinked and swallowed convulsively.

"David?"

David wheezed, struggling to catch his breath. His face went rigid. Lips pressed together, his eyes unfocused.

"David!"

His entire body stiffened. He drew in a convulsive breath, then struggled to draw another. His face blanched as he clawed at his throat.

David arched forward and spewed out a stream of vomit across his jean clad legs and the tile floor beside the bed. Before he could take a breath, he repeated the action. The room filled with the sour stench.

Chris's stomach rolled over at the smell. He darted toward the door.

"I'll find the doctor," he said. He emerged in a waiting room full of expectant patients. Several of them turned startled eyes on him.

"Where's the doctor?" he shouted.

In the room behind him metal crashed and David's guttural cry was abruptly cut off.

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Dee Dee Day excerpt by Mykola Dementiuk

In this excerpt from Dee Dee Day by Mykola Dementiuk, a young man arrives in NYC - it's a new city, with new dreams…but will he be able to forget the old and start anew? He rents an apartment from Dee Dee Day…who gives him a little bit more than he expected—love, passion, sex with her…or is that with him?

This work is dedicated to Victor Banis and Ann Bannon

Dee Dee Day
Publisher: Extasy Books (February 1, 2010)
ISBN: 978-1-55487-480-4
Cover art by Angela Waters

Excerpt:

Like all basements, it was musty and dimly lighted with spider webs in the corners. There was something sinister and evil about the entire cellar, rather like a dungeon meant for someone to be trapped and chained there, not one who came here just to check out the environment. I shook my head. I certainly didn’t want to be here.

“I’ve seen enough,” I said, turning back and wanting to return upstairs.

“But they’re right here,” she said, her hand atop a box that was stacked with other boxes in a corner. She opened the top and a sly smile broke on her lips. “Oh my, I forgot I had these.”

I stopped, turning back. “Have what?”

She pulled one out and then reached for another one, holding a slim paperback in each hand. They were dusty and moldy, but she had a sinister, dreamy look about her. “You know, I read every single word in these, seems like yesterday.”

I picked up a book. Moldy, certainly, made you want to sneeze and cough. Sex in the Shadows read the cover, a half-dressed girl was sitting on the floor as another paced about behind her. I picked up another one, Tutor from Lesbos, and rifled through others. Gay Girl, Gay Wrestlers, Man Hater, S & M Office Girls, on and on it went. I scowled, flipping the books down, “Just girl stuff, not my cup of tea.”

She looked at me, “Yes, I forgot, you’re a man and you like other men, is that right?”

I was about to say something, but decided not too. She winked at me and moved the box her feminine books were in, then was looking into another one. “How about this?” she smiled and handed me another paperback.

The Gay Underworld it read and showed a male figure in garter belt and nylons, the bulge in his crotch a clear indication that he was aroused, and was bare-breasted with a blond wig atop his pretty made up face. I was instantly aroused.

She smirked, “I thought you’d like these.”

I picked up a few more, Naked in the Night, The Greek Affair, The Cruising Class and others. “Some nice titles you have here.” It was too much for me. I started sneezing, but I was able to say, “Bring these upstairs.” I sneezed again and ran up the stairs.

Upstairs the air was cleaner, not so musty or stuffy with old books and withered paper. I had another cup of coffee and reminisced about old times in bus stations around the country. In most every town I was in, I seemed to gravitate to the bus station, where I’d travel via bus most everywhere I went. Of course many times I had to hitchhike and save whatever money I had and get to a town as broke as when I started.

Dee Dee came up the stairs and in each hand, she held two or three paperbacks and was smiling at me.

“I never thought I'd find this,” she said, holding one out. I Am a Woman by Ann Bannon. “I have one for you, too.” She showed me, The Why Not by Victor Banis.

“And the others?” I asked, gesturing to the other books she held.

“Oh, this? Just a reminder to George—it would be interesting if he still remembers.”

I looked at the books for George. Disciplinary Action, Penthouse Maids, Lady Cabbie and it was obvious these were crossdressing books. I blushed again.

“Does George like to get dressed up?”

She smirked. “No matter how feminine he tried to be, he still looked like man dressed in girly clothes. Some guys just can’t do it, you know?”

I knew that very well. With Randy, we played at it, but I looked like a ridiculous sham so I got out of the clothes and let Randy dress as he knew best.

“Gee, I never read this,” I said, flipping over the pages of The Why Not. “What’s it about?”

She laughed. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” She winked at me and began to read her book, I Am a Woman.

I looked at the back cover of Why Not and read gay throng of third sex and looked at the front, again. “Victor J. Banis’s scorching excursion through the gay world of the lost and the not-so-sure…” That certainly sounds like me.

“You know what we should do? Start our own bookstore for the connoisseurs.”

I smirked. “With these books? Doubt you’ll sell any.”

“I’m not talking about—” she looked at me. “What’s the name on the place you work?”

“Scribner’s.”

“Yeah, not no hoity-toity place like your store.” She winked at me. “Rather, a
place where only the select can enter. That’s because we give them what they’re
looking for. Don’t you think that’s a grand idea?”

I looked down at the book I was holding. “Can’t say it doesn’t have its merits,
but you really think anyone will come in for this?” I held out the Banis book.

“And what’s wrong with this?”

“Nothing. Except they just aren’t collector’s material, that’s all.”

She snorted. “As if you know what’s collector’s material?”

I shook my head. I was having enough of this hopeful but hopeless dream of hers.

“I suppose,” I said, flinging the paperback to the coach. “I should get dressed.
The day isn‟t getting any younger.”

“Yes, you do that,” she said as she buried her head in the Ann Bannon book, I Am A Woman.

I looked at her, and imagined that‟s the way I looked reading a paperback in bus stations. I shrugged, then shut the front door and went up to my room.

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Come This Way anthology, excerpt from An Apple a Day by Victor J Banis

Sometimes, a single foot is a journey of discovery....

An Apple a Day in the anthology Come This Way
Publisher: Regal Crest Enterprises, LLC (April 2, 2007)
ISBN-10: 1932300821
ISBN-13: 978-1932300826

Excerpt:

Whoever would have thought, Ben had thought often, that feet would matter so much. Clyde's feet, for instance. His gaze shifted to them. Clyde was younger than he was, no more than twenty, twenty-one at the most. He was good looking, in a countrified way, and even in the baggy overalls and the worn work shirt he was wearing, it was evident that he had a lean, hard body, the overalls bunched, his long legs spread wide, and his feet, his—really—enormous feet…

"Don't you think so, Ben?" Clyde's wife, Maude, asked, snapping him back to reality. He looked surprised at her, blushing as if she might know what he had been thinking about her husband. But, what had he been thinking? Now that it was gone, he couldn't remember.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I guess my mind wandered."

"He does that all the time," Angie said in a scolding voice, "I swear, he's the worst husband, he never pays the least attention to anything I say."

"Of course I do," Ben said; but he could not think now what the others had been talking about, Angie's voice droning on and on like the motor of her sewing machine.

"Chickens," he said in a moment of inspiration. They had been talking about chickens. Chicken feed to start, and then chicken recipes and then…but then his attention had wandered.

He glanced at Clyde and found him smiling faintly, as if he knew where Ben's mind had really been—wherever that was.

"Ben's looking peaked," Maude said. She got up from her chair. "I think we'd better head on home, Clyde."

"Oh, no," I'm fine," Ben said quickly, aware of the resentful glance his wife shot him, but Clyde had stood up now, too, and pulled his watch from his pocket to frown at it briefly.

"Ten o'clock," he said. "Didn't know it had got so late."

Everyone stood up. Ben found the couple mostly boring, but he was sorry at the same time to see them go, sorry to have the slight diversion they provided ended. Nothing to do now but call it a day and go to bed.

"How's Ben coming along, Angie," Maude asked her, just as if Ben weren't standing right there. "Is that new doctor doing him any good?"

"Seems to be," Angie said. "Myself, I can't see the sense of running into the city every week just to have some doctor poke around and stick you with a needle, but Ben seems to have perked up some since he's been going."

Maude looked directly at Ben then. "What'd he say the trouble was, anyway, this new doctor? Your glands, was it?"

"Something like that," Ben said. "You know how doctors are, they like to keep everything mysterious."

"Ain't that the truth," Maude said. "Well, Clyde…"

Ben was glad after all when they had gone and Angie had taken the dirty coffee cups into the kitchen to wash them. She detested letting dirty dishes stand, even a quartet of cups.

He made his way upstairs, to the simple bedroom that he and Angie shared, half pausing at the closed door to the room they used now for storage. He had all but stopped wishing for someone to occupy it.

"The doctor says I can't have any," Angie had explained to him time and time again, and she would get sore when he suggested that they might at least try, until he had given up suggesting it. It wasn't the trying that mattered to him. He had never found that as pleasurable as other men seemed to do. It was just that he would have liked to have a son, and that was, after all, how they were gotten. He suspected that Angie's reluctance had more to do with avoiding what she called "that wickedness" and less to do with any doctor's instructions, but he wasn't about to suggest that either.

He undressed quickly and hung his clothes neatly in the closet, the way she insisted, and put on the long woolen nightshirt that hung on the door. He hated it, hated wearing it, hated the feel of the coarse wool on his body. Once, a long time ago, he had tried sleeping without it, but Angie had been furious, calling him a letch and a sinner and so many other vile names that he had sighed wearily and put the nightshirt on after all, and he had worn it nightly since then, summer or winter.

He heard her footsteps on the stairs and closed his eyes, pretending to be asleep. He felt the lights go out. Angie always undressed in the dark. He had never understood how she found her own nightgown, or managed to hang up her clothes so neatly. He wondered briefly what she would do if he just got up and crossed over to her bed. How long had it been since he had done that? He couldn't even remember, except that she had complained bitterly when he did so, and sent him back to his own.

After an astonishingly short time, Angie began to snore softly. Ben opened his eyes and stared into the darkness. Oddly, he found himself thinking about Clyde Akins. He felt pretty sure Clyde and Maude didn't fall asleep right away every night. Once, at their house, he had managed to peek into their bedroom and had seen that they shared one enormous bed. Clyde wouldn't even have to get up and walk across the room if he felt the need. He had only to turn on his side, move closer...

An image of Clyde, in bed, sprang into Ben's mind. He rolled onto his own side. His last thoughts as he drifted off to sleep were of Clyde's big feet. He saw them out of the work boots he usually wore. Bare feet. Naked…

#

Spring had lingered this year, and the weather was still pleasant. Later, in summer's heat, the walk into town would be more arduous, but for now it was pleasant. The apple trees were in bloom. It would be late summer, early fall, before they began to harvest them; then, the trips into the city would become impossible. He dreaded that prospect.

For now, though, the trip was no more than a little troublesome. Most of the farm was in orchards. The trees needed some attention in the spring, but that he had done already. There were garden crops, but he worked extra hard on those during the other days so that he could have this one day of the week free.

He wore overalls, much like Clyde's except his were older and one knee was patched, and a blue denim work shirt so faded it was nearly white, and he carried his lunch in a brown paper bag under one arm. He glanced up once at the sun and quickened his pace. The last train left at six thirty. If he missed that, he was out of luck.

#

It was a two hour ride into the city. He got there at eight thirty, and would have to catch the train back at four thirty. Brief, but time enough for his treatment. He passed through the station and was on the street, excitedly aware of the people around him, the cars in the street, the noise, so different from the quiet of the farm.

It was only four blocks to the cheap hotel he had found on his first trip. He went directly there. The man at the desk showed no sign of recognition. He never did, although by this time he was certainly used to seeing the tall farmer in his country clothes come through the swinging door into his diminutive lobby.

They exchanged no more than a half dozen words. Ben paid for the day in advance, and another five dollars for the cheap cardboard suitcase the clerk stored for him. He took that and climbed the narrow stairs to the third floor, to his room.

It was none too clean. Despite the no smoking sign on the wall, someone had smoked there recently and the lingering tobacco scent mingled with the musty odor of a room rarely aired out, and the mattress on the bed sagged alarmingly toward the middle. None of which bothered him in the least. The truth was, he scarcely noticed.

He wasted little time there, just enough to shed his shirt and his overalls, and the long johns he wore under them. He took a skin tight tee shirt from the suitcase and put that on instead, and form fitting levis without nothing between them and his naked flesh, taking a sensual pleasure in the rub of the fabric over his bare genitals. He wore the same boots he had worn on his trip from the farm, but they looked different with the change in costume.

He looked different. It might have been a stranger that gazed back at him from the cracked mirror. He tugged at the bulge of his crotch, pulling himself from left to right, which he had discovered all on his own made everything more prominent. He smiled at himself, trying to feel at ease, but despite the experience of the last several weeks, he still felt nervous each time he descended the stairs, ignoring the clerk who stared at him from behind his shabby desk, going back down to the street.

#

At lunch time, on a nice day, as he knew from previous visits, the little park would be crowded with loungers, all of the benches taken, but it was only midmorning now, and he found an empty bench and sat down, facing the marble fountain. He did not watch the passersby, but kept his eyes shyly downward. All he saw were their feet, an endless parade of them passing by, some hurrying, some shuffling, some looking like they were about to break into dance.

That was how it had begun, really, with feet. An innocent stroll along the beach. Still early in the season, and in the day, time to kill before his first appointment with that new doctor. He had been alone, or so he thought, until he saw the feet. Bare feet, four of them, two facing two.

Of course, he knew that the feet were not disembodied. He could see where they joined to ankles, and even a bit of calf, and there beyond the feet were bathing suits that must have earlier encased flesh and blood hips before they were cast discarded upon the ground, and shadows discarded there as well, for who needs shadows when the reality is there for the savoring—shadows of torsos and the merest suggestion, but unmistakable for all that, of other limbs. A shadow hand that moved, stroking, and the feet came closer together then, meshed, until they might have been one foundation to a single column of glued-together legs. The toes moved in the sand, wriggling in time to the ragged breathing he could just hear where he stood frozen beyond the bushes. It occurred to him later: if they had looked, they would probably have seen his feet. Maybe seen the shadow of his hand, moving.

#

He did not have to wait long. For whatever reason, he never did. He hadn't sat for more than three or four minutes before a pair of feet slowed as they came near, paused briefly before him. Someone sat down beside Ben on the bench. Ben looked at the shoes, neatly polished oxfords, next to his old boots, and waited for the stranger to speak first.

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Daywalker Legacy excerpt by Amanda Young

Included in Daywalker Legacy by Amanda Young are the stories...The Hard Truth: Blackmailed into claiming a birthright he doesn't want, Cadge Johnson is thrust into a world of politics and intrigue. His only ally is old friend and former lover, Red Taylor -- a Nightfeeder he has kept at arm's length for decades. The sordid past they share is nothing compared to the trials ahead. After nearly a century of love, loss, murder, and deception, only the cold, hard truth will finally set them free...and...Secrets and Lies: After the near genocide of his race, Teague Johnson now spends his life hiding in plain sight. In a city populated by humans and Nightfeeders alike, he and his brother are forced to cloak themselves in forged histories in order to blend in among the hierarchy of society.

Teague's weekly trysts with Kyle Drake give him a reason to anticipate the future -- until Kyle unexpectedly disappears. Afterward, Teague's life is thrust under a microscope, endangering everything he holds dear. Allegiances are tested, and the lines of friendship blur in a race to stop an inhuman killer. Kyle's fate hinges on Teague's ability to untangle the intricate web of secrets and lies before it's too late.

Title: Daywalker Legacy by Amanda Young
Publisher: CreateSpace (January 19, 2010)
ISBN: 1449976689
ISBN13: 9781449976682

Excerpt from Secrets and Lies:

Teague Johnson appeared calm and in control at all times. He’d been accused of being a heartless bastard more than he cared to recall. It was a common enough misconception. No one -- save his older brother Cadge -- had ever been able to see beneath the icy veneer he shared with the world. Teague liked it that way. Especially at rare times like now, when his internal thermostat was set to boil, and he felt anything but composed.

The hard-on he’d woken up with that evening refused to go down. It outlasted an argument with Cadge about his endless obsession with the past and then continued unabated through the nightly procedures to prepare the club for business. Even now, as he walked through the crowd and nodded at people, his balls felt tight and heavy; his dick ached for attention from the one man he had no business fraternizing with.

Teague felt sure Kyle would show up tonight, as he had every Saturday for the last few months, but he was torn about how he should respond. If he were a smart man, he’d walk away and find someone else to fuck. There were bona fide reasons for why he shouldn’t form attachments to a human, regardless of what his dick craved.

To further rattle his concentration, the club was crawling with Nightfeeders and varying forms of shifters. Having so many creatures under the same roof made Teague twitchy. He didn’t mind the shifters so much; they could get a little rougher than necessary at times, but discretion seemed to be coded into their genes. Nightfeeders, however, were a different story. Teague’s skin crawled with thoughts of what they were capable of.

After five years of running Club Oasis and a lifetime of trying to blend in among the lesser subspecies of his own race, he should have been accustomed to being around Nightfeeders. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. The blood-sucking fiends caused too much trouble for him not to be wary -- for the kind of danger they posed to him and his human clientele. The last mess he’d been forced to clean up hadn’t been pretty, and he damn sure didn’t want to find himself in that sort of position again. He’d put safeguards in place to protect his members, but where there was a will, there was a way.

Teague broke away from the herd of people skirting the outer edges of the dance floor and headed across the room. The throng of bodies thinned out the further he walked, and he would’ve sworn the temperature dropped ten degrees. The club was hopping, people packed in like sardines as they swilled liquor and fed off the vibe of party favors and sexual conquests yet to come. Heavy metal music piped through the sound system, the guitar riff electric and wild, like the cacophony of human heartbeats echoing in his ears. He stopped outside the lounge -- a separate area cordoned off and insulated with thick, soundproof sliding glass doors for those members who wanted to socialize without having to scream over the music -- and surveyed the mob with all the enthusiasm of a man facing the gallows of yore.

“Yo, boss man.” Teague glanced at Joe, his right hand man and most trusted bouncer, who stood off to one side grinning like a loon. The flashing lights reflected off his wide forehead as he nodded toward the bar. “Your boy toy is here.”

“What-the-fuck-ever,” Teague scoffed, rolling his eyes. He kept his gaze locked on Joe’s ugly mug, although he yearned to look around for Kyle. The human was quickly becoming an addiction he couldn’t afford.

Joe laughed. “Your boy looks ripe for the pickin’ tonight. You’d better stake your claim before someone sweeps that pretty piece of meat right out from underneath you.”

“Men are not pretty, and he is not my anything.” So what if Teague kept vowing that he would stop fucking the stunning blond. He had yet to follow through with it, although he would have to end things eventually, possibly even later that night. After I have another taste of what Kyle is oh so willing to share. There was no shame in taking advantage of what the other man offered. It wasn’t like Teague had ever promised anything, other than sex.

“Well, you do what you like about the pretty boy, boss, but there are some new members who want to speak to you about reserving the club later this year for a private party. I know it isn’t something you like to do, but they’re waving around cash like it’s Monopoly money.”

Teague sighed. “All right. Go find them and bring them over, but I’m not promising anything.”

“Sure thing, boss. You stay put, and I’ll be right back with them.”

He waited until after Joe walked off before looking for the man who’d consumed his every waking thought and half his dreams to boot. He spotted Kyle leaning against the bar closest to the dance floor; the bright white T-shirt and snug faded jeans made him stand out like a spotlight amid the sea of leather clad partiers.

An aura of innocence clung to Kyle as he gaped at the spectacle around him. With his sandy blond hair, shorn close on the sides and long enough to hang down over his forehead, large expressive eyes reflected his nervousness more than the way he kept a death grip on his beer bottle, he looked like a virgin waiting to be deflowered.

Teague’s intimate knowledge of Kyle belied the man’s appearance. That didn’t prevent the thought of being the one and only to despoil Kyle from making Teague’s dick leak. He reached down and discreetly adjusted his package. I’m definitely getting a piece of that tonight.

Teague spotted Joe approaching, several other men tagging along behind him, and pulled his gaze away from Kyle. There would be plenty of time for dalliances later, after he took care of a little business.


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Paul’s D’Marco excerpt by Leiland Dale

Matt D'Marco has happily settled in his routine for years. Now with a pending divorce, recently promoted Matt's life is about to take an entirely new direction.

Matt's first case as detective turns out to be a challenge. Desperation sets in when all leads in the child serial killer case leave the police department empty handed. Paul Whittington, psychic and medium, may be the only solution in finding a break in the case.

Matt and Paul are forced to work together. But when a work relationship turns into something more, it challenges everything Matt's known about himself, his life, and desires. Then, a turn in the case could put everything at risk.

In the end, can Paul win over Matt's resistance and claim him as his own?

Paul’s D’Marco
Silver Publishing (January 9, 2010)
ASIN: B0036FU1B4

Excerpt:

Walking into the terminal of the tiny airport, I don’t get that feeling of coming home. Yes, this is my hometown, but it’s just too much. Tired of people unable to decide if they want to approach me or avoid me, I left for the preferred isolation of Forks a year or two ago. I find people either avoid me because they’re homophobic or approach me because they’re curious to find out if a deceased relative has a message for them.

All the hustle and bustle of the airport reminds me why I left in the first place. Dealing with the residents of the town is difficult enough but still having to deal with spirits of the dearly departed on top of that, is just too much. The crowds are probably the most difficult with so many spirits so close together. It always feels like they are screaming at the top of their lungs directly in my ear.

Collecting my luggage at the carousel I keep an eye out for the police officer my brother-in-law has sent to pick me up. This is just what I need, a babysitter with a badge.

As I step out to the front of the terminal, a police car pulls up to the curb. I wait patiently for the police officer to get out of his car but I’m slowly becoming irate with the spirits talking in my ear.

When the officer steps out of the car and turns to face me, I let out an audible gasp. Never in my life have I ever seen a man this big. A commanding six foot four god towers over me. Muscles like huge irons bars, shoulders wide enough to hinder him from entering a doorway easily. Short light brown tousled hair and those eye…..those brown puppy dog eyes. This was definitely the most beautiful man I have ever seen. I can’t take my eyes off the gorgeous Adonis approaching me. Without realizing it at first, I lick my lips. I can’t move. I stand there, staring, unable to speak.

“Hi. Are you Paul Whittington?” The officer holds out his hand as he approaches me.

“Umm…Yes,” I stammer. I braced myself, knowing I will have a vision the moment we touch. I reach out and shake his hand. Nothing happens. Confused, I pull my hand back. This has never happened to me before.

“The captain sent me to pick you up and bring you to the station before you get settled.” The gravelly voice was giving me goose bumps. Still at a loss for words, I quickly divert my gaze to my luggage. I can’t believe the instant desire I feel when our eyes first connect. I can still feel the trembling of my knees as I try to bring myself under control and shake off the desire surging within me.

“Let’s get your stuff loaded in the back so we can head to the station. The captain wants to speak to you.” I hear the officer mumble something under his breath as he gets into the car but I can’t make out a thing he says.

I turn to the officer. “Are you always this rude, officer? Or is it just part of your charm?”

“Listen, my name is Detective D’Marco not officer. And just so that we understand each other, I’ll make it clear and simple. I don’t believe in the hocus pocus you do and honestly I don’t give a shit. Stay out of my way and I’ll stay out of yours. I have a case to solve and having you hanging around is just giving me more work than I already have. I don’t have the time to be anyone’s babysitter,” he answers rudely as he pulls away from the curb.

I sit staring at the detective in shocked silence. My God. Detective D’Marco is probably the most insufferable and uncouthly person I have ever met. He might be a breathtakingly beautiful Adonis, but still an insufferable ass.

It looks like my life has just become a bit more complicated.

~~

The silence in the car is a welcome reprieve from the chaotic thoughts going around in my head. What the fuck just happened? The moment I get out of the car and see Paul standing at the curb, I’m overwhelmed with lust like I haven’t experienced since I was a teenager. What the hell?

Paul, with the long brown hair with red and blonde streaks falling just below his shoulders, the greenest eyes and the most luscious lips I’ve ever seen on any human being literally makes my knees weak. Remembering Paul bend over, throwing his suitcase in the back of the car has my cock hard in seconds. The five foot seven man sitting next to me in the confined space inside the car is much more impressive than the picture the captain showed me earlier. Much more beautiful than any woman I’ve ever dated, including my ex-wife.

Never in my life have I thought of a man as beautiful.

What the fuck is happening to me? I’m shocked. I divert my attention back to the road trying to get the uneasiness in my stomach and the hardness of my cock to subside.

“So, are you one of the detectives working on this case?” he asks, interrupting the awkward silence and my uncomfortable thoughts.

“Yes. This is a very delicate case and it looks like there might be a leak somewhere in the department. Since the article hit the front page news a couple of days ago, Petersen and I, and now you, are the only ones assigned to this case. We’re keeping a tight leash on it.” I say as I try to keep my attention off the beauty occupying the passenger seat. What?!? I just thought of a man as a beauty! I try to keep my eyes and mind on the road.

Catching movement out the corner of my eye, I turn my head and glance over at Paul and see him looking out the side window trying to discreetly wipe a stray tear from his cheek. I have the intense urge to pull the car over and hold the man in my arms to soothe him. Turning my attention back to the road ahead I wonder what has upset him to bring tears and the sad look to those beautiful eyes.

After a moment of silence I hear him shift in his seat and I can feel his eyes watching me, intently.

“Well, I’ll help where I can. I can’t promise that I’ll be able to give you any information. We’ll need to see where it goes,” he says. I grip the steering wheel tighter, and my knuckles begin to turn white. The urge to reach out a hand to clasp the one on Paul’s lap is overwhelming. I don’t understand what is happening to me. I’ve never felt this way.

My thoughts go back to the latest crime scene, seeing the bodies of the blonde haired boys bring back an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach.

“Yeah, we’ll see.” I grunt. “We’ll be at the precinct soon.”

Focusing on the road again, not another word is spoken. I struggle with my thoughts and try to understand why I feel this way and where these feelings are coming from. This is new and I feel shaken. This is far from anything I’ve ever felt in my life. Why do I feel this attraction to another man? It doesn’t make any sense to me. These thoughts begin to cross my mind at a million miles per hour.

Out of the corner of my eye, I can see he’s still lost in thought, looking out the window. I’d give anything to know what he’s thinking about right now.

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