Take a bow and blow a kiss as the curtain falls on love. Or does it?

From London’s West End to a New York drag bar and onto the glitz and glamour of Hollywood, three couples rediscover the passion that once burned as brightly as the stage lights.

Their plays might be over, but the show goes on. For these players, the heart discovers that just when you think a love story has come to its end, if you have the courage to turn the page then love will make a return to the stage.

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

MUCH ADO – JET MYKLES

Someone was watching him. That wouldn’t be so odd if he was onstage, but he was in a deserted dressing room. Shawn stopped mopping cold cream from his face and looked toward the dressing room doorway.

Ms. Tyken stood there in all her sequined glory. Without the bouffant wig and the three inch heels, the drag queen was five- feet even if she was an inch but once she started talking, you’d swear she was all of six foot. Tonight she wore a vivid yellow and black evening gown that brought to mind a shimmering bee. The black wig atop her head had been threaded through with yellow ribbons and had even been fashioned to a stylized curved point high above her head to resemble a stinger. Heavy makeup almost disguised the fact that Ms. Tyken was no longer a young queen.

Once seen, she put on a broad smile and sashayed into the room, carrying a cloud of jasmine scent with her. “Shawna, darling, did you mention once that you used to date a director?”

Inwardly, Shawn fought the immediate memories that filled his head. Had he mentioned it to her? He didn’t think so. But he probably did mention it to the other girls. He shrugged, turning back to the mirror then lifting a new tissue to wipe off some more cold cream. “That’s ancient history.”

“Mmmm. What was his name, sugar?”

“I don’t talk to him anymore.” And I couldn’t get you a job with him if I wanted to. He doesn’t do drag queens.

“Is that fact?” Ms. Tyken trailed the two-inch talons of her right hand along the edge of the makeup table. “Wasn’t it Roscoe Schroeder?”

Why did the mere mention of the man’s name have to make his heart race? “That’s the one.”

In a rustle of skirt, Ms Tyken came to stand behind him, blocking the reflection of the rest of the room and providing extra illumination as the makeup lights bounced off her sequins. “Mmmmm. He’s a handsome devil, isn’t he?” 4 Mykles ~ Much Ado

“Do you know him?”

“Oh no. Just met him tonight.”

Hands freezing, Shawn glanced up at his boss. “Tonight?”

She gave him a smug, carmine-coated smile. “Mmm. He’s out front. Asking for you.”

“For me?”

Fingers pasted with black and yellow striped fake nails squeezed his shoulders. “For little ol’ you, sweetie. You sure he’s ancient history? Doesn’t seem like the kind of man you want to let go of.”

No, he wasn’t. Too bad Shawn just couldn’t live under his wing.

Shawn stared at his own reflection, at the cold cream smeared makeup. His hair was still encased in his wig cap. He’d already changed out of his costume into sweatpants. In short, he looked like shit. “What’s he doing here?”

“He only asked for you.” She stroked Shawn’s shoulders. “What should I tell him?”

Go to hell? But his usual mantra didn’t ring true, even in his own head. In truth, it hadn’t rung true for the last few months. His righteous indignation after their breakup hadn’t outlasted the winter. “Tell him…” He blinked at himself. Shit, what’s he doing here? Shawn hadn’t heard one peep from him in the fifteen months since he’d moved out. “Tell him I’ll be out after I change.”

Wise blue eyes studied him for a long moment before Ms. Tyken nodded. “Whatever you say, sugar. But you’re not on the bar tonight. You could just slip out the back.” Trust her to see his hesitation and respect it.

Shawn considered it only for a brief moment. Like it or not, he was curious about why Roscoe was here. “Thanks, but no. I’ll be out as soon as I change.”

She swatted him lightly on the shoulder, grinning wide to show professionally capped teeth in her reflection. “Don’t go changing, honey. Not for any man.” One heavily-lashed eye winked over a wide, lipsticked smile, then Ms. Tyken turned to leave. “I’ll tell the man you’ll come see him when you’re good and ready.”

Shawn sat alone in the dim glow provided by the frame of lights around the makeup mirror, slowly tissuing the remaining cold cream from his face. Thinking. “Don’t go changing.” Well, that was the thing with Roscoe, wasn’t it? He didn’t like who Shawn was, rather what Shawn was. It’s what broke them up. “Don’t waste your talent,” Roscoe had told him when he’d professed to wanting to explore what being a drag queen was all about. According to Roscoe, drag queens were no talent hacks or over-the-top comedians with a twist. Okay, maybe those weren’t his exact words but the meaning had been clear. Roscoe didn’t seem to mind that Shawn liked to wear skirts and makeup, but he’d hit the roof when Shawn had wanted to explore the life for real. Shawn had done the leaving, but Roscoe’s attempt to direct his personal life had made it impossible to continue living together. They hadn’t spoken since Shawn had taken his meager belongings out of Roscoe’s loft to find another place to live in a city he’d only lived in for two years. Shawn had grown past him, found a life, and was doing perfectly fine on his own.

So what the hell did Roscoe want now?

ALL THAT JAZZ – CHARLIE COCHRANE

Brighton, January

“He had it coming. He had it coming.”

One of the merry murderesses was strolling along past the door, getting every part of a strident voice properly tuned up for the dress rehearsal. “If you’d have been there, if you’d have seen it…” The song faded as the singer turned one of the corners of the labyrinthine backstage corridor, heading for the communal homicidal dressing room.

Velma Kelly made a miniscule adjustment to her eyeliner, emphasising her naturally dark blue eyes and creating an effect which was seductive as well as overtly theatrical. Getting the right effect, one which reached to the back row of the circle but didn’t make the people in the front row of the stalls think you were made up with oil paint, was an art in itself. Juliet had the knack and Velma was grateful to have her skills to call on. Juliet had been a dresser and make-up artist for twenty years, having amassed a fund of wisdom and risque stories. She plied everyone with anecdotes of the great, mediocre and downright useless. And she wielded a mean panstick-the company had been lucky to get hold of someone so capable.

“When you’re good to Mama…” A higher pitched voice went past the dressing room door, slightly croaking and subtly out of tune. Not one of the cast this time. Maybe a stagehand putting on the falsetto, or even the doorman, who was built like the side of a barn and probably sang counter tenor.

Velma considered her reflection again. Luscious waves of hair from the black Louise Brooks style wig framed her heart shaped face-it was a decent black wig, to boot, not something that looked like it had come off a dead cat. That sweet face would be vying with the slightly more lantern-jawed features of Roxie Hart for the hearts of the audience in only a few evenings’ time. Opening night seemed to have been a bloody long time coming, the traumas of auditions rounding the corner into the mixed excitement and ennui of rehearsal, then going into the home straight of being in a real theatre rather than just a church hall.

Sorting the technical stuff seemed to have taken forever. Velma knew she should be more patient, should be taking more of an interest in that side of things. The guys on the team worked their backsides off getting the practical aspects right and there were plenty of them in this show. Somehow thinking about the nuts and bolts just seemed to get in the way of what she felt was real theatre. People with their feet on a stage, reaching out to those with their bums on the seats. Strip all the lights and sound equipment and props away, and it was as simple as that.

A small tattoo on the door brought Velma’s thoughts back from performance to reality. “Come in.”

“Just wanted to say ‘break a leg.’” Freddie Wright, the director, put his head round the door, his usual smile not entirely hiding his nerves. There was a lot riding on this production, for all of them. Musicals had a habit of failing, even productions of something as seemingly gilt-edged as this one.

“I’ll ignore the cliche and take all the good wishes lying behind it.” Velma smiled. A lot of affection existed between director and star. They’d known each other since University days, when third year Freddie had taken this seemingly innocent young fresher under his wing. A lot of water had passed under the bridge-or been passed over the parapet on drunken nights-since then.

“You’ll be swell.” Freddie grinned.

“I’ll be great. I’ll have the whole world on a plate.” Velma resisted putting the tune to the words. “Maybe.”

“No time for doubts. Or if it is, they have to be gone for the preview night. Brighton expects and so do I.” Freddie gave a mock salute. “Just off to give Roxie the pep talk as well.”

“Not one for Billy Flynn?” Velma returned the salute by rising and giving a deep curtsey, one that would probably mean readjusting her tights afterwards. Bloody stupid things, seams.

“Nah. He’s the least worried of the lot of you. Done the role four times, amateur through to pro. Could do it in his sleep.”

“Sometimes it seems that’s just how he is doing it…” Velma’s voice followed the director out into the corridor. She’d just got the left seam to a ramrod straight perfection on her left calf when the stage manager’s runner came along, knocking on the door.

“Five minutes, Mr. Yardley.”

“Thank you.” For a moment, a dreadfully long vulnerable moment, Francis Yardley remembered who he really was. Not Liza Minnelli or Chita Rivera, just a bloke from Stoke Newington who happened to have both a brain and a pair of pins to match Cyd Charisse’s. One who’d talked his way into a university production of Oklahoma during his fresher year, and had turned out to be a more than acceptable Curly McLain to an utterly appalling Laurey Williams. It had been a modest start, but a start nonetheless.

Curly McLain had led to Billy Flynn in Chicago-yeah, he’d played that part as well, second year at university. By the time he’d finished, the passable second class degree under his belt had been joined by a range of amateur roles. Freddie was starting to fly by then, getting his directorial feet under the table in the provinces. He’d taken Francis along with him, bypassing back and even front rows of the chorus, and heading straight for Evelyn Oakleigh. You rarely got a better start, even if Evelyn Oakleigh, Billy Crocker, Velma Kelly, wasn’t a natural progression.

“Overture and beginners.” The disembodied voice moved around backstage, hollering the lines which got the adrenaline flowing, penetrating to the most meagre of the dressing rooms and fading away into the depths of the labyrinth. “Overture and beginners.” It came through the crack where the door wasn’t quite closed and brought Francis back to the present with a bump. That was his call and he needed to get his arse in gear.

Another glance in the mirror and a last deep breath. Off with Francis, on with Velma, and off to the wings.

HIS LEADING MAN – KIMBERLY GARDNER

David Sullivan liked parties. He really did. And as L.A. Parties went, this was a damn fine one. Beautiful house on the beach, beautiful night with warm fragrant breezes, dozens of networking opportunities almost literally within touching distance and, oh yeah, some of the finest man-flesh he’d seen since his arrival in southern California three days ago, all combined to make this evening’s gathering a pretty sweet deal for an all around nobody and newcomer to the movie business like himself.

“Hey, Sully, look over there. Isn’t that what’s-his-name?” Gavin Collier nudged his arm.

Vodka sloshed over the back of David’s hand, narrowly missing his jacket sleeve. He followed the direction of his friend’s gaze toward a knot of extremely attractive men all laughing and talking. “Which one?”

“The gorgeous one. God, do I have to point? Right there.”

Everyone at this party was gorgeous, but David didn’t bother to say so. For that matter, everyone he’d seen in L.A. was gorgeous. It must be an unwritten rule or something that you had to be a hottie to reside within the city limits.

“I still don’t know who you mean, Gav.” David sipped his vodka tonic.

“He was in Quentin Tarantino’s last film. I can’t remember his name, but I know you know who I mean.”

“Sure, Quentin Tarantino. Whatever.” David scanned the crowded terrace. Mmm, the eye-candy was out in force tonight. He followed the movements of a petite young man in skin-tight jeans and midriff-baring t-shirt as he broke away from one group of partiers and drifted toward another.

David had had his eye on the little cutie since he and Gavin had stepped out onto the terrace. That was thirty minutes ago and so far he hadn’t stuck with any particular man or woman for more than a few minutes at a stretch. No, David decided, taking another sip, the little hottie was most definitely on his own. Thank you God.

Tossing back the remainder of his drink, David set down his empty glass and touched Gavin’s elbow. “See that guy over there?”

Gavin nodded. “Mmm, I certainly do. He looks delicious. Think I’d like to peel him out of those jeans and lick him all over.”

“Sorry, man, I saw him first, so that means the licking rights are all mine.” He grinned. “I’m going over to talk to him. And hopefully leave with him, so if I don’t see you later, I’ll see you later, yeah?”

“Going to ask if he wants to audition for you?” The question was accompanied by a salacious wink.

David laughed. “Perv. I never use my career credentials to get laid.”

Gavin grinned. “Yeah well, that’s because your credentials and five bucks might get you a latte at Starbucks, but that’s about it.”

“Fuck off,” David said good-naturedly.

“Gavin, there you are. And David, it’s great to see you.” Christine Ferrar, Gavin’s sister and the party’s hostess, appeared seemingly from nowhere. Rising on her toes, she kissed David’s cheek then thumbed lipstick from the corner of his mouth. “I’m so glad you could make it, sweetie.” She turned to her brother. “How’s the seminar going? McKee is fabulous, isn’t he? I’m telling you, once you’ve taken his seminar, you will never watch movies the same way again.”

“We aren’t taking McKee’s seminar, Sissy. I told you that.” Gavin rattled the ice in his glass.

“Did you?” She blinked wide blue eyes. “Oh. Well, I would have sworn that’s what you said. Well, you should. You both should. He really is fabulous.”

“You’ve taken his seminar?” With one eye on Christine, David watched as his little brunet hottie leaned in and laughed up at a tall, gray-haired man in a cream-colored jacket.

Damn. That was so not good.

“Me? No, I don’t go in for that sort of thing.” She laughed, a lovely musical sound like the tinkle of fine crystal. “But that’s what everyone says, so there must be some truth in it, right?”

Gray-hair slid his arm around Hottie’s trim waist and tugged him in close.

Crap.

“Gavin, sweetie, you don’t mind if I steal David for a minute, do you?” Without waiting for an answer, Christine slid her arm through David’s. “I have someone I’m dying to introduce you to. I just know he would be perfect for yours and Gavin’s film.”

“Actually, Chris,” Gavin said, “David was just about to-”

But if his sister heard him, no one would have guessed it. As Christine turned on her stiletto, Gavin shrugged as if to say, “sorry, man, I tried.” David gave a small shake of his head that said no big deal as she towed him across the terrace and in through the sliding glass door.

He found himself in a massive grown-up playroom replete with sixty-inch plasma TV, antique jukebox, pinball machine, pool table, and fully-stocked wet-bar.

The playroom was even more crowded than the terrace and the roar of dozens of conversations competed with blaring music, something techno with a driving bass that David didn’t recognize, raising the indoor decibel level to near ear-splitting. He bid a silent goodbye to his chances with the brunet hottie and allowed himself to be led, or dragged, through the crowd by Gavin’s sister.

“This guy is gorgeous,” Christine yelled above the din. “I mean literally to die for. And he’s a real sweetie too. I just know you two are going to hit it off.”

Uh-oh. Inside David’s head alarm bells began to shriek. Beware of scary fix-up attempt at ten o’clock.

He tried to gently extract his arm from her clutches. “Chris, as much as I appreciate the intro, I really have to-”

But just as she’d done to her brother, Christine ignored him. Big surprise there. Gavin’s sister was nothing if not determined, which probably had a lot to do with how she’d gotten to be a major player in the entertainment press with a nationally syndicated column and a blog that logged a ton of hits every week.

With no choice short of physical force, he followed docilely along until she pulled him to a stop. Her hand remained firmly attached to his arm, as if she was sure he might bolt if she let go. “Kieran, sweetie, here’s the guy I was telling you about.”

Kieran?

The alarms in David’s brain went instantly to full red alert, nuclear meltdown imminent. It couldn’t be.

But yes, yes it was.

“David, this is Kieran Reilly. Kieran, honey, this is David Sullivan. Kieran is the star of that new cable series, What a Drag. I’m sure you’ve seen it. It’s like Sex in the City except with drag queens.”

“Cross-dressers,” Kieran corrected. His eyes had gone very wide; those beautiful, intensely blue eyes.

God, how could he have forgotten how blue Kieran’s eyes were.

“Hmm?” Christine lifted one finely arched dark brow.

“Cross-dressers. The only drag queen on the show is Cleo. The rest of us are cross-dressers.”

“Oh. Well. Drag queens, cross-dressers. In any case, it’s a fabulous show.” She touched Kieran’s shoulder. “And the shoes! Honey, I would die to get my hands on some of those shoes. They are simply divine!”

Kieran laughed, but it sounded a little forced. “Tell me about it. You should see my shoe closet these days.”

Christine laughed too. Her gaze was sharp as she glanced from Kieran to David and gave a little nod. “Well, I’m sure you two will have a lot to talk about, so I’ll just scurry along. Can’t neglect my other guests, you know.”

And with that she faded into the crowd, leaving them alone.

There was a moment of awkward silence where they just stood there looking at each other. Well, Kieran was looking. David, for his part, devoured Kieran with his eyes. He felt like a man who had been stranded in the desert, dying of thirst, who had now suddenly been presented with a cool, clear waterfall in the form of his ex-boyfriend, the only man in his life who had ever successfully won and then broken his heart, a heart Kieran still held, whether he knew it or not.

“So,” Kieran said, dragging out the single syllable. “Which one of us is going to tell her that she didn’t just make the match of the century?”

“I was sort of waiting for you to do it. I don’t really know her that well.”

“Don’t look at me.” Kieran sipped his drink. “Sorry, but I didn’t want to see our past mistakes splashed across the front of Tine’s blog tomorrow morning.”

The barb struck home, sudden and sharp. “Is that what it was, a past mistake?”

“You know what I mean.” Kieran lowered his voice. His gaze scanned the immediate vicinity as if he was afraid they would be overheard.

“No, I don’t think I do.” David looked around. Suddenly he wanted a drink very badly, if only to have something to do with his hands. His damn hands that kept wanting to reach out and touch Kieran, maybe just to see if he was real. Or maybe to pull him close and see if they still fit together as well as they once had.

Because he was afraid that they would indeed fit just as well, maybe better, he balled his hands into fists and stuck them in the pockets of his linen jacket.

Kieran looked so damn good, so damn touchable, with his dark hair falling in wild curls around his perfect, heart-shaped face, his gorgeous eyes dramatically shadowed and lined, and his lips, full and wet and begging to be tasted.

Fool.

Those pretty lips turned down at the corners and Kieran’s slim shoulders sagged. “Look, David, I didn’t mean… That is, can we start over?” he set his glass down on a nearby table and held out his hand. “Hi, my name’s Kieran. Nice party, isn’t it?” He smiled that heart-stopping smile that still haunted David’s dreams. “It’s a little warm in here, don’t you think? Would you maybe like to take a walk outside?”

For a moment David couldn’t breathe. He stared at Kieran’s extended hand. Oh, this was such a bad idea. He shrugged. “Sure. Let’s walk out by the pool.”

Because he so much wanted to, rather than take that hand, he turned and led the way back through the crowd. Opening the sliding door, he stood aside and waited for Kieran to go ahead. Though he promised himself he would not look, his gaze was inexorably drawn to the tempting swell of Kieran’s ass under shimmering blue silk.

The outfit was some kind of tunic over loose-fitting pants, both were the color of sea and sky on the most brilliant of summer days. The tunic fell to mid-thigh and should have concealed more than it revealed. But thanks to the drape of the silk, David could see every perfectly delineated muscle, the sleek line of slim hips and lean thighs, the trim waist and, oh yeah, the delectable roundness of Kieran’s tight little butt as he stepped through the door and onto the terrace.

Once outside, David half-turned toward the bar. “Do you want a drink?”

Kieran shook his head. “I’m good. But if you want one I’ll wait right here while you get it.”

“No. No, that’s fine. I don’t really need one either. Let’s just walk.”

Rather than heading toward the pool, Kieran gestured toward a path that led around the side of the house. “Let’s go this way. Do you mind? There are some people over there that I’d rather not have to talk to.”

It was on the tip of David’s tongue to ask if he himself didn’t fall into that category, but he swallowed the question back down. It was a beautiful night and beautiful nights were not made for confrontation.

The air was balmy with a light breeze off the ocean and no sign of the rain that had been predicted earlier in the day. As they rounded the side of the house, the scent of flowers tickled David’s nose and soon he knew why. He found himself entering a lush garden with profusions of flowers blooming everywhere. They spilled from beds and speared out of pots and scented the darkness with their rich perfume. A gravel path twisted around bushes and under trellises heavy with climbing roses and lit with tiny fairy lights. In the center of it all shimmered a pool of water with a small waterfall burbling over rocks at the far end, its musical splash blending with the crash of waves against the distant beach.

Kieran led the way to a small, white wrought iron bench.

He sank down on it with a sigh and, after a moment’s hesitation, David sat next to him.

“I love this place.” Another sigh.

“It’s a great house.” The bench was small, their hips snugged up close, Kieran’s thigh pressed warm and solid along the length of David’s. He shifted, trying to gain some space, but there was nowhere to go.

“It is a nice house, but I meant this place, this garden. It’s peaceful. Sitting here you can almost forget that there’s anyone else around, maybe even in the whole world.”

It was true. Although they were not all that far from the terrace, the sounds of the party were little more than a distant murmur, nearly inaudible under the splash of the tiny waterfall and the pounding of the surf.

It was beautiful and very, very romantic.

“Is peace what you’re looking for?” David asked.

“Hmm? What do you mean?”

“You said you like this place because it’s so peaceful. I was just wondering…” He let the question trail off, mostly because he wasn’t sure what exactly he’d been wondering.

“It just gets to be a bit much sometimes, all the people and the cameras and having to watch everything you say. Sometimes you just want to turn it all off and just be.” Kieran laughed a little. “That must sound really odd to you, doesn’t it? I mean, after all the work to get where I am, after all the struggle and disappointment and now… Hell, it sounds odd to me and I’m the one saying it.” He touched the back of David’s hand, very lightly, just with the tips of his fingers. “I didn’t mean what I said before, you know, about past mistakes. I don’t think of our relationship that way.”

David didn’t know what to say. Suddenly he was in the middle of a minefield where a single misstep or unwise move might result in catastrophe. So he just sat there, saying nothing, not moving and almost not breathing. Just being, and, yeah, it was nice.

“Do you?” Kieran asked very quietly.

“Do I what?”

“Think of it that way, as a mistake?”

Yes. It was a horrible mistake, the worst mistake he’d ever made. But not the relationship. No, the mistake had been letting Kieran Reilly slip out of his life.

Beside him, Kieran shifted, started to rise. Clearly he’d taken David’s silence as an affirmative. “I’m sorry. We should just-”

“No.” David caught Kieran’s hand and tugged him back onto the bench. “Don’t go.”

In the reflected light from the fountain Kieran’s eyes were luminous, the blue so dark it looked black.

Title	The Wages of Sin
Author	Alex Beecroft
ISBN#	978-1-60820-125-9 (ebook)
Release Date	January 2010
Paperback:	230 pages
Available At:	MlrBooks (ebook)

Charles Latham, wastrel younger son of the Earl of Clitheroe, returns home drunk from the theatre to find his father gruesomely dead. He suspects murder. But when the Latham ghosts turn nasty, and Charles finds himself falling in love with the priest brought in to calm them, he has to unearth the skeleton in the family closet before it ends up killing them all.

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

Moonlight sucked the colour from damp grass and silvered rising wisps of dew. The deer-park lay dim and still to Charles’ left, receding to a black horizon. To his right, the Latham family chapel loomed dark against the lead-colored sky.

Sultan’s hooves whispered across the verge as Charles rode past the private graveyard’s wrought iron gate and averted his eyes from the white glimmer of Sir Henry’s mausoleum. It was one thing to laugh together over newspaper reports of vampires in Prussia while reclining in the comfortable lewdness of an actor’s garret—lamps blazing, the magic revealed as greasepaint, squalor and hard work—quite another to think of it here, beneath a slice of pewter moon, in a silence so huge it annihilated him.

A fox cried. Sultan snorted, ears flicking. His own heart racing, Charles gentled the horse over the gravel drive that swept up to the white Grecian pillars of the mansion. They turned towards the stable-yard—coach houses, stalls and groom’s quarters arranged about an enclosed square, entered by a short cobbled tunnel beneath the stable-master’s rooms. Both of them balked at the darkness beneath the arch, Sultan sidestepping as Charles dismounted. He wrenched his wrist, landed with a slap and slither loud enough to conceal the footsteps of a thousand walking corpses and stood propped against the horse’s strong shoulder, gathering himself. Sultan’s warm, straw-scented breath spiralled up comfortingly into the pre-dawn sky.

“Easy there, Sultan. Nothing to worry about.”

Thanking God that no one was watching his folly, Charles slung an arm about Sultan’s neck, took the hilt of his sword in the other hand. Emboldened by the feel of it, he urged Sultan forwards, towards his own stall and rest.

In the pitch black under the gatehouse the several pints of inferior porter he had drunk at the theatre made their presence known again. The night swayed about him and the world receded, until all his reality was the horse hair and leather beneath his hands. Falling asleep on my feet. Just the state of weakness most likely to attract the devil, or his minions… Or my father.

There was a more rational threat. As he took off Sultan’s tack, fumbled around in the dark making sure the weary animal was supplied with hay and water, the thought of Ambrose Latham drove away all other terrors. “You wastrel,” his father would bellow, loud enough to echo in the kitchens and make all the servants sit up in glee. “You mother’s milk-sop boy with your clever friends and your expensive women. Do you think I built up this family’s fortune only to have it squandered by you, sirrah? Do you?”

Having drunk, Sultan nudged his shoulder, leaving a smudge of dirty water and horse-snot on the jonquil silk of his jacket, pulling him up again from his reverie. He still had to get inside without being seen, and it was now less late at night than very early in the morning. If his luck was bad, those very servants might have already begun to wake. They could be standing, watching him as he rolled through the front door with his wig in his pocket and his blond hair singed and sooty from sitting too close to Theo Tidy’s spike of tallow candles.

What did you expect, sir, when you sent me to University? That I would slake my appetite for learning in a mere three years, and be content to rusticate thereafter, among a company whose highest pinnacle of wit is to describe their new carriage for four hours together? I honour you for opening my mind to a wider world, but I cannot now go back to the provincial concerns from which you raised me.

A small pain, dull and heavy as a shotgun pellet, caught him just below the breastbone at the thought. Truth was he didn’t want to be a disappointment to Ambrose Latham, Fourth Earl of Clitheroe. He didn’t want to be a drain on his family’s resources or a blot on their reputation. But, forbidden as he was to join army or church, in case George should crack his head hunting and a spare heir be required, what else was there? If he could find some subject on which to become an authority, perhaps? If he could get himself invited by the Royal Society to give talks, his erudition the toast of newspapers and coffee-houses all over London? But what subject interested both the learned gentlemen and himself? They had no taste for plays.

Annoyed by his own hopeless thoughts, Charles nudged Sultan’s nose towards the basket of hay, reeled out of the door. By God, did he only have a choice of pathos or fear? Was he to be a coward as well as an embarrassment?

Four steps out of the stables, away from the horses’ drowsy whickering, and the answer seemed to be “yes.” Silence arched over the world like a collector’s dome pressed over a doomed insect. The shift of pebbles beneath his feet sounded obscenely loud. Something snapped a twig as it walked beneath the distant oaks, and it might have been a pistol shot. He tried to think of Theo—actor manager, wit, raconteur. If he could only have some of Theo’s relentless cheer to armour him now. It was foolish, childish, to find himself with clammy hands, muffling his breath in case it made him miss the faint noise of the creature shambling behind him… Oh damn!

He stopped, rejected the thought of returning to the stables to sleep. He was not a coward! Summoning up Theo’s filthiest anecdote, the one he didn’t fully understand, he put his head down and walked—walked mind you—out to the drive.

As he turned towards the house, Theo failed him. Charles’ imagination populated the lane behind him with horrors. What if they did exist? In this silence, anything that fed on blood should sense his heart speeding in his chest. Would they make a noise as they prowled? Would he hear anything before the creature’s hand came out of the darkness, dragged him to its insatiable mouth?

No, it was nonsense. Absolute tosh. No rational man could possibly believe… And yet, would the Prussians really send officials to dig up graves, make observations and write reports if there wasn’t something in it?

He swallowed, panting, and thought about what his father would have to say about this. But even that threat failed. Truth was he’d be glad if Clitheroe slammed open the door, lantern in hand, and gave him a piece of his mind. Please do, father. A nice long peroration to follow me up to bed and banish my own thoughts. Come down and shout at me. Please.

But the façade of the house remained shut. Did the marble portico and the sweep of stairs up to the entrance look gloomier than they had? Well, what of it? The moon must simply be going down.

Stopping again, he bit his lip until the blood flowed. Then turned. He clutched at his sword hilt, and slowly, shakily let it go. Yes, the moon had gone behind cloud. The trees of the park sighed in the wind, and that man-like pale shimmer beneath them… was only the statue of General Percival Latham attired in the robes of a Roman senator.

Leaning over to prop his hands on his knees in the weakness of relief, Charles gave a small spasm of laughter. As he did so the wind strengthened, the trees roared, and terror rose out of the ground around him like a fog. His breath hung white in the black air. Cold bit through alcoholic haze, jacket and flesh, piercing him to the bone. The skin across his shoulders and down his arms rippled as the hair stood up, and the little voice of reason within him blew out like a candle flame.

Chest heaving, his shallow breath scorching his throat, he turned again. There was something wrong with the house; darkness oozed over it like a coating of oil. A shadow sucked away from the stone and came flooding out towards him in a whispering tide. His legs locked. His bowels froze. He lifted an arm to push the black tide away, and so it touched his hand first. Burning cold. Faintly gritty. Sticky as cobwebs. It slid up his fingers, around his palm, burrowed beneath his cuff. Clammy strands touched the inside of his elbow, the pit of his arm, and then it flowed over his face.

No! Oh God! He pinched his eyes and mouth shut. Strands of it, like the tendrils of long filthy hair, brushed across his lips. Then something groaned by his ear. He heard the wet noise of an opened mouth. Shuddering, he let out a little ‘nnn!’ of terror, groping for his sword, his hand pushing through the cloud as if through sand. The thing by his face giggled, and dust pattered on his eyelids. He bit down hard on the mounting desire to scream. God forbid he should breathe it in!

Dimly, beyond the voice whispering with gleeful hatred in his ear, came a sound like racing hooves. Was it the wind or his own blood stoppered in his breathless body thundering in his ears? Dizziness swept through him and his locked knees gave way. He staggered forward, his lungs screaming for air, agony shooting along his ribs, and thought again of Theo; that half-joking, half-challenging offer of a kiss. Maybe he should have taken the man up on it after all. Sin aside, it seemed a shame to die, never having been kissed.

His fingertips grazed his sword hilt. A final push and he could close clumsy fingers around the hilt. He drew the blade, and as he did so something hit him in the back so hard it lifted him off his feet. For a moment he thought he would crack between the two forces like a louse between fingernails. Then the night air was clean again, and with a confused rush, a red pain in his cheek and shoulder, he was suddenly lying on the drive with a face full of gravel and two men pulling at his coat.

“What? What? Did you see it?” He batted their hands away, scrambled up and made a frantic circle, searching for the thing. Was it gone? Let it be gone!

Doctor Floyd’s landau stood with lanterns swinging and open doors, all glorious green leather and brass, just in front of him. Beside him, Dr. Floyd—almost a perfect sphere in his greatcoat—reached out a glacially cautious hand as if to restrain him. Charles turned, grabbed the man by his black velvet collar and shouted again, “Did you see it!”

A colourless, fat man, whose professional life seemed to have prematurely embalmed him, Floyd leaned away. He blinked, slowly as a torpid lizard, while propriety and self preservation warred behind his eyes.

“We almost run you over, Mr. Charles.” Floyd’s groom spoke with the reassuring tone he used to his horses. Protectively, he interposed his beaming red face between Charles and his master, put a gnarled but gentle hand on Charles’ wrist. “What you doing out here in the road in the dark anyway? Come to get us, was you? You’d’ve done better wait in the hall.”

Charles shook his head, tried to speak and could not force words past the chattering of his teeth. His grip on the Doctor’s coat gave way, and he would have fallen if the two men had not moved in and caught him in their practiced grip.

“The blanket, Sam, and less of your chatter. Here, Mr. Charles, take a drink of this.”

A heavy blanket around his shoulders and a long drink of brandy later, Charles let Sam tuck him into the corner of the carriage, concentrated on trying to stop trembling. As he did so, Floyd clambered in beside him.

“I’m most terribly sorry, Mr. Charles. Your brother’s message was so urgent. We weren’t expecting… And I must say I was looking towards the house. I saw nothing in the road until Jewel clipped you as she passed.”

Charles wrapped his arms around himself and chafed his biceps to get some warmth into them. Cold radiated out from the marrow of his bones. But the old felted blanket around him glowed in the lantern light with blue, yellow and red stripes, speckled with dog hair. He basked in wet dog smell, brass polish, leather wax, and Floyd’s orange-flower-water cologne. These things and the terror that had passed could not exist in the same world, surely?

“A cloud,” he said, in a reedy, shocked voice. “There was a cloud. A black cloud. It… rushed at me, and…”

“Most probably the dust cloud from the landau, sir.” Sam spoke over his shoulder as he flicked the whip encouragingly above Jewel’s ears.

“No it…”

“Yes, that would account for it. Undoubtedly why we neither of us saw the other coming.” Floyd nodded, fished out a handkerchief and wiped his cheeks and forehead with fingers only a little less unsteady than Charles’. “You, um. You fell upon your head, sir. And, mm, if my nose doesn’t guide me wrongly, have already imbibed a fair amount of… mm, conviviality. No doubt you are also distressed about your father. I think we need look no further for the cause of a temporary, understandable, overturning of the wits.”

“That’s not how it…” Charles clutched the blanket more closely, trapped a pawprint between his knee and the seat. The dried mud flaked off and scattered to the floor, and a convulsive choke of disgust forced its way out of him at the patter of falling soil. He smeared it underfoot, looked down blankly for a moment before the words finally penetrated his understanding.

The landau swept through the great curve before the marble steps of the portico. Lights now glimmered in the hall, and as they drew up George flung open the door. His candle showed a white, sickened face, its distinguished lines set in strain.

“My father?” Charles rose to his feet, holding tight to the calash of the landau as it sprayed gravel with the speed of its stop. A fist of dread tightened beneath his breastbone and the waves of shivering returned full force. “What’s wrong with…?”

George ran down the stairs. The light shone on his open shirt and bare feet as his scarlet silk banyan trailed behind him. His uncovered hair shone silver-gilt. It was the first time in years Charles had seen his brother so careless of his appearance, and his wild unconscious beauty added a new terror to the night.

Flinging down his candle, George caught Dr. Floyd as he bent to retrieve his bag and hauled him bodily out onto the grass. Floyd raised an eyebrow at the treatment, while George in turn gaped at the sight of Charles leaping down beside him.

“Oh I do have a brother then? No, say nothing, this isn’t the time. You’d best come too.”

Charles followed his brother’s impatient strides past the stone pineapples on the sweep of white stairs. Their footsteps echoed and re-echoed like a volley of rifle-fire against the chequered black and white marble of the entrance hall. A candelabrum set on a table within lit Doric pillars and the portraits of his ancestors with a bubble of amber light. The door up from the kitchen stood partially open. Blurs of white faces, above white shifts, showed ghostlike in the crack.

On the landing, George’s valet Sykes stood waiting with a candlestick in his hand, his cravat lopsided and his chin shadowed by an aggressive growth of black stubble. Another twist in the garrotte of fear about Charles’ throat. They were normally both of them so impeccable. “George! What’s…?”

“Just,” George flung up a hand, “be quiet.” He took the candle and whispered to Sykes. “Stand outside the door. Mrs. Latham’s rest is not to be disturbed under any circumstances. Should Mrs. Sheldrake awaken, you may inform her, but you will not permit her to come in.”

“I understand.”

They hurried down the passage, their feet silent now on the runner of blue and white carpet. Outside the windows at either end of the corridor, the night pressed inwards. As they stopped outside his father’s room, George dropped a hand to the doorknob and bent that exposed, vulnerable head. “I feel I ought to warn you. It isn’t… Ah. Well. See for yourself.”

Candlelight caught the cream and gold plastered walls, glittered like the ends of pins in the tassels of the bed-curtains and the gold embroidered comforter that lay in a kicked off crumple against the claw-footed legs of the bed. The fire had been made and burned clear yellow in the grate.

Soberly, imagination finally at bay, Charles did what his soldier ancestors would have expected of him. He walked forward into the line of fire, looked down.

Ambrose Latham, Earl of Clitheroe, lay on his back in his nightgown, his limbs fettered by the sheets, his swollen face purple. His open mouth brimmed with vomit. Across his nose, lips and chin the mark of a woman’s hand stood out in livid white. His nostrils were stopped with earth.

This is the first in Maltese’s m/m “I” SERIES of books that will eventually include I, HUSTLER; I, SATYR; I, VOYEUR; I, MASTER; I, SLAVE; I, CATAMITE… I, DEBAUCHEE takes Maltese fans on a roller-coaster ride into the depths of corruption by intemperance and sensuality as one man is led and, then, leads others, via seduction, on the all-too-easily-taken detour from duty and virtue to homosexual excess and self-indulgence.
****************

Chapter One

I fucked Mallory von Burel on the large four-poster bed … as I’d fucked him in the basement dark room where I’d chained him to a wall, shackled to a rack, where I’d manacled his arms, head, and legs to a stake … as I’d fucked him in the Main Room of the Lodge with its galleries of stuffed animal heads, so many of them with record-breaking horns, but none as horny as Mallory and I … as I’d fucked him in the manicured parkland, his back and ass cushioned by emerald-green sylvan moss…

He was on his knees, kow-towed so his ass was elevated, his arms wrapping a pillow, his right cheek against the bright orange of a Draqualian-silk sheet. The exquisite overall tan of his body, with the exception of where a small European-style bikini swim suit was worn during more than one sunning session, looked even more impressive against the colorful backdrop. The rest of our covers were thrown back so that I had full view of the exquisite handsomeness of the young man I butt-fucked. The line from his asscrack to the nape of his neck was parenthesized by an intricate interplay of muscle in movement as I pressed my cock deep inside of him and, then, pulled free until only my cock’s corona remained implanted inside the rubber-band moue that was his gumming sphincter.

I firmly gripped his hips, not only to steady him but to exert those slight pulls and pushes that first securely anchored his asshole over my dick, then, slid him almost free of it. Occasionally, my cock fully buried, I let go just long enough to put my handprints to his asscheeks in coordinated slaps that had a way of echoing loudly in the large bedroom.

“How does it feel to have my man-meat shoved oh-so-deeply up your man-pussy, kid?” I slightly changed the angle of my hips so that I was deep-diving my cock up his asshole from an entirely different direction than the last time.

“Feels good.” His naturally deep voice was made all the more sexy by being punctuated with his little grunts that interrupted his speaking cadence.

“On a scale of one to ten, ten being the very best?”

“Eleven,” he said. “All of your fucks are elevens, except for your twelves and thirteens.”

“Flattery will get you a continuing good fuck, kid.” I was more than eager to do my best by him, and not just because I promised his father.

I like Mallory very much. I like fucking him very much. What’s more, I like the feel of his dick each and every time I let it plug my asshole, or drill through my tonsils and into my throat. My enjoyment, surprisingly enough, was experienced even the very first time I let him have at me, his cock having never before been up an asshole before it was up mine. My asshole admittedly so jaded to fucking by hard cock, by the time that Mallory’s young dick was in it, I was genuinely amazed by how his first–time efforts somehow managed to conjure pleasure for me beyond what some truly experienced dicks had managed before his. The kid has turned out to be a natural at getting fucked and at fucking.

“You’ve surprised me by how well you’ve taken to packing shit up my asshole, and getting your shit packed by me in return,” I said. Certainly, I never saw it coming, and had been more than a little reluctant to take on the not always pleasurable task of initiating a novice into my way of life, seen by many as pure and unadulterated debauchery.

“I wanted to be fucked by you, and to fuck you, from the first moment I saw the picture on dad’s grand piano of you and my father at the Countess Marchensa’s Grand Summer Ball in Venice,” he said, not able to get it all out in one smooth sentence because of his attending guttural gasps caused by my pumping dick continuing to stick him. “There was just something about you, almost naked, except for a few leather straps and a thong, which gave me a boner from the get-go.”

“You do know that your father was afraid you’d come to look upon all of this as deviant behavior, and leave him a second time?”

“If I’d been eighteen sooner, I would have been knocking on his door a long time before mom took her dive off that yacht in Cannes. I always knew dad could offer me more, by way of fun and games, than could my hypocritical mother who locked me away in the equivalent of a monastery while she went out and played the whore.”

“How did your asshole survive private school?” I put my dick fully inside him, once again, so that my sable-brown pubic hair pressed indents into the inner curves of his buttocks.

“I always knew I was saving myself for someone and something better than anything my fumbling peers had to offer, and I was strong enough to fend off the advances of even the biggest bully.” Mallory gave his ass a skillful roll, like I’d taught him, which sensuously slid his asshole around the bolt of my stuck dick. The kid, from the beginning, has been a fast learner, and he retains pretty much all he’s learned. If his sexuality had been on hold during his adolescence in that Swiss Catholic boys’ school, he’s making up for it by blossoming in the world his father has now opened for him.

For the minute, we quit talking and pretty much started communicating merely via a series of our grunts and groans, moans and sighs, accompanied by the increasing speed and cacophony resulting from the speed-up of my fucking his butt.

My nuts had elevated from any semblance of low-hang to look like burls configured at the base of my fucking tree-trunk dick. Mallory’s sizable nuts were, likewise, gathered about the roots of his impressive erection.

“I’m getting close,” I told him in language not completely garbled by my swelling pleasure. “If you want to get off with me, you might want to start doing some speedy hand-stroking of your stiff dick.”

“I don’t think I’m going to need any hand-stroking,” he said. “I think it’s going to be another orgasm for me with nothing but your cock fucked up my butt to do the deed.”

It had happened with him and me before. I was always flattered when it did, since I seldom have it happen to someone I fuck, and it has never happened to me with someone’s cock up my asshole. There is a definite satisfaction in knowing that what I do, I do so well that the obvious stud on the other end of my dick is excited enough to need nothing more than me inside of him to jump-start his orgasm.

“Hold tight to the bed, buddy,” I said, “because I’m just about ready to finish my … ohhhh, Jesus, fuck! … ride.”

I wasn’t kidding, either. His asshole was just so marvelously wrapped about my dick, when I was fully slotted inside him … and it was just so reluctant to let my prick free, when I pulled out. Despite all of the natural lubricant with which I’d soaked the inside of his anus — my cock a profuse natural leaker — his asshole never seemed any looser. In fact, quite the opposite, as if my pre-cum somehow converted to alum, and made the whole corridor of his fucked rectum pucker.

“Come your cum inside me!” he commanded. “I want it. I need it. Fuck me … ugh .. ugh …. Screw me! Fucking-A, drown me in your spunk!”

“Oh, shit!” I said and slotted my dick all of the way, leaving it there, my belly locked tightly against his sweaty ass cheeks.

I held to him tightly, dropped my head back on my neck so that my Adam’s apple pointed directly toward the canopy directly above us.

“I’m coming” I said, as if there could be any doubt about it in the face of my powerful eruption. My nuts were hydrants expelling my seed, through my stiff dick, with the intensity of water under pressure through a fire hose meant to douse an in-progress runaway conflagration.

“Oh, fuck … yes … yes … yes!” Mallory said.

I knew from the way his asshole suddenly grasped tightly to my cum-spewing dick that his prick was in eruption, leaving the orange Draqual sheet soaked beneath his chest and belly.

Our mutual orgasms left us panting as hard and as loud as two athletes having just successfully completed a fast-run marathon.

It was hard for me to imagine, at that point, that Mallory had come to me a virgin and ended up already such an expert in the short time we’d been together. He was and remains a willing student, and I enjoy our time together. He has held my interest more than others have, which says a good deal about his attractiveness, his versatility, his capacity to experiment, and his considerable charm. If he was desirable — and he was — before my cock and I had at him, he is even more desirable now, albeit in a different way, in his possession of skills, thanks to me, that leave grown men begging for more of him.

I’ve never put much value on innocence and virginity, mostly feeling both more bother than they’re worth; although, yes, I do know people who put great store in the pair. Frankly, though, I would rather take up with Mallory, now trained by me in the ways of pleasing a man, than when I did take him on as a special favor to his father. If not for Count Paul von Burel’s specific request of a favor from me, I would likely have steered clear of his heir-apparent altogether. Firstly, Mallory is the son and heir of Paul; the Burel family one of the few with more money and social connections than mine. Secondly, Mallory was so obviously out of his element in the party setting in which I first met him.

“I’d like you to meet my son,” Paul had introduced us; I extended my hand and took the clammy fingers of someone with the appearance of a hen realizing there was more than one fox loose in the chicken coop. “Mallory, this is the long-time friend about whom I told you. I look forward to the two of you becoming fast friends.”

My left eyebrow actually arched quizzically, wondering if Paul was really offering up his own flesh and blood to me and my dick on a silver platter, or if I’d merely misread the signs. His smile, though obviously sincere, lacked any real clarification of his intention.

Mallory’s grip, although damp at the time, was firm and, thank God, not a ‘see-how-butch-I-can-be’ squeeze. His eyes are chocolate brown, matching his hair which drops over his forehead in a low-hanging leftward swoop touching thick brown strands to the tips of his lush brown lashes. His cheeks are dimpled. His mouth is full and sensuous. His chin has as small cleft that will likely disappear if and when his face takes on any excess weight. His Adam’s apple is evident without being disconcertingly so. His body appeared obviously fit beneath a bespoke steel-grey suit and charcoal-grey silk shirt, the latter opened at its collar to reveal a hairless vee of tanned and silky young-man chest.

“I was sorry to hear about your mother,” I said.

He grimaced only slightly. Jenny Danson (nee von Burel, nee Lensbrook, nee de Chichillino) had disappeared one night, off a yacht anchored at Cannes during the film festival. Her fourth husband, film star Craig Danson, reported her missing, telling police his wife had a little too much to drink at dinner and had headed to their cabin for a nap. She was later found drowned, her death making the tabloids and, much to Paul’s chagrin, conjuring up all of the old scandal surrounding their divorce; her having called and proved him a libertine in open court in order to get full custody of their son, despite all of Paul’s considerable money spent, and favors called in, to prevent that from happening.

That Paul had murdered his recalcitrant wife wasn’t off the playing board, as far as the group I ran around with was concerned. A lot of money — everyone knowing that anything can be had for a price — makes killing even a more viable solution for us than it is for ordinary folks unable to buy their way out of anything. More than once, Paul confided in me that, knowing what he’d quickly come to know, he would have been far better off disposing of his wife before he ever let her get as far as she had. The only thing that saved her, even then, was her being the mother of Mallory; although even that rationalization for her salvation might have worn thin in the end. Certainly, Jenny’s convenient exit from the scene made Paul a helluva lot happier, especially with Mallory back in his life.

“Your son here for a visit, is he?” I asked Paul when Mallory was sent by his father to retrieve a bottle from one of the several cases of private-stock Chateau von Burel champagne brought and left cooling in the host’s large walk-in fridge.

I was tempted to add a comment about how the kid definitely had his father’s good-looks — when actually Mallory’s dark sultry looks took more after those of his Italian mother than they did after Paul’s cool and pale Slavic handsomeness — but was saved from it by Paul saying, “I want you to take him to my lodge in Romania and fuck him every which way from Sunday.”

“Beg your pardon?” I’m hardly ever at a loss for words, but I was at that particular instance.

“Though his mother was a slut, she kept him way too sheltered for him, now, to adapt all that easily to my life-style, to your life-style, to our friends’ lifestyle—without a little help. I’m counting on you to give him all the help he’ll need to fit in. Now that he’s back in my life, I don’t want to lose him, again, because of any sophomoric mores he picked up in that stickup-its-ass conservative Catholic private school he attended in Switzerland.”

“Jesus, Paul!” If I sounded reluctant, I was. Innocence isn’t something I purposely seek out. More often than not, as previously mentioned, I find it far more bother than it’s worth. Paul and his son would have been better served by several other people in the room, any one of whom would have appreciated, more than I, the invite to have at Mallory that his father was offering. I said as much.

“I want him broken in by a teacher, not a lecher,” Paul said. “I need someone I know he finds physically attractive, and who has the finesse to capitalize on that without sending the kid running scared into the woods.”

“Not everyone I’ve bedded has enjoyed the experience,” I reminded him. Flattered as I was, and knowing the unsatisfied people to whom I referred were as scarce as hen’s teeth, I was still reluctant to get involved. “Have you thought of turning him over to one of our very experienced lady friends?”

“I don’t want him soured on gay sex by having his first sex with a cunt,” Paul said.

“You’re sure he’s not already put it to pussy, or to male asshole? He’s exceedingly attractive, Paul, and we both know what can happen in those private boarding schools, whether they’re Catholic and in stick-up-its-ass Switzerland, or anywhere else in the wide world.”

“He says he’s virgin, and I believe him.”

“Not every virgin takes to cock up his asshole,” I said; then, to prove I was always willing to shift my own sexual role — although Paul was the last person to whom I needed prove it — I added, “or put virgin cock up someone else’s asshole.”

“He’s my son,” Paul said. “I know he can be brought along by just the right person. Meaning, by you. Are you going to hem and haw and lose brownie points, or are you going to be gracious and

accept the chance to do me the good deed I’m asking?”

“And if I fail?”

He shrugged. “If you can’t make the kid enjoy cock up his

ass, and his cock up yours, then I doubt anyone can.”

I already had more than enough money and social position so that neither needed supplementation by Paul, but he was a long-time friend, and it wasn’t like he was asking me to trek the swamplands of Botswana.

Murder Above Fourth
Author	J.P. Bowie
ISBN#	978-1-60820-120-4 (ebook)
	978-1-60820-119-8 (print)
Release Date	December 2009
Cover Artist	Deana C. Jamroz
Paperback:	228 pages

http://www.amazon.com/Murder-Above-Fourth-J-P-Bowie/dp/1608201198/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1261781439&sr=1-2
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/books/e/9781608201198/?itm=2&usri=mlr+press

Nick Fallon always knew there would be a day of reckoning between himself and Harold Forsythe, a millionaire who headed a secret group paying big bucks to watch young men and women have sex-sometimes dangerous sex, that had resulted in the deaths of two young men.

When one of the owners of ‘Above Fourth’, a popular San Diego nightclub, is needlessly murdered, Nick vows to take Forsythe down, but in his determination to see the man behind bars, Nick throws caution to the wind. In a reckless and ultimately dangerous move, he not only puts his own life in jeopardy, but also the future of his relationship with his lover.

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

Eric Jamieson looked down the length of the art gallery, at the polished wood floor, at the paintings hanging in neat rows on both walls, at the green fern plants strategically placed here and there among the pieces of sculpture. He swiped a hand over his short brown hair, his light blue eyes gleamed, and he exhaled a long, satisfied breath of completion. Yes, he had done it, given the gallery the facelift he’d promised Peter Brandon, the gallery owner, and all before Peter was due back from his vacation. Actually, he’d been due back this morning, but he’d called to say he and Jeff Stevens, his lover, were running just a tad late and he’d see Eric in the afternoon.

Perfect, Eric had thought, that’d give him time to take lunch over to Nick’s office so they could spend the hour together—something they hadn’t had enough of recently, what with Jeff and Peter away on a two week vacation. Jeff was Nick’s business partner in the investigative business—Stevens and Fallon. Their office was within easy walking distance of the gallery. Eric could be there and back within the space of an hour or so. He picked up his cell phone from the desk at the back of the gallery and speed- dialed Nick’s number.

“Stevens and Fallon, Private Investigations. How can I help you?”

“Hi, Monica, it’s Eric. Is he there?”

“He sure is.” Monica sounded edgy. “And I sure hope you can put him in a better mood than I can. He is Mr. Grump today.”

“Sorry.” Eric knew a bad-tempered Nick could be worse than a threat of weapons of mass destruction—and just as loud. “What’s he mad about?”

“Heck if I know. He arrived this way and hasn’t snapped out of it so far. His door is closed, and that’s always a bad sign. Did you cut him off or something?”

Eric chuckled. “No, but we’ve been real busy with both Peter and Jeff away. Maybe he just found the pressure too much.”

“Well, thank goodness Jeff’s back today,” Monica said with a sigh. “Maybe he can straighten Nick out—oh sorry…” She giggled. “Wrong terminology.”

“Tell me.” Eric laughed. “A grumpy and straight Nick would send me running for the hills.”

Laughing, Monica said, “I’ll put you through.”

After a few beeping sounds, Eric was greeted by an almost churlish, “Nick Fallon.”

“Hi. You sound mad.”

“Hey, Eric…” Nick blew out a long sigh of frustration. “Not mad at you, just some asshole trying to make my life more difficult than it need be.”

“Who’s that?”

“Remember that LAPD cop I had a run in with some time back—Bob Morales?”

“Yeah, I remember. What about him?”

“He’s tryin’ to get my license pulled. The son-of-a-bitch filed a complaint against me.”

“After all this time?” Eric frowned. “On what grounds?”

“On the grounds I withheld evidence in the John Hammond case. He’s saying they could have solved the case with no loose ends still attached if I had been ‘more forthcoming.’ My guess is the jerk’s in trouble with the bosses and he’s looking for a scapegoat—me.”

“How serious is this?”

“Serious enough. Jeff’s not going to be too pleased when I give him the news. I got a call in to Joe French to see if he can help any.”

“Good idea. Listen, I was going to bring you lunch.”

“Sounds good, babe. How about a meat sandwich?”

“A meat sandwich. What kind of meat?”

“You, between my thighs.”

Eric roared. Nick might be in a bad mood, but he could still come up with some good ideas. “I’m flattered,” Eric purred. “After six years together you still want me at lunchtime.”

“Want you all the time,” Nick growled. “When you comin’ over?”

“Let’s see…” Eric looked at his watch. “In about an hour.”

“Terrific. See you then.”

“Bye, lover. Keep those thighs warm for me.” Oops. He hadn’t seen the man enter the gallery, and there was no doubt he’d heard Eric’s last comment. “Good morning,” Eric sang out, trying not to look embarrassed. “If you have any questions, just let me know.”

“Actually, I do have a few questions.” The man approached Eric, smiling. He was about forty, in good shape, wearing cream-colored slacks and a navy blazer Eric guessed was an Armani. A receding hairline did nothing to detract from his overall good looks. “Are you the owner?” the man asked.

“No, that would be Peter Brandon, the owner and the artist.” Eric held out his hand. “Eric Jamieson. I manage the gallery for Peter.”

“Chad Glover.” His handshake was warm and firm. “I own a nightclub and restaurant in San Diego, and I’m looking for some nice art pieces for the reception area. A couple of these New York cityscapes look interesting.”

“Yes, that one looking across Central Park Lake in winter is a favorite of mine,” Eric said.

Glover nodded, his eyes narrowing as he studied the painting. “I also like the one of Brooklyn Bridge. He’s got an incredible talent, hasn’t he? I mean, that looks like real metal.”

“Yes, Peter has an eye for detail, Mr. Glover, and he has a photographic memory.”

“Chad, please. Gene, one of my partners, and myself are originally from New York,” Glover remarked. “We’ve given the club a kind of New York feel—you know, a bit more formal than Californians are used to. So far it’s paid off in the amount of return clients we’ve had. I’d like to continue the theme in the artwork.”

“Both of these are good choices,” Eric murmured, stepping back slightly so as not to crowd the other man. Eric had always believed in the ‘soft sell’ approach. He hated it when sales people were too pushy, especially on a high end item, like one of Peter Brandon’s paintings. If he bought just one, Eric would have made his commission for the week—two, and Nick was going to get much more than a meat sandwich.

“You’re right. It’s hard to choose between them.” Chad’s eyes skimmed over the two framed canvases. “So much strength in the one, and serenity in the other. I guess I’ll just have to take them both.

Yippee! Eric gave a silent cheer. Peter would love this news when he got back.

“Will you take a check, and can you deliver? I’d take them with me, but I’m driving a two-seater, so space is limited.”

Eric smiled. “Yes, on both counts. We have this new fangled machine that will clear your check immediately, and I can drive down to San Diego tomorrow, if that’s all right?”

“Excellent.” Chad pulled his checkbook from his blazer’s inside pocket. “There should be enough in the business account to cover this,” he said as he formed the final zero then signed his name. “Here’s the address.” He handed Eric a business card.

“Above Fourth,” Eric read aloud. “Great name—presuming you are above Fourth Street?”

“We are. The outside bar for the smokers overlooks Fourth.” He smiled at Eric. “Bring a friend with you, stay for lunch. We have an excellent menu, and a chef to do it justice.”

“Thanks, Chad.” Eric returned the man’s smile. “If I can drag my boyfriend away from work, I might be able to bring him with me.”

Eric fed Chad’s check into the machine and tried to not hold his breath as he waited for confirmation of funds. No problem. The check went straight through, the machine sliding out a printed receipt.

“There you are,” he said, handing over the receipt. “So, I’ll see you tomorrow about one o’clock. Is that all right?”

“That’s great.” Chad held out his hand. “Nice doing business with you.”

“Here are some of Peter’s business cards. Perhaps you could put some near where the paintings will hang.”

“Sure.” Chad pocketed the cards after looking at them briefly. “See you tomorrow.”

Eric watched him go, then went over to the desk and pulled out two “Sold” cards. Smiling as he affixed the cards to the frames, he wondered how long it would take Peter to notice them. Not too long, he figured. Nothing much escaped Peter’s attention.

§ § § §

“So how worried should I be about this?” Nick asked his friend Joe French, a detective with the Los Angeles Police Department. “I mean, is Morales getting any backing on the complaint he filed?”

“More than he should,” Joe replied. “My question is, why did he wait so long? What triggered this self-righteous outburst?”

“Or who.”

“Yeah, or who.”

“Wanna know what I think?” Nick asked.

“Absolutely.”

“The big cheese, Chief Robertson, doesn’t like me too well, especially after the John Hammond debacle. He practically burst a blood vessel when I asked Morales to set up a sting operation to catch those bastards involved in the ‘snuff’ killings.”

“You know, Nick, I never heard a word about that until you told me. I figured something was up, ‘cause Morales was going around the department like he’d been well and truly chewed out.”

“Well, I don’t want to think that Robertson’s protecting that asshole Forsythe, but the way he went off when I mentioned Harold Forsythe’s name, gave me pause.”

Joe chuckled. “I can believe it, what with Forsythe campaigning against McCain for the Republican nomination.”

“Yeah, but wasn’t it strange when he suddenly announced he’d changed his mind? Right out of the blue, and with the feeblest excuse I’ve ever heard. Family pressure, my ass.” Nick snorted in disgust. “I betcha anything his wife and daughter would have loved to redecorate the White House. I think Robertson put the wind up him, and he realized he wouldn’t get to third base if the news ever got out.” Nick was quiet for a moment, thinking, then said, “You know, this is probably some kind of vendetta. Robertson warned Forsythe, Forsythe got pissed, and he’s been festering over it ever since he backed out of the race. I bet he told Robertson to put me out of business, and Robertson’s using Morales as the one to do the dirty deed.”

“Could be, and Morales is no fan of yours.”

“And he should be after I handed him that case on a plate.”

“Well, if you want me for a character witness, you only have to say ‘please’.”

“Thanks, Joe, appreciate it.” Nick sighed. “I still have to break this to Jeff when he gets back from his vacation.”

“Don’t sweat it too much, Nick. Morales is basing his case on the fact you didn’t hand over that tape right away, but you did give it up eventually. I was a witness to that, and you did practically solve the Hammond case all by yourself. So, unless he wants to look stupid…”

“Which he does frequently, and with great skill,” Nick said, chuckling. “I don’t know if that would stop him, quite frankly.”

“Well, like I said, don’t sweat it. I’ll poke around this end and if I hear anything, I’ll let you know. Take it easy, Nick.”

“Thanks again, Joe. Talk to you later.” Nick sank back in his chair and stared moodily out the office window. Somehow, he’d always known the whole mess from a year ago would come back to bite him in the ass one day. What had started out as a fairly straightforward case of ‘whose body is this?’ had turned into a nightmare of murder, deception, and police ineptitude. Or rather, one detective’s ineptitude—Bob Morales, the jerk who was now trying to get Nick’s license pulled. Or so it seemed. The more he thought about it, the more Nick was convinced that Morales was just the dumb puppet in all this. After he’d gotten chewed out by Robertson, Morales had probably never wanted to hear Nick’s name again.

The investigation John Hammond had started when he came to Nick’s office with a newspaper article about a body found in Laurel Canyon had led Nick to uncover a sordid collection of well-heeled people who hired young men and women for sexual purposes. But what had angered Nick most was the realization that some of those wealthy people, their sexual appetites sharpened by violence, were involved in ‘snuff’ movies. As one man had told Nick, “They pay more to see the kids struggle.”

Arrogance and a taste for revenge, had led John Hammond to set up a duped and drugged Detective Morales for a ‘snuff’ movie starring the detective himself. Nick and his partner, Jeff Stevens, had thwarted that plan, their intervention leading to the arrest of those involved and the breakup of the organization—for a time. When Nick discovered that among the rich and famous was Harold Forsythe, currently campaigning as a Presidential hopeful, he decided the man’s murderous tendencies should be exposed. That decision had caused him to be the object of Forsythe’s and Chief Robertson’s rage—and now Morales’ move to pull Nick’s license.

There was, however, one small item Robertson and Forsythe had overlooked. Not overlooked, exactly. They didn’t know about it. At least, not yet.

When Nick had spoken to Harold Forsythe on the phone, in the guise of Nick Lamont, pretending to be a procurer of young men and women who’d be up for just about anything Forsythe’s perverted little mind could envision, he’d taped the conversation. Of course, he’d have to prove it was Forsythe on the tape, but that Southern twang was, in Nick’s estimation, a dead giveaway, and might just be enough to have Robertson back off.

And then there had been the whole personal side of last year’s situation that had seen he and Jeff almost come to blows, and Jeff and Peter’s relationship come close to falling apart. Jeff had made a wrong turn thinking that Peter and he were drifting away from one another due to the pressure of Peter’s work, and his celebrity status in the art world. Feeling lonely one night he had picked up a guy in a bar, but had changed his mind, apologizing to the man for not being able to go through with what they had planned. Unfortunately that man was John Hammond, Nick’s lying client, who threw a fit right here in their office in front of Peter. It was proof positive of their love for one another that Jeff and Peter were able to work things out and get on with their lives and their relationship.

Nick had to admit he hadn’t helped things by asking Peter to accompany him to the crime scene and use his psychic ability in determining just what had happened to the man whose body had been found buried there. Jeff’s protective nature had made him lash out in anger at Nick, accusing him of putting Peter’s fragile psyche at risk by bringing to his mind terrifying visions of rape and murder. Again, there had been resolution, but the threat of losing Jeff as a friend and partner had a sobering effect on Nick’s at times brash behavior.

And then he’d had to contend with Eric’s disapproval, and that had hurt—a lot. He’d seen the flicker of real anger in Eric’s normally gentle, light blue eyes that told him he’d overstepped the bounds of friendship. Nick knew he could be egotistical, domineering, and demanding at times, but he was also loyal to a fault—and he loved Eric so much that sometimes he ached from it. He’d come close to losing him a couple of years back when a madman from Nick’s past had held them both at gunpoint. In the resulting struggle Eric had been severely injured, and for a time it had been touch and go. Nick still went cold when he remembered those terrible days sitting by Eric’s bedside in the hospital, praying for his recovery…

His thoughts were interrupted by Monica’s voice on the intercom. “Eric’s here, Nick.”

“Tell him to come in, then.”

Monica was trying to keep the laughter out of her voice. “He says he’s scared. Wants to know if you’re still grumpy.”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake.” Nick pushed his tall, rangy frame away from his desk and strode to the office door, flinging it wide open, scowling at his secretary and his lover.

Eric ran behind Monica’s desk. “Don’t let him hurt me, please, Monica,” he wailed, clutching at the pretty Asian girl who collapsed in a fit of giggles.

“Cut it out, you two!” Nick tried to hold the scowl, but couldn’t. He chuckled, then smiled sheepishly. “Sorry, Monica. I guess I’ve been a bit of a bear this morning. You…” He jerked his thumb at Eric. “Get in there and fix my sandwich. I’ll deal with you in a minute.”

Eric grinned. “If you hear sobs of anguish, Monica—don’t come in.”

Monica sighed. “You guys. I’m going out to lunch, so you can make all the noise you want.” She held out a fistful of messages. “I suggest you answer these before Jeff gets back,” she sniffed. “Might be some new clients among them.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Nick gave her a winning smile as she picked up her purse and made for the exit. “Have a nice lunch.” He walked back into the office and closed the door. Eric was bent over his desk, laying out their sandwiches, his butt nicely defined under his beige slacks. Nick cupped said butt with his hands, stroking it firmly, then pulled Eric against his chest, his lips nuzzling the nape of Eric’s neck.

“Mmm…” Eric ground his ass into Nick’s groin. “That feels real nice.” He squirmed as Nick nibbled on his ear. “Even nicer…” He turned in Nick’s arms and smiled into his hazel eyes before delivering a searing kiss to his man’s lips. As their tongues meshed, both men felt a rising urgency of desire course through their blood.

The sound of voices outside the office had them groaning in frustration. “Damn,” Nick muttered, releasing Eric from his embrace and slipping behind his desk to hide the very obvious bulge in his pants. “It’s Jeff and Peter, by the sounds of it.”

“They’re early,” Eric grumbled, then whispered, “I was so into you doing me on this desk.”

“Ssh…” Nick shifted in his chair. “I’m trying to get rid of this hard on, and you’re not helping. ‘Sides, we’d have squished the sandwiches.”

Eric giggled, then held the sandwich bag in front of his crotch. They both affected welcoming smiles as Jeff and Peter pushed the door open and walked in.

“Hi, guys.” Eric beamed at them. “How was the trip? You both look great.”

And they did. Peter’s naturally fair hair was almost white-blond from his time in the sun, his tan lending a deeper blue to his eyes. Jeff, his wide-shouldered quarterback physique and smoky grey eyes, always reasons to turn heads, was even more stunning with the added tan.

Peter bounced over and gave Eric a hug. “We had the greatest time—oh, sorry, we’re interrupting your lunch.” he said, looking at the sandwiches spread out on the desk.

“No problem.” Nick eased himself carefully out of his chair to give Peter a hug. “Good to have you back.” He grinned at his partner. “So, Jeff, ready for the big grind again?”

Jeff shrugged. “Do I have a choice?” he chuckled, squeezing Nick’s shoulder. “So, what’s the damage report?”

“Would I have you come back to problems?” Nick said, arching an eyebrow. “Don’t worry, partner mine, all is well in the investigative business.”

“You both look terrific,” Eric said. “Must have got a lot of tanning time,” he added, admiring Peter and Jeff’s handsome, healthy, glowing faces. He beamed at Peter. “And I have some great news. I was going to save it ‘til we got over to the gallery, but what the hey. This morning I sold two paintings, Peter. Your two New York Cityscapes.”

“Wow.” Peter gave Eric another hug. “That’s fantastic.”

Nick pouted. “How come you didn’t tell me?”

“I was going to, but we got kinda distracted, if you remember.”

“Oh yeah, that—”

“Anyway,” Eric continued, “the guy who bought them owns a nightclub in San Diego. I have to deliver them tomorrow afternoon.”

“Great,” Peter said. “I’ll go with you.”

“Oh yeah, he’d love that—getting to meet the artist.” Eric looked at Nick and Jeff. “Why don’t you guys come too? We could make a day of it. Have dinner down there.”

Jeff shook his head. “I’ll have to take a rain-check. Got a lot of catching up to do from the looks of the messages in my inbox.”

“Me too, babe,” Nick said, thinking of what he had to tell Jeff once they were alone.

“Oh, okay. So, it’s just you and me, Peter.”

Peter smiled. “You and Nick have your lunch. I’ll see you over at the gallery when you’re done.” He gave Jeff a peck on the cheek. “And I’ll see you back home when you’re done here. Ciao, guys.”

How much heat do two men need to melt so much snow? Stories from three of the hottest gay erotic romance writers in the genre will show you. Feel the heat with William Maltese, Jason Edding and Ethan Day.

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

Chapter One

My eyes fluttered open, and the overcast daylight filtering in from the huge picture window slowly came into focus. was looking out over a panorama of snowy mountains dotted with sprouts of green from the evergreens that poked through the white blanket. The small mountain town of Summit City, Colorado, stretched out along the floor of the valley below. The light drizzle of snow was softly floating from sky to ground. I heard rustling coming from behind me and I sat up, realizing I didn’t know where I was.

I lifted my hand to my forehead as the dull, achy-throbbing began – my hangover waking up with me. How much had I had to drink last night? Not that it took much, but damn. I rubbed my temple and cringed as the swimming in my head began to settle. One more thing I blame Phillip for. I looked down, realizing I was naked, and was startled again by the rustling to my side. Slowly turning my head toward the source of the disruption, my eyes widened taking in the wide, expansive muscular back.

I quietly began to scoot toward the edge of the bed and winced from the twinge of pain coming from my backside. What the hell had he fucked me with? Christ on a cracker…my ass felt like it had been reamed, but good. I shook my head and continued to crawl over to the side of the massive bed. Probably another bartender, I thought as I finally made it to the edge. This happened every god damn time I drank. Why couldn’t I just leave a nice tip like a normal person? Honestly, Boone, do you really have to offer up your ass? Are you seriously that cheap? I reached back and rubbed my ass somewhat thankful I had no memory of last night considering it felt like this dude had seriously fucked the hell out of me.

“Please let him have worn a condom,” I mumbled as I threw my feet over the side of the bed. I cringed as I looked down to see my foot had landed on used rubber. I made some sort of ick noise as I lifted my foot, which now had the condom stuck to it.

“That is so not sexy.” I tentatively reached out, touching as little of the condom as humanly possible. I began pulling it

off and closed my eyes feeling the skin from the bottom of my

foot peel away from the latex which I then tossed back onto the floor as a ‘that’s-gross’ chill swept over my naked body. I looked around, disgusted and feeling ‘all class’ as I took the edge of the

sheet to wipe the sticky off the bottom of my foot.

I stood up too quickly feeling the bed move from behind me. My head was spinning a bit as I turned and looked down at the ass abuser that lay before me. He was massive, whoever he was. I imagined him being like Gaston from Beauty and the Beast. He was now on his back and his hairless expanse of a chest was spread out before me. He practically requires his own zip code, I thought as my gaze followed the sinewy trail of muscle down his abs. He was hot at least. I rubbed my head desperately needing coffee and aspirin while scolding myself for being the type of asshole that cared whether or not he was hot. I scanned the room trying to get my bearings. I spied my jeans on the floor which somehow made me feel less panicky.

I poked around the room and discovered that the bedroom was up in a loft which overlooked the living area below. I got slightly dizzy and nauseous as I peered over the railing. Knotty pine beams stretched out overhead and I caught a whiff of the fire below, that was now probably just embers. I felt a sudden chill and began to look around for the rest of my clothes. I spied a shoe and my briefs on the floor by the bureau.

I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror as I crossed the room and my mouth fell open. The back of my head looked as if someone had taken a comb and teased the shit out it. Spotting the huge-ass hickey on the curve between my neck and shoulder, I scowled and turned back to the bed. I was half tempted to chuck my shoe at him. Dirty bastard…all but branded my ass. My eyes widened as I quickly spun around, using the mirror, relieved to see there wasn’t a hickey on my ass.

I made a quick scan inspecting the rest of my body to make sure nothing else was…different. I gathered up all my things and crept naked down the stairs, clutching everything in my arms. A flash of the previous night popped into my head and I stopped, leaning against the railing for a moment for balance as I vaguely remembered clinging to Mr. Muscles while we made out, him carrying me up the stairs. I shook my head, feeling my cock stir a bit, almost able to remember what it felt like to have the guy’s tongue in my mouth. I let out a disapproving sigh, and continued down the stairs.

I stumbled into the living room, spotting my keys and cell phone on the coffee table next to two glasses each of which had a tiny amount of red wine left in them. The room was decorated in what I assumed to be mountain-gay, bachelor-chic with its brown leather furniture, a solid looking wooden rocking chair and dark mission style accent tables. It did actually feel lived in and homey, which was nice after Phillip’s sterile, everything-inits-place condo.

The fireplace was massive, large stacked stone’s stretching up from the floor all the way up the two-story wall and disappearing into the ceiling. The five foot long mantle consisted of a long, thick rough cut chunk of wood which was shiny from the multiple layers of varnish. I spied a small plasma through a cracked door in one the built-ins, on either side of the fireplace.

I smacked my lips, feeling the fuzz of drink and sex from the night before. God only knows what depraved acts I allowed myself to partake in with the beast. I felt another achy-twinge in my ass as I meandered into the kitchen. I felt the texture and temperature change under my bare feet, going from the wood floors to the stone tile in the open kitchen and dining area. A picture window twice the size of the one upstairs in the bedroom provided another breath-taking view of the mountains which surrounded the valley below. I had to blink a few times in order to tear my eyes away, imagining I could become easily mesmerized by the sight, losing entire days – getting lost in the scale of it all. That was saying a lot, considering Albuquerque came with its own amazing views, thinking back to the warm, rusty-red glow

of the Sandia Mountains baking in the late afternoon sun.

As my gaze ran over the gourmet looking kitchen with the smoky caramel stained cabinets and stone countertops which

appeared to have tiny fossils imbedded in them, I paused at the professional grade looking stainless steel appliances. Maybe I’d

fucked a chef and not a bartender after all? That would be some

type of progress. If given a dollar for every bartender I’d woken up with over the past thirteen years of my life, I’d be a rich man. The confusing thing was, I remembered the bartender from last night, unlike the man I’d found myself in bed with. Life really was a twisted bitch sometimes. I was jerked out of my inner

thoughts hearing a noise come from upstairs.

I noticed a hallway off the back of the kitchen and headed that direction. I found a bathroom and took the longest piss of my life. It was one for the ages that piss, the kind that gave you chills and goose bumps all over your body from the relief of the release. I flushed the toilet before pulling on my briefs and jeans, then finally looking back over my hair as I yanked on my socks and boots. I turned on the faucet and did my best to dampen my scruffy, shoulder length, light brown hair back into some sort of submission. It was tangled all to hell, another reminder of what a good-time guy I was when I drank. They didn’t call me Low-Tolerance Tommy for nothing.

I usually don’t have alcohol unless my friends are around to try and keep me from doing things like this. Unfortunately I was up here in Colorado all by myself, thanks to Phillip. Happy one year anniversary, you cock sucking piece of man-shit. This was what I deserved for dating a surgeon. You think they’re all heroic, saving lives – making the big sacrifice. What I realized now was what a controlling, god-complex, piece of scum he was. Why do I never see it until it’s over?

I ran my finger tips over the hickey on my neck and let out a

long sigh. Thinking back over the past year there had been plenty

of signs. Phillip never asked about me or my day. It was as if he never gave a shit who I was, only caring that I looked good

on his arm and in his bed. That should’ve been the biggest clue.

The fact that I’m a writer, made him seem perfect. He worked

long hours which left me with tons of time to work. The sex

was incredible. The vain, god-complex worked for the son of a bitch, and his confidence in his abilities in the sack were well warranted. If nothing else good could be said about Phillip, he did

have a can-do cock.

I laughed at my reflection in the mirror thinking I’d actually convinced myself that Phillip had invited me up here, to the place we’d met a year ago yesterday, because he was going to ask me to move in with him.

“What a dumbass you are, Boone.” I said to myself, still worried in the back of mind why it was I hadn’t cried. Had I been broken-hearted so many times in the past that I’d now become desensitized to the pain of it? “Am I broken?”

I shrugged and picked up my t-shirt, flipping it inside out. Nope – Phillip sent me up here because he wanted to dump me, and the really sad part was that he didn’t have enough respect for me to do it face to face. He’d called instead, letting me know the cabin was paid up for another week and to stay as long as I liked. That he’d already dropped the few things I’d been allowed to leave at his house back off at mine and that my spare key was in the mail.

My response to what he’d said? “Thanks.”

I slipped on my shirt and went back out into the living room, trying to avoid the views from the large picture window. I snatched up my phone and dialed information; getting the number to call a cab. I scurried about when they asked where to pick me up, eventually snagging the address from the magazines piled up on the coffee table. I flipped through the stack as I hung up my cell. A Sports Illustrated, how butch, I thought. Funny that was on top…trying too hard, perhaps? That slightly critical thought brought a smile to my face. There was also an Advocate, an Entertainment Weekly, some skiing catalogues and a TV Guide. I read the name, which for some reason sounded familiar. Wade

Walker.

I stood up and went back into Wade’s kitchen, rifling through the cabinets until I found a bottle of Advil. I poured out five and popped them in my mouth. I went to the sink and bent over, sucking in the water directly from the stream coming out of the faucet. My eyes drifted toward that wonderful view. Whoever the big-dicked-mother-fucker Wade was, he was certainly lucky to have that view.

I wondered for a split second about the man sleeping upstairs. He was, if nothing else, strikingly handsome, sort of a more beefed version of Christopher Reeves with his wavy black hair and cheekbones to die for. I briefly considered the possibility of dating Superman and then rolled my eyes. I’d had enough drama in the past twenty four hours as it was.

“You just can’t seem to help yourself can you?” I mumbled. I loved men who were nothing like…me. My worst nightmare would be to wind up marrying myself. I honestly couldn’t think of anything less exciting. I needed to be challenged, forced to look at things from other perspectives. I’m a writer damn it. I crave what I do not understand. And while I guess that always made for a very exciting love life, it had also been my very own, little slice of hell at times.

Hearing a honk, I turned and dashed into the living room, snatching up my things off the table. I yanked my coat off the rack by the door. I slipped it on, sucking in my breath as I opened the door, greeted not so gently by the cold. I tried to quietly close the door until I thought I caught some movement out of the corner of my eye coming from the stairs. I slammed the door and ran like mad for the cab. I was certainly in no mood, or condition, to face my trick. I climbed into the cab and shut the door, asking the driver to take me back to the lodge. Back to the cabin Phillip had rented for us to spend our anniversary in. No more tricks for this kid, I thought, refusing to look back at the

house as the cab pulled away. ****

As I slowly made my way down the walkway, struggling with the damn skis and poles, I cursed under my breath. This was stupid and I knew it. I’d never had the slightest interest in learning how to snow ski, but Phillip had insisted I learn. He’d set up these lessons and bought me all the gear and clothes, teaching me how to put it all on before I left. The sick part was he knew he was going to break up with me while he was doing it. I’d now come to the conclusion this was all part of my severance package, the trip, the gifts, the ski lessons. Phillip’s way of buying off his guilt I assumed, if he did indeed actually posses the humility for such

an emotion.

I stopped, adjusting the skis in my arms. The army green pants I wore looked like normal old cargo pants, and I did like the matching parka with the faux fur trimmed hood. The warm snuggly layers of oatmeal colored shirts and sweaters, the ski boots, it had all cost him like nine or ten thousand dollars. It was nuts, a ludicrous amount of money, but if nothing else, at least I looked the part. I planned on selling it all on eBay when I got back home. Maybe I could use the money to buy myself a second vacation on a beach somewhere?

I looked up as a couple passed by me coming from the

opposite direction. They barely noticed my presence as they

giggled and stared at one another all googley-eyed, his dimpled smile and rosy cheeks, her long perky blonde curls bouncing. It was disgusting! I resisted the urge to call back at them, informing the ill-fated lovers it would never last, that their happiness was fleeting. The harbinger of love-death would soon be upon them! It made me smile to think it, even though I didn’t say it.

I lifted my skis, tucked them under my arm and began walking toward the main lodge. The massive five story building, with its new European-style architecture, seemed well matched to the natural environment. Despite being newer construction, the lodge seemed to fit in perfectly with the sleepy little Victorian mountain town that was Summit City. It had sixty or seventy rooms in the main lodge along with the smaller single occupancy chalets that dotted the grounds for those people, like Philip, who enjoyed their privacy. Whoever designed the place had done a great job of taking advantage of all the views. There were two towers on the main lodge on opposite corners, one provided views of the valley and town below, the other of the mountain. I rounded the side of the lodge to find other guests and attendants, all busying about going to and from, while twisting the knife in

my gut by laughing and having a grand old time.

“The tram should be back around any minute,” a young man

called out to me from the entrance area.

I nodded and smiled, contemplating whether or not I should just walk up the road to the ski lift area. It wasn’t that far, and despite still feeling a smidge funky from my hangover when I’d left the cabin, the cool air and exercise appeared to be doing the trick. As I started to step off the curb the small tram rounded the corner. Already late for my lesson as it was, I decided to hop on and ride up after all.

As the glorified tractor/trolley bounced up the slight incline of the road, I let out a sigh. I knew exactly why I wasn’t all that upset about Phillip breaking things off, but I refused to admit it to myself. It seemed wrong to let the prick off the hook for the shitty way he dumped me. But I had indeed, come to realize that I hadn’t actually been in love with the man so much as the idea of him. What a waste of a year, I thought as the tram came to a stop at the ski lift area.

I hopped out, back into the snow and slid my skis and poles out, fighting with them as I tried to gain control with my uncoordinated limbs. This was a bad idea, and I knew it, but I’d spent all morning and my entire lunch trying to piece together what the hell had happened the night before. I’d driven myself crazy attempting to suss it out. So, despite having no interest in skiing, here I was. I needed a distraction from the gnawing nit-pickiness that was my over active brain. Skiing was one of those sports that looked easy, therefore I knew it was going to be ridiculously difficult to learn.

Two men: one with memories he can’t escape, the other with memories he can’t recapture — both trusting strangers who lie.

Amnesiac Peter Killian, suspected art thief, can’t understand why LAPD detective Michael Griffin takes his memory loss so personally.

American expatriate Jack Stoyles, exiled in a distant Atlantic outpost, is suddenly in love with a stranger who kisses him — and then dies. With good reason Jack calls his place “Heartache Cafe”.

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

You wouldn’t think it even gets hot in a place like this, but let me tell you, brother, it does. Around the middle of July, the fog clears away, and the sun comes out, hot enough (as they say around these parts) to split the rocks. It’s a different sort of place, not like anywhere I’d ever been before, but when you have to leave home as suddenly as I did, you don’t much care. You just pick a direction on the map and head out and hope things turn out okay. Twelve hundred miles as the crow flies to St. John’s, Newfoundland, from my hometown of Philadelphia; I slept nearly the whole way, never mind the roaring of the airplane engines. Some things hit harder than others, and I’d been dealt a knockout punch.

When we landed at the airstrip in this little town called Torbay, I felt like I’d come to the end of the world. Nothing much to see except trees, black spruce and tamarack and scrub pines, and the red gravel airstrip. I got out of my seat and climbed down, stiff and sore, feeling like I’d been run down by a truck. I guess I was still in shock a little bit. The air was colder than I was used to; even Philadelphia winters don’t have this kind of soggy bite. All I wanted was to get inside the little terminal and maybe get a cup of coffee. I had five hundred bucks, American, in my wallet, a passport and a copy of my discharge papers from the army. I guess I should have felt ashamed, because here was Hitler stomping his jackbooted way across Europe, and there was nothing I could do about it. Unfit for active service. Yeah, that’s me — thirty-eight years old and already broken beyond repair.

This — all of this — was a blur to me. I was seeing other streets and hearing a different accent, and I was remembering walking into Moe’s first thing in the morning for a cup of joe, sitting down at the counter to look over the newspaper before I went outside and took a sharp left toward the waterfront. Maybe that’s what drew me to this place: the promise of cold salt air and the tang of the sea in my nostrils, the bustle of the waterfront, and ships coming and going at all hours of the day and night. I loved the idea that I could do the same, just go whenever I wanted to, anywhere I liked in the world, and not have to answer to anybody. If I felt like it, I could hop a freighter to some other place and work my way across the world. It was something Moe and I had talked a lot about whenever I was in there. You thinking of going somewhere? He’d always refill my coffee cup without my having to ask, and I’d always leave a tip. Thinking of leaving old Philly, huh? Right up until the last, I wasn’t sure. Even after it happened, I figured I could just keep on the way I was, doing all the things that I’d been doing. I figured I was strong enough to take it, right up until I stood on the Delaware River Bridge one morning, looking down into the swirling water and wondering if I had the nerve.

You want to know what stopped me?

Egypt. Yeah, you heard me: Egypt. See, I’d always wanted to go, and standing there on the bridge with the wind whipping me around, I figured if I followed through with what I had in mind, I’d never get to go. I’d never get to see the pyramids and ride a camel and do all that stupid, touristy stuff that people do. Pretty dumb, huh? Maybe, but it was enough to get me down off the bridge before the cops came, and it was enough to make me understand that if I ever wanted to see the pyramids at Giza or stroll the native quarter in Cairo, I had to get out of Philly. I had to go somewhere far away and try my best to forget about it.

“Passport?” She was young and pretty, the girl behind the counter, with dark red hair worn in rolls at the sides of her head. She smiled at me like she meant it. “Welcome to Newfoundland, Mr. Stoyles. If you follow that corridor and turn right, there are taxis out front to take you into town.”

“Is it…” Goddammit, it was starting again. I took a deep breath and tried to get hold of myself. “Is it far, into town? I have a room booked at the hotel, I just…” I fumbled in my pockets and found the scrap of paper. “Yeah, I have a room at this hotel downtown.”

She looked it — and me — over and smiled again. She sure was pretty — and nice, in that way that women hardly ever are anymore. She looked at me like she was interested in more than how much money I had on me or where I was likely to go in life once the war was over.

Listen, Jack — why don’t you come up to Newfoundland with me? They’re building all kinds of stuff up there and the whole place is ripe for the picking.

Frankie Missalo, an old army buddy of mine; we’d both joined up long before the whole thing went to hell at Pearl Harbor. Only thing was, he stayed in while I’d gotten kind of…waylaid. Lots of Army contractors up there, and lots of Yanks like us needing somewhere to get a proper cup of coffee. Come on! Ain’t you always said you wanted to have your own place?

So I did what he said and bought my ticket, and here I was. All I wanted now was to live a quiet life, waiting out the war to the best of my ability and minding my own business. I wasn’t interested in anything but that.

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

I spent three days at the hotel while Frankie and me scouted around for an empty space downtown. I’d just about given up hope when a real gem came on the market: a little storefront with lots of room for chairs and tables and a piano. The space was longer that it was broad and flared out nicely toward the back. Already I was making mental nips and tucks, adding a pot of flowers here, some ornaments and paintings there, and over here the bar, with its rows of bottles and a big mirror behind it. I found a cash register for cheap in a consignment store, and when Frankie showed up with a truckload of café chairs and tables, I didn’t ask him any unnecessary questions. I just got busy moving in.

“Whatcha gonna call it, Jack?” Frankie spread his hands out in front of him and squinted. “Whatcha want’s a big sign, neon lettering. JACK’S CAFÉ.”

“Naw, that’s been done. I want something that people are gonna stop for, something that’ll really bring ‘em in.” I slung a towel over my shoulder and came out from behind the bar. “Something catchy, you know?”

“Yeah.” Frankie shook his head and lit a cigarette. “Something like Moe’s Place?”

I faked a punch at his jaw. “Keep it up, mug.” We both laughed. “How about a beer?” I couldn’t stop touching the shiny brass taps; it was hard for me to believe that this was my place, my very own.

“You, ah…” Frankie’s eyes skidded away from mine. “You having one, Jack?”

“Nope.” I got a glass for him. “What’ll it be?”

“Whatever you got’s none too good for me.” He sat down at a table near the bar and stretched his long legs out in front of him. “So, here you are, Jack. Lock, stock, and barrel, huh? An honest-to-God property owner.” He thanked me for the beer as I sat down. “How much trouble they give you about the license?”

“You kidding me?” I sipped from the glass of ice water I’d poured for myself. “They couldn’t give it to me fast enough. Anybody woulda thought I was the Second Coming or something.”

Frankie, a lifelong Catholic, grimaced. “Yeah, cut that, okay?” He glanced around and nervously raked a hand through his sandy hair. “Don’t be bringing bad luck on yourself before you’ve even started.”

I didn’t answer him. Yeah, I’d been brought up in the church, too, but on me it never stuck the way it stuck to Frankie. I’d known him since we were kids, when he was serving at mass and singing in the choir. He wasn’t what I’d call superstitious, but he sure had a healthy respect for the church.

“So tomorrow’s the big day?” He laid the beer glass down.

“Yeah. Tomorrow’s the big day.” I spread my arms wide. “Welcome to the Heartache Café.”

In stories from four different wars and four different locales, four different writers honour men who chose to serve their country. Josh Lanyon, Samantha Kane, Victor Banis and George Seaton look at love when lives are at their worst and men are at their best.

This book is dedicated to those gay men who by not telling continue to serve our country with pride and honor. To those gay men who found the strength to tell and the courage to hold their heads high while being discharged in disgrace. To those gay men who have sacrificed their lives to maintain our freedoms while sacrificing their freedom to be heard.

Till we are judged for the honor and strength of our character and not by the prejudice and weakness of others…

I wish you Fair Seas, Following Winds, Safe Harbor & Silent Running.

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

One of the best pieces of flying advice Bat got was from his brother Algernon who flew reconnaissance at the start of the war.

“Think down to the gunners,” Algie had said. “Treat it like a game. You’re pitting your skill against theirs. It’s a kind of sport, really. And remember, a chasse machine is rarely brought down by Archie. You’re too fast for them. There are plenty of ways to outfox them. The best pilots are the best sportsmen.” He’d ruffled Bat’s hair, adding grimly, “Or the chaps who learn to stop feeling anything at all.”

At the time Bat couldn’t imagine what he meant.

The first two weeks were the most dangerous to a new pilot. They didn’t see anything — and what they did see, they didn’t understand. Shell fire scared the devil out of them and the Hun pilots they ran into were all hardened pros with several weeks experience in Russia or the Balkans. By 1916, the RFC was losing nearly a pilot a day; Gene worked it out once and told Bat the average life expectancy of an allied aviator was eleven days. Of course there were the old hands like Gene and himself who defied the odds. But no one defied them forever.

Bat knew Jackson was for it from the moment he was up in the air. Bat had given orders to rendezvous two thousand over the field and once they assembled, he’d headed northeast with the rest of A Flight falling into formation behind.

The new fliers got the oldest machines, and Jackson was in one of the battered Spads. It climbed slowly. Tubby and Varlik did their best to shepherd Jackson along, diving under and climbing up again to keep him aligned. Ambrose was on Bat’s left, in Gene’s former position. Cowboy was a dark silhouette on his right as they reached the cloudbank and began to climb.

As they rose into the crystalline air and the rising sun gilded the fleecy floor of clouds beneath them in amber and rose gold, Bat felt a spark of the old joy to be flying once more. All around him the rest of A Flight surfaced at widely scattered points through the drifting cloud cover. Cowboy crested on his right and gave him that little nod.

Bat nodded back.

They formed up once more and turned northward. Far below them were the green valleys, dark forest, shining rivers of France…and then the lines. Although they were too far up to hear anything one could see by the thousands of tiny bursts of light that the day’s business had already begun. Shell bursts and muzzle flashes winked and sparkled miles beneath them. But they weren’t crossing over enemy lines until the replacements had a chance to get the lay of the land; instead A Flight headed west along the sector.

The twinkling lights faded and the battle front — a jagged, winding scar of desert slashed through the green and pastoral land — lay beneath. They were now four kilometers within the French lines. Clouds of smoke bloomed like scarlet-edged roses — interrupted at intervals by puffs of black and white shell bursts.

A Flight turned northward and then back. Bat glanced in his mirror and Jackson was gone.

Just like that he had dropped out of the sky.

There was no time to react for at that moment a patrol of Spads and Fokkers came out of the sun like a swarm of hornets out of their hive. The air was alive with the deafening roar of engines as aircraft maneuvered for position, climbing and dropping, spinning, diving, banking and all the while the webbing of white streamers from machine gun bullet tracers wound around A Flight while they dodged each other’s machines and tried to make sure they fired at black crosses and not the roundels and tail cockades of their own planes.

Bat spared a quick glance for his altimeter, temperature and pressure dials, and when he looked up again a Fokker was coming at him, looming up like a freight train on a motion picture screen as it drove straight toward Bat firing as it came. Bat responded with the familiar surge of aggressive anger, opening the throttle and hurtling forward — and he’d have rammed the other plane if the German hadn’t lost his nerve and dived.

Making a tight turn, nearly on his wingtip, Bat shot after him and managed to settle on his tail, firing five or six rounds while the Fokker zigged and zagged until he finally lost control and plummeted down, engine smoking.

Bat looked around and saw Ambrose in hot pursuit of a Spad, machine guns blazing. Tubby was doggedly chasing another into the blue distance. Varlik was still in one piece, and Heath…

Fuck.

Cowboy glided into place beside him and nodded. Bat tightly nodded back, his mind mostly on Heath. Bit of a surprise, though; generally Cowboy preferred to hunt on his own. He’d stayed with the pack today. Expecting a repeat of Bat’s shaky performance of the day before? He needn’t have worried. Bat had resigned himself to seeing dawn patrol out at the least.

He looked again for young Jackson, hoping that he had missed him in the maelstrom of the battle, but there was no sign of the khaki and tan Spad.

Already the dogfight was breaking up, the Boche planes out of ammunition and raveled out by the wind. Most aerial battles didn’t last longer than two or three minutes as they only all carried enough ammunition to fire for about fifty seconds. But Bat’s fuel tank was still a quarter full, he had plenty of ammo and, unlike Cowboy’s bullet-scarred machine, his plane hadn’t sustained any new damage.

Bat signaled to Cowboy to make for home with the rest of the patrol, and gave her full rudder, heading back to see if he could spot where Jackson had gone down. There was always a chance the boy had managed to land safely.

The wind was kicking up now — rain clouds rolling in from the north.

Cowboy stuck to Bat’s machine — irritating as a burr beneath one’s saddle — but Bat knew he couldn’t endanger the other pilot or risk losing his plane by trying to shake him. In any case, it wasn’t necessary for he quickly spotted Jackson’s shattered plane in an open field. It was in flames.

Bat circled round once more to see if there was any sign of life. There was nothing but fire and smoke.

He turned toward homeward once more.

¹ ¹ ¹ ¹

“So your daddy’s a duke,” Cowboy said, blue eyes watching Bat over the rim of his glass. He drank, set the glass down. His lips were wet from the ale, and Bat had a sudden, uncomfortably vivid recollection of what that firm mouth had felt like pressing his own.

“An earl, actually,” he replied quellingly.

Cowboy was not quelled.

“So what’s that make you?”

“The youngest of five sons.”

Cowboy grimaced. “What do they call you? What’s your title?”

“The Honourable, but no one calls — ”

“What kind of a moniker is ‘Bat’?” Cowboy interrupted. “What’s your name?”

“Aubrey.”

Undisturbed by Bat’s terse response, Cowboy offered that wide, white grin. “Aubrey? That’s sweet.”

“Go. To. Hell.”

Cowboy laughed.

They had arrived back at base after first crawl without further incident. Bat had made his report to Major Chase, grabbed a quick kip, and taken out the afternoon patrol for an uneventful foray behind enemy lines. Now A Flight was done for the day.

Captain Sears, broad shouldered and dark with a long seam of scar down his tanned face, stopped by the table. “Hard luck about…” he trailed vaguely. These days it was always hard luck about someone or other.

Sears was 19 Squadron’s A Flight commander. He shared a friendly rivalry with Bat — Sears currently down two kills. Three if — once — Bat’s morning’s work had been confirmed.

“Jackson,” Bat supplied automatically.

“Replacements?”

“By tomorrow, according to Chase,” Bat said.

Two patrols a day, two hours each patrol. Now and again they put in as many as six hours, but Wing discouraged it. Pilots at the front were burning out fast enough and someone had to be in shape to go up every single day weather permitting.

When they weren’t flying, they slept. Or drank. Or read. Bat had grown very familiar with the works of Zane Grey and Max Brand. Some chaps played cards or wrote letters, but mostly they slept a good deal.

Sears moved off and Cowboy said, as though there had been no interruption, “So what are your brothers doing these days? One of ‘em’s a big muckety muck in the War Office, right?”

“Archie,” Bat said reluctantly. He didn’t feel like chatting with Cowboy. He didn’t want to spend any time with him at all if he could help it. What he’d have liked to do was sleep, but he was still too wound up — and then there were his dreams. “Algie and Cyril are gone — since the first year of the war. Dorian is with the Grand Fleet in the North Sea.”

“And you were at Cambridge when you decided to join up?”

“Magdalene College, yes.”

“What were you studying?”

Bat shrugged a negligent shoulder. “I was eventually headed for the Foreign Office, I suppose. That’s what the pater wanted.”

“You always do what the pater wants?”

Fastening a cool eye on him, Bat said, “Clearly not.”

And Cowboy grinned. He seemed — as usual — very relaxed. His own nerves strung far too tight for far too long, Bat found this…insouciance grating.

He said, “You haven’t yet told me what you did about…him.”

Cowboy’s white grin broadened. “You don’t really want to discuss it here?” He glanced meaningfully around the crowded mess.

No one was paying them any mind. Varlik was once again singing “Roses of Picardy” in duet with the gramophone. Ambrose and Heath were engaged in some drinking game. Tubby was busily cheating at solitaire. Everyone else seemed riveted by the antics of a half-starved monkey that B Flight’s Berckman had brought back from leave.

Bat said slowly, “According to Sergeant Lamb, Orton is supposed to have scarpered. AWOL.”

The smile faded from Cowboy’s face. “You didn’t question him?” he demanded.

Bat shook his head. “Orton was assigned to my bus. Lamb had to fill in for him. He happened to mention it.”

Cowboy was eyeing him with a dark and doubtful gaze. “You know to keep your trap shut, right?”

Bat managed to contain the flash of anger he felt. The unpleasant idea occurred that he could not afford to quarrel with Cowboy. Could not afford to fall out with him. Not given the secret they shared.

Perhaps some similar idea cropped up in Cowboy’s mind. He said, “Why don’t we get out of here and go some place we can talk.”

It was not a suggestion. He stood, waiting. Bat stared up at him — and realized that here too he had no choice.

He followed Cowboy out of the mess, and the last notes of “Roses of Picardy” died behind them as the mess door swung shut.

“Let’s walk down to the lodge,” Cowboy said. “You look like you could use some shuteye. When was the last time you slept? Really slept, I mean?”

“How is that your affair?” Bat burst out, his resentment of this high-handedness growing momentarily.

Cowboy’s big hand wrapped around Bat’s upper arm, warningly. “It’s my affair because if you make some stupid mistake ‘cause you’re too tired to think straight, we’re both sunk.”

Bat roughly freed himself, uncaring of who might be watching — knowing as he did so, that Cowboy had a point. He was too weary to be careful, his emotions dangerously near the surface.

He said, “I can’t stay on at the lodge. Those were Gene’s digs, not mine. Not officially.”

“The old lady won’t care, will she? Could probably use the extra dough.”

He thought of Madame Fournier’s kindness — most likely due to the infirmities of age. A God-fearing woman, Madame would not knowingly have sheltered Gene and him if she’d any notion of what they got up to in that little room where her son once slept. There was always a foolish — dangerous — temptation to believe that there was understanding, perhaps sympathy, in silence when in fact all there was, was ignorance.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t care. I can’t stay there now.”

“Don’t be too hasty,” Cowboy said cryptically. “A little privacy would be useful.”

They walked down to the lodge in silence filled only by the crunch of their boots and the occasional song of a woodlark.

“You think the birds talk to each other in French?” Cowboy asked, and Bat smiled, forgetting his earlier annoyance.

“Possibly.”

Cowboy was also smiling. His eyes slanted Bat’s way, and Bat felt his face growing warm though he wasn’t sure why. He looked away hastily. Luminous white mushrooms grew at the roots of the ancient trees forming the leafy tunnel overhead. Wild berries lined the road, glossy purple and scarlet in the gloom. It smelled richly of damp earth and moldering leaves — and the leather of cowboy’s jacket and the soap he used.

“It’s a lot like home,” Bat said suddenly, forgetting his earlier annoyance. “Like Kent. Feels different, though. Feels…French.”

Gene had said you could see the Flemish influence in the village names and architecture.

The red roof of the hunting lodge appeared before them, smoke drifting from the white stone fireplace. Cowboy touched Bat’s arm, and they left the path and cut across the field to the gazebo where they could be assured no one would overhear their conversation.

“I’ll have to think what to do about Digsby,” Bat was saying distractedly as Cowboy pushed open the rickety door. “Gene’s dog. I suppose Madame — ”

He broke off as startled doves took wing through the holes in the roof. The door slammed shut behind them closing them in with the musty scent of decaying wood and dead leaves and bird nests, and Cowboy’s arms went around Bat.

Shocked into immobility, Bat recovered fast and shoved him away. Cowboy eyed him narrowly and then shoved back — harder — pushing Bat against the rough wall, big fists locked in Bat’s tunic, one knee thrust between Bat’s long legs.

Bat’s simmering resentment crackled into life, but beneath the anger was excitement. Part of him welcomed the idea of fighting Cowboy, part of him…

It was confusing. He told himself what Cowboy needed was a good thrashing, and what Bat needed was to deliver it, but…as his eyes met that dark blue gaze, he felt strangely irresolute. Cowboy’s breath was warm against his face. His mouth tingled recalling the feel and taste of Cowboy’s, and he wondered what would happen if he let Cowboy put his hands on him.

The idea alarmed him — but not nearly as much as it should have. In fact, maybe he wasn’t alarmed so much as…stimulated.

Cowboy pulled Bat close again, and Bat knew a kind of relief that he wasn’t being given a choice, that this was taken out of his hands; all he had to do was not fight too hard.

He closed his eyes, raising his face — leading with his chin, in fact. Cowboy’s big hands ran over the long lines of Bat’s body, tugging at his tunic, and Bat groaned, wanting the bulk of cloth removed from between his trembling body and the warm weight of Cowboy’s hands.

“Easy, easy,” Cowboy murmured, like he was soothing a nervous colt, undoing the fastening at Bat’s tunic collar, fingers warm against Bat’s throat.

Bat swallowed hard as Cowboy suddenly pressed a soft kiss in the naked hollow of his throat. He opened his eyes and Cowboy’s face was absorbed, grave. His lashes raised and he met Bat’s gaze. He seemed to be waiting for something.

What?

Seemingly of their own volition, Bat’s hands rose and he responded in kind, shoving aside Cowboy’s heavy jacket, working the fastenings of Cowboy’s tunic — careful of buttons, careful with His Majesty’s property — they couldn’t afford to explain untoward damage. Through the coarse wool of their uniforms, their groins ground urgently against each other, and then their hot mouths met in frenzied hunger.

The night before Bat had been too startled to truly acknowledge what was happening, but now…he was almost stunned by the intimacy of it, the silky rasp of Cowboy’s jaw against his own, the pressure of two mouths, the mingling of breath and saliva, the unaccustomed taste of another man, the slick surprise of tongue —

He was about to suffocate beneath the impact when Cowboy tore his mouth away, breathing hard. His hands slid down Bat’s long, thinly muscled back, finding his way to Bat’s waist band and fly. His hand slipped inside, rough but caressing, feeling Bat up with gentle but thorough expertise. Bat hissed but didn’t speak, didn’t say the words, even as Cowboy worked his way through layers of cloth to bare skin. Then Cowboy’s hard, unsteady fingers found the entrance to Bat’s body.

Bat jumped. “No,” he said hoarsely.

“Hell, yes,” Cowboy retorted a little unevenly.

“No.” And Bat started to fight him.

Cowboy let him go so abruptly Bat staggered, falling back against the wall.

“He’s dead,” Cowboy said. “You’re still alive, whether you like it or not.”

Rage washed through Bat’s body, but then…

“You don’t understand,” he said. “Gene and I…we never…did that.”

Cowboy went so still he merged with and vanished into the shadows, leaving Bat feeling as though he were alone. It was an awful feeling.

“Say something,” he said.

“I’m not sure what to say.”

The bubble of emotion that never seemed to leave Bat’s chest expanded and he couldn’t seem to breathe. He struggled with it.

So it was mostly relief when Cowboy’s powerful arms folded him close once more.

“You must’ve done more than hold hands,” Cowboy muttered. He bent his head and his lips grazed the nape of Bat’s neck. Bat shivered and pressed his face into the strong column of Cowboy’s throat.

Of course they had. They’d held each other, they had kissed, they had — but this, no. Bat, less experienced, had suggested certain things, but Gene had been very clear. And that had been all right by Bat — he’d been slightly ashamed for suggesting it.

Heat flooded his face which he kept it buried in Cowboy’s neck. “We tried to keep to the…the Platonic ideal.”

“Jesus.”

“I mean, we tried — ”

“I know what you mean,” Cowboy said astonishingly. “I read the Symposium. I went to Harvard.”

And it was Bat’s turn to be speechless. He raised his head, staring at Cowboy’s face in the gloom.

Cowboy laughed. “What did you think? I rode in from the plains on Old Paint?”

Hadn’t Cowboy rather acted that way? Was it perhaps his strange sense of humor? “Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

“What do I care what a bunch of English stuffed shirts think?”

Bat tried to throw him off, but Cowboy held him in place, back to the wall, and despite the cool words his hands stroked the other pilot in long tremulous caresses, warm hands sliding down Bat’s flanks and back.

“Not you. I care what you think,” he muttered.

“Oh, jolly for me,” Bat snarled. But it felt good. Very good to have Cowboy touching him like that. Despite his anger, Bat clutched Cowboy tightly, not wanting it to end, and when Cowboy’s hand slid down over his taut buttocks, he tried not to tense, tried to relax. The brush of fingertips on bare skin felt startlingly nice and started a peculiar ache in his chest. This was something he had not foreseen. That he might enjoy Cowboy’s sexual trespass. That he might welcome it. He struggled with guilt and pain and loyalty to Gene while Cowboy stroked him and whispered soothing things like he expected Bat to start bucking and biting any moment.

“Yeah, you’re beautiful, aren’t you? Sharp and shining like the edge of the sun.” He kissed the corner of Bat’s mouth, his erection thrusting aggressively into Bat’s groin.

And Bat began to move against Cowboy, longing for — needing more. Cowboy’s finger slipped right inside his body and an odd thrill shot through Bat. He shuddered all down the length of his body and half-swallowed a protest.

“Easy, easy,” Cowboy whispered hotly against his ear. “You want it and you need it. Hell, we both need it. It doesn’t have to mean anything more than that. Why should it?”

He kissed away any objection Bat might have made while all the time his finger kept stroking inside Bat’s body, nothing tentative about that touch, fingering Bat up with tantalizing expertise while he kept him pinned against the wall, not letting him move. And Bat turned his mouth from Cowboy’s and heaved in great gulps of air like he’d flown far too high, putting all thought away and opening his thighs to give Cowboy greater access.

Dear God that felt

…it made him melt inside, made him ache, made his body keen silently, desperate for more — much more. Embarrassing sounds escaped him, abject sounds, and Cowboy kissed them all away, smiling, seeming pleased as Bat grew more frantic.When Cowboy withdrew his hand Bat was aware of stinging disappointment. But then Cowboy guided him around to face the wall, and Bat planted his hands against its splintered roughness, spreading his legs, instinctively readying himself.

He heard the rustle of cloth and then Cowboy’s fingers were back but now they were slippery with oil. Blunt fingers cupped his balls, cradling them, caressing, and then one blunt finger traced the quivering entrance of Bat’s body once more.

“Ready as you’re going to be,” Cowboy said. “Just relax…that’s it…”

Bat swallowed dryly. He knew a moment of dizzy alarm. What was he surrendering to? What liberties was he allowing Cowboy? The big American was warm and solid all down the length of his back, the open flaps of his tunic tickling Bat’s bare skin as he leaned over him, his breath hot on the nape of Bat’s neck, his knees pressing into the back of Bat’s, hard hands locked on his hips. Cowboy’s cock lanced lightly between the cheeks of Bat’s arse, and the implicit threat, the tease of alarmed pleasure focused Bat’s thoughts. This was no betrayal of Gene. This was lust. Animal lust. Nothing to do with what had been between himself and Gene, and perhaps he did need it — this disconcerting proof that he was still alive. He didn’t care if it hurt; he rather hoped it did.

Bracing himself as Cowboy’s cock pushed slowly into him, Bat was astonished to find his body grudgingly accommodating the larger man’s organ, though he had to grit his jaw to keep from crying out. It did hurt. Not unbearably so, however, and the pain freed him of guilt.

Slowly, slowly Cowboy shoved deep into Bat’s body until Bat could feel the softness of hair against his buttocks. Cowboy thrust against him once, and Bat shivered. They were locked so tight that he could feel Cowboy’s heart hammering against his back.

He wriggled, pushing back a little, trying to find himself a bit of room to breathe. To think. But one of Cowboy’s hands moved its grip from Bat’s hip, coming beneath his belly and finding his cock, closing around it with easy expertise, pumping as though caressing a rifle. That helped, and again Bat’s body responded eagerly, his cock filling and lengthening.

Cowboy kissed the back of Bat’s neck and it was sweet. Bat relaxed into Cowboy’s hold, resting his forehead on the wall, smelling the biting pungency of wood and sweat.

Cowboy was thrusting into him now, steady, rhythmic thrusts, his heavy cock like a piston pushing into the cylinder of Bat’s body. It was unbelievable — unbelievable that Bat would allow this, and yet he was standing docilely permitting Cowboy to take him. Cowboy was grunting fiercely in Bat’s ear and oddly it began to excite Bat: the honesty of that rough animal pleasure. He groaned into the knotholes of the paneling.

“Yeah, that’s right, Aubrey,” Cowboy rasped. “That’s right, sweetheart. You know it, don’t you? You know you belong to me now.”

Bat shook his head. “Y-you’re…fucking mad,” he jerked out as Cowboy shoved into him, but Cowboy laughed.

“You’re only fooling yourself.” He used his knee to push Bat’s legs further to give himself better access, making Bat take him more deeply, and astonishingly Bat acquiesced, pushing back on Cowboy’s engorged organ with a helpless moan.

He let Cowboy fuck him, submitted to Cowboy’s rough and thorough possession until his legs felt weak and wobbly. Then Cowboy changed his angle, drove into Bat one more time and it was like lightning striking.

A white blaze lit up Bat’s body, nerves igniting. His breath caught, he shuddered all over, releasing his seed over the larger man’s hand, flooded with physical sensation — and unexpected emotion. At nearly the same instant, Cowboy groaned deep down in his chest and grabbed Bat tight against his torso, spilling blood-hot semen into him. That splash of liquid heat recalled Bat to himself.

What had he done? He had given into the basest of desires. He had let Cowboy use him, mark him like a wolf spraying its territory. He knew only too well what Gene would make of such brutish behavior, and yet…he felt very little. Perhaps he was simply numb.

Bat slumped against the wall, panting. After a time Cowboy’s cock slipped out of him.

Bat’s limbs were trembling — hands too — and his cock was suddenly unbearably sensitive. The odd thing was Cowboy seemed to understand that and he became tender — almost woman-tender so that Bat could have wept with humiliating gratitude. It was unmanly but he wanted this, wanted to be gentled, cared for. He breathed quietly against his arm as Cowboy cleaned him off with his soft linen handkerchief and then tucked him back inside his trousers. Then he drew Bat against him and they sat down — half collapsing on the faded old cushions of the dilapidated furniture.

For a time they sprawled there and Cowboy rocked Bat against him in a funny soothing way. Bat closed his eyes. The traitorous wish occurred that he and Gene would have done this, and then, even more traitorously, he realized he wanted nothing more than to sleep against this strong warm body and not think anymore.

Cowboy kissed his hair and his face and rocked him some more and Bat let himself drift.

He must have fallen deeply asleep because the next thing he knew Cowboy was saying softly, “Rise and shine, Aubrey. I gotta get back and you need some real sleep.”

Bat blinked at him, nodded, and sat up. He ran a hand through his hair.

“All right?” Cowboy asked, and though he spoke brusquely, there was some remaining trace of that unexpected tenderness in his voice.

Bat nodded again. He had no words to express his confusion, his astonishment at what he’d done — what they had done.

They rose and dressed quickly, and then Cowboy went back to the air field and Bat let himself into the lodge.

Madame greeted him with pleasure and Digsby with outright joy. It was not until Bat had been persuaded into sitting down and eating a bowl of hot stew that he realized that Cowboy had still not told him what he had done with Orton’s body.

Can ghosts influence the living? Can they make a man fall in love? Help him see things in different lights? William Maltese, AM Riley and Lex Valentine weave four tales that pose these questions and answer the question, LOVE ME DEAD?

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

Ghost Hunters

Long Beach

AM Riley

“Ri-i-i-i-i-ta! Ri-i-i-i-i-ta!”

The voice echoed, disembodied, in the dark room. My hand tightened on the theater armrest, and something icy cold and damp touched me.

“Ah!”

“You want another beer?” whispered Rick, leaning toward me and touching the back of my hand again with the bottle.

“Sure.” My palm closed around a chilled beer bottle, still damp from the ice chest. Millers with the twist-off caps were a staple of our ghost hunting evenings. Rick carried them in a portable chest fitted with a shoulder harness. Currently the ice chest rested at his feet, and I heard the crunch of ice as Rick leaned over and got himself another bottle as well.

We were seated in the theater of the Queen Mary Hotel. It was after 11:00 p.m., the theater was closed, and the lights were shut off. The only illumination came through a ventilation grate in the far left wall. A shaft of light angling down to the dusty parquet floor, particles of who-knew-what twisting in its glow.

“Ri-i-i-i-ta.” I could see the source of the voice, Beth Ann Tomlinson, seated several rows below me, her hair a fuzzy mass in the dim light. Her husband Daniel sat beside her. I knew him by the outline of the knit cap he always wore.

Two rows down and over to the left I could discern the hunching shapes of the three Musketeers, George, Bob, and Ginger. Bob had some kind of recording device running that needed technical maintenance; I could hear it squeaking from several seats away. Ginger’s small digital camera made a sound every few minutes. She’d look through the pictures later for the translucent spherical dots that ghost hunters call ‘orbs’. A few seats beyond them were Amy and Dick, whose heads had been pressed together since the lights had gone out. Dick was known amongst we ‘die-hards’ as ‘Screaming Dick’, because of that one unfortunate night in the main engine room when a box had tumbled onto the floor behind him. He’d shrieked and run, banging his head on the portal door and, still running and screaming with the blood running down his face, had shattered the nerves of a group of people on a ghost tour of the HMS Queen Mary.

Ghost hunters don’t scream or run. REAL ghost hunters. Die-hards like us.

I let my gaze rest on the two-headed monster of Amy and Dick for just a little longer; thinking that though Dick was branded a coward, he had more courage than I did. He’d had the courage to reach across the dark abyss and take the hand of the one he wanted.

Something I hadn’t yet had the balls to do.

Rick’s elbow shoved into mine, and he leaned over so he could whisper against my ear, “It’s almost midnight. Let’s go.”

http://www.amazon.com/Conquest-S-J-Frost/dp/1608200884/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1257997251&sr=1-2
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?ISBSRC=Y&ISBN=9781608200887

Vocally gifted singer, Jesse Alexander, has dreams of taking his band, Conquest, to the top. Evan Arden was thought of as a musical genius when at the height of his career he vanished from the spotlight. Together, their relationship is just as intense as their music careers. With success pushing down on them, Jesse must decide between his life of music, or his life with Evan.

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

Chapter One

“Jesse, sweetheart, it’s mom again. I wish you would call me back. I’ve been worried sick about you since last night. Your father, I know he feels horrible about what happened, and I know saying this is just going to get you angrier, but you can’t blame everything that happened on him. You know how his temper is, and you still provoked him by yelling at him and shoving him. If only you wouldn’t push him so hard to accept that you’re…you’re—”

Jesse snapped his cell phone closed to silence his mother’s stammering message before the roiling disgust in his stomach rose to his throat and choked him. He lifted his left hand, gingerly touching his fingertips to the light purple bruise on the left side of his jaw. His father felt horrible? Yeah, right. If there was one thing his father felt horrible about in regards to his two sons, it was that in his father’s opinion, they had fallen so short of being the men he wanted them to be.

Jesse fell over backward on the twin-sized bed that barely fit in his apartment bedroom. A growing headache caused his brain to feel like it was swelling to the limits of his skull. As if it hadn’t been embarrassing enough setting foot in a house he had vowed never to enter again, to do it in order to borrow money to get his piece of crap truck fixed—money his mother had sneaked away from his father—and getting caught by his father arriving home early, had been absolute humiliation. Maybe he deserved what he got for going where he knew he was forbidden to return. Maybe, for once, his father’s rage had been justified. Maybe he should have accepted being told, yet again, that he was ungrateful, that he had thrown everything away in pursuit of a pointless dream, that no little faggot was any son of his father’s.

With a mental fist, Jesse punched the thoughts away. No. He didn’t deserve any of that, and he held no regrets about retaliating against his father, even if it had earned him a right hook to the jaw. It was better than letting his father feel victory over him. Never would he allow himself to be defeated, not by his father, not by anyone or anything; and by staying true to himself, he knew he delivered a more devastating blow to his father than any physical hit. Though it had felt really good to shove him and feel his father’s body give way under the force.

From the small stereo on the nightstand beside the bed came the smooth baritone of his favorite singer, Evan Arden. Like a soothing tonic, Evan’s rich voice cooled his heated temper and mended his frayed nerves. He listened to the ballad “One More Time” and softly raised his tenor to join Evan.

“Despite all the tears I’ve cried,

And all the pain they’ve brought,

I’d shed them all one more time,

To see you smile again.

If seeing me hurt pleases you,

Then I’ll cherish this pain forever…”

Jesse sighed and let Evan take over. The song finished, and he raised his left wrist above his head to look at his watch. Seven o’clock. He needed to get ready to meet his brother. He pushed himself upright and hopped off the bed, snatching the clothes he had laid out on his way to the door.

He opened his bedroom door and paused. It seemed so dark and gloomy in his apartment, but then he thought maybe it was just his mood. He glanced at the cracked and scratched hardwood floor, the stained countertop separating the kitchen from the living room, the secondhand furniture, the single window overlooking the dingy alley below, and decided his apartment was a gloomy shit-hole no matter what his mood.

An acoustic guitar and a battered black Gibson Les Paul sat in one corner. The Les Paul had seen better days externally, but still carried a sweet, perfect pitch when the six strings were played. Two mini amps, four microphone stands with mics, and two keyboards were close to his desk where sheets of music with his scrawling handwriting were stacked in neat piles. His bass guitar and sunburst Fender Stratocaster sat on the other side of his desk.

His eyes fell on Kenny, his oldest friend, guitarist, and roommate, on the raggedy multi-colored couch. His dark blond hair fell into honey-brown eyes that were focused on the black and white Fender Stratocaster on his lap. Jesse watched the tender way Kenny rubbed a soft white cloth over the body of the instrument, polishing it to a lustrous shine.

“Hey,” Jesse said. “It sucks enough when I walk in on you and Carrie messing around, and I know you love your guitar, but you’re kinda freakin’ me out the way you’re stroking it.”

Kenny rolled his eyes up to Jesse in a look of exasperation. He repositioned the guitar on his lap to play. “I want you to hear this new riff I thought up. It’s really cool.”

Jesse walked across the miniscule living room and sat beside him. Kenny streaked his hand down the neck of the guitar, his long, agile fingers glided through smooth chord changes. Even without the guitar plugged in, Jesse heard the riff as if it were, high and fast, strong and catchy.

“What do you think?” Kenny asked.

Jesse placed his hand on Kenny’s and slid it a fret higher to slightly deepen the pitch. “Now play it.”

Kenny tore out the riff again.

“Perfect,” Jesse said as Kenny finished. “Play it a few more times.”

Kenny put his fingers to the frets, playing the same chord combos five times, knowing that’s all Jesse needed to memorize the harmony.

“I’ve already got some lyrics and partial music down to a new song I think that should be perfect for,” Jesse said.

“Cool.” Kenny leaned back against the couch, cradling the guitar to his chest. “Mike called me. He needs directions to our gig tomorrow night, but I couldn’t remember the name of the bar, so I told him you’d call him back.”

Jesse let out an irritated huff. “I’ll write them down and you can call him. I’m too pissed at him after he ditched rehearsal last night. He thinks he’s the god of thunder, but he can’t keep a good rhythm to save his life.”

Kenny shot Jesse a scolding glare. “He’s not as good a drummer as Justin was, I’ll give you that, but since your cocky ass attitude drove him away like Andy before him, now we’re stuck with Mike until he gets sick of you.”

Jesse flipped his hand in a dismissive gesture. “They weren’t professional quality, anyway.”

“Just try not to fight with Mike tomorrow night,” Kenny pleaded. “We’ll never get picked up by a label if we keep changing members.”

Jesse squinted at him and poked him on the chest with an accusing finger. “You should know by now to never lose faith in me. It doesn’t matter how many band members we go through. You and I are the heart of Conquest.” His words came faster with his mounting excitement. “Maybe we play shitty bars now, but soon it’ll be the hottest clubs! Then sold-out arenas!” He leaped to his feet, his indigo eyes shining like a warrior’s about to enter a battle where he knew his victory was the only possible outcome. He threw a triumphant fist high into the air. “It’s only a matter of time before all of Chicago is coming to hear us play! How can they not with me, the golden god of music, singing? I will conquer the world!”

“Here we go again,” Kenny muttered to himself, then said louder to Jesse, “shouldn’t you be getting ready to meet Brandon? Carrie’s going to be here soon, and I don’t need you putting her in a bad mood and blowing my chances at gettin’ some.”

Jesse cringed with a fake shiver at the mention of Kenny’s girlfriend. “Don’t worry, I’ll be long gone. I try to make sure I’m not within a mile radius of anywhere that thing’s getting naked.”

Kenny frowned up at him. “You could at least attempt pretending to be nice.”

Jesse turned for the bathroom. “I’ll be nice when she speaks in a pitch that doesn’t hurt my ears.” He paused in the doorway. “Hey, did you get the mail today?”

“Yeah.”

“And?”

“And don’t you think if there was anything in it other than junk and rejection letters saying how our demo isn’t what every record label in the world is looking for, I would’ve told you by now?”

“Beautiful,” Jesse grumbled, shutting the bathroom door behind him.

He leaned back against the door. Despite his confident declaration, doubt twisted his heart. Week after week he faced the rejections for their demo, from agents and labels. He wondered just how many more times he could take being knocked down before his spirit became too weak to pull him back up to try again.

He drew in a quick breath and shook his head to clear it of the depressing thoughts. He got the water running in the shower and stripped while he waited for it to get up to temperature. He stepped under the flow, and as he did, the temperature faded back down to lukewarm, then cooled to a chilly stream trickling from the showerhead before a surge of hot water blasted out with skin reddening force. Jesse scowled up at the showerhead, sending a silent curse through it to the antiquated plumbing. He turned to washing and did his best to ignore the inconsistent temperature and pressure as it repeated the pattern several more times.

When he got out, he wiped the condensation off the mirror and looked at his reflection. At five foot seven, he was lithe and fit, his biceps firm with sinewy strength, his abdomen lined in muscle, his smooth chest well-defined. He ran the backs of his index and middle fingers along his slender jaw, then lathered his face and took his razor carefully over his flawless skin. His black hair toweled and styled to accentuate the sharp, jagged angles around his face, with enough length in back to fall just to the top of his neck. Long enough to get a messy look, but able to style neatly when he wanted.

Dressed in jeans faded on the thighs and a black V-neck shirt that clung to his lean frame, he slid three small silver hoop earrings into his left earlobe and a fourth up in the cartilage, then two more in his right earlobe. Around his neck, he fastened a choker of two thin black leather cords with a gold pendant of a sixteen-rayed sun that rested in the hollow of his throat.

He stepped out of the bathroom to the living room, and after putting on his shoes, he sprang up and spoke to Kenny as he walked toward the door. “I might spend the night at Brandon’s, so don’t worry if I don’t come home.”

Kenny nodded, concentrated on his guitar once again.

With the elevator broken in the rundown apartment building, Jesse jogged down three flights of stairs to the ground floor and pushed through a front door roughly the thickness of a sheet of plywood. He turned in the direction of his brother’s apartment a few blocks away. His heavy thoughts invaded his mind again and pressed down so hard they were reflected in the way he walked, dragging his feet, scuffing his already tattered Nikes on the sidewalk.

A piercing wolf whistle cut through his mind.

Jesse snapped his head up and spun toward the sound. His older brother waved to him, idling a few feet away on his Suzuki motorcycle.

“Moron!” Jesse called, walking toward him.

Brandon laughed. “Who’d you think it was? Prince Charming come to whisk you away on his gallant white and blue crotch rocket?” He pulled up next to the curb and stopped. His eyes locked on the bruise on Jesse’s jaw. He caught Jesse gently by the chin and turned his head to the right, peering intently at the purple blemish. “When we talked last night, I thought you said he only clipped you.”

Jesse stayed still while his brother inspected the injury. “He did. I twisted away and dodged the full impact. Mom’s been calling me, but she’s warped back into her classic stand-by-your-man mode. What sucks most is I was so pissed after everything happened, I refused to take the money she got for me, so now I’m going to have to dip into the funds I’ve been saving for a new keyboard, but I guess it’s better than taking anything that’s attached to him.”

Brandon dropped his hand from Jesse’s chin. “I’ll help you out as much as I can.” He faced forward, squeezing the handlebars of the motorcycle with white-knuckled force. “He could’ve broken your jaw. I should show him the results of all my karate lessons he paid for when I was a kid.”

Jesse gazed at the distant expression and barely concealed hurt on Brandon’s face. If anyone understood how their father could be, it was his older brother. There wasn’t a week he remembered from when they were young where Brandon and their father hadn’t been at each other’s throats over something. Their relationship had been a lot more volatile than what he had with their father, and he knew he should have learned from watching it, especially when Brandon decided to major in theatre and the performing arts at Chicago University and their father turned his back on Brandon. He should have seen his own expulsion from home coming a few years later, and part of him had, but part of him wanted to believe his father would change. At least when he got kicked out he had Brandon to go to, unlike Brandon who’d had no one.

Jesse laid his hand on Brandon’s shoulder, wanting to save him from reliving his dark memories. “Hey, you promised to feed me before we go out, remember? If you don’t, I’ll be too weak from hunger to be able to bait all the hottest guys in for you.”

Brandon rolled his eyes. “Like I need your help.”

“I’ve seen some of the people you date. You need all the help you can get.”

“Jerk-ass,” Brandon chuckled. “Get on.”

Jesse swung his leg over the back of the Katana 750. Brandon hit the throttle and zipped the bike through Jesse’s neighborhood toward his own.

Jesse leaned away from his brother and patted the back of his shirt. “You’re all sweaty. What the hell were you doing before you came here?”

“What do you think I was doing? Dancing my happy little ass off in rehearsal. We gotta go to my place so I can get a shower before we go out, but we can grab something to eat first.” Brandon veered the Suzuki onto South Dearborn Street and found a place to park near his apartment building.

Jesse hopped off, shaking his fingers through his hair, and fell into stride beside his brother as they walked away from the weathered brown brick building in the direction of their usual burger place up the street. “I read a review of Cabaret in the paper the other day. They were saying it’s the best production of it Chicago has ever seen. They spent two paragraphs gushing over you as the Emcee.”

“Of course. I’m only the best Emcee ever.”

A humorless snort rattled from Jesse’s nose. “Yeah, only because I spent every night with you for three weeks teaching your lame ass how to sing.”

Brandon pushed him on the shoulder, making him stumble. “Like I don’t spend hours teaching you new dance moves for your silly little rock performances.”

“A lot of good it’s done me,” Jesse mumbled.

He lifted his eyes to the Manhattan Building, one of the largest buildings in Chicago over a century ago, now dwarfed by skyscrapers and high-rise apartments. In this area with many of the structures dating back to the end of the 19^th century, it was easy to feel the history of the city closing in around him. Normally he loved admiring the old architecture, each building had some sculpture or design that made it unique, but now he walked with his eyes focused on the sidewalk.

Brandon glanced at him, taking in his somber mien. “There’s more bothering you than just what happened with dad, isn’t there?”

“It’s a lot of things,” Jesse said softly.

He stopped outside a small burger joint and pulled open the door. Crossing the pale yellow linoleum floor, he slid into the red vinyl, duct tape patched seat of a booth near a window and pulled a menu out from behind the dented stainless steel napkin holder. He gazed around the greasy spoon decorated to local flavor with pictures of past and present players from the Chicago Bears. Helmets and jerseys from the Big Ten Conference teams, including the Purdue Boilermakers, hung on another wall. He always found it cool to see memorabilia from his favorite pro and college teams, and being on the South Side, it was nice to be in a restaurant that had more White Sox stuff displayed than the Cubs. He turned his attention to the grease stained print of the menu. A sugar packet flew over the top of it, hitting him on the forehead.

“Are you gonna talk or be a pouty little punk all night?” Brandon said.

Jesse lowered the menu and met eyes a shade lighter blue than his own. People always said they looked alike, and he guessed they had some resemblances, save for the fact Brandon had three inches on him and a thicker, medium build. They shared the same jet-black hair color, though Brandon wore his a bit longer than him these days.

Jesse took a breath to speak, but stopped when their waitress walked up. After mimicking Brandon’s order of a Pepsi and a bacon mushroom Swiss burger with an extra side of fries, he focused on answering Brandon. “Things have just been messed up lately. It seems like no matter what I do, I can’t get ahead with my music.”

“You still got Tweedledee and Tweedledum playing with you, right?”

Jesse chuckled at Brandon’s nicknames for his keyboardist and drummer, and leaned back as their waitress returned with their drinks. His laugh slowed, and he took a deep breath, his moment of good humor slipping away with the exhale. “Yeah, Mike’s drumming hasn’t gotten any better since he joined, and Ben can’t work the synth and his keyboard playing blows. I’m trying to teach him ‘Shattered’ but it’s too complex for him. What the hell am I supposed to do? Sing, perform, play keyboard, rhythm guitar, bass, and drums? If it wasn’t for Kenny, I’d be going insane.”

His voice rose with his frustration. “I’ve sacrificed everything for this and where am I? Twenty years old and I can see my future clear as freakin’ day. I’ll be the stock manager at the goddamn bookstore for the rest of my life. I turned down college for this, to live in a shit-hole apartment and play in shit-hole bars, losing more money than I’m making because I’ve got nothing but idiots dragging me down and holding me back. Third largest city in the damn country and I can’t find two people who know how to play their instruments.” He collapsed back in the booth, ending his rant when he saw their waitress coming with their food.

Brandon stared at him from the other side of the table. “Damn. You’re a lot more pissy than usual tonight.”

Jesse glared at him while Brandon drowned his burger in ketchup and squeezed a glob on the side of the plate for his fries. “That’s all you’ve got to say?”

Brandon shrugged and took a bite of his burger. “It’s too late to be piss-eyeing over college now. Some other book smart, no common sense dork has your seat in pre-law 101.”

Jesse flipped the top bun off his burger. “Thanks, jackass. That was real helpful.”

Brandon lowered his burger to his plate. “What do you want me to say? When you made the decision to keep going with your music, that was the only time I ever thought you might have just a smidge of common sense, but as always, you’ve decided to prove me wrong by acting like you are now.”

Jesse shook the ketchup bottle harder than it needed and flicked it open. “And how exactly am I acting?”

“Like a spoiled little prima donna who expected to have a record deal and a Ferrari after only a year and a half of trying to get noticed. Look at how it was for me my first year trying to be an actor and for the next couple years after that. I thought I was going to be a waiter at the Hard Rock for the rest of my life because it seemed the best I could get was doing community theatre. But I kept with it. I didn’t stop. Was it hard? Hell yeah it was hard, but if it wasn’t then it wouldn’t be a dream now would it?”

Jesse swirled a fry in ketchup, playing with it more than having any intention of eating it. “Yeah, but now look at you. You’re only going to be twenty-five this July and you’re the Emcee in Cabaret.”

Brandon’s face fell serious. “Thanks to your help with my voice.”

Jesse lifted his eyes to Brandon.

Brandon picked his burger up again. “You know what? Just forget it, you should quit. You gotta have stones if you’re going to pursue your dreams. I used to think you had ‘em with the way you can get up in front of people and sing, the stage charisma you’ve got. You’re a different person when you’ve got your music backing you. But now you can just give it up. With the grades you had and being valedictorian, I bet you could even get accepted into Purdue again, then you can work your way through school and get a nice, safe job. I really think that’s the way to go. It’s time for little Jesse Alexander to grow up and become a good boy.”

Jesse clenched his teeth, biting his anger back as much as he could. “How can you say that? My music is everything to me! Singing, playing, writing, it’s all I ever wanted to do! And I never said I was giving it up.” He lowered his eyes, his voice softened. “I just said things have been rough lately.”

Brandon folded his arms on the table. “Look, it’s normal to doubt yourself sometimes. In fact, it’s abnormal that you haven’t doubted yourself until now. But don’t take that self-doubt so far that it makes you fear what you love.”

Jesse nodded slowly. “Your delivery was actually pretty good there.”

“Why do I even try with you!” Brandon threw a fry and hit him on the chest.

“Cute,” Jesse said, wiping the fry’s salt off his shirt.

Brandon shoved the last bite of burger into his mouth. “Seriously though, everyone doubts themselves. Look at Evan Arden. You don’t think he was Mr. Confident his whole life before being discovered, do you?”

Jesse looked up at the mention of his favorite singer. When Evan Arden had entered the music world he was a force that couldn’t be stopped. His music had a rock edge, but more depth than a lot of performers. He never held back on using violins, horns, even full symphonies to give his songs a richer, deeper sound. The fast beats attracted young audiences, the depth of the music pulled in older audiences, and his voice captured everyone. He rode the charts at Number One, selling out concerts in the largest venues across the world. He learned most of what he knew about vocal control by singing along with Evan’s CDs, striving to match Evan’s voice note for note. He couldn’t imagine a vocalist that talented ever doubting himself.

“Okay, bad example,” Brandon said. “Evan can’t be touched. I Googled him the other day to see if there were any updates. Nothing. Just the same old crap on the fan-sites and forums with people gossiping about what’s happened to him. This one idiot posted Evan had died of a drug overdose in China, but I don’t believe it. You could tell when you saw him perform and in interviews he had too much pride in himself to get messed up like that.”

“But who knows what was going on in his life when he wasn’t smiling for the cameras.” Jesse sat silent for a moment. He shook his head slightly. “I don’t even want to think about him being dead. It would hurt too much if he were. His music has meant so much to me.”

“I know, but it does make you wonder. I mean, how the hell does someone so famous just vanish off the face of the earth for three and a half years?”

“Maybe making music didn’t mean that much to him.”

“That’s pretty shitty, to be gifted like that and take it for granted.” Brandon exhaled an exaggerated forlorn sigh. “But I guess I could forgive him if I ever met him.”

Jesse chuckled softly. “Yeah, I’m sure you could.”

He finished his food and pushed his plate to the edge of the table. Their waitress dropped off the check, and while Brandon headed to the register, Jesse went outside. He stretched his arms over his head and gazed up at the amber sun as it made its descent from the azure April sky.

Brandon tossed his arm around Jesse’s shoulders and steered him back toward his apartment. “You’ll feel better after we get to a club and you hit the dance floor. But if you disappear on me like you did the last time, I’m bringing Kenny when we go out from now on so he can help me keep an eye on you.”

“I’m pretty sure his kicking and screaming as you dragged him through the club doors would ruin both our chances at scoring, so you should probably rethink that idea.”

After Brandon, Kenny was the second person he came out to, and though Brandon said he’d known long before, Kenny had been clueless. Maybe with him and Kenny being seventeen at the time, Kenny hadn’t been ready to hear him discuss his first experience with another guy, Aaron, whose body of energy and muscle made him fully acknowledge what he needed to be happy and satisfied in life. Kenny seemed to accept it better now, but to spare him, he didn’t divulge the full details of what happened between him and other men when he and Brandon went out, and he would never ask Kenny to join them at the clubs.

“You really need to start desensitizing him a little more,” Brandon said. “What’re you going to do if one of these days you meet a guy you really like and you want to start a relationship? Oh, sorry. I forgot who I was talking to. Guy, girl, or blow-up doll, you’ve never spent a full night with any, so what am I talking about relationships for?”

“You’re not exactly Captain Monogamous, so I don’t know why you’re ragging on me.”

Brandon hushed his voice, concern edged his tone. “I know, but after the last time we went out and you vanished on me, I want to make sure you’re always being careful. When I didn’t know where you went, it freaked me out.”

“I don’t know why. It’s not like I ever go home with anyone. If I did, I’d have to call you and put my cell on speaker because it’d be so weird not having you at my hip.”

“I’m just trying to watch out for you.”

Jesse stopped and faced him. “And I appreciate it, but you know I’m always careful and you also know my limit.”

“For now. In the right situation with the right guy, that’ll change real quick.”

“And then I’ll be even more careful.”

A doubtful look crossed Brandon’s face.

Jesse ignored Brandon’s look and climbed the concrete stairs to Brandon’s building. He headed inside to the elevator, closed the rickety metal gate after Brandon entered, and hit the button for the fourth floor. The elevator creaked its way up, and they stepped out to Brandon’s apartment directly across the hall.

Brandon unlocked his door, and Jesse followed him into the studio apartment, his eyes falling on a large, serene sculpture of a meditating Buddha sitting in one corner. He walked across the living area to a small jolly Hotei statue atop the TV and rubbed the Japanese deity’s fat belly for good luck. On either side of the TV, two towers held fifty DVDs each, both full. In front of the towers sat two milk crates containing the overflow.

Jesse grabbed the remote and plopped down on the couch. “You collect movies like I collect CDs.”

Brandon’s voice echoed in the bathroom over the running water. “Comes with the trade. Gotta study the art, you know?”

“Yeah? So what’s up with all the anime?”

“Maybe I’ll try being a voice actor someday.”

“Or maybe you just like watching cartoons,” Jesse teased.

“Hey! Instead of sitting on your lazy ass, why don’t you fold my laundry on the bed?”

Jesse shot a glare over his shoulder toward the bathroom. “Why don’t you fold your own damn laundry?”

“Why don’t you pay for your own damn dinner?”

Jesse exhaled an irritated sigh. He sat on the couch for another moment before getting up and stomping across the hardwood floor to the little nook where Brandon kept his bed and dresser opposite from the bathroom. He grabbed the blue plastic laundry basket by its broken handle and dumped Brandon’s clothes on the bed. He picked up a dark maroon button down shirt and a pair of black dress pants, walked to Brandon’s closet to hang them and heard the water turn off in the bathroom. He moved back to the bed, flicking a pair of Brandon’s boxer-briefs away with his index finger.

“You know, we haven’t lived together for three months. I thought my days of having to see your nasty ass underwear were done.”

A wet towel flew out of the bathroom toward him, but fell short and slid across the floor.

Brandon walked out of the bathroom in a pair of jeans, snatching the towel off the floor on his way to the bed. He reached toward Jesse and grabbed the sleeve of the shirt he wore, rubbing the material between his thumb and index finger. “This is a cool shirt. Why do you have to be built like a damn munchkin? I never could wear any of your clothes.”

“Suck it!” Jesse threw the shirt he was getting ready to fold at Brandon and headed toward the bathroom. “You got anything that can cover this bruise?”

“I’m an actor. What do you think?”

“That you’re a lot more gay than me,” Jesse snickered.

“Asshole,” Brandon laughed. “There’s some foundation under the sink. But hurry your ass up, Cinderella. By the time you’re done primping, the ball will be over and the Prince will be in bed with someone else.”

“Somehow I doubt I’ll find my prince in Boystown.”

Brandon held up the shirt, trying to decide if he wanted to wear it. “You never know. The man of your dreams could pop up when you’re least expecting it.”

Sean and Austin’s perfect world shatters when Sean’s eight-year-old son, Jason, vanishes. When Jason turns up days later abused and unable to speak, small town fingers point to the boy’s gay dad as the culprit. Meanwhile, the real villain is close by, intent on ensuring the boy’s muteness is permanent.
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*********************

Chapter One

It was one of their rare lazy evenings. Summer, and the evening air was fresh and clean after an afternoon thunderstorm, with just a hint of a breeze. Normally, Sean and Austin were so busy that if they weren’t trying to change something about the little Cape Cod on the Ohio River they had bought a year before—adding a deck, putting in a new kitchen, stripping away years of white paint from the woodwork downstairs—they were too tired to do anything but crawl into bed and pass out, usually before eleven o’clock. Lovemaking, since they had bought the money- and-time-sucking house, had become relegated to weekend afternoons and the occasional early morning.

But today, Thursday, had been an easy one. Austin had called into work, the Benson Pottery, where he was a caster and taken a mental health day. Things had just been too damn busy lately and he needed the break. Waiting until Saturday was out of the question. Sunday seemed farther away than the next millennium.

Sean, a reporter for The Evening View, the local thrice-weekly compilation of ads sandwiched in with a little editorial, had had the day off. The couple had spent the day in Pittsburgh, at the Andy Warhol museum, then had an early dinner at The Grand Concourse (the best Paella on the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers), beat the brutal thunderstorm home, made love (acrobatically, in the kitchen, atop a Butcher’s block), and now the two were curled up in front of the TV. Sean had rented Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and, after a bowl of Jamaican and a couple of vodka and tonics, the two were teary-eyed with laughter.

Sean looked over at his younger boyfriend and thought how lucky he was to have found Austin, especially in a town the size of Summitville, where the population hovered just above ten thousand. Even better, Austin was his fantasy man, with a broad, beefy body that his mother and her friends would have called strapping, sandy blond hair, and the bluest eyes he had ever seen. When Sean had first met him, he thought Austin’s eyes had to be fake: enhanced by those tinted contacts that never looked real. But he found quickly that the young man was simply blessed with arresting eyes to go along with his broad shoulders, dimpled chin, and infectious smile. He wore that smile right now, coming down from a fit of inappropriate laughter after hearing Elizabeth Taylor tell Richard Burton, “I’d divorce you if I thought you were alive.”

A sick sense of humor was yet another thing the pair had in common.

It was what they both would have agreed was a perfect day. Well, Sean might have had one more item to add to the “perfection” list. Having his son, Jason, around for at least part of the time would have been all it would have taken to make the day ideal, but these days, Jason was for the weekends only.

In any case, this was close enough to nirvana. He closed his eyes and let his head loll back on Austin’s shoulder.

Sean was just thinking about slowly undressing Austin and then leading him into the bedroom for round two when the phone rang. Its chirp startled both of them out of the cocoon of warmth that had surrounded them, a cocoon built from good sex, supreme relaxation, and the afore-mentioned Jamaican weed.

Austin: sleepily from under Sean’s arm on the couch, “Don’t get it. Please don’t get it. Just let the machine pick up. I don’t want to talk to anyone. And I don’t want you to, neither.” Sean eyed the little answering machine next to the cordless, wondering when they would enter the 21^st century and use voice mail like everyone else. But, unlike voice mail, the machine did allow them to screen calls and for two men who appreciated their privacy, this feature had voice mail beat all to hell.

Sean let the phone ring its customary four rings, although his tendency would have been to answer it. But if this would make Austin happy, then he was willing to do it. Especially since he had things in mind for Austin that did not involve the telephone. Things that would erase their fatigue and perhaps keep them up the better part of the night. Sean grinned.

On the fourth ring, Sean pressed the pause button on the remote control and sat up straighter to listen.

“Whatever it is, it can wait,” Austin whispered in Sean’s ear, flicking his earlobe with his tongue and giving his crotch a playful squeeze.

And then the moment shattered.

Shelley’s voice, almost unfamiliar under the veneer of tension that made it higher, quicker, came through. Shelley and Sean had been married once upon a time and their union had produced Jason, the best little boy in the world. As soon as Sean heard Shelley’s voice he thought of his son, who shared his dark hair, green eyes, wiry frame, and his fascination with stories.

“Sean? Sean, I hope you’re there. This is important. Please pick up.” There was a slight pause. “It’s about Jason. He…”

Before she could say anything else, Sean sprinted for the phone in the entryway. “Shelley? Sorry, I was…”

“Jason is missing.”

“What?”

And then Sean heard her begin to sob and the relaxation in all of his muscles vanished, replaced by a tightness that felt like steel bands snapping taut across his muscles. Blood rushed in his ears; his heart began to pound. A queasy nausea rose up in his gut.

“Jason never came home tonight,” Shelley sobbed. “I don’t know where he is. Please say he’s with you.”

Sean sat down on the little oak chair in front of the desk. Well, collapsed into the chair was more like it. “Shelley, I’m sorry, but he’s not here. Don’t you think I would have called if he had come here? How long’s he been gone?” Sean rubbed the back of his neck, his mouth curiously dry. He glanced out the window at the complete darkness.”I went to work at six and he wasn’t home yet.” She blew out a sigh. “But, you know, we just thought he was horsing around in the woods or something and lost track of time. Then I called Paul and…”

“Wait a minute, Shelley. It’s a quarter ‘til eleven.”

“I know. I know.”

“Why didn’t you call sooner? You mean to tell me you’re just starting to look? Christ, he’s eight years old.”

“I thought he would’ve come home while I was on my shift. Paul was here and he fell asleep and…”

“Paul. Great.” Sean rubbed his sweaty palms against his thighs.

“Please Sean, it’s not the time. I fucked up. Okay? Now that we’ve got that out of the way, I need some help finding our son.”

She was right. In spite of the thoughts running through his head, most of them centering around how he and Austin would have been better parents, but the courts couldn’t see that, all they could see was a little boy growing up under the wings of two queers, Sean knew she was right.

This was an emergency.

He looked over at his partner, who was sitting up, alert on the couch, concern making his fair features somehow darker, eyebrows pulling together, mouth open as if to say something. Austin mouthed, “What’s wrong?”

“Just a minute, Shelley.” Sean covered the receiver with his hand. “Jason has disappeared. They haven’t seen him since this afternoon.” Sean closed his eyes to try and center himself; this was feeling unreal, like a nightmare come to life. The room shifted, like he was drunk. He wished away any high the Jamaican he had smoked earlier brought on, but it wasn’t that easy. A feeling of giddy dread pulsed through his veins, electric.

This is how it feels, he thought, to be totally helpless.

Austin got up from the couch and began rubbing the cords in Sean’s neck, which had tightened into iron.

Sean swallowed, trying to summon up some spit. “You haven’t seen him all day?”

“That’s right and I don’t need the accusations. You know how it is around here in the summertime. Kids play outside until it starts getting dark. It was like that for you. It was like that for me.”

“I’m sorry. Listen, we’ll be right over.”

“‘Kay.” There was a pause. “Sean? Would you mind just coming alone? Paul…”

“For Christ’s sake, Shelley.” Sean hung the phone up.

“I’m going over there. See what I can do to help.”

“Let me throw something on.” Austin stood, his blue eyes alive with concern and sympathy.

“No.” Sean practically winced at the look of surprise on his lover’s face. He bit his lower lip and added, “I mean, maybe you should stay here in case anyone calls.”

Austin frowned.

“Like Jason, Austin. Like Jason.” Sean groped in a desk drawer near the front door and pulled out his cell. “I’ll have this on me so you can reach me. Okay?”

Sean was out the door before Austin had the chance to offer any sort of rebuttal.

² ² ²

By the time he pulled up in the driveway, Sean was hoping, without much optimism, that Jason would have come home during the time it took him to drive over to Shelley’s. He even had a vision of his knobby-kneed little son running out the back, screen door slamming behind him, and calling, “Daddy!”. He ran a trembling hand through his close-cropped dark hair and yanked on his mustache. Even under the best of circumstances, he didn’t particularly like going in that house: Paul and Shelley had done their best to make sure he never felt comfortable there. When was the last time he’d been inside? He couldn’t remember. Usually, he just gave a couple of toots on the horn when he picked up Jason and out the boy would run, nylon weekend bag in hand.

It had been easy. Unlike his divorce from Shelley six years ago…

But thoughts like that were for another time. Weren’t crises supposed to draw people together?

He took the back porch steps two at a time and could see them both waiting through the screen door. The light in the kitchen seemed unusually bright and the silence of his ex-wife and her husband, sitting at the table, heads bowed, erased any hope that Jason had already returned home.

Sean gave a couple taps on the screen door to alert them to his presence and went inside.

Shelley stood. “Sean! God, I’m so glad you’re here.” Then she glanced over at Paul to see how he would take what she had just said, but he was looking at once bleary-eyed and dour. “I mean, Paul and I have been worried sick.”

“Have you called the police and reported him missing yet?”

Paul stood. “Of course we did that. As soon as Shel got home from the diner. What do you think?” Paul’s large frame looked imposing. He was the kind of man at whose hands Sean had always received taunting and torture. A man’s man, with no tolerance for sissies like him. He had heard from Jason the names Paul had called Sean, the snide remarks about his masculinity, and the none-too-subtle hints that he, Paul, would make a fitter father for Jason.

Sean ignored the big man, with his glowering good looks and the smell of beer and perspiration that wafted off him. Sean caught his ex-wife’s gaze. “What do you say we take a little ride? Check out his favorite haunts? Just do a little searching on our own?”

Shelley was already heading toward the door. Paul was behind her. Shelley stopped and turned at the sound of his footfalls. “No.”

Paul’s mouth dropped open.

Shelley grinned, the little half smile looking sickly on her pale, worried features. Sean wondered then if he ever beat her. “I mean, someone has to be here in case he comes home or the police call.” She then turned back to Sean. “They’re on the way over here right now. Paul, you’ve got his school picture, right?”

Paul consulted the ceiling. “It’s right where you left it, dear. On the kitchen cabinet.”

Sean could see the 5 x 7 color photo lying near a stack of newspapers.

“Just give them the picture. The guy I talked to on the phone said they could make signs.” She paused. “If necessary.”

² ² ²

As Sean drove through the night, he battled a feeling of sick helplessness. If something horrible had happened to Jason, he couldn’t bear the thought of it. The loss would rob him of more than just an only son, it would rob him of a life.

He didn’t know how he could go on.

He had to fight back accusatory words, so he turned the radio on. He pushed the button that was set on the classical station in Pittsburgh and the car was filled with trumpets: Pachelbel’s Canon. Shelley had always despised his love of classical music, but tonight he thought she might find it soothing.

And it gave them a way to deal with the silence and the anxiety, which thrummed in the car like a third presence.

“Have you checked the woods across from the house?”

“Paul went out there a little while ago, with a flashlight. He knows right where Jason has his little fort built.” She brushed away a tear. “There was nothing there, except for his iPod and a couple apples in a plastic bag.”

Sean bit his lower lip. “He would never leave the iPod. He loved it. Loves it.” Sean and Austin had given him the iPod Shuffle just last Christmas and the little boy went everywhere with it.

“I know,” Shelley whispered. “I know.”

“How about his friends? I suppose you’ve called around.”

Shelley answered in a voice barely above a whisper. “Friends, classmates. Christ, practically everyone he’s ever bumped into in his whole life.”

“No luck?”

“Yes, Sean, I had a lot of luck. Actually this is just a ploy to get you alone. I thought I’d take another crack at seeing if I could convert you.”

Sean sighed.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. It’s just that I’m so damn worried. This is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Sean pointed the car toward the river, deciding not to call Shelley on saying that it was the worst thing that ever happened to her. She was upset; her terror and anxiety wafted off her like a scent. The Ohio curved along the town of Summitville and even though Jason had been warned, over and over, to keep away from its muddy banks, both parents were certain that wouldn’t keep him away. Parental warnings had failed to keep generations of boys, including Sean, away from the allure of the river.

Both grew silent, thinking things they didn’t want to: the number of boys over the years who had been claimed by the Ohio’s treacherous and unpredictable currents.

Would they find Jason washed up on a bank? Or worse, would the current carry his body downstream, to turn up days later when everyone concerned would be fragile from lack of sleep and worry?

Sean steered the car down a bumpy road, filled with potholes, and headed toward the river. In front of the two of them, cooling towers from Summitville Power, one of the nation’s first nuclear power plants, rose up against the night sky, tiny lights on the towers blinking in the darkness. The towers, sentinels against the dark and starless night, gave an almost surreal feel to their venture. Wafts of steam came off the tops of the two towers, to be snatched up by the wind.

After they had passed the small neighborhood filled with decrepit tiny homes, sheathed in peeling paint or tarpaper masquerading as brick, called Little England for as long as anyone could remember, Sean pulled the car over to the side of the road. Just ahead of them, the road dead-ended. Beyond where the cinders ended was a large grassy field that backed up to Summitville Power. For as long as Sean could remember, kids had been coming here: as prepubescents to explore the tall grassy fields nourished by the river and later, to smoke and make out.

Sean swallowed hard. If Jason was in this field, there was no way they would find him safe. Sean was gripped by a numbness that made his movements those of an automaton, doing each action separately, right down to putting one foot in front of the other.

He wished he had some optimistic words for Shelley, wished he had some optimism for himself. But what answer could there possibly be for an eight-year-old boy, smart and always well-behaved, to be out now, after a thunderstorm and hedging in on midnight? Still, he kept a part of his mind open for something he hadn’t thought of.

The air, after the storm, had a slight chill to it. Shelley wrapped her arms around herself and Sean noticed, for the first time, how much she still looked like a child. Her thin build, barely clinging to a frame little more than five feet tall, gave her a waifish appearance. The baggy T-shirt and jeans she wore did little to dispel the illusion that Sean had a child along with him. Her reddish brown hair was pulled back away from her face, a face unlined, but now creased by worry and dread.

“It’s going to be okay,” Sean said to his ex-wife. “There’s got to be something we’re not thinking of.”

Shelley said nothing as the two of them stepped over a chain that supposedly barred anyone from entering the field.

The ground beneath them squished with each step they took and as they progressed, their feet sank deeper into the mud, causing them to have to pull their feet out sometimes, with a loud sucking noise once the foot was freed. An odor of fish wafted up from the river.

“He’s not here,” Shelley said. “This is pointless. We should be home so we can talk to the police when they get there.”

“Paul can handle that. Besides, I’ve got my cell phone and I assume you do, too.”

Shelley looked at him then, her eyes bright with tears in the darkness. She didn’t need to say anything.

“Let’s hurry.”

Movement was tough, what with the damp and the sliver of a moon hidden behind slate gray clouds.

As their gaze roamed the darkened empty fields, Shelley grabbed Sean’s arm suddenly. “There! Oh God, do you see it?”

And Sean followed Shelley’s gaze and her trembling finger to what he first saw as just more high, yellowing grass and weeds. And then he noticed how some of the vegetation was tramped down.

And then he saw the little red Converse shoe.

Shelley collapsed against Sean and he wrapped his arms around her. “It’s his shoe! Sean, it’s his shoe!” She sobbed against his chest and Sean feared he would vomit. But he knew one of them needed to stay strong. “Shh-h.” He stroked Shelley’s hair. “It’s just a shoe. It doesn’t have to be Jason’s. It could be anyone’s. You know how people dump trash around here.” Even as he voiced the reassurances, Sean doubted them himself. The shoe, almost glinting in the dull light, was exactly the right size. And his son wore little else besides red Chuck Taylors. When he outgrew one pair, he demanded another.

They trudged on through the darkness and the damp, silent. Shelley scooped up the shoe, and held it, muddy, to her chest. What other horrors awaited them? Perhaps just beyond where the tree line started? Sean couldn’t bear to think that his son was dead. That just couldn’t be. God wouldn’t do that to them. To him. Sean was thinking even if they found Jason lying unconscious somewhere, it would be better than this not knowing. He flashed forward to coming through the doors of City Hospital with Jason in his arms. The emergency staff would take Jason from them. They would fix him up and everything would be all right. Tomorrow, he and Austin would visit Jason in a hospital room, with the Audubon bird guide they had put back for his birthday next month. Jason would complain about being confined, wondering when they would let him go. There would be appeasements made, promises of ice cream and new toys.

Things would slowly come back to normal. Sure, Jason had fallen, bumped his head, passed out. Things like that happened all the time.

Didn’t they?

Shelley stumbled and fell to the ground. She grunted as the air was knocked out of her. “What the hell?” she groaned, when she had found enough breath to put behind her words.

The two looked down to see a mound of fresh dirt. Drying weeds and branches had been pulled over it, but the dirt looked freshly dug, nothing could hide that. All around them, weeds and various grasses grew unchecked. But there was this spot, a rough rectangle in shape, about as long as Shelley was tall.

Both stood and stared at what looked like a fairly fresh-dug grave with horror. Shelley chewed on her thumb. She whispered, “Do you know what that looks like?”

“Yeah.” Sean’s gut twisted itself into a knot.

Shelley dropped to her knees in the mud and began digging.

Sean grabbed her shoulder and pulled out his cell. “Maybe we should call the cops.”

“I can’t!” Shelley shrieked. “I can’t wait for them to get here. I have to know.” She threw up clumps of wet dirt behind her as her hands went deeper and deeper into the moist soil.

Sean couldn’t wait either. He put his cell back in his pocket, knelt beside his ex-wife, and began to help her. From the recent rain, the earth was moist and easy to move.

They dug for about a half hour before Sean’s hand hit on something. He recoiled, wanting to vomit, yanking his muddy hand back from what he had just touched.

“Shelley, stop.” He pulled her hands out of the dirt. She turned to him, her lower lip quivering.

“What is it?”

“I hit something.”

“What?”

“I don’t know,” Sean said, but he was lying. He knew all too well what he had felt: flesh and bone. “Please, let’s go call the cops. I think we need to.”

“I won’t stop, Sean.” Shelley buried her hands in the earth once more.

Only seconds passed before she stopped as if stunned and screamed. She then began to laugh, first in little hiccups, then in an all-out hysteria, beating the ground, the tears pouring down her face.

Sean looked over her shoulder and a kind of sickening horror and giddy relief rushed through him.

Someone had chosen this spot as the final resting place for a dog. The moon appeared from behind a cloud, revealing that the animal was far gone in decomposition, bits of flesh and fur still clung to the bones, but maggots were busy erasing even those traces.

Shelley turned away from the stench and the ruin and grabbed Sean, burrowing her head into his chest, whispering breathlessly, “It’s not him. It’s not him.”

And Sean stroked her hair, wondering: where is Jason, then? Where could he be? He clutched the little red shoe tighter in his hand, behind Shelley’s back.

Shelley pulled away and looked up at Sean. “Oh God, where is my boy?”