"…his stories are always sharp and compact and interesting." ——Angel Martinez "(One of) the hottest authors in the independent horror scene…" —-Hellbound Books
Every week we post six lines from a work of ours, a work-in-progress or published or a recommendation of someone else’s work with at least one LGBT character. Posted at Rainbow Snippets here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/963484217054974
My snippets this week are from a writer whose short-stories I read during the 90s when I was trying to teach myself how to write them myself. Bruce Coville’s story “Am I Blue?” was recently featured on the fine podcast “The Queer Book That Saved My Life.” https://thisqueerbook.com/am-i-blue/ The story is available in a lot of places. Here’s the original. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/708960.Odds_Are_Good
Vincent, our young High-School narrator is having a bad day. A guy punched him out calling him an anti-gay slur. Then he meets Melvin, a Gay guy who can do real magic and says he’s Vincent’s Fairy Godfather. Snippet one has them talking in a cafe.
“Do you know the three great Gay fantasies?” he asked.
“I don’t think so,” I said nervously.
He looked at me. “How old are you?”
“Sixteen.”
“Skip the first two. You’re too young”
Melvin explains that Gay Fantasy #3 would be every Gay person in America turning blue for a day, so all the straights would have to stop imagining they don’t know any Gays and that there are Gay cops, firemen, kids, parents. Melvin offers to give Vincent Gaydar for a while; he’ll see anybody who is LGBT as being blue. Here’s snippet two:
It was like seeing the world through new eyes. Most of the people looked just the same as always, of course. But Mr. Alwain, the fat guy who ran the grocery store, looked like a giant blueberry—which surprised me, because he was married and had three kids. On the other hand, Ms. Thorndyke the librarian, who everyone knew was a lesbian, didn’t have a trace of blue on her.
“You can see a lot from up here,” I said. It wasn’t my first day on the job, but I’d never been on top of the Community Facility Building. Some people called it “The Big Flying Saucer,” because it was round, had a domed roof and was about 200,000 square feet. Movable walls inside and theaters made it perfect for conventions and concerts. It had been state-of-the-art when it had been built about fifty-six years ago. But now the state-of-the-art needed repair, especially on the roof and I was part of the construction crew putting in new tiles.
“My Granddad used to tell me about seeing them put this building up when he was in Grade School,” I said.
“Yeah, my Granddad worked on this building back when it was being built,” Andres said. “that was in, like 1969. Way back when.
Andres and I were two of the newer guys on the crew.
“But I get what you’re saying,” Andres said. “This must have been what it was like working on top of the Pyramids in Egypt back in the Old Kingdom.”
“What Old Kingdom?” I asked.
“That was back when they were building the Pyramids,” Andres said. “Some writer started calling it the Old Kingdom, the Middle Kingdom. Stuff like that.”
Andres didn’t like to show off but he had a degree in Egyptology. Couldn’t get a job, though. Me, I had a G.E.D. after I dumped High school.
“And you know what else?” Andres said.
“What?” I asked.
“Thousands of years from now there will be a couple of workers standing on top of a building they’re working on, looking out and shooting the breeze just like we are now.”
“And complaining about the Pharaoh,” I said. Andres laughed.
We kept at the work for a little bit longer. Fortunately, it was still late Spring and the heat of summer hadn’t kicked in yet.
“Whew! What time is it anyway?” I said.
Andres looked around. “Lunchtime,” he said.
“Good.” I said pulling my lunch pail over from where I’d stashed it.
And we sat there on the roof of the building eating our lunches, the view on all sides stretching to the horizon.
Saw this pic on Facebook and the story banged into my head. Wish I looked like him! Wish I was the narrator of this story! Enjoy! —-skip
On The Busses
by Skip J. Hanford
February 27, 2024
I was on the commuter train home when the two men sat down across the aisle from me. One in a robe, the other nearly naked except for gold-laced shoulder pads, a loincloth and studded sandals. He was young, tanned and muscular. I checked him out. He saw me looking at him and quickly looked away. Long enough for me to see his wonderful dark eyes.
I nodded over at the man in the robe who seemed to be his Master. He nodded back.
“You selling him?” I asked.
The near-naked man glanced up for a moment, then looked away.
“Only to get rid of him,” the man said. “I’m having to downsize. I inherited a bunch of slaves like him.”
“What’s your price?” I asked.
“He is yours if you will pledge an amount to the Empire,” the man said. “And address me as Master.”
“I am no slave,” I said.
“But you will be trading for a Mastership, to own this young man. He is paying for his crimes. You will remain free. He will never be free. Look at those muscles, those lips.”
I looked. My tunic was getting tight around my crotch.
“Yes, Master.” I said. “How much do I pledge?”
“His name is Marco,” the man said. “Here is what you pledge.”
Marco, the near-naked young man, had lowered his head the moment the man spoke his name, showing the full weight of being owned.
It was nearly an hour later after walking Marco, walking as subservient as he could, from the bus stop to my apartment that I locked the door behind the two of us.
That was when Marco collapsed on the floor laughing.
“Oh, my God! Oh my God!” Marco said laughing. “I’ll never forget that! ‘He is yours if you will pledge an amount to the Empire.’” Marco rolled onto his back and kept laughing. “I had no idea your Brother was anything like an actor!”
“Yeah, but the three of us earned third place in the costume contest,” I said, shucking off my makeshift toga. “You’re problem is you’re such a youngish-looking hunk!”
“Yeah, I am!” Marco said. “You know why I agreed to do that whole thing?”
“No, why?” I asked.
“We met on February 18th,” he said. “Our first official date was February 27th.” Sixteen years ago today”
“Oh, yeah, you’re right!” I said. I forgot that part!” I only remembered when we met and our wedding in 2016 after they legalized it.
“So, what do you want to do now?” Marco asked with a grin. “You did buy me on the bus, remember?”
“Let me help you out of this stuff first,” I said, kissing him. “Then we’ll see.”
I guess I kept at it over late January through February 2024.
Wrote up a story I’d plotted out early in the pandemic.
Typed-up/revised a story I may have first written in a handwritten draft about fifteen years ago. The original typed draft is on the old computer but this new, revised version is better and it fixes a few plot holes.
Sent both stories off to a market. One got rejected, sent it elsewhere. And I submitted about three other full-length stories.
Wrote-up one QSF column, (I have three others already written!) and did the weekly Flash Fiction stories as well as the monthly Draw story.
Every week we post six lines from a work of ours, a work-in-progress or published or a recommendation of someone else’s work with at least one LGBT character. Posted at Rainbow Snippets here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/963484217054974
The idea for this story came from a picture on a You Tube video from “Nemo’s Dreamscapes,” which are largely nostalgic scenes of White, Cisgender America accompanying a music playlist. Nonetheless, they are fun and sometimes sweet and romantic. The set up to this one was a picture of a young couple sitting on a front porch in the evening, drinking coffee at a vacation cabin by a lake. The setup read: “1949, sitting on a porch on a Summer night (Oldies playing in another room, crickets.)”
The music was playing soft and the radio and Doug was sitting on the front porch of his family’s lakeside cabin, watching the Moon reflect in the water when Scotty bounded up the steps.
“I got your message,” Scotty said. “Are you okay?”
Doug smiled, as usual, Scotty looked good in slacks, brown shoes and the white button down shirt with no tie. The shirt was sweaty; he’d run from his folks’ cabin nearby.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Doug said. “Just that Mom and Dad and Janie left this afternoon. I’m taking off in my roadster in a couple of days. So we got the cabin to ourselves for a day or so.”
A little over the six lines, but here’s a little more…
“Right now, I want you beside me on this bench, looking at the Moon, the lake, the stars, listening to the romantic music on the radio.” Doug paused. “We can hold hands.”
“Sure,” Scotty said, sitting down. He glanced around and kissed Doug on the cheek. Doug squeezed his hand as they settled down on the bench; the radio playing a fake Spanish romantic song.
“This is nice…” Scotty said.
Yes, it is, Scotty. I usually don’t do spoilers for any story here (or anywhere, for that matter!) but readers will be happy to know that Doug and Scotty get a happy ending!
Reading Report for February 20th, 2024 (Covering Jan/Feb. 2024)
Most of my fiction reading has been short-stories from the middle of January through mid-February.
Read several of Fritz Leiber’s “Changewar” stories (many collected in the book “Changewar,” my paperback dating from 1983.) Started with “The Oldest Soldier.” A perfect story! With the feel of Leiber’s hometown of Chicago. Also read his “Knight to Move,” from the same collection. One of his many chess stories. Set in the future it references a long-distance way to sign a document. Clever ending.
Also read “Nice Girl With Five Husbands,” (from “The Worlds Of Fritz Leiber”) which Leiber said fit into the series and that he based the character on his friend Judith Merrill. Also read “When the Change-Winds Blow,” from “Changewar,” which was more poetic.
For my read of Leiber’s Fafhrd & Gray Mouser series I read the short-short “Bait,” also in “The Worlds of Fritz Leiber. So were the disquieting and brilliant “Waif,” and one of his cat stories “The Lotus Eaters.” As well as “Strange Doings At the Metropolitan Museum.”
Also read two Leiber stories not from “Worlds Of…” Namely “Cat’s Cradle” and “The Death Of Princes,” the latter one of his astronomy-related fantasy/horror stories, and a good one! Title from “Hamlet,” of course.
Also from “Worlds Of Fritz Leiber” (whose contents Leiber selected himself) read “Our Saucer vacation.” A riff on the Heinlein Juveniles and loads of fun! I could imagine the kid narrator’s voice as being in a 60s Hanna-Barbera adventure cartoon and the Dad’s voice as Mike Road.
But neither character is at all human!
Leiber and Heinlein knew each other, and if he read the story I bet Heinlein got the joke! I did!
Speaking of Heinlein, I’d been neglecting reading his “The Rolling Stones,” so I cracked that open and read some more.
The other novel I’ve been reading was recommended to me by a friend. “52 Steps to Murder” by Steve Demaree is a funny detective/mystery story, the first in a series.
The big news reading-wise for this month was the long-awaited last story by the late Tom Reamy. “Potiphee, Petey And Me” was written about 45 years ago for Harlan Ellison’s unreleased “Last Dangerous Visions” and never published. It’s in the recent definitive Reamy collection “Under the Hollywood Sign: the Collected Stories Of Tom Reamy.” It’s perfect. Disturbing, funny, dystopian and probably rated “R.” Reamy was only getting better.
On a few different notes, I got a pamphlet with a Christmas story from Crippen and Landru Publishers of a story by Richie Narvaez; “Raul And Rita In It’s A Wonderful Wife.” Great fun.
Another Christmas story was “Nothing You Dismay” by Ellis Peters. Suspenseful with a twisty ending.
Re-read a few stories like G. J. A. O’Toole’s “Turn Down For Richmond” (which I’d read in “Twilight Zone Magazine” in college.) Also “Little Note Nor Long Remember” by Henry T. Parry, “Drawer 14” by Talmadge Powell, and “The Remember Service” by John Bennett.
All of those from a fine set of anthologies collecting ghost/horror stories from various regions of the U.S. The Kansas entry was Charles Wagner’s “Deadlights,” (set in Beloit!) Spooky, especially the last line! (Not sure if I’d read it before.) And re-read the creepy Wisconsin-set “Death’s Door” by Robert McNear (from “Ghosts Of the Heartland.”) A page turner about a basketball team and an iced-over lake that I read when the anthology first came out, standing there in the bookstore. Yeah, it’s that good!
I bought a crumbling, 80 year-old copy of “Thrilling Wonder Stories” (Winter 1944) After reading a blog post about three (!!!) Henry Kuttner/C.L. Moore stories in the issue and finding out there was a Robert Arthur story in there as well. “Swing Your Lady” (as by Kelvin Kent) was Kuttner’s last story about time-traveling Pete Manx who finds himself among Amazons. (Not the website!) Sort of a wacky Damon Runyon.
“The Hunter” (as by Scott Morgan) is a WWII tale with some racist lines directed at the main character, a Japanese officer, not only from the American character but the editor’s intro. It has a grim and clever twist that I kind of guessed!
“A God Named Kroo,” as by Kuttner. Some humor, a lot of magic, adventure and a sweet ending. The Kuttners in fine form if not up to the standards of “A Gnome There Was.” An unjustly neglected fantasy, maybe because of a few anti-Japanese bits. (It IS set in Burma during 1944, but the racism could have been much more overt.) An enjoyable story.
The Robert Arthur story, “Space Command,” is an okay stuck-on-a-hostile-planet sci-fi adventure story with some problem-solving typical of the sci-fi of the era and something of a character study thrown in for good measure.
Some very clever bits, if not up to Arthur at his best. The story moves along (maybe a bit too long, Arthur was probably being paid by the word and I think the brawl near the end of the story was unnecessary. ) In the story-behind-the-story bit (“Thrilling Wonder Stories” regularly ran them at this time) Arthur said he envisioned the story as taking place in 2011. Wow!
The issue included wartime advertisements, including one for razor blades that had a sign: Win the War in ‘44. The issue came out in early 1944—right before D-Day.
All-in-all, the crumbling magazine was worth the $15.
Also read (and blogged about!) an anthology for writer H. M. Wolfe (who is ailing) called “Love and Hope.” A bunch of M/M Valentine’s Day stories including one by Kaje Harper: “Toby, Doyle And the Cats,” set in her “Hidden Wolves” series. Sweet and fun!
Neglected my Edgar Allan Poe reading this time around, but I did start reading one more by Leiber: “The Terror From the Depths,” a story Leiber started in the 30s but didn’t finish until the 1970s! Got it read about halfway so far!
“Cabs cost money,” Pete said. “Besides, I’m your designated driver, remember?”
“I know! I know!”
I’d had a couple of beers and we’d ordered breaded something-or-other and played a couple of video games at Heroes Sports Bar down town. It was Pete’s and my day off the next day so we stayed until dark. It was Wednesday and the downtown wasn’t too busy. Pete had parked his old VW in a parking lot by a warehouse with the date “1917” carved at the top, a ways away from all the other cars. Now the gate was closed and locked.
“Get down there and cup your hands under me,” he said.
“That’s breaking and entering!”
“We’re not breaking,” he said. “And I’ll only be there long enough to get the car out.”
“How are you going to…” I asked.
Then the large German Shepard ran up to the gate barking and growling. I jumped back.
“Cab,” I said. “Call a cab.”
“Not with this guy!” Pete said, bending down to the fence. “Hi, Kerney!”
The dog wagged his tail and so help me smiled!
“This is Kernel Klink,” Pete said as the dog licked his face through the fence. “My Uncle owns this warehouse. I used to work here in the summer. I’ve known this bad boy since he was a puppy!”
“You could’ve told me that!” I said.
“In between making out on the weekends and playing bar trivia I couldn’t find an opening,” Pete said. “Hey, Kerney! This is my friend Mason! Here, let him lick your fingers!”
“I’m not gonna…oh, hell.” I held my hand up to the gate and the dog sniffed and licked me through the wire gate. His tail was still wagging.
“See? He likes you!” Pete said.
“Yeah,” I said smiling. I hadn’t had a dog since I was a kid. “Does he know how to unlock the gate?”
Pete stared at me and stared at the dog. He shook his head.
“Call a cab?” Pete asked.
“Call a cab,” I said pulling out my cellphone.
“At least we know the car will be safe!” Pete said, glancing at Kernel Klink who was watching us quizzically, his tail flopping on the ground.
Every week we post six lines from a work of ours, a work-in-progress or published or a recommendation of someone else’s work with at least one LGBT character. Posted at Rainbow Snippets here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/963484217054974
In Kaje Harper’s story “Toby, Doyle and the Cats,” two guys who are attracted to each other open up when one of them discovers three abandoned, scrawny kittens that need care.
Did I mention that Toby and Doyle are part of a pack of werewolves?
I stepped closer and peered down at them. “Shouldn’t they be fatter? Other than their bellies?” Kitten photos online showed rounded little fuzzballs.
“Yeah. He sighed again.
Here’s just a little more:
My wolf rose up in me, sniffing around, noting a packmate in distress. I shoved him back down. The last thing I needed was my wolf getting involved.
I was already way too obsessed with Toby. I’d lived all of my forty-five years in this pack, pup and man, hunkered down, quiet, moving up in the ranks and not standing out for anything except my swift fangs and my ability to think outside the box. Then, three months after word came down from the Council to tolerate and protect our gay wolves instead of killing them, there was Toby.
Here’s a link to Kaje’s own site https://www.kajeharper.com/ where you can read more of her “Hidden Wolves” series. I can recommend them as well as the stories in (and the cause behind!) “Love And Hope.”
The sirens were blaring, the wind was blowing and the clouds were dark in the sky that Kansas summer afternoon. The radio ant TV were telling everybody to get to their basements.
So, my Dad and I were on the front porch. Of course.
The minute the wind kicked in Dad told me to grab the little TV table while he pulled the box out of the hall closet.
“Front porch, now!” Dad said. I thought he was crazy.
We lived on a little suburban cul-de-sac with houses surrounding a rounded drive in a semi circle. Like the one in the opening credits of the TV show “Knots Landing.”
Dad stood on the porch for a moment looking up at the clouds.
“Dad, what are we…?” I started to say.
“Hang on,” Dad said. “I think the wind’s dying down for a minute.
“Is that…?” I asked nodding at the box Dad was holding.
“Your Great-Uncle Patrick’s ashes? Yup!” Dad said with a grin. “He’d wanted his ashes scattered to the Kansas winds and there’s no better time than now.”
My Dad’s Uncle Patrick had died right after New Years. Since Dad was his favorite nephew, he got custody of Patrick’s ashes, along with the instructions for their dispersal.
The wind had died down to a slight, echoing breeze. Not totally still but eerie. Greenish light from the clouds, tornado sirens still blaring.
“Okay…Now!” With that, Dad ran off the porch carrying the box and I followed with the little folding table. He stopped dead center in the middle of the cul-de-sac. “Set ‘er down right there,” he said. I quickly set up the little table while Dad opened the box and pulled out the bag. He poured the ashes in a pile onto the little table. It was about as much as would have been in a five pound bag of flour.
It had gotten deathly still except for the sirens and I could hear the wind in the distance.
“Now, in a few minutes we…what?” Dad said.
I must have gone deathly pale. I was looking west between the Smith house and the Myerbeer house. You get a good view all the way to Maize Road and the farmer’s field just outside of town. Mom always called it “Smithhenge” when the sun set right between the two houses. I pointed. I was shaking.
Off in the distance, Dad and I could see a strip of clear, sunlit sky on the western horizon. And the unmistakable dark cone of a tornado touching the ground.
How far away was that field?
We ran back to the house. In the instant before I slammed the door I glanced back and saw the pile of ashes swirling and fanning out in all directions in the wind.
We stayed in the basement, listening to the radio. Five minutes in I heard a clattering from the ceiling. I remembered the line from the poem:
And then in a twinkling I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
Twenty minutes later the radio gave the all clear and Dad and I went upstairs. No damage we could see and the sky was actually clearing. A couple of small tree branches down in the neighbor’s yard and an overturned trash can and some scattered paper blowing around in the dying breeze were the only signs of what had happened.
And the table and ashes were gone.
My Dad tapped me on the shoulder and pointed at the house.
On the peak of the roof stood the little table, straddling the roof with its legs. It reminded me of Snoopy on his doghouse.
