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Rob Night was kind enough to take one of my stories for Torquere Press' new anthology Shifting Too, alongside authors like BA Tortuga, Sean Michael, Julia Talbot and Sara Bell. Seven shape-shifter stories in all, and no prizes for guessing from the title what form mine take ;) They're not characters you'll have met before, but there's a snippet of 'Bears here, if you want to try a taste.
"Matt?!''
Of all the bars … Matt was about the last person I was expecting to run into. I mean, I spent nearly three months looking for him with no success, and found out that every single thing he ever told me about himself was a lie in the process, so, really, I wasn't expecting to see him back behind the bar at my local as though he'd never left. I've only been back here myself for a few weeks: the stairs down are a bitch with my knee, even now I'm out of the cast. Hell, this is where I first met him: tending bar in Donnovan's, just shy of a year ago.
''Dan!''
He looks so much the same it's almost shocking. Maybe his hair's a little longer, his tan a little darker, his belly a little rounder, but the same eyes, the same smile, the same graceful way of moving as he stows the glass he's wiping and comes around the bar to hug me. The emotion that flickers across his face when I move away slightly I don't recognise.
''Dan? How're you doing?''
He's looking at me like I'm the one being weird. A few months ago I was flying on his smiles, and now the sight of him makes my stomach turn.
''Better now -- I'm off the crutches and everything.''
''Crutches? What happened?'' His hand's on my shoulder and when I flinch away it covers his mouth, which just leaves his eyes to do all the acting, shocked and hurt. ''Dan?''
Something about the tone of that just hits a nerve, and I'm not normally the kind of guy to cause a scene in a bar, but damn. The gall of him!
''Just - stop that -- stop pretending like you give a crap and fuck off, you lying piece of shit.''
The silence after that is huge. The ABC news headlines are suddenly very clear in the bar. I don't even have to look around to know that everyone in here is staring at us, and my cheeks are burning. In the half second it takes for me to turn around to make for the door the chatter starts up again, all with a single focus.
I don’t cry until I'm back in my room and I've drunk almost a third of vodka.
***
The first time I saw Matt he was tending bar at Donnovan's, and I couldn't stop myself from watching him, even though I never did pluck up the courage to say anything to him at all -- not even to go up to the bar and order a drink, let alone a flirt a little. I mean, I was hanging out there because of the university GLB group, and while any kind of a relationship with a student would be a really bad idea, there's a fair few folks not from the University who tag along. It's the nearest thing Fairbanks has to a gay bar. Which doesn't mean that the bar staff are necessarily queer, although I've wondered about Michele a time or two, but makes it easier for a guy to play 'what if' in his head.
So sue me. I'd been in town nine months and not gotten laid. Who wouldn't want some new fantasy fodder after that long?
And Matt? I guess he's not exactly Falcon material, too stocky and solid for that, but to my tastes that's a good thing, and there was just something about him. Something just still and steady, but somehow like there could be anything underneath. I don't know. Maybe I was just desperate for a new face, someone I didn't know a damn thing about yet. Maybe I'm a white trash boy from Tennessee who has kinda a thing for native looking guys, or maybe I'm just a romantic at heart and was looking for any excuse to fall in love a little with the idea of someone.
By the next time we ran into each other, at the OIT helpdesk, I'd come up with a hundred and one histories for him, and a thousand and one futures where we would have ended up in bed, in love, in each other's lives, and in each other's bodies. He called me Chip for awhile after he found that out; reckoned that I should take up poker if I could hide my reactions that well.
I was at work! Well, that and you don't get through high-school in one piece without being able to hide a crush, and I've never quite lost the knack, apparently. Of course, I never turned up on Bobby-the-quarterback's doorstep and lurched from 'Hi, how are you?' to kissing him in the hallway in minutes either, so it's nice to know that some things do change.
So, yeah. I pretty much threw myself at this guy after maybe a half hour of conversation, and he caught me. The first time we kissed was in the doorway of this big house he was taking care of for the winter. The first time he sucked up a mark on my neck was against the wall of the hallway, the first time I blew him was on the stairs, and the first time he made me come was right there on top of him. Best gamble I ever took is what I told my room-mates when I hadn't been home in three days and Mitchell came into work and hauled me out for lunch with them both.
It's funny how things change, looking back.
"Matt?!''
Of all the bars … Matt was about the last person I was expecting to run into. I mean, I spent nearly three months looking for him with no success, and found out that every single thing he ever told me about himself was a lie in the process, so, really, I wasn't expecting to see him back behind the bar at my local as though he'd never left. I've only been back here myself for a few weeks: the stairs down are a bitch with my knee, even now I'm out of the cast. Hell, this is where I first met him: tending bar in Donnovan's, just shy of a year ago.
''Dan!''
He looks so much the same it's almost shocking. Maybe his hair's a little longer, his tan a little darker, his belly a little rounder, but the same eyes, the same smile, the same graceful way of moving as he stows the glass he's wiping and comes around the bar to hug me. The emotion that flickers across his face when I move away slightly I don't recognise.
''Dan? How're you doing?''
He's looking at me like I'm the one being weird. A few months ago I was flying on his smiles, and now the sight of him makes my stomach turn.
''Better now -- I'm off the crutches and everything.''
''Crutches? What happened?'' His hand's on my shoulder and when I flinch away it covers his mouth, which just leaves his eyes to do all the acting, shocked and hurt. ''Dan?''
Something about the tone of that just hits a nerve, and I'm not normally the kind of guy to cause a scene in a bar, but damn. The gall of him!
''Just - stop that -- stop pretending like you give a crap and fuck off, you lying piece of shit.''
The silence after that is huge. The ABC news headlines are suddenly very clear in the bar. I don't even have to look around to know that everyone in here is staring at us, and my cheeks are burning. In the half second it takes for me to turn around to make for the door the chatter starts up again, all with a single focus.
I don’t cry until I'm back in my room and I've drunk almost a third of vodka.
***
The first time I saw Matt he was tending bar at Donnovan's, and I couldn't stop myself from watching him, even though I never did pluck up the courage to say anything to him at all -- not even to go up to the bar and order a drink, let alone a flirt a little. I mean, I was hanging out there because of the university GLB group, and while any kind of a relationship with a student would be a really bad idea, there's a fair few folks not from the University who tag along. It's the nearest thing Fairbanks has to a gay bar. Which doesn't mean that the bar staff are necessarily queer, although I've wondered about Michele a time or two, but makes it easier for a guy to play 'what if' in his head.
So sue me. I'd been in town nine months and not gotten laid. Who wouldn't want some new fantasy fodder after that long?
And Matt? I guess he's not exactly Falcon material, too stocky and solid for that, but to my tastes that's a good thing, and there was just something about him. Something just still and steady, but somehow like there could be anything underneath. I don't know. Maybe I was just desperate for a new face, someone I didn't know a damn thing about yet. Maybe I'm a white trash boy from Tennessee who has kinda a thing for native looking guys, or maybe I'm just a romantic at heart and was looking for any excuse to fall in love a little with the idea of someone.
By the next time we ran into each other, at the OIT helpdesk, I'd come up with a hundred and one histories for him, and a thousand and one futures where we would have ended up in bed, in love, in each other's lives, and in each other's bodies. He called me Chip for awhile after he found that out; reckoned that I should take up poker if I could hide my reactions that well.
I was at work! Well, that and you don't get through high-school in one piece without being able to hide a crush, and I've never quite lost the knack, apparently. Of course, I never turned up on Bobby-the-quarterback's doorstep and lurched from 'Hi, how are you?' to kissing him in the hallway in minutes either, so it's nice to know that some things do change.
So, yeah. I pretty much threw myself at this guy after maybe a half hour of conversation, and he caught me. The first time we kissed was in the doorway of this big house he was taking care of for the winter. The first time he sucked up a mark on my neck was against the wall of the hallway, the first time I blew him was on the stairs, and the first time he made me come was right there on top of him. Best gamble I ever took is what I told my room-mates when I hadn't been home in three days and Mitchell came into work and hauled me out for lunch with them both.
It's funny how things change, looking back.
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