Ephemera & Tales

I have a new story coming out through Torquere Press today! I'm posting about it early because I'm about to vanish offline for the weekend, but at some point during the day, the new e-book and an extract will appear on my author's page.

It's a Single Shot called Staytape. It's about Kit and Dirk, eyeliner and photography, kilts and corsets. It's about love, and trust, and doing the things that scare you because if you never get scared you're not growing.

I don't know yet which extract they'll put up on the site, so I'll hold back on posting one here, and save that for another day. Instead, I have a whole short story for you.

A version of this story - Fair - came out in an anthology called 'Naughty' a few of years back. I was writing Staytape at the time when Fair reverted to me, and it wasn't till I re-read Fair that I realised they could be connected. I still don't know who the narrator of Fair is, although I can see him crystal sharp in my mind's eye, but his friend, Kit? That's the Kit from Staytape, only about ten, years ago, when he was still in his hometown, still a teenager, still figuring out who he might be. The styles of the two stories are quite different, but I hope you can enjoy both.

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Fair
By Alex Draven

Candy-floss is grainy sweet on your tongue and sweat pricks where the sun hits between your shoulders and Kit grabs your hand and pulls you up short, ducking down the quiet lee between two butcher-striped tents. Power cables roll under your feet and when you look down the grass is trodden flat and bedraggled and Kit's glitter-painted boot still manages to sparkle.

( read on )

A quick snippet for cicirossi, who wanted summer rain.

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Max was already asleep, his revision notes doing double duty as a sunshade, his bare chest rising and falling with slow regularity.

It was too hot to touch, airless, their skin sticky with sweat and sunscreen, but Nils couldn't resist at least letting their feet brush as he squirmed about on the blanket they'd spread out on the lawn, trying to find a position that would magically make his notes more
interesting. Finals pretty much sucked, but it was hard to get too worked up about exams when you were lounging about in your boyfriend's back garden and had a whole house to share with no-one else home. It was really hard to care about vector analysis with your boyfriend napping next to you and the sun beating down and the distant static-y buzz of the radio playing in the kitchen.

Nils gave in and let his head rest on his hands, staring at the rough-cut grass from a distance of millimetres until his eyelids got too heavy and then he let them stay closed.

He must have dozed off, because the first cold, heavy drop landed between his shoulder blades with startling abruptness, and when he jerked awake the sky was heavy and grey. It wasn't even a second before a second droplet hit the sun-baked skin of his calf, and another blurred the careful blue and red ink of his notes, and then both he and Max were awake and scrambling to their feet, trying to collect notes and books and snacks and clothes and the blanket and make a dash for the open kitchen door as the raindrops became a solid sheet of water and the air shook with a sonorous rumble of thunder.

The lino was slippery beneath his feet, the shock turning to laughter as Max tripped on a trailing t-shirt and dumped a mixed armful of revision aides in a heap on the floor.

"Ohh - fuck it!" Max cursed.

Nils dropped the sheet in favour of snagging Max's notebook from the pile to get it away from the growing pool of sun screen escaping from the still open bottle. He made sure the rest of their belongings made it to the kitchen table, and then kicked the sheet over, half heartedly wiping up the spill with his feet, adding mud and grass clippings to the mix.

"Jesus - look at it." Max said, gesturing out of the door before pulling Nils into a hug with a quick press of lips to Nil's cheek. His lips felt hot, Nil's face cool and slick from the rain, which was really hammering down, drowning out the radio as it bounced off the
corrugated plastic roof of the lean-to and poured off to bounce and splash on the concrete patio. The air itself smelled different - cooler and clearer and cleaner.

"Rather look at you," Nils said, turning around to wrap himself around his goose-bumped boyfriend. They'd caught enough rain to darken Max's blond hair, pulling it down into sable points around his face. Nils reached up to push the hair back, and catch the droplets collecting on Max's forehead before pulling Max down into a kiss.

"Think we can find something else to do but sunbathe," he asked with an innocent smile when Max finally stopped kissing back.

"Oh, I think we can come up with something," Max smiled back. "Better get you out of those wet shorts first, though."

Light late into the evening and breezes that carry dry ripe scents of the world outside into the cramped little flat.

Kael is always careful to count his blessings, even when the long days are full of concentration-thwarting heat, short tempers, raised voices that crash through open windows and a hundred and one things that had to be done, and more that will have to be done tomorrow.

The simple fact that some of those tasks are done, completed and put away, is one.

( Read more... )

I doubt thi is quite what you meant, bu it's what your suggestion of tactile turned up - a mismatched pair of sketches from their time apart. Their index is here and the ficlet that describes some of what happened before these scenes is here.

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For tsuki_no_bara and meridaie who both wanted happiness and ferrets. Other Luke / Walker fic can be found here

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The only time Luke made a point of assigning ownership of Sam and Sam was when their cage needed cleaning out or when one of them had done something particularly cute and psychotic to one of Walker's more prised possessions. They way he figured it, him and Walker keeping the terrible twins entertained in the kitchen while Jenna cleaned and cleared the run in the conservatory was a pretty fair division of labour. Especially when he'd already done his turn with the housework and mopped the kitchen floor, and when Walker had bartered cleaning for cooking for his share.

( Read more... )

Kael's hand on his hip was just – perfect. Slow, gentle caresses, rippling through his skin while the sun wrapped them in languor and the wind stroked the leaves overhead and the birds and the crickets and the stillness hummed in harmony. Naked under the sun's eyes, with no sense at all of time passing, only touches and brief delicate kisses. Lips on skin and locks of hair drawn over nipples and water somewhere, not so far away, adding it's own note to the melody. Drifting pollen for the working bees and gadding butterflies, and Kael's eyelashes dusting along his collarbone, flashes of sparkling eyes in between. White white teeth biting into berries and red lips. Laughter, low and real, rolling through them both for no reason save the joy of it all. No need for words or cues or wishing, only love and bliss and pleasure, stretching out from bone to skin, heart to soul, muscle to mind. Endless blue sky and sun kissed shoulders and fingers roughened just enough to feel real where they touched him, scars and calluses all part of perfection. Without time to narrow it pleasure was everything and every moment, and he came feeling cream and honey, heavy and slow and shaken, eyes wide for the sky and the shape of his lover, fingers buried some in grass and some in silk soft hair. The one smelt of the other, and the tongue touched to his could have been pure summer, perfect love, or berry juices.

Walker hefted his end of the banner again – an hour in and even a sheet on a stick was starting to get heavy. On the other hand the sun was warm, and the crowd was busy around them, most people foot tapping to the pounding drums of the dance troupe ahead of them.

He glanced across to the far end of their Pride in Education banner and grinned at the sight of Kathy, one arm over her girlfriend’s shoulder the two of them walking in close step under the banner. Given that they’d met Kathy with her battling abuse from her students and a gaping chasm where the support of her head of department should have been only 8 months ago, it was good to see them happy.

( Read more... )

Walker hefted his end of the banner again – an hour in and even a sheet on a stick was starting to get heavy. On the other hand the sun was warm, and the crowd was busy around them, most people foot tapping to the pounding drums of the dance troupe ahead of them.

He glanced across to the far end of their Pride in Education banner and grinned at the sight of Kathy, one arm over her girlfriend’s shoulder the two of them walking in close step under the banner. Given that they’d met Kathy with her battling abuse from her students and a gaping chasm where the support of her head of department should have been only 8 months ago, it was good to see them happy.

( Read more... )