Ephemera & Tales

Over at the Torquere Social email list, Vince Diamond threw down a ficlet challenge: 100 words or less using the words:'June', 'nuclear', and 'garage'.

I'm not doing so great at writing short today, it seems, so here's exactly twice as much ficlet as required (which is why I'm posting here not there.)

*****

The metal garage door was hot to the touch, and when Mark turned the latch and lifted it up and over the June heat slammed into him, prickling his temples with sweat and making him squint against the sun's nuclear-blast brightness.

He retreated a few steps into the relative coolness of the shaded garage and screwed up his eyes, watching the sunspots dance across his closed eyelids.

Fuck, it was brutal out there. A beer out of the fridge, and his recliner positioned between two fans seemed more tempting than ever, but he'd promised Hal that he'd clear out the junk boxes today, and, well - a promise was a promise.

That went for his promised reward, too, he reminded himself, and the mirage of the fans faded away, replaced by something much more distracting.

Mark loved water and sex together, which, admittedly, wasn't Hal's favourite thing about him. Hal wasn't above bribery, though, and especially after nearly two weeks of heat-wave which made even the slightest touch sticky and irritating, the prospect of Hal stretched up against the wall in the shower stall, water running over those muscles, begging Mark to touch him…

Mark shivered.

The beer could wait.

*****

I had plans for my Halloween story this year, but as the saying goes, there's many a slip t'wixt cup and lip. The new plan is that you'll get that next year.

Instead of the planned story, I have a little snapshot of the boys from last year's Halloween story, Micky and Rhys, on their one year anniversary, fresh of the keyboard, unedited, and so on. I hope it makes you smile.

Tradition

Rhys was half watching the muted black-and-white film on the tv, and half watching Micky. Micky was sitting sideways in the big battered armchair, tv remote resting in the space under his knees where his feet were tucked up against the arm, talking on the phone, and picking at the chipped black polish on his nails.

From Micky's half of the conversation, and the way his accent was just that bit stronger, Rhys had deduced that it was a member of Micky's family on the other end. Either his mam, his nan, or one of his aunties, most likely.

He ought to go back upstairs, where the problems for next week's seminars were waiting for him, but what was the point of Saturday afternoons if you couldn't slack in the living room for a while?

( snipped for length )

If you'd like to read about how Micky and Rhys got together, you'll need to pick up Favor. As I said last year, when it came out, Favor's sweet like candy, and it has laser-quest, fake fangs, and boys making out in graveyards. It's also on sale right now, and available for a mere $1.03.

Free Halloween stories from the past four years can be found linked in this post, or under 'seasonal : autumn' in the tags list.

Happy reading!

earlier this morning, before the first caffeine of the day, someone put a laptop down in front of me, with a text editor window open on it and asked me to just type, to see what I thought of the set up. This is what my brain came up with when faced with a blank screen and no requests, uneditted and unpolished. I have no idea what this says about me!

( Domestication )

I signed up to apiphile's Llamas Eve Ficathon, and then failed repeatedly to write anything inspired by the prompts that even vaguely hit the criteria. Eventually I found an internet connection on my way out of the country last week in order to bail officially, because I may be intermittently uninspired, but I do try not to be rude. I had a bunch of ideas, wrote four different starting points, and in the end, this little snippet is the only fragment that's not going to be dismembered into it's constituent 1s and 0s, and turned into something else entirely.

( read on )

A quick snippet for cicirossi, who wanted summer rain.

***

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."

Only a day late: a little Valentine's snippet from the boys from Favor.

( for the birds )

by Alex Draven.

Mack and Keir appear in the story 'Skin' in the first Men in Uniform anthology.

***

"You woke me up to bring me cake?" Mack took his hand away from his forehead, where it had been shading his eyes, and blinked up at Keir. The corner of Keir's mouth quirked.

"I bought you cake and caff, to your pod, early enough that we can enjoy it before you're due on shift."

"It's very early," Mack pointed out, redundantly.

( Read more... )

Those of you who've been reading me for a while will have figured out that I enjoy Halloween, and I've posted a short story for the season each year for the past few.

Dream Come True (2004)
Thirteen Kisses (2005)
All Souls (2006)
Favour (2007)

(plus, there are the two zombie stories. They are seasonally appropriate, but they do come with a 'you click on the link, you take responsibility for your own sanity' warning - the titles are terrifyingly accurate on these two - Zombie Incest Wrongness and the infamous necrophiliac plushy gangbang story)

This year, the main story is Favour, but I do have a couple of extra sketchbook ficlets for you.

( sketch the first - Soar )

and ( sketch the second - Raining Cats )

for samcdermott65, who's resolution was Lose 20 lbs. Curb the wine consumption or eliminate it all together. Eat healthier.

*****

Mark stretched out, languorous and heavy-limbed, coming so gradually awake that he wasn't sure if he was still dreaming. They'd collapsed together in the recovery coma of le petite mort, so the gas lights were still casting their gilded glow over the scene: Mark's dark wooden floors strewn with discarded garments, his own leg, thrown over the side of the mahogany framed day-bed, the muscle-shaded back of the beautiful young man who was sprawling across Mark's lap.

Oh yes, the New Year was off to a sterling start! ( Read more... )