Chapter 1 It's a pleasantly warm evening in the Phalloji Village. The occasional carriage rolls by the trail between the lively taverns and brothels illuminating the sleeping twilight dusk as the stars begin to shimmer above with the moon just peering beyond the horizon of Aphrodita Island. Aphrodita Island is no center of malice or filth, as it used to be...
The first week went by quick. On Monday I had my first day in school. Not many kids in the school mind you. Barely about four hundred I think. I saw William on my third class that day. "Hey bro! How's it going?" He smiled and stretched his hand out towards me. Wearing a jean and blue t-shirt. "Great man! Wondered when I would walk into you?" I said as I...
I'd been watching him for a week. He was the new boy in town, freshly exported from Laconia, screwing his face up in thought at assembly as he tried to understand Theran-accented Greek. Leonidas sent him with the highest recommendations, and it was easy to see why; though trim, he could put a sword halfway through a shield with one overhead swing, and thou...
I'm not all that sure how I got roped into going to Ken's daughter's place up on Blue Mountain near Front Royal. It was something about the Appalachian Trail, though, I'm sure. We were sitting at the bar at Scotties, a truck stop bar in Opal where Route 17 breaks off east from Route 29, south of Washington, D.C., to go over to Fredericksburg and the Eastern...
"Listen to me, Glen. If you don't give up that bike, you're going to kill yourself. You're entirely too reckless—about everything. I don't care. I don't want you too—" The man blanched and dropped the cell phone on the floor between the carrots and the tomatoes. Nathan, who was just wheeling his cart into the fruit section not far away and had picked up an...
**Hey guys. Sorry for the long wait. I finally finished med school and internship. Hopefully this means I can write a bit more now. Looking forward to any feedback! ** ***** I still had no idea where we were going. My incessant nagging and poking did not help much in prying an answer out of Todd. He just smiled good naturedly and told me that I'd find out...
Inspired by Edward Albee's play/movie Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf ***** "I thought I asked you to wear the tighter shirt under your jacket, Dillon—the one with the V neck that shows off the line between your pecs so well." "Gunther Strang is the chair of the English Department, Madge. And isn't his wife the daughter of Montebello's president? I didn't...
"Ahhh, Professor Caldwell. That poetry. It's so moving. I had no idea—" "Hush, Lawrence. Live the moment. How does this make you feel?" "It's like nothing I've felt before. But should we . . . should you . . .? I've never—" "No words now, Lawrence. We let the Romantic writers speak our words for us. They do it so well. This poem from Keats. Did it not mak...
Author's Note "Rear Windows" was intended to be a one-part story, describing the awakening of Dave's desire for other men. I got so many requests for a sequel that I went ahead and continued the story, with some new characters on their own roads to self-discovery. I hope you enjoy the result. * * * * * * * * * * "Well, that was really something." Dave...
Chapter One: Clifford I had to go by ferry. The flight was not an option for me by then. But I had needed to escape, and when I was younger, I had once taken a fancy to visit the villa on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus where the British novelist Lawrence Durrell once lived and wrote, where he wrote much of his acclaimed fiction series The Alexandra Quar...