Chapter One: Scarred Wedged in the crowd in Times Square below the CNN big screen, next to the tower on top of which Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen were cavorting and waving to the crowd, Nick felt Steven Saylor pull him in close. Someone near them was starting the countdown on the ball drop ushering in 2018 early by thirty seconds and others were taking up...
In time I found the strength to push myself up again, one groaning inch at a time, my insides aching almost sweetly. I swung my legs over the side of the bed and leaned forward, elbows on my knees, trembling everywhere. The floor seemed to expand at the edges of my vision, swirling like a membranous ocean a mile beneath my feet, head slowly spinning. The bar...
Summary: Straight guard learns of black inmate's power over all. Note 1: This is dedicated to the real Ken who retold this surprisingly largely true story. Note 2: Thanks to Tex Beethoven, thor_ph, Robert, and Wayne for editing. Prologue: I'm the prison guard and Kareem Mwangi is the prisoner, so you would have thought I had the upper hand, and until...
Chapter 1 The house in an upscale Phoenix neighborhood looked impressive from the outside. A two-storied rock façade mini-mansion set back from the street. It looked like all the houses in the neighborhood, including the large iron gates to keep out snoopy people and the police. Not that there was anything really illegal going on in the house, but the poo...
Dedicated to my great proof-reader with thanks. * The sound reverberated through his mind, the cold sweat breaking out almost immediately and Gray cried out involuntarily as he shot up in his bed. "Oh, God." He ran his hands through his dirty blond hair, his breath coming in gasps as he tried, unsuccessfully, to get himself back under control. It didn't...
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...
One of the really funny things about life is that when you're up to your neck in shit, you get used to the smell. The last six years had been exactly that, each day worse than the day before. And all during that time, I had done everything I needed to do and had functioned one day at a time. Now, it was all catching up with me. * * * * * * I had come to N...
[For an earlier story in the NYPD vice detective Mike Kavanagh series, see "Inevitable Case."] Mike Kavanagh stood at the French balcony window of his "seen better times" hotel on Canal Street, looking at the festival parade units forming below him, and then beyond to the western edge of the French Quarter. He was lucky to have found a residence hotel this...
Chapter One: Christmas Present for Himself Jan heard his voice in the foyer and glided away from the man who was circling in on him and went to the door. The big Slavic bear of a guy, who had been introduced to him as Victor, had been pursuing him for nearly an hour and Jan was running out of ploys to politely elude him. That couldn't last long, because a c...
This is the third and last of a group of three related stories: Petty Officer Pettifer Pettifer the Gay Disciplinarian Pettifer – The Warden ***** CHAPTER 1 Kevin Pettifer: Warrant Officer Kevin Pettifer, to give him his full title, stood, cane still in his hand, and looked with a sense of great personal satisfaction at the richly welted, muscular arse...