Danny's Story I guess if I were asked when the turning point of my life was—or at least the initial one—I'd have to say it was when I was sixteen and the Broadway producer, Evan Yellen, called me down from the dance auditions for the musical Finian's Rainbow. The show had a quartet of male dancers, but one got too near the footlights in a rehearsal, fell of...
Ervin Walker hiked up to the top of the ridge of the White Oak mountain range as he did every Friday afternoon, weather permitting. He was standing there, looking northwest over the rolling south central Virginia farmland as he had done nearly every Friday from mid afternoon until almost twilight for the past twenty-four years since he had received the call....
Before starting my tour of duty in Okinawa, I thought my primary talent was playing the piano. I was soon to learn otherwise, though, and my late coming to "the" life gripped me like a disease or an unshakable habit. I had known since not long after puberty that I had an unusual attraction. I had formed friendships quickly from my days in high school—and no...
"God, he was big. Christ, he was huge. Fuck, he was punishing me." The mantra kept running through my mind. And I wasn't just talking about Jomata Nyoni's height, breadth, and belly. I'd been told that he was called the Man Splitter in Uganda when he was working his evil as one of Idi Amin's enforcers, but that was about his work with an ax. Nobody had told...
Rick didn't like dogs. If he did he would have paid some attention to whether his apartment house accepted dogs before signing a year's lease and painting the living room wall hunter green in anticipation of an even longer tenancy. His dad knew he didn't like dogs. And he probably had taken the time to discover that there was a "no dogs" clause in Rick's ap...
Yorkshire, England, Late Summer, 1890 I felt the sting on my thigh and looked up to see that William had ridden up beside me and struck at me with his riding crop. I turned and twisted in the saddle and when he struck me again it was on the chest. Laughing, I gave my own horse the lash and its head and we were riding over the pastureland of Falconcroft, the...
Now that he'd gotten this far with it—contacting the man and driving all the way up to Gettysburg from Washington, D.C.—Hal Collins was having second thoughts. He arrived at the house fifteen minutes early, but drove right by it and pulled over to the curb two blocks farther on. Several minutes later, the pain in his hands registered in his brain, and he rea...
"You could have at least waited for him to come off the operating table." "I couldn't . . . (huff) . . . help it . . . (puff). I think we may have overimplanted the scent. Come over here and . . ." "My God, I think you're right. God, god, finish with it. I must . . . as well. And we can see how well he can take an enhanced size. You're no . . ." "And you...
Heidelberg, Germany, 1905 "What do you see, Varick? Where are you going?" I put out a restraining hand as the Baron von Richthoven brushed past me and out into the corridor of the first-class carriage of the train. I followed him as he moved toward the steps down to the platform of the Heidelberg rail station. The train had stopped here en route from where...
[This is a completed, three-chapter novella, which will complete posting by 20 December 2017.] ***** I had waited patiently through three watered-down drinks in the downstairs club on Chelsea's 22nd Street, waiting for him to come out to dance the pole. I had glimpsed him coming out to do his number the last time I'd been in the bar. But it had been late a...