"Green Ruin," free story in the award-winning series The Eternal Dungeon

You can read Green Ruin (The Eternal Dungeon) as part of the free PDF zine Wanderlust: A Travel Anthology, edited by T. Spoon for The Slash Pile. Green Ruin has both heterosexual and gay content. The e-book editions of Green Ruin (HTML, PDF, and Kindle) remain available for $2.99.

The omnibus edition of the Eternal Dungeon series was winner of the Best Gay Fantasy category of the Rainbow Awards 2011.

The blurb:

"During the dawn hours at the Eternal Dungeon, as the day shift yawned itself awake and the night shift yawned itself to bed, the talk turned, as it always did, to the injustices of being a guard."

Three guards and a mysterious substance provide a temptation too great to be missed . . . especially when two torturers add their skills to the mix. Soon three very different men – a married man who is committed to respect and honor, a bachelor harboring secret desires, and a soldier with an unfulfilled ambition – will find themselves caught in a trap. Their rescue will come from an unexpected quarter.

This darkly humorous short story of friendship and romance can be read on its own or as a side story in The Eternal Dungeon, a historical fantasy series set in a land where the psychologists wield whips.

Excerpt

Mr. Sobel said cautiously, "One needs to be careful when imbibing strong liquor. I've heard tales—"

"Oh, tales." Mr. Boyd dismissed this with one wave of the hand.

Mr. Urman, still enjoying the task of imparting the worst news, read: "'The partial insensibility caused by the absinthe is attended with the ideal existence of long intervals of time, in which the events of a whole life are arrayed and appreciated, to be succeeded by terrific hallucinations and intellectual weakness, ending in unconscious struggling as if for life. In time, if the use of the absinthe be continued, these phenomena become permanently established and the result is inevitably fatal.'"

"Fatal memories!" Turning a page, Mr. Boyd snorted again. "Does the author really expect us to believe that?"

"You never know." Mr. Urman set aside the book, as though he had read enough.

"'A Vovimian physician tells us that after the first dose of absinthe, you are carried in imagination away from earth into a lofty and boundless realm without horizon,'" Mr. Sobel murmured as he read from his book. "'You imagine yourself travelling into the infinite spirals of rebirth. . . .'"

"'Hallucinations of various kinds, of naked women' – there's one for you, Mr. Sobel," teased Mr. Boyd.

"Mr. Boyd, please." Mr. Sobel had turned scarlet.

Unable to resist this opportunity to make mock at the dungeon's senior-most guard, Mr. Urman returned to his reading. "'He now carried his excesses still further, and added absinthe to his list of excitants. Then this youth, so chaste and reserved in his intervals of sobriety, lost his modesty with a very remarkable facility, not only when under the influence of liquor, but when simply dominated by a desire to drink. For a drink he would give himself to the first comer. . . .'"

"Sounds like an aphrodisiac," observed Mr. Boyd. "That could be handy in certain situations." He nudged Mr. Sobel, the married man.

Mr. Sobel, though, had renewed his composure. "It's a dangerous drug," he stated flatly. "Listen to what is said here: 'In the case of excessive drinkers there is first the feeling of exaltation peculiar to a state of intoxication. The increasing dose necessary to produce this state quickly deranges the digestive organs, and destroys the appetite. An unappeasable thirst takes possession of the victim, with giddiness, tingling in the ears, and hallucinations of sight and hearing, followed by a constant mental oppression and anxiety, loss of brain power, and, eventually, idiocy.'"

"Excessive drinkers," Mr. Boyd emphasized, unwilling to let go of a point. "Do you mind if I borrow a glassful of this, Mr. Sobel? It would be interesting to see what the drink tastes like. . . ."

Spontaneous (Leather in Lawnville) - free award-winning BDSM story

"Thinking about it, I've decided that bringing Jell-O to a gathering of leathermen wasn't my big mistake. My big mistake was bringing it on the night that Master Trent was attending."

Can an Old Guard top survive in a world with safe words? This humorous BDSM short story was runner-up for the 2006 Rauxa Prize for erotic fiction.

This is a reissue of an older story.

Excerpt

Trent snorted. "Danger. You young leathermen know nothing about danger. I had only one fear when I was young, and I got over that in time. But you fear everything. You fear that you won't be accepted by your vanilla neighbors, you fear that society will think you're strange. You won't do anything spontaneous or risky because you might get hurt." Trent snorted again. "All you need, you say, is stability. Say, which pocket is your hanky in tonight?"

I sighed. This was an old argument between us. "Look, just because I'm ninety-percent top doesn't mean I can't have a little fun taking the other role once in a while. That has nothing to do with stability—"

I was interrupted then. Martin was starting to make the rounds of the room, clipboard and pen in hand, asking everyone whether they were registered to vote so that they could show the world what good citizens leathermen are. Nearby, most of the club had entered into a discussion of how long the negotiations before a scene should last between a top and a bottom, and whether there should be three breaks or four for further negotiations later in the evening.

"Fucking Christ," Trent said with disgust. Then he turned to me and asked mildly, "Will you do something for me?"

"Sure," I said with a mouth full of my first bite of Ho Ho. "Anything you want."

It must have been the Ho Ho. Sugar rushes cause madness, right? Because I promise you, "Anything you want," is not what you say to Master Trent. Not when he has his black handkerchief sticking out of his left back pocket.
 

¶ Available as online fiction and as a FREE downloadable e-book: Spontaneous

Achilles and the Houseboy...Gillibran Brown

Achilles and the Houseboy…Gillibran Brown

If Achilles, ancient hero of the Trojan War, had worn proper footwear then Gillibran Brown, modern hero of the Domestic Empire, would get into a lot less trouble, or so he believes.

A kiss heralds the arrival of a most unwelcome and troublesome visitor who throws Gilli out of kilter with life and his Daddies.

Take another journey with Gillibran Brown. (that's me ;-)

My wiki page: http://bookworld.editme.com/GillibranBrown

Book edition available at:

http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/achilles-and-the-houseboy/15549858

Ebook edition to follow

Published by Houseboy-Works

Excerpt:

Prologue

When you think about the ancient Greeks, as oft I do, because I’m strange like that, they and their deities have a lot to answer for. Gone they might be, but they still manage to cast their antique influence over us modern mortals in a variety of ways.

Take Achilles for example. If he’d worn proper footwear then I wouldn’t get into half as much bother as I do. Honest it's true, if he’d worn calve length Doc Marten boots my life would be much easier.

I’ll endeavour to explain using my vast knowledge of Greek mythology acquired from years of studying the ancient classics. (Lie detector snorts, you once read a kiddies book of myths and legends and most of it was in pictures) Okay, okay, but those pictures were detailed.

Achilles was the son of an immortal mother and a mortal father. The immortal mummy in question, Thetis, was distressed because not only had her son inherited his father’s Roman nose and overly large lugs, he had also inherited his mortality. She decided to top up her baby’s immortality by dipping him in the magical River Styx (there were no social services then you know, you could do what you liked) only the un-dead daft bat forgot to wet the heel she dangled him by, thus leaving him vulnerable at that point.

Achilles grew up fine, strong and immortal, albeit with a small print clause he had declined to read - failure to wear chain mail socks at all times will invalidate your life insurance. He was also as thick as ancient Greek pig shit. Why else would he have elected to go into battle against a tribe of aggressive chiropodists wearing a gold lame evening gown and a pair of patent leather sling backs, which left his heels totally exposed to his enemies weapons. It’s true, honest, it really happened (swiftly puts a hand over lie detectors mouth)

It seems our mate Achilles wasn’t quite the hero he’s made out to be. According to some sources he was second to none when it came to flinging hissy fits and sulking in his tent for days on end when he didn’t get his own way. He could very well be the patron saint of brats everywhere.
When he was called up for service in The Trojan War Achilles was not pleased. He didn’t want to go to war, he wanted to stay in and play Grand Theft Chariot on his X-Box. He came up with a cunning plan to dodge the draft by dressing up as a woman, but he forgot to wax his legs and Odysseus sussed him.

Okay, I feel a slight tangent coming on. In spite of my old school teacher's warnings about wandering off subject, I'm going to go with it. (Sorry, Miss) According to a painting I once saw of Achilles, he had muscles that could lay claim to being independent territories but a cock the size of a winkle. It set me off pondering, it doesn't take much, I love a good ponder.

Surely any painter set on depicting one of the most famous heroes of the Trojan War would opt to give him a magnificent dick in keeping with his status, one that could be used as a battering ram in the event of a siege situation? Instead, the artist chose to give him a todger and ball bag that would embarrass a cherub. Perhaps he was running out of flesh coloured paint at that point and decided to skimp, or perhaps it was an ironic comment on the futility of war? Who knows! Artists are funny folk and a tiny cock could mean many things.

Anyway, he said, forcing himself back on topic and away from cocks, which doesn’t happen often believe me, because of Achilles, the cross dressing warrior Greek, most of us modern humans have an Achilles heel, a weakness of one kind or another.

Being a well-balanced sort of chap I actually have two Achilles heels, one on each foot. The first is jealousy and the second is temper and they don’t make good partners. One fuels the other and tends to make a bad situation even worse.

It’s Achilles fault that I so often end up at odds with my men folk. If he’d worn sensible footwear then Paris would never have been able to kill him with a well-aimed poison arrow and the term 'Achilles heel' would never have been coined. Consequently, according to my logic anyway, I wouldn’t suffer from jealousy or temper or a combination of both and I’d have a smooth and ripple free relationship with my own particular pair of Greek gods (legends in their own lunchtime)

Leaving aside half arsed pseudo mythological stuff, this humble chapter in the life and times of this houseboy concerns the manifestation of my personal Achilles heel, Jealousy, who dropped in for a visit the weekend prior to Dick’s birthday on the first of August.

On that particular weekend Dick had been called south by the imperious and chilly tones of his mama and was due to be away from Friday afternoon until Sunday evening. Shane was also away on business that Friday, but would be back late the same day.

Being an optimistic sort of house lad I was looking forward to spending some quality time alone with my alpha Daddy. As things turned out it was fantastic. He wined me, dined me, bought me flowers and new clothes, wrote me a love sonnet in iambic pentameter and told me he adored me. He even stacked the dishwasher (well, you wouldn’t expect him to wash up by hand now would you) while I supped champagne cocktails and watched the telly. (Lie detector says, in your Mills and Boons little fantasies, boy.) Okay, okay (romantic dream pings and pops like a fairy liquid bubble) it wasn’t quite like that. So, I hear you ask, either that or I’m suffering audio hallucinations, what was it like? Well, it was more like this: sprinkle-sprinkle - glitter-glitter (don’t worry, being gay I’m fully trained, licensed and insured for magical glitter sprinkling) let's go back in time to the Friday before Dick’s birthday, the twenty-seventh of July 2007.