If the New Year Sherlock special just wasn't gay enough for you, we're turning back time to our anthology of queer Sherlock stories, A Study In Lavender edited by Joseph R. G. Marco. Right now it's half price at only $10 in paperback, and you can read a story for free here: The Adventure of the Hidden Lane by Lyn C. Gardner I’m placing this sealed manuscript with my solicitors on instructions that it be published at least seventy years after my demise, when all the principals are long dead and any rumour has passed into family legend. I trust that one day this tale will be welcomed among the rest. If I return often in these annals to the days before my marriage to Mary Morstan, it is only because Sherlock Holmes and I spent so much time in company then. In 1887, Holmes was thirty-three and I thirty-five, and we seemed at the height of our powers. No problem was too obscure for me to attend along with him. In many ways, despite the strains on health and sanity, I look upon those days as the golden age: long nights prowling outside an abbey, waiting for a murderer to emerge in nun’s habit; grey afternoons watching the world stream past outside our train while we chewed over the case or enjoyed the companionable silence only two intimates can share. Whether we brooded over separate projects in the parlour or ran through fields in fear of someone’s life; whether Holmes filled the air with violin music or I, the minds of distant readers with the magic of his work, there seemed one great song between us. Without a practice of my own, I’d rise in my dressing gown when Mrs Hudson brought our breakfast, and share the morning papers with Holmes. Even without a case, there were times when he hardly slept. I’d wish him good night and leave him brooding over the fire, then walk out yawning in the morning to find him staring into the street, waiting only my waking to play the violin. I’d trained myself to sleep through the stench of all but the most explosive chemical experiments. “Anything on the fire this morning, Holmes?” He didn’t turn from his contemplation of Baker Street. The medley of voices, the rattling percussion of hooves and carriage wheels, and the cymbal-like crashes of coal chutes all registered in a higher key as the threat of rain induced a more hurried tempo. I took the chair opposite his dirty dishes and tucked into my kedgeree. The haddock was tender and well-seasoned. Atop a stack of books, a telegram waited for me. “Situation grave at Leidstone Manor near Reigate, Surrey. Your presence great personal favour. Forrester.” “Forrester,” I mused. “The inspector we met in the affair of the Reigate squires?” Five months before, in April, I had convinced Holmes to leave the poisoned city air for some needed rest in the country. To his delight, theft and murder had broken into his vacation. The young officer in charge had been duly appreciative of Holmes’s talents. “The very same.” “What do you suppose it is?” “I understand that Sir Hugh Syms-Caton has been ailing for sometime.” “Syms-Caton. Why do I know that name?” Holmes held up a slim volume that had been concealed between his body and the window. His finger still marked a page, but I could read the impress of gold upon the cover: Songs of Earth and Heaven by Catherine Syms-Caton. “Now I remember. Sir Hugh’s niece writes poems; her brother writes adventures. What is his name–” Holmes gestured to the table, watching me with the faintest smile. He said, “I took the liberty of running out to the bookstore on the corner while you slept.” I hefted one of the books stacked beneath the telegram. The Squire of All or Nothing by Aubrey Syms-Caton. “Seems to promise a good sword fight to while away a fall afternoon. So, what’ll it be, Holmes? A duel upon the downs?” “Hardly that, Watson,” he replied, and slipped into his coat. He tipped the brim of his hat toward me. “But a doctor’s services might be in order.” My army training and Holmes’s austere habits made packing the work of a moment. I grabbed my valise and doctor’s bag. Holmes scooped up the books as we hastened out the door. On the train, we passed the books back and forth. “Not bad, Watson,” Holmes commented as he handed me the slimmer volume. I’d got a fair way into one of the novels – murder, unjust imprisonment, and a case of mistaken identity – but I set it aside to see what had impressed my critical friend. The poems’ raw power clawed through the smooth veneer of form and sentiment. “Whoever inspired these is a lucky man.” Holmes said thoughtfully, “There is something caged – something furious and helpless here that cries out and beats the bars.” Inspector Forrester met us at the station with a brougham bearing Sir Hugh’s arms. A sober young man, Forrester looked smart in his inspector’s uniform, but concern had etched grooves in his narrow face. His wide brown eyes lingered, considering everything. A thick but precisely trimmed moustache paralleled a solemn mouth. He said, “Thank you for coming, Mr Holmes. Dr Watson. I can’t tell you how much we appreciate it.” Holmes and I shared a bench inside the brougham. Holmes said, “Pray tell us the trouble, Inspector.” Though he sat with the sun in his eyes, Forrester’s keen face clouded. “When their father died fifteen years ago, Sir Hugh took on the role for his niece and nephew. Now he lies at death’s door –” His eyes shifted to me. “I’m glad you’re here, Doctor. It seldom hurts to have a second opinion, especially when all other hope is gone.” I nodded, murmured “Of course.” But Holmes said shrewdly, “I take it there’s some trouble getting in to see him.” “Not yet. But there might be. There are these manuscripts, you see –” His gaze slid to the woodlands rushing past. “Having unpublished manuscripts stolen is a terrible thing for any writer. But these manuscripts, sir – these manuscripts –” “A little unusual, are they?” Forrester said, “They don’t want their uncle’s last thoughts to be marred by – this situation. They’re concerned about the shock when his health is so delicate. They’re also afraid that in a moment of anger he might shut them out, and they’d lose their last hours with him.” “You lost your own father early, Mr Forrester,” Holmes observed gently. Forrester nodded, the underlying sadness rising to his face. “The day after the manuscripts vanished, they received an anonymous letter warning them that unless they comply with certain demands, their uncle will be shown the manuscripts.” “And the conditions?” Forrester growled, “Aubrey is to renounce his claims and leave the country. He and Kate must urge their uncle to adopt another heir. They’re to say their farewells and leave for his holdings in America.” “What, both of them?” I exclaimed. Holmes mused, “The sister must not inherit either. There’s someone else.” “There’s a rumour that Sir Hugh has an unacknowledged son.” Holmes stared out the window as the fields rolled past. I asked, “Could Sir Hugh’s wife be interested in the matter? Without children, she may worry she’ll lose her home when he dies.” Forrester said, “If Lady Hilda’s aim were to disinherit her nephew, I don’t see how it could suit her purpose to withhold the manuscripts at all.” I asked, “They’re that bad, then?” Forrester said, “There are others who might be injured as well.” Afternoon gilded the fields. I drank deep of country air. The great house stood atop a sloping lawn, facing the early afternoon sun. Forrester said, “My mother and I would be honoured if you’d stay with us tonight. The manor might be more comfortable, but with Sir Hugh’s health, it would be best not to strain the household further.” I said, “I’m sure we’ll be quite comfortable. Thank you.” We’d scarcely entered the house when two golden youths stepped into the entry hall, their curly-haired beauty shining like Apollo and Athena in the misty interior light. Forrester introduced us, then said, “I must return to my duties. Aubrey, Kate, I’ll leave you with your guests. Mr Holmes, Dr Watson, I’ll call for you at dinner time.” He nodded and left. “We’re very pleased to meet you,” said Kate. Shadows lurked beneath her red-rimmed eyes and hollowed cheeks, but she made an effort to smile. Aubrey bore the same marks of weariness, but his hectic energy demanded some object. “Come upstairs with us, Mr Holmes. It all begins and ends there.” He hit the stairs running. “Pray excuse my brother,” murmured Kate. “He’s anxious to resolve this – there’s nothing else we can do to help Uncle.” “Understandable,” said Holmes. His eyes brightened with the challenge. His long legs took the stairs two at a time, leaving Kate and myself to bring up the rear. On the second floor, we entered a study lined with large, glassfronted cabinets filled with books and keepsakes. The wide oak desk stood with its left edge toward the window. Facing it, a smaller table held a typewriter, its keys shining with daily use. A brace of armchairs stood before two tall secretaries with a lamp between. Kate locked the door behind us and settled behind the big desk. Aubrey perched by the typewriter, his wild curls bobbing as he showed off with a rapid burst on the machine. Kate set her elbows on the desk. “This is Uncle Hugh’s private study,” she said. “He’s let us use it since I was nine and Aubrey eight. We used to sit at those secretaries, completing our schooling while he worked. We seldom spoke, but we enjoyed being industrious together.” “When we got older,” Aubrey said, “we learned that Uncle Hugh didn’t conduct his affairs here so much as he sought refuge. This was the place where he came to read romances –” “– or write funny lyrics,” Kate said. “He’d slip them into our books to mark our lessons.” “For a while there, Uncle Hugh and I had a poetry war going on,” Aubrey said. “We’d leave poems on top of important papers or hidden in drawers, composed in the most stately and serious manner. The trick was to break the other’s composure. We’d read them and go about our business, but if one of us laughed, or grinned, or shed a tear –” Kate said, “Of course, I enjoyed it immensely. But I laughed so much they gave up surprising me. I’d get the one who wrote it chuckling, and that was a forfeit. So while they attacked their poetry with all the gravity of war, I sat in my corner of Uncle’s big desk, gazing out the window at my own dreams – and jotting them down.” “It sounds like your writing is something of a family tradition,” I said. “Your uncle must be very proud of you.” “Oh, he is!” Kate caught her breath. “When Uncle took to his bed, he asked us to keep writing for him. Every day, we come in here and –” She hung her head. Aubrey said quietly, “We try to carry on. He likes to hear our work as we write it. It’s one of the fi rst things he asks – it seems to keep him going. But it isn’t easy, Mr Holmes.” Kate said, “That’s why we’re so sick about the theft. We’ve lost work that represents time we could have spent with our uncle, even if it was his wish. If that time was wasted –” Holmes stood, stretching his lanky frame. “Where did you keep the manuscripts? Looked up in this room?” Kate said, “The typescripts are kept in the secretary behind Dr Watson, where we can get to them easily. The manuscripts are locked in the safe above the fi replace.” Holmes rounded on Aubrey. “With so much at stake, you still think it’s worthwhile to lie to me?” Aubrey blanched. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” “Of course not.” Holmes off ered a wintry smile. “Do you think I don’t already know your secrets? Your sister’s romances are no doubt far more popular under your name than they would ever be under hers. As for your poetry, I’ve no doubt the man you love is well-placed, and neither one of you can bear the scandal.” Kate gave a small cry. Aubrey stood with clenched fists, but Holmes continued relentlessly. “You take great pains to hide the holographs, yet the typescripts are kept in an obvious location, and the work itself is published for anyone to read. Typewriting may be a modern fad, but it’s more frequently done by those who must earn their wages. I asked myself why it was so important that the handwriting be hidden. If you’d stolen another’s work, the demands would include acknowledgement or restitution – even if the author wanted revenge as well. But if you were each the author of the other’s work, the secrecy would certainly be justified. It’s unusual, but not unheard of, for a woman to study fencing; but the poetry published under Catherine Syms-Caton’s name is erotically charged, and clearly written to a man. Since the manuscripts are so dangerous, why did you retain them?” Aubrey said, his cheeks flaming, “We wanted to keep proof of our true authorship.” “Pride,” Holmes muttered and bent over the typewriter, pulling the paper from the platen. “Has anyone ever seen you at work, other than your uncle? How did you explain this machine?” Aubrey stood aside to give Holmes room. “Edmund had just learned, so we asked him to teach us. Since we’re writers, I don’t think he found the request unusual.” “Edmund?” “Edmund Percivale, Uncle’s secretary. He’s our friend. He’s only a year older than I am – Katie’s age. Really, we’re more like cousins.” Holmes raised his eyebrows. He asked Kate for the anonymous letter and examined it. “How was this delivered?” She said, “We found it sealed and lying in the middle of the desk when we got back from visiting Uncle yesterday afternoon. We tried asking around without making too much fuss, but no one would admit to putting it there.” “Does your aunt ever use this study?” “She has her morning room and the library. Why should she?” “And has she ever spoken with you about your inheritance?” “What? No!” Aubrey said thoughtfully, “Not directly. But – once or twice she’s made pointed comments about people who won’t produce heirs, and the line coming to an end. I always thought – she made me so angry, I thought she was criticizing Uncle Hugh –” They looked at each other, dismay in Kate’s face, panic in Aubrey’s. I said, “If there was a son out there, who would it be?” Aubrey said, “That’s easy. Edmund. He’s always been treated more like family. He idolizes Uncle, and he works hard. But he sleeps on the third floor with us. He dines with us. Uncle called him up from the village when he turned eighteen, on no recommendation whatsoever. It’s always been something of a mystery. Edmund himself doesn’t know who his parents are. He lived with poor cousins until an unknown benefactor sent him away to school.” Holmes muttered, “If a man needs an heir, he doesn’t usually deny his own blood.” Then he looked up from the pages. “Do you realize this note was typed on your own machine?” “That’s not possible.” Aubrey frowned. “The relative position of the letters is distinctive. Do you always lock this room?” Kate said, “Uncle taught us.” “Who has a key?” “Uncle, Aubrey, and me. There aren’t any others. The fires are only lit or the carpets brushed when one of us is here. Uncle taught us that was the price for privacy.” “And who,” asked Holmes, “has access to your uncle’s key since he’s taken to his bed?” Kate was silent. Aubrey said, “Anyone who’s been in the room while he slept. He keeps his most important keys on a chain around his neck. He won’t be parted from them.” Holmes said, “I’ll need to speak to your uncle. I don’t think it’s wise to advertise our purpose.” Katie rose. “I have the perfect excuse. He loves the chronicles of your adventures. We invited the pair of you to cheer him up.” On our way out, we glanced into the secretary’s office, but he was absent. Aubrey offered to retrieve him, saying, “He’s probably seeing to something about the estate.” In Sir Hugh’s sitting room, we waited while Lady Hilda helped the nurse bathe him and change his clothes and dressings. As we sat there, I murmured to Kate, “The poems – from a woman, the tone borders on the scandalous. Didn’t you worry what your uncle would think?” “A bit. I didn’t tell him at first. One day Aunt Hilda found a copy. She was outraged. She said a proper lady wouldn’t read them, let alone write them. Uncle Hugh looked stern. He asked me about the young man in the poems. I told him we’d broken things off. I was on tenterhooks – he could have demanded I marry. Uncle said, ‘Well, it’s no use crying over spilt milk.’ Then he grinned. ‘Better to write about it and have your revenge, eh?’ He seemed quite pleased that I was following in Aubrey’s footsteps. He said, ‘Some parents don’t expect much from a girl except to love her. But these are brilliant, Katie, really. If a little unexpected.’” At last Lady Hilda emerged, frowning at us until Kate introduced the great detective and his Boswell. She thawed a bit, greeting us and nodding in distracted fashion before she carried off an armful of stained and foul-smelling bedclothes, accompanied by an older woman similarly laden, whose upturned nose and sharp blue eyes spoke of the pert, birdlike girl still holding her own within the soft roundness years had provided. We followed Kate into the room. The smell was stronger here, seeping into everything – the heavy, sweet-sour odour of impending death. Amid piles of pillows, a narrow face poked like a fi n, sharpened to a lustre by his illness. He formed an unnaturally long, bony ridge amid lumps of cushioning. Kate smoothed white hair whose long strands swirled across his pate, then cradled his withered hand in hers. “Uncle dear, we’ve brought someone to see you. Just think! It’s Sherlock Holmes and his friend Dr Watson!” Sir Hugh wet his lips. The jutting chin wobbled. Past all the gathered phlegm, his croak was diffi cult to hear. “I’m honoured to meet you, gentlemen. Your exploits have brightened many a dark night.” He reached out a trembling hand. Holmes shook it. He turned his watering eyes to me with a pained smile while I pressed his hand. “Since I’ve been ill, we’ve read your stories again and again. Excellently done, gentlemen – and excellently told. I don’t suppose you’d act out your own parts in one of my favourites?” He cast a mischievous look at Kate. “My niece can stand in for everyone else.” I turned a look of amusement on Holmes. I could already hear the disgusted comment he’d make later about being forced to play the buffoon in one of my exaggerated dramas. But for Sir Hugh’s sake, he acquiesced with surprising gentleness. We dramatized favourite scenes from “The Speckled Band.” Sir Hugh choked with delight. Kate and I held him upright and repositioned the pillows so he could breathe more easily. The tumour was well advanced and had already begun to seep through the new dressings. When we’d settled him, Holmes asked, “Miss Syms-Caton, would you leave us for a time?” She nodded, taking the current nurse. I heard the inner and outer doors close. Sir Hugh said, “Now, gentlemen, tell me the truth. I may be an invalid, but I’m not a fool.” “Your friend Bob Forrester called us here,” said Holmes. “He’s a good lad, Bob, a good lad. I always thought so.” “There’s a plot afoot against your nephew – your niece, too, as it happens. An anonymous party threatens to discredit them to you if they don’t bid you farewell and quit the country.” Sir Hugh cried thickly, “I won’t hear a word against Kate or Aubrey! What scoundrel –” he groaned and gritted yellow teeth, flopping like a landed fish as his body strove to slough off pain. He panted. “What villain dares impugn those children while I’m trapped here like this!” I said, “Someone interested in the inheritance, most likely.” I eased him back onto the pillows. Holmes said, “Should you see or hear anything to alarm you, I would ask that you remain calm. Watson and I will handle everything. Accept nothing on face value. Time is too short to let anything separate you from your family.” Sir Hugh said harshly, “I’m not a fickle man. I love those children, and they’re all I have left of my dead brother. Nothing could make me abandon them.” Holmes said, “Admirable sentiments, sir. Has someone been urging you otherwise?” Mouth wide, Sir Hugh strained for breath. His torso twitched as though he fought to keep his inflating lungs from pressing the tumour. His face darkened to puce. I hurried to the washbasin steaming near the fire. Holmes stood back as I brought the steam and applied damp, warm cloths to loosen his chest. When Sir Hugh’s face faded to pink, Holmes said, “There’s speculation that you have a child in some other quarter.” Sir Hugh growled, “People gossip when there isn’t a direct line. I inherited from my uncle, sir. I expect these children to do the same.” “Please be frank, Sir Hugh. I must have the truth. Have you a son?” Sir Hugh shook his head sharply. “Has there been talk of adoption?” I thought Holmes must mean the practice by which a childless man adopts a poor relative, bringing the young man up in his household under his name. But Sir Hugh closed his eyes. He whispered, “My wife, sir. You must understand. My wife is bitterly disappointed. But if I were to adopt, it might jeopardize Aubrey and Kate’s position, and I can’t allow that.” I heard a muffled knock, and the outer door opened. Holmes watched Sir Hugh intently, as if reading a story in the lines of his pain-wracked face. What utter control that man possessed, to speak so rationally in the midst of agony. The inner door opened, and Aubrey stepped in, followed by a slight young man whose fine bones took strength from the resolution in his face. His wispy auburn hair hung round his head in a cloud of curls held back by a ribbon at the nape. Sir Hugh looked straight at my friend and said, “I’m a dying man, Mr Holmes. I must entrust you with the lives of those I love. Please find a way to do right by them.” His glance fell on each of the boys. “I’ll do everything in my power.” Sir Hugh whispered, “You’re a discerning man. It won’t take you long to understand. But when you do – please don’t reveal the secret. That is another’s choice to make.” Holmes bowed to him deeply. Aubrey took his uncle’s hand. His companion, the skinny, ethereal youth I assumed was Edmund, drifted to the foot of the bed, where he watched the dying man with an expression of such love and pity I wondered that he, too, was not at Sir Hugh’s side. His big green eyes gleamed, yet no tears fell. He stood steadfast and solitary, his hands clasped before him as if they would not move until Sir Hugh gave them orders. Aubrey said breathlessly, “I’m here, Uncle. I’ve brought Edmund. He was overseeing the estate, as you asked him.” “That’s fine, Aubrey, fine. You are both good boys. I wonder sometimes – whether I did right by keeping you here. You should have gone off to school like Edmund.” Aubrey said forcefully, “We’ve had the best education we could wish for, here by your side! Your library alone, Uncle – there’s more to learn here than shut up in university walls!” Sir Hugh struggled with shallow breaths, watching his nephew closely. “But is it enough? Can you fi nd happiness here, with such limited horizons?” His brow furrowed. “Yes, Uncle! If only I could tell you –” They’d left the doors open. A dark shape slid between us and the window, and Lady Hilda stood at the foot of the bed with Edmund. She scowled at Holmes and Aubrey, the glare sharpening her delicate features and flashing green eyes. She looked like a furious bee. But her voice was gentle when she spoke to Sir Hugh. “That’s enough visiting for now, Hugh. You need your rest. Have you any orders for Edmund before we go?” His voice drifted like a ghost. “No.” She hustled us out, a tiny hand each on the shoulders of Edmund and Aubrey. Next to Lady Hilda, the secretary looked a full-grown man. Sir Hugh’s voice wavered behind us, “I want you to help these men however you can!” In the antechamber, Lady Hilda said, “You must understand, Mr Holmes. His health is so delicate. I know it’s selfish to want him to continue when he’s in such pain, but we can’t – even a few hours –” She drew a shaky breath. “You’ll come back, won’t you? In the morning, perhaps.” “Certainly, madam. I know the vigil must be exhausting. It must be a great strain to watch your husband suffering so, and keep up your spirits for his sake. I understand he was something of a writer himself, particularly in his younger days?” Her face lit up. Forty hadn’t touched her auburn hair, though the worry-lines in her face said she was older. Her slim, graceful nose and delicate mouth were beautiful, but worry and grief had been scraping her cheeks from within. “Yes, he had a slim volume printed – a beautiful fable. The critics said it was too serious for children and too frivolous for adults.” “I understand your niece and nephew are quite talented. Have they ever asked your opinion on their drafts?” Her face shifted subtly. That shadow might have been exhaustion. “No.” Holmes smiled and waved toward me. “Watson, here – when we’re home, he reads me his day’s labours, and when a case separates us, he copies out portions of the manuscript and sends them to me by post. Do you know who might have commented on Aubrey and Kate’s work?” Her eyes narrowed. She said brusquely, “I need to get back in to him.” “One more question, madam. Family history is a hobby of mine. I always make a point of getting the basic facts about the lineage of the halls I visit for my scrapbook. Perhaps you could point me to some documents in the library that would help me while away a few hours?” “Ask Mr Percivale,” she said. “I haven’t time for such things.” Holmes clapped a hand to his head. “Dear me! I almost forgot. We meant to autograph something for Sir Hugh – clippings of the fictional and journalistic accounts of one of our cases – I have them here somewhere –” Holmes fumbled in his pocket. Papers spilled out, notes and letters and the aforementioned clippings scattering over the floor. Near the top I recognized a sample poem Aubrey had given Holmes, untitled, unsigned. She moved slowly, as if she recognized the ruse; but training is strong, and she knelt to help him gather the pages. For a moment, as she bent over, I caught the gleam of a pendant dangling from within her petticoats, its porcelain surface marked by heraldic paint. As she straightened, she tucked it quickly out of sight. Aubrey’s poem sat on top of the stack she handed Holmes. Three wet spots glistened on the page. She said, “I can’t help you, Mr Holmes.” The inner door closed softly behind her. We stepped into the hall. Holmes folded the papers and arranged them in his pocket. He mused, “There was something disingenuous about her tears.” “Really, Holmes! Allow the woman her grief!” “She saw the poem, Watson. There was recognition in her eyes. Yet she didn’t ask what I was doing with it. She clearly has something to hide.” “And she just as clearly loves her husband. I don’t think a woman who feels that way would set about ruining his final hours.” “Tut tut, Watson. Your outrage does you credit. But I warrant we’ll see the truth before another day is out. Time draws short for Sir Hugh. Our thief will have to act.” Edmund and Aubrey stood up the hall, heads close as they confabulated. They glanced up with anxious eyes we approached. “Is everything well, Mr Holmes?” Edmund asked. “Not yet, Mr Percivale. But we’ll do what we can. Is there somewhere we might talk?” The young man led us back toward Sir Hugh’s study, then opened a door just beyond it. He walked toward the desk, then paused to put on a pair of spectacles. When he turned, the window at his back, his rusty hair floated like dust in the light. The gold-rimmed specs made his green eyes larger and more luminous. “Sir Hugh asked me to help. I’ll tell you everything I know,” he said softly. Aubrey frowned at Edmund. Holmes said abruptly, “Please leave us now, Mr Syms-Caton.” “Mr Holmes, there are questions I might –” “Go, if you have any desire for us to solve this case.” I watched with interest as Aubrey’s shoulders sank and he slunk out of the room. Edmund visibly relaxed. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I imagine this has something to do with the letters, doesn’t it?” Holmes said smoothly, “What do you have to tell us?” Edmund said, “I know a lot of what goes on around here. I have to, especially with Sir Hugh so sick. I know that Kate and Aubrey are dreadfully worried about something. They’re the ones who called you in, aren’t they?” Holmes inclined his head. “Well, what could it be, except the letters? I’ve been carrying them back and forth for two years. I’ve told no one. But I’m not the only one who knows. One evening I had to wait to go out. The rain was so thick I couldn’t see, and I didn’t want to risk the lightning. I put the letter in my room and was reading in the library. When it got late without the rain letting up, I went to bed. Lady Hilda was waiting in my room. She had the letter open on her knee. She must have noticed Aubrey and me exchanging them and got curious. She asked me to explain myself. When I stood mute, she said, ‘You’ll tell me or lose your place. How long has this been going on?’ The way she looked at me – I guess she recognized Aubrey’s handwriting and thought the letter was meant for me. Aubrey never addresses or signs those letters. Sometimes he lets me read them –” Edmund looked down at a stack of papers. “He’s asked my advice about the poems a few times. They’re really good – I would have been honoured if Kate had written them, and they were mine. But I was happy to cover for him, Mr Holmes. It lifted my heart to see two people so in love. You can imagine what it means to me. I lived so much of my life without anyone to care, until I entered Sir Hugh’s employ and gained the approval of the fi nest man on earth.” He looked up at Holmes and sighed. “Lady Hilda threatened to tell Sir Hugh, who’s as close to a father as I ever had. I didn’t tell her who it was, but I told her enough to convince her the letter was meant for someone else. She’s never mentioned it again. She’s even been kind to me, in her way.” Holmes said, “You speak of Sir Hugh as a father. Have you ever wondered if that might be true?” “You’re talking about the rumour? I admit, I had my hopes. From the time I was twelve, I had a mysterious benefactor. As soon as my education was complete, Sir Hugh asked me to work for him. From his interest in me and some of the things he said, I was convinced he’d been the one to support me all those years, though he’s never admitted it. He’s always been affectionate toward me – he treats me almost like a member of the family. When I heard the rumour, I couldn’t help but wonder.” “You realize,” Holmes said gently, “that he doesn’t have a son.” “I knew it,” he said simply. “You don’t seem surprised.” “I know he cares about me. I feel as much his protégé as his secretary. I love the man. The rest doesn’t matter. Sir Hugh saw something of value in me and nurtured it. He had confidence in me.” He met our eyes frankly. “Let me be clear, gentlemen. He has given me all I need to stand tall in this life. I’ll serve him faithfully until the end, and after that I’ll live up to his memory as best I can. But to know he’s not my biological father – it doesn’t change anything. It just confirms that the mutual respect we share is by choice, not blood.” “Yet there seems to be a mystery about you still, Edmund Percivale.” The small man shrugged. “Life’s a mystery. I don’t mind.” The rest of that afternoon and early evening we prowled the great house, unlocking doors, tracing hidden passageways, and mapping communicating rooms, such as Edmund Percivale’s office and Sir Hugh’s study, whose access was natural for employer and employee. We questioned the rest of the household, including Sir Hugh’s nurses, and pinned down schedules and locations for everyone, even Aubrey and Kate. Most people were anxious to help. Their worry made it clear how much they cared about Sir Hugh. Forrester returned at six o’clock. He collected Aubrey and Kate and took us out to the back garden. His mouth was a firm line beneath the trim moustache, his expression one of careful neutrality as he reached into his pocket. “This was on the tray when I entered the hall.” Aubrey took the envelope. With Kate leaning over one shoulder, he read aloud, “You’ve failed your uncle and yourselves. Your presence here cannot be tolerated. Say farewell by this time tomorrow or Sir Hugh shall know the truth.” Aubrey passed the letter to Holmes. “What are we going to do?” “Holmes,” I ventured, “perhaps it would be best if one of us stayed tonight. I could keep an eye out for the thief, watch for further notes –” “There won’t be any further notes, Watson,” Holmes said. “Whoever wrote that is eager for the battle to commence. This is a shot across the bow.” “But, Holmes! If that’s the case, you and I should be on hand, ready to defend –” “Calm yourself, Watson. We’ll be where we need to be when the time comes. In the meantime, it would be extremely rude to refuse Mrs Forrester’s hospitality at the last minute.” Holmes stood, taking up his walking stick. Forrester parted from Aubrey and Kate with an extra word of caution. Sir Hugh’s brougham carried us quickly down the hill and through the wood, around the bend to a cottage near the village road. At the door stood a woman in blue gingham, a crocheted kerchief covering grey hair. I recognized her as the nurse who’d assisted Lady Hilda with the bedding. “Good evening Doctor, Mr Holmes,” she greeted us. She packed us into a warm dining room, cramped but bright, its pastel green walls loaded with shelves of keepsakes. Our hostess served a hearty meal with cajoling good humour, saying, “As soon as I heard that the famous Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson were coming, I’d hear nothing but that you stay with us!” The homey way she bustled over our meal reminded me of Mrs Hudson, but there was a sharp gleam in her eyes beneath the country warmth. She waved aside my praise of the beefsteak and kidney pie; she hushed my accolades for her cinnamon apples. In retaliation, Forrester described how much she did up at the manor. When she’d lost her husband, she’d started as nursemaid for the young Syms-Catons, then continued as a general companion and help to Lady Hilda. Thinking to please her, I said, “Your son seems quite the favourite at Leidstone Manor.” After an evening of smiles, her acerbic tone surprised me. “He’s fraternizing with his betters, and that never led to any good.” When she retired, Holmes retrieved his briar pipe and we moved into the parlour. Forrester lit the lamps and built up the fire against September’s chill. From the mantelpiece, he pulled down a battered wooden ship’s case that held two gin bottles. He poured for three. “She’s been a good mother,” he said. “She always stood by me, always found a way to keep us afloat, and never complained. Did you know my father shipped under Aubrey’s? James Forrester was third mate to Captain Robert Syms-Caton, Sir Hugh’s younger brother – my namesake. When the ship went down, Sir Hugh offered my mother a position so we could keep the cottage. He even let her bring me along to play with Aubrey and Kate.” Holmes sat with his back to the fire, his shadowed face further obscured by steepled fingers. “How long have you and Aubrey been lovers?” Forrester started. “How did you –” I exclaimed, “I thought it was Edmund! That talk of a third party seemed contrived.” Holmes waved his hand impatiently. “Aubrey leads a fairly secluded life. You’re among his few friends. He’s very concerned with preserving his lover’s reputation, and the threat to your career is greater. But most telling is the care you take to appear disinterested toward him, even though you’re close to the family. Your eyes seek him when you think no one’s looking.” Forrester leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “I knew you’d understand. Your adamant bachelorhood – your views on women – it struck me, sir, that in addition to your prodigious talents, you’d be sympathetic to our cause.” He settled back with a sigh. “To answer your question, we were like brothers as boys, despite the difference in station and the four years between us. Once I entered police training, I had little time, and we seldom saw each other. But when I made inspector, Sir Hugh invited me up to the manor to celebrate. Suddenly things were different. It’s as though we’ve loved each other all our lives, but only realized it two years ago.” “It must be difficult to keep the secret. Particularly when neither of you lives alone.” Forrester smiled. “Oh, we find ways to meet. And our letters are safe enough.” He spoke softly into the crackling fire. “Edmund has been a godsend to just about everyone in that house. He dotes on Sir Hugh, and he’s been a good friend to Aubrey and Kate. And to me.” Holmes said, “Have you ever known any of your mail to go astray?” A startled look touched his face, before his features hardened behind the moustache. “Only once, for a few hours. The letter appeared early the next morning.” “Was it raining? Mr Percivale mentioned a night he couldn’t get through.” “No. I don’t expect letters in foul weather.” Holmes sat quietly and waited. I watched the inspector’s face change in the flickering light. Several times his glance strayed toward the stairs. At last Forrester said, “I’m all she has left, and I’m away so much of the time with my duties. I joined the police as soon as I qualified. She’s had to do it all herself.” It must be hard for any man to speak against his mother, particularly when she’s been his sole support. I said, “One letter. That’s not so much to weigh against a lifetime of sacrifice.” Holmes said ironically, “One letter has been enough to break empires.” “Holmes!” Forrester said heavily, “That’s all right. I took my lesson when we met before, Mr Holmes. One note, treacherously written by father and son. Enough to cost a man his life. But my mother thinks Edmund Percivale wrote those letters, if she thinks of them at all.” When Holmes said nothing, Forrester continued angrily, “Very well. Even if it’s as you say, she might disapprove, but she’s not going to publicize my – oddity.” His mouth twisted. “Can you imagine? She’s worked her whole life to get me here.” He gestured toward the uniform coat hanging by the door with its inspector’s pips. “Besides, even granting she knows it’s Aubrey – what interest does she have in advancing Sir Hugh’s mythical son?” “True,” Holmes conceded, but there was that gleam in his eye. “Well, I’m all in,” I declared. “If you wouldn’t mind lighting the way up to my room?” “I’m afraid it’s Mr Holmes’s room, too. It’s a small house.” Holmes observed, “I’m sorry to oust you from your bed, Forrester.” He shrugged. “I’ve plenty of blankets, and the fire’s warm enough.” The room was comfortable, but small. We sat side by side on the bed to remove shoes and socks. Stripped to union suits and wrapped in blankets, we discussed the case while my mind ran along another track. Down by the fire, Forrester had made an assumption that Holmes did not refute. Of course, Holmes did not always take pains to correct people, smiling to himself while they led themselves toward a confession. But I’d wondered myself. The concept of two men throwing their lots together was not a novel one for me. In army service, far from home and family, I’d seen men forge bonds far stronger than the marriage bed. Once back in the confines of civilization, their position was much more difficult. I murmured, “Society certainly has given them a heavy burden to bear.” Beside me, Holmes sighed. Darkness makes some things easier. But this was still dangerous territory. Despite his ability to charm women, Holmes referred to them as my department, praise I’d been content to live up to. Combined with this, my defence of women in response to his outrageous criticisms might have led him to the wrong conclusion. Life with Holmes precluded all other relationships. We were a duo, inseparable in deed and the public mind. Our brotherhood had been a sweetness to me in the wilderness of London, to which I’d returned an orphan and a stranger. His friendship was dear to me beyond all others, but was I prepared to go through life otherwise alone? Holmes had done so, up till now. Thinking of the solitary violinist, I realized that facing such loneliness night after night must take the greatest kind of courage. I said, “A lesser man might have given in and married for companionship, or form. A good marriage is so often necessary to advancement, in any circle. And his mother no doubt wants grandchildren, since he’s her only heir.” Holmes said nothing. Perhaps he read no farther than my commentary on the case. It was his job to gather clues and make deductions; I surmised the emotional framework for the principal actors. Holmes’s decisions sometimes derived from my commentary, though he seldom acknowledged the debt. This silence seemed endemic to his nature, beyond his ability to overcome. A life companion would simply make peace with this and leave Holmes his privacy. My heart beat fast for what I might lose. I tempered my sentiments at the last. “I’d never think less of a friend who walked such a hard path. I’d only admire him more.” He didn’t answer. “Well, good night, old fellow,” I said at last, and rolled over to face the wall. My troubled sleep broke not with dawn but with Holmes’s hand on my shoulder and his familiar whisper, “Quickly, Watson!” I struggled to clear my brain, but already I was dressing swiftly. We crept down the dark stairs by the fire’s banked glow, then hastened after the gleam of a lantern in the woods. The moon dappled a narrow path, broken and indistinct, the occasional stone visible through fallen leaves. We stayed well back, hesitant lest the unfamiliar ground betray us. At this distance, it was hard to distinguish the cloaked figure. Had Mrs Forrester hidden the manuscripts in the wood? I caught my breath as I glimpsed a structure ahead, half-hidden in the trees. The lantern disappeared. Drawing close, we found a faint glow through the ground-level windows of a decrepit house that might once have been a summer retreat. The path ended at its door – a gaping hole jagged with roof timbers. On either side, the forest pressed so close there was no passing the sagging frame. Soft voices floated up, just loud enough to recognize as men. No matter how we crouched, the windows revealed only the flickering light upon the farther wall. The occupants must have positioned themselves cleverly under the windows. Then the moans began, and I started back with a burning face. Holmes laid a hand on my arm, halting me before I made some inadvertent noise. Carefully, we edged away. The sound of youthful laughter rose from that dank cellar. I shivered. Holmes led me back to the house. We remained silent up to the room. Mrs Forrester had opened her door a crack, no doubt to catch what heat remained from the main chimney as the house grew colder. We did the same, and I lay staring into the darkness under sheets grown cold with our absence. I woke with the sun in my face and Holmes already out on the prowl. After I finished breakfast, I walked up the winding lane to Leidstone Manor. I found Holmes in the library, Burke’s open on the table as he perused handwritten records of family genealogy. Near lunchtime, Edmund found us there. One look at his face, and I grabbed my doctor’s bag. We hurried to Sir Hugh’s side. There we found at last what we’d been looking for. Scattered about the bed and floor lay sheets covered with handwriting. One poem was crumpled in Sir Hugh’s hand as he shook, his eyes clenched tight. Tears trickled down his face and he groaned terribly, as if the knowledge had finally shattered the self-control that had held him together for so long. While I hurried to do what I could, Holmes bent and retrieved a torn brown wrapper from under the bed. “Postmarked in Reigate. No return address,” he muttered, while I soothed the fevered man. Edmund must have gone for Kate next. She rushed in, knelt beside Sir Hugh, and held his hand. His breathing caught, so laboured it seemed impossible to continue. They whispered to each other. At last he croaked, “Where’s Aubrey, my dear? Is my boy coming to see me?” “Yes, Uncle dear,” she said, laying her cheek on his hand and closing her eyes. Lady Hilda rushed into the room, accompanied by Sir Hugh’s regular doctor. “Please leave,” she said to us, her eyes hard. Holmes and I gathered up the pages while she stared as though she detested us. But she made no move to stop us. Too many people rushed in and out, bringing hot water, bandages, brandy, ointments, wood for the fi re, and a hundred other useless things. From the hall, we heard Lady Hilda scream above the clamour, “He knows his uncle is dying, and it’s his choice to go gallivanting! That coward can’t even face him and apologize! If he ever does show up, you can tell your worthless brother to stay out!” Kate ran out, tears streaming down her face. Holmes handed her the manuscripts. “Put these somewhere safe this time,” he said quietly. I wondered at his lack of tact, but the task seemed to steady her. She nodded, gulping down her tears, and hurried up the stairs. Edmund emerged from Sir Hugh’s rooms as Kate disappeared, his face pinched as he watched her go. “What can I do?” he muttered distractedly. “Lady Hilda wants me to stay with him, but Kate –” “He’s asking for her brother. Help us look,” Holmes said. We hunted high and low. Kate rejoined us and we prowled the passages, opening hidden doors and calling through cellars and gardens. Kate got more panicked by the minute, until Edmund volunteered to go to Forrester’s. We returned to the hall, and Kate sat with her uncle while Holmes and I conducted a different search – one that supposed the young man might be incapable of answering us. We met Forrester outside Sir Hugh’s bedroom. Kate took one look at him and blanched. “Isn’t Aubrey with you? Uncle’s calling for him – he could die any minute!” She thrust a fist in her mouth, but the keening poured out anyway, higher and louder until Forrester gripped her shoulders. “Pull yourself together, there’s a brave girl.” “Where is he?” “I don’t know. We’ll find him.” Edmund muttered, “I don’t suppose he’s out looking for you? Your mother brought him a note this morning.” I saw it – the moment when the spark caught in Holmes’s eyes. “I’ve been a fool, Watson!” He turned to Forrester. “What about that summer house? Is there a way in from this side of the wood?” A dawning horror spread through Forrester’s brown eyes. He left the house at a run. Holmes ordered Kate and Edmund to stay with Sir Hugh. We dodged through the woods, following a broken trail whose few discernible stones looked like the white flags we’d seen last night. We twisted among thick trees and slipped down steps cut into the hillside. We stopped at a retaining wall that blocked off a stone ditch, holding the hill back from the ruined house. We dropped quietly into the ditch. A faint moan drifted through the broken wall. I peered through the gap. Inside the cellar, a woman spat on a prone figure. Amid the blood and dirt, I almost failed to recognize his golden curls. As I crouched beside the hole in the wall, my hand knocked loose a fragment of masonry. In the dim interior, Mrs Forrester frowned and raised a pocket revolver. “Dr Watson. Why aren’t you up at the house with Sir Hugh?” Forrester stood facing me, hidden on the other side of the gap. Behind me, Holmes’s breath was soft upon my neck. She already had me dead to rights, and Aubrey needed help. My right arm was hidden behind the gap, but she could shoot me before I’d cleared the wall to fi re. I lifted one finger from the wall and curled it, pointing toward my hip. Holmes gently pulled the revolver from my pocket. I edged into the room, my hands in the air, the doctor’s bag hanging from the thumb of my open palm. “Let me have a look at him, Mrs Forrester. He’s hurt.” “I know that,” she snapped, the gun following me. “Stand clear, Doctor.” “Let me help Aubrey. Please. His uncle is asking for him, and there isn’t much time.” “No! This poof stays right where he is! I haven’t decided what to do with him yet.” She kicked his side. Aubrey grunted breathlessly, as if there wasn’t much left in him. In that moment of distraction, I hurled my bag at her face. She reached up instinctively and I ducked low, tackling her. We went down. Behind me, Forrester howled, “Mother!” In the scuffle, a shot rang out, and the building groaned above us. Plaster rained down and the ceiling rippled, as though that small missile had been the breath that knocked a house of cards. As I reached for the gun, she brought it down on my head. Through the ringing in my ears, I heard a familiar roar – my old service revolver, followed by more hail from the ceiling and an ominous series of cracks and groans. Holmes’s voice rang cold and clear: “I would advise you to drop the revolver, Mrs Forrester.” Mrs Forrester cried out in indignation as her son battered her hand against the fl oor until she dropped the gun. She punched and bit as he strove to pin her arms. It took both of us to get his Hiatt cuffs on her. By then the old house crashed like the final movement of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture. A timber vaulted to the floor and I looked around wildly. Holmes had Aubrey’s head in his lap, wrapping his handkerchief around it. “I’ve got her,” Forrester grunted. “See to Aubrey.” I joined Holmes. Aubrey’s eyes fluttered. I checked him over quickly. The head wound was the worst, but he had a broken arm and a few cracked ribs as well. Behind us, a desk dropped through the ceiling, its heavy crash shooting splinters. Holmes and I carried Aubrey while Forrester wrestled his mother out into the ditch. Holmes scaled the wall and helped lift Aubrey onto the grass, then did the same for Meg Forrester, holding her grimly by the arms while she writhed and tried to knock him into the ditch. Forrester and I climbed out and reclaimed our charges. The three of us navigated the steep stone steps up the hillside. We paused to look back as the roar rose to a crescendo with the thunder of weakened walls following the floor and pulling down more roof. At last the house settled into itself with a clatter and cloud of dust. Forrester bent over Aubrey. Tears tracked his stern face. He groaned, “Mother, what have you done?” She said, “I can’t believe I ever felt sorry for him – an orphan! You were as straight and true as your father until Aubrey Syms-Caton got his hands on you! I knew something was wrong when you’d say, ‘It’s late, Mother, why don’t you go to bed?’ – but it was half the night before you came upstairs, and you with work in the morning!” Tears wet her rugged cheeks as she stood over Forrester’s bent form. “You were all I had, boy! Everything! My hope and joy, the only remnant left of your father! If you don’t have children, I’ll lose you both!” Holmes said, “That was a handy revolver, Mrs Forrester. Belgian, if I’m not mistaken.” She turned to him with pride, despite his tight grip on her arm. “My husband bought that for me on one of his voyages.” Her voice quavered. “He wanted me to be able to protect our family while he was gone.” Forrester took Aubrey’s shoulders now, and Holmes propelled Mrs Forrester up the lane. “So you lured Aubrey here with a forged note.” “I’ve saved every message my boy ever wrote me. The look of his writing has been graven on my heart since he was a little lad.” “You timed your ruse perfectly.” “With all the commotion up at the hall, I thought no one would miss him! Not till I’d done with him.” Forrester said heavily, “What did you intend to do with him?” His deep voice sounded so tired. She said evasively, “Once I’d captured him, there were endless possibilities. He’d poisoned my only son and broken my heart in that place. I fi gured if he met his end there, it would have been what he’d call ‘poetic justice,’” she finished with heavy sarcasm. Holmes said, “When did you mail the packet, Mrs Forrester?” “As soon as I left yesterday afternoon – when you arrived! We knew time was short with Sir Hugh, and we couldn’t keep the papers at the hall, with you prowling around. I wanted to keep my eye on you, but that meant they weren’t safe at home either. What better place than Sir Hugh’s lap!” “So you never intended to let the young Syms-Catons follow your instructions.” She snorted and turned her head. “That wasn’t my idea.” “Who is your confederate? It may go easier if you tell us now,” Holmes urged. She laughed scornfully. “When I finally read one of those letters Bob’s always getting, I thought Edmund Percivale was behind it. I confronted Lady Hilda and demanded she dismiss him for corrupting my boy. She wouldn’t hear of it. She wanted proof. When I showed her the letter, she recognized Aubrey’s handwriting. I told her she had to send him away or I’d tell Sir Hugh. Naturally she didn’t want anyone disturbing her husband in his precarious state. It was her idea to steal the manuscripts and type those notes. She had plenty of opportunities while Aubrey and Kate sat with their uncle. She said they’d do anything for love of him, and we’d both be satisfied. But that very night – even before you got here, Mr Holmes – Aubrey was seducing my boy, while his uncle lay at death’s door. Even the loss of his precious poems didn’t stop him. I knew then that no matter what Lady Hilda said, he’d never leave.” When we reached the hall, Forrester sent one of Sir Hugh’s grooms to the police station for offi cers and a wagon. While I revived Aubrey and cleaned him up, explaining the situation, Forrester locked his mother in the pantry with a footman to guard the door. On the second floor, we propped Aubrey in one of his uncle’s Bath chairs. Forrester wheeled him into the inner chamber past a procession of local families, villagers, and servants who’d come to express their fondness for Sir Hugh. Lady Hilda must have sent out word soon after he collapsed. Sir Hugh gasped for breath, sometimes managing to murmur their names or squeeze their hands, sometimes simply acknowledging their sentiments with his eyes. They parted for Aubrey. Tears stood on Sir Hugh’s cheeks as Forrester wheeled him to the bed. Aubrey bowed over his uncle’s hand. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, Uncle. I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you. I never meant to deceive you, but I didn’t think you’d understand. I’ve been so worried it would do you more harm than good–” His voice broke. Sir Hugh reached out one trembling, featherweight hand to touch his hair, light as a leaf, his blessing. I caught my breath. Sir Hugh’s trembling lips formed the words, “I love you, son.” His eyes moved from Aubrey to Forrester. “Take care of my boy,” he whispered. Lady Hilda had been standing at the foot of the bed with her hand on Edmund’s shoulder. “My darling, won’t you please consider Edmund’s future, before it’s too late?” Sir Hugh sent a faint smile to Kate where she stood by Edmund’s side. Out of sight of Lady Hilda, they were holding hands. Sir Hugh murmured, “I think Kate has something to say about that, don’t you, Katie?” Kate blushed, and the quick glance she exchanged with Edmund showed they’d been fond of each other for some time. When at last Lady Hilda stepped out of the room, Holmes took her aside. “Your grandmother’s name was Percivale, was it not? Pray, don’t deny it. I recognized the arms on your pendant, and it’s quite clear in the family files.” She nodded stiffly, her hands knotting in front of her. Holmes said, “I’m not here to expose your connection. I promised Sir Hugh I wouldn’t even tell Edmund. He said there was only one person who had the right to divulge that secret, and I agree. However, I advise that you do so quickly, before he loses his chance to talk to Sir Hugh without any confusion about his parentage. He looks up to your husband as to a father. I believe it would mean a lot to him to know where he stands.” Under the strain, she looked ill and old. “Hugh wouldn’t adopt my boy unless I told, and I didn’t want him to be ashamed of me. I thought adoption would provide us a new beginning – a chance to have a valid family connection without ever having to admit my sin. But Hugh feared it would displace his brother’s children,” she finished with a trace of bitterness. “You must forget that now. Some things are more important than pride.” She nodded quickly, as if afraid her resolution would run away from her if she didn’t act at once. We watched as she told Edmund. Hope rose up through his face like the sun. As he listened, he unconsciously straightened. Then he rushed back in to Sir Hugh, his face glowing. We stayed for the funeral. In the end, Aubrey and Kate decided not to press charges against Lady Hilda for the theft. The secret was still more important than punishment. But Forrester had glumly followed justice to the letter with regard to the attempt on Aubrey’s life. He said he had all the more reason to remain staunch to the law, now that his own mother had crossed that unforgivable line. Despite their grief and anger toward one another, he knew his mother wouldn’t divulge her reasons: Mrs Forrester wouldn’t publicly besmirch her son’s name even to hurt Aubrey Syms-Caton. We were glad to get back to Baker Street and rest. Holmes sighed wearily, leaning back in his armchair. “I’m so utterly sick of secrets, Watson.” He laid his head on the back of the chair and shut his eyes while the calabash smouldered in his hand. I fumbled for the words that might finally air the truth between us. I’m not sure I would have been able to speak if Holmes had his eyes on me in that moment. “Holmes, that night at Forrester’s house – what he thought about you – is it true?” Without opening his eyes, Holmes said, “Does it matter? I can’t allow love to interfere with the pure science of reason. Having a friend like you is as close as I dare come.” I knew how much he hated to make a false step. For Holmes to even raise a point, he must already be certain of the answer. I had to be clear. “I’m touched, Holmes. Believe me. Your friendship means more than I can say. But I’m not sure I can live this way forever. I’m the sort of man who needs a companion of the heart, not just the mind.” “I’ll say this only once, my dear Watson. If there were anyone, it would be you. I’ve never found a better companion. Probably I never shall. But there are barriers that I cannot cross. I must bend my entire self to my will, to maintain absolute control.” In a rare gesture of affection, he touched my hand. “If this were a battlefield, I would give my life for yours. But I do not expect you to give up your life to share the loneliness of mine. Go out into the world, Watson, and find the love you need.” There was such sadness in his eyes, such intensity. We both knew it, then – soon I would leave, so that we might continue as friends. Already I saw these moments with the painful pinch of something fleeting. In the very moment that I recognized our golden age, I knew that it was over. I told myself I was only setting aside those hopes which might have hampered our accord. Now that we had got such questions out of the way, we could concentrate on our partnership, professional and friendly. But I always wondered what mansions might have waited for us down that hidden lane. All Lethe Press books, including A Study In Lavender, are available through the major online retailers and booksellers. You can also support the press and authors by buying directly from our website.
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Drama Muscle is out now from Lethe Press. Plus, get the first in the series, Drama Queen, for half price.
This month at Lethe sees the release of Drama Muscle, by Joe Cosentino, the second Nicky and Noah mystery following the successful and award-winning Drama Queen. Read the first chapter of Drama Muscle here: As the ethereal sound of horns parted the heavenly clouds, the young gods and goddesses appeared in a ray of white light. Standing as strong as the stone columns behind them, the deities displayed stunning muscles, colossal beauty, and mammoth ambition housed in the smallest and most seductive of white garments. Lightning flashed as they formed a resilient line and each struck their first flawless pose. Zeus was dark-skinned and as powerful as thunder. Ganymede at his side had skin of white porcelain and a clever stare. Hercules and Adonis were the perfect blend of masculine vigor and physical splendor. Athena was a gorgeous, olive-skinned warrior, and Aphrodite a lovely, fair-skinned temptress. Achilles watched them all, vowing to be victorious in the end. “Good work, everyone!” That was me, Nicky Abbondanza, Professor of Directing at Treemeadow College, a white-stone Edwardian-style private college in the quaint and picturesque village of Treemeadow in the equally quaint and picturesque state of Vermont. As inscribed on the two bronze statues at the college’s entrance, the college’s name comes from its founders, Harold Tree and Jacob Meadow. Tree and Meadow were madly wealthy, madly generous, and madly in love. The old gents would no doubt be proud to know that Noah Oliver (Professor of Acting) and I have become a current generation couple at Treemeadow College. That’s not to say Noah and I look anything like our college’s founders. We aren’t made of bronze for one. We wear dress shirts, slacks, and blazers in the fall season rather than heavy dark suits. Also, the Treemeadows were small, thin, scholarly types. Noah and I are both tall. I am of the dark hair, long sideburns, Roman nose, pumped body (thanks to the gym on campus) variety. Oh, there’s one other small thing. Well, it’s not really small. To the delight or horror of my past boyfriends, I have a nine-and-a-quarter-inch penis—flaccid. Luckily, Noah is delighted and totally open (pardon the pun) to new adventures. Noah has luxurious curly-blond hair, batting blue eyes, and the warmest heart in New England. His body is firm and smooth, but not toned as he never goes near the gym—until now! Each year the top students in the Bodybuilding Department compete in a contest to be named the Top Toned Tan Trojan at Treemeadow (Try saying that three times fast). Actually, the real name is Treemeadow’s Annual Bodybuilding Competition. The winner receives an enormous gold cup, and more importantly, the year’s college tuition free. Given the rising cost of tuition at Treemeadow, this is no lightweight matter (pardon the pun again). Bodybuilding Department Head Professor Brick Strong asked my Theatre Department Head, Martin Anderson, if Noah and I could use our theatrical expertise to add a dramatic flair to this year’s bodybuilding competition. Since I was not directing a play that semester, Martin agreed to give Noah and me release time, thereby changing our mantra from “Let’s put on a show” to “I’m gonna pump you up.” That led to Noah and me hauling lighting, smoke, sound, and set equipment, along with a number of skimpy Greek period costumes, from the Theatre Department building to the Physical Education building. The plan was that I, as a directing professor, would direct the production, and Noah, as an acting professor, would work with the student-athletes on stage presence for their individual poses. “Okay everyone, Professor Oliver will take it from here.” I stepped aside and leaned against the gym wall. Noah flicked back his gorgeous blond locks and took my place in front of the students like a new king taking the throne after a revolution. Sounding delectably butch, he said, “Let’s take a little time to discuss each of your characters. The Greek period was a—” “That’s the period we’ve selected for the competition in terms of characters, set, and costumes,” I said. Noah smiled in my direction. I think Noah and I are the perfect couple. “Rodney, we know that your character, Zeus, was the father of gods and men—” Rodney Towers was tall, dark, and massive with muscle. “—which is why your toga has a thunderbolt on it,” I said. Noah stiffened. “I’m always happy to help,” I said. “So I see.” “But Professor Oliver is totally in charge now. So everyone, please listen to Professor Oliver,” I said. “Thank you.” Focusing back on Zeus, rather Rodney, Noah said, “The Greek gods in mythology were part god and part human—” “Which is why I selected this motif for the competition. You all have human emotion, but your strength and powers are supernatural.” “Right,” said Noah with a tight jaw. I folded my arms across my chest. “Professor Oliver is really good at working on character development, so pay close attention to him.” Noah took in a deep breath. “And the Greek gods were quite amorous—” “With both sexes,” I said. “Zeus and Ganymede were just one pair of famous lovers who influenced the arts.” “Excuse me, everyone.” Noah put a hand on my shoulder and ushered me to a corner of the gym. “Nicky, I appreciate your help, but—” I put my arm around Noah. “You don’t need to thank me. I love you, and I am always here to help you.” “Well can you please…stop?” “Did I say something wrong?” I asked dumbfounded. “I would like to be able to finish a sentence! Will you let me do that?” “Of course.” “Thank you.” “I won’t say another word,” I said as we walked back to the students. “Promise?” Noah whispered in my ear. “Of course.” I looked at my watch. “You should move the rehearsal along, since there’s lots more to do.” Noah opened his mouth to say something, but Rodney Towers interrupted. “Professor, I was thinking about what Professor Abbondanza mentioned.” Noah sighed. “Which of the numerous things said by Professor Abbondanza are you referring to, Rodney?” “The thing about Zeus and Ganymede getting it on.” Rodney looked as if someone had held his nose and poured vinegar into his mouth. Noah tried to speak again, and Maria Ruiz (our Athena) interrupted. “Homophobe anyone?” Maria stood nose to nose with Rodney. “What’s wrong with you, Rodney?” She pointed to the twins at the other end of the line. “Tim and Kim are playing Hercules and Adonis. Everyone knows they were a couple. You don’t hear them complaining.” “Um now that you like mention it, Kim would rather, you know, play another part,” said Tim. “Um so would Tim,” added Kim. Posed with their hands on their hips, the twins looked like an advertisement for The King and I in double vision. Let me explain. Kim and Tim Sim (Try saying that three times fast), as identical twins, can read each other’s minds. I could never read my brother’s mind when we were kids. That’s why I had to read his diary, listen in on his phone conversations, and bug his book bag. The muscles on Rodney’s massive back curled as if snarling. “Let me make myself clear, Maria. I’m not happy playing Zeus, because I don’t want any part of an unnatural lifestyle.” Maria shot him dagger eyes. “And pumping iron three hours a day and spray-painting our bodies is natural?” “Maria knows all about being natural. Don’t you, Maria?” said compact Jonathan Toner (Achilles) with a smirk on his pimply face. “Shut up, Jonathan,” replied Maria as if swatting a pesky fly. Rodney said to his workout partner, “Maria, don’t rag on me because I believe in the Bible.” “Then you better get to work in the fields, ’cause you’re a slave, honey,” Maria answered with a wave of her muscular arm and snap of her strong fingers. “Kiss my muscular black ass.” “Kiss my muscular Latina ass.” Noah said, like a referee at an A.D.D. Little League game, “Okay, let’s talk about your character, Maria. Athena was the goddess of wisdom, courage, and justice. As you think about your poses—” “Try to incorporate those feelings into your performance,” I said. “Right,” Noah added with narrowed eyes in my direction. I mimed buttoning my lips and rested my back against the wall. Noah continued, “And Jonathan, Achilles was shot in the heel, the only weak part of his body.” “Hence the term ‘Achilles heel,’” I added, then placed my hand over my big mouth. Jonathan flexed his small, high-peaked biceps. “There’s no part of me that’s weak.” “Except your brain,” said Maria. Waving his stubby finger under her square jaw, Jonathan said, “Careful, Maria. You don’t want to piss me off.” Like a substitute teacher on the last day of school, Noah tried to keep control. Noticing Mack Heath (Ganymede) standing quietly, Noah said, “Let’s talk about Mack’s character.” Middle weight, fair, perfectly proportioned, and amazingly cut, Mack said, “Didn’t Ganymede represent youth and beauty?” “Correct!” I said then covered my mouth with both hands. Jillian Flowers (our Aphrodite), a raving blonde beauty, gazed at Mack with lust in her violet eyes. “You um totally are like Ganymede, Mack.” Mack’s cheeks grew flushed. “Thanks.” “For what?” Jillian asked. “You just said I’m like Ganymede.” Jillian said, “Um isn’t that like who you are, you know, playing?” Poor Jillian. Last year, while working out, a barbell accidentally fell on Jillian’s head, leaving her with poor short-term memory. “Let’s talk about your character, Jillian,” said Noah, clearly hoping to get things back on track. “Aphrodite is the goddess of beauty—” “And love,” I added, then hid my face underneath my blazer. Jillian batted her long lashes at Mack, then rested her strong hand on his mountainous shoulder. “Did um Aphrodite and Ganymede ever like, you know, hook up?” “No, they didn’t, Jillian.” Mack slid his shoulder out of her clutches. “Who didn’t what?” asked Jillian in confusion. “Aphrodite and Ganymede were never a couple,” Mack explained, then walked away. Jillian responded, “Who said they were?” “Tim is like getting, you know, bored,” said Kim. “Kim um wants to like get back to, you know, rehearsing,” added Tim. Having lost his patience, Jonathan walked past each of his classmates with a smirk on his pockmarked face, like a carnival sharpshooter wiping out a row of rubber duckies. “Jillian, Mack isn’t into you. Mack isn’t into anybody, except Mack. Tim and Kim, you don’t need this competition. Stay home and wait for Daddy Big Bucks Sim to kick the chop suey. Maria, you don’t want to tick me off, and you know why. Rodney, join the twentieth century.” Before World War Muscle broke out, Noah said, “All right, everyone. Let’s make a circle on the gym floor to do a theatre exercise called Tug of War.” After the mime exercise, Noah decided to work on individual posing routines. He asked Rodney and Maria to come on stage, and the rest of the students to take a twenty minute break. I said to Noah, “Great idea to work with them two at a time. I’ll help you—” Noah walked me into a corridor off the gym. “Nicky?” “Yes?” He looked at me with soft blue eyes, and rested his arms around my shoulders. “Do you love me?” “I love you more than life itself.” His soft, warm lips met mine. “If you want to keep your life and love, go get a snack and come back in twenty minutes.” Noah kissed me. “Make that thirty.” I entered the snack bar in the Student Union building and found Jonathan and the unhappy Sim twins changed into their street clothes and sitting at a booth near the door. I joined the three young men as Helga served them their usual two pounds of (thankfully cooked) hamburger—each. Helga’s real name is Sarah Peterson, but since she is a full-figured German woman with blonde hair worn in side braids, the students all call her Helga. After Helga banged down the plates, then left for “a cigarette break,” I said, “I’m looking forward to the competition, guys.” “Um so are we,” Tim and Kim said, then downed their hamburger meat like cavemen. Jonathan picked at his meat, then picked at a pimple. “Tim, are you meeting with your…advisor after rehearsal?” “Why would Tim be like meeting with, you know, Professor Granite so like late?” asked Kim. “Maybe to talk about Professor Granite’s vote in the competition.” Jonathan poured the salt from the salt shaker into the pepper shaker then added with a sneer, “Will you be meeting with Professor Stryker after the rehearsal, Kim, to talk about her vote?” “Kim doesn’t like meet with his, you know, advisor at like night either,” said Tim. I laughed. “Only theatre faculty are crazy enough to be on campus this late at night.” Pushing away his half-eaten plate, Jonathan said, “Since you two guys are free after rehearsal, let’s hang.” “We don’t think so,” said Tim. Jonathan sneered. “You may want to rethink that, guys.” Putting my size-ten foot in my mouth, I said, “Jonathan, it sounds like you are threatening them.” As if reincarnating Eddie Haskell, Jonathan said with a sweet smile, “I would never threaten one of my classmates, Professor.” He turned to the twins. “Right, guys?” The twins nodded and continued ravaging their meat. Tired of the smell of red meat and testosterone, I excused myself and walked over to the counter to purchase a cup of tea from a student aide. After checking my watch and realizing I still had some time to kill (or Noah would kill me), I sat down at a booth to drink my tea. I heard familiar voices behind me and realized they belonged to Mack and Jillian, who were, by the smell of it, devouring enormous turkey breasts. Jillian asked between bites, “Um do you like mind, you know, sitting with me, Mack?” “No.” Just as I was about to find another booth, Jillian asked, “How do you like think um rehearsals are, you know, going?” I listened like a priest in a confessional with a gay porn star. Ever the diplomat, Mack answered while chewing, “Professor Oliver has a lot of patience.” Jillian giggled. “Especially with Professor Abbondanza.” I realized that if I moved slightly—balancing on one hip and contorting my body in a right angle—I could see their reflection in the mirror, but they couldn’t see me. “Mack, you like looked really um good up there. You are like incredibly toned.” “Thanks, Jillian.” “Mack, you like looked really um good up there. You are like incredibly toned,” Jillian repeated. Mack responded gently, “You already said that, Jillian.” She smacked her pale forehead. “Um sorry.” “No problem,” said Mack. They say love is better the second time around. Jillian continued in adoration. “You um look even better than Tony Piccolo’s silly old pictures of his son. You’re, you know, a sure like bet to win the, you know, competition, Mack.” He rested his perfect arms on the table. “According to Jonathan Toner, Professor Strong favors you to win.” Jillian rolled her eyes as if high tide. “Don’t like listen to anything Jonathan says. I, you know, think Professor Strong will vote for you to win.” “I hope this doesn’t upset you, Jillian,” said Mack. “Jonathan is telling everyone that you and Professor Strong are…hooking up.” Laughing, Jillian fidgeted with the flower design on her T-shirt. “That’s like crazy. Professor Strong is, you know, an old man. He was like once married to Professor Stryker. He um must be like over thirty-five.” Heaven forbid! “If I was like going to make a play for like a professor, it, you know, would be like that hot theatre professor.” I always liked Jillian. “Um Professor Oliver. But he’s like obviously, you know, partnered with um Professor Abbondanza. They must like have an um father/son kind of, you know, relationship.” I’m only five years older than Noah! Well, seven. But who’s counting? Having finished her meal, Jillian pressed her firm breasts against Mack’s pectoral muscles. “I have my um eyes, you know, on a younger man.” Mack asked, “Who?” “Who like what?” asked Jillian. “You just said you have your eyes on a young man.” “Oh.” Jillian pressed her sculpted thighs (housed in pink short-shorts) against his. “I um think you like know who it is.” Blushing, Mack took her hand in his. “I’m flattered, really.” After a long swallow of his saliva, he said, “I don’t feel that way about you. I’m sorry, but I never will.” Jillian looked like a beagle left out in the snow. “Is it um because of the like memory thing?” “No.” Mack pushed away his empty plate. “No like what?” “You asked me if I’m not interested in you because of your short-term memory lapses from the barbell accident. I said that isn’t it.” “So if it’s…um not that…what’s like wrong with me, Mack?” she asked with tears brimming in her almond-shaped eyes. “You’re terrific. It’s me.” “Are you like gay?” she asked, disappointed. That woke me up! After a long exhale, Mack said, “The truth is I’m not attracted to anybody. It’s been that way for as long as I can remember.” Poor kid. He just hasn’t met the right man yet. Mack shrugged his massive shoulders. “Maybe I’m asexual.” His perfectly sculpted body tensed like an accordion. “Jonathan is the only one I’ve told…besides you.” “Told what?” Jillian asked in oblivion. Mack repeated, “I’ve only told Jonathan that I think I’m asexual.” Her button nose crinkled. “You um think you’re like asexual, and you told that creep?” He nodded. “Jonathan wanted to fix me up with some girl in his acting class.” Mack laughed pathetically. “He was going to charge her money to date me. Crazy, huh?” From the look on Jillian’s face, I could tell she wasn’t thinking the idea was all that far- fetched. She took his hand and placed it on her lap. “Mack, um if there is like ever anything that I can, you know, do to like help you sort this out, I am like totally available.” By the time I got back to the gym, Rodney and Maria were taking their break, and Noah was working with the Sim twins and Jonathan Toner. I started over to help Noah. “Hey, Professor!” A man of about sixty years old, wearing sweat clothes laden with the college logo, motioned me over to an alcove at a corner of the gym. I walked over to the short, emaciated man. He sat at a desk surrounded by washing machines, dryers, and athletic equipment. As I stood next to him and looked up at the bulletin board above his desk, I was mesmerized by pictures of a stunning young bodybuilder in briefs executing various competitive poses. In the last picture, the young man, rightfully so, held a huge winning cup. “That’s my son, Robbie,” the man said. “He won Treemeadow’s Bodybuilding Competition eighteen years ago.” “I can see why.” I couldn’t stop looking at the photographs of the young bodybuilder with his perfectly proportioned body, rippling muscles, handsome face, and warm smile. “Where is he now?” Don’t worry, Noah, I’m just looking. “Robbie lives in Florida with his wife and two kids. He’s a lawyer.” I smiled at the man who seemed to have as many memories as gray hairs on his head. “I’m Nicky Abbondanza from the Theatre Department.” “I know.” He shook my hand firmly. “Tony Piccolo. I heard you was coming to help us out with the competition.” I sat on the edge of his desk, and Tony and I were eye to eye. “What do you do here?” He chuckled. “Everything, launder the kids’ clothes so they stay fresh, clean off the weight equipment so the kids don’t get sick, restock the supplies so they have all they need, and bring them snacks when they get hungry.” I took in Tony’s tired, warm eyes. “That’s a lot to do.” He nodded like his head was loose. “I like the kids, Professor. They remind me of Robbie when he was their age. They keep me feeling young.” I was again unable to stop looking at Robbie’s pictures on the bulletin board. “I’m not surprised your son did well.” “He was the best bodybuilder ever at Treemeadow College.” No argument here. “And that’s saying something.” Tony stood next to me and put his wrinkled hand on my shoulder. “They’re all terrific kids, Professor. While other students are drinking, drugging, and having orgies, these kids are exercising to stay healthy and fit. I love each one of them as if they was my own.” The dark circles under Tony’s hazel eyes deepened. “That’s why I called you over here.” He said as if a secret, “Listen, don’t pay no mind to their bickering and complaining. It’s all a part of growing up. Even my Robbie complained here and there when he was their age. But deep down, these kids are the best, and they’ll come through in the competition.” Shaking his veined hand again, I said, “I wish we had someone like you in the Theatre Department.” “I’m fine right where I am, Professor. My wife died many years ago. Robbie moved away. These kids are my family.” I took a last gaze at the mesmerizing Robbie. “Seems Treemeadow was lucky to have Robbie.” I heard Noah and Jonathan Toner arguing. My sweet Noah who never loses his temper? Tony pointed to Jonathan. “Even that one. He a little instigator and out for himself, but he don’t mean no harm to nobody.” I walked over as Jonathan asked Noah, “Professor, is my posing routine last because the bodybuilding professors told you to feature Tim, Kim, and Jillian before me?” He added like a child whose brother received a larger lollipop, “Or am I last in the lineup due to your obvious bias against me?” Noah replied as if counting to ten, “Jonathan, your posing routine is last because Achilles is the heel in Greek mythology.” Having none of it, Jonathan rose on his tippy-toes to make eye contact with Noah’s chin. “Is that the same reason why I’m last in the opening lineup?” Noah took a deep breath in an unsuccessful effort to calm down. “Actually, Jonathan, it is the reason you are last. And for the record, I have no bias against you.” Flailing his arms in Noah’s face like a crossing guard at a highway intersection, Jonathan shouted, “If you have no bias against me, Professor Oliver, how do you explain the D grade I got for my monologue presentation in Acting class?” Noah clasped his hands behind his back, no doubt to keep himself from strangling the young bodybuilder. “I explain that by reminding you that during your class monologue performance you forgot your lines, broke character, swore, and spoke so softly you could not be heard past the first row in the lab theatre.” Jonathan responded like a preschool teacher explaining snack time to her charges, “I want to be an action-film star, not a theatre actor. In movies they have microphones for volume, and they do retakes when actors forget lines. Don’t you know that, Professor?” “I know a great deal about movies, Jonathan, including that you lack the discipline to be cast in one,” replied Noah, obviously at the end of his long rope. Jonathan looked like a bull in a closet full of red capes. “You’ll regret that, Professor.” Hearing all the shouting, Rodney, Maria, Mack, and Jillian came back from their breaks. Rodney said, towering over Jonathan, “Cool down, dude.” Jonathan turned on Rodney. “Or what, Rodney? The Lord will turn me into stone, and I’ll resemble you?” Maria stood between Jonathan and Rodney. “Enough, you guys!” With his green eyes shooting venom like gamma rays, Jonathan said, “Right, Maria, we’re guys. You were a guy too—when you were Mario and had a dick instead of a slit.” Maria lunged for Jonathan. Rodney held Maria’s arms behind her back as Mack pinned Jonathan’s hands behind his back. “I’ll take care of you later, Toner,” said Maria as she shrugged away Rodney’s hold and walked off her anger. Jonathan screamed, “Let me go, Mack!” Mack whispered in Jonathan’s ear, “You need to calm down for your own good, Jonathan. You don’t want to get thrown out of the competition.” Jonathan wiggled in Mack’s hold like a wild horse at a rodeo. “I don’t buy your good-guy act, Mack.” “Leave Mack like alone!” Jillian said with a no-nonsense look. “You can defend him from here to Barbell-Brain Land and Mack still won’t get it up for you, Jillian,” replied Jonathan with his saliva and venom spraying onto Jillian’s confused face. “Um defend like who?” asked Jillian. Having had enough of the drama (pardon the pun), I said, “All right, everybody. Rehearsal is over for today. Let’s work out and regroup with calmer heads tomorrow night.” I grabbed Noah by the arm and led him to the door. “Why didn’t you defend me to Jonathan, Nicky?” “You told me not to say anything at rehearsal.” “I didn’t mean if I’m being attacked!” “Noah, you better go home and cool down.” His beautiful shoulders softened. “Sorry, Nicky. I shouldn’t have let Jonathan get to me.” I looked into his baby-blue eyes. “Noah, that kid is toxic. Don’t be so hard on yourself.” Noah replied with an adorable smile, “When I’m hard, I’m not by myself.” “Even though my mouth was fatter than a televangelist’s wallet tonight?” “Your fat mouth is perfect for me, Nicky.” We shared a quick but tender kiss. Noah patted my ample crotch. “And it seems I won’t be by myself tonight.” After another kiss, I opened the door for Noah, and he asked, “Aren’t you coming with me?” “Definitely,” I replied grinning from ear to ear, “but I want to do my workout first.” “That’s my cue to exit,” Noah responded with a wave of his hand. “You should try working out sometime, Noah. It’s good for you. Not that I’m complaining. I love your body.” I squeezed his bulbous butt. He kissed the cleft in my chin. “I get enough work out at home.” I ran my fingers through his blond, curly locks. “You can do squats tonight.” We shared a knowing laugh. Noah left and I popped some vitamins into my mouth (for extra energy), chased them down with water from the cooler, then made my way to the men’s locker room, where I was greeted by the familiar smell of sweat, cologne, and sperm. I changed into my sweat clothes, stretched my thirty-five-year-old muscles then headed for the weight room. At the universal gym, I began pushing and pulling on a torture device for the back and shoulders. Though they were facing away from me, I could overhear Rodney Towers (on a pecs machine) and Maria Ruiz (on a thigh machine) as they worked out. “Is what that fool Jonathan said about you true?” Rodney asked as he adjusted the pin on his machine upward to Never Never Land. Defensive, Maria said, “What if it is?” “If it’s true, it’s against God.” Maria snapped her legs together on the machine and adjusted her sweatpants. “Who made you God’s spokesman?” “It’s right there in the Bible.” What is this, the Spanish Inquisition? Her dark eyes ripped into his. “Rodney, do me a favor and stuff your two thousand-year-old book of fairy tales where the sun don’t shine.” She rose and began to leave. “I have better things to do than argue with a fool.” Following her, Rodney called out, “You’ll burn in Hell for that, Maria.” Having worked my back and shoulders to rebellion, I guzzled some water from the water cooler (and threw in some more vitamins for good measure). Next I moved over to the free-weights area, where I worked the same two body parts with free weights until I collapsed from exhaustion after the third rep. My shoulders screamed in agony and warned my giggling pectoral muscles that they would be on the hot seat at my next workout session. On my way to the cardio room for the last phase of my workout, my bladder summoned the alarm, so I decided on a quick pit stop. As I entered the locker room I heard giggling and moaning coming from the adjoining shower area. Feeling like a voyeur, I ducked behind a locker and snuck a peek. Where’s a bag of popcorn when you need it? Kneeling on a bench between the shower stalls, Jonathan Toner was on all fours with Tim Sim standing in front of him and Tim’s twin brother, Kim Sim, planted behind him. Tim massaged and squeezed Jonathan’s small but potent back muscles while Jonathan stroked Tim’s bulbous pectoral muscles and rippling six-pack abs. The stereotype was certainly not true in this case as Jonathan took Tim’s substantial tool in his mouth and hungrily licked, slurped, sucked, and joyously gagged on it. At the same time, Kim rubbed Jonathan’s small, tight bottom and shapely, rock-hard thighs while Kim’s identical tool plunged inside Jonathan again and again, gaining traction and intensity with each thrust. Looking like a pig on a spit, Jonathan squirmed and squealed in delight, begging for more. Finally the threesome exploded like Hiroshima. Then Tim wiped himself with a towel, Jonathan rinsed his mouth at the sink, and Kim threw his condom into the garbage. The three young bodybuilders moved to the locker area to get dressed. I darted over to the other side of the locker, but they still spotted me. “Hello, boys,” I said as I leaned into the locker and banged my elbow against it. “Hi, Professor,” the three boys said in unison as they walked by me. “I just had a great workout, but I really need to use the urinal. That happens when you drink a lot of water, and you should drink a lot of water. Water is very good for you.” I’m babbling like a brook. I relieved myself at the urinal in the shower room then left through the locker-room door. The minute I hit the hallway, I realized I had dropped my college ID card. Not wanting to be stopped by Security, I backtracked into the locker room unseen by the three bodybuilding students. Luckily I spotted my card next to a locker. As I bent down and reached for it, from my vantage point the three boys couldn’t see me, but I could see them. Putting on red briefs, Jonathan said, “That was just what I needed to calm me down. Let’s plan a return engagement.” I’ll skip the second showing. Tim and Kim Sim opened their lockers and slipped into identical blue boxers and button-down blue shirts and slacks. “Um, we don’t think so, Jonathan.” Jonathan put on a green and blue polo shirt and jeans, then slammed his locker shut. “What’s up, guys?” Not much anymore. When the twins didn’t respond, Jonathan said in a huff, “You can go back to kissing Professor Stryker’s ass, Tim. And you can suck Professor Granite’s dick, Kim. I’ll still beat both of you in the competition.” Kim joined his brother in putting on black loafers, then said like an accountant at an audit, “Jonathan, our father is like very um old world. If he like found out…about us, he would, you know, cut us off.” After slipping on his sneakers, Jonathan put his arms around the twins. “Be that as it may, you boys both did what we just…did. And since you will be coming into a lot of money soon, I think it’s only right that you two share the wealth with your favorite classmate.” Kim’s eyes bulged out of his head like torpedoes as he said to his brother, “I like know Jonathan is trying to, you know, blackmail us, Tim!” Jonathan squeezed their powerful shoulders. “Let’s just say I’m asking you to spread the wealth a little by donating to my charity.” Seems like they already donated. “The Get Me to Hollywood to Audition for Action Movies Charity,” Jonathan added. “And if we don’t like donate to your charity?” asked the twins with four piercing eyes aimed at Jonathan. Jonathan responded with a sagacious wink, “Then I’ll just have to pay sick Poppy a little visit, and tell him all about the titillating time I just had with his twinky twins.” Try saying that three times fast. Pulling out of Jonathan’s grasp, Tim said in shock, “Jonathan, even you um wouldn’t like do something like that!” Tim added to his brother, “Kim, didn’t I like just say that?” Jonathan scratched his small washboard abs. “Oh, you’d be surprised the things that I would do, Sim. I’ll see you tomorrow, guys…to collect the first donation.” Jonathan walked out of the locker room. The Sim twins seethed in anger, engaged in a silent argument. Realizing that Noah would be worried if I didn’t get home soon, I started my delayed cardio exercises on a stationary bicycle in the spinning room. After fifteen minutes, my legs went on strike. So I limped to the next room, deciding to finish my workout with ten minutes on the elliptical machine. As I mounted the last torture device of the evening, I noticed a green and blue polo shirt hanging over the side of a running machine at the other end of the room. Upon investigating, I found it was Jonathan Toner—and he had no pulse. All Lethe Press books, including Drama Muscle, are available through the major online retailers and booksellers. You can also support the press and authors by buying directly from our website.
Every Monday we put a selection of our titles on discount at our website. To celebrate the release of Drama Muscle, the second Nicky & Noah mystery by Joe Cosentino, we're offering Drama Queen, the first in the series and winner of multiple awards including four 2015 awards from Divine Magazine, at half price for just $9 in paperback! Buy here.
Meanwhile, if Sherlock and Moriarty comparing each other's guns in the New Year Sherlock special wasn't gay enough for you, why not try A Study in Lavender: Queering Sherlock Holmes edited by Joseph R.G. DeMarco which is also half price at $10 in paperback. Buy here. If you're anything like us, books are the go-to when people think of buying presents, which means around about now we've usually got a teetering stack of them to read. How about you?
What are you reading? Comment here, or on our facebook page, or tweet us @lethepress and let us know. Merry Christmas from us at Lethe Press. And as today's is ordinarily Erotica Friday, who are we to break with tradition? Below you listen to or read a story from The Bears of Winter edited by Jerry L. Wheeler, in which Santa just might be getting up to a few steamy shenanigans... Read 'Little Suzie' by Frank Muse, or listen to the audio version: As soon as he regained consciousness, Santa knew he was in trouble. He was tied to a chair with his hands bound behind his back, and a rubber ball gag was strapped into his mouth. Things didn’t look good. He quickly looked around the room. His sack of toys was on the floor where he had placed it after coming down the chimney, and a plate of snickerdoodles sat on the coffee table. He remembered biting into one and being delighted it was homemade. Nearby, a green plastic tumbler lay on the floor in a pool of slowly coagulating pumpkin-flavored eggnog. The last thing Santa remembered before passing out was taking a big gulp of that eggnog. “It must have been drugged,” he thought. “My damn sweet tooth is always getting me into trouble.” Santa had found himself in bad situations before, so he scanned the room again, this time more slowly. Maybe he could find some clues about who had done this to him. The house was supposed to be the home of little Suzie Watkins, age six. She had asked for a Barbie astronaut doll, a pony (sorry, Suzie, Santa doesn’t do livestock), and a new soccer uniform. Suzie lived in an isolated region of Ontario, and her house was one of Santa’s first deliveries. But as he looked around, he slowly realized that little Suzie probably didn’t exist. Most houses with children had some telltale toys scattered around, but he didn’t see a single piece of brightly colored plastic. Suspicious. Instead, he saw a well-stocked liquor cabinet, high-end electronics, and some tasteful leather chairs. The Christmas tree should have been decorated with the sparkly ornaments and paper chains a little girl like Suzie would have made in school, but it was covered with hand-carved wooden animals, softly glowing white lights, and porcelain mermen instead. No mermaids? Even more suspicious. If this were really little Suzie’s house, there should be photos of her and her family, but all Santa saw was a framed Tom of Finland print mounted above the couch. Suzie probably wouldn’t want to see a biker and a sailor groping each other in a public park. Very suspicious. With a sinking sensation, Santa slowly realized he had been kidnapped by one of his crazed gay fans. Again. It was a hazard of the job, one that wasn’t discussed on morning talkshows or in animated children’s specials. As one of the world’s best-known Daddies, Santa figured prominently in the fantasies of thousands of gay men. Santa and his elves had developed a theory about how these fantasies originated. Maybe they arose from early childhood experience, but it seemed more likely they were ancient archetypal behavior patterns dating back to the early days of human evolution. When people saw a big, strong man with a beard, they connected him with power, protection, and virility. In mankind’s hunter-gatherer past, Santa would have been the ultimate provider and chief of the caveman tribe. But now when gay men found themselves drawn to Santa, their attraction became perverted into sexual fantasies. Sick and twisted sexual fantasies. The front door opened, and a large bearded man entered in a burst of snowflakes. He stomped his boots to remove the snow, put down the firewood he was carrying, and hung his coat on a hook. Then he turned to Santa and said, “Now that you’re inside with me I can light a fire. It’s really coming down out there.” Santa struggled against his bonds, but his captor smiled and shook his head. “I’m sorry about the ropes, Santa. It’s temporary, just until you grow to love me as much as I love you. I’m hoping it won’t take long. I have so many plans for us.” He stuck out his hand and then realized his mistake. “Oh, sorry again. I just wanted to formally introduce myself. My name is Jimmy, and I’m your biggest fan.” Santa wanted to roll his eyes, but he resisted the urge. You’ve got to control yourself, Santa. Don’t do anything to make this psycho angry. Remember the children who need you, he thought. Santa thought Jimmy might be right, however, when he called himself his biggest fan. Well, at least he was the largest person who had ever kidnapped him. He guessed Jimmy was about six feet tall, and maybe weighed two-fifty. Jimmy was only wearing a tight red union suit and a pair of work boots, so Santa could see that his arms and legs were thick and muscular. His union suit was unbuttoned to just below the navel, and his large chest and firm round belly were covered with the same bright red hair he had on his head and face. Santa knew Jimmy was what the gays these days called a “bear,” but up at the North Pole, the elves just would have called him a “big hunk of man.” Jimmy was smiling broadly at Santa, and he realized Jimmy was not only the biggest but also the most handsome maniac he had ever been kidnapped by. Despite his dire situation, Santa felt his velvet pants start to tighten a little. Jimmy sat down in a leather armchair opposite Santa and spread his legs wide. Santa could see the size of his Yule log through the union suit, and he tried not to let his eyes widen in amazement. He failed. “I’m glad I got your attention,” Jimmy said. I’m sure you don’t remember me, Santa. You’re so generous each year to millions of children worldwide, why would you remember me? I’m nothing special, but I remember you.” “Every Christmas you gave me whatever I asked for. When I was eight, I asked for He-Man and Skeletor dolls. My parents laughed and said ‘No way. We don’t want our little boy playing with bodybuilders in leather harnesses. That just doesn’t seem right.’ But I mailed you my list, and you gave me those toys. Boy, were my parents surprised.” “When I was twelve, I wanted the boxed dvd series of Grizzly Adams and The Incredible Hulk. Again, my parents told me no. ‘We don’t want you hogging up the TV, watching Lou Ferrigno rip out of his clothes or a guy with a beard run around in the woods.’ But on Christmas morning, those presents were waiting for me under the tree. You always gave me what I wanted, and you never asked for anything in return except some milk and cookies.” “Maybe you remember this one? When I was eighteen, I wanted the Colt Studios Hairy Chested Hunks calendar. I didn’t even bother to ask my parents. Even though I was too old to believe in Santa, I sent you a postcard anyway, and on Christmas morning when I woke up, the calendar was discreetly tucked underneath my pillow. I was excited to get it (real excited, if you know what I mean), but I was even more excited thinking about you sneaking into my bedroom while I slept.” Jimmy slipped one hand inside his union suit and rubbed his big, ginger-haired chest. Santa tried to avert his eyes, but he couldn’t. Jimmy said, “After I went to college, I started dating guys. Lots and lots of guys, and I kind of forgot about you. I guess it was the sex, because I was having lots of it. Men liked my big hairy body. Do you like it, Santa? Oh, sure all the sex was fun, and I even fell in love a few times, but I always felt like something was missing. And then just recently I realized what it was. No one had ever loved me as purely and truly as you did. Every man I loved always wanted something in return: sex, a relationship, emotional support, whatever. But you, you loved me unconditionally.” Jimmy smiled and unbuttoned two more buttons. Santa watched as Jimmy ran his hand down over his furry belly, across a thick tuft of fiery pubic hair, and under the thin cotton fabric that hid his growing bulge. Jimmy grabbed it, and Santa moaned. “You like that, Santa?” Jimmy said. “Maybe I’ll give it to you if you say you love me. The nearest neighbor’s a mile away, and with this blizzard, there’s no chance any Christmas carolers are stopping by. Still, if I take off the gag, do you promise not to scream? I don’t want you to scare your reindeer.” Santa nodded eagerly, and Jimmy pressed his hairy torso against Santa’s face as he unstrapped the ball gag. Santa inhaled deeply, taking in the smells of wood smoke, Ivory soap, and baked goods. He moaned again. After he took off the gag, Jimmy peeled off his union suit and kicked off his boots. He looked down at Santa’s crotch and smiled. He said, “I can see you like my big cinnamon stick, Santa. You want to touch it? All you have to do is say you love me.” Santa smiled and said, “All I can say is … you picked the wrong mythical figure to fuck with. I ain’t no Easter Bunny.” Jimmy’s smile vanished. With a quick flex of his arms and legs Santa freed himself from the ropes. “You didn’t think I’d be so strong, did you? I’ve been loading sleighs for two thousand years, you puny punk.” Santa stood up. He was a head taller than Jimmy and outweighed him by at least a hundred pounds. Santa laughed when Jimmy gasped at his size. “That’s right, little cub. The biggest bears are the motherfucking polar bears.” Santa flexed his arms, and the velvet ripped along the seams as his huge biceps bulged upward. He flexed his chest, and his enormous pecs ripped open his coat. He flung it onto the floor and growled. Jimmy whimpered as he saw the thick white hair that covered Santa’s powerful muscles and thick gut. “I’m a damn Christmas superhero, and you can’t stop me from my duty. Even with that fucking hot little body of yours.” He poked Jimmy in the chest with one finger, and Jimmy fell back into the leather chair. He grabbed himself as he stared hungrily up at Santa. Santa ripped off his red velvet pants, revealing a massive black leather jockstrap adorned with jingle bells. He spread his booted feet wide and rested his hands on his hips. And then, Santa made the bells jingle. Jimmy gasped. Santa said, “The howling winds are mine to command! The icy blizzard is my companion! The year’s blackest midnight is my festival!” His eyes glowed with ancient, elemental power. As he spoke, the house was buffeted by strong winds. The lights flickered, and snow gusted down the chimney onto the floor. Up on the roof, the reindeer stomped their hooves in agitation. Jimmy crawled across the floor and began to lick Santa’s thick hairy thighs. Santa’s jockstrap jingled again as its contents grew larger. Santa looked down at Jimmy and sneered. “Good boys get presents, but you know what bad boys get?” Jimmy looked up expectantly. Santa paused and said, “Umm, bad boys get … hold on …” Jimmy whispered, “We talked about this. You know what you’re supposed to say!” Santa laughed. “I’m sorry, it’s a busy time of year for me. Uh, I know you didn’t want me to say coal … Oh right.” Santa composed himself and once again sneered down at Jimmy. “Bad boys get a trip to the North Pole.” He pulled off his jockstrap and threw it across the floor. Jimmy said, “Oh Santa, it’s the biggest candy cane I’ve ever seen!” With a bellowing “Ho ho ho!” Santa scooped up Jimmy, threw him over his shoulder like a sack of toys, and carried him off to the bedroom. Afterward, they were lying in bed, listening to the wind batter the walls and watching the snow pile up against the window. Santa said, “That was a lot of fun, but you don’t have to think up these elaborate scenarios all the time. Last month I was a firefighter and had to rescue you from a burning logging camp. Before that we were Mexican wrestlers, and before that I was a Viking and you were an Irish monk. You know, sometimes we can just get together for dinner and watch a movie.” Jimmy looked up from where he was resting his face in Santa’s snowy chest hair. “I know, but it’s Christmas Eve, and I wanted you to have some fun on your busiest work night. It’s my present to you. And I just …” Jimmy hesitated and looked away. “What is it, Jimmy?” Santa said softly. “I just want to make sure you don’t fall out of love with me.” Santa laughed so hard that the bed shook. “Don’t laugh! I’m serious. You’re so exciting and famous, and I’m just a chef at a pancake house. What’s keeping us together other than the hot sex?” Jimmy reached down between Santa’s thighs. “I mean the really, really hot sex.” Santa pulled Jimmy’s hand away. He looked him in the eyes and said, “For one thing, you’re the most amazing, beautiful, hairy pancake chef in Canada. And for another thing, I knew you were the one as soon as we met.” “You did?” “Of course. When I saw you two years ago at Provincetown Bear Week, my heart felt something it had never felt before. And I’ve felt a lot of things in my long life. Besides, somehow you saw through my magic and knew who I really was. That must mean something. No one else has ever done that.” Jimmy wriggled up and kissed Santa’s rosy nose. “It was obvious who you were. I was like, ‘Damn girl, there’s Santa rocking out to Katy Perry. I better make my move before someone else does.’” “Everyone else just saw an old fool in cargo shorts and a fanny pack,” Santa said. “No, everyone else saw a sexy old fool in cargo shorts and a fanny pack.” Santa growled and rolled over, pinning Jimmy under his massive bulk. Santa’s eyes blazed with blue fire as he said, “I’ll show you who’s an old fool, you little brat.” Jimmy smirked and writhed under him. “Oh, I dare you to show me, old man.” Suddenly, from up on the rooftop they heard the noise of reindeer hooves. They were tapping rhythmically, as if in Morse code. “Oh darn it, it’s time to go. I guess I should deliver all those presents.” Santa sighed and climbed out of bed. As he watched Santa pull on his boots and gloves, Jimmy said, “You know, one thing in tonight’s little game was true. You do always get me exactly what I want for Christmas. Hint, hint.” Santa winked at him and said, “Well, people say there’s always a little truth in every fantasy.” He put on his red hat and walked into the living room. Jimmy followed him and looked expectantly under the Christmas tree, but there were no presents. Santa positioned himself by the fireplace, naked except for his boots, gloves, and hat. “I’ll call you tomorrow,” he said. “Aren’t you forgetting something?” Jimmy said. “What, you don’t want me to deliver gifts naked? Don’t worry, Mrs. Claus packed me an extra red suit in the sleigh. She knew I was coming here first tonight.” “Your mother’s so considerate. Give her my love,” Jimmy said, and then added with a slight note of desperation in his voice, “But aren’t you forgetting something else?” “Jimmy, I’d never forget you. You know sometimes I like to tease. Your Christmas present is next to the bed.” Santa laid one of his fingers next to his nose. “I love you.” “I love you too.” Jimmy stepped back and watched Santa transform from a huge naked musclebear into a radiant ball of icy blue energy, which shot up the chimney like a rocket. Jimmy smiled as the house rattled, and a cloud of snow and ashes shot into the living room. “That up-the-chimney thing gets me every time,” he said. Jimmy fell asleep quickly after Santa left, lulled into slumber by the sound of snowflakes on the windowpane. He smiled as he slept. Clutched in his hand was a large brass key, which had the following note attached to it by a silver ribbon: Dear Jimmy, Don’t you think it’s time we moved in together? Here’s your own key to my castle at the North Pole. Or should I say our castle? When you pack your things, don’t forget the wrestling masks. And maybe a cop uniform. Love and Merry Christmas, The Big Man in the Red Suit All Lethe Press books, including Woof, are available through the major online retailers and booksellers. You can also support the press and authors by buying directly from our website. Or, if you prefer listening, the unabridged audiobook is available at Amazon or Audible.
Every Thursday, Lethe takes a look through its vaults for its proudest releases. This week it's A Twist Of Grimm by William Holden. Giving an erotica gay twist to familiar fairy tales, A Twist Of Grimm was described as "stimulating masculine reading" by Out In Print. And -- tenuously linked we'll admit - for the holiday season, we're bringing you a story about elves. Read the story 'Wicked Little Tongues' or listen to the audio version: Once upon a time there was a talented shoemaker named Aldon who lived with his wife in a small village called Woodshire. In his youth he was well respected for his workmanship. People came from villages far, far away in hopes of obtaining a pair of his shoes. For twenty-odd years, Aldon worked night and day to provide for his wife, but for reasons no one could guess his business began to dwindle. At last he found himself poor, with barely enough food to quell their hunger. One evening he set to work on another pair of shoes. “This time,” he said to himself, “I shall make a pair of shoes unlike any other.” After many hours, he sagged as sleep shaded his eyes and invaded his mind. With a yawn he decided to wait until morning so that he could be rested and his mind clear. The next morning, Aldon awoke before the sun had brightened the sky and hurried down to his workshop to resume work on the new pair of shoes. As he sat down upon his stool, still muddled by sleep, he was startled to discover a pair of newly crafted shoes resting on his table. He took them in his hands to study the craftsmanship. They were perfect, with not one missing stitch. He could smell the thick odor of new leather as something stirred deep inside of him. But he pushed the strange sensation out of his mind, so pleased was he to have a new pair to sell. He did not care where they came from or who might have slipped into his workshop while he slept to create such wonderful shoes. He hurried to open his shop. Before too much time had passed a handsome gentleman of the same age as Aldon came in. The old wooden floors creaked upon his arrival. “I have heard from the people in my village that you make the finest shoes in all the land.” The gentleman came over to shake Aldon’s hand. His grip was firm and confident. Aldon soon found himself lost in the man’s deep voice. “I am Bartholomew, Lord of Brookshire. Are you the shoemaker?” “Yes, I am he,” Aldon said absently, before restraining his wandering mind. “My name is Aldon and I have just finished an exquisite pair. Sit here on this bench and let me bring them for you, to see whether or not they fit.” The lord sat down on the wooden bench at the center of the shop. Aldon placed Lord Bartholomew’s foot upon his leg and began to unlace his old, weary shoe. With the shoe off and set down beside him, Aldon adjusted Bartholomew’s stocking. His foot was large and carried with it a heavy, musky scent. Ordinarily the twenty-odd years Aldon had spent fitting shoes allowed him to accomplish his tasks by rote, but he soon found himself befuddled and a bit unnerved by the presence of this man. He smoothed and caressed Bartholomew’s stocking, enjoying the warmth and feel that the foot offered. Something stirred inside of him, a feeling so strange that he could not begin to unriddle it. “These are quite impressive.” Lord Bartholomew remarked as the shoe was placed upon his foot. “They feel as if they were made just for me. Please, if you will, place the other one on and I shall carry them out upon my feet.” Aldon was beside himself with joy as he watched the handsome man disappear through the front door, leaving behind a payment of more money than Aldon had ever earned from his craft. As he prepared to fetch more leather with which he hoped to replicate the wondrous pair, he noticed that his prick was heavy with urge. He slipped his hand beneath his trousers and found himself damp as well. He ran to his bedroom chamber where his wife still lay asleep. “My dearest wife, I am thick with need.” He undressed himself and fell upon her, giving greedy kisses to her waking mouth. As he entered her, the large damp cavern of her privates did little to satisfy him. He closed his eyes against her willing face and soon his urge regained its strength from memories of Lord Bartholomew. His need soon built to dizzying heights as he let the touch, the smell, and the voice of Bartholomew come to his mind. He busied himself with his wife till both were spent and he fell upon the bed next to her covered in his own sweat. I do not understand what happened this morning, Aldon thought to himself as he walked to purchase more leather. Surely it was the love and desire for my wife and not that of a man that urged me on. He tried to push the thoughts from his mind and soon, with new leather in hand enough for two pairs, he was feeling more like himself. By the time the gray of the evening turned to darkness, he had finished cutting the leather. Though he wished to finish, he once again surrendered to fatigue. He set his work aside and carried himself off to bed. He awoke the next morning and hurried back to his workshop. There on his workbench stood a new pair of shoes and a pair of calf-high boots. They were of the same quality and detail as the pair from a day earlier. He opened his shop and before too long a strong and rugged man entered. He wore a loose fitting shirt that reminded Aldon of the stories of pirates he had heard in his youth. The stranger did not wear trousers, as would the gentry. Instead he wore a skirt to just below his knees. On his feet were calf-high leather boots. “I hear you have the best shoes in all of the lands and I have come to be fitted. My name is Huxley. Are you the shoemaker?” He held out his hand and greeted Aldon with graciousness. “Yes, I am he. Aldon is my name.” He motioned for Huxley to sit on the wooden bench while he brought over the pair of boots that had just been made as if someone knew Huxley would be arriving. “I venture to say that you will find no fit better than these.” His fingers began to twitch as he slipped his hands around Huxley’s leg. The man’s calf was strong and tightened with his touch. Aldon could feel the coarse hair that covered Huxley’s leg as he reached behind his calf to untie the leather strap. Again the strange longing crept into Aldon’s groin, tightening his furry sack and lengthening his prick. With trembling hands he began to unlace the boot. Once the last lace was undone, he slipped the boot off and noticed there was no stocking covering the foot. Now Aldon, unfamiliar with such a crude dressing in his customers, wasn’t sure how to react. His eyes slipped down Huxley’s hairy leg as the strange sensation washed over him. He felt a fresh urge about him as his temperature rose. His eyes concentrated on the small dark hairs that lay across the top of Huxley’s feet and toes. “Is everything proper? I bathed and manicured my feet for the occasion.” Huxley laughed as he raised his leg, flexed his ankle and wiggled his toes. “Everything is….” Aldon’s words stopped short as his eyes peered under the skirt to discover Huxley’s nakedness. Aldon’s eyes fixed on the sight. His body quivered as he gazed upon Huxley’s prick, which lay in a dark blanket of curly hair. It moved on its own. It began to lengthen as if his eyes were somehow caressing it. Aldon marveled at the shape and size, comparing it to his own much smaller one. “Is there something you see that you like under my garment?” Huxley grabbed the edge of his skirt and lifted it further up his legs. “Why don’t you get closer?” He reached down and pulled Aldon’s head between his legs. Aldon could feel the heat of Huxley’s body surround his face. He inhaled and let the woodiness of Huxley groin cover his senses. The meaty prick stirred and drifted across his lips. It left a thin trail of moisture upon his skin that he hesitantly licked off. The taste was sweeter than any honey he had ever enjoyed. An urge unlike anything he had suffered before rushed through his body. He moved in closer and opened his mouth. The heft of Huxley prick slipped in with ease. To Aldon’s surprise it continued to strengthen in his mouth, filling him. His tongue skirted around the silkiness of the skin, awakening his senses of taste, touch, and scent. He found himself pushing his face further between Huxley’s legs. The rough, curly hair that surrounded Huxley’s prick tickled his nose. He imitated the motions of his wife, motions she had used on him once long ago. His mouth was wet with Huxley’s need. He swallowed, savoring the sweet bitterness it offered. Aldon reached between his own legs and felt himself. He had never before touched himself for his own pleasure. He untied his trousers. He slipped his hand around his prick. The feel of his own sex drove him to the edge of madness. A heat rushed through him. His body quivered as he released his seed. It splattered across Huxley’s feet. The prick grew again in his mouth. He could feel a pressure deep in his throat before his mouth flooded with Huxley’s warm elixir. So he swallowed all he could, and what little escaped, dripped from the edge of his mouth. Huxley’s sex began to wither. He let it fall from his mouth. Huxley leaned down and kissed him. Upon Huxley’s departure, Aldon gathered up the new fee and stole from the workshop, wanting nothing more than to be alone with his thoughts. He walked for hours as he wrestled with the pleasures he had learned only that morning. He thought back on the previous two days when these desires first appeared, and soon realized that the fire in his belly began just when the shoes mysteriously appeared in his workshop. With this new knowledge, he ran to the nearest village to purchase more leather and set about his plan for the coming night. As the evening turned to night, he slipped out of his bed without so much as a muffled noise and crept down to his workshop. The room was dark, but Aldon knew it well. He moved through familiar steps and stowed himself away inside a closet, leaving the door ajar to give him a view of his workbench. He sat quietly and waited. As the bell tower in the village struck midnight, Aldon heard whispering and the sounds of tiny feet coming from the center of his workshop. The room began to glow with the light of several tiny candles. Aldon’s eyes grew wide in disbelief as he beheld a miraculous sight. Standing on the workbench were two tiny trolls. They were no more than six inches in height. Their faces were almost identical. Each had small rounded ears and a nose that looked like it had once been pointed, but was now flattened at the tip. They had flowing silver-grey hair that fell to the middle of their backs. They were dressed in blue trousers that strapped over their shoulders. Their strange clothing fascinated Aldon, as he had not seen anything quite like it before. They looked around the room as if they could sense Aldon’s presence. Then they tugged and pulled on the pieces of leather that had been left out on the table. Aldon was ready to expose himself to them, but stopped as he watched the two trolls begin to undress. Their bodies were covered in a fine white hair that trailed all the way down their tiny legs. Their pricks stood erect and glistened with dampness in the candlelight. They knelt down upon the thick leather and began fondling their pricks. They watched each other with greedy eyes as they went about pleasuring themselves. The table began to tremble with their furious actions upon it. Aldon heard a whimper floating through the air. Then the noise grew louder. They began to pant like wild animals as they expelled rivers of their clear seed. They fell into puddles of their own release and massaged it into the leather. Aldon had found himself with urge once more and stood to face these two little men. “I have caught you at last.” “Yes, you have indeed. But it was not because of your trickery and cunning,” said the first troll. “No, no indeed. You have seen us this night, because fate has demanded it,” said the second. “Your words confuse me. What is this fate you speak of? I caught you according to my own plan, because I wanted to understand the cause of these urges in me. Urges for pleasure with other men are not of my own doing because I love my wife with all my heart.” Aldon noted a gasp coming from behind him. He turned to witness his wife, who stood there listening to his confession. “Is it true what you have uttered from your lips?” she asked. Aldon only blushed. “Your silence has answered my question. Do not come after me, I will leave this house at once.” She turned and as quietly as she had approached she scurried up the stairs. “You have been untrue to yourself for far too long,” replied the first troll. “These urges you speak of have been with you since birth. You have kept them locked away so that you would not have to face them.” “It is not possible,” stammered Aldon. “From where we stand, it looks to be true.” The second troll pointed to the rise in Aldon’s trousers. “We have come a great distance to find you.” “I am a simple man and do not understand why you would come looking for me.” “We have learned that there is a most handsome man in the next village. He has lived for years with secret lust and desire in his heart for you, but he lacks the rude boldness required to tell you. We have promised him that we would bring your hearts together so that the two of you might know joy and pleasure.” “I shall never again join with another man. Huxley was a wicked trick for the two of you to play against me. I wish you to leave my workshop immediately.” “We hope for your sake that you will have a change in your heart,” continued the second troll, “for if we leave your shop, we also take with us the talents for making the shoes that you have been so blessed to have sold.” “You scoundrels.” bellowed Aldon. “We are not the scoundrels you so rashly judge us to be.” The first troll walked to the edge of the workbench. “Scoundrels lie, cheat and steal to get what they want. We have dealt honestly with you from the beginning.” “It is not in my nature to be as you are asking me to,” pleaded Aldon. “It may be true that I have been feeling strange of late, but only because of tricks played by you.” “We have given you all we can for now. Go, sleep, and trust yourself that when you awake you will know in your heart what you should do. We shall stay here tonight and wait for your answer in the morning.” Aldon hesitated. The future he had planned trembled with the news these trolls brought with them. He climbed the stairs without so much as a word and readied himself for bed. He lay alone for the first time in fifteen years without his wife by his side. As he wrestled with sleep, his mind drifted to the question he hadn’t wanted to contemplate. Who was the man that lusted for him? When sleep did overcome him, his thoughts darkened into tormenting dreams. He quivered beneath the thin material of the bed linen. His body was heated. Perspiration broke out across his skin. The pleasures of the previous night returned, but more powerful than he had experienced before. He opened his eyes to darkness, as if he were blind. He could not see who or what was causing these feverish moments. At first he wanted to fight it off, to expel from himself the wickedness and evil that had befallen him, but as the moments passed he began to enjoy the tickle, the titillation, the burning urgency that he was now learning. He blamed the trolls and their wicked little tongues for bringing this upon him. He awoke with a start as he reached the brink of his pleasure, showering himself with his own hot seed. He leapt from the bed without so much as a thought for his nakedness and bounded down the stairs into his workshop. There he found the two little trolls making the finishing touches on four new pairs of shoes. Aldon stood in silence, his drying seed pulling and tugging on the hair that was scattered across his chest. “Look my little brother,” remarked one troll to the other. “Our Aldon is in quite a state of misfortune.” “He is indeed,” replied the second. “Perhaps we should have warmed him of our visitor.” Aldon scanned the room and became flushed with embarrassment as he saw Lord Bartholomew standing in the distance. He grabbed a white rag that had been thrown onto a shelf and covered his nakedness in it. “My beloved Aldon,” Bartholomew muttered as he walked towards him. “I have waited years to speak to you of what is in my heart. I had hoped for a sign from you the other day when you fitted me for my shoes, but you let me leave without one. There is no need to hide your body from me. Please remove the linen and let me gaze upon the heavenly sight before me.” Aldon could find no speech. He looked upon Bartholomew with a new set of eyes and new warmth in his heart. He let the dusty rag fall from his body, exposing himself for the first time to another man. Aldon glanced over to the two trolls who sat on the edge of the workbench. With giddy little smiles across their faces, they whispered wicked little words to each other. His eyes traveled back to Bartholomew who had stopped no more than a foot away from him. He could smell Bartholomew’s scent. His prick stirred with need. His eyes grew brighter as Bartholomew removed his garment and let the heavy material fall against the wooden planks of the floor. Bartholomew’s body glistened in the dim light. A thin, dark trail of hair began at his navel and carried itself further down his stomach before spreading out and blanketing the thickness of his sex. Their bodies came together. Prick upon prick, mouth upon mouth. They sank to the floor as each of them explored the other’s body. The trolls extinguished the flames that flickered atop the candles before settling themselves down for the night. In the darkness they could hear the gentle moans and sweet whispers of Aldon and Bartholomew as they acted out the secret pleasures of the wicked little tongues. All Lethe Press books, including A Twist of Grimm, are available through the major online retailers and booksellers. You can also support the press and authors by buying directly from our website. Or if you prefer to listen, the unabridged audiobook is available from Amazon and Audible.
For the holiday season, here's a poem from Jeff Mann's wonderful collection Rebels. SNOW QUILT He is sleeping in a field between Berkeley Springs and Hancock, he and his Rebs exhausted from the march. After midnight a wet finger brushes his brow, and he murmurs awake, pulls the damp blanket over his face and sleeps again, corpse-still. When he wakes in first light, he wakes warm, too warm, tosses off his blanket, scatters five inches of mountain snow that sheltered him in the night like a crystal shield of righteousness, like a father’s arms, and he looks about him at the great logs of men...covered over with snow and as quiet as graves, rising one by one warm, amazed, shaking off God’s wool—and oh, how they wish they might weave of snow durable and lasting blankets, as snow shields tender wheat and the earth-tamped hope of seeds, till one breaks the mood, shouting,“Great Jehosophat! The Resurrection!” and they are up, starting small fires for a spitted beef and hardtack breakfast. Rebels is out now from Lethe Press. Check it out.
With the new year nearly upon us, here's a sneak peak at some of the titles Lethe has in store in 2016... ALL GOOD CHILDREN | Dayna Ingram Coming May 2016 Everyone tells 14-year-old Jordan Fontaine not to worry about the summer camp that isn't really a summer camp, not to worry about the survival statistics she's been calculating since elementary school, or about the quickly averted eyes and frowning mouths of her peers when she tells them her Liaison is coming to visit she and her brothers. She does not dare to tell anyone that her pulse quickens when she looks at the beautiful Liason. But the Liaison, whose role is to supply their inhuman masters with bodies, is being manipulated by another. And Jordan will be drawn into a dangerous coup that she in unaware of, This is a world where women are bred like cattle, ensuring the continuation of the human race—or, as they are known to the malevolent Over, sustenance. Perhaps some children need to be seen and heard. CONNECTED UNDERNEATH | Linda Legters Coming Spring 2016 Madena, New York. A small town like any small town: everybody keeps an eye on everybody else’s business, nobody recognizes the secrets that connect them. Teenage Persephone trades sex for the tattoo sessions that get her high enough to forget that her girlfriend doesn’t love her and she isn’t sure she loves her dad. Theo used to be the high-school bad boy who could never have the respectable girl he adored from afar—now he owns the last video store in town and worries wretchedly about the daughter he never understood. Natalie, trying so hard to grasp the last shreds of respectability, would do anything to forget the baby she gave up long ago, including betray the baby’s father. And wheelchair-bound Celeste who has never had a life, desperate to connect, watches and makes up stories and finally understands that things have gone terribly wrong and she stands at the heart of disaster. WALKING THE TIGHTROPE Coming in February 2016 A groundbreaking collection bringing together poetry and prose from LGBTQ writers from many nations across the continent of Africa. This book is both compelling and emotionally raw in its honest statement about being queer in modern day Africa. BLIND JUSTICE | K.A. Kron & Brenda L. Leffler Riley Connors has some serious woman problems. The love of her life, Ali Garcia, won't give her the time of day, but plenty of others want a piece of her. Riley's stream of one night stands doesn't get her any closer to Ali, but does get the attention of a dangerous old flame who brings the past crashing back. While trying to make time to focus on her second year of law school, she and Charlie race to stop whoever is checking names off of a hit list, as the victims get closer to home. The ticking of the clock grows louder by the minute, and when the timer goes off, it's not a drill. We're taking pre-orders of Blind Justice right now for only $11, a better price than anywhere else on the 'net. DEAD CELEBRITIES | Christopher Calix Coming Spring 2016 Carter Calhoun was once a Hollywood legend, an agent both loved and loathed by stars and studio executives alike. But then the suicide of his lover and star client, matinee idol Sam Madison, sent Carter to the bottom of the bottle. Carter became a housebound recluse. Now, years later, new evidence reveals Sam may have been murdered and Carter emerges from seclusion to find his killer. The hunt will take him from the soundstages of Hollywood to a trailer park in Malibu to the mansions of Bel Air. Carter, struggling against addiction and bouts of agoraphobia, must navigate through a new and unfamiliar world where anyone can be famous and everyone has an agenda— and a secret. For Carter, solving Sam’s murder offers hope of redemption— as long as he can stay alive. THREESOME: HIM, HIM & ME | Ed. Matthew Bright Coming March 2016 Few sexual fantasies are as potent or lasting as “the threesome” – as an adolescent, the first time you saw a hot couple walking hand in hand and you wanted to follow them back home and into their bed, as an adult when you discover that your partner has been fantasizing also about the bartender at your favorite club. 1+1+1 = sensual delight! Editor Matthew Bright, no stranger to threesomes himself, has invited twelve authors to write stories that range from the sweet and romantic to erotic and playful and even a bit depraved. Featuring stories from Evey Brett, Dale Chase, Shane Allison, Jeff Mann, 'Nathan Burgoine, Rob Rosen and more. THE MYRIAD CARNIVAL | Ed. by Matthew Bright Coming February 2016 Roll up, roll up... The circus has long been that dream palace, intoxicating with so many lights and sights, sounds and smells. Sawdust, popcorn, strange animals, make-up, and the sweat of the roustabouts. The circus intrudes into the life of the ordinary and mundane and brings magic. Editor Matthew Bright invites you to the enjoy the sixteen attractions of the fantastical and dark Myriad Carnival. Featuring stories from Paul Magrs, Hal Duncan, Roy Gill, Nick Campbell, Evey Brett, Raymond Luczak, Sarah Caulfield, B.R. Sanders, Kate Harrad, Evan J. Peterson, and more. Plus, plenty more with further details to come!
Welcome to Lethe's weekly Giveaway Mondays.
Firstly, getting into the wintry spirit, we've got three ebooks of Fog by Jeff Mann to give away. Winner of the Pauline Reage Novel Award of the National Leather Association, Fog is dark, kinky and absorbing. See more details here. To win, just like our facebook page and share the competition image, or follow and RT us on twitter @lethepress. Secondly, because you can never have enough Jeff Mann, all week the first in his Civil War series, Purgatory, is discounted at $15 in paperback. Follow this link to buy on our website. |
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