lomax61 - Stories

One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl and four for a boy.

Five for silver, six for gold, seven for a secret never to be told.

I am sure many of you, like me, learned this children's nursery rhyme about magpies. According to an old superstition, the number of magpies seen predicts whether you will have good or bad luck. Something I came across subsequently, was the existence of many variations on this rhyme, some more sinister than the children’s version.

One of those is incorporated into this short story about boyhood abuse.

A short story in five pieces about love, loss and redemption.

Short coming-of-age story about 19 year old Carey, experiencing his first sexual encounter while on holiday with his mother on the south coast of England.

Anthology Pot Luck Theme: Turn Back Time

British born Chinese gay man Stanley Cheung wakes with somebody else's hangover.

Not only that, but he is laid out on someone’s couch in a grungy student digs where a strange woman is telling him he smells like a brewery. The thing is Stanley rarely drinks.

When the woman finally leaves, he finds out that not only has he woken as six-foot-three, ripped, blond-haired, straight Caucasian Don Bradley, but today is not Friday.

It’s Thursday.

Again.

He is reliving the same day but this time as somebody else.

A short story in two parts: the first set in 1995 covering the blossoming love between two best friends during a camping trip; the second in 2018, when an older man feels uncomfortable when he is crushed on by a much younger one.

On his way to Lausanne, Switzerland, for a reunion with old university friends, Robert Farrell is hoping, perhaps foolishly, to run into his ex. However, during the journey, when the coach stops in a small village in the northeast of France, Robert feels compelled to disembark and remain behind. Finding lodgings in a remote farmhouse, he encounters Alfie, the ghost of a young English soldier from the Great War, who repeatedly appears in his room at night. Neither of them understands why until Robert begins to do some research. And he soon discovers that their destinies are linked, and only they can help to reconcile each other’s futures.

Psychologist James Mannigan is granted a series of interviews with the Vynx brothers, four men of unknown origin found naked wandering Dartmoor fifteen years ago who claim they are not human. Housed in the Seahaven Open Facility in a remote part of Scotland, they live unremarkably alongside other guests.

At first, through his questioning and study, James finds nothing he has not encountered before. Until Guardian, one of the brothers, insists on sharing their beliefs on reincarnation. As events unfold and finally reach a violent climax, James finally learns why he has been chosen.

"May You Never Be Too Old to Search the Skies on Christmas Eve" - Anonymous

A Further Twelve Gays of Christmas Short Story

Rudy and Trevor return to Loch Arkaig for Christmas with new friends; two men who got together on a gay cruise; a celebrity chef who found love with his late best friend's husband; a baker and his tree-hugging partner; two older men who have been together forever; and finally, a doctor working for charity and his lawyer husband. All about to meet together on Christmas Eve, some for the first time.

But, of course, my dear readers already know them well.

Dr Kilroy Frost manages to separate his sexual desires from his professional life as a general practitioner. He volunteers as a sub at his anonymous BDSM club when the urge arises, but struggles with self-disgust afterwards, leading him to a cycle of heavy drinking and tranquilliser use. His life takes a turn after he is saved from a hotel fire by firefighter Todd Hansen. Their paths cross again at the fire station and later at the hospital on the day Kilroy learns of a homicide investigation linked to a member of his sex group, raising questions about his safety and what he should disclose to the police.

It's 2010, and Peter “Trout” Spencer is thirty-two, living a gloriously gay one-night-stand life. That is until an instance of mishearing by his grandmother at her eightieth birthday party throws his world off kilter. What she hears as “I’m going to get married in June,”—to someone called Wendy—is in fact, “I’m going to get Marisse and June,” his stepsister and her girlfriend. When she offers her six bedroom Hamptons house as a wedding present, Trout has a dilemma; in the world of fake news, could he be forgiven for seeking out a fake wife?