Tomkin Watts - Stories

Wars have been fought over obsessions, and millions have died; but not all obsessions produce effects that severe or lethal. Most only affect a small group of people. But what personal obsessions often have in common is that trivial, careless remark, or an unknowing or uncaring act, that triggers them in someone of an impressionable age. A small thing, perhaps, but it can last a lifetime, as our narrator discovers.

Perhaps childhood memories are not always about what we think they are. Through a chance encounter, a young physician learns things he didn’t know about his late parents.

A straight friend, an artist who the narrator has known since college, compliments him on the definition of his muscles. The narrator has always considered the straight friend very attractive, The narrator is concerned his friend is not aware of his own good looks and is not keeping himself fit as they grow older. The narrator has a strategy for helping his friend.

A controlling mother's effect on her compliant daughter. This is my only story with no gay content. The story grew from a short sketch in the first section.

Perhaps this story is merely a sorry little attempt at magical realism. Or perhaps it only takes place in the mind of its narrator, or in his dream, or perhaps some of it really happens to him—or a combination of all that. But none of that matters; none of those ideas either add to or detract from the story. With a nod to the many modern adaptations, here is another take on the Pygmalion myth. As with all such stories, be careful what you wish for!

During a stopover in London, a youthful encounter triggers Robert’s memories; almost sixty, he muses about youth and middle age, love and time.

A middle-aged reckoning with the past: a moderately successful gay author stops in New York on a book tour, and confronts memories of his school days. How we perceive ourselves, how we perceive others and how others perceive us, can change as our vantage points shift in time and space.

Today, with modern treatment and prevention, we often forget about AIDS and the toll it took upon the gay community. At the end of a long trip, Robert's final stopover is Minneapolis. There, he encounters a friend of a friend who had fallen to AIDS twenty-five years earlier. This is a sad story, and was difficult to write, and I've kept it on the back burner for over a year. Dedicated to a close friend who passed thirty-two years ago on his favorite holiday, Halloween.

This story completes a trilogy, following "A Class Reunion" and "Love, In the Ashes of Time."

For many of us, our public personae and our intimate lives may be radically different; the gap between what others see and expect of us and the life we really lead may result in misunderstanding of who we are. Over two weekends, two weeks apart, this story follows three ordinary young gay men and their secret lives, their anxieties, their desires and obsessions, and, of course, their yearning for a long-term lover.