keslian
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Many thanks for your comments. I will give some thought to giving the narrator a name. I will post another story soon. Regards, Alan
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A BREATHLESS STORY The other Saturday I got into real trouble at the bike shop. Les, my boss, is not one of those people who has moods or is always trying to put one over on you, but he lost his temper and told me off in front of the customer; it was as bad as in school when some sarky teacher makes you look a complete dumbo in front of the whole class. I had to fix a wheel with a broken spoke and by mistake I put in one that was too large. The repair seemed OK when I'd
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A young guy cycles far to meet his sports hero.
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Thanks very much, Richard, for your encouraging comment. I try to write realistic fiction about gay characters coping with the ups and downs of life. This has not brought in much income, but knowing that some readers have enjoyed my work makes it worthwhile. I do appreciate your taking the time to let me know. sincerely, Alan
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Thanks, Nll, for your comments on Goodmans Hotel. I'm sorry I've only picked them up today, the site underwent a redesign some months ago and I've struggled to regain access to it. Your arguments about the legality and propriety of some of Mark's behaviour towards Darren are strong. I was thinking that perhaps Mark's concern made it difficult for him to deal with these issues. However it's shame that the way it came across detracted from your enjoyment of the story. Thanks a lot for sharing your reactions with me. It's really encouraging for me to have your constructive and positive feedback.
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One effect of the assault was that my work on the Dunblane Spa project came to an end. Some figure work already in hand could be finished on the computer at Goodmans Hotel and relayed via the internet to Vincent’s office. My multicoloured wounds were a good excuse to drop out of the face to face meetings arranged for the coming weeks with the US client. Vincent, typically, was kind and considerate. He said he hoped we might work together on another project in the future, that anyway we would be
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Lizetta rang me at the hotel to confirm Vincent’s tentative invitation. He had a project meeting at Dunblane arranged for a Thursday in mid-February, and despite the likelihood of colder weather in the North had hired a cottage near Perth. She planned to fly up to Edinburgh Airport where he was to collect her in a hired car. They hoped to have the rare luxury of four nights and three whole days together, returning to London on Monday morning. She dismissed my concern about being a nuisance. ‘
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Andrew’s revelation about Tom’s past demolished the illusion that I had escaped from the ruthless culture of City opportunism into a new sunlit world of honesty and fraternity with other gay men. All the warmth and colour my new life appeared to contain had existed in my imagination; the reality was as cold and grey as concrete. Rather than being a place of openness and honesty, concealed motives and deception were as pervasive at Goodmans Hotel as they had been in the ‘straight’ world I had lef
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Darren and I were to meet Lizetta at a Belgian-style mussels and chips restaurant near Blackfriars Bridge. To make a good impression on her he wore the new suit Andrew had bought him and a shirt and tie. He did not have to dress up for lunch with Lizetta, but this was his first opportunity to show off his new clothes. He looked different; his long bones did not seem nearly as knobbly as they did in his usual jeans and T-shirt. Nobody seeing him now would assume he was doomed to a lifetime of
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By Monday morning well over twenty-four hours had passed since the Geordies had seen Darren dancing with a stranger at the club. Andrew’s accusatory words from the previous day, ‘You haven’t let him go off with them,’ came back into my mind again and again. Every time the ’phone rang I expected to hear his voice anxiously asking for news. During a lull in the morning’s activities, having got no answer from the extension in Darren’s room, I went upstairs in the unlikely hope that he might have cr
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To bring in customers I placed adverts in the gay press for ‘London’s newest gay hotel’, set up a site on the Internet, and sent nearly two hundred e-mails to gay organisations. When the momentous occasion came that the first ever guest stepped over the threshold, suppressing my excitement I pretended to check the hotel diary for the booking, took him up to his room, wished him a comfortable stay and told him that breakfast was available from seven in the morning. Alone in the kitchen afterwards
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Having warned me of the trend towards buying in computer services from specialist companies, Peter expected me to resist any attempt to close down my unit should one of the younger more forward looking partners, or even one of the old codgers who had been tipped off about the trend by a friend at his club or on the golf course, suggest it. He knew nothing of Goodmans Villa or Andrew’s ideas for a gay hotel. That I might want to relinquish the income and status of my position in the firm to se
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The daily onslaught at work prevented me from brooding, but the true nature of the change from being half of a couple to being what might optimistically be called unattached or available became clear within a week. The word desperate might be a better one for my state of mind. Tom, evidently, had tired of me, but my notions before his departure that I might be tiring of him had been delusions. At Lindler & Haliburton a myriad of technical and staffing issues filled my days and left me tir
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Andrew’s ‘blackout’ had been caused by a subarachnoid haemorrhage, a leakage of blood from one of the small arteries which supply the brain. He had been helping to lift a large container of plants at Ferns and Foliage when he collapsed. The garden centre’s manager was summoned and, unable to bring him back to consciousness, called an ambulance. Andrew had come round to some extent by the time the ambulance arrived, but was dazed and unable to stand, and was taken into hospital for tests and obse
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Expensive cars ought to come with a warning: possession of this engineering showpiece may make you feel like a millionaire, but imagine how dreadful you will feel if you crash it. At the end of summer on the Friday morning of a stressful week, about four months after the Mercedes had come into my possession, breakfast cereal and orange juice failed to help prepare me for the drive to work. Instead a twinge of queasiness in my innards, not severe enough to call a stomach ache, made me wonder if t
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Joining Peter’s secret team meant taking risks that could not be quantified. The aim was to bring about a merger with another slightly smaller accountancy firm, and the desirability of this objective was questionable. A few similar marriages between City accounting partnerships had taken place during the past year, but if a union proved to be a mistake the problems were hardly likely to be made public. The team’s preliminary report recommended a detailed assessment of all the implications of
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The next morning I woke up alone in Tom’s bed. A faint smell of fresh paint was discernible, so faint that it had not been noticeable among the flood of powerful sensations of the previous night. When I drew back the curtains bright daylight illuminated an assortment of second-hand furniture. In the kitchen a note written on an old envelope told me he had gone off to work. He asked me to help myself to breakfast, to use anything of his I needed in the bathroom, and to call him on his mobile ’pho
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After the holiday Peter did not invite me into his office or walk across the floor to my workspace to greet me. During the first week I saw him once in the distance heading for the lifts, looking straight ahead; if my existence did register on the edge of his field of vision he ignored me. Evidently he had decided to freeze me out. For several days I sat ever more uneasily at my desk, afraid whenever the telephone rang or an e-mail message arrived that retribution for my pretended illness in Fra
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Conflict between powerful cabals in the City firm causes Mark to leave, with a generous pay off. Tom’s boss, Andrew, a determinedly independent small businessman, convinces him he should put all his resources into setting up a gay guest house, the ‘Goodmans Hotel’ of the title. There he hopes for release from the heartlessly competitive norms of his old working life.
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‘Bloody gearbox is playing up; not supposed to happen with a Porsche.’ Peter Haliburton, first syllable pronounced ‘hail’ as in ‘hail storm’, his wife Caroline, her friend Marie and I stood looking at the delinquent vehicle in a lay-by about seventy kilometres from Poitiers. An hour earlier he had rung Porsche customer services who recommended a garage with an approved Porsche mechanic, but the problem had not been as serious then and he decided against diverting from our scenic route through
