Stories

The Squire’s Tale is the final episode in Tales Along the Way, a trilogy of stories told by three business men traveling together on a long-haul flight. As the title suggests, this is a tale about a young gay man who is drawn into a dangerous adventure and an international intrigue. This is a admittedly a complex story, with 25 scenes spread over nine chapters. The story moves between two continents, such that simultaneous events have to be described more than once from different points of view. There is also a flashback chapter, which is clearly identified. I hope I have made it clear enough where and when each scene takes place.

Two very different men board the #3 Express New York Subway at the 96th Street station. Their encounter on the crowded train will result in a special friendship and an awakening in the younger one that results in significant life changes.

It's 2222, and Mike finds himself a very reluctant, sixteen-year-old new inhabitant on one of the lunar colonies. Bored out of his mind, he ends up writing with someone all the way on Mars. But exchanging messages takes, forever! The transmission delay is huge. Will a friendship be able to even form in all of this? Let alone blossom?

Thiago Zeca Baravento, the son of an American woman and a first generation Brazilian father, rises above the expectations of many for a black man born and raised in the predominantly minority Washington, D.C. neighborhood of Anacostia. After graduating from Howard University with a doctorate in pharmacology, and looking to provide his son Fabricio with a good life, Thiago leaves the District of Columbia, promising to one day return to his hometown.

With life at Greenstone now a distant memory, Puppy takes a leap in the real world to try a dose of independent living. With study, work, his drive for social inclusion and a boyfriend who can't keep a lid on his temper, Puppy feels the weight of life's reality without a safety net. Sink or Swim, he's as mature and determined as ever. But he can't get someone off his mind, and it's not Hunter!

In the perilous journey toward adulthood, Valentín Gómez hasn't quite found his north. He's not much of a cartographer, but he and his boyfriend are still going to try their luck at map-making. Growing up is hard, isn't it?

~~~~

The North Down South is a series of vignettes serving as a sequel to Southward.

A young man enters the confessional. He tells Father Peter Ruxton that he is gay, in love, and filled with self-loathing because the Church teaches that what he is doing is a sin. The priest, who struggles with his own sexuality, tries to offer counsel that shows compassion and empathy, while remaining within the strictures of his Church’s position on homosexual behavior. It does not end well. The young man leaves filled with bitterness, and Peter faces the reality that he must leave the Church if he is to be true to himself. He begins his search to find himself and his authentic life.

A little over a year after graduating from Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service, the State department posts CJ Abelló to the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City. CJ, his husband Owen Liston, and their daughter, Elizabeth Liston Abelló, immediately make themselves at home south of the Rio Grande.
Until disaster strikes and their lives are forever altered.

The Knight's Tale is the story of Lord Henry Sandringham, a gay British nobleman who is secretly an agent for MI6. He is sent to Tehran to rescue the son of the Foreign Minister, who faces the death penalty for being gay. Using a secret new drug called SOMNOS, the agent is assigned to conduct the young man to safety over the Alborz Mountains, across the Caspian Sea, and back to Britain.

DEDICATION
To Jeff, my first love - where are you today?