Stories

Camp Refuge is where anyone can find their place. This is the story of its inception.

I am dealing with chronic depression and panic attacks. This is my journey to try to make sense of it all.

"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.

Ember McCain is a mechanic in his late thirties, he's closed off and bitter about his teenage years. His biggest problem is not being able to let go of the anger he feels from the bullying he received in high school. Despite his own short comings he's managed grow a successful mechanic business, most of his employees are strong confident gay men. He's finally in a place in his life where he feels happy, confident, and content being himself. That is until Brady Douglass, his high school bully moves back to town and is everywhere, including his own workplace turning his world upside down.

Rigby, impossibly innocent, swaps suffocating middle-class New Zealand for love and liberation in nineteen-sixties London. Revelling in the freedom granted by anonymity, he becomes an actor, stripper, rent boy, teacher and resolute seeker of new experiences while living and travelling in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, when travellers were uncommon.

{A year ago I posted several chapters, then stopped because I needed to make a few changes. Apologies to those who began reading, only to have it rudely terminated.

Spelling throughout is English English.}

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Ben and Colin are comfortably in each other's lives, but the path of true love is never an easy one, and a mistake throws Ben's loyalties to the wind. Not only that, but the mystery behind the deaths of Denny and the rent boys remains unsolved. Carter only had a list of hits. Were Colin a different person he might leave things well alone. But the thing about sleeping dogs is that some people can never let them lie.

Jarren is at a crossroad. He needs to figure out who he really is. An impromptu road trip will take him to a place where he's forced to face his inner conflicts. New friends and a certain man who is battling his own inner demons will be the catalyst for Jarren to make the biggest decision of his life.

A Searcher is an instrument, yet he is a man too, needing time to rest and indulge in clearing his mind. His God however, has different plans, and The Searcher is in no position to refuse ...

The last thing fitness guru Heathcliff Stone needs is a babysitter, mainly because the one thing he hates more than his name - courtesy of his mom who, to this day, continues to be a Brontë obsessed reader - is for someone to try to control him.

When the most important company endorsing him sends over a preppy looking guy to keep him on a tight leash, his knee jerk reaction is to send the yuppie packing.

Yet, there is something that stops him from putting the figurative boot in the guy’s ass. Aidan Spark is exactly what the doctor ordered.

(Full summary inside because there's a character limit)

Sometimes the brain fails and the heart is left to pick up the pieces. Tyson, the son of a heartless politician and an abusive control freak, has survived four suicide attempts, and has now been committed to a psychiatric ward. With severe anger issues, unhealthy behaviours and a tendency to self-harm, Tyson's terrific treatment team fights a difficult battle. Another boy in the ward, Vladimir, suffers from schizophrenia and post-traumatic stress. Tyson thinks he's perfect.