Stories

Each chapter in this book is a complete short story inspired by a prompt.

Aeriol and Max share an apartment, a relationship, and their friends. Jules always seems to be there. Mayaan, Nadia and her brother Alex interweave into the complex matrix. Geoffrey is Max’s confidant, but he's not always around. Then there is Reuben, Jonathan, and Davy, not forgetting Nate. Sex, drugs, and spirituality float around in the cauldron that is the life of these young adults. People flow in and out of their lives, but no one is left untouched. They all need to discover who they are, the 'good' have their defects, and the 'not so good' have their merits. Life is complicated... Camp Echo is not a place, it's a state of mind!

This is a collection of my flash fiction, stories looking at modern day gay life (and life from a few years ago). Each chapter is a different story.

So sit back, put your feet up, and read some of my “case studies”.

We all like to know the back story to characters, you know their story before they appeared in a main story. Confused? You won't be when you read on, then it will make sense.

The Major features in The Boot and The Boot - Three Years On. Here he features in his own story, before The Boot.

There is a tissue needed warning!

This story has been revised and edited to improve the reader experience, it has not been altered in any other way.

When writing the fictionalised biography Camp Echo I had to make choices about what to include and what to leave out. Rather like a director's cut I decided that some of the story omitted deserves its place, for those of you wanting to know more.

One summer at their house in the South of France is much like all those previous summers. Except this year is different. Milo turns sixteen, and when his father employs Estevo, to fix things up, attractions and revelations mix with family problems, and a long held secret.

Milo will no longer be able to retreat and hide in the imagined worlds of literature. He will be tested and played with by his cousins and this new arrival. Exactly what is going on between these two families risks erupting into a thunderous climax and a deluge of emotions as heavy as any summer storm!

Modern gay life is hard enough, with homophobia, bar culture and dysfunctional relationships, but how do you navigate it carrying the baggage of the ex-gay movement?

Chris was involved with an ex-gay organisation as a teenager, after a breakdown he broke away from them. Now, as an adult, Chris is trying to live as an out gay man but the baggage of his past keeps pulling him back.

So often the damage does not stop when the abuse does.

This six-part story asks how does someone come to terms with the aftermath of the ex-gay movement.

Thirty-year-old Greg Beaumont is still fleeing the ruin of his life fifteen years ago. Now he's sharing a new home with his best friend Nate Sawyer, pouring himself into his work, and avoiding romantic entanglements while claiming he's just taking his time. But when he meets Kyle Wakeham, a fifteen-year-old neighborhood boy, he'll not only face the wreckage of his past but he'll also discover he's not defined by the torments and tragedies of history.

Andrew and Ian are college friends. One is sighted and one is blind. They have much to learn from each other.