Annabel Lee
The day, bright, cool, clear, was not what many would call "proper" for a funeral. It was an anomaly in this rainy spring, being the third in a string of dry days with little cloud cover. The mourners could not help but comment on how beautifully the...
Dancer From the Dance, Part 1
_Mozhem li my otdelit' tantsora ot tantsa?_ _ _ Some very few, very fortunate, souls are born into a real family; the rest of us have to spend a lifetime searching for it, and of those, some very few, very fortunate, actually find it. Only in this...
Arrangements
"What the hell do you mean, I'm dead?" Were I anyone else, such a question would probably have sent me in search of some nice young males in their clean white coats (or whatever other fur color they might have) to come and take the speaker away. I,...
Dancer From the Dance, Part 2
**_Walpurgisnacht_** I wasn't fully aware of holding my breath until it came out in a rush of air, in a gasp, in sounds that had tried to be words and failed. Abram stood calmly before me, his soft amber eyes gazing at me half-lidded, breathing...
The First Door
"Dr. Spenser? Benedict?" "Here, Zachary." "Why is it dark?" "I just asked you to keep your eyes closed for a little while. Do you feel ready to open them?" "I'm not sure. I have a feeling I know where we are." "We're in two places, Zachary. One is...
Real Love on a Train
I'll say this for her: It was an interesting venue for a break-up. Debbie never gave herself enough credit for her ingenuity, especially in the machinations of twisting the knife. She's a vixen, and the daughter of an alcoholic mother, so some would...
Readership, Part 2
Following the adage that "no good deed goes unpunished," Gwydion found himself padding down the hallway of the hospital the next morning, on his way to meet the fox whose life he had helped to save. He was accompanied by two males who couldn't have...
The Stallion's Tale, Part 1
_Eight years ago..._ Gabriel pushed the wheelbarrow carefully across the dusty expanse of dimpled hardpan, having learned the hard way that moving too quickly could cause the entire load of muck to fly just about everywhere at once. Stripped to the...
A Homo, a Hetero, and a Metro Walk Into a Bar
"All right, guys, one round on me, and then we're off to the movies, whadda ya say?" There's nothing quite as difficult as trying to keep up the morale of the morally impaired, and as much as I loved my friends, they were about as hopeless as it...
Tea is Served
"Like something from _The Addams Family."_ "Not nearly so ooky." As Cory Windrunner pushed the button that sounded a Westminster carillon, she had to admit that Gabriel had a point. The house was huge and sprawling, a mansion to lesser beings,...
Quiet Voices
**_Saturday Afternoon_** Emmanuel had run at a maintenance pace for the past five or six kilometers, enjoying the fresh air of the country rather than the less-than-pleasant air of the city or the canned air of an indoor track. Running was his...
Communion
Zachary Parker wasn't sure if he was nervous or excited. He'd taken a Psych 101 class that had explained that, as far as the body was concerned, the physiological sensations were the same, what with adrenaline (and other stuff he couldn't remember the...