William King

Because AwesomeDude is running the Carbon 4.x - ipsfocus theme and the buttons are all screwed. Go to the bottom left corner of the page and click Theme (the tiny menu title with a little down pointing triangle next to it). Change to Default - hey presto, you got black writing on a white background, but more important the menu for the thread writing/editing is correct. The link button is actually... The link button! Conclusion: the current theme is to blame.

I am pleased to announce my short story Speechless (originally published here) has been published on Nick Campanella's website. A semi-autobiographical story about a library that brings together two boys, reveals some secrets, and leaves them speechless. You can check out my story on Codey's World (link at the end) and read some other great stories by different authors on Nick's site (note to readers - this is not a gay site, simply gay friendly). Nick was enthusiastic about posting this short story, because as he said to me: "You have something really great here. Stories like these should be more mainstream, and I'm really glad I can help make that possible. Every child, gay or straight, remembers how they realized their sexuality, and yet, we (I) never read stories about it." I have to thank Nick for helping me to tidy up and edit the story. I think it's great to be able to bring a gay story to, if you like, a mainstream site. Only I don't see it quite like that anymore - gay and straight - the terms exist, but 'the times they are a changing!' Speechless: http://www.codeysworld.com/william-king/speechless/speechless.php Come and Go (Nick Campanella - short stores and poetry) https://ncampanella.wordpress.com/category/submitted-works/

In another thread someone said "I think all the AD authors have editors, beta readers, proofreaders or a combination of the three". I don't. I do have someone editing one of my books and another person editing a second, but essentially, I do not have an editor I can send stories to. So if anyone who edits has read anything I have written (of course you will then see the need for your services), and you have the time to do it. Then get in touch. I can send documents in Word (basic) or possibly another word processor. I write in British English.

I highly recommend this short story by a new author http://www.storylover.us/?t=2R6PCUp1Xdh3fcqX A well written emotional story that won't fail to bring a tear to your eyes - I guarantee it. Take a look, it is a wonderful tale and evokes an image of the past rural America that will live in your imagination as will the history that unfolds.

In a future where it never ceases to rain, Joel finds himself alone on the streets after curfew. How he got there is not clear, his memory is fragmented. Is it being rescued to find yourself in a sex club? Past, present and future are interwoven, somehow there must be an answer? Perhaps, he is the answer? And what about the other boys? What about the planet? Is there a future? This new story starts publishing here today, kicking off with two chapters. Enjoy the atmosphere, take a trip into the future!

The school acts - in loco parentis - meaning they take on the role of the parent whilst the child is under their care. Schools absolutely have the responsibility to detect and deal with bullying, thus ensuring the safety of the children attending the school. I disagree with the ideology that promotes sueing anybody and everybody for a failure in the system, however responibility of schools and educators goes beyond simply providing an education, the well being of the child comes first, and the school should be held accountable and if negligence is proven the principal or the education authority should be sacked. Parents have a responsibility too, but they cannot be in class with their children!

I agree with Cole that it's hard to keep up, for everybody. I sometimes feel like a kid again when I have to look up words, phrases and abbreviations in the Urban Dictionary - lucky that exists! Then, the BuzzFeed Style Guide, I looked at the UK version, being British. I realised that even though I write British English, it gets more and more mixed up with American, I have no real preference, it is more a question of how you learnt the language, but the edges are getting blurred. Now throw into the mix that I live in France, listen to and speak French, I find myself - believe it or not - someties struggling with English. I've watched British television series in English and found the people spoke so badly it was difficult to understand what they were saying. Flip the audio to the dubbed French and it was clear- what does that say about language development?

I was reading the thread on Brass Balls, a rewrite by Chris James of an earlier work which is toned down, meaning - I presume, less graphic sex scenes. Cole Parker talks about an upcoming work moving in the opposite direction, which he is wondering about the reaction. That discussion got me thinking about sex in novels. Alan Hollinghurst in his book The Swimming Pool Library has one notable graphic sex scene between the protaganist and a hunky cook over the kitchen table, but that is it, and it is only a paragraph or two. I mention this as an example because I am tending towards the - less is more - school of thought. However, as Cole points out there is a place for both kinds of novel, which is good, because I have a lot of sex scenes in what I have written myself. In fact I am rewriting Refugee, my recently published novel, with the help of an editor, and toning down the sex. Perhaps somewhere there is a happy balance to be achieved. I do tend to think that unless the book is a sexual extravaganza á la William Burroughs, then the number of scenes should be limited, but there is no magic formula. I have enjoyed books like Rivers of the Dead, by Cynus (Samuel D Roe) which concentrate on gay relationships with no graphic sex. I have also, despite the immense popularity, been bored by Drummer Boy, by Arthur, which after thirteen chapters has no discernable gay relationships. I could compare that novel with those by Mary Renault, they are both historical fiction, both have zero sex, but the Mary Renault books are all around homosexual relationships. I recently finished reading Naked in Berlin, a first novel by Ba H Luong, it has graphic sex in every chapter, but it's appropriate, because the story is about the Berlin gay scene, bars, clubs, dark rooms, and drag queens. When I first started writing gay themed stories, I thought it was de rigueur to have sex scenes - nobody tells you otherwise, so I thought it was a readership prerequisite. I discovered much later that this was not the case and that historically the trend in online gay publishing has been a move towards what might be deemed more serious fiction with by consequence less or no graphic sex. In the absence of any reader feedback - which every writer craves, but which is as scarce as hen's teeth - we can only guess at whether or not we have got the balance right!

Joe Casey's story was very well written, the way he handled the dialogue was superb. Geron Kees story was a little longer, took time to build and turn and twist. Pedro brought back the same characters, I think, to visit the challenge scenario, and was oh so British! I read all three and enjoyed them.

I'm writing this here because I don't know where else to say it - Thank You, for making a really great home page for me, I very much appreciate the work put in to do that, so thank you to whoever did that for me ??? Will.

Here below is the first part of chapter one, a new story in the Sci-fi genre. I have never written Sci-fi, so it is an interesting challenge to get into this. The story is set in the future, a future where things have gone wrong - it's raining, all the time, it never stops. Except one day someone tries to fix it... Any and all comments, observations, good, bad, and ugly, are welcome. If you don't like it, that's fine, just say why, because that helps (obviously). Now I'll shut up and let you read It! Chapter One - Reticular Formation The neurons of the reticular formation all play a crucial role in maintaining behavioural arousal and consciousness. Part I – Danger Contamination - making or being made impure by polluting or poisoning. The neon light glowed in the darkness, reflecting washed out colours that reverberated off the sidewalk. The tall glass buildings he hugged gave no protection from the incessant rain that streaked in cords from an unseen sky. “Join us for a new dawn...” the smiling face, ten times larger than reality, announced from the red and blue electric billboard, so far up towards the invisible sky that it towered over the street. “Watch It!” The loud voice jarred him back to earth. He bumped into the figure of a man dressed in a grey hat and overcoat, the collar turned up, his face obscured. The man walked quickly on, ignoring him, mumbling something that was lost in the noise. He stopped, looked down from the giant billboard which was now saying, “life has never been this good...” and turned, watching the figure disappear. He was soaked through to the skin, the clothes he had on offered no protection from the torrential downpour. The loud screaming hum of an electric vehicle zoomed past, a mist of water swirling and scattering behind it. His attention was drawn to watching the rear lights recede down the street. He jumped, startled at the touch of a hand on his shoulder. Turning rapidly to look behind him, he was staring directly into the face of a boy. Another dark figure, cloaked in a hoody, about his own height. “You can’t be on the street during curfew.” The boy offered a half smile, as if he wasn’t sure what the reaction would be. “Curfew?” He questioned. A quizzical expression crossed the stranger’s face, but was gone almost in the same instant. Perhaps he had decided something? His hand gripped Joel’s upper arm. “Come on, let’s go.” He pulled him back along the sidewalk, back in the direction he had started from. Any resistance was momentary. Joel followed the boy. Walking side by side they turned into a small alley between the tall buildings. Suddenly Joel stopped. The boy turned to look at him. They faced each other silently. The rain was dripping from his hair and from the hood covering the boy in front of him. Joel watched, distracted by a glistening rain drop on the tip of the other boy’s nose. “I can’t stay here,” the boy broke the silence. The whirring of another car passing along the main street added a sort of highlight to that statement. Joel was torn, undecided, was it safe? “Come on! “ There was an urgency in the boy’s voice, but Joel didn’t move. The rain bounced off the buildings and pooled in a dark puddle around their feet. The darkness was deeper in the ally, only a faint red glow shed any light, and that was at the far end, almost obscured by the gloom. “Where are we going?,” Joel had found his voice. And now the boy pulled his arm, urging him forward along the alley. Once again he didn’t resist, although his question just hung in the night, unanswered. They stopped below the red glow of an electric sign hanging above the door at the far end of the alley. The dim light it provided washed out by the rain. It flickered, grew momentarily bright, then faded and came back alight. The neon inside buzzed and crackled in rhythm with the flickering light, but looking up it was still clear enough to read the name – ‘BB Club.’’ The boy tapped a code, pushed the door open, and virtually shoved Joel inside. He closed the door behind them. Joel perceived the closing door like another statement in a long series of events. The images crossed his mind one after the other of closing doors, their apartment, the car, the train, the centre. The boy’s hand had moved down Joel’s arm, and his hand found Joel’s hand. The warmth of the boy’s touch was as if a switch had been flicked – this was the first human touch since the door closed at the centre. He was led down a dimly lit corridor, only tiny leds at floor level marked the passage. They moved right, along some stairs which turned, twice, ninety degrees. Now it seemed they were in some kind of basement, below ground. Across the far side of this underground space, the boy opened a door and they went inside. This time as the door clicked shut behind them the light came on with a click and a flicker, the neon tube came alive, buzzed that insane electric noise, like it was gasping for breath. Blinked one final time, as if saying to them with some satisfaction – I’m alive again – the white light finally broke the darkness. Joel looked around. There was little furniture apart from one large bed and a dark brown leather armchair, the material of which was cracked and broken. So much so that the stuffing was trying to escape in several places. The boy stopped in the middle of the room and started to take off his clothes. Joel stared, he didn’t know what to do. What was happening? “Take your clothes off,” the boy told him, looking up as he removed his jeans. Joel didn’t react immediately, he was looking at the boy who now almost completely undressed stood up and stared at him. Hands on hips, with only his underpants on, the boy waited. “Like what you see?” The boy smirked, turned and opened a cupboard door, then removed a towel. Joel didn’t reply, just watched the boy. He threw the towel at Joel. It hit him and dropped to the floor. “For God’s sake, get out of your clothes and get dry.” The boy turned back to the cupboard to get another towel and began drying himself. Joel slowly got undressed. It wasn’t that he was shy, or that he was in any way concerned, the boy had only been nice, but his head was fuzzy. It was hard to get coherent thoughts together. Joel was not at all sure that he had not suffered something, maybe he’d been contaminated? He did as he had been told, removed all his soaking wet clothes, bent down and picked up the towel to dry himself off. It was then he saw the boy was naked. He looked at him standing with his back to Joel picking clean clothes from the cupboard. Something stirred inside Joel as he observed the boy. His eyes rested glued to the figure in front of the cupboard, and in particular to the fine rounded cheeks of the boy’s arse. The boy knew that Joel was looking at him, he could sense the gaze of Joel’s eyes staring into him. He didn’t have to look, he felt it. He pulled on some clothes. He thought to himself – ‘this could work out.’ Once dressed in shorts and t-shirt, he turned around to look at Joel who was standing naked next to a pile of wet clothes, with the towel held in both his hands in front of him. “We’re about the same size,” the boy said. “Come here and pick something to wear.” Joel walked over to stand next to him by the cupboard, but still clutching the towel. The boy turned back and they accidently brushed shoulders. He smiled at Joel. It was definitely a smile, not a smirk, a genuine smile. As Joel reached out to take a t-shirt from the cupboard his towel dropped a little. The boy moved away to sit on the bed, but still watching Joel. To pull the t-shirt on Joel had no alternative than to let the towel drop completely to the floor, and now it was his turn to feel that sensation of someone’s eyes staring. Once the t-shirt was on he picked out some underpants and turned back towards the boy on the bed. “Can I take these?,” Joel asked, holding them up. “Yeah,” the boy replied. “Everything’s clean.” For some weird reason Joel was getting hard. He had no idea why. Joel could look at a person and admire beauty, and the boy was a fine example, but he had never been predisposed to any sort of attraction towards another boy. This was a first! Joel realised that his head was clearing. He got dressed, choosing a pair of jeans, then closing the cupboard and taking a seat in the armchair, which clanged metallically as he lowered himself into it. “It’s a worn out bit of shit,” the boy told him. Joel smiled back.

Where? You didn't add any link!

Not true Cole. I have read good stories, well written, on Niffty. They don't appear here or on other US sites because of the restrictions.

I should be talking about Buffalo Wild Wings, but you have a habit of slipping in casual little asides, which by the way, make your blog ever so interesting, not to mention the entertainment factor. Well your little aside in this instance reminded me how when I was that age I had a thing about finding a black boy. Why? It was something along the lines of wondering what black and white looked like together, or perhaps a simple curiosity about black boys - I did find a nice guy - sort of - that is to say he was engaged with someone else. So all we did together, was talk, c'est la vie!

"Polishing something else entirely..." That's also a boy thing! If I told you about one of the guys I shared an apartment with when I was nineteen, well it might make you wretch. This was beyond slob, way beyond - it was good he never shared a bedroom. Too lazy, or too stoned, maybe both, but when we were having a general clean up, which didn't happen often, we went into his room and what did we find? Quite a few bottles pretty full of a dark brown liquid which wasn't beer or soda or anything drinkable unless you wanted to imbibe your own body fluids. Yuck! We closed the door and left it.

The next two chapters 3 and 4 of Refugee deal with the sexual exploitation of children by aid workers. I recognise that this is a difficult subject, it is however intrinsic to the storyline, and whilst fictional, it is founded in reality. I transposed the events reported by UNHCR in 2002, concerning child sex abuse in African refugee camps to Syria and in this work of fiction the victims are boys rather than girls. If perhaps you might be thinking that is a long time ago, then this information gives a brief summary of the situation continuing forward: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_exploitation_and_abuse_in_humanitarian_response I wanted to include this aspect to the story. The exploitation of vulnerable minors, both sexual and otherwise is a continuing theme, along with their struggle to reach Europe and safety. It is not an easy read, but I make no apology for that, it is a fictional reflection on events taking place in the world we live in.

I was reading an interesting thread from sometime back - - and came across the problem of the website background (white text on black) making some parts of what was written unreadable. I noticed that back then people also commented about not being able to read it. I don't know if you always had the little link, bottom left of the page, that allows you to switch off the background Theme and choose Default, black text on white background. Anyway, I thought it worth a mention, because it's not too obvious that you can do this or where to find it. The black bacground does make some text on parts of the website unreadable.

Teacher pupil relationships are a difficult and delicate subject, because one, they revolve around 'abuse of a position of trust' and two, they may involve 'under age sexual relations'. Having stated that, every case is different, and there do exist such relationships founded in love that endure a lifetime. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with a relationship between two people with a big age gap. It is against the law for a teacher and pupil to be in a relationship, but what I would like to say is that it is not always right to condemn all such relations. The French president married his teacher, a woman twenty years his senior. I worked some years ago with a young lady over a long period on a project together, during which time I shared with her being gay, and she in turn explained how she had met and fallen in love with her husband whilst still at school, when he was her teacher. Their relationship was at first conducted in secret, because of the dire consequences if it were discovered. Nevertheless, they carried on a sexual relationship until such time as they could get married. There is a need to protect 'children' but we should not deny them the right to determine their own lives. We want to protect, not destroy their futures.

Thank you Joe and Chris James for your comments. "Headline news meets fiction" - I didn't need to dig very deep to be confronted by some horror stories and information that seems to be nicely side stepped or omitted by the headlines of mainstream media. You have to then ask yourself if what you just found out is true, but when it is easily cross referenced and is sourced from reputable sources, such as UNHCR reports, Human Rights Watch, and others, then it is reasonable to believe it is. Having the courage to use this background is perhaps something that has caused me a lot of personal debating. It is a work of fiction, but should nevertheless I think, do justice to the situation in which the story is set. I hope this proves to be so, my only test was that I shed some tears whilst writing it.

Thank you Chris, I appreciate you commenting and I am very pleased that it grabbed you, it is a tough story!

We can probably thank Bill Gates, Microsoft, and America that British English still exists. After all if there wasn't a choice between US and British English in the Word spell checker, we would long ago have adopted American spelling and grammar with a generation who read and write using a PC, tablet, or phone, and for whom printed dictionaries are almost Dickension and encyclopedias are unknown dinosaurs from a bygone age, long since replaced by Wiki.

Thank you sir for your kind words and recommendation - this is encouragement indeed, and much appreciated. This short story draws a lot on my own personal experiences, you might say it is very close to the heart. I did actually ask my father what the word 'homosexual' meant, I was eleven years old (not thirteen) at the time. So that part is absolutely true as is the response he gave. The incident on the bus, seeing a boy my age one morning on the way to school is also true. Only it wasn't an epiphany. It happened when I was thirteen and already knew I was gay. The photo is not at all a personal photo, but I did have a crush on a boy at school: doesn't everybody? It wasn't that serious, but he was very cute, and I was upset when he left the school and his family emigrated to Perth, in Australia. I tried to write the narrative using the language of a thirteen year old. I wanted to describe some of those moments that are so important in your life that you remember them forever.

Good point about the link no longer working. I regard that as unfortunate, but if you are really interested you can sometimes find an alternative, example with YouTube links (which can be annoying when you get the message "not available in your country.") Malware is everywhere - that is a question of protection and being vigilant. But I don't think any of this should stop us including links and expanding possibilities - they work or not, it adds something sometimes and takes nothing away (hopefully).

BOOM! The explosion was deafening, followed by the metallic grinding of mangled rotary blades. The jolt pushed Jeremy forward in his seat, the belt across his chest was the only thing keeping him in place, and he never even remembered being buckled in. They were plummeting forwards and down. “We're hit... going down!” He heard the muffled words in his ears. To the right and above the sky was lit with a ball of fire. Jeremy saw the Apache helicopter hurtle past in flames, just as he heard a second explosion the other side of their mangled Blackhawk. But he had no time to take all this in, there was just, very weirdly the taste of iced tea in his mouth, and everything slowed right down. The whirring sound blurred into a continuous loud hum. Then they were crashing through some trees and the sound seemed to pick up, just like a slow motion sequence ending and reverting back to normal. How the hell he managed to pull the nose up – it was impossible. But they were skimming through the trees, almost level. The crashing sound of branches scrapping the sides of the wrecked machine, metal on wood. There was an eerie silence as with a huge bang the helicopter was brought to a halt. Dust and smoke filled the air. An arm reached across and unclipped the belt across his chest. “Come on kid! We need to get out of here.” They scrambled out through the half open door that was twisted and bent out of shape. There were others, but Jeremy couldn't take in the whole scene. He did see at least two bodies, and blood! We're they dead? He didn't know... He didn't want to know. He couldn't believe this was real. What was it he had said? ‘The Crown Prince... release the memory blocks!’