Feeling barely alive. Heat makes me very ill and today it’s in the 90s again. It kicked off a killer migraine (and Kanda is wheezing, poor cat). But this heat is perfect for when I lived in Cassadaga FL (how I didn’t curl up and die from the heat, I still don’t know). This is the first meeting of Ryan and Santino (whom you’ve met). It takes place in Andrew Jackson Davis Hall and Ryan is helping mentor a new psychic to do readings (the snippet refers to his ability to psychically get snippets of a person’s life which is explained in the surrounding scenes)
They’re in this building
His pulse went out of synch with the slow-paced nature of Cassadaga when he spied the dark haired man at the head of the line. He was a whisper short of average height but the stranger made up with it in form. While his TARDIS t-shirt reading ‘You never forget your first Doctor’ wasn’t tight enough to judge chest muscles by, his tanned arms were toned as were his legs left bare by his cargo shorts. The man got extra points for being geeky. …Sometimes knowing people too well by merely touching them, or something they valued, could be heart breaking. It didn’t stop Ryan from wanting to hold this man’s hand. Watch it be one of the time his powers gave him diddlysquat.
If you’d like to play along, Rainbow Snippets is a Facebook community where we post up 6 sentences of one of our LGBT stories every Saturday. It’s been fun and you can find it here. Be sure to check out all the offers! It’s been a great supportive group!
Title: Surfacing Author: A.L. Bates Series: The Ariel Series, Book Two Genre: Gay Romance, Science Fiction Length: Novella
Publisher: Wayward Ink Publishing
Synopsis
A few weeks following the events that concluded DEEP, Book One: The Ariel Series, Captain Joel Riley is struggling to adjust to his new relationship with his medic, Sean, and when a face from Sean’s past sets out to destroy Joel and his ship, Joel faces an impossible decision: Sean or Ariel.
Sensing Joel’s dilemma, Sean makes the decision to leave. He does so knowing he must confront his past and the abuse he suffered. Subjected to the same trauma again, this time at the hands of his brother, he uses the strength Joel taught him to take his future into his own hands.
For Joel, life without Sean proves unbearable and he comes to the realization that he needs more than just his ship. He sets out to bring Sean back… whatever the cost.
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Fleeing from a troubled past that left him feeling tarnished and used, Sean finds work as a medic aboard the deep sea mining ship Ariel, on a distant planet.
Under the leader ship of the infuriating, yet charismatic, Captain Joel Riley, Sean settles into his simple, but dangerous, new life. It’s a life he soon comes to love; albeit one in which he conceals his sexuality and avoids intimacy.
But Sean’s new world is turned on its head when an old face threatens to expose him for the man he used to be.
With Joel’s help, will Sean learn to come to terms with his past and become a man he can be proud of?
Excerpt
JOEL SAT IN a cell with six other inmates. He knew two of the boys from the docking yard; they were sporting bruises on their knuckles and faces. It was a common sight. After months underwater, guys often felt the need to let off too much steam their first night on the town.
Joel himself had been thrown into the drunk tank enough times in his younger days. Only back then he’d been picked up mid-fight, not the morning after.
Across the cell from him two hookers rested against each other, both looking bored with the scenery already. The prettier of the two gave him a smile, and because his mother didn’t raise him to be rude, he smiled back.
“What you in for, sweetheart?” she asked.
“Being too darn pretty,” he said. “What about you?”
“Theft. But we’re innocent, honey.”
“It didn’t cross my mind that you weren’t.”
The main door opened, shedding light into the pit. Joel knew Sheriff Harris from years ago when they’d served on the same ship. The sheriff was a couple of years older than Joel and a leg injury had set him permanently on dry land. The lawman stood in front of the cell, tipping his head to the men he’d arrested. They were thugs, but they were miners, and the sheriff always had respect for men of the sea.
“You want to come with me, Riley?”
“Why? For knocking that bilge-rat around?”
“You might want to do this somewhere private,” Harris said.
Joel could see a shadow lurking by the doorway; the wiry frame of a man keen to press charges.
“We’re looking for a Dr. Sean Leystone. You know him?”
The men around Joel were drunk, but they were listening. He was a man of the sea, one of them. But Joel had already committed to his statement. There was no backing out now.
“Aye, I reckon I do.”
“You mind telling me in what capacity you know him?”
Joel paused, looking toward the hookers opposite. “As I told the Board, I picked him up last night.”
“You picked him up?”
Joel gestured toward the women. “I guess you already had these lovely girls in custody by then.”
A.L. BATES has a keen interest in Sci-fi and adventure novels and enjoys writing stories with strong characters in imaginative backgrounds. Although an avid writer, Deep is the first published novella by A.L. Bates.
The biggest news would be I’m back to work as the semester rolls out and I have every weekend from now til Nov booked and Nov is Nano so really…booked til December. Yikes.
I got the second round of edits on Corpse Powder which was stunningly just the editor checking out all the Navajo and Jewish culture terms. It was the easiest edits ever. I really am looking forward to this weird west anthology!! They’ve started the cover specs but that’s all I know about that part of it.
I have the charity story off with a first reader. I’m considering entitling it More than His Scars Since I’m running the ragged edge of the deadline I’ve contacted them to let them know it is coming.
Speaking of deadlines, I’m seriously doubting I can make the one for Beyond the Infinite but that’s okay. I’m sure I’ll be able to find a home for a a SF story. I did however get over 2K written on it at the faculty meetings which were 8-4 Thursday AND Friday.
I still have the idea kicking around in my head for that short contemporary novel but finding time and motivation has been hard this year. I’m very behind on word count and editing and most everything I wanted to do so…
And so this time I didn’t finish reading everyone’s snippets because lightning took my internet out (and the internet of nearly everywhere around here) and then the back to school professor meetings happened. I swear this week I WILL read everyone’s especially since I’m abusing the system here a bit with about 8 lines instead of 6, mostly because it was just funnier and more complete this way.
Last week in this still untitled (or lamely titled Cassadaga Nights which I hate but can’t think of anything better for), we met the Cassadaga psychic, Ryan (and yes, Cassadaga FL really is a spiritualist commune stocked with psychics. I used to live there but not in the psychic ‘camp.’) Today we meet Santino and his partner, Cam. They work for a group of psychics, witches etc that police the supernatural community (yes one of my favorite things to write, apparently). Santino is cooking dinner while they discuss their latest case in Cassadaga. What prompted this scene was him using telekinesis to bring cooking ingredients to his hands rather than walking to get them.
Oh and this is Harmony Hall where I have Ryan living (should have posted it last week)
“You ran around your parents’ house saying ‘I can use the Force!’ when you were a kid, didn’t you?” Cam cocked her head to the side. “Probably still do.”
Santino held up two fingers and his thumb, making a pinching motion. “I find your lack of faith disturbing,” he intoned.
Cam choked and then slumped on the table, her long raven hair spilling around her.
“Smart ass.” Santino went back to cutting garlic.
“You know you wanted me to do it,” Cam said into the wooden table.
He snorted. Both of them knew he could use his psychokinesis to choke an enemy if need be, and to the enemy, he probably did seem like Darth Vader. Santino liked to think he was on the side of light, though he wasn’t much like Luke. He had Han’s swagger.
If you’d like to play along, Rainbow Snippets is a Facebook community where we post up 6 sentences of one of our LGBT stories every Saturday. It’s been fun and you can find it here. Be sure to check out all the offers! It’s been a great supportive group!
It’s been a couple weeks. Let’s see if I can get back into the swing of things. I’m sick and heading back from vacation so I might still fall down on the job.
This is from a WIP novella set in Cassadaga FL, one of the places I used to live and an active spiritualist community. Ryan is one of the psychics who work there.
Ryan drew his shield around him, letting his psychic senses dampen down. All day, most days, he dropped his armor, walking around exposed, vulnerable on all sides to the flood of stimuli around him. Such was the life of a professional psychic. He couldn’t afford to cut himself off when he was on the job. His clients depended on his abilities. While he could cold read a person to give Houdini a run for his money, Ryan was the real deal when it came to being psychic. Houdini would have had a helluva time debunking his abilities.
If you’d like to play along, Rainbow Snippets is a Facebook community where we post up 6 sentences of one of our LGBT stories every Saturday. It’s been fun and you can find it here. Be sure to check out all the offers! It’s been a great supportive group!
Fleeing from a troubled past that left him feeling tarnished and used, Sean finds work as a medic aboard the deep sea mining ship Ariel, on a distant planet.
Jana Denardo 