The Den of Debauchery's Subannex

My pusher gave to me
Truck-driving lesbians...

Rewriting Old Songs, from the Sappho's Chest Toybox, is now available. For further adventures of Alice and Yolanda, check out ZOMBIALITY

~~~


“I stopped at a road-house in Texas,
A little place called Hamburger Dan’s
I heard that old jukebox a-playing
A song about a truck driving man.”
–Truck Driving Man by Terry Fell

Now I don’t mind driving Texas. I just hate driving Texas in the summer. It always reminds me of when
I was a rookie and locked myself out of my cab in Dallas in July. Sitting in hundred and eight degree
heat, waiting to be rescued, knowing the driver who did was going to tell it to his buddies as “Reason
9788634 why women shouldn’t drive big trucks” is not one of my better memories. These days, I carry
three spare keys, since I don’t drive for a fleet any more and no one can come rescue me without
busting the window out of my girl.

I pulled into the little truck-stop out on the state highway, just north of Dallas. I was fine for fuel, but
that last Dr. Pepper was surely making itself felt. Sometimes I think I’m the only trucker on the road
who hates coffee. I’m not crazy about big truck-stops either. The big commercial chains all look alike,
and the parking lots are always gross. Oil and reefer melt, and other fluids, not to mention the fact most
male drivers piss between their back tires, all makes for a real nasty blend.

I climbed down out of the cab, found the ladies’ room, took a seat at the counter, and there she was. All
long dark hair and big dark eyes in a powder-blue uniform that didn’t do a thing for her gorgeous
copper skin. Her name plate read “Alice,” and I knew every driver, over the age of thirty-five, had said,
“Kiss mah grits” to this pretty lady at some point. The only thing that lasts longer than the smell of
diesel fuel in clothes is bad sitcom catch-phrases.

She came by with a glass of water and a menu. I gave her my best smile and said, “Alice. Dallas
Alice.” She rolled her eyes. Yeah, she heard that one a lot, too. Drivers love the song.

“Sorry, miss.” I placed my order and watched her as she cleaned up, took care of the other two drivers,
and got my order around. She set the taco salad down and stole a glance at my Pride necklace: six
colored rings on a chain. She gave me a little smile and kept working. I ate, but couldn’t stop watching
her. So gorgeou

My pusher gave to me
Werewolves in a happy ending

Siul a ruhn the last of the gay Christmas Werewolf saga is available now.

~~~
I wasn't surprised when the phone rang and a Massachusetts number showed up on the caller ID.
Things had been pretty quiet since we stopped the world from ending on the solstice up in
Arkham last winter. Dan and our friends Corin and Cian did most of the work. Me? I stayed out
of the way and ripped the throat out of anything that tried to hurt my beta and our friends.

Afterward, we'd had Christmas and our birthday. Corin, Dan, and I, like all werewolves, shared a birthday: December the twenty-fifth. It had been good to see and celebrate with our friends.
All the same, I was glad to get home after the trip and busy myself with my quiet, ordinary life. I
had a big project, a new office building to draft. Dan was busy finishing and then editing his
book on Thoreau and outlining the one on Whitman.

We stayed in touch with Corin Faw, Irish werewolf of the genus “grumpy,” and his half-Sidhe
mate, Cian O'Brian. They hadn't moved from Arkham yet. I worried about them, living up there
in legend-haunted, witch-cursed Arkham, running Miska-Tonics, an herb and teashop. They
weren't young by any measure and they sounded older every time we talked to them.

“Hello, pups, did you see the news?” Today, Cian sounded almost as perky as he had the day we
met in Memphis. I'd been rude to the half-Sidhe then, snarling around his shop and growling like
we were on my territory instead of Dan's. Cian had been unfailingly gracious and turned out to
be one of the best friends we had.

“Yeah,” said Dan from the bedroom. I imagined him sprawled on the waterbed, his shirt off and
his bare feet in the air. He was supposed to be editing the galley proofs he'd had for a week.
“And it's very good news. You two still up for that visit in September?” We'd planned to marry
last Christmas, which was also our birthday, after that exhausting bout of saving the world.
However, cultists of the Elder Gods had nothing on old discrimination laws. Massachusetts did
not marry couples whose marriage would not be legal in their home state.

“Hope you're ready to stand up with us,” I added from the kitchen extension. Massachusetts had
finally overturned the old statute and it was time to take their friends up on the offer. Time for
them all to move on as well, past loss of grandfathers and packs, past the nightmares of cities
filled with non-Euclidean angles and slimy horrors, even past the risks of everyday life being out
in Racine, Wisconsin.

“Only if you will do us the same favor,” growled Corin. I knew he was on the apartment
extension on the Massachusetts end. The old werewolf seldom ventured down into his mate's
shop these days, Dan said. His knees complained when he did and his wounds from the battle
ached a lot and made him seem even older. Werewolves are long-lived, but mortal, while the
Sidhe are as deathless as they are soulless. I had no idea of Corin's true age, but I suspected it
was over a hundred.

“You aren't married yet?” I teased. “And you two were so gung-ho for a Christmas wedding.”

“Never got to it,” Cian mumbled. I could almost hear his blush.

My pusher gave to me
More werewolves in the big city

Blue Mistletoe, third in the series, is available for reading or download.
http://brooksandsparrow.com/bluemistletoe.pdf

~~~
A big step. That’s all I could think. I had just left home and family and my pack and my job. Everything I owned was packed in the back of my Honda, or waiting for me in Wisconsin. I’d sent most of my stuff ahead by UPS, books, mostly, my bike and my computer. Everything else I’d either sold or just left with the apartment. Paul had a real bed. I didn’t need a futon anymore. With each mile I put between myself and Memphis, I shivered just a little, and not only because the car’s heater was crap. But I knew this was the right thing to do.

Of course, it was. I pulled in the driveway. There was Paul, my own Big Bad Wolf, waiting for me in
the doorway under a sprig of mistletoe, his tall shape a little podgy, his hair a little longer, otherwise looking just as he had at the airport last December. I’d even worn my Christmas Cthulhu sweatshirt again. He hugged me hello and I wanted to stay in his arms.

“Ready to be a kept man, Furball?” he asked as he shut the door against the cold. “Welcome home.”

I stretched up and kissed him. Home. Home with a basement holding a doggie bed and water bowl for
the full moon. I didn’t quite cry. I thought about it. I’d been kind of shaky since Grandfather died.

Paul looked worried and stroked my hair. “Pup, you okay?” I nodded, but could feel my face making
the rictus of trying to smile when I wanted to cry.

“Do you know,” I didn’t like the thin almost hysterical sound of my voice, “I figured it up? In the last year, I have scored 178 on a life-change scale. By the end of the month–if we do that Christmas wedding you want--I’ll be to almost 300. One hundred leaves you ripe for illness. I suspect 300 leaves me ready for a nervous breakdown.”

Paul looked at me, and I couldn’t hold back any more. I hate being upset. I feel all hot and cold and I can always feel my ears and teeth getting longer and my chest going hairier. It hurts to change off the full moon. I clawed at the doorknob, its operation totally eluding me, and something in me howled to be outside.

My pusher gave to me,
a gay werewolf in Racine

~~~
If you would like to read "Cake Under The Mistletoe," the first of the Gay Christmas Werewolves series, I have it posted in .pdf format.

Click to read.
Right click to save.

Cake Under the Mistletoe

~~~

On the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog. Old joke. It wasn’t that funny fifteen years ago. But, on the internet, nobody knows you’re a werewolf. New joke. And it still isn’t that funny.

Legend has it that children born on Christmas Day become werewolves. That’s just silliness, of course, given the millions born on that day, and the relative scarcity of lycanthropes in the population. But at the stroke of midnight between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, at the magic hour when animals are supposed to talk? That’s a different tale altogether.

My mother was no superstitious peasant woman that Christmas Eve in 1967. The indigestion from her mother’s eggnog turned out to be labor. I understand she spent much of it cursing my father for being frisky in March and making her miss Midnight Mass.

Childhood was easy enough. There was no sign of anything abnormal. Then, puberty hit me like a freight train of hormones and hair. One day, cracking voice. The next, a full-fledged loup-garou in the dining room. Thoroughly modern suburbanites do not take well to a werewolf in the family. My father, ever the shrink, blamed my mother for too early toilet training. Mother just sniffed and said I had to have gotten it from his side of the family.