This Is Heaven --- Book cover reveal

This Is Heaven cover art --- by Joe Phillips

Here's the cover art for THIS IS HEAVEN: 

As in the case of the GREEN EYES it's by Joe Phillips, the mesmerizing artist, and it features his model, the "Latino Boy", who's also our model for Alex Iglesias, the lead character of the Heaven-saga.

Fragment, fragment. Sure. Here, CH 29, "I strike a deal with Mephistopheles, I win," in which Alex tries to convince John, the narrator, that they'd rather break up because he, Alex, has lost his soul. Here's how the chapter begins:


Alex would take me to the debate in his car, and I shouldn’t worry, he’ll give me a ride back, if necessary. We didn’t have much time to talk, and he’s sorry and apologizes as usual. Perhaps we could converse in the car; he had some time to think. He needs to share a thought, just a thought.

Ambulance paramedic that he is, or was, he knows the shortcuts of Georgia Beach, and in particular the spruced-up bike path that shares the bridge with the Davis Canal and leads from the parking lot through the ghetto up to Georgia Avenue. So we are supposed to talk, but he’s sitting behind the wheel and doesn’t say a word. People sometimes do this, especially in movies when they want the audience to focus on their effortless silhouette; the low bridge of his nose mildly turned up (not enough for a snub-nose but sufficient for the boy-component in a big brother); the eyelashes which are a bit too long for big brothers; the brows, wide and elongated (each and every single brow-hair perfectly aligned (like he’s employing an invisible, yet acrobatic cat that licks them twice per hour)); the jaw, which isn’t macho but large enough to support the seamless definition of his chin lines; the lips, closed at the moment but wide and misleadingly sensual; his smooth Latino skin; the fitting ears that seem to know everything; the black hair cut short on the side according to the latest fashion (a strange feature in an α-personality usually dismissive of trendiness). Then there’s the prominent back of the head segueing into a muscular neck; the shoulders of course that do the big-brother thing all on their own, the biceps (ditto), triceps (ditto), all of this very much in evidence with him in a green tank top that would match the color of his eyes if anything on the planet could match the color of his eyes. We arrive at the precipitous drop of his torso along the pecs and abs and down into the groin where the perfect bulge in his shorts is always in evidence due to his—what he calls his anatomy. And we wrap up with his hirsute thighs and his dirty, sexy sneakers in the pedal space underneath. And don’t forget the big hands on the steering wheel.

“You’re beautiful,” I say.
“Why did you break my A/C?” he replies

[...]

And here, a bit more, only a few lines:

We’ve arrived at the Dream Creamery on the corner of Georgia Avenue and the board walk-—the ruling ice cream parlor, very popular with the confessive rainbow crowd. “Let me buy you an ice cream,” he says. He fumbles in his pockets and issues various pieces of paper, including some greenbacks. The paperwork is resorted and repacked, a medication bottle appears in cameo, a twenty-dollar bill is found.
“What do you want?”

A sheep led to the slaughterhouse, a squirrel in love with a cobra, John Lee ditched by Alexander Iglesias, what do they want?

“Banana, stracciatella, and lemon,” I say.

“Good,” he says, exhaling.
“Good, why?”
“I can’t read thoughts.”
“You were trying?”
“Yes, I was. You were telling me I could read thoughts, remember? Glad it isn’t true.”
“Well,” I say. “Actually, I don’t want ice cream.”
“Oh, shit.”

He proceeds to order anyhow-—he’s always served first, he only has to show up with his cat-licked eyebrows and is served banana, stracciatella and lemon.

[...]


Two more lines, the last:

“You play with me, Alex. You know you’re X times smarter, and you play with me.”
“We’re having an argument, ain’t we? An instance of rational discourse. Let the better man win.”

Are you still there? Then you'll possibly like the GREEN EYES. The first part is out now, available as Kindle book on Amazon, under this link:

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The cloud bank --- This Is Heaven --- teaser (26)

A few more weeks, and This Is Heaven is available on pre-order. At that point, we're going to consolidate all teasers into a separate page, so enjoy this one---one of the last teasers we're posting. John, forsaken John, has spent the night stumbling through the lonely streets of  his hometown, and now he's returning home.


Dunno what happened to my house keys. I’ll have to ring and hope somebody will buzz me in. Maurice will buzz me in and say nothing and plop down on a kitchen chair and refocus on his cornflakes and a cup of tea.
This is Day Four of the festival but the first without palaver on my bed. “Where’s everybody?” I ask. “What happened to Alex?”
“What happened to you?” Maurice replies. He arches his eyebrows.
I arch mine.
He raises the teapot. “Tea?” he asks.
I shake my head and proceed to make coffee. Somebody has operated the dish washer and there’s a clean mug inside. “What time is it?” I ask. His eyes travel to the clock above the kitchen cabinet that shows the correct time twice per day. “You’re up early,” I say.
“Indeed.”

___________________

"Why did you run away? Can't you handle a little neighborhood orgy?"

___________________

I sip my coffee and peer at the water tower outside. I’ve been fairly downbeat on the thing throughout this soap, but it keeps you busy in its quiet way—-like trees keep you busy, or nervous flies, or the thought of an afterlife.
“Day Four,” I say, “day four.”
Maurice tries his campy laugh: “Why did you run away? Can’t you handle a little neighborhood orgy?
“I’m less experienced than you are,” I say.
“Taylor will have brought you up to speed, shouldn’t he?”
“Taylor, Taylor,” I say.
“Not to speak of Ben. Or the master himself.”
“Master?”
“Alex. Yes.”
Maurice beholds me with a mix of annoyance and reticence: “Are we jealous?”
“Alex ditched me.” I say (croak). "Sort-of."
“Yes, his remark yesterday. I thought he was joking.”
“No, he wasn’t.”
“We shan’t blame him, or shall we?”
“No.”
“And you, whom did you ditch? Sort-of? You look tired.”
“I didn’t sleep.”
“You didn’t sleep, darling. Alone, or with somebody else?”

I close the door. I close it softly.

"Mr Lee" --- This is heaven --- Teaser (22)

We're really progressing with This Is Heaven, so we're in a bit of a hurry. John got himself into another flagrante with Taylor, and this time the flagrantist---(neo? neo?)---the flagrantist was Inspector LaStrada himself, so we re-find ourselves in jail. And then there's Ray of course, John's old friend, who's still held by the authorities in connection with Neill Palmer's death. This is the beginning of Chapter 25, and we'll take you up to one of the stepping stones for the overdrawn happy ending. Enjoy:

The police station of Georgia Beach sports two jail cells off the main office. It’s old-fashioned, homely almost, a film noir of sturdy iron bars to which jail birds are supposed to cling in silent desperation.

They’ve separated me and Taylor in a transparent attempt to prevent more lewd interaction between John Lee, age 29, sex-male, race-Caucasian (I had to provide my personal details yet again), and Taylor Stanford Hart, sex-male, race-Caucasian, age-perhaps-illegal—Taylor had failed to convince them of his 18th birthday, he doesn’t look the birthday boy at all. Your Social Security Number? That would be 067-70-9756. Say that again: “067-07-9765.” It won’t take it. The computer. The number. Sorry. “You have no driver’s license?” No, he don’t, because he’s a nerd (Taylor put it differently). Sorry.

“067-07-9765”

I’m alone in Cell No.1, Taylor is with Ray in Cell No.2. Ray couldn’t possibly have followed the conversation about “carnal knowledge” going on in the main office, a topic to which Taylor and I contributed very little-—letting LaStrada dictate his observations to a desk officer behind an unwilling computer while the goldfish in its bowl was looking on-—us not questioning whether Mr. Lee’s “hold” on Mr. Hart’s “member” was intentional or perhaps the result of a regrettable slip-up due to substandard illumination inside the Green Room-—except that Mr. Hart, at a critical juncture, namely when LaStrada had run out of things to say about “members” and poised to switch to the transgressive part of the arrestees’ malfeasance (the yellow crime tape, the perimeter violation)-—that Mr. Hart, whose mother runs a Baltimore law firm (we will learn soon)-—that Taylor asked several nerdy questions about the goldfish, questions which engaged the desk officer in lengthy answers, so lengthily that Strada’s cell began to ring and the detective was called away. I lost my train of thought. Yes, Ray could not have followed the conversation, but he’s sensitive, very sensitive, and now he’s gazing expectantly at his cell mate.

_________________________________

...us not questioning whether Mr. Lee’s “hold” on Mr. Hart’s “member” was intentional or perhaps the result of a regrettable slip-up...

_________________________________

Ray could easily handle the truth-—he must have spent a quarter of his life in darkrooms-—but we’ve somehow skirted the subject and blamed everything on the police tape and regrettable misunderstandings.

Why don't they just purchase blood --- This is heaven --- teaser (21)

We've been slacking, but here it is, the next teaser of This Is Heaven. This teaser is mostly for insiders, intimi to the meanderings of the Twilight Saga (hint: Robert Pattinson). In the previous chapter Alex has told John about his devastating plan to move back to his own dig, and now we see John exposed anew to Taylor and his friends from the club of vampire freaks, including pal Tex. Tex is about to develop renegade thoughts, so we keep it short (the picture is Joe Phillip's design for the cover of the book). 

I get distracted by the sight of Taylor. Taylor is with his pal (“Tex”), who’s talking insistently. They end up at our stand, Taylor buys a lighter from Luke, but his pal won’t let up. “I understand Count Dracula and his folks,” Tex is saying, “they were mean-spirited and banking blood wasn’t on the agenda then, surely they had to feed on humans, but the Cullens of Twilight, Doctor Carlisle is a medical doctor, and they’re so preppy and above the fray and in favor of gun control, I’m sure, I’m sure they’re fucking liberals, all of them, why don’t they just purchase blood from a blood bank? Why this hunting of deer in the rainy forest of the Puget sound?”

“You don’t get it,” Taylor answers.

“And you should look at the deer, these cute Bambies grazing on succulent ferns growing for the occasion between the redwood trees. And then there’s a sense of impending danger because the director of photography won’t hold still, Bambi’s eyes dart at us, a cry for help that goes unanswered because we’re strapped to the comfort chairs of this multiplex, popcorn at hand. And now she’s off, Bambi, running for her life, and Dr. Carlisle is chasing her, although you can’t really see him chasing her, what you see is a vortex of black substance chasing Bambi, but it is Carlisle, to be sure, it’s him or Emmet or Rosalie or Esme or somebody else of his clan.”
“You don’t get it.”
“No, exactly, I don’t get it,” Tex says.
“It’s easy,” Taylor answers.
“No, it’s not.”
“Well, the question has been asked before.”

_________________________________________________

"Bambi's eyes dart at us, a cry for help that goes unanswered because we're strapped to the comfort chairs of this multiplex."

_________________________________________________

Taylor’s looking for help, and we make eye contact. Eye contact is different once you’ve had sex, and it had been me who got him into this shit yesterday, I really have to make it up to him: “Look it up on the internet,” I say to Tex.

Trump's razor

In yet another vain attempt at self-promotion we have to---we simply HAVE TO react to Urban Dictionary's word of the day, Trump's Razor. 

Because. Yes, because (a) the Urban Dictionary plays an important role in the GREEN EYES, and there are also cameo appearances of (b) Occam's Razor, and even (c) of Trump himself. 

(Ad a) We have Raffael Beeblebrox, a senior editor of the Urban Dictionary showing up in CH. 5 of This Is Heaven and discussing John's neologisms (e.g., "i-Thing," and "adult parts.") Later, in CH. 47, we'll rerun this discussion on John's latest neo-finds (e.g., "out-plussed," and "cloud fart.") But...the best invocation of the Dictionary happens in CH. 23; Alex has returned to his apartment for the first time after his suicide attempt last week: 

The chaos of Thursday’s rescue panic is still in place, Ray and me dragging Alex’s OD’d body through the lack of space of this tiny apartment, low knee walls below the sloped ceilings, all chairs (two) fallen over, a coffee table (yard sale) fallen over, a small couch (yard sale) at an odd angle, a couch table (displaced), a helpless mini-rug (dog-eared), shards of a broken coffee mug spread across the rough-hewn floor. I collect a few pieces and arrange them side by side on the kitchen counter top. It’s merchandise spin off from the Urban Dictionary, saying SUCKING STREAK. There’s also a definition of the term, presumably, still spread across the floor, and perhaps not really needed.

Post-coital checkup --- This Is Heaven --- Teaser (18)

We have this brilliant new picture by Chang, but we can't post two pictures in a row, so here's a teaser of This Is Heaven in between. Plus, Michael's just finished the first draft of the manuscript today. 

We're in Chapter 19. John & Alex have been urged to check on Juliette, who's supposedly in her hotel room. And then there's Barbette Bienpensant (the professor and Juliette's half-sister), and Romeo---you'll see.

Hold on, the illustrations are a bit dada.


The professor bangs on the door and attacks the door knob. No reaction. “Hold the line,” Alex says to her, “briefly.”

“Juliette,” he says to the door. “Wonder girl, we need your help.” He knocks twice.
“It’s too late,” Bienpensant says, “we need somebody to force the door. The concierge. The ambulance.”
“Wonder girl,” Alex enunciates, “Alex.”

This is a noisy building from the 70’s, we should hear something inside—-if. And yes, there’s a sound, the bounce of a closet door maybe. The door unlocks and Juliette’s head appears in the crack. She looks drowsy at first, then defiant, then resigned. She lets go and retreats. We enter. Romeo is on the bed, half-hiding under the sheets (Juliette wears a bathrobe).

"We...

“What is this,” Bienpensant says, “who is this boy?”
“False alarm,” I say (idiotically).
“This is Romeo,” Juliette says, “who else?” She walks up to the bed and sits down.

The ad that ends the culture wars --- This is heaven --- Teaser (17)

John is back home where he's confronted with Ben --- Ben, last week's conquest and this week's backbone of the newfangled A-level Escort Service. For more context, read here how Ben got tricked into this by Alex, and here how he discharged his duties during his first A-level assignment.


Ben has a very long shower at the moment and my feeling is that he’s going to depart from my life pretty soon, the way he shot cursory glances at the bedstead and then at me---which was still okay, especially under the circumstances---but then he asked whether he could use the shower, and his next step will be to ask whether he can use the bathroom, and then he’s gone.

We shouldn’t belabor the obvious here, but if you’re in the pay of one of these outfits that use “family” as code against gays, and you’re tasked to produce the definitive ad, the ad that ends the culture wars, you could do much worse than to tell the story of a young, handsome Afro-American who has options, obviously, when it comes to sexual preferences, and who falls into the hands of this homosexual assistant professor of French who’s only option is a tangled ménage with a rape victim and a suicide victim and pimping handsome Afro-Americans to high-strung Valkyries---not to mention Ray, the murder suspect whom he hasn’t met yet.

Now Ben’s back from the shower, and this is my last chance. He’s wearing these graffiti briefs that look so great on him even when not quite fresh, and he's just standing there, the precise model of ebony perfection, unconscious of his own skin, one more second before he’ll ask whether he can use the bathroom. So you say: “Ben.”

"Not so difficult to play Sherlock Holmes when you are Dr. Watson" --- This is heaven --- Teaser (16)

(We're still not yet done with this "Heaven," two more chapters to write---two difficult ones, including the climactic scene---and then there's the happy ending, a drawn-out affair because we're completely over the top with five or six separate blissful closures all happening at the same time. As to the teasers, we're back to schedule briefly, so this post follows up on Teaser 14, which ended with a Censured Section---Taylor is one day shy of his 18th birthday as he and John enter the restroom facilities of the festival's Green Room. The censured part ends with the habitual flagrante, this time enacted by Professor Barbette Bienpensant. For more context, have a look at Teaser 14.)

There’s a knock on the door.

She has issues, but she’s not an fool, especially when it comes to two males with vacant expressions on their faces, oiled in sweat, one of them still buckling his belt, them apparently having spent quality time in 120 degrees Fahrenheit and the stench from an underserviced john. The Bienpensant looks us up and down. Bulge check. Are we drunken again?

(This is so subtle.)

Taylor is utterly embarrassed. This will heal him of all homoerotic tendencies. I’m even more embarrassed. But I have my moments. So I say to the professor: “You need to use the bathroom?”

She has to think about this. “You’re asking the wrong question,” she says.

Some real macho-man would now say something like “See you later, Professor,” or “See ya later, Barbette.” But us, we just hurtle away, heads half-dropped, we could be holding hands on the way to the gallows. 

Whatever happens down there, up here, in our heads---most women would possibly deny much is going on there---up here us males get back to normal immediately, it’s an important reason for starting a hand job, and for finishing it, and it’s an important reason for divorces as well. We can’t just trot back together to the stand, ten minutes late. “I need to see a man about a horse,” I utter somewhat incoherently and point into the direction of the trailers along the canal. “See you later.”

Now you see it, now you don't (updated)

(Scroll down for the update)

We have a page on Facebook, and we're offered a $10 voucher to "boost a post," meaning that you pay FB money so they show your post to more people---it's a transparent form of advertising, of course. Ten dollars for free, what the heck, so we boost Teaser #14 of This Is Heaven...but...wait...the boost is rejected. It wouldn't be a "pleasant experience" for FB users, especially the pecs of Robert Pattinson won't. Next we try Teaser #15 (the balloon dog shorts). That's rejected as well, on the same grounds. Well, let's see, what could be more unpleasant than an ungeheures Ungeziefer, a monstrous vermin à la Franz Kafka. We try, and succeed. The boost is accepted --- a pleasant experience indeed.

Along those lines...here we have the cover of Perry Brass' book Carnal Sacraments...

...adorned by the work of the German painter Sascha Schneider, a highly recognized Symbolist artist. Amazon---Amazon, this time, not FB---doesn't let Perry place advertisements for his book because of the 'nudity' on the cover.

Comparativer (Glenn)

Fragment, fragment. Here, fresh from the presses, Ch. 42 of This Is Heaven ("John is a great guy"). Note the emphasis:


Now the branching: (1) If this is their first time, there will be uninhibited petting and groping until they reach Alex’s single bed about which Ben will briefly comment (“exactly like mine”), and then they make love. (2) If this is their second time---more likely, alas---there wouldn’t be anything immediate, the kiss would be deeper, the lips would be wetter, but that would be it. They disengage and look at each other. It’s real this time, Ben lost in admiration of Alex’s beauty---beauty here in the widest sense of the word, full Plato---and so it’s about Alex's inner assets, his intelligence, wit, charisma, soul. Alex reciprocates---not quite as innocent as we’d like (Ben’s body, skin, lips, cheerful profile, resplendent teeth, hip-hop kinetics pass the alpha mind)---but soon we revert to the truer issues, Ben’s own charisma for example, or his effortless formality (not that we’ve seen much of it during this episode, but I assure you), or Ben’s bearing, accentuated and tender (somehow letting others know how important they are---his secret weapon during A-level assignments, I guess, and a key ingredient of the alchemy between the two). And the nostrils. OMG, I failed to mention Ben’s breathing nostrils.


Are you still there? Then you may like the GREEN EYES. The first part is out, available as Kindle book on Amazon, under this link:

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What we have to say about Donald Trump

Well, we're too stunned to say anything about Donald Trump at this point, so let's revert to Franz Kafka, the obvious choice under the circumstances. Here, the opening paragraph of Kafka's best-known novella, The Metamorphosis (scroll down): 

One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. He lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by arches into stiff sections. The bedding was hardly able to cover it and seemed ready to slide off any moment. His many legs, pitifully thin compared with the size of the rest of him, waved about helplessly as he looked.


(And the rainbow colors? That's sheer coincidence, of course, but we do have a fragment---written last week---before the elections---written a few days ago, from Chapter 43 of our hopeless novel This is Heaven:) 


There’s a short story by Franz Kafka about Gregor, a traveling salesman waking up one fine morning mysteriously transformed into a “humongous bug,” “monstrous vermin,” or “giant insect” (depending on the translation from the German ungeheures Ungeziefer). This gets him into a lot of trouble, but the dude had at least the good fortune never to visit Georgia Beach, GA, and wake up there in the hospital’s emergency room under the merciless eyes of Dr. Alice Sandeman, a person who absolutely despises bugs, vermin, and insects, especially large ones.

Are you still there? Still clinging to your sense of extremely dark humor in these trumpled times? Then you may like the GREEN EYES. The first part is out, available as Kindle book on Amazon, under this link:

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Telepathy (Maud)

(And the GREEN EYES, anything they have to say about this? Sure, lots of stuff, we're like the Blues Brothers, we have Country and Western. Here, from Ch 11 of This Is Heaven, in which John has his first interview with Detective-Inspector LaStrada (very short):) 


Let me interrupt myself and talk about James Bond again. It doesn’t matter which movie, so let’s talk about the last one, Skyfall. Daniel Craig introduces himself to Dr. No or one of No’s co-workers, like Bérénice Marlohe, say, and says “The name is Bond, James Bond.” And while any other person on the planet would now go, like, ‘Great,’ or ‘Can you give me an autograph,’ Bérénice has apparently never heard of the super-hero of popular culture, grimaces distantly, and shakes the stranger’s hand. 



(We also have stuff about telepathy; we'll do that next time, we're in a hurry, departing for Bavaria)

Vampire trivia --- This is heaven --- Teaser (14)

The vampire kids that we met earlier show up again. Main characters here are John (narrator), Alex (Main object of desire), Maurice (the third musketeer), and Taylor, a vampire kid & nerd & homophobic to boot. Maurice has been charged thinking up questions for today's criterion of the Festival, which is about vampire trivia. Let's see where this leads us.


The cell-phone rang.

It’s Maurice. He’s stuck. Writer’s block. He can’t think of anything decent, trivia-wise. Nothing with a snap-your-finger feel. “Does it matter?” I ask.

“Certainly,” he says, “that’s why we are in the business of writing, isn’t it, to feel inspired, and by feeling inspired becoming more inspired.”
“You sound like an expensive graduate course of something,” I say.

He falls silent.

“I’m sorry,” I say, “I apologize. I went too far.”
“Indeed,” he says.
“The trivia,” I say. “Think of it as a commission. Quick and dirty. Deadline approaching, copy editor leering over your shoulder.”
“Well, nobody is leering over my shoulder.”
“Ben still asleep?”
“Indeed.”
“Hold the line,” I say.

Robert Pattinson in Twilight

‘Hold the line,’ I said, because Juliette’s friends are upon us, the children of vampire trivia. “We missed you yesterday,” Alex has said to them in the meantime.

"I'm still a virgin" --- This is heaven --- teaser (4)

(The Happy Ending Is over now, was the title of the first chapter. But John is still with Alex---and the plot thickens already (go here for the previous teaser)---because Ben has called, the other guy John met last week. Here's the beginning of the next chapter. The boys are about to meet Juliette and Taylor, both pivotal characters to the plot of Part II:) 
  

We are about to turn the corner of Nick’s Restaurant but are held back by a bunch of kids coming from Georgia Avenue. Teens, mostly, tribal in appearance, piercings, pipe jeans, one or two Cherokee heads, overnighted mascara and a discordant air of nerdy-ness that I haven’t seen since I visited MIT once; some of them even wear oversized glasses. They look at us, we look at them, Alex’s arm is still on my shoulder. There’s something exploratory about their body talk, and one or two are homophobic (if I read them well (I’ll have to relativize this later)). “You know where the beach is?” a pale-faced girl without piercings asks Alex (we are standing on the boardwalk). Alex explains about the beach (“This is the beach”).

"This is the beach." (This is the beach of Rehoboth Beach,
DE, seen from the vantage point of Peggy Noonan's statue)

“You locals?” Yes we are. They’ve just arrived per overnight ride in second-hand passenger vans still misparked on the main street, they explain. “Where’s the festival?” The festival is on the grounds of Surfside Field, between Lake Gerard Park and the beach, half a mile to the north, at least that’s where it was in the past.

“That’s where the gay beach is?” one of the homophobes asks. He’s dressed for the occasion, black cape and artificial fangs that shine in the sun when he opens his mouth (if they are artificial, that is). The horn-rimmed, oversized glasses don’t fit; perhaps he need them.

"Taylor, come on, you can do your sodomy thing later."

“Taylor, come on,” his pal says, “you can do your sodomy thing later, when your penis is grown.” Alex is patient, he explains about the gay beach.

“You guys are gay?” the girl asks.
“You guys are vampires?” Alex asks back.
“Yup,” the second homophobe says.
“Real ones?” Alex asks.

There’s some tribal confusion, they haven’t decided yet.

“Yup,” Taylor insists.
“You should be lying in your coffin,” Alex says and points at the sun.
“That’s so yesterday,” the girl replies, “you should read Twilight.”“Twilight?”
“Yes, the saga.”
“Where are your fangs?”

“I’m still a virgin, “she says. “What’s your name?”
“Alex,” he replies, “What’s yours.”

“Juliette.” And, having said this, the virgin touches Alex’s pecs (he’s still top-naked, the T-shirt dangling from his right hand), makes a seductive step forward—she’s quite a bit over the top, perhaps the strain from the night ride or peer pressure from the tribe, this doesn’t look like her normal routine—and asks, the voice a bit slower: “Alex, will you buy me an ice cream.”

“Ice cream is not good for virgins,” Alex replies.
“I’ll do anything for ice cream.”
“Yeah, I guess,” he says. He turns to me: “Let’s see where this goes, let’s buy her an ice cream.”

“We have no money,” I say. “We didn’t bring any money.” The tribe erupts in laughter.

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A cheap motel for intercourse with a near stranger --- This is heaven --- fragment

Our friend Glenn sends this picture... 

Question: wouldn't "intercourse with a perfect stranger" be much funnier?

...while we are writing Chapter 28 about John and Taylor making out in a hotel room...so we simply had to post this post. There's a lot of sex in the chapter that we omit...some of the text overlaps with recent posts, apologies...what we are trying to do, give you an impression of the entire seduction sequence...seduction isn't possibly the right word, defloration might be a better word...although we're doing a bit more than just defloring Taylor who has just turned 18...

For more context go here, or here.


So we’ve been set free, and are now walking past the row of nervous aspen trees lining the Davis Canal, heading north in the direction of Georgia Avenue. We feel a bit experimental, both of us (I guess), so we make conversation that’s not centered on what happens between horny males in overheated bathrooms and decrepit trailers, or whether it’s accidental or providential (what happens there).

Still, as you might imagine, it’s on my mind whether there’s a follow-up to this, a Taylor-closure, as it were, some full sexual act with this youth played out in some convenient location, like, say, my bedroom---which would be the least convenient location in all of Georgia Beach with Maurice and Ben and everybody else around. Taylor doesn’t know about Maurice and Ben, of course, although he’s possibly assuming that Alex could be a roadblock, the only person who isn’t available as a roadblock at this juncture, sadly. Perhaps we could apply my overcharged credit cards to the reservation roster of the Lupo di Mare, the hotel-restaurant around the corner, or consider the Atlantic Sands Hotel, where we would bump into a wisened Juliette who’d figure us out immediately, the way providence (and female instinct) works.

A propos roadblocks

We’re about to reach the corner of Canal Street and Georgia Avenue. We would have to turn left here (and then left again) to get to my apartment with its bed chamber and other ingredients of supposed privacy, or turn right in the downtown direction and return to the Surfside Field, supposedly. Another round of green-room sex is out of the question, of course, not to mention trailers and police tape. We’ve painted us into a corner. Where do we go from here?
“Where do we go from here?” I ask (one of my better lines today).
“You go home now?” he asks.

John Dunno of Wichita Falls --- This is heaven --- teaser (3)

Tee time for Teaser 3 of This Is Heaven, the sequel to the GREEN EYES. It's short and sweet, this teaser, true balm for our challenged attention spans.

(The Happy Ending Is over now, is the title of the second (ie. the first) chapter, and John will know it. He's picking himself up, dusting himself off after yet another morning triangle in the gay dunes, and the plot thickens already. John is with Alex of course---so much is still left of the happy ending (go here for the previous teaser)---but in the meantime Ben has called, the other guy John met last week, and Alex was all-ear. "What was Ben's last name?" Alex has just asked:) 
  

“Ben is his pet name,” I say.
“He has a real name?”
“John.”
“Ben is John. Cool. John and John. Could be a bit confusing, though. Glad his real name isn’t Alex. You sure?”
“How do you mean?”
“Alex. He’s not another Alex. You sure?”
“Yes.”
“And his last name?”
“Dunno,” I lie.
“John Dunno, funny.”
“It’s not Dunno. It’s ‘I-don’t-know’.”
“How do you know it’s not ‘Dunno’ if you don’t know?”
“I mean,” I say.
“John Dunno of Witchita Falls, Texas. Not likely I would know the guy.”
“Yes.”
“Not likely you would know the guy.”

John Dunno of Wichita Falls, Texas

Is he playing with me? Will he be always like this? It’s not too late to explain. I could have met Ben a few weeks ago, days, eons before I met Alex. Met him a few weeks ago, introduced him to Luke, Luke needs a hand for the festival. Ben has my number, of course he calls. Explain, John, explain.

"Hi Sunshine" --- This is heaven --- teaser (2)

Part I of the GREEN EYES is out, and so we've started a rerun of what we got of Part II so far. We have ca 60% of the text, but there are some problems with the plotting, how the various story lines of this soap opera will come together...

...The Happy Ending Is over now, is the title of the second (ie. the first) chapter, and John will know it. He's picking himself up, dusting himself off after yet another morning triangle in the gay dunes, and the plot thickens already.  John is with Alex of course---so much is still left of the happy ending (go here for the previous teaser)---but now Ben is calling, the other guy John met last week:
  

My cell rings.

“Hi, Sunshine,” a male black voice speaks into my right ear. It’s the ear next to Alex’s left ear. I’d almost forgotten about Ben. Well, no, I didn’t forget, I've been too busy. ‘Sunshine?’ I think.
“This is me. Can you hear me?” Ben says. I can hear him loud and clear. Perhaps I should lower the sound. Where’s the button? I hate my cell-phone.
 “This is me. Can you hear me?” Ben repeats. Alex softens his grip.
“Yes,” I answer, the phone now on my left ear.
“John?” Ben asks, or retreats.
“Yes,” I say.

I should say ‘Ben’ now, or ‘Hi Ben,’ or ‘Is that you, Ben,’ mention his name at least (his name is “John,” by the way, like mine, Ben is his pet name).
“Is that you,” I say.
“John,” Ben answers, the voice more relaxed.
“Yes,” I say.
“Where are you?”
“On the beach, more or less.”
“All by yourself?”
“With a friend,” I say.
“Cool,” Ben says, “you know what?”
“No.”

The happy ending is over now --- This is heaven --- teaser (1)

Part I of the GREEN EYES is out, and so we are starting with a rerun of what we got of Part II so far. We have ca 60% of the text, but there are some problems with the plotting, how the various story lines of this soap opera will come together...

Anyhow, PART II ("This is heaven") resumes the thread where Part I dropped it, in the dunes of the gay beach of Georgia Beach. "I'm ticklish," Albert the beach bear had said in the last line of Part I, and the consequence is an unprintable chapter of yet another triangle in the dunes. So we repeat the trick of Part I, replace the first chapter by a short prologue, and find ourselves in our habitual, post-coital position: we are trying to go home. "We," that's Alex and John, of course, and one thing you need to know about Alex: he labored under a clinical depression in his former life. There was a suicide attempt (on Thursday last week). Alex recovered, but with serious amnesia. He lost the memory of his depression, but also the memory of his sexual orientation (the left column provides an introduction to the main characters of the GREEN EYES)...

Let me think. ‘The happy ending is over now,’ I think. I look askance at Alex’s rippled abs (he’s still holding the T-shirt in his hand, it’s sizzling hot already, we’re oiled in sweat), let my eyes travel to his pelvis region, then back up along the lithe, sleekly muscled torso, the strong neck, the clear, boyish profile. He has grown an inch or two since his failed suicide. He feels my eyes on his Latino skin, I know.

The gay beach of Rehoboth Beach, DE, the model for Georgia Beach

“The happy ending is over now,” I say after a while.

“Don’t say that,” he replies, “Happy endings can’t end.”

“I wish it were true.”

“It is true. It’s true for the best of all possibly reasons.”

“I’d settle for any reason at this moment.”

“The power of subsumption.”

“Huh?”

“Happy endings can’t end since endings ended already. They are part and parcel of endings in general.”

“Sheer semantics,” I say.

“Exactly,” he says, “sheer semantics. Rooted in meaning of the word ‘end’.”

“Well, you know what I mean.”

“Okay,” he says and puts his arm around my shoulder. He’s conceding the point. For once. 

Well, no. “The power of subsumption,” he regroups, rolls his head, and gives me this new look with his emerald eyes, the bad-boy-post-felo-de-se-look that signals the defeat of his depression.

Christopher Lee (1922 - 2015)

(This is a deep post in a literal sense, so don't hesitate to scroll down:)

“To be a legend, you’ve either got to be dead or excessively old!” 

Anything the Green Eyes have to add to this? They usually do. So, just for starters, John's last name, Lee, is not a coincidence, as we'll learn early on in Part II ("This is heaven"):


(Chapter 3, John narrating): Let me get this in before the plot thickens: it’s a good thing that Alice (“Dr. Dyke”) heads an emergency room, since only people who’ve seen it all are able to sit as if nothing has happened next to a forty-five year old man—slight, Caucasian, symmetrical features except for the nose—who’s wearing a pair of Bavarian leather shorts with an image of an aroused Christopher Lee (the actor, fangs) emblazoned on the crotch part of said garment. (I’m a bit disingenuous here. These shorts, I’ve seen them before with the image of Richard Wagner in place of Christopher Lee. They are part of a Richard-Wagner-themed merchandize line, Godehart’s business; he’s from Germany and family of the composer, somehow).

Godehart has noticed my glance, points with one index finger in the direction of his adult parts, and asks “Family?”