Home, once again...

Flew back to Buffalo on Southwest, and even though the first leg of my flight was delayed forty-five minutes, I made my connection since it was only four gates down from where we arrived.

I don't like Southwest's new system of assigning seats and no free checked baggage. They've become just another airline, so why bother with them? It's almost sad.

But the whole world is fucked up, right now. MAGAts getting more upset over Bad Bunny singing in Spanish at the Super Bowl than the thousands of women and children raped and trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein and his monsters is proof that too many of our species are morally bankrupt.

As am I, possibly. I worked on Taking Nicky, on the flights. Dropped about 1500 words and rewrote Rett's interaction with Ben and Liam into something quite vicious. Rett rapes Liam in front of Ben, and loves having done it. What that means to me is, I need a reason for Rett to start doing this. It's not enough for him to get pissy because a guy called him an asshole.

But I'm not so sure I can find an adequate excuse without needing to rework everything about him, so far. And that's already published online. So I'll be doing a lot of thinking about it.

Tomorrow is groceries; canceling my mail forwarding at the PO; figuring out how fucked up I am, financially; and working out a plan for my trip back to San Antonio, next month. I'm already set to go via Southwest, but I won't need to check a bag. This time I can just do carry-on...but from now on I'm looking at other options.

God I'm so happy to be home. My plants missed me.

Goddammit...

I don't like the direction Taking Nicky is going. Suddenly Vance is showing up and filling Rett in on how stupid he's being, planning to do a practice run on Smoke but also take a well-known model/actor. I wanted to have Vance get involved in a much more organic way, sneaking around in the shadows so you don't know what he's up to...

But now it's like the story is stepping back from being cold, cruel and vicious in order to be self-indulgent. Rett and Vance are chatting in a Hollywood Bistro and Vance already knows too much about what's going on, which would make Rett seriously wary of Ben and Liam. And rightfully so, since that's the only way he could have learned of Rett's plans.

I may need to cut 1500 words to regain my intentions...and maybe even restart the whole 9th chapter...

Or is it 8th?

Whatever. I just can't handle it, right now.

The get-together at Kelly's grave can't happen on the 23rd because a couple members of the family won't be able to make it. So they are shifting it to the 20th. I was expected to go along with this and change my ticket, but I won't. It may seem silly, but the 23rd is my mother's birthday, and that is when I want to be there.

I'm not going to pray or weep or anything. The notion that there is a God left me long ago, after I read the full bible, cover to cover. It's an amazingly horrific book in so many ways. The teachings of Jesus are good as a foundation for living a decent life, but it all really boils down to doing unto others as you want them to do unto you. Plain and simple.

But a guy in the sky who's capricious and sadistic? Count me out. I think once we die that's it.

But if there is a God, he'll need to ask my forgiveness for the evil he's allowed in the world.

Fukkk...

I was working on Taking Nicky, today, when things kept cropping up to distract me. Things dealing with my late brother's apartment, phone, and what to do with a lot of his things, as well as getting the hospital bed he was using collected, along with other items. 

So I'd just start getting into where the story wants to go...and have to break away. Once...twice...several times. Till I lost the plot. I'll see what I can do, tomorrow. It was going in an interesting direction...but one that may be too careful on my part. I do not want this to be a sacred piece. I want it cold and hard. 

This is what I did do...

--------

Instagram was my friend, here. Turned out Smoke’s actual name is Stephen Marlon Kratorski. My bet is he really got his nickname from his initials. He’d done the pro-sk8ter circuit and made it to the top ten. Been at it since he was eleven. Fifteen years. Now he was just a weekender and made his living as general manager of a skateboard manufacturer in Culver City. 

An image from a few weeks ago showed he’d beefed up a little, which actually looked really good on him. He still had those lovely pecs, partially hidden by a cut-out t-shirt, and fine legs, made even lovelier by cargo shorts that were a size too small for him, now.

His face filled in some, but with scruff on it he was almost beautiful...especially now that I got a good look at his eyes and mouth. He’d also added another tattoo to his left arm...a sk8ter boy on his sled, probably him from an earlier time.

The next thing I found was podcasts he was doing on YouTube and other platforms about making specialty skateboards. The why this way was better than that, sort of thing...and he had a lovely screen presence. Open and warm and a bit jokey, with a smile that promised heaven. 

During those clips, he wore an old LA Rams cap, backward, holding his longish russet hair out of his face. I had to check the previous video and saw in that his hair was a plain brown, so he'd colored it. Or washed it. Whichever. I was close to falling in more than lust for him and his best buddy looks, but also love. 

Which would make him a serious rival to my need for sleek little Nicky. 

There was very little about his wife and kids on the web; just that they were part of his life. I got more info about his current career. Seems one of the cable networks was bringing him on board as another of their reality shows. Which I could see happening...

So long as no one connected him to the molestation clips I’d seen. Thing about those was, enough of his face was hidden by the blindfold and gag, and his body was different enough, so that he had plausible deniability. And there was also the additional tattoo...and it looked like he’d altered the one he already had. With Georgie dead and the documents trashed...at least, I think they were trashed...then he was safe.

If not? Well...we'll just have to see.

So I decided the first thing I needed to do was find out what happened to Georgie's paperwork, and Ben and Liam were the ones to focus on.

Physical manifestations...

The last couple of days, while dealing with what little my brother had in his life, the next chapter of Taking Nicky has begun to take shape. Rett wants to do a trial run of his plan to kidnap Nicky and force Ben and Liam to assist. 

They decide to pull it with Smoke...whose real name is Stephen Maxwell Krasner. He's a guy Georgie paid to do a bondage/jack-off scene a few years earlier.

Only Smoke is married, now, has a couple of kids and works a regular job. It was one thing for him to go along with Georgie's servicing to make some money while being a sk8ter boi; it's another considering he's got a family...so he's not interested in anything more.

Only Rett doesn't care. He's fixated on Smoke and he is blackmailing Ben and Liam to help him get to the guy, anyway.

I think they're going to freak out and connect with Vance, a friends of Rett's, and ask for help to stop him. Instead, Vance uses them to get to Rett. He's long had a desire for Rett's ass, and here's his chance. Things snowball from there.

Thinking about this sort of story has kept my mind from getting lost in the death of my brother. That hasn't been easy, but a lot's been done and he's set to be cremated on Monday and interned on Thursday. It's all paid for...and it was not cheap.

My sister will represent the family at the internment, so I'm heading home on Sunday. We're going to have a gathering of the family at his grave on our mother's birthday, next month. I will have Taking Nicky fully written and posted, by then, and be working on Blood Angel.

I waste too much time just surfing the web and getting into useless arguments with the MAGAt Cult online. They are nothing but rabid dogs, and all you can do with such an animal is put it down.

And I don't mean verbally...and it's too bad that's not allowed...

So quiet...

This was my brother, Kelly, around the age of 21. Forty-three years ago. Capable. Confident. Musician. Before the world crushed him for God knows what reasons. Not drugs. Nothing criminal. Just casual destruction by the capriciousness of life.

He was wired differently from the rest of us. Extremely intelligent in some things; totally lost in others. And he had a temper that could be unforgiving while in force, then suddenly be gone. He and I went head to head more than once, but we were brothers and I cared for him in every way. Same for our sister.

When he could no longer find work, she and I made sure he had a place to live and money enough to exist. It wasn't a lot, but it was enough for him and helped him maintain a level of independence and self-respect.

Now he is no longer of this world. The diagnosis of terminal cancer and months to live settled into him and he chose not to prolong his existence.

His struggles at the end were harsh and choking...but grew quieter and quieter until, even as my sister and I stood next to his bed, he slipped away without our notice. His soft breathing stopped. No pulse. Just...silence. It took several moments for us to realize he was gone.

One niece said he was on the spectrum, and that could be true. But we didn't have access to diagnoses like that when he was growing up. It might have made a difference in his difficult existence. Maybe. Guess we'll never know.

Sometimes life is really fucking cruel.

Standing watch...

 

This scene from I Remember Mama sanitizes what it means to watch someone dying...but it's close enough...

Suffice to say, Uncle Chris did not have cancer...

Kick in the ass...

Seeing my brother now, after I last saw him just two weeks ago, shows how severely he's been wasting away. If he weighs more than eighty pounds, I'd be surprised. And it's horrifying to watch.

And a reminder that when death has decided it's time to take you, it's time.

I'm ten years older than him. Granted, I've taken better care of myself, relatively speaking, and made certain to check in with health professionals to do better...while I'm nowhere near perfect with it.

But he did nothing. Wouldn't see a dentist till it was too late to save his teeth. Got one cataract removed but never went back for the other, even though our sister was paying for it. Smoked. Drank. Ate very little so was always rail thin...something I haven't been able to say about myself since college. Hadn't had a checkup in decades.

But he is emphasizing in me a realization that I won't have all that much time left, as mentioned in previous posts. I could have dropped dead this morning just trying to get from my hotel to the airport. They don't offer shuttle service, so I decided to walk the mile and a half.

That was a struggle, since there were no sidewalks along the roads leading to Austin's airport. And once at the car rental area, no signage telling me where my car was. And poor signage leading me to I-35 south. If I hadn't already known where I needed to go, I'd have been lost.

So I'm embracing my inner demons and accepting the direction Taking Nicky is going...threatening to kidnap and assault a man who's married and has kids as a trial run for Nicky's abduction. Rett even refers to himself as a father-fucker, now.

Good thing it's all fantasy...

I am so over JetBlue

Once, again, JetBlue is fucking me over. I'm heading to Austin from Buffalo, and changing planes in Fort Lauderdale...

...and the bastards have delayed my flight to Austin by 2.5 hours, putting me in after 1am. Car rental offices close at midnight, and it will be too late to get a shuttle to my hotel. I may have to walk.

My cunning plan was to drive a car one-way to San Antonio, tomorrow morning, but now I won't get down there till around 1 or 2pm instead of before noon. Because I won't get to bed till about 3am, my body clock time...at the earliest. Not a big deal, but it's an irritation I didn't need, right now.

JetBlue did this to me in Chicago, about a year ago. My flight from O'Hare to Buffalo kept getting delayed, so the second notification I received I checked Southwest, had points enough to go from Midway, so canceled the JetBlue flight and did SW. Got JB's costs back in travel funds, which I've used up all but $109.00 of...and may lose that if I don't book another flight by the 13th.

But I don't trust them, now. Southwest can have its issues, but nothing like this has ever happened with them. It has with United, twice, which is why I do not fly them if I have a choice. Now JB is on that list.

So I worked on Taking Nicky and uploaded chapter 8 to GayDemon. It should be available, tomorrow. But a recap... Rett is forcing Ben and Liam to procure him the young man he saw in one of Georgie's videos. Making them accomplices in a rape...and forcing them to help him with Nicky.

This went a wild direction, and I don't think Rett is fool enough to think Ben and Liam won't try to find a way out of the situation. He'll need to make them want to be part of it. He's already shown Ben how amazing a blowjob can be. Maybe weave more of the sexual beauty around them like a drug, of sorts. It could work...

I just need to remember this is not realistic. It's all fantasy, so I can get away with a lot if I just make it believable in the world of these lads. Which I'm trying to do.

Rett's also learned Ben and Liam are older than they claimed...except they never actually told him their ages. Hmm...he assumed because they looked young they were underage. I need to rethink that.

But I am kind of enjoying the way this story is working itself out.

Travel time

Heading back to San Antonio, tomorrow. Not sure what to expect. My brother is deteriorating, but that's all I know for certain. I don't want him to suffer, but at least I know he's got a solid regime of pain management through hospice. I guess we'll see what happens. Good thing is, this way I can give my sister and her husband a break from caring for him, for a bit.

Except...with all the snow, I'm not positive I'll get out of Buffalo, tomorrow. I have a three hour layover in Fort Lauderdale's airport, so have leeway if we leave late. But I finally got it through my thick skull that sometimes things are out of your control and you just deal with what happens. I got travel insurance on the flight. Hope it's not needed.

I posted chapter 7 of Taking Nicky on GayDemon...and it looks like Rett may have figured out a way to get the guy. He'll need help and has a good idea how to make Ben and Liam offer it. Maybe even a third as-yet unnamed dude. Not sure yet. Vance may not even be involved.

Reality is, I won't know how it's going to go till it's done. And no telling when it will be done during this trip. But it will be. And then I will turn back to Blood Angel. And then...Dair's Window.

At least, that's my plan, for now...

As usual...

Taking Nicky has shifted in a new direction and is becoming more complex and involved than I intended. I just wanted to write a quick MM story about a man's obsession turning into something criminal...and it's becoming more than that. Thanks to the characters.

Rett has found a secret room in his condo that was well-hidden between his office and the bathroom. His office used to be a small bedroom and he never paid attention to the fact that one wall didn't really line up with the bathroom's wall. Mainly because the wall in the bathroom had built in closet with shelves for towels and linens and such, hiding how much space was actually used.

In it? A mini editing suite with feeds from 9 tiny camera lenses set up around the bedroom and hidden in the molding. Which Rett hadn't bothered to have redone. There are DVDrs and an unfinished set of videos on the setup showing the man he thinks is Georgie, the prior owner of the condo, molesting a young man who's bound to a bed.

It's obvious what they're doing is pretending he's been kidnapped and is being molested. Rett even recognizes a tattoo on the guy as being one he's seen down at the skater park. So he starts to suspect Ben and Liam procured guys for Georgie to film. Get a blow job and make some cash.

He's now wondering if he's being set up by Ben and Liam...and it seems we're leading to those two knowing Vance. And letting Vance know of Rett's obsession with Nicky. And God only knows where it goes from there.

I have to take a moment and let it settle in my head. I'm not sure I like this direction. And not sure I don't like it. It's not as if I'm trying to write the great American novel, here...or even good porn. It's just an outlet...so my big concern now is to keep it from becoming too self-important.

Which Rett and Vance already don't like, and Ben and Liam think I'm being ridiculous about.