I am thinking about this book I’ve been working on for at least three years, three NaNoWriMos and then some.
The working title remains In the Bushes.
Here’s an unedited snippet from an early chapter:
Lisa heard Manny whispering, “Is that one over there?”
She looked and saw a tallish man wearing jeans and an AC/DC tee shirt slip behind the azalea bushes.
“Lake Eola is hopping tonight. Let me go talk to him,” Lisa said.
She stepped away from her friends to follow the older man, now in the shadows. When she was also hidden in the darkness, she softly asked, “Are you looking for someone?”
His answer was more a grunt than an assent.
She continued, “I think your friend might be over there.”
He looked towards her friends chatting out on the sidewalk. She knew they were deciding who would be the first “friend” tonight and who would be the decoys for the cops so the cocksucker would be safer with the guy in the bushes.
“Yeah, you know where my friend is? He got lost. Tell him where I am.”
She went back onto the moonlit sidewalk, pulling Manny by the hand, the hand that was sweaty and sticky before he even got near the stranger.
“Don’t be nervous. Once you get going, it’s easier.”
She yanked him back behind the azalea bush and dropped his hand before turning to go back to the other two guys waiting for her to find them a “friend,” too.
Lisa, Glenn, and Jason sat on a bench together, chatting. They acted as if nothing out of the ordinary was going on except they were out at Lake Eola at midnight, watching the space ship-shaped fountain changing colors. There was no indication that two men were just out of earshot – one sucking, one getting sucked – and that Lisa had facilitated that connection.
She had become their pimp.
Running Out of Chances
What if I died? Would anyone ever see what I’ve written? Or would it end up like the grand majority of unfinished manuscripts, tucked into a bottom drawer that’s dumped out when the writer dies?
I want people to read this. It’s a topic that is part of our history, gay history, and part of my real life. While it’s embellished with a bit of fiction to add depth to characters and scenery, much of it is right from my life.
What will it take for me to finish?
Navelgazing Writer 