Coming Together With Pride Read online

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  Phaze

  www.phaze.com

  Copyright ©2008 by Alessia Brio

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  NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.

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  CONTENTS

  Coming Together: With Pride

  Table of Contents

  Introduction

  Today

  An Early Winter Train

  Customer Service

  The Personal is Political

  Chemistry

  When the Angels Fall

  Don't Look Down

  A Girl's Best & Earthy Things

  Raven

  Nuit Blanche

  Echoes of the Past

  Fire and Ice

  Be Prepared

  A Brief Discourse on the Heartiness & Symbolism of Semen

  Selling Foxx

  Western Pleasure

  Freedom to Serve

  Past Perfect

  About Coming Together

  With Special Thanks

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  Also published by Phaze Books in the Coming Together series:

  Coming Together:

  Special Hurricane Relief Edition

  Coming Together: For the Cure

  Coming Together: Under Fire

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  This is an explicit and erotic anthology

  intended for the enjoyment of adult readers.

  Please keep out of the hands of children.

  www.Phaze.com

  Coming Together with Pride

  edited by

  Alessia Brio

  Coming Together: With Pride copyrights 2008 by Alessia Brio, ed. and contributing authors.

  All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  A Phaze Production

  Phaze Books

  6470A Glenway Avenue, #109

  Cincinnati, OH 45211-5222

  Phaze is an imprint of Mundania Press, LLC.

  To order additional copies of this book, contact:

  [email protected]

  www.Phaze.com

  Cover art © 2007, Debi Lewis

  Edited by Alessia Brio

  eBook ISBN-13: 978-1-59426-891-5

  First eBookEdition—June 2008

  Printed in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

  Coming Together: With Pride

  is dedicated to the memory of

  Lawrence Forbes King

  an eighth grader,

  who was killed by a classmate

  because he was gay

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Table of Contents

  Introduction *

  Today *

  An Early Winter Train *

  Customer Service *

  The Personal is Political *

  Chemistry *

  When the Angels Fall *

  Don't Look Down *

  A Girl's Best & Earthy Things *

  Raven *

  Nuit Blanche *

  Echoes of the Past *

  Fire and Ice *

  Be Prepared *

  A Brief Discourse *

  Selling Foxx *

  Western Pleasure *

  Freedom to Serve *

  Past Perfect *

  About Coming Together *

  With Special Thanks *

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Introduction

  © Will Belegon

  Almost thirty years ago, rumors started circulating about something worse than herpes. Yeah, herpes never went away—and we all thought that was about as horrible as it could get. Then, AIDS came along. We didn't call it that yet, though. We didn't know what to call it, but we knew it was deadly.

  Only gay people got it, though. I didn't need to worry. It wouldn't affect me. Right?

  Then one of my best friends came out, and he started dating a guy who grew up on my street. High school is a cruel environment under any circumstances, and I attended an all boy Catholic high school. The kind of environment where a rumor about somebody getting a hard-on in the locker room shower was all over the school in ten minutes. No place is as homophobic as an all boy high school.

  So, I had a decision to make: I could distance myself from my friend—or I could become a social outcast.

  Let's just say I've never been one to follow the crowd. Not only did I continue to hang out with Robert, I went to Gay Youth Alliance with him. I learned about the community. I made friends. And guess what happened?

  AIDS affected me.

  This was long before Tom Hanks got the Oscar for Philadelphia. This was before anybody famous had died from “pneumonia.” But I got to know a guy at GYA. He was cool, a good guy—and he got sick.

  And then the priest who taught French at my oh-so-Catholic high school got sick.

  The disease that wasn't going to affect me was killing people I knew. People I liked. So, I started educating myself about it.

  By the time my favorite basketball player announced he was HIV-positive, I had long since shed my ignorance. I knew the hype about it being “just” a homosexual disease, as if that somehow mitigated its severity, was fallacious. I knew about Haiti, Europe, and Africa. I knew about the growing diversity of the afflicted in the United States.

  In the eighties and early nineties, AIDS awareness was everywhere. You didn't just call it HIV, because everyone who got HIV at that time eventually got AIDS. It was a sexually transmitted death sentence. The moral indignation of the Reagan years kept it isolated in the minds of middle America for awhile. Made it something that misguided and hateful individuals marginalized by blaming it on a single demographic.

  But when a cousin or a favorite uncle or a sister dies, things tend to come out of the margins. The fight was a popular one. And The Band Played On—and later, Rent—made headlines and money. David Ho was honored as Time Magazine's 1996 Man of the Year for his pioneering work with protease inhibitors.

  By the end of the nineties, however, AIDS wasn't in the headlines anymore. As safe sex campaigns began to stem the spread of the disease and education decreased the mystery, the anxiety and fear also lessened. As people learned that it was possible to live with HIV, it looked less like a science-fiction disease that would end the world. As the diagnosed population became broader than the gay community, it became less controversial. People were no longer glued to their television sets for each celebrity announcement or research breakthrough. So, the evening news bumped stories about the disease deeper into the broadcast—and eventually off the air altogether. Newspape
rs buried stories in the back pages.

  AIDS and HIV just kind of faded away, right? Wrong! The United Nations agency UNAIDS estimated that at the end of 1999, 33 million people were living with HIV, and an estimated 2.6 million died that year, the highest numbers since the beginning of the epidemic.

  Yet, studies of U.S. media coverage of the AIDS epidemic showed that the number of news stories related to the disease had peaked a dozen years earlier in 1987, with slight bumps following Magic Johnson's 1991 announcement and the introduction of combination therapies in 1996 and 1997.

  Today, we hear less about AIDS and HIV in the news than perhaps ever before. This is despite HIV having become one of the United States’ top three disease-related killers of young adults. Despite there still being more than 40,000 new cases annually in the U.S. alone. According for the Centers for Disease Control, HIV/AIDS is the leading cause of death for young African-American women in the United States. The leading cause of death. That certainly puts the final nail in the coffin of the old “gay plague” argument, doesn't it? By the end of this year, more than a million Americans will be living with HIV.

  More than 22 million people worldwide have died from AIDS. That's over two and a half times the number killed in World War I. AIDS is a preventable disease that's been deadlier than three hundred seventy-eight Vietnam wars.

  The need is great. But with the lack of reinforcement by the media, much of the public doesn't see HIV as a problem anymore.

  Those who have contributed to this volume of Coming Together have not been lulled into complacency. Here you will find a diverse and talented group. Just as HIV is not exclusive to any single demographic, the work in this book embraces all areas of our lives. Naturally, it contains stories about same-sex relationships. But there are also stories about hope. About loss. About love. About the effects of disease in general, not just AIDS. But no matter how diverse the contents, they all share one thing.

  The writers, the editor, and the publisher have each made a commitment—not only to donate all their proceeds to AVERT, but to pursue the goal of keeping this horrible epidemic where it belongs: in the forefront of our minds and hearts until there is a cure.

  Will Belegon

  April 2008

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  www.willbelegon.com

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Today

  © Kally Jo Surbeck

  Today I lost my love, my life, my hope.

  Today I lost my delusions and my precepts.

  Today I spoke words that never should have been voiced to people who weren't willing to listen to the emotion behind the words.

  Those who were too wrapped up in their own problems to see my pain.

  People who I thought cared and loved me.

  Today I saw the truth.

  Today I stood alone and learned that all those who cry, “We love you."

  Mean it only when it suits their needs and their time constraints.

  Today I stood and plead with the gods for mercy on my soul.

  Crying out with every fiber of my being for some reprieve, but none came.

  Today I learned.

  Today the knowledge came in one fast overwhelming swoop.

  I, and I alone, have today.

  Although other's travel beside me.

  None are truly with me.

  And although some will effect me, none can truly accompany me.

  Today I learned.

  Through the toughest lessons, through the smoldering ashes, through the pain and misery,

  I have learned.

  I have grown, and I have become one that is no longer afraid of today.

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  www.kallyjosurbeck.com

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  An Early Winter Train

  © C. Sanchez-Garcia

  "Where is your wife?"

  She was lying on top of the blue comforter next to the window, in her cotton pajamas. Her beautiful thick hair, black and streaked with gray, spread out over the pillow. She reached up with her hands, searching.

  I wonder if it's the jasmine that brings this out in her, he asked himself. He sat on the edge of the bed next to where she lay and looked at her despondently. A small electric window fan drew in the cool night air, filled with the scent of the jasmine vines they'd planted together years ago, when the kids were still teenagers. It filled the room with a sweet erotic scent, combined with the fresh, earthy smell of the rain that had just ended. Far away in the kitchen, the radio played a Frank Sinatra song.

  "Where is your wife?” She would keep asking until he answered her.

  "She's right here, Aimee.” He reached over and caressed her hand. “Don't worry so much."

  "It's terrible,” she said.

  "I know."

  She tried to sit up, with a trace of fear building in her eyes. He took her hand and gave it a little squeeze. “Everything's fine. Don't worry so much."

  She looked at him with a hint of panic now. “Where is your wife?"

  "She's right here, Aimee. You're my wife. You know that.” He said it evenly and confidently, choosing the tone of his voice with great care. It pleased him to see the fear leave her eyes, and she settled back. “How you doing, honey?"

  "It's terrible."

  "What's so terrible?"

  "Everything,” she murmured.

  Again, he took her hand; squeezing it to remind her he was there, that she wasn't alone. “Don't worry so much. I'm here. You worry about everything too much."

  "Oh."

  She looked at him, holding her hand, as if she had just discovered he was there. He felt her return the squeeze and hold it, like a baby holding onto a finger.

  "I'm sorry,” she said.

  "It's alright."

  "I'm sorry."

  "It's alright.” Holding her hand, he waited for her to calm down. When he felt her hand relax, he let go of it and stood. The weariness of the day sank against him, and he felt tired and lonely. The jasmine was undoubtedly getting to him, too.

  He stretched and took a quick glance at Aimee. For the moment, she seemed all right. She rolled over to her side and the plastic adult diaper crackled inside her pajama bottoms.

  "Now you stay there,” he instructed. “Okay? You stay there, okay?"

  Obediently, she rolled onto her back and folded her hands on her bosom.

  "Now that's my girl, you stay that way. I'll be right back. Okay?"

  "Are we in Mobile yet?"

  The question stopped him. Mobile? What, Alabama? It was a new tangent, one he'd never heard before. He wasn't sure what she needed to hear from him. “Soon."

  She smiled and closed her eyes. Evidently, it was the correct answer. He turned away, feeling too pained to look at her. The music filtered into his consciousness:

  The way you wear your hat

  The way you sip your tea

  The memory of all that

  No, they can't take that away from me...

  Yes, they can, he thought. Boy, they sure as hell can.

  He yawned and considered turning off the radio. At least it was company, he decided, and headed for the bathroom instead. Opening the medicine cabinet, he took down his toothbrush and the toothpaste. The bottom shelf was lined with amber bottles, mostly Aimee's medicines. They cost a fortune, and as near as he could tell, they weren't doing shit for her, not any of them. Next to his own was her pink toothbrush, and he couldn't remember—damn, he couldn't remember one way or the other. Had he brushed her teeth for her tonight?

  This kind of thing always scared him. Soon it'll be me in diapers, he thought. Silently, he recited his Social Security number followed by his cell phone number. A few years ago, when all this was new to him, the doctor had said that usually with Alzheimer's the numbers were forgotten first. Remembering strings of meaningful numbers was his little talisman against Aimee's fate.

  He closed the cabinet and squeezed a line of toothpaste onto the brush, checking his teeth in the mirror. They
were fairly yellow from the coffee and tea, which he had no intention of giving up. But those were his teeth, by God—every one of them nailed firmly in place until his dying day. No dentures, no bridges. He began to clean his teeth.

  "Are we in Atlanta yet?"

  His mouth was full of foam, and he ignored her. They'd be hauling her off to the nursing home soon, and then what? Start over? Were there Internet dating sites for guys his age? The thought chilled him with guilt, and he threw cold water on his face. It's not like she's dead, you horny bastard, how can you even think of it? He thought of her in there, lost in her train ride. It's not my fault. I have needs, too. I'm still a man. And maybe she really is dead. She died when no one was looking, and it's just her body that hasn't gotten the news. It's not her anymore. The woman I loved, she's gone. Not this big baby she left me with. It's not my fault.

  He took some mouthwash, poured it into the cap, and tossed it into his mouth. Bad breath had always been a concern, because his mouth was so dry, but there was no one to care about it anymore. It was mostly genetic, the doctor had said. Can't fix genetics. Genetics are just the cards the universe deals you. Genetics are little time bombs that go off in your head, and there's nothing you can do but watch everything turn to shit. Shit for brains.

  A big whoop-de-doo doctor in Time magazine had suggested Alzheimer's was related to stress. It made him want to yell at this guy who knew so damned much: Okay, Doctor Asshole, what stress was my fault? Hadn't I made enough money? Maybe I hadn't spent enough time with her or the kids. No? Maybe I'd been too stressful for her with my little demands and discontents. Maybe if I'd gotten her a goddamn dog with lots of fur to pet. Maybe if the kids hadn't driven us crazy from time to time, dumping the grandkids on us when things got rough, moving in when they couldn't find a job and then moving out and then in again. Maybe I'd secretly wished it on her without knowing, like a silent voodoo curse. Or maybe—just maybe what's the really scariest fucking thing of all—maybe this universe is a big runaway train with winter ice on the tracks and no God or anybody else at the fucking wheel and the most awful shit happens to the very nicest people out there, and maybe ... And maybe no one knows what I could have done differently.