Read Online Contemporary Gay Romances by Felice Picano - Free Book Online

he seems an honorable enough fellow and he doesn’t seem to have the least…how can I put it…insalubrious intentions regarding me. Or if he does, he’s so far kept them to himself. At any rate, at dinner—and what a dinner!—I made my position clear. Or at least I think I did. Yes, I must have, and Achille seemed to accept it. Of course, he’s insistent in some ways. The hotel suite, for example: as I had nowhere to stay in Paris, he insisted on that, and it was quite nice, as I suppose all the suites at the Crillon are. And since he owns it—he seems to own a great many things—he wouldn’t dream of letting me pay for the week we stayed. You know, things like that.
    Otherwise it’s great. Of course two little subjects still pestered me. Try as I might, I could no longer recall the old woman’s precise wording—and I was sure that remembering her exact words contained the key to how I must handle myself with Achille.
    Second, of course, was that damned business about the chocolate. Some of the finest in the world are made in Belgium, and from the first Achille sent boxes of the most scrumptious-looking delicacies: white and milk and bittersweet, with hazelnut and raspberry cream and champagne-flavored fillings: simply irresistible. I finally told him to take them back, I’m allergic. But Achille had a solution to that little problem and after the briefest of medical tests by one of his doctor friends, I received antihistamines. At least I think he said they’re antihistamines. Whatever they are, the pills work wonderfully well and now that I’ve moved into Achille’s palais in Belgium, I can eat all the chocolate truffles I want. In fact, the pills make me feel so generally good all the time that I take four a day, as prescribed, whether I plan to eat chocolate or not.
    There he is at the door, now. I should go. He’s got wonderful plans for us for tonight. Every night, if you must know. It’s beyond my dreams. Simply magical…
    Oh, by the way, did I mention that I’m absolutely certain that once I’ve fully settled in here, I plan to meet some nice girl and fall in love?

Gift
     
    This is what I know about drowning: some persons can hold their breath longer than others. No one can hold it longer than five minutes seventeen seconds underwater without a special apparatus. Of course there may be someone in the Guinness Book of Records. But I’ve not met him.
    This is what I know about Kevin Mark Orange, age seven and three-quarters. He vanished at 2:15 p.m., a Thursday afternoon. As it was late April, it rained twice that evening, obliterating any footprints or tire marks.
    That, at least, is what anyone knows who listened to the 6:30 p.m. local (“K-RUF—We’re soft on you!”) television news that also showed two photos of Kevin, one taken a month ago, with his chocolate Labrador, named Bre’r Bear, and one taken over a year ago with his little sister Jean-Eartha Orange, no age given.
    This is what I called and told to Sheriff Harold (“Hal”) B. Longish, one hour after that broadcast. “I know where Kevin Mark Orange is. I don’t know the name of the place exactly. I can’t take you there, because I’m only a kid and can’t drive. I never met that boy in my life. I don’t know anyone who does know him. I can’t tell you how I know. I just do !… But I can draw you a map.”
    So, of course, after wasting another hour, the sheriff and his deputy arrived. They were naturally doubtful. So I said immediately, “Sheriff Longish, your deputy had a left-hand upper molar pulled this morning. And also your mother’s cat named Harlequin ran away for the sixth time yesterday night and she called and begged you to look for it.”
    “How in tarnation!” his deputy, a woman named Sheryl Jamison, asked.
    Sheriff Longish looked at me and said, “Sher, this lil’ critter may actually be the real thing.”
    I laughed and said, “I am the real thing.”
    “How old are you?” the deputy