Two short stories for free online reading

As my first week (er, honestly, nearer to my first 3 days) of government-encouraged isolation comes to an end, my heart is lighted by the latest issue of Cliterature Journal and a piece of mine appearing in The Erotic Review. Both are free to read.

Cliterature’s GOD/DESS issue includes an excerpt from my story “Annunciation,” about gender, Catholicism, queer desire, and growing up in the middle of them. Fittingly, the issue came out just a few days past the Feast of The Annunciation.

We talked about family and gifts, sacraments and liberation theology and martyrs. What scars through resurrected hands and feet mean to survivors. You told me about WATER’s liturgies and discussions for queer women. The label was still new to me then. Once in high school, a boy had sneered to my best friend and I, “What are you, lesbians?” (I haven’t seen him since, unfortunately). You used both words with equal pride.

I told you about Gabriel.

We spoke all the way back to my dorm.

“It was great talking to you.”

“Gosh, yeah.”

And I let you kiss my lips instead of my cheek; I kissed you back; I went up to my room and sinned thoughtlessly, unselfconsciously, but afterwards I lay awake and thought and prayed.

The next Saturday, I invited you to my room for us to finish our project. Which we did, in record time. And then—Two women together in a bedroom.

“You’re so beautiful,” I say, placing your folded socks on my chair without looking away from your hands as they open your shirt. The silver Miraculous Medal gleams at your throat beneath the rainbow bandana. I’ve put my rosary aside. “You’re the most…awesome, amazing woman I’ve ever met.”

You don’t seem to know what to make of that, but after a moment you smile. I lean closer, placing my hands on your knees. Your body’s warmth beats through your jeans.

“Okay,” I say—reassuring myself more than you. Be not afraid. “This is . . . better than okay.”

At the Erotic Review, “Like That“–part of what may one day become a proper romance novel–shows how two former lovers briefly become closer to each other. It’s also more than a little kinky.

While it was going so well, he’d proposed handcuffs. She accepted, enthusiastically. And when he brought over the pair he’d picked up at the porn store off the highway, she’d hopped onto her bed and raised her hands toward the headboard. That was when he realised maybe he hadn’t been clear. Or in her eagerness she had misinterpreted him.

But she was so eager to have them put on her. So he did.

It was fun, although he was slower to get hard than he’d ever been. At first he worried he wouldn’t be able to get into it. But she was, after all, naked — beautifully so — and her excitement became contagious.

The fact was, Leo liked doing what women wanted. But this time, he felt out of place — enjoying it, but in the way he would enjoy accidentally crashing someone else’s party.