“Who told you that?” Martin gulped down the rest of his wine. He should have brought the bottle.
“That’s what they said at The Renewal Center,” Carter explained. “They had statistics.”
“The what center?”
“The Renewal Center. It’s this special part of Willowbrook Psychiatric Hospital. My parents sent me there for therapy. I only stayed a week and a half. They had to let me go when I turned eighteen. Two days ago.”
“Oh. Happy birthday.” Great. The kid’s been in a mental hospital. Martin almost couldn’t breathe. How could this be happening to him? The kid was nuts. “So, why were you in a mental hospital?”
“I’m gay,” Carter said.
“Yeah, I know, but that—” Martin tumbled, like a suitcase falling down a flight of stairs. “Your parents put you in a mental hospital to have you ‘un-gayed?’”
“That’s not what they call it.”
“What do they call it?”
“Sexual reorientation.”
All Martin could think of to say was, “Ouch.” Well, sexual reorientation did sound painful. Apparently, it was the right thing to say because Carter nodded his head and said, “Yeah.”
Wait a minute, Martin thought, this can’t be true. His brother, Paul, was completely reasonable in many ways. Wasn’t he? Actually, Martin barely knew him. They hadn’t lived in the same state for almost thirty years, and when they did see each other or talk on the phone, they carefully avoided discussing politics and religion, and had never once talked about Martin’s sexuality. Maybe he was the kind of person who would do that to his own child.
No, Carter was probably lying. He’s probably really crazy. Telling Martin that he’d been in a Christian psych ward where they convert gay people was the perfect way to get Martin to help him. Martin would have no choice.
Calm down, he told himself. The kid had just walked in the door. He had no reason to assume he was a gay version of The Bad Seed. In all likelihood, he was just a kid in trouble. “Would you like to see a therapist? I mean, I’ll pay for it, of course.”
“No, I’m good,” Carter said, as though Martin had just offered him another cup of tea or an unappealing cookie.
“Okay.” Martin was relieved. He hadn’t actually intended to offer to pay for something as expensive as therapy. He didn’t intend to pay for anything. He just had to remember not to offer. Not offering to pay for things made it easier to not actually pay for them.
“So, tell me about being in a psychiatric hospital. What’s that like?” A therapist would ask a question like that. Martin was tempted to start calculating his savings.
“Um, could we talk about that another time? I’m kind of tired. I haven’t had much sleep in the last few days.”
It was only seven o’clock, but Martin jumped up and the two of them went into Martin’s TV room-slash-office. Martin hoped he could find the double size sheets he’d bought with the sofa. As he yanked the cushions off the sofa, the tube of Vaseline flew onto the floor. Both Carter and Martin stared at it for a moment, then Martin blushed, snatching it up. “I have dry skin.”
BUY MY FAVORITE UNCLE
Snowman With Benefits
Desperate to win a neighborhood snowman contest, Trey pulls out all the stops. He and his boyfriend, Landon, work all morning to make a snowman along the lines of Michelangelo’s David. Unfortunately, all does not go well, and the two break up over Trey’s relentless perfectionism. Struggling to take a nap that afternoon, Trey is awakened by the sound of someone in his house. He goes downstairs to find the snowman has come to life – and he’s horny!
Snowman With Benefits Excerpt
Someone was rumbling around downstairs. Opening things; shutting them. The noise woke me. My first thought was that I was being robbed. My second was that Landon had come back and was packing his things. The thought of Landon downstairs made me angry – not as angry as the idea of being robbed – but still, angry. Breaking up with me at Christmas was low. Despicable even. And for what? I wasn’t abusive. I wasn’t a drunk. I just like d things to be nice. Who didn’t like things to be nice? And I wanted him to be better. Was that so terrible? Everything I said was for his benefit.
I stomped down the stairs and stormed into the kitchen ready to give Landon a piece of my mind. A big piece. Unless, of course, he’d come back to apologize, which was actually very likely. Instantly, I decided I’d be kind and generous and forgiving. Yes, I’d sternly warn him to never, never do it again. And he would promise not to.
But when I got into the kitchen it wasn’t Landon standing there. It was someone else. A man. Looking into my refrigerator. He glanced over at me and said, “I’m so thirsty. Do you have any iced tea?”
He was tall and pale, so pale that his skin had a bluish cast to it. His hair was frost white and his eyes sea green. He had a clever little dimple in his chin. He wasn’t wearing anything other than a red Speedo and an amazing set of abs. He looked exactly like—
No, it was not possible. Not possible at all.
I dashed out of the kitchen into the living room and looked out the window. My mouth dropped open. He was gone. Snow David was no longer standing in front of my house. Where he’d been standing, there was just a lumpy mound of snow. This couldn’t be real. I had to be dreaming. I slapped myself in the face a couple of times and then looked out into the front yard again. The snowman still wasn’t there. Did that mean I wasn’t dreaming? Or did it mean I just hadn’t woken up? I tried slapping myself a few more times.
Nothing. No snowman.
My face throbbed and I was wide-awake. I had the sick feeling I wasn’t dreaming. I went back to the kitchen. The snowman was still there. Still studying the contents of my refrigerator. He opened the freezer drawer and looked down into it. Then he squealed. “Popsicles. Yummy!”
He snatched up a cherry popsicle and was about to unwrap it when I said, “They’re from last summer. They might have a little bit of freezer burn.”
Dropping the popsicle, he slammed the freezer shut and stepped back in horror.
“Freezer burn is a devastating skin disease. And it’s contagious. You have to get rid of that immediately.” He took a step toward me. “Seriously, can you imagine what it would do to my porcelain complexion?”
“Who exactly are you?”
“What do you mean, ‘Who am I?’ I’m the snowman.”
“I know you’re a snowman. But which, how, who...”
“Not a snowman. The snowman.”
“Well, there’s more than one snowman. Right?”
“There’s only one snowman who counts and that’s me. The snowman.”
“All right, you’re the snowman. How did you get here?”
“You made a wish. Don’t you remember making a wish?”
It took a moment but then I did remember. But that— “I did sort of make a wish, but I didn’t wish for you to come to life. I’d remember that. I was really wishing for something more... useful.”
“Has no one ever told you to be careful what you wish for?”
“Well, yes, but this is not—”
“No this is exactly what they were referring to.”
“Well, okay, sure. How exactly was my wish granted? I mean, isn’t there usually a witch or a genie or a fairy godmother involved?”
“All of the above. Or none, as the case may be.”
“And this is a none case? Because, you know, I didn’t see any non-human wish grantors around.”
This had to be one of the strangest conversations I’d ever had in my life, I thought.
“You know, it’s not always a good thing to think too much about things like this. It’s best to go with the flow. And witches are actually human, by the way. ”
“Oh, that’s right.”
“It causes all sorts of problems when you date one, though.”
“You date witches?”
“Well, no, warlocks. Now and then. But the whole, human/not human thing... Well, it’s complicated.�
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“So, what you’re telling me is that the magical characters I grew up with are all—”
“Real? Yes, we are.”
“The Easter Bunny. The Tooth Fairy. Jack Frost.”
“Jack Frost! Don’t even talk to me about Jack Frost.”
“You know Jack Frost?” I asked.
“We dated. Briefly. Between you and me he’s kind of an ice queen.”
“What about Frosty the Snowman? Did you date him?”
“I would never! You do know that everyone calls him Fisty the Snowman behind his back?”
“Um, no, I never heard that.”
“Well, I’d stay away from him if I were you. You could put an arm up there and not see it again until spring.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. What about Santa, you didn’t... he’s not...”
“Don’t be silly, Mrs. Claus would have me by the snowballs. I did go through an elf phase. I’m not proud of it. Short men always have something to prove. I let them prove it.”
I didn’t know exactly what he meant by that, but was sure I didn’t want to.
“Okay, so what happens now?” I asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Well what are you going to do? I mean, are you staying or are you going back to being an actual snowman? Soon? Like, maybe before the contest is going to be judged? Which I think is in about two hours.” I really hoped no one noticed that my snowman was AWOL. That could raise some challenging questions.
“Really? This,” he said, waving his arm dramatically from head to toe. “This is standing in your kitchen and you’re worried about a contest?”
“It’s an important contest. I thought I had a shot at winning.”
“Well, of course you do. Look at me.” Snow David walked across the kitchen and stood very close to me. Too close. “It’s very hot in here. You couldn’t turn the air conditioning on, could you?”
“It’s the middle of winter.”
“Hmmmm... I know. I’m most comfortable at about thirty degrees Fahrenheit.”
“My pipes would freeze.”
“Oh baby, I’ll freeze your pipes.”
I took a step back. “Frozen pipes are actually a very expensive problem.”
“Why don’t we go to your bedroom and you can check my plumbing?”
“You want to have sex with me? We just met.”
“Oh my God, you’re one of those guys, aren’t you?”
“One of what guys?”
“One of those guys who has to get to know someone. You do realize that never ends well.”
“Landon and I didn’t have sex until we’d known each other a month.”
“And look how that turned out.”
“When we started having sex didn’t have anything to do with our breaking up.”
“I didn’t say it did. But if you hadn’t waited you’d have had a whole extra month of sex. And if you had a whole extra month of sex maybe he would have liked it enough to stay.”
“He didn’t leave because he didn’t like having sex with me.”
“He didn’t say that. But really, that’s why they all leave.”
“That’s a horrible thing to say.”
“Do you want to screw or not?”
I thought about it for a moment. He was sexy in a frigid sort of way. And I was now single. But he was also a little obnoxious. And definitely pushy.
“I’m not sure.”
“So you’re just going to let me stand here and melt while you make up your mind?”
He made it sound like I was being rude not to have sex with him. The rules must be very different in fairy creature land. I was tempted. Very tempted. But, well, I didn’t really know what I was getting into, and there was something I needed to know first.
I stepped over to him and pulled the band of his Speedo away from his belly. I looked down and took a peek. In his swimsuit he had a nicely-shaped, nicely-sized member. It was a bit ashen but other than that it was completely normal. I looked up into his face and said, “Oh my God, you have, you’re... anatomically correct.”
“Really? I’m a snowman come to life and the part that surprises you is that I have a penis?”
“You know that I didn’t give you, I didn’t actually sculpt—never mind. You’re right. This is one of those moments in life when you have to take a leap of—”
“Whatever,” he said, before he lifted up my chin and kissed me. The kiss was deep, searching and a little chilly. Not cold in a bad way, but bracing. As though I was kissing someone who’d just drunk a glass of ice water. Snow David explored my mouth with his tongue and I tried not to think about Landon. It felt like cheating, except it wasn’t. We’d broken up. Hours ago. Which was weird. That it was so soon. But then again, how many times in my life would I have the chance to have sex with a non-human, vaguely mythical creature?
I pulled away from him and asked, “Should we go up to my bedroom?”
“Unless you’re willing to go out into the backyard. There’s a lovely blanket of snow out there.”
“Maybe not.” Hypothermia had never been a turn-on for me. I took him by the hand and led him upstairs.
BUY SNOWMAN WITH BENEFITS
Also by Marshall Thornton
MARSHALL THORNTON
Boystown 1: Three Nick Nowak Mysteries
Boystown 3: Two Nick Nowak Novellas
Boystown 4: A Time For Secrets
Boystown 5: Murder Book
Boystown 6: From The Ashes
Boystown 7: Bloodlines
Desert Run
Full Release
The Perils of Praline
The Ghost Slept Over
My Favorite Uncle
Snowman With Benefits
AMAZON PAGE
About the Author
Marshall Thornton is a novelist, playwright and screenwriter living in Long Beach, California. He is best known for the Boystown detective series, which has been short-listed in the Rainbow Awards three times and has twice been a finalist for the Lambda Book Award — Gay Mystery. Other novels include the erotic comedy The Perils of Praline, or the Amorous Adventures of a Southern Gentleman in Hollywood, Full Release, The Ghost Slept Over and My Favorite Uncle. Marshall has an MFA in screenwriting from UCLA, where he received the Carl David Memorial Fellowship and was recognized in the Samuel Goldwyn Writing awards. He has also had plays produced in both Chicago and Los Angeles and stories published in The James White Review and Frontier Magazine.
[2015] The Ghost Slept Over Page 21