by Mark Treble
Mike is starved for affection. Luke is emotionally crippled from two serious relationships gone terribly wrong. Romance is always awesome and awful, exciting and terrifying. Bromance is no different.
This one is extraordinarily complicated. Mike is straight while Luke is gay. Each moves more or less comfortably in the social circles of the other’s universe. Each is terrified by the possibility of injuring his fragile friend and their even more fragile friendship. They dance through the minefields of a relationship they both want and neither will allow.
Romance is transformational, and that includes bromance. Luke deals with Mike’s meltdowns because Mike cannot imagine a world with real affection and even less imagine a world without Luke. Mike deals with Luke’s meltdowns because Luke cannot imagine a world in which he would ever allow himself to be hurt again – much less imagine a world where he wouldn’t make himself vulnerable to Mike.
The men become closer and pull apart. They find fulfillment but reject it because someone with the wrong sexual orientation is providing it. They find friendship, but do they find love?
Finding Each Other (Volume 2, bromance) available in 2016
Mike and Luke explore what they want from their relationship, and why. Luke has reason to avoid commitment, while Mike has reason to want it. The casual attitude toward sex of many in the gay community – including some of Luke’s friends – causes panic for Mike. He wants someone close to whom he can demonstrate affection, pure and simple. It’s OK to hug and hold hands. What about kissing? What about the petrifying potential for more? Sex is rarely far from the surface, but can’t be allowed to break through. Mike wants a friend, a close friend, maybe even a boyfriend. Luke would be thrilled to have a boyfriend, if he just weren’t so scared – and scared with good reason.
This story overlaps with Life Struggles and the characters and actions move between the two stories. We get glimpses of the Decadence festival in New Orleans and see a few of the events from the perspective of on-lookers, and occasionally of participants. The sexual energy of Decadence interferes with the more important needs for love and affection.
Some things are simply not meant to be understood easily, if ever. In the immortal words of Luke’s nephew, Alex, “Explain it? I can’t explain television.”
Finding Closure (Volume 3, bromance) available in 2016
Mike can’t love Luke because Luke’s a guy and Mike is straight. Luke can’t love Mike because Mike is straight and that just doesn’t work. But they’re attracted to each other.
This story overlaps with both Taunting and Life Continues. The characters and actions move between and among the stories. We see flashes of a dysfunctional relationship, snippets of a complex murder investigation, and realize that life itself makes a mess of any attempt to find and keep love.
The men take their relationship on the road to the South Pacific where Mike is advising a small island nation on infrastructure and job development, while Luke finds inspiration for his art. They struggle with the meaning of love, sex, relationships, life and many other things that each finds strange in his own way.
Mike’s need for affection meets Luke’s unwillingness to accept it. Both struggle with norms and expectations, grappling with the issues separately and together. Finding love is never easy. Do they?
Emgee (Three-volume companion series written by Mike’s dog, Emgee, a mixed terrier-beagle) available in 2016
Emgee adopts a pet, but he’s just a puppy himself and doesn’t know what to do with this big people person he’s responsible for. He’s trying to train Sessam (that’s Emgee’s name for Mike, from “Suit-smell Man”) but isn’t making much progress. Maybe he just got a stupid pet. Anyway, Sessam has a Mommy, Pessam (from “Paint-smell Man”) who must be the Mommy because he has to teach Sessam everything about how to deal with a puppy. This is all very strange.
Can I have another treat now?
A Collection of Short Stories
He Verbed Her Euphemism and Other Strange Tales, Available 2016.
A collection of short stories “written” by a computer program using drop-down menus, random number generators and unlimited access to multiple thesauruses, all with zero quality control.
Stories include His Irredeemable Gerund, He Verbed Her Euphemism, The Metrics Reloaded and many others.
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