These Are Our Darkest Thoughts, Dreams, Nightmares, And Fantasies...

The Eternal Dungeon, a historical fantasy series on friendship and romance in a Victorian prison, has proved to be the most popular series I've written. Its omnibus e-book received three honors in the Rainbow Awards 2011, including winning the Best Gay Fantasy category.

The Eternal Dungeon is ten years old this year. I'm in the midst of bringing out new stories in the series. If you've never read The Eternal Dungeon, then you can start here, with a couple of free stories that introduce the main characters in the series:

The Unanswered Question. No weapons, no allies, and no guarantees that he will survive the test.

The Breaking. The prisoner knew that the Eternal Dungeon was a place where suspected criminals were broken by torture, and he was prepared to hold out against any methods used against him – except the method he could not anticipate.

Beating of her heart made the crescent clear drop fall from the corner of her eye. Her eyes close as she lays upon this chest she barely knows. Fate it seems is not on their side. Here in this static room of disaster, she knows now she should have been stronger. She should have said more. She should have made her move faster. She should have known she was out here and waiting for her. Instead, she kept her distance and hid her feelings. What does she have for it? This moment.

Talking somewhere outside the room and she doesn't care. There is slight movement of Karry's chest and which tries to give her hope. There was once a time when she would have done anything to get this close to her beloved's breasts. Now they are lifeless mountains laying there almost telling her to focus on what is between them. Because what is pleasure now? What does the world have to offer? With whispers in her head she can hear a thousand conversations they've had. The late night moans and discussions over how their life would be. A million moments and lusts in the span of just a few weeks. Stereotypes be damned - they lived, collided, and loved. Another tear falls down on to Karry's chest. Another follows. Collapsing on her body, her heart wants to jump out of her chest. The stress and agony of this moment. These last moments.

Breaths are such interesting things. We take them for granted million of times a day. Then suddenly there is such a focus on just..one..more. And each inhale makes her cry a little louder. She knows the reality. She leans up to kiss Karry on the cheek and can't bare to look at her eyelids closed. Suddenly how we look doesn't matter. How mangled, bruised, and beaten her skin has become doesn't repulse her. She wishes Karry had one of those superhuman powers and could regenerate for her.

Inhale. She tries not to lose herself in the stitches and the jagged lines crossing her lover's face. Brain surgery never sounded so horrific. Car ride never sounded so life-shattering. If she can just hold on for another few minutes. Another few after that. Maybe open her eyes. But the machines let her breathe and she knows they pump her once living heart. They let her cocoon remain so Karry can say goodbye. Can lean down here and love on her one last time.

Inhale. "Baby, come back to me." She leans down and cannot say goodbye. She knows she's supposed to, but she can't. She won't. She needs her like a drug. She needs her like she needs food and water. And without her.... Well, she's nothing at all anymore.

And with the passing of moments, the distance gets harder to cross. Karry can no longer do her namesake for her love. Finally the inhaling stops. The world collapses. She drowns.

      Walking down the path, her stomach clenched up so tight she thought she might bend over from the pain. It had been going like this for days.  The black paved path led her through the green.  This was her path because mostly this is where she felt him through the trees.  This is where his wolf followed her through the woods.  This was their place.  Today she couldn't feel him.  Was it her?  The music meant nothing in her ears. All she could do was think.  Everything was wrong.  She felt so distant and so out of touch.  Here was where she was supposed to remember.  This was a place they shared in the distant shadows of their real selves.  The tears came as she kept walking.  Why was she crying?  Why did tears come and not him?  What is wrong with her?


      There was a tingling sensation in her back where it usually happens over her shoulder blades.  Her mind was going a million directions making her feet lost.  The woods made no sense to her today.  She kept walking hoping she'd gain her bearings somewhere along the way.  How can someone be so totally out of touch?  Her feet hit the pavement and every few minutes someone would go by and smile.  Nothing made sense like she was drowning, but there wasn't any water.  With new lyrics, she'd listen and wonder if something would come to her to make her realize what was going on.  Song after song went by of disappointment and endings.  None made sense of her situation so her feet keep going forward and the sweat remained.


      She realized she had walls.  With such fierce emotion, she had to guard herself against it.  She was now emotionally biting off her own foot.  So she had to let it go and feel.  She had to stop worrying about the now and focus on the future.  With more thoughts of him wrapped up in sheets and the moments they shared the weight lifted.  How desperately she needs him.  Her desire was clear (as it always had been) that she has to see him.  There is a bond there that cannot be broken, but can cause her pain when they're apart.  How does one live like this?  She looked to the skies and begged to be able to use them.  "Can I use them now rather than later? Please?"


      The tingling grew worse and her back ached.  She'd seen this a million times in her dreams.  This was the part where they'd pop out of her back and the black feathers would open behind her like a halo.  What does it mean they're always black?  Even as she thought about her dreams and the wings she hoped she could use, her back just tingled as if the stubs wanted to help her, but she didn't have the key.  Maybe she was fallen after all.  Damned here like a prisoner and damned to remember some, but not all.  Yet, she can't just get to him.  Frustration grew as her heels felt weighted down and ridiculous.  Mortal.  Damned to walk.



      Her time will come and she'll remember.  Maybe practice?  Maybe attempt even?  Or maybe there has to be a real reason for her wings to come out.  How could something else possibly be more important than him?  How did she ever live without him?  Whatever happens, she knows now why there are tears and how to overcome her own walls to be able to walk again with her wolf.  Like magic, a few steps up ahead she sees him running through the green and she takes off to meet him somewhere between this world and the next.

Tear drips down my cheek as you walk.  Walk away from where we used to be.  Where we were me.  Crow's wings and black eyeliner call me back to a street corner. 

 

Lost to the world.  She walks down the street alone.  She smokes because she doesn't want to see tomorrow.  Listens to music to open her wounds.  The black eyeliner surrounds her vision.  Singing out into the night.  Candles in her pocket.  Fire in her chest.  A pen and paper are the only thing she can muster the courage to love.  Shadows casting her image so dark on the pavement behind her.  It elongates as if it wants to hold onto her because she's disappearing.  Maybe she is.  Maybe his words so long ago meant something.  Maybe he was the reason she is still alive.  Is there a reason?  Laying down on the cold swing in this playground at night reminds her that everything has a double meaning.  Her trench-coat sways under her with the wind and her head drops down to stare off into a world she can never seem to touch.  She lets the music take her elsewhere as her mind numbs to words.  Deep within her they grow and start to dance on the tip of her tongue.  She lights a cigarette and drops to the ground.  Flicks the zippo to a soft glow and lights the small candle.  Will the neighborhood see?  Does she care?  Draws herself down on the ground sucking on her poison and releasing her soul onto paper.  The words flow out of her as if she is a catalyst where someone else can release their passion.  She watches her pen fight to keep up with the notions coming forth.  Draining her.  A tear falls because this night it is about her past.  And as much as she'd like to box it up and carry it away it causes her to remember what she needs to hold on to.  So she can continue to write and be here..in some way.  This pain and her history are who she is.  Laying down on her back more words come and she scrambles to turn over and write them down.  The candle flickers hope around her and she is too blind to see.  She watches the small light mesmerized by it's path and it's dance.  Getting lost somewhere else can be such relief, but she has to come back.  She has to draw herself in so she can create.  The only decent thing about her anymore.  Or so her saying goes.

 

Her mascara runs and she stares up into space with the paper on her heart.  She'd carve herself into a thousand pieces to feel better, but can't because she'd lose everything.  She's trapped in her own spider's web.  Here she's safe.  At night, parks like this give her the voice and sanctuary she needs.  There are no graveyards close enough.  How much she wants to visit him where he lays to rest.  But she needs a car and the keepers have chased her away at night too many times. 

 

Lighting another cigarette she lays on her tummy and writes some more.  Poems mostly.  Pieces of pain really.  Pieces of her being.  Pieces of her frailty.  Maybe one day they'll be worth something.  Maybe to someone.  She has enough already for 3 volumes of work and it just keeps coming.  This is her muse. 

 

Black nail polish and white hands.  She blows out the candle and gets up to make her way back.  She'll get on the roof tonight, light the candle, and write into the eve.  But for now she'll move on as always.  Constantly roaming.  And somewhere she'll find her peace.  Even if it lays in a tomb.  Walking out of the park, her shadow shortens.  Metaphor.

 

I want to be able to hold her now and tell her it will be OK - I made it to the other side.

Death as an empty shell
Ashes eventually blow away
Life as a hole
Death as the filler
What is the middle

It is not circular
The logic we abide by
But simply lines
Waiting to be walked
Spiraling like the galaxy

There are wonders to be dreamt
When notions are fleeting
Was it darkness tugging
Or something fulfilling
What changed the perception

Death is never the end
Is it the complete
How we are remembered
Do we really fall away
So what is forgotten

Life has meaning
Everything you do
Nothing escapes us
Start, middle...wait
Does the middle end?

Ive never felt such a will to live
Happiness is just a state of the mind
Self respect and esteem combined
accept yourself for once in your life
Live a little and remove the knife
You don't need him to tell you to smile
Sense he left you been smiling all the while
I feel like I've been suffocating for years
And the man with the pillow is all of my fears
Keep swimming to the surface cause you've been under too long
why the fuck are you drowning, you know you're too strong
You could never be more beautiful to me
and understand that love is free