Inside the Beltway

Check out the latest chapter 35:

“I’m worried about traveling with him.  It’s one thing to be gay.  It’s another to be a gay couple, and it’s even more when you go out in public, especially places where you don’t know how people will react.  It’s one thing around here in D.C. but out there...”

Or go back to the beginning and get caught up.

Domestic Abuse Representation in LGBTQ Writing

Since February 10, 2014 I have been writing a fictional portrayal of young, gay man trying to get out of an domestic abuse relationship because I feel like queer fiction, gay fiction, needs to add more subjects and content, more diversity, to its wheel house, to represent those who are not normally represented.

It's not a popular subject.  I can understand why people don't want to talk about it.  It's frustrating.  It's real and it can be disturbing for people who never experienced it because it is closer than the boogeyman or some monster in a horror movie.

Sometimes the closest I got to finding some kind of representation of the topic was in bdsm erotica, novels trying to deal with PTSD and trauma. While I appreciate these efforts I worry that the intention is muddled by the other content, not maliciously but incidentally.  For some those subjects are even closely related as they equate bdsm with domestic abuse.  I don't equate the two and in my personal life and fictional portrayals look to define the two as separate subjects.

My story line is post break up, post abuse, and I consider other characters besides the subject of the story line (Josh), like Spencer who let's him move into his apartment and develops a crush on the recovering character.  In one part natural attraction and another it is about 'coming to the rescue', a sort of paternalistic urge, especially given their difference in age.  And yet Spencer is terribly insecure with his own past and troubles. 

Can they overcome their fears?  Will they endure?  And can they depend on their friends for support?

insidethebeltwaygayfiction.blogspot.com

Inside the Beltway (New Blog)

It just feels good to be doing something. I decided to start posting my serialized, gay fiction work 'Inside the Beltway' to my own blog. Chapters 1-15 should now be up.

Ch 15 Preview-
Drinking on the weekends became drinking every night until he had a collection of bottles in the cupboards of his kitchen instead of dishes, along the counters, and windowsills.

Sometimes they had a utility by holding candles but afterwards, after he decided to detox, go to AA and quit, well they were a reminder.  He hated the sound they made, bottle against bottle, grinding as he carried the bottles by the brown paper bag full, two or three in each hand to the dumpster where he set them to the side.  They were gone the next day, collected by one of the city’s many homeless, someone had hit the mother load.  He could smile about that minimal good that came from his habit, his indulgence, no his suffering.

-http://insidethebeltwaygayfiction.blogspot.com/

Inside the Beltway (serialized fiction)

Inside the Beltway- the friends and loves of a four men in Washington, D.C.

Chapters 1-12 (archives): http://www.swishedition.com/?p=9306

Most current chapter: http://www.swishedition.com/?p=9184

Inside the Beltway (Characters)

Living together in the same apartment, sharing the same bed, was a serious commitment for Triston, Darrell, and Bobby.  No one made an advance, touched or grabbed unless it was expected and usually communicated before it was done.  They weren’t there for the sex.  They weren’t in a monogamous relationship, it was something else, a friendship.  They could talk all night long but they were also comfortable with awkward silences.  Each of them were in the bed for his own reason.

For Triston it was his own sense of openness, a sense of family, if not community and friendship, plus it helped him save money to one day own a business, a sex toy shop focused on teaching and resources for a community.

For Bobby it was the warmth of being there amongst the other bodies and saving money for a brand new car, a BMW, which he wanted to pay off in full so that he never had to worry about a monthly payment.  He felt like he could go anywhere if he owned a car.  He could drive anywhere, be anywhere, move on a whim.

For Darrell it was sobriety, dependency, and preoccupation, the little annoyances and distractions that made him fill his day with something else.  It had gotten bad two years ago before he moved in with them.  He had his own apartment in that section of town that sounded like a bachelor’s neighborhood.  Drinking on the weekends became drinking every night until he had a collection of bottles in the cupboards of his kitchen instead of dishes, along the counters, and windowsills.

Read their stories: swishedition.com/?p=9184