#i posted this on patreon earlier today and i wanted to wait longer before putting it on my socials but i couldnt resist 💀

[blynxee]

critter illustration that I just finished. this was initially gonna just be a gouache illustration but I got frustrated with my paints not being vibrant enough so I relented to finishing it with colored pencils ghfhf

[yaldev]

As of today, we’re celebrating: 365 Yaldev posts, 4 years of this nonsense, and being exactly 7 years behind Beeple!

CELEBRATION:

365 posts! That’s one year of Yaldev! Well, if I had been writing one every day, which I absolutely haven’t.

It continues to be the case that looking back on posts even from less than a year ago, I think “man this sucks,” and I either know how to improve it at least a little bit while I’m there, or I can’t stand to even look at it and I just have to escape from it. I don’t feel too much pressure to fix the bad posts at this point; as of today, Yaldev’s been going for exactly four years now (if you skip leap days :thonk:), and in a sense it’s chronicled my progress as a writer during that time. Some entries have been modified since them, some changed entirely except for the name and art chosen. I think it only makes sense that reading through it in storyline order will be like traveling through different points of my creative skill, in much the same way as it means traveling through different points of Beeple’s art quality.

CIRCUMSTANTIAL UPDATES:

People I know in real life are bugging me to start a Patreon. It’d certainly be reasonable to start one now that I’m four years in, but I can’t justify setting one up without:

A more consistent creative output than I’m currently hammering out, so I’m not taking your money for less utility than I’m giving you

Something to offer patrons without compromising the project for non-patrons

Existing interest from some of my audience in throwing cash at me (dance, monkey!)

A possible solution to the first one is setting myself a bar: if I don’t write at least X words by the end of the month, I don’t receive anyone’s money for that month. Hopefully that makes people feel more comfortable backing someone inconsistent, since they’ll still receive their benefits during the down periods but not have to spend anything. For the second, I have ideas for what to offer, but they’d have to be on top of my current output rather than replacing it, so at present I can’t really work ahead on them without detracting from the main project. It’s hard juggling part-time school, full-time job, getting enough sleep, Yaldev, another creative project I have a stronger obligation to, a paper I’m writing for a conference, relaxation, and generic life stuff. That said, I could be happily coerced into making a Yaldev a higher priority if I have a financial obligation to a couple supporters. The real question is whether there’s any interest in that. I worry that when the project has gone on as long as it has, interest actually decreases over time if it’s seen as old news. On the other hand, maybe older followers have a sense of being with me since the early days, like they’re invested in this ride as well. I have little clue.

In any event, if a Patreon goes up, I absolutely won’t be shoving it in people’s faces at every opportunity, since I’m not in a position of financial need and money was never the point of this. The main project would continue to be 100% free, and benefits would only be for additional goodies; nothing you can currently see would be moved behind a paywall.

STATISTICS:

This is the fun part, lads! Get ready for some stats and some commentary!

Total Stories: 365

As should be obvious, all numbers are only for the point at which I'm writing this post. These only include the posts that are canon and which I wrote.

Project Age: 1460 Days

Exactly four years! I think it’s a fun coincidence that it lined up with the 365th entry.

How Long You Have to Wait, on Average, For the Next Post: Approximately 4 Days

My output has slowed down since the last update. Feelsbad, but I don’t hear much complaining and I hope that higher quality makes up for lower quantity. Even still, I’m trying to blitz through my to-do list and speedrun my coursework to make more time for this. I hope to eventually bring that down to 3.5, for an average of two posts per week across the project's history.

Readers Across All Platforms: 536 (107 on Tumblr, 135 on Facebook, 140 on Instagram, 154 on Reddit)

Howdy y'all! Thanks for being here and reading my steadily-improving crap. I really struggle with talking about my creative projects in real life, including Yaldev, primarily out of a self-trained instinct to shut myself up about it on the understanding that nobody cares—especially not other creative types, since we're all too invested in our own creation to pay much attention to others. I've been trying to overcome that, and you're helping me just by being here to read. That tells me there's potential in this and that it's something that at least some people genuinely want to see. Artists shouldn't attach their sense of self to their creations, but I can't help but feel validated through that.

At the same time, I do often fear that mine is the sort of content that just gets a like tossed at it for the pretty visuals on the way down the endless content scroll, without having made a real impression on anyone or created a lasting memory. I'll probably always have that worry, which comes as much from a disdain for general Internet culture as anything else. Late in 2020 I took a step away from social media, and I’ve only partially returned, with the result that scrolling through newsfeeds takes up much less of my time than it used to. Feels good. I’d encourage you to do the same, but then you wouldn’t be seeing my own crap as often. :^)

Stories Per Reader: Approximately 0.68

Makes it sound like a decent growth rate, if on average I'm getting one new follower per story half the time, and two new followers the other half of the time. I guess "good growth rate" is somewhat subjective and depends on your goal, but for me, having a tangible unit of increase for each feels good.

It’s actually a lot more variable than that, of course. Usually a given entry will either attract no new followers because I only put it up in my own spaces, or it’ll draw in a few if I post it to a space for content like mine.

Total Word Count: 89,721

I typically operate under the assumption that most novels are about 75k, while sci-fi and fantasy novels tend to be longer since their authors are physically incapable of shutting up, putting them at around 100k. We’ll definitely reach that, and it probably won’t even take that long.

Average Story Length: Approximately 246 words

The 245-255 range is what feels good to me. Part of Yaldev’s appeal compared to books, in theory, is that if you’re consuming it the normal way, you’re getting it in bite-sized chunks as part of your scrolling experience. So I theoretically prefer to keep them on the short side, even if in practice I actually go ham and write stuff that’s quite long. The average here is really being dragged by 100-word posts previously being a lot more common than they are now.

STORY PLANS GOING FORWARD:

So the most recent entry, Gemstones as Mana Sources, was Beeple’s art from February 15, 2014. Today’s exactly 7 years from then, so I actually have an easy bar now for whether I’m catching up to the dude or not. 

When I started this project, I began with his art from July of 2014 and then started moving forward. I got to about September 2015 before I decided that I wanted to go hardcore and go through all his art from the very beginning, at which point I warped back to his art from the very beginning in 2008, and started going through it in chronological order. I think I made that shift back in 2019, and now we’re getting back to the era of his art that I actually started this project with. All of this is to say that soon you’re probably going to notice an uptick in the art quality, either to something new if you’re new, or to what it was like in the Good Ol’ Days™ if you’ve been following this for a long time. As mentioned earlier, I no longer feel super bound to what I’ve written before: I prefer maintaining consistency, but some threads not being tied up and some contradictions are fine. I think the biggest one is that the state of magic’s legality in the Ascended Empire has never been made super clear, but I’m actually okay with that. I know that in the Imperiomancy entry I mentioned how its use by officials varied depending on who held power in government, and magic as a whole could be an even more complex issue that varies by time as well as region. I unironically think that Yaldev is the kind of world that has room for headcanon, so while I’ll try to fix egregious errors, you’re also quite justified in having your own handwaves for my screwups.

I don’t have any updates for any of the storylines really, except for the stuff with Inzohm and the Lone Traveller, for anyone keeping up with that: consider all of it to be in rough-draft at the moment. It’s the kind of long-con story that I really can’t coherently tell the way I do with the rest of Yaldev, so everything I write for it is more like notes that I can later on collect, shuffle, remix and rewrite until it’s semi-coherent. Turns out that Yaldev has helped me develop a number of skills as a writer, but telling better character-driven narratives isn’t one of them—partially because my chosen process, medium and inspiration-artist doesn’t lend itself too well to such stories.

Thanks for being here. What I always wanted as a kid was for other people to be as excited about my worldbuilding as I was, and while I doubt I've hit that extent with Yaldev, I hope my work's had some impact on you, or that it has parts you remember and enjoy. If you have any questions or comments you’ve been too shy to put elsewhere, feel free to drop them here! If not, just stick around and I’ll see you again at post number 400!

[hanasaku-shijin]

Ordinary Day

Series: Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon

Words: 2,868

Genres: Friendship-Romance, Hurt/Comfort

A/N: I just love these two so much. I had to write more for them. So I whipped up another fluff fic. I also have Valentine and Nightmare for these two idiots so far. 

Please reblog to help share the story, since there’s nowhere else to post it officially at this time!

 || Patreon || Commission info ||

-------------

Ordinary Day

For the most part, it's been another ordinary day in the Kobayashi household. 

Well, as ordinary as a day can get with a human who's living with two dragons in disguise, that is. 

But Kanna's had a good, easy day at school, and Tohru's done all of her chores and enjoyed an uneventful day at home without any unwanted visitors to interrupt everyone's personal space.

All in all, Kobayashi would've deemed today as a good day. 

She herself had gotten all of her work done, and she'd helped out several of her colleagues as well. She'd even gotten some of tomorrow's work done by some miracle, and the idea of having a little less pressure on her aching shoulders makes her smile now as she sits down at the kitchen table. 

“So, what's for dinner?” she asks, as per usual. 

Kanna scampers over and climbs up into her chair just as Tohru turns around with several plates full of food balanced on her arms, and a triumphant grin on her face.

“Tonight is a mini buffet! We have rice, pickled plums, and meat dumplings!” 

As she begins making her way to the table, the word 'meat' sets Kobayashi off immediately.

“What kind of meat is it?” She watches as Tohru's tail is revealed as she comes around the counter. Tohru instantly blushes and looks away.

“It isn't my tail this time,” she mumbles. 

Kobayashi narrows her eyes as she scans Tohru's green scales.

“Are you sure all of it's there? Even the tip?”

“It isn't my tail!” Tohru wails. “It's pork! Pork!” 

As she puffs out her cheeks in a pout, Kobayashi can't help but laugh.

“Sorry, sorry. I believe you.” 

Tohru pouts for a moment longer before she starts setting the food-filled plates onto the table.

“Here you go, Kanna.”

“Yaaay.” Though the little dragon's voice is monotone, she's genuinely excited for the food and starts digging in right away, though she still finds some difficulty in using chopsticks. 

Tohru makes her way around the table and places one dish in front of her mistress.

“And for you, Kobayashi-san~”

“Thanks. It looks good.” 

But as Tohru is putting down the plate,  a sudden jolt runs through her. The plate clatters noisily onto the table, and she nearly drops the third one she's holding as she stumbles slightly.

“Ah-” 

Her stomach knocks against the table, and if it isn't for Kobayashi's quick reaction to grab the table and steady it, the whole thing might've tipped over.

“W-Whoa!” Kobayashi drops her own chopsticks and reaches out with her free hand to grab Tohru's arm. “Tohru! What happened?” She can feeling her trembling now, just a little, but it’s enough to warrant concern. 

Tohru swallows, flashing a brief look to her, then away again.

“I-It's nothing. I’m sorry.”

“Ah, no. It's fine.” 

Kobayashi still isn't too good with these sort of things. She's not sure what to do. If the other person says not to worry, she doesn't know if she should trust that they're being honest, or presume they're trying to hide something.

She assumes Tohru falls into the former category, however, considering she's typically honest to the point of it being flinch-worthy. 

Then again, she's usually honest about what makes her happy. Troubling things, she tends to conceal... 

But for the moment, Kobayashi instinctively lets her go. Tohru does her best to regain her composure and straighten herself out again.

“S-Silly me. I almost got food stains all over Kobayashi-san's work clothes. Then I might not have been able to stop myself from cleaning them with my mouth.”

“We have a washing machine,” Kobayashi reminds her. “But in any case, sit down and eat your food. If you're feeling dizzy, that should help.”

“Right.” Tohru puts her own plate down and takes her seat. 

Kobayashi keeps an eye on her as they begin eating, and for the most part, things seem to have gone back to normal. Kanna talks about the day she's had at school, and Kobayashi offers a few tidbits about her own day. 

But Tohru stays quiet and almost unresponsive throughout the conversations this evening. The usual bubbly brightness that had been radiating from her earlier when Kobayashi had come home has now faded. She picks at her food without gusto, as though she's forcing herself. 

Kobayashi can tell something's still bothering her. She's trying to think of a way to ask about it when Kanna pushes her chair back.

“Finished. Thanks for the meal. Kobayashi, can I watch TV?”

“Hm? Ah, sure. Just keep the volume down.”

“Yaaaay.” 

Kanna hops off her chair and heads into the living room. Figuratively, Tohru jumps at the chance to abandon her meal.

“I'll begin washing Kanna's dishes.” 

But before she can make a move to get up, Kobayashi makes a move to stop her.

“Tohru. You've barely touched your food. Are you all right?” 

The dragon girl doesn't look at her directly.

“Yes. I-I'm just not very hungry all of a sudden...”

“Toh-ru.” 

The maid freezes in her place as she stands, still refusing to look at her mistress directly. Kobayashi notices she's holding onto her stomach. Evidently, Tohru isn't the type to be completely honest when something's bothering her. 

Slowly, Tohru begins turning her face and looks in her direction, though her eyes are trained on the plates. Kobayashi stands as well.

“If you're not feeling well, you have to tell me,” she instructs. “You're my maid, so that means I have to take care of you if something's wrong.” 

She waits for Tohru's reaction, watching her swallow nervously.

“It's nothing. I'll wrap up the food I didn't finish and you can take it to work tomorrow for lunch. I should do the dishes-”

“Enough of that.” Kobayashi cuts her off. Stepping closer, she puts a hand on her maid's shoulder. Tohru gasps softly, and her grip on her stomach tightens.

“Are... Are you mad at me...?” 

Kobayashi hums.

“Mm, not particularly. But it would be best if you'd just be honest about stuff like this. Especially when I ask you directly.”

“I'm sorry...”

“It's fine.” 

Kobayashi keeps her hand on Tohru's shoulder, partially to convey the implied support behind the gesture, and to actually support Tohru. She still seems unbalanced, and her breathing is a little hard. 

Kobayashi can feel small, prickling pains creeping beneath her own skin, something she realizes she's only ever felt when she's worried about Tohru. 

“So?” she prompts her. “Wanna tell me what's wrong?” 

Tohru bites her lip, nails curling into her uniform over her stomach.

“It's just... this old wound again...” 

Kobayashi had a feeling it might've been something like that.

“Does it hurt?”

“Yes...”

“Enough to make you lose your appetite?”

“...Yes...”

“That's no good. You've gotta eat. Especially since you're a dragon.”

“I-I tried,” Tohru whimpers. “I don't want... any of the food we've spent your money on going to waste. But I just...”

“It hurts that much, huh?” 

Tohru nods. 

Kobayashi sighs. 

“Then you don't have to worry about the food, Tohru. Worry about yourself.” 

Tohru finally lifts her gaze to meet Kobayashi's. And Kobayashi can tell this is still new to her, having her wellbeing come first. 

“Let me guess,” she begins. “In the dragon world, it's survival of the fittest. And since you're one of the strongest dragons there is, there's never been a reason for anyone else to be concerned about you. If you showed weakness, they'd probably try to kill you, right?” 

Tohru's eyes widen, and her jaw drops just a little bit.

“Y-Yes. That's exactly how it is.”

“I see. But, Tohru-” Kobayashi pats her shoulder again, and offers a smile. “You're in this world now, remember? Here, not everyone can be strong all the time. It's okay to show weakness from time to time. We take care of each other.” 

With that much said, she watches Tohru's reaction. Her sunset-colored eyes begin to water, and when she tries to speak, her voice cracks.

“K... Kobayashi...san...” 

Kobayashi puts her arm around the small of Tohru's back and helps ease her away from the table.

“Come on. If you can't eat, let's go sit somewhere comfortable.” 

Slowly, she guides Tohru into the living room, where Kanna is all but glued to the TV. 

Kobayashi leads Tohru to the couch on the other side of the room. She can still feel Tohru trembling a little, and the girl hasn't let go of her stomach and side. 

Kobayashi knows Tohru isn't just playing it up, either. There were times when she might've acted this way for attention, but when she's really in pain, Tohru does her best not to let it be known. 

Must be a pride complex among dragons... 

They reach the couch, and Kobayashi helps Tohru down before taking a seat beside her. Tohru leans back heavily against the cushions, still holding onto her sore side. She closes her eyes and tries to slow her breathing. Kobayashi can't help but feel a surge of guilt run through her.

“I wish I could take you to a doctor or something,” she comments. “But I think there are a few things they'd notice, and that could cause problems.”

“It's okay,” Tohru mumbles. “It should be fine...”

“I thought the last time I asked you about it, you’d said it didn't hurt anymore? So what happened? Did you run into something and make it sore again?” 

Tohru shakes her head, opening her eyes wearily.

“No. Usually... it will start to hurt again if the god who impaled me is angered... or if he is drawing nearer to my location...” 

Kobayashi stiffens.

“That doesn't sound good. Is he coming after you?” 

Tohru shakes her head.

“No. He thinks he killed me. But it seems... my body still reacts to his presence somehow...”

“Mmm... I guess that makes sense. Sorry it hurts so much.”

“It's okay. Hopefully it won't last long.”

“But if it does, you have to tell me,” Kobayashi demands. “If you're still in pain tomorrow morning, let me know. That's an order.”

“Y-Yes, ma'am.”

“Good.” 

Satisfied, Kobayashi reaches up to pat Tohru's head gently. 

The dragon makes a sound somewhere between a sigh and a whimper, and leans into her touch. 

Kobayashi feels this is the least she can do for her. 

This, and perhaps one more thing.

 “I was worried, you know.”

“...Eh?” 

Blinking, Tohru looks to her, puzzled. Kobayashi reiterates.

“It scared me a little, seeing you like that. When you stumbled earlier, I didn't know what to think.” 

Obviously, she'd made it evident with her actions that she'd been worried about Tohru, and still is. But there's something oddly pleasant about being able to tell that person you’re worried about them.

 Clearly, Tohru is flustered by the confession.

“Y-You... were worried...?”

“Of course. You told me dragons can't get sick. So I thought something must be really wrong.”

“Oh... It's true that dragons can't contract bacterial illnesses and disease. But we aren't immune to food poisoning or the effects of an empty stomach. And there is... one sickness we are able to contract...”

“Oh? What's that?” 

Tohru dips her head, hiding her face in Kobayashi's shoulder.

“Lovesickness...” 

Kobayashi sighs heavily.

“Well, I guess that makes sense, though. Those aren't bacterial diseases, after all. It also makes sense that your body can still be negatively affected by something like an old wound being aggravated. That's only natural.”

“Yes...” 

Tohru doesn't move from her current position. She burrows her face into Kobayashi's shoulder more, her hand still gripping her side. Kobayashi smiles.

“In that case, lie down.”

“...Eh?”

“You heard me. Right here.”

 Tohru pulls herself away a little, so she can look up at her.

“B-But-”

“Your master gave you an order.”

“Y-Yes, ma'am!” 

With a bit of effort, Tohru draws her legs and tail up onto the couch, wincing whenever her injury bothers her. Kobayashi keeps a hand on her shoulder and helps her lie down, preventing her from rolling off the couch. 

Tohru is about to lie her head down on the couch's seat cushions. But Kobayashi gently stops her, and instead coaxes Tohru to rest her head in her lap instead. 

Naturally, Tohru turns red.

“K-Kobayashi-san! C-Can I-?”

“Just be quiet for a minute, would you? I told you to let me take care of you. Lie down.” 

A little nervously, Tohru does as she's told. She faces away from Kobayashi, being mindful of her horns, not wanting them to dig into her mistress' thighs. 

Kobayashi waits patiently for Tohru to adjust herself however is most comfortable for her, then rests a hand on the dragon girl's head.

“My mom always told me that lying down on your left side helps with stomach pains. Since your injury is on your right side, this works perfectly.” 

Tohru lets out a small breath.

“Your... mother told you that? How is it supposed to work...?”

“I dunno. It's probably just a placebo or something. But even when I got old enough to realize that, it still always seemed to work.”

“So... even mothers will lie to their own children to help them feel better?”

“Humans are strange, aren't we? But we do whatever we have to in order to take care of the ones we love.” 

After that, Tohru is silent for a long while. Kobayashi can't see her expression, but judging by the way her body has lost a bit of tension, she can assume Tohru is calming down.

“You should relax,” she advises her. “It won't help if you're stiff.”

“B-But... being in your lap like this-”

“Should make you feel calm, not anxious. I'm not gonna hurt you, Tohru.” 

She can hear Tohru whimper a little at that.

“I know...”

“Then relax.” 

To help, Kobayashi uses her left hand to continue patting Tohru's head, ruffling her bangs just a little bit. With her right hand, she reaches out to Tohru's injured side, and rests her palm lightly there. Tohru jolts a little, and a small gasp flies from her lips. 

Kobayashi berates herself. Shit!

“S-Sorry!” she says quickly. “I should've warned you first.”

“No... it's okay...”

“I thought massaging it could help,” Kobayashi reasoned. “But if it hurts, just tell me to stop.”

“Okay.” 

Once Tohru has gotten her bearings again, Kobayashi begins to rub her hand over her maid’s side. She kneads very lightly, running her fingers all around the sore area. She presses her palm in here and there, applying a very slight pressure, then eases off. She runs her hand down to Tohru's hip, then travels up as far as her ribs. 

All the while, she can feel Tohru gradually relaxing. Her breathing becomes slow and deep, and she doesn't flinch anymore. But just to be certain, Kobayashi wants to check.

“Tohru? Are you okay?”

“Y-Yes! It feels much better. Thank you, Kobayashi-san.”

“I'm glad.” 

Tohru does so much for her every day. The least Kobayashi can do is spoil her a little like this when she's hurt. 

So she doesn't stop her ministrations on Tohru, massaging her bad side with one hand and petting though her hair with the other. 

Kobayashi keeps her eyes on Kanna and on the TV ahead of her, and doesn't even notice until a while later that Tohru's fallen fast asleep in her lap. When she finally does notice, Kobayashi smiles.

“Guess she feels better. That's good.” 

She finally stops massaging Tohru, though she lets her hand rest on the dragon girl's side. There are times when Tohru grinds her teeth or tosses about in her sleep. But times like these, when her breathing is soft and her body is still, almost make her seem fragile. More like a human than a dragon. 

Kobayashi is content to sit here for a while longer, allowing Tohru the nap she deserves. 

She said dragons don't need to sleep. But I think living with me has made her want to. 

Evidently, Tohru isn't the only one. 

A moment later, Kanna abandons the TV, crawls across the floor, and climbs up onto the couch on Kobayashi's other side, nestling under her arm.

“Sleepy, sleepy...”

“Ah, well...” Kobayashi glances at the digital clock beneath the TV. “It's still a bit early. So a nap should be fine now, as long as we can all wake up later, brush our teeth and change, and then go to our bedrooms.”

“I can do it,” Kanna declares. “Nap now.” 

Kobayashi pats her head as well.

“Sure.”

“Kobayashi, nap too.”

“Well, I can't reach the remote, so I guess I might as well.” 

So Kanna cuddles up into her side, while Tohru continues to sleep peacefully, using her lap as a pillow. Kobayashi pulls them both in a little closer, ensuring neither of them will slip off. 

Damn... my legs are numb... 

But Tohru's sleeping far too deeply and peacefully for Kobayashi to even consider moving her. 

Ah, whatever. 

On her other side, Kanna's asleep in seconds. Kobayashi keeps an arm around her, then leans her head back against the cushions. She closes her eyes, and invites sleep to take her for a little while. 

I guess it was a pretty ordinary day...

[Fin]

[glittership]

Episode #43 — "In Search of Stars" by Matthew Bright

Download this episode (right click and save)

And here’s the RSS feed: http://glittership.podbean.com/feed/

Episode 43 is A GLITTERSHIP ORIGINAL and part of the Summer 2017 issue!

Support GlitterShip by picking up your copy here: http://www.glittership.com/buy/

In Search of Stars

by Matthew Bright

It starts with a secret place, as many stories do.

On the outside, it is a laundrette. The printed letters on the plate glass are peeling, but still legible: Whites. Below it, a list of numbers is scraped away, leaving the cost of a wash a mystery. Occasionally, I pass it in daylight. During the day, the door is propped open by a rickety stool, and I peer inside. It is filled by graying women with rumpled, dishcloth skin who talk quietly amongst themselves about their children and their husbands.

Once, I dare to take my clothes there to wash. An innocent errand, I reason; no shadow of suspicion could fall on a man simply doing his laundry. This does not prevent the women from eyeing me as if the mere presence of a man amongst them is suspect. To compound this, I am unprepared, and am forced to swap a nickel for a palmful of powder, a foolish error met with sad tuts.

As I empty the powder into the drum, I study the door in the corner.

  [Full transcript after the cut.]

Hello! Welcome to GlitterShip episode 43 for August 20, 2017. This is your host, Keffy, and I’m super excited to be sharing this story with you.

It’s a little bit late (oops!) but we finally have the Summer 2017 issue of GlitterShip available for you to read and enjoy! As before, all of the stories will be podcast and posted on the website over the next couple of months. However, if you’d like to get a head start reading the stories and support GlitterShip, you can purchase copies of the Summer 2017 issue on Amazon, Nook, or right here at GlitterShip.com.

Looking forward, the GlitterShip Year One anthology is now available via Amazon, and Barnes & Noble in both print and electronic editions, as well as for direct purchase CreateSpace(print) and GlitterShip.com/buy (electronic)—which also means that copies will FINALLY go out to the people who so generously supported the GlitterShip Kickstarter way back in 2015.

Today, we have a GlitterShip original short story by Matthew Bright, as well as a poem by Charles Payseur.

Content warning for “In Search of Stars” – some sex and mild domestic violence.

  Charles Payseur is an avid reader, writer, and reviewer of all things speculative. His fiction and poetry have appeared at Strange Horizons, Lightspeed Magazine, The Book Smugglers, and many more. He runs Quick Sip Reviews, contributes as short fiction specialist at Nerds of a Feather, Flock Together and can be found drunkenly reviewing Goosebumps on his Patreon. You can find him gushing about short fiction (and occasionally his cats) on Twitter as @ClowderofTwo.

    becoming, c.a. 2000

by Charles Payseur

  he gives himself to the internet a piece at a time, in chatrooms and message boards and fandom pages, like burning prayers for the next life. he finds himself there as cronus must have found his children, a terrifying future fully formed and armored that he is desperate to consume.

  every day he leans into his screen, close enough to brush his lips against the humming glass, feels the snap of static on skin, and pulls away diminished, the sum of his parts no longer quite equaling the whole. he asks friends what they think but all of them are online now, scattered like ghosts, a great ocean of scared boys in nice houses and with each question, each reassurance, each word of a language they build to map their desires, they all find themselves that much more gone.

  he is barely a whisper when he puts the last piece of himself into a comment on a garak/bashir slashfic

                                more plz

    Matthew Bright is a writer, editor and designer who constantly debates which order those should come. His fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Tor.com, Nightmare Magazine, Harlot, Steampunk Universe amongst others, and he is the editor of anthologies including Clockwork Cairo: Steampunk Tales of Egypt, Myriad Carnival: Queer and Weird Tales from Under the Big Top and the upcoming A Scandal in Gomorrah: Queering Sherlock Holmes. He pays the bills as a book cover designer in Manchester, England, and you can find him on twitter @mbrightwriter or online at matthew-bright.com.

      In Search of Stars

by Matthew Bright

    It starts with a secret place, as many stories do.

On the outside, it is a laundrette. The printed letters on the plate glass are peeling, but still legible: Whites. Below it, a list of numbers is scraped away, leaving the cost of a wash a mystery. Occasionally, I pass it in daylight. During the day, the door is propped open by a rickety stool, and I peer inside. It is filled by graying women with rumpled, dishcloth skin who talk quietly amongst themselves about their children and their husbands.

Once, I dare to take my clothes there to wash. An innocent errand, I reason; no shadow of suspicion could fall on a man simply doing his laundry. This does not prevent the women from eyeing me as if the mere presence of a man amongst them is suspect. To compound this, I am unprepared, and am forced to swap a nickel for a palmful of powder, a foolish error met with sad tuts.

As I empty the powder into the drum, I study the door in the corner.

It takes me several weeks to get the courage to return at night. The front door is no longer propped open advertising itself, but it hangs ajar, distinctly not closed. Inside it is dark, and quiet—none of the machines are awake. But men pass in and out of the doorway with regularity, briefly spilling light from the door in the back across the machines; they are not carrying clothes.

I do not know whatever password it is that would grant me access, and neither do I have the will to ask. Perhaps were I to be bold—simply walk up to the door in the back of the laundrette and go in—I might be able to talk my way upstairs. But when my foot breaks the curb to cross the street, my stomach churns, noxious with fear, and I step back.

Tonight, it is cold, and so I cross the alley to the diner. The waitress there—a pretty girl, like the small-town ones from back home—knows me by name now. “Usual, Albert?” she says, and I enjoy being someone who has a “usual.” I imagine that perhaps she does too—this is not the sort of diner with regulars. I sit in a booth by the window and drink coffee, covertly watch the laundrette, and the men that come and go. I don’t know what I imagine is on the other side of the door, but I know I want to find out. Perhaps the waitress knows—it seems unlikely that she works here night after night and doesn’t have some idea what is going on opposite. The thought makes me uncomfortable, but I remind myself there is nothing wrong with a man drinking coffee—or a man washing his clothes.

There is someone waiting outside the laundrette. He leans against the window-frame, making insolent eye-contact with any man who enters. His boldness—starkly opposite to my own reticence—tugs at me; I dowse the feeling with coffee and look at the chipped table-top. The jukebox is playing music—rock and roll, tinny and weak. It clanks and whirs when the records are changed.

After a while, I can feel—in that skin-pricking way that comes from a sense other than sight or hearing—that the man is looking at me. I chance a look, and meet his eyes.

The waitress is serving an old man in the corner, her back turned. I gather my coat, and step out into the cold. At the end of the road the city exhales a blare of cars, distant music, police whistles, but its cacophony falters at the corner. Our street is still like midwinter, and the man waits for me in the middle.

We exchange words. It doesn’t matter what they are. Suffice it to say, I have spoken similar words before; I am a man who knows their real meanings, just as he.

The walk is a few wet streets away. He talks, and I interject enough answers into the conversation to keep it from stagnating. I keep a proprietary distance from him, glance nervously at the darkened windows around us, any one of which might contain a watcher who knows my face—I saw that scientist from round the corner, they might say, and you’ll never guess what? He tells me he is a musician—saxophone, because all the other boys in this city are playing guitar, he says. I picture the pads of his fingers stroking the keys, and the cold reed leeching the moisture from his bottom lip.

I ask him if he’s ever played inside, meaning the secret place above the laundrette, hoping he’ll say yes so he can describe it to me. He shakes his head. “I’ve never been in,” he says. We are at the foot of my building, and I fumble in my pocket for keys. He leans in close to me. “Have you?”

“I don’t know the password.”

A second, then he laughs. “Password? You don’t need a password.” He looks me up and down. He is mentally reconfiguring me from a man of experience to a naïf who imagines cloak-and-dagger, film-noir secrecy. He hesitates.

“Come in,” I say.

I let him climb the stairs first. With the door closed, my stomach spins in anticipation, as if permission is granted by the cloak of privacy—nobody to see us now, not even if I were to pull his clothes off right here on the stairs. But I don’t—I jam my hands in my pockets and follow his shadow upwards.

At the top, he looks around the detritus of my apartment, and asks me what I do. “I’m an artist,” I say, which is not exactly a lie. He looks for a light-switch, but I point him through the door to the bedroom. I pull dustclothes over my work, then follow him. He is already naked on the bed, his clothes a gray pool by the nightstand.

He tastes of something I can’t describe.

Afterwards he rolls to the cold side of the bed, pulling the damp sheets with him. He looks appraisingly at me, and he is re-evaluating me all over again—perhaps tallying up the number of men that added up to the expertise I had displayed. He looks at me for some time.  An endless parade, he must conclude—all those other men.

My chest congeals into a thick, black, furtive shame, soul-deep.

I offer him a cigarette, but he refuses, rolls onto his back and closes his eyes. At first the lids are tense, like a child pretending to be asleep after curfew, and then they relax. He breathes slowly.

I place the cigarette between my lips, but leave it unlit. Tentative dawn is creeping over the horizon, silvering the rooftops. I left the curtains undrawn when I left earlier, the window fully open—not a conscious choice, but it’s fortuitous: the window grates on opening, loud enough to wake someone sleeping.

I arise quietly, pad into the other room, and pull aside the dustclothes. The paint is where I left it, viscous and silver in its vat. Its clean, sterile smell stings my eyes. I open a drawer, select the right brush—hog bristle, which is soft and delicate, and will not wake him.

On the bed, I kneel, apply the paint gently. I cover him in reverse order of the skin touched by my tongue and fingers, turning it warm pink to cold blue. By the time I have covered his chest and thighs, he is lighter, rising up from the bed. When I cover his arms, they rise above him, as if he is reaching for an embrace. I run the brush to his feet.

When I am finished, he floats a foot above the bed, rising. When I lay my hand on his belly, he is light as a feather, and my touch guides him across the room as if he were a leaf on a still pond. He passes below the lintel soundlessly, not waking even when his steady ascendance nudges his shoulder against the frame.

My hands on his cheeks anchor him, like a child clutching a balloon that tugs against its string. His feet lift, inverting him. His eyes open when I kiss him gently on the lips. He smiles, and I release him.

He turns as he floats up, alternating blue then pink in the watery dawn, and then is higher than I can see any longer, beyond my sight with all the others.

I lie down on the bed, pull the still-warm bedsheets around me, and light my cigarette. The smoke rises in clouds, and vanishes as if it was never there.

    The story continues with the morning after, as many stories do.

Firm block capitals in my diary prevent from lying abed long into the afternoon: I have an appointment to make. I meet Eugene in the foyer of the Mayfair. I wonder exactly how much Eugene has been told about my present circumstances, and whether his choice of venue is a deliberate statement of his success. It would be just like Eugene, though it would be intended without malice.

He presses whiskey into my hand, and greets me as if we have never been apart. “Such a surprise when old Selwyn told me you were in LA!” he says. He ushers me to an armchair, and gestures for the discretely hovering waiter to refill our glasses. Eugene has aged well—with a thin, fashionable moustache that I am pained to admit suits him well. I briefly wonder if our mutual acquaintance—Selwyn Cavor, the starchily British professor who pushed us through five years of boarding school—is pushing for something other than the reunion of old school friends; it is he, after all, who told me about the laundrette.

But then Eugene tells me about his wife—an ice-queen blonde, so he says, by the name of Marilyn, though aren’t all the blondes called Marilyn these days? Perhaps Selwyn is not as calculated as I imagine.

“So, how are you ticking, Mister C?” he asks—habitually, for this was how Eugene had opened nearly every conversation between us since we were both eleven and meeting for the first time in a draughty dormitory. “Finally cracked and come out chasing stars in the city of angels, have we?”

I try to smile warmly, and shake my head. “Not exactly,” I say, and try to explain something about my work. I tell him about the two publications that took my reports. I fail to mention that my laboratory consists of a worktop hauled from a garbage tip, and basins purloined from the ruins of a barbers that had burnt down. Those particular details do not jibe well with the foyer of the Mayfair, or the two-hundred-dollar whiskey.

“And what is it you’re trying to build?” he asks, though his attention is on the whiskey bottle as he tops it up.

“Space travel,” I say, though this hardly covers it.

“Smart boy!” Eugene says. “Space—they’re all at it. Give it ten years, and we’ll get there ourselves. But I tell you what though—Hollywood is damn well going to get there first.”

I think of my saxophonist, turning lazily on the edge of the atmosphere. Out loud, I point out that Hollywood has been going to space for some time. I remind him of the Saturday afternoons we would sneak from school to the nearest town, and the showing in particular of Woman in the Moon, sucking down ice cream floats and salted caramels.

He waves it away. “Oh, Hollywood has moved on since then. Special effects!” He is practically shouting, and heads are turning. I shrink in my seat. “That’s what the studios are excited about. And they want everything to be two hundred per cent accurate at all times. Suspension of disbelief, and all that. That’s why they hired me—an ‘expert consultant,’ that’s me.”

He leans forward. I realize he is already a little drunk.

“Do you know what one of the directors asked me—he asks, ‘What does space smell like?’”

“Goodness,” I say. “Why would they need to know that? It’s only film.”

“Some new technology they’re working on—a full experience, you know? Squirt the audience with water, shake the seats, all that lot. And they want to use scent. It’s what we’ve all been waiting for—not only can you watch cinema, you’ll be able to smell it.”

He looks pleased with himself. The ice clinks in his glass as he waves it.

“What does space smell like?” I ask.

He considers. “Gunpowder,” he says. “By all accounts.”

    Later, I go to the laundrette. The gray women look at me once when I enter, then disregard me. I am an insignificant little man encroaching on their world, and not worth the energy of observation when there are hampers of clothes to be washed. I run a finger along the grimy edge of a washer, and my fingertip comes away blackened. It satisfies me; in a perverse way, the laundrette, with its washed-out women and secret doorways, makes me feel scrubbed clean of all the gilt decadence Eugene has subjected me to that day.

I do not look at the door in the back, although I itch to go through it.

This visit is an inoculation: a brief sojourn in the laundrette during the day and then I will not be tempted to return after dark. I will remain in my apartment for the night hours; a small amount of exposure that defends against a greater illness.

I empty the bag of clothing into the drum. At the bottom are the saxophonist’s discarded clothes. Turning away so as to go unobserved by the women, I press his undergarments to my face and inhale. I half expect the smell of gunpowder but of course that is absurd—his clothes remained with me. I smell only cotton, soap, and the faint linger of sweat.

I drop them in the drum, and pay my cents. The machine starts up, spiralling our clothes together in a wet rush.

In the Lucky Seven diner, I order coffee. By the time it has arrived, I know the inoculation is not enough; I will be returning tonight.

The waitress squeezes into the booth opposite me. “I have a half-hour break,” she says.

“Right,” I say, not quite sure why she’s telling me this.

She bites her lip; I recognize this from movies, the coquettish seduction. Only hers is awkward, as if she isn’t used to being this forward. Perhaps she isn’t: she works amongst bottom-squeezes and drawled darlin’s all day; I doubt she ever has to ask. “I have half an hour,” she says. “I was thinking you could take me home and fuck me.”

I notice a grease-spot on her lapel, just a few inches above her bare breast. It is just to the left of the name-tag: ‘Marilyn’ in uncertain capitals. It makes me think of Eugene’s ice-blonde wife, and his big job up amongst the stars. Eugene would say yes without hesitation.

I could just say no, I tell myself, and then, inoculation.

Afterwards, she looks around the detritus of my room and asks what I do. “I’m an engineer,” I tell her, which is not exactly a lie, and go to wash myself in the dirty sink. She remains on the bed, smoking the cigarette I offer her. Naked, I had been able to feel a week of diner grease on her skin. She tasted of the bitter coffee at the bottom of a pot, and my usual expertise had deserted me.

I wonder if she washes her clothes at the laundrette. I feel the usual nausea arising, though it is a different kind; this is a physical nausea in the pit of my stomach, as if I have swallowed something rotten.

“Good old American filth,” Eugene said to me earlier, as we were leaving the Mayfair, him paused on the curb to hail a cab, me turning my coat collar up for the long walk home. “I’m tired of all the glamour. You know—mansions, cars and movie stars. The whole city’s coming down with a case of shallow—even my Marilyn’s picking it up; won’t fuck without doing her makeup first.”

He wanted me to take him out in my parts of the city, with all the implications of what my part of the city entailed. “Well—you’re here amongst it all, aren’t you? Think it’s about time you and I went out on the town. I want some squalor, you know what I’m saying?”

I imagine he’d be pleased with me right now.

I walk her back to the laundrette with five minutes of her break to spare. On the way, she tells me that she picked me because I didn’t ask. All day long, men suggest things, demand things of her. But I never did, and she liked that. I ignore the bitter irony. We part in the middle of the street, her kissing me quickly on the cheek.

In the washing machine drum, I find my white clothes stained blue. I hold up a once-pale vest and wring pastel water from it. One of the gray women looks at me and shakes her head. I bundle my clothing back into my knapsack, and leave the saxophone player’s articles—dark blue shirt, pants, underwear—in a sopping pool at the bottom of the lost and found basket.

    Two weeks until the itch to visit the laundrette again outweighs awkwardly encountering Marilyn in the Lucky Seven.. Sitting at my work-bench, listlessly tracing paint along a series of pencils so that they float and turn in the air, I reason with myself. If I am to risk facing the woman with whom I have had less than satisfactory relations with—and not seen since—then it must be for a greater gain than watching from afar.

The queasy light of the diner is an oasis that beckons—but tonight I ignore it, although I look long enough to realize that Marilyn is not to be seen. It does nothing to calm me; my hair, still damp from the cold shower I took before leaving, hangs in clammy lumps against my forehead. I feel unwashed—wrapped up tight against the night, I am immediately overheated, sweat springing up in the folds of my body. I cannot imagine anyone wanting to touch me.

“There is no password,” the saxophonist told me. No secret or phrase: just the confidence to walk through the door.

I end up in the diner, breathing heavily to calm my pulse. There is a stinging pain in the palms of my hands that spreads up my arms and worms its way into my ribcage. The laundrette stares balefully at me across the street.

An older waitress materializes beside me. She is dumpy and string-haired. Her name-tag says Marilyn. Eugene was right—every woman in Los Angeles…

She fills my cup and putters on to the next booth to serve a hulk of a man who I think I faintly recognize. He is looking down at a newspaper spread on the table, his face lost in a tangle of beard, but when Marilyn the Second departs, he looks up at me. He is round faced, and despite the beard, oddly boyish. “Not brave enough, huh?” he says to me.

“Excuse me?”

He nods over at Whites. “You go in, you come out,” he says. “Been there, done that.”

The itch in my palm redoubles. “Have you?”

    He is more discreet than the saxophonist; he maintains a respectful distance from me as we pass through the streets, hangs back as I open the door, and remains three steps behind me as I climb the stairs. As soon as we cross the threshold, the gentleman vanishes—his hands are on me, yanking away my coat and scrabbling at the clothes beneath. With my shirt tangled over my head he is already moving to touch my body before I am free; his fingertips are rough on my skin, and as his mouth skates down my body, his beard scratches like the wire wool I use to scrub away paint. His teeth nip at my belly.

I back away, lead him to the bedroom. He disrobes as he follows, revealing a heavy-set body swathed in hair, and a stubby penis peeking from the shadow cast by his bulk. The pale light from the window sweeps around the heavy sphere of his stomach, and I am struck by an absurd image of a fast-motion film of light’s passage around the moon that I dimly remembered from a visit to the planetarium with Selwyn.

He pushes me onto the bed and straddles me. He is commanding, guiding my hands where he wants them, tangling my fingers in the hair on his chest and thighs, and then as he pins my shoulders with his knees, thrusts my hand behind him where my fingers slide, sweat-slicked, into him. I open my mouth to receive him and for a second I picture myself outside my own body looking down on us—the same position as the watchers I imagine at my windows. The image is clear: this beast of a man, crouched ursine on his haunches over me, my head and shoulders lost in the dark shadow between his legs.

Afterwards, he kisses me.

    He does not go as easily as the saxophonist. Firstly, he awakens. None of the others have ever done this. His legs are already several inches off the bed, the room suffused with the anodyne hospital smell of the paint. My mistake is in selecting my brush; still sore and tender, I find poetic justice in selecting the largest, roughest of them.

Secondly, he struggles. I doubt he comprehends what I am doing to him, but he has awoken in a panic to sensations he doesn’t understand, and so he lashes out like the animal I pictured. He strikes a blow across my face, and I fall to the floor, tasting blood in my mouth. The time for gentle artistry is past: I upend the tub. It coats his chest, tiny bubbles bursting amongst the strands of my hirsute canvas. There is blind panic in his eyes as he rises, spittle at the corner of his mouth turning blue where it mixes with the paint. He flails, claws at my sheets, but they can’t prevent his ascent and simply rise with him, a useless tether.

I jostle him out of the window, which stands open as always. He clings to my bed-sheet and we reach an impasse—him upside down, fist wrapped tight around the cotton and me at the other end, pulling back with all my strength. For a minute, we remain connected.

Then his fingers open, and he soars up, up to where the air smells of gunpowder.

    “Pineapple!” says Eugene. “Goddamn pineapple. Can you believe it?”

Six weeks pass—six weeks in which my frantic scuffle squashes the itch to visit the laundrette, though the image of a door opening to a crowd of men waiting for me slowly recurs nightly in my dreams. Six weeks in which I bury myself in work, in which I dodge the landlord knocking for rent, and in which I write three-quarters of a paper on the gravity-negating properties of an as-yet-unnamed viscous solution of my own devising. Six weeks, and then Eugene.

“Gunpowder is too hard to synthesize, apparently, and anyway—it’s not like anyone’s going to know. So according to the head honchos of Paramount Pictures, space will smell of pineapple.” Eugene is on his third Singapore Sling, and already blurring into intoxication. He speaks at great length about his Hollywood consultation business. He tells me I should come advise on engineering, build robots for the flicks. He doesn’t understand why I’m mouldering away in a poxy flat in the cheap end of town. I try to explain what I’m working on—tell him about my three-quarters-written paper—but he doesn’t listen. He starts talking about space flight again.

In each bar we go to a pattern repeats: the girls flock at first to his expensive suit, gold watch and big tips, and then, when his generosity has dried up and he has done little beyond leerily grope a behind or two, they ghost away to search for more forthcoming targets. And at each bar, he complains that the place is ‘too swanky’ or ‘too bogus’ and demands I take him somewhere real.

Deep in a whiskey glass in a honky-tonk bar that still carried more than a whiff of speakeasy about it, I watch Eugene flirt with a sour-faced woman leaning against the bar. She is lit by neon, and has a look similar to his: rich, but slumming it for the night. He won’t pick her, I know, but flirtation is a habit of his. Even in a single-sex boarding school, he had never had much trouble finding women where he needed them—a couple of the maids, girls from the town. Sneaking back into the dormitory at night, he would describe his latest sexual exploit to me in a low whisper, and I would stiffen under the covers.

One night he claimed to have conquered one of the schoolmistresses—new to the school, and on temporary assignment. One of those long evenings in his study I relayed Eugene’s story to Selwyn who laughed quietly, and said, “I don’t doubt. Frightful, really—students and teachers.” We laughed together, conspiratorial.

Not for the first time, I wonder why Selwyn has thrust Eugene and I back into each other’s lives.

If I focus, I begin to wonder if Eugene’s heart is really in it tonight. He’s effusive with everyone we meet, expounding upon his personal theories of life, love and pleasure, and the opportunity to sneak off and spend himself in a furtive tumble has presented itself on multiple occasions. And yet he seems to be dodging every offer, returning to me with freshly charged glasses. As we descend into that strata of intoxication in which profundity insists itself in half-complete sentences, I wonder if perhaps Eugene fears the same as I: that in the post-orgasmic chill the squalor of a back-alley screw loses its grimy glamour and becomes something furtive and shameful instead. And so he postpones it as long as possible—perhaps indefinitely.

Eventually, there are no more bars to go to—or none that will allow two such stumbling fools entry. Early dawn is pricking the horizon, and, like a magnet, I draw us to the Lucky Seven. My waitress is there—Marilyn the First—glimpsed through the kitchen hatch but I am too drunk to care. Besides—it has been two months.

We collapse into a booth. Eugene rests his head on the table. I lean against the glass; it is cool and soothing. Across the road, I cannot tell if the laundrette is open or closed—I am too unfocused to make out if the door stands open or not. I suppose even such a place as Whites closes.

“Usual?” I squint up at her. She doesn’t sound upset. This is good.

Eugene, hearing a female voice, rears up. He strikes what I imagine he believes is a charming smile. “Darla!” he says. “How pleas—pleas—pleasant to meet you.”

I blink. “Darla?”

She taps her name-badge.

“I thought your name was Marilyn?”

She leans in close, ruffles my hair, matronly. “No, darling. I forgot my badge, had to borrow one. But at least you remembered my name—I’m flattered.”

Darla. Somehow the name changes her. Marilyn is a girl daintily upset when a man does not call her the morning after. Darla takes a man home to screw because she wants to.

She leaves to serve the only other customer in the diner, down the opposite end of the window. I lean into Eugene, and tell him—in a whisper that is almost certainly not really a whisper at all—about what Darla and I did in my bed. I don’t know why I did it: I have never been one to brag, but recasting our limp splutter of an encounter as erotic exploit gives me a fraternal thrill I have rarely felt.

Eugene grips my wrists and shakes them victoriously. “Albert, my man,” he says. “I knew you had it in you.”

For a second I see me as he does now: earthy man of the people, slipping it to waitresses on a nightly basis. And then the image bursts like over-inflated bubble-gum as I look past Darla. She is bending over, pouring coffee, and behind her is a noticeboard. Protest march, singing lessons, artist seeking model, poetry reading and MISSING. Below it a photo of a hulking man, round-faced and boyish despite the beard.

Darla sways past us again. “You boys had a good night, then?”

Eugene reaches out a hand to her, pulls her back to sit on his knee. His fingers snag on her sash. “Darlin’, not nearly good enough. Not yet…”

For the poster to be here in the Lucky Seven, he must be a regular. We’ve all been there, he said, as if he too had sat for long hours in this diner, getting up the nerve to cross the road. And then there is Marilyn and Darla, who see every man and every face.

Darla looks at me. It isn’t a look asking for help, to rescue her from my lairy friend, just a calmly assessing look. Eugene’s fingers make it clear what he wants.

I do not ask. I know what she likes.

“I get off in half an hour,” she says.

    The story ends with a decision, as many do.

Darla leaves, and I return to the bed as if she is still there, a cold ghost between Eugene and I. Her female presence granted permission: for our naked bodies to share the same space, for my fingers to touch him, provided mine were not the only ones.

I wonder if this is where he wanted the night to go: his life, so drearily decadent, that the only thing to jolt him out of his drudgery is the taboo touch of a man. Perhaps he had marked me out as an easy target—the sexless boy from school, the one who spent a bit too much time with Professor Cavor.

I realize the room is silent. His snoring has stopped. When I look at him, his eyes are open.

Afterwards, I anchor us both to the bed with the sheets, wrapped around our wrists and fixed loosely to the bedpost. I paint him first, until he has risen, tipped on his side, free of gravity but strung by one rebellious limb to the ground. The alcohol in his veins that deadens him to the feeling of my awkward brush-strokes. He hovers above me, eyes closed, like a statue.

Then, disjointed with my off-hand, I coat myself. I float to meet him, the front of our bodies pressed together, lips close enough to kiss.

I wrestle the knot loose, and we are released. I wrap my arms around him, and press my face into his chest. It is difficult to guide him across the room to the window—I have to kick off against the walls and the ceiling, as one does in deep water.

My feet alight on the windowsill. I push away.

Light breaks across the city. If my phantom watchers in the windows opposite are looking, they will see us as we rise into the sky, one man clinging tight to another as they ascend like balloons that have slipped from your grasp, until the atmosphere becomes rarefied and thin, and breath freezes before our faces. I catch a glimpse of the sun rising over the edge of the world before I close my eyes and rise up, to where the air smells of gunpowder, and men are waiting for me.

END

“becoming, c.a. 2000” is copyright Charles Payseur 2017.

“In Search of Stars” is copyright Matthew Bright 2017.

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Thanks for listening, and we’ll be back soon with a reprint of “The Need for Overwhelming Sensation” by Bogi Takács.

Episode #43 — “In Search of Stars” by Matthew Bright was originally published on GlitterShip