Hop Against Homophobia and Transphobia

Welcome to my stop on the Hop Against Homophobia and Transphobia blog hop. My name is Harper and I write a mix of mm and slashy sci-fi and fantasy stories with an emphasis on plot over porn.

It feels weird to realize that even just a few short years ago people didn’t believe that gay marriage would ever be possible. It was one of those things that had people shaking their heads and saying, “That will never happen.”

Look at us now.

There’s hope that someday people will wake up to the idea that everyone deserves to be treated equally and that the world can become a better place than we’ve let it be. There’s been several frustrating steps backward on women’s issues, religion, and gun control, but I refuse to give up on the idea that as long as we keep pressing forward things can get better.

And that’s what this hop is about for me. It’s about spreading the word that even though there’s been some positive changes, it’s not enough. Homophobia and transphobia exist, it’s true, and we need to stand up and say “Enough. No more.”

If we stop being complacent and band together, we can change the laws and the world. It won’t be easy and it will take time, but future generations will be able to look back on the past and shake their heads and say, “There’s no way that really happened.” Because to those kids yet unborn, the idea of people being beaten and murdered for the color of their skin, their sex, their religion, or their sexuality will be an archaic idea of barbaric people that no longer exist.

I can’t wait for that day to arrive. I’m hoping it will be during my lifetime.

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Okay, so I was kind of waffling about what I was going to offer up as a prize. A backlist title, something that’s not released yet like A&E, I had no idea.

Then I counted up the days of the hop and a crazy idea entered my brain. What if I wrote a story and posted an entry every day of the hop, and at the end I would give a PDF copy to every person that comments. That way everyone gets to be a winner.

So comment to receive an ARC of the tentatively titled “Slipping Through the Cracks,” by Harper Kingsley after May 27th.

Suggest a more fitting title and receive a dedication in the book when it becomes publicly available.

One lucky commenter will also receive a copy of the Allies & Enemies short, “Psychotic.”

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Title: Slipping Through the Cracks
Author: Harper Kingsley
Character: Franz Caulder/Ryan Wilder, Dr. Pamela Werth, Nicole Carson
Genre: mm
Rating: mature
Summary: Franz goes to sleep in his bed and wakes up locked in a mental health hospital with no idea how he got there or why.

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Franz went to sleep in his bed.

He woke up to a changed world.

The first thing he noticed, even before he opened his eyes, was that his sheets were strangely scratchy and his mattress was mysteriously hard with more jabby parts than he had ever experienced before. He imagined it was what lying on a bed of nails was like.

Franz sat up with a groan and his eyes widened in shock as he looked around.

The room he was in was painted a glaring white and was sparsely furnished. There was a plain brown dresser against the wall and a cheap framework desk under the barred and uncurtained window.

The bed he was on was a metal frame with a thin futon mattress thrown on it. Uncomfortable and unappealing, it — along with the bars on the windows and and the complete lack of any kind of personality in the room’s decor — gave him his first inkling of where he might be.

The slate blue drawstring pants and the thin white tee shirt he was wearing gave him his next clue. They definitely weren’t the pajamas he’d gone to sleep in.

Donning the robe and cheap cloth slippers he found, he tried the door and was pleased when it opened easily. At least he was in a minimum security facility. He’d been half-afraid he’d been locked in the depths of Rotham, but obviously he was somewhere much fluffier and lighter.

He stepped out of the bedroom to find himself in a large common room.

Long couches had been used to section off a square of space in the center of the room. The U-shape the couches created was opened to face the nurses’ station.

Around the walls were dozens of closed doors, all private rooms. On the far end of the room, left-hand kitty corner to the nurses’ station, was an open door that seemed to lead into a large, airy arts and crafts room. That was probably where most of the real mental health work took place.

For a mental ward, the place was actually pretty nice looking. All brown and goldenrod color, comfortable couches, and the illusion of freedom to move around.

There were other patients. He glanced at them out of the corner of his eyes, not wanting to be caught creep-staring. A brown haired lady quietly sat on one of the couches gazing blankly into space. A dark haired man jerkily strode around the room with manic energy, his hands fisting and punching at his sides. A gray haired man with baggy eyes slumped on the floor in a corner, every line of him proclaiming his physical misery.

Franz had to be the youngest person in the room, but no one seemed too terribly surprised to see him. So either they were all in on his abduction, or something more was going on here.

“Ah, Franzy, I’m glad to see you’re finally awake.”

Franz turned to face the woman in the pink blouse with the name tag that read ‘DR. WERTH.’ “Hello doctor,” he said, trying to make his voice sound close to normal. He really didn’t want to give away the fact that he had no clue who she was.

“Are you feeling better today?” she asked gently. “Do you feel up to making the meeting?”

Rightfully guessing she meant a group session, he really wanted to say no. But he needed information, and interaction with the people here was the only way he could get a clue about what was going on.

“I’ll be there,” he said.

She smiled brightly, then moving slowly as though he were a wild animal, she gently touched his shoulder. Just a single pat, but the expression on her face made it into some gravity defining breakthrough. “You’ve come so far,” she said. “I’m very proud of you and I’ll be happy seeing you at the meeting.” So obviously she thought she knew him, though that may have been part of an act.

He didn’t understand why he was in this place with these people, but he was going to figure it out. And then he was going to kick the ass of whoever had ripped him out of his bed to bring him here.

 

So group therapy was a bust. Not just because he didn’t know what he was supposed to say to this bunch of strangers, but because there was no big dramatic reveal about how he’d ended up in this place.

He got to sit on a hard plastic chair in a circle with a bunch of people he didn’t know while trying to figure out what had happened. And it was only a little eerie that they were all acting like he’d been to their meetings before, every single day for nearly a year. It was creeping him out.

What the hell is going on? he thought, shuffling out of the room after the other scrubs wearing patients.

This seemed like a real mental hospital with real mental patients and he was here. This was not some nightmare or drug induced delusion. He was Franz Caulder, and he was really here.

Not for long, he promised himself.

He made his way into the dining area with the others and took the chair next to the man that had seemed so angry earlier. The guy had calmed down, but the corner of his mouth still twitched and there was something dangerous in his eyes that Franz recognized and refused to relax around.

A recovering alcoholic suffering withdrawal symptoms could be unpredictable.

As he ate his chocolate pudding and nibbled on the breaded fish fillet he’d been given, Franz kept himself ready in case the guy blew up or something. He figured one hard jab to the throat and an arm bar and he’d have the guy controlled if he started to rampage.

“You’re being very weird today. What’s wrong with you?”

Franz looked at the woman sitting across from him in surprise. “Excuse me?”

She cocked her head, her stringy blond hair falling over her face. She looked as though she hadn’t showered in several days and her eyes were dark circled and tired. She was probably in her mid-twenties and spoke to him familiarly, but he’d never seen her before in his life.

“‘Excuse me,'” she mocked, her mouth forming a pout around the words. “Seriously, dude, you’re freaking me out. What’s wrong with you? Did you suddenly realize that you’re in the nuthouse or something?”

“Well, I took one look at the outfit and I didn’t have to look much further,” Franz said. He’d always had a gift for rolling with whatever situation. It was one of the things that had always made him a great crime fighter.

“There’s something weird about you today and I don’t like it. You’re acting like a completely different person.” It was subtle, but as she spoke her mouth kept trying to tremble. She was actively having to work to keep herself under control. He knew the signs; whatever mix of meds she was on wasn’t quite right.

“I had some bad dreams. I’m still processing.”

She looked skeptical. “Bad dreams have given you a complete personality change? I don’t think…”

“Nicole, you forgot to pick up your pills again.” There was the soft squeak of orthopedic shoes on the laminate floor.

The woman–Nicole–grimaced at Franz, but managed to hide the expression as she turned to the nurse. “It messes up my head all day. Do I really have to take them?”

The nurse was firm. “Yes.”

Franz watched curiously as Nicole accepted the little paper cup and downed the pills in one swallow. She chased them down with a few gulps of her apple juice.

“There, are you happy? Are you going to Nazi it up some more?” Nicole demanded.

“There’s no reason to be rude.” The nurse shook her head and walked away.

Nicole turned back to her tray with a growled out, “Bitch” that the nurse had to have heard.

Franz blinked. “You know, calling someone a Nazi because you don’t like them is really disrespectful to all the people that lived through the Holocaust.”

She turned to him with fire lighting up her eyes. The twitching of her lips became something mildly grotesque, a flash of teeth and gums as she sneered. “We’re in a Holocaust right now. They’re trying to wipe us out just because we’re mentally defunct. They look at us, and because we don’t fit with their great machine they want to relegate us to hospitals and prisons where they can strap us to a bed and rewire our brains. They want to insist that it’s for our own good, but it’s for themselves. Everything people do as a society is for themselves and we’re left to ooze our way through the cracks like the Blob.

“We’re just a joke in the gears of their giant machine. They’re going to grind us into paste and scoop us up onto their crackers. People eat people. We’re nothing more than the food of the great society. We live and die and no one cares as long as we’re quiet like little mice. The world is completely fucked.”

“Okay.”

Franz didn’t even try to argue. Not when spittle was flying out of her mouth and her eyes were rolling around wildly. She’d seemed like someone he could talk to, but it was obvious that she had some serious issues she wasn’t dealing with.

He ate his pudding and kept quiet.

[table “24” not found /]

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Check out the rest of the hop and all the excellent people that have offered up some great posts and prizes. Spread the word: No more homophobia or transphobia. Equality for everyone.

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May 17th is the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia. The link is: http://dayagainsthomophobia.org/.