Jack's House

Thanks, Adric, Zyngaru, and Kier! Your kind words are greatly appreciated! After the “too much detail” feedback, and with the post-writing letdown particularly acute after finishing a story that has been in the works since February, I was a little discouraged. (It’s possible I texted Jack to say, “Well, as long as the two of us are happy with it…”) It is reassuring that the three of you enjoyed it too. (“For discriminating tastes…”  )

Special thanks to Adric for editing and David M. Katz for expediting the review and posting of the four-part story.

Extra special thanks to Jack for a wonderful idea and the 14-page treatment he mentioned, most of which is word-for-word in the final story. My most recent Anderson story was originally written in 2017, and I really thought I was done. Without Jack’s inspiration and enthusiasm, this story would not have happened.

I wholeheartedly agree. I dashed off a note to Caleb King as soon as I finished reading. He got bonus points for mentioning the old Rat Patrol TV show that ran in 1966-68.

Freudian Typo - when you're describing a paddling and mean to use "he" for the boy being spanked but write "I" instead.

Yep, that just happened, and I had to smile when I realized what I had done. Following up on the recent "stars" discussion, approval is nice but I'm sure a lot of us -- most of us? -- are motivated more by the chance to create a fictional world that we would like to have lived in. That might be particularly true for WHASS writers like me.

I'm finally wrapping up the third installment of my "Synchronicity" series -- not by popular demand (ugh, those stars again!), but because I planned a five-part series and I'd like to finish it. Stay tuned for "Smoke," coming soon to an archive near you.

I stumbled upon the attached image when searching Voy Forums for spanking-related groups. In addition to the image, I learned its origin - the Richard Linklater movie "Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood." The IMDb summary is as follows::

"A coming-of-age story set in the suburbs of Houston, Texas in the summer of 1969, centered around the historic Apollo 11 moon landing."

I would add that our protagonist, a 4th-grader, has a vivid imagination and that the title refers to a trip that he may or may not have made to the moon in advance of the Apollo 11 mission. 

There is a 60-to-90 second paddling montage in the first half of the film. Come for the paddling, stay for a wonderful coming-of-age movie that, for viewers of a certain vintage, will be quite nostalgic. (I grew up in Houston and was about to enter the 8th grade in the summer of 1969, so the film was like my biography.)

NOTE: The film is available on Netflix. Here's the trailer: https://youtu.be/Dzuz5s_Qk-A

[ Guests cannot view attachments ]

This story is a fascinating slice of life in addition to having some intense spanking action. I felt like I had been transported back 111 years.

Speaking of forgery...

A boy wants to go on a school outing, and the parental consent form includes a volenti non fit injuria clause. (It could be anything from a museum trip to Brighton Palace Pier. When my grandson and I were at the Warner Brothers Harry Potter Studio in Leavesden a couple of months ago, it was crawling with uniformed schoolkids.)

The parental units won't sign the consent form. (Harry Potter promotes Satanism!!!  ) This would consign the boy to an extremely boring, daylong prep period. So he forges a parent's signature on the consent form. All would have been well except that the boy broke his arm at some point (tumbling off the quidditch broom at the green screen demonstration?).

What a mess! A minor presumably can't accept risk, and he was misrepresenting himself anyway. I'm not sure if anyone is going to get sued, but I imagine that someone is going to get spanked!

The kid could also use a haircut!

I work for a very large and progressive company, and I am a member of its PRIDE Employee Resource Group for LGBTQ+ employees and allies. During June, PRIDE members share memories of Pride celebrations on Yammer, a social networking service used by a lot of corporations. I volunteered to kick it off this year and posted this to the PRIDE Yammer channel first thing this morning. I thought about posting it to my MMSA Author Journal as well but figured I'd do a trial run here. It's about the length of a flash fiction.

Happy Pride Month! Atlanta Pride in June 1996 will always be special to me because it was the weekend I came out to my two children. They were young – too young, my ex-wife believed. But my son, age eleven, was just two months away from middle school. I wanted to inoculate him against the knee-jerk homophobia he would encounter there. As for my eight-year-old daughter, one of her school friends had two moms, giving her a frame of reference.

I made it a special occasion. There was already a buzz in the city, as the Summer Olympics were just three weeks away and the signs were everywhere. We checked into a downtown hotel on Friday and visited Centennial Olympic Park, where we found “our brick” – the commemorative brick I purchased that was inscribed with our names. The next day, we ate lunch at the revolving restaurant we all loved. Afterwards, we returned to our hotel room, where I told them I was gay and what that meant – finally explaining, three years after it ended, the breakup of a long marriage that must have seemed inexplicable to them at the time. I had come prepared with a short, age-appropriate book to read aloud, the title of which escapes me now. And then we headed for Piedmont Park, where the 26th anniversary edition of Atlanta Pride was in full swing.

We stayed long enough for me to convey the message that there are a lot of LGBTQ+ people in the world. (According to news reports, attendance over the course of the weekend reached 300,000.) Nor were my son and daughter the only children at Pride, as they saw plenty of kids of all ages. In terms of “normalizing” being LGBTQ+, I noted name-brand companies like Coca-Cola and Delta Air Lines, just two among the many businesses that were happy to cater to the community. I also pointed out the booths staffed by inclusive churches, stressing that there was no inherent conflict between being gay and being a person of faith. Which was all well and good, but my daughter was most excited about all the dogs running around wearing rainbow scarves!

Then it was time to leave. Afterward, I gave my ex a heads up and she expressed her unhappiness. When the world did not end as a result of my revelation, however, she came around. As for my kids, they grew up to be great people, and strong allies as well. None of us live in Atlanta anymore, but we will never forget the summer of 1996.