Issue 15 - April 2008

Tom, Or An Improbable Tail by Ruth Sims

This is the tale of the naked god/boy/man William found in his apartment. When he told it to me he swore on his mother’s grave that every word was true. The oath didn’t mean much, though, as I knew his mother was alive and well and playing the slots in Vegas. There are a few things you need to know about William before you read his story. 

One: He hated making decisions. If his mother would come every morning and lay out his suit and tie and socks for him it would make him happy, as long as she didn’t stay long enough to nag him. 

Two: Well, actually, it’s part of Number One. He’s a lawyer because his father wanted him to be a lawyer and he didn’t want to bother making a decision about what he wanted to be when he grew up if he ever did. Lawyering was okay. It paid damn well, and there was a certain snob appeal to being with Rutledge, Rutledge, Kirkwood, Jones, and Connaughton. He didn’t yearn to be a white Johnny Cochran or a reincarnation of Clarence Darrow. Which was good, because he did corporation work. Mergers, contracts, corporation minutes of meetings that never took place, that kind of thing. “As the corporation goes so goes America,” Rutledge Senior was fond of saying in stentorian tones. That gives you some idea of RRKJC. William often said he was the only one in the office who didn’t starch his underwear. 

Besides being indecisive and not very ambitious, he was cursed with being ‘cute.’ He hated cute. If he thought shaving his head and wearing a nose ring would help, he’d have done it. But RRKJC did not allow lawyers with pierced noses and he did have bills to pay. 

RRKJC was so conservative they made the millennium Republicans look like “bleeding-heart flaming liberal pinko card-carrying members of NAMBLA” as Connaughton put it. William wondered what they’d do if they knew that he was gay. 

Now that the background is out of the way, on to the good stuff which will involve the beautiful naked god/boy/man and… well… Maybe you need a little more background first. Be patient. 

Nobbyville, Illinois, Pop. 60,000, had always been William’s home. Women’s liberation and gay liberation didn’t even stop there for a potty break until the mid-1980’s. There were only about a hundred Black families and fewer Hispanics, so race relations weren’t much in the news either. But it was his hometown, warts and all, and he could never decide where to go if he left. I know, you’re salivating and want to cut to the chase and the naked god/boy/man. Hold your horses. Or anything else that needs holding. This can’t be hurried. 

By a lot of peoples’ standards, William didn’t have much of a social life. He rented videos and DVDs frequently, went to church when he felt like it, which wasn’t often, visited his mom and his sister, indulged his Inner Thespian by appearing in local amateur theatrical presentations. He also spent a lot of time with Mary Palm and her five sisters, and sometimes wondered why it wasn’t called Myron Palm and his five brothers. No, not what anyone would call a very exciting life. 

Now, you may get the impression that Nobbyville was a kind of large Hooterville or Mayberry. In a way it was. It was a bedroom suburb of the university town a half hour away. The streets were clean. It was mostly crime free, and the Neighborhood Watch signs were for show. The police force was small and snappily dressed. The three fire stations had brand-new buildings and trucks. Garbage was picked up twice a week. Rent was high. There were waiting lists of nervous city dwellers wanting quiet places to live. William’s apartment was in the most expensive complex in the city. Within its wrought iron perimeter were two swimming pools, a sauna, a tennis court, and a resident chiropractor. William had been on the waiting list nearly a year before he lucked out and somebody died. He was willing to sell his grandmother to get in. Only a cemetery could have been quieter and more serene. 

There were strict Tenant Rules in his complex. No loud music. No children. No pets other than very small birds. No Persons of Opposite Sex Sharing Living Quarters, as the Census Bureau put it. And certainly no Same-Sex Live-In Roommates! In all likelihood God would have rained down brimstone if that had been allowed. Helen Blathersage was manager of Shadyland Estates. The renters referred to her simply as Helen Hellhound, when she wasn’t listening. 

William didn’t mind the restrictions. He liked classical music. He had no pets and no plans to get any. He wasn’t likely to have children. He had only one real friend, Dudley Osmyn, who was the prototypical science nerd, a six-foot-three Woody Allen only not quite as virile.

In fact, Dudley was more than a science nerd. He was an actual “It lives, Igor!” bona fide mad scientist. At least William thought so. In the fifteen years since they’d left high school, Dudley hadn’t changed at all. In high school he had been tall, thin, and weird. At thirty-three he was just taller, thinner, and weirder. 

Nobody in high school ever thought William was gay. Why would they? He played football. Everybody thought Dudley was gay but since they were afraid he’d blow them up they left him alone. William didn’t know if Dudley was gay or not, but he thought Dr. Dudley Osmyn, with a whole alphabet of degrees after his name and award certificates on the wall, probably had less sex than he did and he didn’t even want to imagine with what. 

They didn’t hang out a lot, but every once in a while William would pick Dudley up in his BMW and they’d tool to the next town, where Dudley would get drunk and listen to William massacre “Impossible Dream” at a karaoke bar called Casablanca.

One night, as Dudley opened the door to get out of William’s car, a cat dashed from a nearby driveway and sailed in, immediately flattening itself to hide under the seat. William groaned and cursed and fished under the seat. He could see the cat’s face, its eyes   topaz and enormous. He pleaded with the creature. It grinned at him. At last he grabbed it and dragged it out by the scruff of its neck. It dangled limply from his hand. It was a beautiful animal with long, tawny fur. And it hadn’t even scratched or bit him. And instead of squirming and fighting for its freedom, it looked mournfully at him. He wondered why.  

Gently he put it on the pavement. In one seamless motion it leapt back into the car and flowed under the front seat again, where it made itself as small as possible with no visible handholds to grab. Sighing, William decided to go on home and coax it out there. Then he could fling it over the fence and it could go pester someone else. As he drove, the cat came out from under the seat and snuggled up next to him. It rubbed against him and shoved its head at him until he scratched its ears just before he pulled into the parking lot.  

“All right, all right,” he said. The cat purred until William thought his eardrums would burst. “I won’t toss you back on the streets tonight. I’ll just sneak you in for the night. But come daylight you’re on your own.”  

Of course, like all cats, it knew a sucker when it saw one. And it settled in for the duration.   

The cat and William seemed to be made for each other. William explained to it—him—the need for silence and he never made a sound. His manners in the smuggled-in litter box were impeccable. He draped himself on William’s knees by the hour, purring and kneading William’s thighs with his paws. After the first night the cat slept curled up against William’s belly as he lay sleeping on his side. 

So then William had two big secrets: his gayness and his little friend with the furry balls. He also kept him a secret from his mom and sister, because they were real blabbermouths. That meant becoming a smuggler in earnest: cat food in, used litter out. Two little dishes behind a Chinese screen in the kitchen. 

The day the cat followed him home was May 1. 

On June 22 William came home to find the naked boy in his apartment, calmly sitting on the sofa. Boy? He was a god. He was every calendar boy who ever lived. He was Apollo and Ganymede come to life. He was perhaps twenty or so and William wasn’t but who cared. The boy/god/man was lithe rather than bulging with muscles. Every inch of him was beautiful. William’s reaction could’ve been used for a tomato stake. 

“Oh,” he gasped. “Who—who—” 

“Did you sit on a fence post all night?” the boy asked, grinning. And yes­––oh God––his teeth were made of pearl and he had deep, deep dimples. 

“Who are you? How did you get in here?” 

“You left me in when you went away this morning,” the boy said, looking puzzled. 

“I did no such thing! I’ve never seen you before.” 

The boy looked hurt. “Of course you did. I was asleep in your bed this morning.” 

“Hush!” William hushed him. “This is the day Helen Hellhound makes her rounds. Places this great are impossible to get into. You’ve got to get out of here!” William’s mouth said the words, but his heart wasn’t in them. 

The boy was so incredibly gorgeous. His ripe mouth trembled just slightly. He stood up. “I don’t know why you don’t love me anymore,” he said sadly, and reached for the doorknob. 

“Wait!” William screamed. “You can’t go out of here like that! Where are your clothes?” 

“Well… I don’t have any. Why would I?” His eyes had an almond slant to them, and they were an odd topaz color, sexy—and—and—feline. 

William clutched the door. What he was thinking was preposterous, mad, impossible. He gulped and asked the boy his name, hoping, praying, he would say Reginald or Ronald or Lester… anything but what he said. 

“Tom,” the boy said with a slight smile. 

“Stay there,” William ordered. “Don’t move anything.” He frantically searched the apartment, desperately calling, “Kitty, kitty, kitty. Where are you, you goddam cat?” Finally he went on wobbly legs back into the living room. I am a mature man, he said to himself. I can handle the explanation, whatever it is. He gulped, staring at Tom. Then he dashed to the bedroom and grabbed a bathrobe. “Put this on,” he ordered. “You’re making me crazy. I’m only human.” 

“I wish I could say the same,” Tom said with a sigh. He took the robe but did not put it on. Then he sat on the sofa, his arms wrapped around his drawn-up knees, which did nothing for William’s composure. 

“I am hallucinating,” William announced. “I don’t know why, but I am. I think my beer was drugged last night. LSD. That’s it.” He glared at Tom. “You’re a figment of my drugged imagination.” 

Tom studied him, unblinking. “No, I’m not. You’re not hallucinating. You’re not dreaming. I’m here. I’m were. Get used to it.” 

“Were…? As in werewolf?” Then William saw the joke and started to laugh. “Oh, for—! Of course! It’s a joke. Dudley sent you over here for my birthday, didn’t he. That sonofabitch. Oh, this is a good one! I never thought he even had a sense of humor. Ha-ha! I don’t know how he snuck you in here without a key, but he is a genius, after all.” William knew he was babbling. “How could he think I’d believe this shit for a minute? OK, Tom, you little ol’ ‘wereperson’ you, let’s go to bed, celebrate my birthday, then you can clear the hell out and go tell old Dudley it worked.” 

Tom’s wide-eyed unblinking stare was nerve-wracking. “Dudley who?” 

“Oh, right. Like you don’t know. What did he do? Order you from U Meet Bods of Gods?” 

Only Dudley, William’s oldest and dearest friend, knew that William’s favorite website was umeetbodsofgods.com, which featured prurient pictures of boys-to-go, with whom one could “get acquainted,” if one had the money. William had never inquired as to the price, but he was sure it was plenty. 

“Admit it!” he ordered. “You’re an online hustler!” 

“I told you,” Tom said, plainly bewildered, “I don’t know who Dudley is and I’m not a hustler, whatever that is. I told you the truth. And I don’t know what ‘online’ is, though I’ve been on lots of fences. Twice a year, at the solstice, this happens. I don’t understand it. It hurts and it’s scary. I go to sleep a cat and then the pain comes and everything goes black. When it’s done, I am a human being. And then when the next solstice comes I have to go through it in reverse and become a cat again. It’s only happened two other times, and I don’t know if I want to live if this is what it means!” He started to cry, silently, with big tears filling his beautiful eyes and spilling over. “I don’t know what I should be or what I want to be. I just wish I could stay the same, one way or the other, forever.” 

“There are no such things as werewolves or were-whatevers,” William said coldly. 

“You’re wrong,” Tom said in a low voice. Looking defeated, Tom lowered his feet to the floor and started toward the door. 

“No!” William said sharply. “Get your clothes on.” 

“I told you, I don’t have any.”

William stared at him. It was true he didn’t see another man’s clothes stashed anywhere during his frantic search of the place. And yet… He sighed. OK, this was a dream, maybe, though he didn’t remember going to bed. Well, the only thing one could do was play along with a dream until it changed or you woke up. 

“Fine,” he said, spreading his hands in a gesture of resignation. “Fine. You take it easy and I’ll go pick you up some clothes, okay? Meanwhile, you just make sure Helen Hellhound doesn’t see you or hear you.” 

Tom nodded and sighed. “I’m tired. I’m going to take a nap.” He stretched out on the sofa, on his back, right arm and hand relaxed at his side, the fingers of his left hand tented upon his sternum, one knee bent, eyes closed, the long silken lashes making a fan upon his healthy pink cheeks, his coral lips moist and inviting and his relaxed morsel of manhood lolling sweetly to one side, so lovely, so tempting—

Sweat popped out on William’s forehead. Anytime now, he said silently to the Dream Machine. You can change the DVD any time now. Come on…Not going to do it, huh? Well, then I’ll just wake myself up. Take that! He doubled up his fist and whacked himself on the nose. 

“Oh, shit! That hurt! Ow—ow—!” He dashed to the kitchen for ice cubes, tripped over his own feet and fell on his face. Groaning, he got to his feet. As he put a Baggie filled with crushed ice upon his sore nose he had to face the truth. He knew in his heart that Dudley was too cheap to hire an expensive hustler, and in dreams nothing hurt the way his nose did. The only other explanation was that this whole thing was real. 

He wished he had time to sit and think long and hard about the situation, but he had a dinner meeting with Connaughton in a couple of hours. He showered and put on his best up-and-coming-young-lawyer suit and tie and raced out with one final, longing backward glance. 

The meeting was a disaster. He couldn’t keep his mind on Commonwealth Plastics vs. Gilgood Condominiums. He kept seeing the—cat?—asleep on the couch. The third time William said “Condoms” instead of Condominiums, Connaughton’s jowls quivered with suspicion. 

“You know,” he intoned, “at Rutledge, Rutledge, Kirkwood, Jones, and Connaughton one’s personal life is not allowed to intrude into one’s professional life. We prefer you to have no personal life at all.”
 

“Yes, sir. I agree, sir. And I’ll get right on the Com-Plas v. Gilgood Condom—mmm—iniums right away, sir. I’ll work on it at home, sir.”
 

“See that you do. You know, there might just be a junior partnership in it for you.” 

“Yes, sir!” 

Connaughton blabbed on for a while longer. Finally William was able to escape. He made a mad dash to the Mall, to a young man’s clothing store. There, he was in a quandary as to sizes until he saw a sweet-faced lad who appeared to be about Tom’s size. The clerk helped him pick out everything from socks to shirt and shoes, and when he reached for a package of tightie-whities, the kid smiled, shook his head, and handed him a very small shimmering lavender garment consisting of a couple of strings and a pouch. William’s jaw dropped at the price for such a flimsy piece of goods. “Kind of expensive, isn’t it?” he asked. 

The clerk rolled his eyes. “What price Heaven?” he asked. 

William paid, thanking God for the guy who invented credit cards, and left the Mall. Just to be on the safe side, just in case this was all real, just in case he got lucky, he stopped at a drugstore for condominiums. He screeched into his parking place, ran into the building and bumped smack into a bulky, solid object. His plastic bags of goodies went flying. 

“Do you have a woman in your apartment?” asked Helen Hellhound, blasting him with her fetid breath.

“Uh… no.” William was frantically picking up his parcels.

“I thought I heard someone moving around in there,” she said. 

“No. I swear to you on my mother’s grave, Mrs. Hel—Blathersage, that I do not have a woman in there.” 

“A likely story. I’m watching you. Don’t forget I’ve got a waiting list. Your lease is about up and if I see a woman coming out of there…” 

“My mother’s grave, Mrs. Blathersage. My mother’s grave.” 

Clearly she didn’t believe him, but she lumbered on her way with a snort of disbelief. William burst into his apartment. 

“Tom!” he cried. “Tom?” 

He was nowhere in sight. Oh, dear God. He’d left. He was wandering the streets of Nobbyville naked as September Morn, with all his tawny-haired, graceful beauty exposed for all the world and the police to see… “Oh, Tom…” 

“Here I am,” said a voice behind him. He turned to see Tom emerging, yawning, from the closet. He was… coming out of… the closet. William wondered if he dared hope it was significant.
 

He dumped the clothes from the bags onto the bed and urged him to try them on. Watching Tom stretch and bend and preen was… was… The cute kid in the store had the right word for it: Heaven. 

When he finished, Tom was Michelangelo’s David in a soft blue shirt with an open collar and tight stone-washed jeans with nothing under them but that stunning little bit of underwear. 

There has to be some way, William thought, to keep him like this. Without realizing it, he had come to believe every word Tom said. 

##

As the days passed, having Tom there created some peculiar difficulties.  He was curious about everything. He often forgot he was about one-hundred-twenty-five pounds heavier than he had been and not nearly as foot-sure. One night he jumped up on the kitchen table, flapped his arms to regain his balance, teetered, and fell off right on his splendid tush. Another time he caught himself in mid-spring as he planned to leap to the windowsill. 

His eating habits took some getting used to. He preferred Kitty Nibbles and a saucer of milk to anything else, the exception being tuna fish of any variety. 

William tried to be as accommodating as he could, though he drew the line at Tom’s version of bath time and shoved him into the shower. 

All that while, as the first week and then the second and third passed, they co-habited chastely. William’s hints that the cohabitation become a little more unchaste met Tom’s unblinking puzzled stare. 

Time, William thought. If I just had the time I know I could convince him. But time was what he didn’t have. All too soon Tom would change again, if the whole thing were true. 

In desperation William made an appointment with Dudley, and took Tom to see his old friend. Dudley listened, pondered, uh-hummed a few times, and then took Tom into a room alone. 

They’ve been in there a helluva long time, William thought, pacing the floor.
 

After an eon or so, Dudley and Tom emerged. Tom looked embarrassed; Dud had scratches on his cheek. Dudley asked him to wait outside and took William into the examination room. 

Dabbing at the scratch, Dudley remarked, “He certainly objects to being prodded and poked! Sit down, William. We have to talk. Are you sure you want to keep him like this?”

“Damn right.”
 

“Well, I’ve always figured animals were much easier to get along with than people.  But if you’re sure…” 

“Dud, I’m crazy in love with him. He’s beautiful. He’s innocent. I want to keep him the way he is now. What I want to know from you is—A—is he crazy? And—B—if he isn’t crazy, is there anything I can do about it?”
 

“No, he’s not crazy. Definitely not crazy. He’s a wereperson, all right.” From the bottom of a credenza, Dudley hauled out a thick manuscript. “Were-phenomena have always fascinated me. In my spare time I’ve been investigating it since high school.” He laid the manuscript on the desk and opened it. “I wrote this seven years ago. It represents my life’s work. But not a publisher or scientific journal will touch it.” He flipped pages, showed photos. 

William gasped at some of the familiar faces he saw. “Isn’t that Pres—” 

“Ah-ah. No names. You don’t ask and I don’t tell.” Dudley sighed regretfully. “Poor devil was a hyena, and one of my early attempts. Only about ninety-eight per cent successful.”

“Well, that explains the confusion and the snicker. And what do you mean by ‘early one.’ Your early what?” 

“I’ll explain in a minute. Here. Here’s one of my best and favorite. You’ve seen her in a dozen films. Lean, sleek, gorgeous. She was a greyhound bitch. And this one—”

“Oh, yeah. Him. The televangelist with the shit-eating grin. I always figured the grin stayed in the air after he was gone.” 

“Well, he was a chimp. Very successful. I would’ve fixed the grin, but plastic surgery’s not my forte and he thinks it makes him look friendly.” 

“More like a used-car salesman. But who cares? I still don’t know what you’re getting at. And how did they find you?” 

“There are always underground rumors if a person wants something bad enough. They all came to me because they’d heard rumors of my research.” 

Idly turning pages, William gave a start and stared at another picture. “My God. That’s the manager of my complex!” 

“Oh, yes. Hmmm. That was my very first attempt. I’d say she turned out about ninety per cent perfect. Unfortunately, one must include one’s less-than-successful results or presenting papers is meaningless.” 

“Assuming I believe this craziness, which I don’t, what was she?” 

“A pit bull.” 

Then William believed. “So she really is a hound from hell.” 

“Most assuredly. With a nose to match.” 

Almost as an afterthought William caught the most important part of what Dudley had said. “No more pictures. You said you’d explain. What the hell did you do to these people?”

“I un-wered them.” 

“Come again? You mean it’s a psychological thing? You hypnotized them or something?”

“Do I look like a shrink?” Dud turned more pages in the manuscript and explained. “It’s strictly a surgical answer. Nothing voodoo about it. See here?” He pointed to a detailed computer-generated image of the base of the human brain. “This is the pituitary body, right here. Irregular development or disease can cause such things as dwarfism and gigantism and problems with the sex organs. There’s tentative evidence it may even have something to do with homosexuality.” 

“So? Everybody knows that.” 

Dudley turned to another image accompanied by several photographs. “Those were normal brains, normal pituitaries. Now this, my friend, is the answer to your problem.”

The brains in the pictures seemed to have some kind of corkscrew arrangement running down the middle, like a crooked zipper, and it ended at the base of the brain in a flat thing like a tiny beaver’s tail. 

“A brain with a zipper?” 

“That’s not a zipper, you moron. That’s a Galdogenes gland, named for the first-described were-person, ’way back in the time of Hippocrates. It was actually discovered in 1632, but the Church suppressed the knowledge and it was lost. I rediscovered it. But I never dreamed there were so many—”

“Dudley, you’re giving me a headache. So it’s got a name. Now what?” 

“We take it out. If we schedule the surgery immediately, Tom will remain the lovely boy he is now, albeit eventually subject to sags and wrinkles like the rest of us.” 

“And gay?” William said hopefully.

“Who knows? You have to remember, Will, that even minor surgery is fraught with danger. And brain surgery is as major as it gets.” He frowned slightly. “Now then, I’ve never had a subject who elected to have the surgery during the animal phase. My theory is that if you delay surgery until the next metamorphosis, then you will have a handsome tomcat. He’ll be your companion, he’ll love you and trust you without reservation, forgive you everything, and he’ll never question your whereabouts.” 

“Like I ever had any whereabouts to question! I didn’t know you liked cats, Dud.” 

“I hate the little buggers. But people tell me they’re everything nice.” 

“I want you to do it, Dud. I’d like to say yes right now. But…” He bit his lip. “I’ll have to explain it to Tom. I can’t make that kind of decision for him.” 

William peeked out into the adjoining room where Tom was scrunched into an impossible-looking position on one of the chairs, sound asleep. He did sleep a lot. But even taking into consideration the awkwardness of his pose, he was so beautiful William couldn’t bear the thought of losing him. Not even if it meant giving up an apartment for which he’d sell both his grandparents and throw his mother into the bargain for good measure. 

“I’ll let you know,” he told Dudley. He took Tom home, stopping at The Colonel’s on the way for a pint of chicken livers. He was a little annoyed that he didn’t get even one of his favorite snack. By the time they got home, Tom had eaten them all. 

“More?” Tom asked plaintively, his eyes shining as he licked his lips. 

Those lips! William had never been much for poetry, but at that moment he could have echoed Oscar Wilde and said, “Those red rose-leaf lips of yours were made no less for the joy of kissing than for nibbling chicken livers.”

That night William sat Tom down and talked to him. He told him he loved him and was willing to even give up his apartment for him. He explained about the Galdogenes gland and the surgery, pledged his eternal love and pleaded with Tom to have the operation. Tom didn’t say anything for a long time after William was finished.

“Well?” William prompted. 

“I don’t know what I want,” Tom said slowly. “I like being here with you. I think I might even like doing the beast with two backs with you. But I don’t know if I want to give up being a cat. You can’t imagine… the freedom… the careless life… the swaggering… Oh, the swaggering! Humans don’t have the slightest inkling how to swagger.” He sighed. “I’ll leave it up to you. I love you too. You took me in, gave me a home, bought me tuna and chicken livers. For that I would die.” 

William was elated. “No. No, not die. Live. First thing tomorrow I’ll make arrangements for the surgery. Oh, Tom, just think—you’ll be a man, a real man, for the rest of your life!” 

Later that night he felt something was wrong. He got out of bed and found Tom sitting naked beside the open window. His posture was tense, as if all his senses were alert, and he was growling softly deep in his throat, a sound very much like a hiss. Below, a scruffy tomcat with a missing ear was yowling at something unseen. 

“It’s just a cat, Tom,” William whispered, kissing his ear. “This is your chance to find out once and for all what you want. Try being completely human while you can. You might like it.”

Tom looked at him, startled, the pupils of his eyes dilated. They went into the bedroom.

##

It took William a week to get over the experience, not to mention that the bite marks and scratches were hard to explain to the doctor at the walk-in clinic. Tom had seemed to enjoy the experience and yet … William often noticed a wistful expression on the beautiful face, sometimes accompanied by a mournful sigh.

##

Six months after he first set eyes on the stray cat, William made the first major decision of his life. It was the hardest thing he ever did. In that short time he had fallen head over heels in love with Tom, but he had to let him be what he had to be. 

It was a simple matter of patience. And it was torture. On December 21 William held Tom’s hand through the night, soothing him as his form slowly, painfully, became smaller, softer, furrier. When, in the morning, Tom jumped to his shoulder and purred in his ear William reached for the telephone and called Dudley. 

“Dud,” he said, “it’s time for the surgery.”

##

William’s new apartment doesn’t have the amenities of a swimming pool, sauna, or tennis court. What it does have is a guy named Larry across the hall. Larry’s friendly. He’s funny. He’s smart. He’s as crazy about William as William is about him. He is so “out” he even has a rainbow flag on his bedroom wall. And he never goes across to William’s place without taking chicken liver for Tom. 

It’s a good life. Tom sits by the hour on William’s lap, sometimes on Larry’s, purring loudly, his eyes shut. Sometimes, as if suddenly remembering something, Tom looks up at William and gives him a cat-smile. Then he stretches out and goes to sleep.

THE END

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

Ruth Sims has lived her entire life in conservative, Republican, small-town Midwest USA surrounded by cornfields. It’s a strange place indeed for a Liberal-Democrat-Feminist who sees nothing wrong with Wicca or gay marriage. Words, imagination, books, and writing have always been the means by which she could leave the cornfield and slip into other lives more exciting and more interesting than her own. After raising a family, the time came when she could focus on the stories that had been in her head for years. Her characters are thankful to escape; it was getting crowded in there. 

TOM: or, An Improbable Tail, has previously appeared in two anthologies: Best Gay Romance from Cleis Press, and Charmed Lives. 

Other Publications:

The Phoenix (novel), published by The Writers' Collective, available on Amazon and independent bookstores, and will soon be available for the Amazon Kindle. Awarded the Foreword Magazine Book of the Year HM 2005 and first place in the Independent E-Book Award 2002. 

Short stories: Mariel --Blithe House Quarterly  

The Curse (available for free) 

In the mid 1990's Ruth was published by Alyson Publications; Without Sanction, under penname: J.M. Roberts, and two Young Adult novels in The Pride Pack series, under penname R.J. Hamilton.
 

Counterpoint, Ruth's second gay historical novel, is tentatively scheduled for publication in 2009.    

Website: www.ruthsims.com  She loves to hear from readers!

 

Website