QSFer J. Scott Coatsworth has a new MM magical realism short out:
Dex is a gay Adonis.
When he walks into Seattle’s Ransom bar, heads turn. He can have just about anyone he wants, and he does, every night.
Until he meets a bear at the bar and everything changes.
“The Bear at the Bar” is a short story originally published in 2014 in the “A Taste of Honey” anthology.
Excerpt
Dex wokeup the next morning feeling thickheaded and groggy. He rubbed his eyes and turned over to find the bed next to him empty. The go-go boy from last night was long gone. Man, I must have been drunk.
Something was off—he couldn’t quite place what it was. He rubbed his eyes, and his hands felt heavy. Shit, what did I drink last night? He wasn’t usually so fucked up the next day. He sat up and looked around.
“What the hell?” He wasn’t home. Not his home. He was sure he’d taken the trick back to his place, but this place was nothing like his own.
Instead of Scandinavian modern, the room was stuffed with dark, bulky furniture. And there were books everywhere—piles of books, shelves of books, books on the nightstands and stuffed into drawers. It was a professor’s wet dream.
This didn’t look like a go-go boy’s place, either.
Dex eased himself out of bed. His whole body felt heavy, and strange. He looked down at his arms. They were thick and covered with coarse black hair.
What the…? These weren’t his arms. His arms were strong, corded with muscle, and smooth. These….
He ran toward the nearest door, praying it was a bathroom. It was, and it was empty. He glared at the bathroom mirror.
A stranger looked back at him.
Author Bio
Scott was indoctrinated into fantasy and sci fi by his mother at the tender age of nine. He devoured her library, but as he grew up, he wondered where all the people like him were.
He decided that if there weren’t gay characters in his favorite genres, he would remake them to his own ends.
A Rainbow Award winning author, he runs Queer Sci Fi and QueeRomance Ink with his husband Mark, sites that celebrate fiction reflecting queer reality.