I lost a friend – perhaps several – on Facebook this week. I’m not proud of it. It hurt me a lot more, I suspect, than it hurt them. I didn’t unfriend them myself. They were important to me. Are important to me. But I did make the choice to post when I knew that would be the result.

I try not to unfriend people. Even my most toxic friends – the ones who can’t help but post how horrible the world is or how everything is going to kill you if you eat/are exposed/allow it to exist. I unfollow all the sites they share, but I don’t remove them, because they’re my friends. And I know those posts come from a passion to want to change things and do what’s right. For politics it’s much the same. If you post a lot about how people are welfare cheats or how we need to drug test for approval for welfare or how Ted Cruz is going to save the country, probably I unfollowed you and the sites you support a long time ago.

I appreciate diversity of thought and opinion, but in today’s world, that feed is a sort of social living room, and that sort of negativity has a very real effect on me. As a bipolar person, it doesn’t take a lot to make me sink, and sometimes that post was the one that did it. And so I excise it. But not the friendship.

So how did I make it happen this time? I know people have strong opinions about bathroom usage nowdays, but with so many friends and loved ones that identify as trans, I can’t just listen to someone spew about how they’re a danger. I was raped in a bathroom as a child, I know where the real danger lies. And so people using that fear of something real, something I’ve experienced, to attack people I love and care about really gets me… angry. Not just a little.

But it still hurt. Because the guy, a friend since college, asked if he was being a bigot. He asked me. And I told him. Because he was. I told him he was not thinking things through. I told him he was trying to find a cultural issue to use as a wedge between people, and that it was wrong. He told me we weren’t friends anymore if I called him a bigot again.

I knew what I was doing. But I was angry. I told him, essentially, that if he didn’t want me to call him a bigot, he should stop being one. It was a principled stand, I believe that. But I knew how he reacts under those sorts of pressure circumstances. I mean, I’ve known since college. Upwards of twenty years. He’s a conservative republican. I knew I was losing a friend.

So why do I care? I hear so often in the community people say we should just cut people like that out of our lives. But what if they’re parents? Brothers? Friends? I know… what kind of friends could they be with beliefs like that? But the answer is surprising sometimes. He was a good friend. At a time everyone I thought was my ally turned on me, it was him and the other republicans who rallied and said “No.” They were the ones who had my back when my community turned their backs on me. He was a good friend.

And now he’s not. It makes me sad.
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Thinking about losing friends reminds me of the one time I actually unfriended someone. I got catfished. Yeah, it really happens. He was a good friend. Young and struggling and active in our fanfiction community. Trying to keep a romance alive and struggling with that. And then he “died.” And I mourned. I’d spent weeks helping keep him sane when he thought he’d never keep his hopes up. I’d helped him edit stories. I’d spoken to him almost every day for years.

And he never existed.

The person who was behind him is the only person I’ve actually unfriended myself. The incident was the inspiration for The Byte of Betrayal. So I’m going to plug one of my own stories, and note that it’ll be on sale at the Dreamspinner Press store for 30% off from June 6-8.
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The Byte of Betrayal
Caleb McDonnell lives his life online. A thirty-year-old fast food worker, he spends his time talking in an Internet world where his job and living conditions can't dictate his friendships. He's found acceptance, friendship, and even romance. But when an online friend is revealed as a fake, Caleb loses all sense of trust. To stave off the emotional collapse of his betrayal, Caleb leaves his online life behind and retreats into the monotony of his job.

Nicodemus Rokos feels like his heart has been torn out. He knew Caleb would be hurt, but he'd hoped not to be shut out of his boyfriend's life. He can only hope Caleb still feels something when he shows up in person to reclaim what he's lost.

As those who follow me on social media are no doubt aware, I've been sick all holiday weekend. But I've been running late releasing these chapters, and I didn't want to be late again. So here it is, chapter 3 of The One That Feels. I'll be posting chapters twice monthly, once in the middle of the month and once at the end. (note, only the first three paragraphs appear in blog view, you need to click "Read More" at the bottom right for the full text of the chapter)

Chapter 1 can be found in an earlier entry if you have not yet started the story, and there is also a prelude to The One That Feels in the April 2016 issue of ARDOR.

Chapter 3
Exhaustion rolled over me in waves as the drive neared completion. I’d driven all night and once we had reached the cabin, well, there was very little sleep. Continuing so immediately on to another lengthy drive had stressed my already low reserves. Also, I had this gorgeous man with puppy dog eyes staring at me the whole drive, and it was all I could do to keep from looking into those eyes and sinking into melancholy—I was going to lose him, probably forever this time, and I knew it. I think there might have been some relief there too, but I couldn’t be sure. I was very conflicted as it was.
 
I didn’t ask about Jordan’s parents, or about what Jordan had taken. I also stayed far away from questions about why Jordan still felt the need to fill his body with narcotics. Brian would get to those details when he was ready. Besides, for what he was asking me to do it scarcely mattered. Underneath the coma induced quiet, there would be something else. Something modern doctors couldn’t or wouldn’t sort out. Something that, worse, they would not even acknowledge.
 
The hospital campus was large and filled with modern looking glass buildings and construction, never ending construction, that made finding a parking space an exercise in frustration. Never-the-less, I found a spot and walked as calmly as I could into the building. It struck me just then that it would have been easier to do this in a suit, not that I kept suits at the cabin. Confidence didn’t come from clothes, that just prompted others to react appropriately. But the clothes would have helped, and… well, this was going to be difficult enough.

So this was meant to be posted Monday, and is a few days late courtesy of whatever stomach bug has had my husband puking his guts out this week. My apologies. Without further ado, Chapter 2 of The One That Feels. I'll be posting chapters twice monthly, once in the middle of the month and once at the end. (note, only the first three paragraphs appear in blog view, you need to click "Read More" at the bottom right for the full text of the chapter)

Chapter 1 can be found in an earlier entry, and there is a prelude to the story in the April 2016 issue of ARDOR.

Chapter 2
When I woke it was to the face of an angel nuzzled close against my chest and the touch of his naked body against mine. The warmth of his breath electrified me and I pulled him close to kiss him on the top of his full head of short, wavy, chestnut-brown hair. I wrapped my arms around him briefly and tried to forget that he had given this life up. I let him give this life up. Extricating myself from his embrace, I maneuvered myself out of the bed. I stood there for a few moments just to look at him.
 
Brian had lost his boxers in the night… and I had lost my war against his flesh. But I had known I would lose it as soon as I drove him here. I shook my head as I gazed down at him. Heavenly, still. I could spend a million nights in those arms and never tire of it. We were meant to be. I had always known it. It didn't make up for the guilt of enabling him to cheat. Lessened it, maybe.
 
I went into the bathroom and showered, washing the remnants of our exertions from my body. When I returned after my shower, I found him still soundly asleep, and I quietly dressed. I had no wish to disturb him, to disturb my fantasy of us being back together. That was easier than the thought that I had made his faithlessness possible, and not for the first time. A part of me wished I could just stand by the bed and look at him all day, but then… I didn’t need to. I had never forgotten what he looked like. That body, all of it, had haunted my dreams and nightmares ever since he had left me. The memories should be enough. Did I need to ruin someone else in the way Brian had ruined me?

It's been a little while coming, but it's finally here, Chapter 1 of The One That Feels. I'll be posting chapters twice monthly, once in the middle of the month and once at the end. (note, only the first three paragraphs appear in blog view, you need to click "Read More" at the bottom right for the full text of the chapter)

If you haven't read it yet, I encourage you to check out the short prelude to the story "When Love is Gone" in April's issue of ARDOR.

Chapter 1
The club was quiet. Not in the sense of noise, for the beat of the latest dance tunes echoed through the club in a throbbing beat I could feel in my bones, but in the sense that it was early yet, and the echo was bereft of the usual din of people trying desperately to be heard over the noise. I watched for a while as the club slowly filled. A waiter, his shirt deeply open to show his chest, weaved through the burgeoning crowd, his denim cut-offs barely constraining what was clearly a significant endowment, drink tray held alternately by his shoulder and high over-head.
 
The waiter was hot and moved in a pulse with the dance beat, gliding and dancing and grinding as he held the tray and weaved through the crowd. His butt was nicely rounded and familiar, and I watched it with the barest hint of a smile as he slipped through the crowd, twisting every so often in a way that displayed his abs through the gap in his open shirt. A glass filled with bills reflected the effect his body was having on those watching as he took orders and made his way to the bar.
 
Shortly he returned in my direction with a short Stoli and a Diet Coke and winked. I smiled at him and held up my glass as I saluted him with a brief nod and downed the soda. I had been wrong. He only looked twenty something… he hadn’t aged a day. He chuckled slightly and then sidled past a couple of twinks, letting the bare skin of his chest rub against their skin tight shirts as he slid by. He’d probably end up in bed with one of those two tonight. I sighed. I had had my chance long ago and squandered it.​