New Fiction: “The Sign of the White Hart”

In honor of Gemma’s birthday, here’s a very short, very chaste piece on the joys of biking and other things.

It’s on a new page called Sketches from Scotland. A while back Norma made a request for travel stories from Scotland. I kept the request to hand, as I do, and waited for the right inspiration to come. This was it.

Then as I was doing research on Scotland and the Highlands, I discovered there are approximately 750,000 stories to be told about the land of Watson’s birth.

So I started this page as kind of a market basket for them. I’ll plunk new storylettes in as the urge comes over me. Right now I don’t have an outline or any plan of any kind other than to touch on the long list of places and things that caught my fancy as I was studying up. Any road, we’ll see what develops. Suggestions are more than welcome.

I love and yearn for story requests of any kind. Working on these little pieces fuels my brain and keeps the creative fires burning for the longer, more ambitious stuff.

All that’s to say I’d appreciate any requests you’d care to pass my way. Feel free to email me – my address is at the left.

And, as always, thanks for reading.

Final Chapter… “Venomous Creatures” – RIP

All strange things must end. The final chapter of the second story in the Demons, Devils and Rogues triptych rolls in on a wave of shock and dismay and splashes around in it for quite some time. It’s not as smutty as you might think, but it is a tad… “sprightly.”

This last chapter was fun to work on. That’s probably because the homages in this one are drawn from one of my favorite books, Mystery Mile by Margery Allingham. There was no specific image or scene I borrowed. It just kind of permeates.

Any road, I expect it’s either too much or not enough smut to suit your tastes, but there you go.

Venomous Creatures gets stuffed and mounted in Chapter Six: The Second Seduction..

Oh, no. Not more “Venomous Creatures”…

Yes, I’m afraid so. It’s Chapter Five: The Altar of Science.

No smut to speak of, but… oy. It’s wrong in so many ways.

And what’s really embarrassing is the borrowed image in this one is from my favorite Sherlock Holmes movie of all time. I’m so ashamed, you have no idea.

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Part Two, Chapter Four of “Venomous Creatures”

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Oh, dear. Venomous Creatures continues in Part Two: A Lamb to Slaughter.

More smut and conversation as I run amok in Chapter Four, A Multitude of Sins.
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“Venomous Creatures” – Chapter Three

In this bit we find the meeting with the Milv, all the scenery and props required for the closing chapters and as an added bonus (spoiler) a glimmer of the third and entirely unforgivable story in the series. It’s all under the link to Venomous Creatures.

Oh, and here’s something you won’t be interested in. I’ve been having fun doing homages to (pilfering) bits from some of my favorite books and movies for this series…

Squire of Reigate

• Part One had an image lifted directly from the One True “Star Trek”
• Part Two had glimpses of the movie “Dead Again”
• Part Three had a massive chunk rifled from the movie “Time After Time”
• Part Four had an image from the movie “Somewhere in Time”

Venomous Creatures

• Chapter One had several bits from the movie “The Big Chill”
• Chapter Two had a smidge from the book (and the movie, too, for all I know) “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea”
• Chapter Three uses lots of images from “The Shining” (the entirely excellent TV version with Steven Weber)

And Chapter Four will use a scene inspired by the book “Strong Poison” which, if you recognize it, will have you looking at me squiggle-eyed.

See? I told you it wasn’t that interesting.

“Venomous Creatures” – Chapter Two

The AU continues. A slightly more tame chapter, but keep your wig on. The smut gets smutting again shortly.

The mischief is made in Venomous Creatures.

New Fiction: “My Lady’s Chamber”

A long overdue birthday story for the charming and patient Indochinee who requested a story featuring Holmes disguised as a priest(!). I realize priest!Holmes isn’t everyone’s bag of nuts. Trust me, this Catholic girl went through a few mental gyrations working this one out.

I did throw in lots of lurve and a mighty round of fisticuff goodness because I hadn’t done that for a while. Also there are skulls and blood. Okay, those last two things were just for me.

Any road, hope you don’t hate it. Oh! Duh. It’s called My Lady’s Chamber and is on the page of that name. Now I’m done.

New Fiction: “Venomous Creatures” (NC17)… Part 1, Chapter 1

Latch the door. Lock the windows. Hide the dog. It’s here.

The sequel to The Squire of Reigate, the second Demons, Devils and Rogues story, and an entirely uncalled for digression into the smuttiest of smut-filled smut. A chocolate covered smut-cherry, if you will.

This one picks up around the time the last one left off and is NC17 from the jump. Well, and why not? There’s no place to go but down.

Venomous Creatures is an AAAAU bastardization retelling of The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton. Hey, I’m only human. I’m as powerless before the sickly allure of the Milv as anyone.

Whackier by far, even, than the prequel, this story will go down the rabbit hole that leads to the bear cave that is the third story.

Sure you won’t reconsider? Well, all righty then. Smut ahoy and away we go…

New Fiction: “The Taste of Love”

It seems I’ve gone entirely self-reflexive now. What started out as one simple story has spawned a universe. In addition to the Lestrade family there’s a growing cast of characters living around the cottage on the Sussex Downs. (Two of them appear as names here, but the characters are so far unseen.)

This story, The Taste of Love, intersects with the story of Intimations, but doesn’t overlap it, if that makes sense. It’s very short, but spans the arc from first blush of love to the Sussex years. I hope you like it.

I’m calling the set of stories that encompasses this one Chronicles. This is the first in The Sussex Chronicles. Intimations is the first in The Lestrade Chronicles.

This story will probably make more sense if you’ve already read Intimations, but I really have no idea.

“The Longest Night” – Chapter Fourteen: Words and Letters

Hurray! Chapter Fourteen! Pretty speedy, eh? Shocking!

It’s suitable because the pace of action is really picking up now as we slalom toward the… what did I call it… the “staggering” conclusion? Well, the staggeringness is still open to question, I suppose, but the speediness is not.

Our two moon-crossed lovers, locked in emotional struggle, trapped in a train compartment… It’s a tempest-tossed ride through the night and other purplish turns of phrase. Yeah, I got a million of ’em.

Only three more chapters to go after this so buckle-up!

Oh, and if you missed the announcement, Chapter Thirteen has been utterly gutted and reworked since it was posted so if you’re confused reading Chapter Fourteen that may be why. Let’s just be charitable and say that’s the reason, shall we? Any road, you may want to glance back at Thirteen if you haven’t looked at it in a week.

They’re both to be found in The Longest Night. Part 3