Parhelion

Anther website I regularly visit, in the hope that there is a new story there, is Parhelion's. She writes sumptuous and polished original gay (and lesbian) fiction, but also some wonderful fanfic -- for Nero Wolfe, no less. Read this wonderful alternate version of a Nero Wolfe tale, for example:

Of course I knew right away it was Wolfe. He has a scent of salt and bay rum, and a feel of soft, yielding flesh over barrel-chested hardness that I’d never mistake for anyone else. My body knew it was Wolfe, too, but it seemed to have a different attitude about the fact than it should. When I realized that, I sucked in some air. The sound that came from him in response wasn’t words but a low, sleepy rumble.

And this, from An Angel in Hollywood:

We started out at a gin palace called the Black Cat. Bill had been there. They sent us on to a restaurant called Gino’s. Bill had been there, too. The barman moved us along to a club called The Picador. Hard though it may be to believe, it took me until The Picador to figure out what was going on. The restaurant had seemed normal enough, all red leather booths and bad Tuscan food, and there had been some good-looking dolls at the Cat. It would have taken a blind man to miss what was going on at the Picador, though.

I had insisted that we get a table in a corner, where we could take in the crowd and the floor show without making a big issue out of our presence. Sid’s pictures had been doing well the past couple of years and I knew the studio would not be pleased if he fell into whatever ditch he was trying to pull Bill out of. Sid sprawled out in his chair, smiling at the chanteuse singing “The Sum of You.”

“Sid?” I said. To me, my tone was pensive.

“Yes?”

“That singer is not a Jane, is he?”

“While performing, it is considered courteous to refer to her as ‘her’.”

I spent a minute juggling pronouns in my head before I gave it up. “Okay, that is what I thought.” I checked the crowd. There were lots of regular fellas, but there were lots of Ethels present, too. It was a pansy club, all right. “So, I am slow this evening. Explain to me again why Bill is over on this side of town?”

“As I said, he and Betty have had a battle over her nice, new rattle. This is his way of demonstrating his annoyance with what he assumes her after hours activities to be without his involving another woman. That would be viewed by both of them as a serious and irrevocable step.”

Knowing both the people involved, it almost made sense to me, which I found to be annoying. “Hooey. Stepping out is stepping out, no matter what the plumbing is.”

Sid let out a deep sigh and looked a little sad. “I would agree with you, but many would not. What is illegitimate and illegal is widely believed not to be subject to the same standards as the normal and expected.”

I gave Sid the face. “Do not ever tell Frankie that. He expects our family accountants to be four-square and on the level always. Unless they are showing the books to the government, that is.” I thought some more. “You can not tell me that you treat your candy any different than you would treat dolls.”

He laughed. It started real deep and moved up to his face, before it shook his whole huge body. It was a noise that made you want to look, like the sound of a good jazz band opening up. People at the neighboring tables turned to see. “It pleases me, as ever, not to be mistaken about you, my Angelo.”

Oh man! I wish with all my heart I wrote that well. She is utterly convincing in her portrayal of the 1930s. She's also pretty good with the 1880s or so too. Read her superb love story Dry Bones in Cowboy Up.

Here's to you, Parhelion. May your writing muse never fail!