Excerpt Day: Love in Dark Settings Omnibus by Dusk Peterson
Love in Dark Settings Omnibus by Dusk Peterson
Release Date: 04/2009
Publisher: Lulu Press
Publisher Link: http://www.lulu.com/content/multimedia/love-in-dark-settings-omnibus/6666590
Blurb: All of Dusk Peterson's fiction: 700,000 words (3 novels, 10 novellas, 4 novelettes, and 12 short stories) of suspenseful fantasy, historical fantasy, contemporary fiction, friendship fiction, heterosexual love stories, original gen, original het, original slash, hurt/comfort, darkfic, gay fiction, gay erotic love stories, gay erotica, and leather fiction. It's the equivalent of a 2000-page anthology. As a bonus, the e-book contains 28 collections of fiction recommendations and nonfiction, including annotated lists of hundreds of novels, short fiction, and memoirs, online and in print: friendship fiction, gay fiction and erotica, original slash and yaoi, leather fiction, Victorian and Edwardian writings, science fiction, fantasy, historical fantasy, and historical fiction.
Excerpt:
I sat down on the bench beside him. The chapel was small, having originally been part of the larger room beside it, and then walled off when some earlier priest had decided that this mixing of sacred and secular was unwise. A tortured man hung from the wall - Belin was fashionable in his artistic tastes, and he preferred this design over the bare crosses that hung in most churches and chapels that I had seen. I slid my gaze away from the atrocity - after all, I reminded myself, my own ancestors had not been adverse to shedding blood for sacred purposes, though they had not gone so far as to revel in the agonizing death of a god. The altar below the cross was more to my taste, having been consecrated originally to an older god, as could be seen from the fact that the lettering of dedication had been hacked away.
The chapel was otherwise beautiful, filled with candles and incense and spring flowers. I breathed in the spice of the incense - I recognized it as one of the spices I had brought as a gift from the old Empire four years before - and tried to think what approach I should take in my confession. It did not appear that this was the best time for raising such a topic.
Belin, thankfully oblivious to my thoughts, said, "He says that he would like to use the treatise to help him compose a homily on the subject."
"Indeed?" I said. "That is a great honor."
Belin nodded, continuing to smile. "That such a great and influential man should value my thoughts on the subject is humbling to me. I hope that he will not be disappointed by what I have to offer. All that I have done is suggest some scriptural support for the Holy Church's condemnation of pederasty."
Belin was always the most polite of men; he never used words such as "sodomy" in the presence of an unbeliever. I said, "Surely that is not a matter that is under debate among the Anointed One's followers?"
The priest shook his head, his smile fading. "You would be surprised, Merlin, what wicked arguments men will make in the name of God. The bishop has among his flock some men and youth who, having lapsed into this sin, refuse to show proper contrition, but instead argue that the Blessed Paul did not condemn pederasty but some other sin instead. They quote the Blessed Hippolytus, who said that the Blessed Paul was speaking of those who take part in the orgiastic rites of the mother goddess. But I believe this is a misinterpretation of the letter to the Romans, and that the true interpretation of the passage can be found by examining the letters' later use of the words arsenokoites and malakos . . ."
He continued on for some time in this vein, with me pretending to show great interest - and indeed, I can always stay attentive to a good discussion of translation problems, however trivial the text may be. When Belin reached the point where he was preparing to describe the use of malakos in Homer to refer to Achilles' "soft bed," I interrupted him and said, "But does your holy man Paul say why he is opposed to pederasty?"
"That is clear from the words he uses," Belin replied promptly. "A malakos is a soft man, an effeminate man, one who has allowed himself to be used for the sexual pleasure of another man, as a woman should properly be used. 'Men abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another . . .'"
This was tiresome; I had heard this argument made by too many would-be philosophers over their drinks. "I can see that might be true of men," I said mildly, "but we are not talking about men, we are talking about youths. Surely at that time of life, the role of a young man is to follow, not lead, and it would be as improper for him to serve as master over his lover as it would be for a woman to serve as master in a marriage."
Too late, I remembered that it is never wise to try to argue philosophy with followers of the Anointed One; they always end up appealing to their holy book as certain proof that their god ordained such-and-such an action. Belin, who had turned concerned eyes toward me, said, "Good Arnobius speaks of how the King of Pessinus sought to withdraw his son from so disgraceful an intimacy, but spurned on by the frenzied madness of his lover, the youth mutilated himself--"
I stood up hastily, my head swimming from the sudden rise. For a moment, I thought that I was on the edge of a vision, but then I saw before me only the priest, staring up at me with the benevolent concern of a holy man who has failed to assist a soul that has strayed from his god's ways.