James Rockton is ready to die. In fact, he plans on it. Having lost his life partner to AIDS, he books the South Pacific cruise Richard didn't live to share. James will spread Richard's ashes at sea, and then slip overboard to join him forever. He’s too old and too heartbroken to continue on alone.<br><br>But James doesn’t count on meeting a young man whose parents constantly put him down. Then there’s the obviously gay young art dealer who ogles a crazy young photographer traveling with an older gay man about James’s own age.<br><br>James and Herb begin spending time together, trying not to laugh too hard or get too involved with these young men, who circle each other in rapidly shrinking orbits. After all, James and Herb are old, with gray hair and less stamina. With time, talk, and martinis, will love manage to find them, too?

Fade to Gray

“What is your name, dearie?” Queen Mary said to Savin, who had hitched about as far closer as he dared, which was about an inch. I fancied he didn’t want to be any closer to her, or any farther away from me, in case of vomit on the one side, or the ship sinking on the other. He threw me a panicked glance.


“No, don’t tell me, let me make one up for you. I shall call you—Twinkie—after that delicious treat I used to love to gobble right up and suck the cream out of. When I was much younger, of course. Well, maybe not so much younger. Now isn’t that a sweet surprise?”


So help me, God, if she tried to have my boy put her napkin back in her lap, there’d surely be a sweet, or not so sweet, surprise, for sure. Why did these things always happen to me, or rather, around me? Critters in a hand dryer, I wouldn’t be surprised if old Drystan the Dire and his whole pirate ship, the Cacafuego, pulled up alongside the Monsoon Rain.


Chapter 35