Slippery When Wet Blog Hop

Hi there! ::waves:: I'm DC Juris! For those of you who don't know me, I'm a bisexual transgender fella who writes GLBTQ romance - mostly m/m and transgender - in the contemporary and fantasy genres.

I've been writing since before I entered Kindergarten (I wrote my very first story in crayon on the walls of my bedroom) and I finally realized the dream of being published in 2009.

I'm a down-to-Earth guy. I'm a Trekker (TOS), and a pretty good photographer. I like cupcakes, sweet wine, porn, watching football, rummage sales, going to drag shows, antiques, thrift stores, shiny things, random nonsense, Grumpy Cat, and I proudly share my home with a family of sock monkeys. In short, I'm a Geek of the Geekiest degree. :-)

You can find links to all my published works at my website. I have an author page on Facebook and  a personal page. I'm @dcjuris on Twitter, and I'm on Pinterest

Today I'm sharing an excerpt from my newest release with Wilde City Press, "Pudding Jones." (CONTENT WARNING: This story does not have a HEA!) This is also my prize for the hop - one lucky winner will get a free pdf copy. To enter, just leave a comment below, including your e-mail address.

Blurb:

Award-winning reporter Emmer Richfield is the kind of guy who covers wars, the kind of guy who asks the hard-hitting questions. He is not—and he’s certain about this—the kind of guy who does sappy human-interest stories about homeless people. But his newest assignment is not just any human-interest story, it’s a mandate from the mayor: convince the people of Dodson that Foxton Industries’ plan to build a mall—and oust the homeless population—is a bad idea by way of a feature on a homeless man named Pudding Jones. But Pudding quickly goes from just another story to a man who changes Emmer’s life. The question is, can Emmer return the favor before it’s too late?

Excerpt:

I coughed and looked away. I needed to try and steer the conversation to something else before I became ill. "People say you pay for your food and drink here. Where do you get the money? Do you earn it?"

“Do I earn it? Do I sell my body, you mean? You want to know if I walk the streets at night, giving blowjobs and reach arounds in the back alleys?" He made an obscene gesture with his right hand and a lady two booths over let out a gasp.

"No." I shook my head vigorously. "I said earn."

"That's what you say. Ain't what you mean. There's a difference, you know, 'tween what you say and what you mean. People think they can trick with big words and fancy talk, but what they mean is in their soul, and it shines in their eyes. Shines in their eyes like a cat's at night. And you can't hide what's in your eyes." He shook his head. "You here now, wantin' to know about me. Where was you then? Hmm? Where was you when the child in me was dyin'? When the child in me was being killed? Murdered, day in and day out? Where was you then, with your money and your fancy car and your warm house? Where was you when you woulda mattered?"

"I didn't know you." But the words sounded hollow and lame to my own ears. So I hadn't known Pudding. So what? I'd known some other kid. I hadn't been aware of it—no, that wasn't right—I hadn't wanted to see it, to acknowledge it. To admit that sometimes, the things that went bump in the night weren't the real terrors. Those Hollywood horror movies had nothing on some real-life people. People like Pudding's father.

Pudding picked up his coffee cup and downed its contents with a grunt. "Fair enough." He pulled out a battered and worn black leather wallet, opened it up to show off two twenty-dollar bills. "People give me money, sometimes. I do some work, too. I'm strong." He put the wallet away and flexed the muscles in his upper arms. "I help people move. I carry things. People pay me for that. I saved up and bought a bike, so I deliver stuff sometimes."

"So you're not opposed to working. Why not get a full time job and get yourself off the streets?" Seemed like a no-brainer to me. Muddled as his mind seemed to be, he was still capable of work. "There are programs and agencies that can help you."

"You say why not, I say why bother. What's in that for me? Being told what to do all the time? Being told where to be? How to act? How to dress? I had my fill of that."

"There's advantages to all that, though," I pointed out. "Hot meals, hot showers, a bed to sleep in."

Pudding rolled his eyes. "You people don't know nothin' 'bout nothin'. You hear homeless, you think of some dirty bum on the street, beggin' you for money with one hand, holdin' a bottle in the other. There's other ways of livin' besides the way you live. I get hot meals and I got a bed to sleep in. And I ain't never been too fond of hot showers." He shivered.



****PLEASE BE AWARE: I write GLBTQ romance. GLBTQ stands for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer. This means my works feature same sex relationships AND same sex sexual acts. If winning that kind of a book isn't your cup of tea, kindly pass on to the next blog in the hop and leave the spot open for someone else. Thank you.****

NEW RELEASE: Pudding Jones

Blurb:

Award-winning reporter Emmer Richfield is the kind of guy who covers wars, the kind of guy who asks the hard-hitting questions. He is not--and he's certain about this--the kind of guy who does sappy human-interest stories about homeless people. Not just any human-interest story, this assignment is a mandate from the mayor: convince the people of Dodson that Foxton Industries' plan to build a mall - and oust the homeless population - is a bad idea by way of a feature on a homeless man named Pudding Jones. But Pudding quickly goes from just another story to a man who changes Emmer's life. But can Emmer return the favor before it's too late?

Excerpt:

Four hours later, I slid into the back corner booth at Brandywine, opposite Pudding Jones. Tall and lanky, dressed in jeans and a red tank top, with black sandals on his feet, his long, dark hair was pulled back into a thick braid. He looked clean and smelled quite nice. If not for the photo in the file, I wouldn't have known he was the homeless man I'd been sent to interview. Beside him on the seat were a bunched up coat and scarf. I held out my hand across the table, but he just stared at me. "Hi. I'm Emmer Richfield. I'm the reporter from the Tri City Review."

Pudding frowned at me. "What kind of a name is Emmer Richfield?"

I raised an eyebrow and smirked. "What kind of a name is Pudding Jones?"

"Least it's not my real name. I like pudding and Indiana Jones." He folded his arms across his chest and glared at me, as if daring me to find fault with his logic.

I'd figured it wasn't his real name, but one never knew these days. "I go by Emmer because my first name is Emerald." I tapped the side of my right eye. "Mom saw my eyes and the first word she said was emerald."

"Why are you here?" He looked to his left and right, then back at me through squinted eyes.

Great. Did he have memory issues? "Because you said you wanted me to tell your story."

"Yes, I know that. But why are you here?"

I glanced around, wondering if I was being set up. "Because it's my job."

"Hmm. But why are you here?"

"Because you asked for me specifically." I sighed, rapidly losing patience.

"But why are you here?"

"Here as in the diner?" I gestured around. "Because this is the place you chose."

"It is, isn't it?"

I blinked several times and just stared at him blank faced. What. The. Hell. I shook my head and pulled out my laptop, opened it up and made a new file, which I somehow kept myself from naming Crazy Lunatic.

Pudding took a deep breath; let it out slowly and deliberately. "Suppose I should start at the beginning, hmm? To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born, as I have been informed and believe, on a Friday, at twelve o'clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry, simultaneously…."

While he talked, I wracked my brain. I had heard those words before. But where? It finally hit me, and I chuckled. "Copperfield."

"What?"

"That's from David Copperfield."

"What is?"

"What you just said. To begin my life, yadda yadda. It's the opening lines of a book called David Copperfield by Charles Dickens."

Pudding scowled at me. "No it isn't."

I gestured to my computer. "I can prove it. I'll Google it for you."

He sat back in his seat and frowned at me with one eyebrow raised. "What's a Google?"

"It's a search engine for the Internet."

"What's an internet?"

"The Internet is…" I floundered. Shouldn't he know some of this? "Think of the Internet as a giant library, and Google is the librarian. If there's something you want to know, you just ask Google and it'll find the answer for you. Google knows everything."

"What does Google know about Pudding Jones?"

"Not much, probably."

He smirked. "Don't know everything, then."

"Well, I'm here to fix that." I smiled what I hoped was a disarming, genuine smile, instead of the sarcastic, annoyed one I was feeling. "Listen, I'm having a bad day, okay? So can we just skip all the crap and get to work?"

"Bad day?" Pudding's scowl deepened. "You ain't know what a bad day is. I know what a bad day is. I was young. Elementary school. I done forgot exactly how old I was. Don't matter no ways. Daddy, sometimes he worked the night shift. Those were the best times of my life, cause he was gone and not home to mess with me. I could sleep on those nights, you see. Every mornin' he would come home, 'cept one mornin', he didn't. Just…" he waved his hand in the air, "didn't. And I thought, Lord, could I get that lucky? Maybe he was dead. Died in a car crash on the way, and they just ain't had time to bring word yet.

"All morning, we ain't heard nothin'. I went on to school. I 'member I skipped down all the halls. I was so excited. Didn't matter Mamma and I'd have no money. I'd be free. Freedom's worth more than money. 'Bout half way through the day, sittin' in class, the intercom buzzed. It was the school secretary, relayin' a message from Mamma. Daddy'd come home, all nice and safe and sound. And my freedom was gone in an instant. In the blink of my eyes. Just slipped through my fingers. That's a bad day. You?" He stabbed his index finger at me. "You ain't know a bad day."

I swallowed hard, not knowing how to respond. "So…" I cleared my throat. "So your parents… your um… your father was abusive?" Could I even ask that kind of question? I had asked questions like Mister Senator, did you cheat on your wife, or did you know that boy was underage? Questions meant for sensation. But I had never delved into something like this before.

He chuckled, turned in his seat, put his back against the window, and stretched his long legs out. "You could say that. Could also say he was a hard workin' man, and I was a silly child to make up such nonsense. That's what they said, back then. All of them."

I didn't know who they had been, but I suddenly wanted to hit every one of them. "Did you make it up?"

Pudding looked at me then, turned those dark brown Labrador retriever eyes on me. "Does it matter?" he asked softly.

"Yes," I croaked the word. In the space of a few sentences, Pudding had gone from a story to a person. And it mattered more than I wanted to admit.