Haunted Ship Trilogy 02-Slipping Away From the Beach by Grant Cathryn

Author:Grant, Cathryn [Grant, Cathryn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Paranormal Suspense, American Suspense, Ghosts, Hauntings, Spirits, Psychological Suspense, Horror, 1960's
Publisher: D2C Perspectives
Published: 2016-01-29T06:00:00+00:00

He drove to the Santa Cruz Boardwalk and spent the day watching people wander from one amusement to another, eating candied apples, cotton candy, and saltwater taffy — a festival of sweets. He bought a bag of the chewy stuff for himself to keep his mouth occupied while he let the shrieks and laughter close around his head. Along with the noise that submerged his thoughts, he liked the numbing effect of watching the parade of men, quite a few of them wearing nothing but swim trunks. For all his lecturing of his mother about the mind and the body needing work, he liked being idle, not thinking. It was possible he spent too much time thinking, planning, worrying, trying to find a way through all the clutter to his innermost thoughts.

Some men thumbed their noses at society. They abandoned the desire for conventional careers with large, conservative corporations. They seemed content to live in low paying jobs, rent apartments or homes in questionable areas, enjoy a life in the shadows. They chose love and companionship over anything else society had to offer. He admired them. He envied them. But he wanted both. It wasn’t right that he’d been born with a desire for men, an outright aversion to being touched by women, and was barred from having a normal life because of it. Meekly accepting the hand-to-mouth existence and rundown living space was grossly unfair. An outcast.

He unwrapped a piece of chocolate-flavored taffy and put it in his mouth. He chewed slowly as saliva exploded around the sugar, rushing to break down the candy into something his body could digest and rebel against. He swallowed. The moment one piece had been devoured, he wanted another. Was this what getting high was like, always wanting more? Good feelings fading too fast? The constant craving. Just like sex. He’d had a nerve-exploding experience with Luke, and already it felt as if it had never happened.

To have someone you were attracted to, someone who also had an attractive mind, share your bed every night, wake beside you every morning of your life, must be like heaven. It was a simple pleasure and a need that pervaded every part of life. He wanted it for himself.

The world was cruel to the people who didn’t fit in. He saw it in the river of bodies passing in front of his eyes. Most of them were in pairs or groups of three or four. Occasionally there was one alone — a boy who was extremely overweight, further ostracized by a face littered with blemishes. His expression was angry, straining to avoid tears at the same time. And a few minutes later, a girl with a large purple mark spread over her cheek and jaw. She was accompanied by two other girls, but the two had their heads close together, talked mostly to each other. She trailed behind, her expression a similar blend of grief and rage. He wondered if his face had that appearance.

Was that what Paul saw in him? Paul could see on Thomas’s face that his body responded to Paul’s touch.

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