Boston is a city made of many cities. Each neighbourhood is very different and it is surrounded by many suburbs which are separate cities but which in fact form one continuous, contiguous conurbation which you'd be hard pressed to distinguish from one another and which you roll into and out of without noticing you'd crossed a boundary.
My very first day I spent half an hour going up and down Longwood Avenue in a taxi looking for a hotel. It was there on Longwood Avenue, just a hundred yards past where the taxi kept turned around. It was in Brookline, though, not Boston. Silly me for not knowing when I told the driver.
And I spent seven years in Jamaica Plain, which is officially part of Boston, but if you sent a letter to my street and then wrote Boston, it would never get there. Even when my parents visited, they'd a problem with immigration because they said they were going to an address in Boston. It's not Boston, but it is. Go figure.
These are all things to keep in mind when setting a story there. Some of the most emblematic parts of Boston aren't even in that city. Can I let the characters cross the Charles River into Cambridge? How can we not have them stroll around Harvard Yard?
Despite the difficulties, it's a wonderful city, made for tourists, with most things in walking distance of the Common, and a delight to stroll around. Unless it's a hard winter. Boston is a very different city in summer than in winter. Inside the bars there's still sports on TV, but outside, on the streets, it's about as unsexy in minus twenty Celsius as you can get.
And yet, it's so different that it's something that should be experienced. Most of us have been to hot places, spent afternoons in Spain at forty degrees, but few have dealt with the opposite extreme. And freezing temperatures outside makes inside all the more cosy.
I set this story in Boston for several reasons. One was to have a natural setting for an interracial couple. A second was it was because I lived there so long I thought I could do it justice. I've already written City Nights Stories set in two other cities I've lived in (Pamplona and Madrid), and the fourth city has already been taken, so the next one will be somewhere I've only visited. However, I set it in winter as a way to have the reader experience what many - at least those of us from milder parts of the world - find surprising at first. The fact that you can get truly sick and tired of snow, beautiful as it might be when it falls, that ice stays around for months and just does not melt, that you can having someone call the cops for noise disturbance if you have a party at four am, but it's perfectly okay to wake the neighbourhood with a snow blower at five am - in fact, you're obliged to so you can get your path cleared and get to work.
But when the city declares a snow emergency, and says everyone should stay at home and keep warm - though sometimes the power goes into the bargain - well, it's wonderful to watch the flakes fall and think of things to pass the time...
When Colm is stranded overnight in Boston, Amber, a hotel receptionist, agrees to give him a personal tour of the cradle of the American Revolution. Colm has loved and lost, and now takes pleasure where he finds it. Amber hasn't quite found her feet again after a recent divorce, nor is she very happy with what she sees in the mirror.
As they drive through the historic streets and stroll along the Freedom Trail, taking in the beautiful architecture of Beacon Hill and Back Bay, their mutual attraction grows and both take a chance on happiness. But can they trust one another? Can Colm convince Amber he's not just playing her, or is his one night in Boston just a fling?
10% of the author's royalties will be donated to WWF, the World Wildlife Fund.
Excerpt:
"Feck, feck and fuckin' feck," he yelled at nobody in particular.
Amber guffaw.
"That's all right, Amber. You have your laugh. I'm feckin' drenched."
Amber caught her breath. "I can see."
"So much for finding a restaurant. If we can get a taxi to the hotel we can eat there. I have other clothes, and I can leave these hangin' on a chair. They'll dry before mornin' in that sauna of a room."
Amber stopped laughing and shook her head, though she still smiled broadly, her eyes glowing with mirth. It was like a little sunshine. "No. We can dry them at my house in half an hour and go for dinner later. It's still early; there's still lots to see."
"If you're sure," Colm said.
Amber was sure. She hadn't been until he fell. Well, she'd been sure she'd kiss him, but as to inviting him home, she'd not thought about it. Much. Well, okay, she'd thought about it, a lot; all the time they were holding hands. But she'd believed it was still a decision waiting to be made.
But once she'd said it, she was sure it was the right thing.
Well, maybe it wasn't. He was getting on a plane the next day and flying out of her life, just like Billy had—though that had been after a lot more than one day. She didn't like one-night stands because she felt she was just getting played again. But screw it, she'd made her decision. She didn't go back on decisions; even bad ones. Her mami could attest to that.
Anyway, it wasn't often she could let herself take such a chance. Normally she had the kids in the house and that made it impossible to bring a man home. Nor was it often she met a man who wanted to come home with her—or who was worth bringing back home. Since Billy left she'd only been on a few dates. Men didn't get turned on by the fact she'd two teenage kids.
Colm looked like his ass was cold. The snow stuck to his pants and he pulled at them to keep the wet cloth away from his legs. By the time a cab slowed and stopped for them, the pants were nearly frozen stiff, and sitting in the cab wasn't very comfortable for him. He made no move to lean against her now, so he wouldn't get her wet. At least being frozen, water didn't drip all over the seat, so the driver never knew the pants were damp.
Her flat was a small, two-bedroom walk-up in Mission Hill. She really needed somewhere bigger. But it had a nice deck on the back that looked out over Downtown, and when she got home and kicked back with a beer or a gin and tonic—weather permitting—it was her own little sanctuary. All the bullshit she had to put up with from customers and Billy and the kids and the landlady, and whoever else got in her way that day, just melted away.
Colm seemed to appreciate the view, and didn't say anything about the small size of the apartment. Nor did he mention the fact it was only fifty degrees in the place. Amber supposed it felt warm to him after the cold bath. He looked around for the washing machine in the kitchen while she turned up the thermostat.
"I got a washer-dryer in the bathroom. I used to go to the laundromat, but man, I'm tired of doin' that shit my whole life. Landlady doesn't like it, but she can kiss my big black ass. I ain't taking my laundry through the snow all winter. Not the way my kids change their clothes."
"Have you got a towel or anything? Just to dry myself off a bit."
She laughed. She didn't think he'd be so shy about disrobing, somehow; him a big farmer and all. "You go get in the shower, warm your ass up. When I hear the water runnin', I'll come in and put the clothes in the machine. Then I'll have coffee ready when you're done."
"That's great, thanks a million."
Colm got in the shower and Amber threw his clothes in the dryer. Then she put on some coffee. It would be done percolating when she was done with Colm.
In the bedroom she closed the blinds and turned on Samika's bedside lamp so her own bed was in shadow when she turned off the main light. She didn't want Colm to see her body in the cold brightness, exactly. She was going to have sex with him, but it didn't mean she was completely at ease showing him her body. If she was, she'd have gotten in the shower with him already.
When Amber heard the water stop she went back in the bathroom while Colm was still towelling off. He seemed a little startled, but recovered quickly. He looked at her without speaking. She didn't speak either. What was there to say?
She took him by the hand into her bedroom. He let the towel drop when he got there. She turned around and sat back on the bed, looking up at him. His whole body was extremely pale, his chest and belly covered in thick hair. He had a bit of a paunch, but a wide chest, and his arms and legs were muscular. He looked like he could pick her up and dance across the room—had there been room to stand.
He didn't look like he wanted to stand much, though. She stole a glance at his dick, already rising to the occasion as he climbed on the bed beside her.
Bio:
JD Martins has been called Spanish, Mexican, Chinese, Philippine and English and Australian. He is none of these.
He's lived in four cities in three countries on two continents, but he doesn't feel like he's travelled very much. His life in each city was rather mundane and he didn't get out much - tending to move his pen more than his body.
He still aspires to see much more of the world - probably when his wife becomes rich enough to let him retire from day jobs.
He would like to live like Ernest Hemmingway: periodically sending novel manuscripts to his publisher from various far-flung corners of the world, though he's not sure the quality will be quite the same. Until then, he has contented himself with living like Robert Graves - in a pleasant part of Spain with a quiet life - and being able to do some things that Hemmingway did - trout fishing in Spain, game hunting in Africa, watching bullfights and running with the bulls, - and a few that he did not get to do - surfing, skydiving, bungee jumping, and getting erotic stories published.
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thanks for having me on your blog today!
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JD