Prologue
It was just over a year ago when I first stepped foot into the peaceful sanctuary of redwoods called home by my boyfriend’s uncles. Hailing from the Midwest where we graduated college, we had moved across the country; one of our first trips as West-Coasters was to Guerneville, California. Here, I met Rick and Joey, (affectionately referred to as our g’uncles, or gay uncles) and was swiftly and unquestionably welcomed into their home, their community, and their lives.
In our time getting to know each other, I quickly learned that Rick and Joey were patrons of the Arts. They were surrounded by wonderful, talented people making incredible works, and Rick himself was an aspirational potter and sculptor. In our discussions of art and culture, we frequently touched on my own ambitions as a writer. My boyfriend and I had recently completed our college theses, each a creative writing project. My own was a 350-page fantasy novel about a shunned knight’s quest for self-understanding, and writing it had convinced me to pursue a career as an author after graduation.
I have always written. My life is measured by the creative writing projects I was working on at any given point, and I have no memorable recollection of a time before such. I always knew that I wanted to be a writer, but the dream was suppressed by my belief that it was unrealistic, impossible. I allowed myself to indulge in it as a hobby, but didn’t dare acknowledge what I really wanted. After conceiving and completing my novel, however, it was unavoidable. I had proven to myself that I could do it, and then I couldn’t stop. (Currently, I’m working on my second novel and imagine I’ll carry on to a third, fourth, and so on…) I think it’s simply what I’m meant to do, and who am I to refuse that?
I told Rick and Joey that I had these big dreams. I so urgently wanted to be a writer, I found myself desperately pushing out short stories in hopes of getting published in some literary magazine or another. I expressed the challenges of finding a foothold as a creative, and because it is simply what he does, Rick offered one to me.
“Write something for me!” he said. “I have plenty of stories.”
Rick had been thinking about fictionalizing his life as a vacation rental host ever since reading his nephew’s—my boyfriend’s—memoir anthology. It inspired the notion to produce his own piece of writing about a gay couple hosting a series of fascinating guests in their home-turned-bed-and-breakfast. Unlike my boyfriend’s autobiographical account, this one would be fantastical and whimsical, a fiction set in a loose reality that could be anything we made it. After further discussion, Rick and I sharpened the idea and decided it would take form as an episodic collection of raunchy short stories. I already had years-long experience with writing erotica for fun (beginning in middle school!) and was excited to put all that practice to use.
I wrote up a proposal on how I would price my time and efforts. Rick signed on, and suddenly I had been commissioned to produce the first installment of what we dubbed, “Project Bard.” The title was inspired by Netflix’s original series The Witcher, a show featuring a bard spinning tales of the main character’s heroic exploits. After Rick and Joey saw it, they became fixated on the idea of having a bard of their own. I, of course, would assume the role: singing songs of their epic adventures in the form of short-story writing.
So, reader, imagine that a lute begins to strum, and turn the page if you dare. Episode 1: An Unexpected Guest awaits you.
LK Rivers
Opening Passage
In a funny spin of fate, it was the wife who showed up first.
Her presence filled the room instantly, boisterous yet finely tuned, and in the entryway of his home, Rick took her in. Really, he hadn’t quite known what to expect, but here it was now: red lips and red hair, a buxom figure squeezed into a patterned blouse, and a clip of high-heels on hardwood floors. Rick knew her name to be Angelika from the online booking, and now she had arrived for the weekend with a suitcase full of belongings and a tupperware of soup for the refrigerator.
Rick’s husband Joey whisked her away for a tour of the house while Rick put the borscht in the fridge. Angelika and her husband would be some of their first guests since they opened their home as an Airbnb, but the couple had hardly been the intended audience of the listing. When declaring their home a “Poly Gay Couple Hosting Clothing Optional Mini-Resort,” Rick was envisioning more sweaty, grunting men and less sharply dressed German ladies. He noted the painting of a hairy, naked man in a jockstrap hung by the door and pondered, yet again, over Angelika’s choice.
According to her emails, Angelika and her husband planned to visit a church in town in celebration of some Orthodox Christian holiday. Rick couldn’t fault her for picking a beautiful house to stay at in the meantime, even if that house was, to put it simply, intended for big, gay orgies.