FAIRY TALES CAN COME TRUE — Hunting for that Happily Ever After
A guest post by Ike Rose, my fellow author in the My Sexy Valentine anthology.
The last line of my story in "My Valentine Prince" is: "And they still live Happily Ever After. Like in a Fairy-tale." This is part of a string of images about fairy tales flowing from the beginning to the end of the story.
At the start of the story, Jim Harahan is a closeted gay 23 year old blue-collar college grad in 1975 who finally finds a gay bar and meets the man of his dreams, Max. When they wake up the next morning "James became a fairy-tale Prince freed from a curse by a magic kiss." The images continue from there.
Some are deliberate based on the use of the words "fairy" and "queen' by some of Jim's new friends in the same way many minorities adopt slur language to claim it for themselves. Unfortunately, Max is a sailor, and after a passion-filled week, must leave. James has four effeminate pals who call themselves "the fashion queens" and offer their support as his "fairy godfathers".
Some of the images were my twisting around of familiar fairy tales for funny dialogue: "'Then why are you eying him like Lusty, Snow-White's favorite dwarf, while he's grinning at you like the Big Horny Wolf ready to devour Little Red Riding Hood's humpy big brother?'"
But most of the fairy tale images revolve around Jim's quest for his Prince Charming at his favorite bar, "The Blue Falcon", where:
"…the regulars played this ridiculous bar-game, Some Day My Prince Will Come. Each man created a supposedly witty second line to follow the first line from that song, often punning in "Come/Cum". No one tried rhyming.
One evening, someone sang the first line. The first guy punned, "With my bad luck, he'll cum with some other stud!" That pretty old line earned some snickers.
The next man went for the "fractured fairy-tale" approach, "And lucky me! I'll be off visiting my Wicked Stepmother." That got some applause for originality.
It was Jim's turn. They looked at him expectantly.
James stared back like a deer trapped in headlights, then blurted out, "And Prince Charming will take me away from the dump on his white horse into the sunset." He got a standing ovation, making the sturdy stud blush.
Jim's secret was that since coming out, he'd discovered that he was a romantic, desperately searching for Prince Charming. Jim loved sex, and easily found plenty of willing partners with his growing confidence and looks, but Jim wanted to find his true love…
He'd heard that to find Prince Charming, you had to kiss a lot of frogs. Jim though sourly that most of the frogs he'd kissed and bedded since Max left had turned into trolls and ogres who belonged under a bridge."
One critic praised the story while being surprised by the romantic gay men — after admitting to not being much of a fan of m/m erotic romances. I realized that in this day and age, so many non-gay people still buy the stereotype of us gay men as sex-driven.
Jim is me, circa 1975. I was that closet romantic, searching for my true love, and I found him by accident twenty-nine years ago. We're still together. I say "by accident"; I had a picture in my head of my "Prince Charming", but the man who pursued me until I gave in and dated him was nothing like that image.
Happily Ever After can be had — if you stop struggling and allow the Universe to bring it to you.
