Literary Nymphs Interview
Title:
Raining Men
Author: Rick R. Reed
Publisher:
Dreamspinner Press
Genre:
Contemporary Romance
Release
Date: May 31, 2013
Do you write in more than
one genre?
Yes,
although lately my mind and my work has taken a decided turn toward
contemporary romance. But I am also known, perhaps too well, for horror and was
even labeled by Unzipped magazine as the “Stephen King of gay horror.” I have
also mystery, psychological suspense, comedy, and paranormal romance.
What if any, is the hardest
part of writing for you?
Getting
started each day. Once I sink into my imaginary world, I’m fine, but I can find
a million things to do—including mundane stuff like laundry and playing “just
one more game” of Spider Solitaire—before actually starting to work on my
current project. It’s funny, because I love to write, but I am the world’s
worst procrastinator when it comes to actually doing it.
What inspired the story?
Raining
Men is a spinoff of Chaser, my chubby chaser love story, published in 2012. It
tells the story of the Bobby, Chaser’s most hated character, and actually
redeems him. Bobby is very handsome, very promiscuous, self-centered, and
conniving in Chaser. In Raining Men, we get to see a different Bobby, one who
is finally discovering—spurred by the death of his father—who he really is and
why it’s so easy for him to hook up for sex but nearly impossible for him to
find love. It’s quite a journey and I like to think that readers who hated
Bobby in Chaser will come to absolutely love him by the end of Raining Men.
Blurb for Raining Men
The character you loved to
hate in Chaser becomes the character
you will simply love in Raining Men
It’s been raining men for
most of Bobby Nelson’s adult life. Normally, he wouldn’t have it any other way,
but lately something’s missing. Now, he wants the deluge to slow to a single
special drop. But is it even possible for Bobby to find “the one” after endless
years of hooking up?
When Bobby’s father passes away, Bobby finally
examines his rocky relationship with the man and how it might have contributed
to his inability to find the love he yearns for. Guided by a sexy therapist, a
Sex Addicts Anonymous group, a well-endowed Chihuahua named Johnny Wadd, and
Bobby’s own cache of memories, Bobby takes a spiritual, sexual, and emotional
journey to discover that life’s most satisfactory love connections lie in
quality, not quantity. And when he’s ready to love not only himself but someone
else, sex and love fit, at last, into one perfect package.
EXCERPT:
Prologue
Bobby’s
Dream
THUNDER
rumbles. Rain hisses. Flashes of lightning—brilliant and blue white—rip across
the sky.
I
know I’m dreaming, yet something about this whole scenario seems as real as the
nose on my face, the hair on my head, the dick swinging between my legs.
In
addition to the natural sounds of the storm, there’s another noise, and it
makes me smile. Music. Rising. Percussion. Disco beats. And the powerful wail
of Martha Wash and the Weather Girls singing “It’s Raining Men.”
I’m
standing under some kind of awning—red, canvas—watching the rain pour down not
in drops, but sheets. Blinding. The flashes of lightning are like a disco
strobe light, revealing in flashes of blue and silver, a darkened cityscape.
Night. But a netherworld cityscape, blue gray, unreal.
It’s
the music that makes me want to move out from under the awning. The music that
has me smiling, my hips, head, and arms in synchronized rhythm with the beat.
Glorious!
Even
the rain, a cold shock to my naked body, isn’t enough to keep me from driving
myself out into the downpour to dance to the song, which has long been a
favorite of mine.
What
a delicious notion—raining men! Men falling from the skies! More men than one
can shake a stick at (or something that rhymes with stick, heh-heh).
I
look up into the midnight-blue clouds, my mouth and eyes open to the water
pouring down, and I see it: the first of the men.
I
stare in wonder as he drops from the sky. A blond Adonis, smooth and muscled,
allover tanned with a dick thick, long, and perfectly hard, pointing back up at
the sky. He lands somewhere outside my vision, and I dance, spinning toward
where I saw him fall, hoping to find him where he has landed so I can say
hello, reach out and touch him.
But
before I can make any progress, another man falls from the sky. This one is
hirsute, bearded, husky but hard-muscled, putting me in mind of the actor
Jeffrey Dean Morgan. He smiles. Before I can even smile back, other men tumble
from the skies, and I want to laugh, cry out in jubilation at my good fortune.
It
truly is raining men!
Hallelujah!
They
start raining faster now—blonds, redheads, brunets, black, white, Asian, Latino
(yum), lanky, beefy, short, tall—all the most gorgeous men I have ever seen. All
naked.
All
for me!
I
raise my arms and shout, “Come to Papa!”
And
they do.
The
first body hits me hard, feeling more like a ton of concrete instead of the
delicious marriage of sinew, skin, and bone that I have come to know and love
as the male form. I collapse to the ground, wind knocked out of me, and look up
at the man who has rained down on me. He seems to have no awareness that I am
beneath him, and I scurry to get out from underneath the crushing weight
threatening to suffocate me, pressing my bones into the wet concrete beneath my
back.
I
manage to get out just as another man drops from the sky, a hot African
American, bald, and looking just like Taye Diggs. I scramble free of his path,
but he lands on my leg anyway as I crawl through the rain-slicked street.
I
hear my leg break with a sickening crack. It takes only seconds for the pain to
radiate throughout my entire body.
I
roll over, gasping, wincing, groaning, and look up to see an entire sea of
naked men falling from the sky in ever-increasing velocity—all headed straight
for me.
The
music reaches a crescendo in time with my shrieks.
BOBBY
NELSON woke.
The
sheets beneath him were twisted and damp with sweat. He gasped, trying to
regulate his heartbeat, which was jackhammering so hard he expected to look
down and see it lifting the skin off his chest. A cartoon heart.
The
room was silent.
Where
did the music go? Martha? Weather Girls?
Where
was the rain? The thunder?
He
breathed in deeply and exhaled slowly.
Calm.
Just
a dream. A nightmare.
Where
are all the men?
Finally,
he grinned, turning over in his bed.
Why,
there’s one! Lying right next to me, looking at me with a concerned face, a
handsome face. Even in a darkened bedroom, Bobby could
still tell if they’re hot or not. It was his specialty.
This
one, with a mop of curly blond hair and pecs like Michael Phelps, was a ten.
His
voice was husky, sleep-choked. “Dude. You were having a nightmare. You okay?”
He
placed what was meant to be, Bobby was sure, a comforting hand on Bobby’s
chest. Bobby cringed a little, moving away.
This
has never happened before.
I
have no idea who he is.
Before
Bobby could stop the words from tumbling out of his mouth, they came. “Who the
fuck are you?”
Chapter 1
BOBBY
sat on a leather chair in therapist Camille D’Amico’s office, took in his
surroundings, and mused on why the therapist had arranged the office as she
had.
He
made certain assumptions. Camille had placed the seating to be comfortable, yet
not confrontational. Bobby supposed she wanted her office to have the effect,
the ambiance, of a living room—a safe, calm place where she and her charges
could relax like two old friends, just gabbing, getting to the heart of their
problems. The office was dimly lit—blinds drawn and a Pottery Barn ceramic lamp
the only illumination, sixty watt—and for Bobby, it had what he imagined to be
the desired effect: calming. From the small charging/speaker unit on Camille’s
desk, the violin of Joshua Bell played softly, a warm background accompaniment.
Camille
adjusted her halo of frizzy brown hair, running her fingers through it, and
pushed her glasses up on the bridge of her nose. She didn’t say anything, and
Bobby supposed she was waiting for him to begin.
Bobby
fidgeted with a button on his sport coat, not sure where to start. Camille eyed
him up and down, and Bobby knew what she saw: a tall, lean man with above-average?
well, way above if he were being honest? looks. And it wasn’t just his
vanity that informed him. He had been told more times than he could count that
he was gorgeous, hot, that he had the kind of virile beauty seldom seen outside
of men’s fashion magazines. His clothes were expensive, tasteful—a soft navy
blazer with an Egyptian cotton button-down white shirt crisp beneath it. His
jeans were indigo blue, the kind that went for hundreds of dollars a pair. His
red suede sneakers bore the subtle Prada logo beneath the laces. Bobby had
thrown the look together to display a kind of casual elegance, and from the way
the therapist was eyeing him, it succeeded in spades.
Even
Bobby’s face spoke of good health and clean living. Skin so fine it almost
appeared without pores. His auburn hair, close cropped, had just a touch of
product to give it sheen, even here in this dimly lit warren. From him wafted
the aroma of Hermès, sprayed in a cloud that Bobby had walked into, to ensure
he got just the right amount on him.
In
short, he knew he appeared to be a man who had everything—health, looks, money.
He
imagined the therapist must be thinking: So what the hell is he doing here?
And then, sadly, he guessed her next thought might be: And why is it
impossible for him to erase that mask of sadness that seems to cling to his
face, marring those perfect features?
I’ll
wait for him to tell me.
Bobby
knew how therapists operated, even if he had never been to one. He had read
enough about them and seen enough of them in movies and TV shows to know their modus
operandi. She would know, Bobby surmised, that silence was often the most
powerful tool in a head doctor’s arsenal. Silence prodded, pushing for respite,
for release. It was human nature, these days especially, to want to fill that
quiet void with talk.
But
Bobby, too, waited. A full two or three minutes had passed since Camille had
made her initial small talk greetings. Yet Bobby still played with the pewter
button on his blazer, seldom lifting his arresting gray eyes to meet her gaze.
Camille
tapped the toe of her shoe on the bamboo flooring, and Bobby wondered if she
was beginning to get impatient. She stopped tapping suddenly when Bobby moved
his gaze from looking around the room to her foot. He finally spoke.
“Caden
sent me.”
Camille
nodded. The simple nod and the sudden light in Camille’s eyes told Bobby she
remembered his old friend. He imagined what the pair must have once discussed,
here, in this very room. She had probably helped Caden through love problems
that most young men experience and issues with his mother’s battle with cancer.
Camille smiled, and Bobby thought it was because she knew Caden was now in a
good place, in love with a wonderful man. Bobby wondered if she had heard Caden
was moving in with his boyfriend, Kevin. Bobby wanted to tell her that Caden’s
mother was winning her battle with that hateful disease and that she was now
recuperating at home, struggling through chemo treatments with grace and humor.
But
he only knew these latter two things because he had heard them from a mutual
friend one night at Roscoe’s along the Halsted strip known in Chicago as Boystown. He had not heard them
from Caden.
He
had not heard a word from Caden.
“Caden
DeSarro?”
“That’s
the one.”
“He’s
a good friend to have.”
“Was.
Was a good friend.” Bobby realized Caden must have stopped coming to see her
before Bobby had betrayed him, and the shame caused a rush of heat to rise to
his face.
“Oh?”
“He
and I kind of reached a parting of the ways, I guess you might say. I….” Bobby
sighed and his voice trailed off. He stared down at the floor.
Camille
said nothing.
“I
kind of screwed up our friendship. I was an ass.”
Camille
cocked her head, a subtle indication for him to continue.
“You
want to know what I did, huh?”
“I
want to know what you want to tell me, Bobby.”
“I
tried to steal his boyfriend.”
Camille
nodded.
“In
my defense, I didn’t think Caden wanted him anymore.”
He
guessed that the therapist’s first reaction to such news would be to recoil.
Why not? Here before her was a man who had done a very bad thing, a
reprehensible thing, and it seemed like he was sitting here wanting to blame
the victim. He didn’t think Caden wanted him anymore? Seriously? What
kind of defense was that? Even if that was the case, and it was, you still
don’t go after someone your best friend had fallen in love with, no matter how
sweet and sexy the man was.
But
Camille, if she had any judgments, kept them to herself. Her face revealed
nothing but a sincere desire to know more.
Bobby
shook his head and let a bitter laugh escape his full lips. “That’s bullshit.
True, they were having problems. Caden was away—dealing with his mom’s
cancer—and while he was gone, his boyfriend, Kevin, went from pudge to stud in
six weeks.” Bobby laughed. “Most guys would be delighted with the change. I
know I would. But Caden’s an odd duck. He likes ’em big and beefy.”
Camille
nodded. Bobby wondered if she already knew this from her sessions with Caden.
“So
I moved in. Made a play for the guy. I mean, Kevin was smokin’ hot. Blond,
bearded, a real man’s man, you know? You’d never guess he was gay.” He looked
up at the therapist with eyes that pled for understanding.
“I
just wanted someone to love me.”
There
it was. The raw truth. Bobby was surprised at himself—that he had allowed the
heart of the matter to come out this early.
Camille
agreed with him. “We all want that, Bobby.”
“Yeah,
we do.” He fell silent once more and cut his gaze to the little digital clock
on the end table next to her chair. He was surprised to see they’d already used
twenty-five of their fifty minutes.
Bobby
went on. “But I don’t seem to know how to go about getting it. I ruined a
friendship trying to grab something that I knew damn good and well didn’t
belong to me. And now, not only do I not have the guy I was after, I’ve lost
the best friend I ever had.”
Bobby
guessed, if he was human, the therapist might now see a glimmer of a tear or
two in his eyes at that point. He would go on to make an admission she would
recognize as honest, yet very painful.
But
that was what Bobby imagined other people might feel. The truth was—and Bobby
was aware enough to recognize this—he was a man who was so out of touch with
real emotions that he wouldn’t recognize them if they came up and bit him on
the ass.
But
there was hope, wasn’t there? Hadn’t he just acknowledged, after all, his own
culpability and bad behavior? Wouldn’t she see that as a start?
Camille
took a deep breath and threw out the question therapists must be honor bound to
ask at least once, if not many times, during a course of treatment. “And how
does that make you feel?”
“Like
dirt. Like the piece of shit I know I am.”
Harsh!
But the sad thing was—it was true.
Camille
shifted her weight in her chair, crossing and uncrossing her legs. Had he made
her uncomfortable? Was he being too frank? Was she having trouble imagining how
such a fine-looking specimen could feel his life was in such a shambles? He saw
her write something quickly in her notepad. He wondered if she had jotted down
one word: narcissist?
I
certainly would fit the label, he thought sadly,
although at this point in his life, he didn’t have a clue how to change it. “Do
you think I’m a narcissist?”
“Bobby,
I think I should be the one asking the questions here, if you’re going to
benefit from your time with me. Why do you ask? Do you think you are?”
“Tell
me again what the word means—your clinical definition.”
Camille
looked undecided, not saying anything for several moments. Finally, she said,
“Well, the clinical definition of narcissist goes something like this. It’s a
person with an inflated sense of self, a deep need for admiration. They believe
themselves superior to others, with little regard for other people’s feelings.”
She paused and then added, “People who fit this trait are often people who have
very fragile self-esteem, often hidden behind a mask of confidence. Because of
that, it’s hard for these people to form wholesome, healthy relationships.” She
stared at him, and Bobby felt forced to meet her gaze. “Do you think that
sounds like you, Bobby?”
“That’s
why I’m here,” Bobby said, looking away from her.
“Go
on.”
“To
figure out why I’m a narcissistic piece of shit. Why I just want
to grab, grab, grab at whatever I want, heedless of who I hurt. What’s wrong
with me? I must be missing something. In here.” He puts a hand over his heart.
Camille
laid a hand, for a moment, on Bobby’s own. “I think it’s good we’re here to
talk about that, Bobby. It’s good that you recognize you needed to talk to
someone. Only when that happens can healing begin.”
He
grinned, but the smile did not meet his eyes. “That, and the fact that I’m an
irresponsible, unrepentant, insatiable… slut.”
Camille
looked up at him. She looked more amused than shocked, and that surprised
Bobby. She adjusted her pencil skirt, rearranged her halo of frizzy hair (for
the umpteenth time—she really must find a way to stop that nervous habit), and
asked, “Why do you feel the need to call yourself a slut? Most people wouldn’t
take kindly to someone calling them that. So I wonder why you’d apply such a
label to yourself.”
Again,
Bobby said nothing for a long time. Finally, he glanced up from the loose
thread he seemed to be contemplating at the hem of his jeans and gave her a
warm smile, wide and welcoming. “Last week, I hooked up with seventeen guys.”
What
he had said must have made her nervous, even giddy in a hysterical sort of way.
Camille tugged on her earlobe and scribbled onto her pad, seemingly unable to
meet his eyes.
Bobby
thought he would jar her back to the present. “You’re not saying anything.”
“What
do you think I should say?”
“I
don’t know. Maybe something like: Shame on you? Have you been checked for
STDs?” He grinned, but again, knew the smile would not reach his eyes, which he
was certain reflected only sadness and resignation. “Where’d you find the
time?”
Camille
cut her gaze down to the clock, and Bobby saw that their time, for real, was
up. “Listen, Bobby, I think we have a lot to talk about.” She smiled. “Can you
come in again next week? Same time?”
He
nodded, back to silent mode.
“Good.
Just set it up with Clarice, out at the front desk.”
Bobby
turned at the door. “It’ll probably be eighteen before night falls.” He winked.
“Just how I am. Incorrigible slut.”
Before
she could respond, he had closed the door behind him.
Buy Links for Raining Men
Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Raining-Men-ebook/dp/B00D3XHMFW
Where can we find your website?
Rick R. Reed Biography
Rick R. Reed is all about exploring the romantic
entanglements of gay men in contemporary, realistic settings. While his stories
often contain elements of suspense, mystery and the paranormal, his focus
ultimately returns to the power of love. He is the author of dozens of
published novels, novellas, and short stories. He is a three-time EPIC eBook
Award winner (for Caregiver, Orientation
and The Blue Moon Cafe). Lambda Literary Review has called him,
"a writer that doesn't disappoint." Rick lives in Seattle with his husband and a very spoiled
Boston terrier. He is forever "at work on another novel."
