Wandering Weres and Wicked Witches

One of the things I'm never without while I'm doing one of my 24 hour stints in the hospital is a good paperback. Stern higher authorities would decree that a serious medical textbook would be more appropriate but in the cold, silent wee hours of the morning, reading endless rattle about lung volumes and cardiac potentials can be quite as detrimental as listening to faintly soporific strains of Brahms' Lullaby. Which is why the radio's usually blaring out screaming pounding rock and I'm busy delving into the troubled, convoluted love affairs of wandering werewolves and wicked witches.

People who don't like to read - yeah, these people actually do exist! - frequently find it amazing that I can find such simple pleasure in the written word. Not only pleasure in fact since I can literally get so bloody involved in the plot that even an invading half-naked all-male Spartan Army with a bootylicious hunk of a general would find it near impossible to pry me away.

Near impossible since hey... I did mention the half-naked all-male part right?


You like the movie more? Are you serious!
Some of them even profess to prefer watching televised adaptations rather than read the actual book. Sheer blasphemy, I tell them! How can any single film - apart from the amazing LOTR franchise - possibly compare to the vivid technicolour imagery of one's boundless imagination? Reading broadens the imagination and I frequently sketch alternative endings and fanciful side-plots for the characters involved, wondering what happens next in my own version of the fan-fic.

And yeah, there's more than a small element of slash in my fan-fic :P

Slash isn't all that uncommon. Non-readers of the paranormal - Charming Calvin being one of them - would be surprised to note that these days, that nasty all-pervading virus we all call homosexuality has actually spread its tentacles into these realms. Forget all about Count Dracula drooling over Mina. Not that uncommon nowadays to find that devilish suave vampire actually eschewing swooning vestal virgins for a taste of some red-blooded Toms, Dicks and Harrys who'd make a far better meal instead. Or even the nerdy sorcerer spiffing himself up with some love charms before going for a night out at G.A.Y. Or borrowing a page from my own long misplaced stories ( back soon I hope with help of a friend I call Cute Cris ), a sexy brooding hunk of a werewolf.

Perhaps it's an easier pill for the unwashed masses to swallow rather than two regular joes cohabiting. After sucking on the marrow of a rabbit killed during a shapeshift or plunging your fangs into some nameless hobo in the subway, somehow swapping spit with a member of the same gender seems almost shamefully pedestrian.

Really doesn't seem quite as threatening for an otherworldly demon to indulge in some other form of deviancy. After breaking all ten commandments, what's one more sin after all?