The Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, 1968, I arrived and found myself nearly alone in Hitler's huge S.S. headquarters compound in Nuremburg Germany. Now occupied by U.S. forces they had saddled up their tanks to head for the border to guard against an invasion by the Russian tank army. A draftee, a mere private, I bunked in a large empty building formerly occupied by S.S. commandos. But I had female company.
It was one of the greatest years in US history. So much amazing stuff was going on from moon shots to civil rights finally getting past the Democrats in Congress. But we didn't care, we were horny lifeguards.
Comely and perfectly formed Cotta Antullius, third son of an armaments fabricator for the Roman gladiator school in the hedonist reign of Emperor Caligula, is in training in various possible careers of serving men when a visit to the gladiator waiting cells under the colosseum stands accelerates his experience and family misfortune forces him to be sold into slavery to an old general using him for his own ambitions.
This is the third in a triptych of "Couples" stories about three couples at a function, (1) Eve & Adam "Eve's Choice" about newly weds, (2) Carol & Rob "Cheese & Clicks" about two people meeting for the first time, and (3) Natalie & Alan about the long-divorced parents of the Bride. You do not need to read the first two to read the third.
A half-drowned stranger suffering from exposure and speaking a foreign tongue is brought to shore in an isolated fishing city at the height of the Cold War and mistaken for a Russian spy. Meanwhile, his girl mourns for him.
The world has become a bad place for the weak and a dangerous place for the strong. After the collapse, people were forming communities for self protection; but there was still a strong element of self-reliance needed. Finn was a hunter - perhaps killer for hire would be more accurate. Some were becoming successful and needed to remove competition, others wanted to punish those who wronged them. The rights and wrongs weren't Finn's problem. / (Reviews)
The Genie had been explicit: I cannot make someone fall in love with you. But he could give James the tools to tip the odds in his favor. A flush of self-consciousness crept across her cheeks, mortification mingling with desire. But honestly, how could she have anticipated this? Getting fingered in the middle of the kitchen by a kitchen porter, of all people, wasn’t exactly on her evening agenda.