The first thing you should know about my latest novella, Journey’s End, is that it’s available in paperback today. The other thing you should know about Journey’s End is that I wrote half of it the day my dad died.
But let me backtrack a little.
About a year ago, the publisher of my erotic fiction sent me an email outlining some of the upcoming anthologies he was proposing, to see if I might be interested in contributing. One volume was to feature stories with dad types and horny son types—which, sure. I knew I'd go for that one. That’s my wheelhouse. Another had to do with gardening: landscapers, lawn mowers, men who toiled in the dirt. Yeah, maybe with my miserable experiences taking care of lawns as a teen I could do something with that. There were a couple of other suggestions that I don’t recall, but they really didn’t appeal to my interests. I write erotic novellas purely for the fun of it. It’s a lark for me. I’ll do it as long as I can pick and choose and keep the stories playful and sexy—but if it begins to feel too much like an assignment or old-fashioned homework, I’m not interested.
The last suggestion my publisher made was for a science fiction story. My first reaction was: science fiction and gay erotica? How’s that work, exactly? Was I supposed to write about Luke Dicktaker saving the universe from evil planetary overlord Arse Gobbler? Was I supposed to produce some thinly-veiled Kirk/Spock shipping?
Then I had to chide myself. I’ve been a science fiction fan for decades. Many of my all-time favorite writers, writers I’ve emulated and studied, write speculative fiction. I’ve been a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association and a Nebula voter for a decade and a half…though admittedly, my qualifying works were fantasies. I could do better than writing a story called Star Twink and calling it a day.
(Note: I kinda still want to write a story named Star Twink.)
To my publisher I indicated that the SF anthology sounded interesting and to count me in. Then, as I always do, I proceeded to have a good think.
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It didn’t take me long to come up with a situation in which I could set a story. Generations in the future, in a universe where mankind has been expanding and resettling in different solar systems, Dr. Jeremy Wollny, a researcher with degrees in geophysics and exobotany, has received a lucrative grant and a team of forty scientists to terraform a newly-discovered planet so it can support human life. After he and his team arrive upon a space station orbiting the planet in question, a pandemic devastates the settled universe, shutting down the project and forcing the settlers of multiple solar systems into isolation. When the lockdowns conclude, Jeremy has no team left—the survivors have slinked back to their home planets and families. He’s also lost his funding.
Jeremy has a boyfriend, however, a younger man named Benny he’d met in a bar on the Mars moon Deimos. During his isolation aboard a transport shuttle on his way to Jeremy, Benny conceptualizes a corporate sponsorship scheme that saves Jeremy’s project. And Jeremy arrives at a solution to his staffing problem: rather than attempt to hire another forty scientists he would have to train, he’ll manufacture forty clones of himself, each retaining a certain portion of his knowledge and expertise.
In Jeremy’s universe, clones are created in a replicator that’s something like a 3D printer that works with biological matter rather than plastics. And clones are made in various classes.
Thirty-seven of Jeremy’s clones are what's known as C-class: physically like their original, but their brains retaining only twenty-five percent of Jeremy's memories and experiences, mostly having to do with technical knowledge. Two of the clones are A-class, retaining forty-five percent of Jeremy’s memories. And Jeremy makes one special, extremely expensive S-class clone of himself that duplicates ninety-eight percent of his neural cortex, to perform his administrative duties on the space station above the planet, while he coordinates the team below. Jeremy and his S-class clone are as identical as scientifically possible.
Shortly before Jeremy and the clones head planetside to begin the slow transformation, he and Benny experience a painful breakup that Jeremy finds difficult to accept. Months later, when the clone accidentally forgets to turn off a video feed in his workspace on the station above, Jeremy is stunned to witness that his S-class clone is fucking his ex-boyfriend.
That discovery is how the story starts. Our hero sees something he shouldn’t, then embarks on a journey of sexual obsession and discovery that takes him to some pretty dark places. When I commenced writing Journey’s End in the summer of 2024, I had a vague idea of the story’s shape and the approximate place I wanted it to land, but I figured that with its solid premise I wouldn’t have a problem finding a way.
I wanted to explore several ideas, as Jeremy sits glued to his video feed, watching his ex have wild, explosive sex with Jeremy’s close look-alike. First, I thought it would be fun to examine how even smart, highly-educated men can find their attention absorbed by sexual obsession. I wanted to probe how even a slight two percent alteration can make a huge difference in identity and experience. And I really wanted to consider how even when we think we have nothing left to discover about ourselves, human nature finds a way to surprise us.
Originally I’d intended Jeremy to pull some kind of Parent Trap shenanigans in which he pretends to be the clone, to trick Benny into bed, but I nixed the idea fairly early on. I didn’t like how non-consensual such a scenario would feel, and thought it would take Jeremy to a place from which there was no redemption. As I wrote the first couple of chapters, I kept reconsidering how the plot would resolve itself.
And then my dad died. As I’ve mentioned before, that event was both sudden—and not. He’d been in and out of the hospital for fainting spells but nothing had been really life-threatening. His latest and last stay had been going on for a week and none of the doctors had expressed any grave concerns, but then one Thursday he was non-responsive and the hospital made urgent calls for me to come in and say my goodbyes. He died late that evening, when I was home asleep.
If you’ve lost someone close, you can imagine how low I was when I woke up to the news that Friday morning. I had theater tickets that evening, and as dumb and selfish as it sounds, I couldn’t figure out whether or not to go. In the end I decided I might as well; the show was the latest revival of Once Upon a Mattress, and its Princess Winifred, Sutton Foster, had been my dad’s favorite actress. His favorite TV show ever was Bunheads. He would’ve loved hearing about me seeing her live on stage again, so going seemed like the right move, even though I was already predicting I’d bawl during the father/son “Man to Man Talk” number. (I did.)
That left the rest of the day to get through. I took my laptop, sat outdoors on my porch, and wrote. And wrote. Over the course of seven or eight hours, the latter half of Journey’s End just poured out of me. I suddenly found a path to redemption for Dr. Jeremy Wollny, after all his spying and unhealthy fixations. I wrote one of the steamiest sex scenes I’ve ever penned, and a brutal confrontation that tore at my heart. I wrapped up the novella with a chapter that made me weep from start to finish. By the late afternoon, I was snotty and tear-streaked and absolutely exhausted from emotion, but I was done with that first draft.
What I’d created made me incredibly proud. On the emotional occasion of my father’s passing, I’d managed to shape my story into a meditation of how we can hew close to our progenitors, yet still become our own persons. I’d written about how we honor those we have loved, even when they are no longer in our lives. I’d written a piece of speculative fiction that was unabashedly romantic and moved me deeply, and still managed to have plenty of boisterous carnality.
Journey’s End is out in a handsome paperback edition today as part of the two-story collection Same Sex: Gay Science Fiction Clone Erotica. I invite you to get a copy from any of the online options below, or to order it from your local book vendor. Then enjoy it and let me know your thoughts.
And thank you for reading!
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