Title: When Summer is Gone
Series: The Likes of Us, Book Two
Author: Chris Simon
Publisher: NineStar Press
Release Date: 11/26/2024
Heat Level: 3 – Some Sex
Pairing: No Romance, Male/Male
Length: 101700
Genre: Historical, Genre/lit, historical, family-drama, bisexual, coming of age, docker, male prostitution
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Description
London’s East End, 1930s
Young docker Alfie Atwood was born into a poor but happy family and he was blessed with matinee-idol good looks which draw people to him like moths to a flame. His appearance and sunny disposition may be widely admired and even envied, but he isn’t as carefree as he seems and has bitter experience of a darker side to youth.
When his father Bill is killed in a dockside accident, Alfie is forced to become the main breadwinner. He and his mother Alice are horrified to find that Bill owed money to some bad people—the notorious brothers Mosh and Solly Alexander. They “own” the district and now they want the debt repaid.
A docker’s weekly wage and the few shillings that Alice can scrape together are not nearly enough…until Alfie’s friend Frank whispers a solution in his ear. Has the time come for the young man to use what Nature gave him to solve their problems? And if he does, won’t he be letting himself in for a whole host of new ones?
When Summer is Gone
Chris Simon © 2024
All Rights Reserved
It was nearly ten o’clock when they tumbled onto Haymarket, chattering like schoolboys, venting all the thoughts about the picture that they’d been holding back.
“Aw, thank you so much, Frank!” exclaimed Alfie, warmly clutching his friend’s shoulder. “That was so real it was like we was in it.”
Under the electric glare of the Capitol, Alfie’s smile flashed white, and his dark eyes shone. Frank was struck dumb by his friend’s attention, thinking, I knew he was good-looking, but he’s ridiculously handsome. He makes the stars in the picture we just saw look ordinary.
Sid broke the spell. “’Ere, boys, shall we go to that Lyons now—the one in the picture? It’s only round the corner.”
“I reckon they’ll be shutting up pretty soon,” said Frank. “Let’s hang around outside that posh club and see what’s what.”
But the crowd around the Kit Kat Club made George uncomfortable. “On my life, what we doing outside a place like this? It’s all toffs in there!”
“Well, it’s the West End. What did you expect?” hissed Frank.
“These ain’t our sort, though, are they?”
“Wotcher mean? I ain’t put me best duds on just to sit in a picture house and then go home. Not if I can help it anyways. We’re as good as they are, any day.”
“But we ain’t as rich as they are, are we? We sure as hell ain’t gonna get served a drink in there and even if we was, it’d most likely cost a month’s wages.”
“It’d probably cost us more than a month’s wages even to get into the place,” added Sid. “And I reckon they’d send the likes of us packing, whether we can pay our way or not.”
“We’d stick out like a sore thumb,” said George. “These geezers is all wearing monkey suits.”
“Well, I thought we could just hang around at the back and listen to the music an’ that,” Frank told him. “It’s Arthur Rosebery’s band. He’s top notch, he is.”
A young man in a dinner suit approached them and said, “Actually, there isn’t a strict dress code, you know. Evening dress or ‘monkey suits’ as you call them, are entirely optional.”
“There you go,” said Frank.
In spite of his liberal attitude, the sophisticated stranger was dressed for dining, from his white tie to his patent-leather shoes. His beautifully parted hair shone with pomade. He glanced over their well-worn Sunday best and a dubious expression clouded his face. “You might pass muster, I suppose, but I think your biggest problem is that you all look so terribly young.”
“We don’t have no trouble in any of the boozers round our way,” Frank blustered.
The man smiled. “I’m sure you don’t. But with all due respect, admission to the Kit Kat Club is a rather different matter. They’re not at all stuffy compared to most clubs, even in the suburbs, but even so…”
“Oh, come on, boys, let’s go home,” decided Alfie. “We’ve had a smashing night seeing the picture an’ that. We don’t need to be going to no posh restaurants, paying a month’s wages for a bowl of soup, and getting home at Gawd knows what hour.”
“Too right,” agreed George.
Frank looked as though he might blow his top, but the dark-haired stranger flashed a look at Alfie and hastily intervened.
“Look, gentlemen, you shouldn’t be so easily discouraged. What if I told you that I can get you all in?”
“Even if you could, we can’t afford it,” protested George.
“Then come as my guests. It really would be no imposition. In fact, you’d be doing me rather a favour. I was meant to be dining with a friend, but he let me down at the last moment. The reason I’m hanging around outside is that I was debating whether or not to bother, seeing as I’m all on my lonesome. But look…fate has presented me with you!”
George and Sid couldn’t be persuaded but Frank and their new acquaintance twisted Alfie’s arm until he reluctantly agreed. As they entered it seemed to Alfie that the very sight of them made the staff and most of the clientele uncomfortable. They were smartly turned out, for them, but this was the West End not Poplar High Street. A severely dressed man with an air of authority approached and Alfie expected their visit to end there. But the daunting vision directed his words to their host.
“Good evening, Your Lordship. Will you be dining tonight?”
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Chris Simon is the youngest son of a headteacher and was born and brought up in North Wales. He attended college in Liverpool and Manchester studying Geography and English and returned to Wales to work at a holiday camp, doing everything from chalet allocations to scrubbing grill pans in the off season. He did this over three summers before moving to London to join the civil service, starting in North London benefit offices and ending with the Department for Transport in Westminster.
As well as football and music, Chris has a great love of social history, particularly that of London. After visiting the capital at the age of twelve his desire to live there became the first certainty of his life. He settled in Walthamstow in East London and is a keen supporter of Manchester City and, of course, Wales. It had always been his intention to write a novel whenever he found the time—and now he has.
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