He's Behind You!

By Clare London

Last Christmas, Francis had a promising acting career and a budding romance with Duncan. This Christmas, it seems he’s lost it all. When his Mum persuades him to help her with the annual village production, he’s drawn back into the wacky world of amateur pantomime. This year’s production has all kind of new twists, the village players are eccentric although enthusiastic, and Francis isn’t sure he ever saw himself as a director. And what his mother also didn’t tell him was, he’d be working with Duncan by his side.
But if he can cope with charity shop costumes, squabbling characters, cross-dressing, and all the corny jokes, can he also believe in the show’s magical triumph of Good over Bad, and win a second chance with Duncan? After all, in pantomime, everyone gets their wish granted in the end.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Clare London
• Release date: Nov 28, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463150047

Clare London

Clare took the pen name London from the city where she lives, loves, and writes. A lone, brave female in a frenetic, testosterone-fuelled family home, she juggles her writing with the weekly wash, waiting for the far distant day when she can afford to give up her day job as an accountant. She’s written in many genres and across many settings, with novels and short stories published both online and in print. She says she likes variety in her writing while friends say she’s just fickle, but as long as both theories spawn good fiction, she’s happy. Most of her work features male/male romance and drama with a healthy serving of physical passion, as she enjoys both reading and writing about strong, sympathetic and sexy characters.Clare currently has several novels sulking at that tricky chapter 3 stage and plenty of other projects in mind . . . she just has to find out where she left them in that frenetic, testosterone-fuelled family home.All the details and free fiction are available at her website. Visit her today and say hello!Join up for her newsletter at http://bit.ly/2WpHlyK and receive a free short story!Clare also writes as Stella Shaw and launched her Love at the Haven series of rent boy romances in 2021.Website + blog: http://www.clarelondon.com / stellashawauthor.comFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/clarelondonTwitter: https://twitter.com/clare_londonGoodreads: http://bit.ly/2lNSfC2Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/author/clarelondonBookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/clare-londonInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/clarelondon11/Quids&Quills: http://www.quidsandquills.com (accountancy for UK authors)

Book preview

He’s Behind You!

An MM romance and Christmas production *HoHoHo*

Clare London

Written for the Rainbow Advent Calendar event 2019.

Last Christmas, Francis had a promising acting career and a budding romance with Duncan. This Christmas, it seems he’s lost it all. When his Mum persuades him to help her with the annual village production, he’s drawn back into the wacky world of amateur pantomime. This year’s production has all kind of new twists, the village players are eccentric although enthusiastic, and Francis isn’t sure he ever saw himself as a director. And what his mother also didn’t tell him was, he’d be working with Duncan by his side.

But if he can cope with charity shop costumes, squabbling characters, cross-dressing, and all the corny jokes, can he also believe in the show’s magical triumph of Good over Bad, and win a second chance with Duncan? After all, in pantomime, everyone gets their wish granted in the end.

Copyright ©2019 Clare London

Smashwords Edition

Published by Jocular Press

All Rights Reserved

This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission. This book cannot be copied in any format, sold, or otherwise transferred from your computer to another through upload to a file sharing peer to peer program, for free or for a fee. Such action is illegal and in violation of Copyright Law.

All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

More by Clare London

About Clare London

Chapter 1

No, I said. No way.

I’d had a crappy day on the phone receiving nothing but ‘sorry Mr Cooper, you haven’t been successful this time, you’re the wrong man for this part’, then the additional information I was too young/tall/fat/thin/cute/not-remotely-cute/desperate/delete where applicable, and call us again in the new year. I badly needed consolation hot chocolate, it was bitterly cold in the village church hall, and I’d discovered my left boot wasn’t fully waterproof when I crunched through the sudden fall of snow in the car park.

How long before sodden toes rotted and fell off, I wondered? I played a medieval beggar in a college production once, and that level of dirt and disease didn’t appeal in any era. I was too young at twenty-four to hobble, surely?

Francis, was all Mum said, in that wheedling way she had.

I wanted to add, forget it. Please. Let me crawl back into my cave of Eternal Self-pitying Gloom. I didn’t need this: I wasn’t suited for it. I wouldn’t do this if it were the last job on earth and the only other option was scrubbing out a septic tank in my pyjamas with a bald toothbrush…

But I wouldn’t, couldn’t, say that to my mother.

Not that she’d take any notice anyway. The village Christmas show was Rose Cooper’s grand project every year, and she had a way of making it work. Of making us all work.

We’ll just see how it goes, she said. She nudged me none too gently out of the wings of the stage. Just step out there and get the sense of the theatre.

Mum, it’s not the London Palladium. And I already knew theatre, didn’t I? I’d trained for years. Drama was my love, my dream, but nowadays, my nemesis. A year ago, and one modestly successful season in a popular TV soap, and I’d thought I was on my way to the top of my chosen profession. And then dad had fallen sick, I’d returned home to help mum nurse him in his last