Laurence was a happy, well-adjusted gay man living in Florida until a run-in with a Caribbean witch stripped him of his preferred sexual orientation. Trying to play on the new team proves problematic for Laurence as leery ladies never give him a chance at bat. That’s the premise of the title story in David M Hancock’s bold, provocative fiction debut The Man Who Lost His Gayness. Sexy speculative fiction where magic is manifest and disaster lurks in every trick gone bad.

In nine stories spanning from Havana, Cuba, to San Francisco to New York City, the sex is hot, the magic potent, and the characters are at dire crossroads. It’s a varied menu of styles and voices, from the dark drama of a rape inside a seedy New York hotel to a rollicking gay fairy tale about a young prince trying his hardest not to be king. Or the psychological study of a closeted married man trying to figure why his daughter’s friends are texting that he fagged out.

Jinetero: A Cuban Romance is set in the crumbling splendor and austerity of Cuba in the 1990s, where a love story – or is it just another transaction? – unfolds between an American tourist and a Havana escort.

The Unnatural Sister sets the environment for several of the stories where magic is erupting on the landscape, to the dismay of people trying to pretend otherwise. A fortune hunter finds the going rough when his wealthy fianc e’s sister turns out to be green and scaly and very hostile.

The Man Who Lost His Gayness - Sexy stories told with heart, insight, sharply-barbed wit and a sprinkle of magic.

From The Prodigal Prince

My son.

The queen, his mother, swept into the receiving room in a rustle of black and gold finery. With a well-practiced flourish, she held out her knuckles for him to kneel and kiss in the courtly manner. Still fuming over his rough summons to court, he did not. After a moment she took back her hand and turned away from him until the serving ladies retired.

Your manners have grown coarse in these years away. It is ill-done to shame a queen before her servants.

She looked tired. And older than he remembered. Though still beautiful, there was a looseness to her skin he’d never seen before. Shocking tributaries of silver threatened to swamp her auburn luster. That was her pride, he knew, of all her charms – her crown of thick red hair.

She in turn was regarding him: His stringy flaxen mane, longer than the fashion; and the blue eyes, his father’s eyes, cornflower blue. Thin, flat-chested and altogether too small for his years. He could see her critiquing him as the product of her body; noting how the last five years had changed him. And judging how best to bend him to her will.

Tired, yes. And thin. But still churning with the irrepressible energy of her ambitions.

What was she up to, this warrior in women’s robes? What was she plotting, this schemer? Was it as Jonathan said? Was he to be married off to some minor princess?

I am not a boy anymore, he told himself. I am a grown man of 25 years. I will marry or not as I choose, queen be damned! Only I must be careful, for she is full of guile and manipulations.