…AS THREE £3 OTE Nby M. FAE GLASGOW S Issue Number Three in the BENT COPPERS Series …AS THREE £3 OTE Nby M. FAE GLASGOW S Issue Number Three in the BENT COPPERS Series A Slash Zine of The Professionals WARNING: THIS ZINE CONTAINS SAME SEX, ADULT ORIENTED MATE- RIAL. IT WILL NOT BE SOLD TO ANY- ONE UNDER THE AGE OF EIGHTEEN. OBLIQUE PUBLICATIONS P.O. BOX 43784 TUCSON, AZ USA 85733-3784 PERMANENTLY ATTACHED AT THE HIP £3 £3 …As Three £3 Notes is available from www.oblique-publications.net or in printed form from the publisher. Send an email to [email protected] Or send a SASE to the address below for further information. AGE STATEMENT REQUIRED WITH ORDER. OBLIQUE PUBLICATIONS P.O. BOX 43784 TUCSON, AZ USA 85733-3784 Also available from Oblique Publications (Note: All publications are slash and require an age statement with order.) the OBLAQUE series (Blake’s 7 slash) Oblaque Oblaquer Oblaquest Oblaque IV: to be taken intravenously Oblaque V: in venery veritas Oblaque Sextus the BENT COPPERS series (The Professionals slash) …As a £3 Note …As Two £3 Notes the PÆAN TO PRIAPUS series (multi-media and literary slash) Pæan to Priapus, volumes I, II, III, IV the BENE DICTUM series (well put, well said, well dicked) A Dickensian Christmas by M. FAE GLASGOW The fiction word count for …As Three £3 Notes is 94,700 …As Three £3 Notes is an amateur publication, copyright May 1993 by Oblique Publications. All rights reserved. This copyright is not intended to infringe upon or conflict with other holders of copyrights. No reprints of any type are permitted without express written permission of the publisher and individual contributors involved. 2 £3 …AS THREE £3 NOTES £3 by M. FAE G LASGOW PERMANENTLY ATTACHED AT THE HIP £3 £3 CONTENTS STEP WE GAILY 4 PERMANENTLY ATTACHED AT THE HIP 31 SUBJECT TO CHANGE 42 ROOM SERVICE 51 PULLING THE OTHER ONE 67 ROUGH TRADE 76 BEATING AROUND THE BUSH 113 WEDNESDAY MORNING 123 TO THE READER Welcome to the third £3 Note. This issue contains 8 stories by M. Fae Glasgow. There is no particular theme to these pieces and, contrary to some of her writing in the past, M. Fae has produced no stories to arouse great controversy. Instead, you will find two very lengthy, serious pieces. (Step We Gaily and Rough Trade) which are unusual and psychologically demanding. The other stories range from the hopeful ‘this could be the start of a beautiful relationship’ to the utterly silly. You will also find additions to both the Sports and DIY series. For those who may have noticed and those who will now check, the physical layout of this zine is a bit different from our previous publications. I’ve reduced the size of the type a little and increased the width of the columns a tad. Also, the justification of the type is only on the left side instead of on both. Why make these changes? Well, as an experiment, for creative reasons, and to reduce the number of pages printed for each zine. (This could be taken a step further by leaving no unused space between the end of one story and the beginning of the next. I say could because it hasn’t been done.) Does any of this affect the contents of the zine—the quality and the quantity? Absolutely not. The former remains at its same high, low, or variable level (depending on your viewpoint) and the latter is completely independent of the zine design. For comparative purposes the first £3 Note had a fiction word count of 103,400, while the second was 78,300. This issue has 94,700 right in between. Thanks this time to M. Fae for persevering despite physical failings of the body (I didn’t say brain!), to LDM for possessing all kinds of odd and esoteric knowledge, and to Kota for keeping the printer warm by sleeping on it. —Caroline K. Carbis, editor £3 …AS THREE £3 NOTES £3 3 by M. FAE G LASGOW STEP WE GAILY £3 £3 STEP WE GAILY As an opening story this is a rather unconventional piece for Professionals fandom, and therefore quite appropriate from the Glaswegian. Told entirely from one character’s viewpoint, it excavates past the public surface and into the private interior, bit by bit revealing both the perfections and imperfections of the man, examining the control of self and others that he strives to maintain, and watching as he finds himself unraveling with a passion and lust that may bring his ruin or his salvation. Two notes to the reader: certain events of the 1980s have been moved backwards about five years or so. Think of them as creative anachronisms meant to enrich the story. Also, beware the Scots English through- out. A dictionary which defines Scottishisms may be helpful to the lexicologically inclined. CURSING himself for both on sturdy legs, but there were no soldiers’ names his cupidity and the mortal weakness that drove carved into them with pocket-knives, no society him here even when he knew better, George sobriquets linking themselves with favourite Cowley passed through the street door and pushed Guardsmen. The tables along the walls were of the open the inner door that led to the scene of so many same half-moon shape, polish gleaming with the of his downfalls, so many of his defeats at the reflections of light and the hopes of those looking hands of his own carnality. for love or sex, but the banquettes now were of Packenham’s, it had been in his day, this discreet textured cloth, the plush velvets and leather of pub with even more discreet clientèle. For all that before worn out and discarded. Small pools of the name over the lintel was different these days, subtle light still that bespoke and begat intimacy some things never change, although others had seeped from the same low-hanging lamps, and the changed beyond all recognising. Oh, it was still the high-backed booths topped with a topiary of same odd mixture of the sort of rough pub that carved wood promised the same seclusion and soldiers and workmen would frequent, with the secrecy that George Cowley had enjoyed more elegant touches here and there to ease the sensibili- times than he would ever confess. ties of the upper crust æsthetes who came here for Clothes and hair and chatter different, yet the the coarseness of base passion but who would clientèle of today would be instantly identifiable to shudder if enclosed by unplastered walls and the founders of the inner circle of this pub, as uncomfortable seats. Within these walls, the décor would the mix of ages, older men with younger, a had scarcely altered, the unlit murals touched up group of older women sitting together, providing for years and then gradually, one panel flowing the only loudness of laughter, the occasional young infinitesimally into the next, the images were woman hesitating by the bar until a gentleman of updated, until the entire history of this place could her choice invited her to a table. Of course, once be seen on its walls, from the early days of starched our vision adapted to the subtle shadings of light, upright collars, boating on the river and the Elysian as did George Cowley’s from the safety of the backdrops to summon thoughts of Greek love, into doorway, we would realise that the women were the War years and beyond, coming to War once actually those brave souls who dared transform again, moving eventually into handsome, stylish themselves, some arriving in full regalia, others profiles that could have graced the covers of stepping into the private rooms upstairs as stolid Homme—or been perfectly at home in the original businessmen and emerging, chrysalis-like, as murals. The tables were still the small round ones painted beauties, or as the still-ugly with attempted 4 £3 …AS THREE £3 NOTES £3 by M. FAE G LASGOW STEP WE GAILY £3 £3 beauty painting over the cracks. and the benefits he’d garnered. Thought, again, of Some things never changed, indeed, but others how young he’d been, his body whole and were so different as to be inconceivable to a man unscarred, knee not yet maimed into ugliness, skin who had been scarce out of his teens the first time not yet wrinkled by the years. Remembered his he had taken a deep breath and pushed open those own laughter in here, remembered how he had doors to step inside a magic world of acceptance flirted and danced and flattered, and the changes in and seduction. Cowley looked around, taking his him were bitter at the back of his mind and the time, identifying the difference before he would corners of his eyes. But as he looked around at the commit himself fully once more to this den of his handsome young men, his body and soul reminded iniquities. It took him a moment before he realised him that there was one thing that never changed, that his suspicion was caused by the atmosphere never altered for him, and that was the need that that had become so different in the year since last haunted him and drove him, herding him in here he’d yielded and come here, but most of all, the like lamb to the slaughter when the hunger and problem lay with those things that had been loneliness became too much and the dangers were transformed since he’d come here as a young man.