Stories by Rick Beck

I've known Rick Beck for longer than this site has existed, always online. His tales are not the standard chocolate box gay romance. That's what attracts me. There is no fluff, yet the love is there at all times.

Rick does something else, too. He knows how to write a multi-volume work in such a way that you can pick the story up in any volume, but it is better if you read volume one first. Even so, get them out of order, and it all still makes sense, because the volumes are self contained books in their own right.

~ Webmaster

An interview with Rick Beck appears here.

Discovering Love

This was once called "Discovering Gregory"
[All chapters complete]

The Farm hand

[All chapters complete]

Silent Fields

[A story in 7 chapters]

The Gulf

East on St James

[A story in 22 chapters]

A Mann's World

[A thriller in 17 chapters, slightly out of our niche]

Short Stories

Lancelot and the Big Bang

[A story in 9 chapters]

Taz and Kodak

A story in three volumes

Billie Joe's Journal

A Journal in three books released to celebrate both the site's and the author's 20th anniversary online. Billie Joe's Journal is one of the most powerful LGBT stories I have read in a long time ~ Webmaster

There is an interview with the author and a review of this book here.

Age of Discovering

[A story in 22 chapters]

Mama and Co

a pair of linked short stories

Benz

[A story in 20 chapters]

Walking Into Clouds

[A story in 26 chapters]

Bonner

[A story in 6 chapters with Epilogue]

Prologue

Everything isn't what it seems at Grant High School.

On the road to football glory, Bonner isn't the all-American boy he appears to be.

An anonymous note in Coach Winger's Grant High School mailbox tells him the truth about the newly discovered star quarterback, Bonner.

The coach needs to decide what to do. Would he forfeit a perfect record, a dream season and his first shot at the league championship, on the basis of an unsigned note?

Who would do that?

Dropping this bomb could, almost certainly would, cost him his job. It was Coach Winger's football team after all.

For my readers outside of the U.S.

Bonner is set on American football fields. The story is not about American football, which perhaps should be called handball, except that is a whole different ballgame. This story is about desire, two boys who love each other, and a coach who must decide whether or not to allow a player to play even though he's technically ineligible.

His ineligibility has nothing to do with his ability to play the game well.

Outside the Foul Lines

[A story in six books]

This series of books may be set substantially on a baseball diamond, but have no doubt, the story is about love, and as I've tried to demonstrate in over two dozen novels, it isn't the setting that matters, it's the love my LGBTQ characters share that is important.

Cory Wade is Missing

[A Story in 24 chapters]

After 23 years on the Chicago police department, Angus McCoy retires and moves to San Diego. He has put harsh Chicago winters behind him. Now, when he goes out, all he needs to consider is short sleeves or long.

Because a general decided to make him an M.P. rather than have him shot for being drunk on duty, Angus became an army investigator, and after being discharged, he became a Chicago police detective.

Becoming a private detective, after retirement, was never in question. The one question was, where would he set up shop? His wife, Mildred, from San Diego, Describes it as a warm pleasant city. Angus is sold on the warmth.

Angus looks like a cop, and he knows enough cops who give him cover on dicier investigations, but even as a well known private eye, Angus can't always stay out of trouble. Cory Wade has gone missing. Angus is asked to find him. Cory's father is a hood from New Jersey. He's financed by the mob, and no matter which way Angus turns, Tony Wade is in the way, which does complicate the case.

Each time Angus gets close, Cory sips away, which leaves Angus with one question. What makes Cory run?

The answer surprise even Angus McCoy

A Conversation with Carlton

[A Story in 16 parts]

Being born is usually a step in what becomes a longer story, but being born is no guarantee those steps will be easy or even point you into a direction that yields up the best result.

Being born is merely a condition, and what comes next has little to do with that young and helpless life.

"I was born the year I turned 12."

- o 0 O 0 o -

In this society, if you don't measure up, step out of line, or dare to march to a different drummer, you'll find yourself excluded by those who consider themselves to be better than the other, no matter your color, beliefs, or sexuality. I think those who consider themselves in charge blame black people for being black, gay people for being gay, and especially, they blame indigenous people for getting in their way.

I blame no one for anything. "I think. Therefore I am."" What I think doesn't matter to a hill of beans, according to Rick, my namesake, in the movie Casablanca.

To quote another great philosopher, I don't know who, "It is what it is.""

Which means you don't need to take this story seriously. although, every word is true, according to my recollections.

A Long Time Passing

[A Story in 25 parts]

In Skater's Time

[A Story in 18 chapters]

Joe Buck, Trucker

[Vignettes about Joe Buck's Trucking times]

Amarillo By The Afternoon

A Joe Buck story

[A story in four chapters and Epilogue]

Endless Black Ribbon

A Joe Buck story

[A story in 3 chapters, slightly out of our niche]

Sea of Tranquility

[A story in nine chapters and Epilogue]

Track and field isn't a sport where most people think of competitors bonding. The word competition brings to mind a desire to win. There are a dozen teams and in excess of five hundred competitors at larger track meets.

One of the first events that will be run, once the track meet is under way, is the hundred-meter-dash. The race creates its own excitement. When the starter's pistol fires, the race is over almost before it starts. Everyone stands to see who makes it across the finish line first, after the most thrilling ten seconds in sports.

Sprinters are a different breed from other competitors. Temperamental, superstitious and heaven help you if you dare get into their space, while they are preparing for a race. Once the hundred is run, the winner is jubilant and everyone else is disappointed.

In Sea of Tranquility, two sprinters develop a friendship away from the track, under quite unusual circumstances.

After the fastest sprinter in the city, stops appearing at track meets. Levi Cordoba benefits, because of Moony's absence. He now wins the hundred, after becoming accustomed to finishing second to the faster Moony. It has not left Levi feeling good about winning.

Unable to get answers about the boy's disappearance from Moony's teammates, Levi decides to investigate on his own. What he finds out is disturbing. He isn't sure what to do, but he has to do something.

Hitch

[A story in 13 chapters and Epilogue]

George Hitchcock is on his way to becoming a full-time reporter. It doesn't matter where. He took the journalism classes necessary. He took more English literature classes than are required. His creative writing teachers tell him he's a gifted writer, certain to get published.

Having the tools is one thing, but does he have a nose for news? That is something that can't be taught. You either had an instinct for what was news, or you didn't. Writing the news was the easy part. Captivating your audience with well written prose was essential, once the story turned into big news.

George is determined to become a reporter. With more than one recommendation, and with letters of introduction, the talented student has been hired as a stringer at the City News.

While he develops his sources in places where the news starts its journey to become a story, George drinks with the local cops. He doesn't mind buying his buddies drinks, and they don't mind talking about the cases that are keeping them up night.

It's an arrangement journalism teachers recommend. if you intend to get your hands on the best stories, before the competition gets to them, you need reliable sources to get you pointed in the right direction, and that's when the writing classes pay off.

George knows he has a nose for news. He is sure he's on the way to the full-time reporters job. Once he gets noticed. He'll be on his way, as long as he isn't noticed too closely.

George Hitchcock, Hitch to other reporters and his friends, is not what he appears to be. That's a story he won't be telling to City News readers.

Palisades Park - 'I Got You Babe'

[A story in 4 chapters]

Love is grand even when you can't define what it is.

You know it when you feel it.

I was lucky enough to feel it then. Once you've loved, there's no going back. The power of caring for someone more than you care for yourself is life altering. It's the stuff dreams are made of.

I'm a dreamer.

If there was more love there would be less room for hate. Telling you about my one great love is how I hope to spread the love around. Maybe one day love will surge like the tides and engulf the earth forever more.

There would be no room for hatred.