The newsletter, as such, with a link to A Rich Man’s Privilege, went out to the mailing list on 12/24. If you got it, I hope you enjoyed it.
I believe I’ve got things set up now so new subscribers get sent a link to the story upon confirming their subscription. If this isn’t the case, please let me know.
If you subscribed but didn’t get my “Happy Holidays” email, please check your spam folder. If it’s not there, let me know and I’ll get the story to you. In retrospect, I probably should have titled the email something more like “Here’s That Story You Wanted” so it would be less spam-like. I’ll keep that in mind for next time I send something out :D
happy holidays, darrah! great to hear from the boys again. It wet my appetite for more Ganymede Quartet stories. Although the story was only a snippet, it makes a nice counterpoint to the auction of Martin and the attitude of Henry. I am still ambivalent about Charles: on the one hand, talk about a sense of entitlement! (albeit if you think of period/class, quite “natural”); on the other, Charles and Simon finally help Henry in his quiet revolution of mores and customs by the end of the series. What happened between the auction, the swap parties and the final birthday ball at the Blackwells to make Charles mature so?
I don’t know if this is even an answer, but here’s practically an essay about Charles :D
Maybe it doesn’t show up in the stories as much as I’d hoped, but my idea about Charles is that he was/is very spoiled and arrogant and selfish, and none of that ever really changes, but when he gets Simon, his self-interest expands such that he considers what Simon wants. Until being given a slave, all the boys his age he knew in any depth were like him—rich, indulged, self-centered—and he didn’t have to think about their needs or welfare. But Simon is different of course, and the novelty is refreshing. If Simon is going to have good things, Charles will have to provide them, and this responsibility makes him feel manly and generous and benevolent. Basically, no one he knows has ever needed his consideration before, and he discovers he enjoys being considerate.
I see Charles as actually being very nice in a rather careless way. He expects to be well-received and that is usually the case. He’s not someone who enjoys being unkind—it’s profoundly uninteresting to him. He has a shallow general curiosity that immediately deepens when he hits upon something interesting—and all his initial interactions with Simon prove much more interesting than he’d expected.
He isn’t monogamous by nature, and he does develop an enthusiastic fondness for Albert’s slave Stuart, but he cares for Simon in a way he hasn’t cared about anyone before and it makes him a little gallant. I tried to put in hints throughout the books that Charles and Simon are closer than other master/slave pairs in Henry’s circle—Charles is one of the few who helps his slave learn to ice skate, for instance. Some of the masters are more clued-in to the situation than others, but most of Simon’s fellow slaves definitely know this about him and Charles.
It occurs to me that Charles might seem callous to readers because he’s the organizer of the swap parties, but I don’t see it that way. I’m confident that if Simon had objected to participating, Charles wouldn’t have forced him. In fact, I think if Simon had been reluctant, Charles would have been disappointed, but he’d then have tried to convince all the other masters that swaps were passé.
As Henry speculated at the end of ACAT, Charles is more similar to Jesse than Henry in terms of his romantic life. He’s definitely bisexual, though he doesn’t have a word for it, and he’s unconcerned with defining himself anyway. He does whatever he wants and feels his actions are always completely justified, but unlike Jesse he’s pragmatic and private about it. He’s not going to be kissing Simon where anyone can see, but neither is he going to bother arguing if anyone implies he’s overly fond of his slave. He’s protected from ridicule by utter indifference to others’ opinions, his very healthy ego, and all his father’s money.
I want to do a story at some point where Henry and Martin socialize with Charles and Simon and of course eat Chinese food, etc. I do already know a lot about Charles and Simon in the future, but at this point I don’t know whether it will actually become a story/stories.
I can’t find Charles/Simon story. Help
For now it has only been made accessible to people who sign up for my newsletter. Have you signed up? I checked the email address you used to post here and don’t see it in my mailing list addresses. If you sign up, once you confirm your subscription you should get an email with a link to a pdf of the story.
If you did already sign up under another email address, let me know and I’ll see if I can figure out what went wrong–and I’ll also send you the story!
I just signed up for the newsletter. Is it too late to read the Charles/Simon Story?
No! Never too late! You should have gotten an email asking you to verify your subscription. Once you do that, you should get another email with the link to the pdf. If you didn’t get this, let me know. If you’ve already got the story, I hope you enjoy :)
I verified the subscription but received no further emails.
Well, that’s annoying :( I’ve sent you an email with the story attached.