Excerpt: Winged Wicked Things

Charm absently pulled at his bubble gum like taffy, crossing his eyes to see the strand of it stretching out from his teeth.

Del'Rocchio frowned at him, a look of slight disgust and embarrassment crossing his face. "If you're going to chew gum, Charm, you need to keep it where it belongs. Otherwise I will be forced to take it away."

Charm pouted, but put the gum back in his mouth. He blew a fast bubble, laughing as it popped loudly, making Del'Rocchio jump. Charm giggled and was silent for roughly 2.6 seconds before he started back in on his near constant stream of thought dialogue.

Suddenly, there was bit of silence and Del'Rocchio turned to look at Charm. Charm had a look of expectancy on his face and Del'Rocchio realized he'd been asked a question. "I'm sorry?"

Charm dramatically rolled his eyes. "I said, did you ever have any kids?"

Del'Rocchio shook his head. "Lord, no. I had slaves for some time, but no children. Well, some of the slaves were children, but certainly not mine."

Charm looked violated. "You had slaves? Whoa. Whoa. That's not okay, D."

"It was at the time. Everyone did it."

Charm was unconvinced.

"It wasn't what you're thinking, Charm. They were more like," he paused, looking for the right word. He couldn't quite figure out why he needed to explain himself so badly, but it was strangely important that he find the exact right word. "Concubines."

The gum fell from Charm's mouth as his jaw dropped. "You had whores?" He shook his head. "I mean, you had sex? Holy shit!"

Del'Rocchio nodded matter-of-factly. "Yes."

Charm still seemed to be in mild shock. "You had sex slaves?" The words slipped out in a scandalous whisper.

"No, of course not. Well..." he found it difficult to argue. They had been slaves. He had occasionally had sex with them. But they weren't really sex slaves. "I didn't have sex with all of them." Charm had regained enough composure to look for his gum and put it back in his mouth. "Some of there were castrati."

The shock of that last word cause Charm to momentarily choke on his gum. "Cast-cast... you... omigod."

"They made beautiful singers."

"I can't even speak to you anymore."