Tusks

Richard Westover wonders if his fantasy lover, Christopher Van Hoon, standing beneath a South African blue-gum tree, the sun in his gleaming hair and golden eyes, has finally returned to Richard's life. Having first experienced Christopher's laugh, touch, and kiss in innocence, Richard is now twenty-nine, not thirteen, and far from innocent. Christopher has changed too - possibly having become as unscrupulous a profiteer as the Van Hoon patriarch. Back in South Africa, as a journalist, Richard secretly longs to have it proved wrong that Christopher's mining empire detrimentally threatens the already dwindling native wildlife; more so, though, he longs to rediscover his lost and one true love.