Step We Gaily

Bodie/Doyle Fanfiction
Title:	Step We Gaily
Author(s):	M. Fae Glasgow
Date(s):	1993
Length:
Genre:	slash
Fandom:	The Professionals
External Links:	online here
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Step We Gaily is a Bodie/Cowley story by M. Fae Glasgow

It was published in £3 Note Series #3 and is online.

Reactions and Reviews

1993

...stunning — the Bodie/Cowley piece, STEP WE GAILY (please write more Bodie/Cowley, M. Fae. Oh pretty please).

1996

It's particularly interesting having some Bodie/Doyle to compare it to. I love the latter but undoubtedly yours is truer. You say you might be an Undue Influence: well, yes, but only in the way that any Damn Fine Writer convinces and impresses more than a lesser one.

I relished M.Fae Glasgow's "Step We Gaily" - she's so good at adding satisfying detail, "...lending verisimilitude to to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative" - but I hope you don't really think she does B/C better than you?

The two things that lift your stories quite out of the league of the others I've read are your dialogue and your gift for compression: much in little. She's very good, about the depth of Cowley's passions for instance (and her sustained examination of the process of his thought and emotion is a marvel) but her phrasing doesn't have your resonance; yours is more akin to the power of a single chord ringing out in the silence. Which doesn't mean I'd willingly give up her symphonic effects!

"Step We Gaily" I loved, natch, particularly for the back-story on Cowley and for the sheer physical passion of their initial liaison. What a convincing touch, to give him the small vanity of regretting the loss of the fire in his hair! And his satisfaction at having worn out the younger man. Desperately important to him, that control. And Bodie's never seemed so dangerous or so physically

alluring. I like your Bodie better but I'm not sure that's a fair comment, given that he's hardly likely in this situation to be indulging his penchant for mischievous persiflage. How right, too, that the old soldier would cherish the younger one's scars, and not just because they pardon his own. Truly, badges of honour. Interesting that M.Fae makes it Bodie's very honour ~ in proffering his own career as a sacrifice to his commanding officer's - that breaks down the last of Cowley's resistance.

2006

I has to confess I tackle this one with awe and shake because it may be highly controversial, not for the sex (nothing kinky or, in anyway, special here), but for the questionnable take of Cowley's behaviour and character. In a way this story, more than Shoshanna's one, could be given the title Neither Merciful Nor Just. And yet, objectively, if we stick to facts, there is here nothing more shocking than in the restrained, allusive and understated Less These Dark Days, previously recced here [at Crack Van]. The story line is about the same. But you can trust the author to make the best use of any stuff she puts her hands on to disturb and upset her reader.

So, it's only about Cowley being surprised by Bodie in a place of debauchery (a fashionable male brothel or a selective military club, as you prefer) and pondering how the most effectively he could thwart the threat of scandal: to get rid of it by throwing Bodie to the wolves and sacking him out of CI5 with a dishonorable discharge or, more subtly, to put the agent in a compromising position in order to get a hold on him, while enjoying the, humm, possibilities of the situation, in the meantime.

Of course, the catcher is caught, the seducer is seduced and eventually the loyalty and honesty of the young man disarms the tricks of the older. But, to be fair, these nasty thoughts never came to the stage of actual intentions. And the ultimate word of the tale is love.

I read this story more than ten times. Without any doubt, I'd call it a true masterpiece, almost too clever for the inattentive reader, with its sharp, bitter and merciless insights. The style is superb, with a dramatic and emotional tension I rarely found elsewhere. The writing is tense, haunted and vibrating, with poignant notes of quiet despair. There are sex scenes of course and they are are scorching, always intimately tied to the denied feelings.

The characterization is perfectly convincing. Of course this Cowley is not a saint; He is not able to live as a monk, though he tries. But picking a good looking young soldier in a select club twice a year cannot be called true depravity (what could he do else in a situation where absolute secrecy and total security is vital, not for him personally but for an ideal he deems more precious than his own life and honor?).

So, in this universe, Cowley's character appears more human and flawed than we are accustomed to see him: He has failings, mortal ones, which he cannot forgive himself, and he is tempted to act mean and selfish but, eventually, behaves like the gentleman he is. He doesn't believe in Bodie's sincerity until the very end and feels wary and defensive toward everything and everybody. He is a very lonely man whose life has been made of pain, hardships and renouncements but also near impossible achievements. Those experiences have made him unable of trust or happiness and awkward with his or others' emotions. He has come to identify himself with his sworn duty and his abstract principles. But such an unnatural stance cannot been sustained for ever and, in this grim context, Bodie's youth, strength, beauty, sexual appeal and loyalty must be irresistible and sensed like a revival.

Actually, I love him as he is, and I feel more touched and convinced by this complex and tormented personality than I'd be by more dignified and virtuous characterizations.

Moreover M. Fae Glasgow's story describes the secret and exclusive world of the "upper upper class" homosexual networks in Great Britain, with its coded manners, unvoiced rules, hypocrisy and solidarity, with such an accurateness and inner knowledge you could think she has studied it for years. It's almost an essay of socio-psychology and, should it be only for this aspect, would deserve to be read and discussed.