Can This Be Real?

By Morticia Knight

As several of my fellow authors noted regarding this month’s topic, writing erotica and erotic romance can leave you as an author feeling vulnerable. How much is real? How much is an extremely vivid imagination? In my case, the clear answer is both. Perhaps I declare that with more emphasis than others because as a bisexual woman writing M/M romance, there’s no choice but to use a lot of imagination!

But what about other, non-sexual scenarios and circumstances? You know what they say, don’t piss off an author or they’ll kill you off in one of their books—and usually only after they’ve thoroughly vilified you. I’ve done very little of that (notice I didn’t say I’ve never done it!). Most of my truths mixed in with the fiction have been more in the way of vignettes from my personal life. Some have a lot of emotion behind them and are even very revealing of the inner, private me.

When I wrote the angsty and very sexual, Rocked Hard, about an aging gay rock star making a comeback and the questioning, young music journalist who has always idolized him—I took pieces from my own life as a musician. I even included some of my own lyrics for Aubrey’s songs. Since I’ve also written bios, articles and press releases for rock musicians, there were some aspects of me in Bryan as well. This story ended up being much more charged for me emotionally than many of my other stories. Here’s a short passage from Rocked Hard:

Aubrey picked up the progression of Bryan’s song, the one he’d originally written when he’d first fallen in love. He’d be starting the amended tour in less than a month, and he wanted Bryan to hear it before then, wanted him to hear it when they were alone.

“This is for you, Bry. I began it after our first night together and I finished it over the first few weeks of falling in love with you.” He glanced over at Bryan, catching his eye. “After you left, I never thought I’d sing it again. This’ll be my first time since you’ve come back.”

Bryan straightened, an anxious expression crossing his features that Aubrey couldn’t quite interpret.

“It’s called Carry.”

Aubrey fell into the intro, leading him into the strains of the first verse.

“I didn’t know, couldn’t plan. Still don’t know, what will be.

Just to see your face, to know the answers, hear them from your lips.

Are you believing, the way, I’m believing?”

Not ready to see Bryan’s reaction yet, he continued into the second verse.

“I didn’t know that I am, made for you and not for solitude.

I hear a song, repeat a phrase and it’s so damn clear, why I’m here.

Are you believing, the way, I’m believing?”

The song flowed, Aubrey more sure of himself, pouring his soul into the music as he ramped up to the chorus.

“And I join with you. You carry me, I carry you too.

And I love with you. You carry me, I carry you too.”

He brought it down for the final verse.

“I didn’t know, that’s all fine. ’Cause now I know, what is mine.

Anointed in your arms, I know no harm. You surround me, I’ll never be alone.

Are you believing, the way, I’m believing?”

He continued through another chorus then trailed the melody off until he let his hands rest on the keys. Aubrey hazarded a peek.

“Oh shit, Bry. What is it?”

Aubrey shot from the bench then dropped to his knees at Bryan’s feet. He’d never seen him cry before and it ripped him up. He laid a palm on his thigh and Bryan clutched his fingers in a way that broke his heart. Bryan’s eyes had scrunched closed, and he used his other hand to rub his forehead. Aubrey didn’t know what to do with a man who’d never shed tears in his presence, who was always the island of calm in the room.

“Jesus, Aubrey.” Bryan sniffed, rubbing the back of one hand under his nose, his eyes red and watery, the top lashes still sticking to the bottom ones as he blinked away more tears. “We almost lost that.”

~ ~ ~

Gut punch to the feels, right? Then, on the other end of the spectrum, I’ve used moments from my life that were pure ridiculousness, too crazy to be true. In my much younger years, I worked as a cocktail waitress at a strip club in the infamous Valley of Los Angeles—porn capital of the world. I had a good friend who was one of the dancers, but she could be…volatile. This following snippet from Strip Search (Sin City Uniforms 7), recreates a scene I witnessed between her and another dancer—only I set it in a gay strip club in Vegas:

After leaving the dressing room with promises between him and Sean to get a drink some time, Dakota ambled to the bar. Appreciative glances landed on him, but as he’d learned to do, he didn’t make eye contact. He always fixed his gaze on a spot slightly behind or to the side of whoever stared. It occurred to him that he didn’t really want to relax with his drink and trail mix in the changing area anymore—at least not while it was still occupied with a hostile stripper.

A loud commotion broke out near said changing area. Dakota’s eyes widened at the sight of Jon running through the middle of the club, his hand held high over his head, strips of glittery cloth clutched between his fingers.

“That bitch stole my underwear!”

The display was all the more highlighted by the fact that the club was between sets and that Jon’s package jiggled and joggled inside the one G-string not imprisoned by his fist. All heads turned to watch Jon’s unintentionally riveting performance. Charlie, the club owner, hurriedly lifted the hinged counter at the end of the bar then rushed toward him. It was clear the moment Jon spotted the owner because he launched into a screechy tirade.

“Do you see these?” Jon shoved the bunched-up G-strings in Charlie’s face so hard they practically went up his nose. “These are mine, you know they are!” Jon yanked out a red, rhinestone-studded thong, shaking it at Charlie. “You gave me this one after I let you fuck me the first time, remember? Remember?”

Oh dear.

Sean bolted toward the commotion, his anger clear in the way he charged at Jon. He grabbed Jon’s shoulder, but Jon jerked it away.

“Don’t touch me, you thieving whore!”

“Boys, boys, please!” The short, round Charlie held up his hands in a placating gesture. “Let’s take this to the office. I’m sure we can straighten everything out there.”

Sean held up a crumpled receipt. “I fucking bought those last week at Dark Fantasy’s lingerie store and here’s the proof.” Sean glared at Jon. “This little bastard dumped all my clothes out on the floor then grabbed my best pieces before he ran out.”

“My best pieces, those are my best pieces.” Jon narrowed his eyes at Sean. “Bitch.”

“In my office boys, now. Unless you both want to pack up whoever’s underwear this is then get the hell out of my club for good!”

~ ~ ~

I waited for literal decades to have the opportunity to use the line “that bitch stole my underwear” in something I wrote!

These examples are completely different in tone and content, but no less real. Yet, I sometimes find readers insisting a scenario in one of my stories is implausible, completely outlandish. What’s that other thing they say? Ah, yes. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. 😉

The Insidious Seduction of Research

Sacchi Green

Even fiction needs to get its facts right. Unless you’re building your own new world from the atom up, you need to be sure you’re right about such aspects of our real world as you’ve decided to include. This matters most if your story is based on history, or set in far-away places where you’ve never been, but even ordinary every-day things can be screwed up. I, for instance, would have to do more research than I care to bother with if I were writing a scene where a woman puts on elaborate make-up, whereas if somebody else’s story with a scene about gardening got the basics wrong I’d lose my trust in the story as a whole.

I’ve been extra-busy writing a series of posts for a Blog Tour being run by Dirt Road Books to introduce my new collection, Wild Rides, and when I cast about for topics for today's post here,
the theme of research kept nudging at me. Even short stories, and even short erotica stories, can require research of various kinds to reach their full potential. Any writer wants to be sure that settings, references to events, bits of history, and cultural matters are depicted well enough that no reader who might be more expert in those things will complain. We’d like to think that the steam of our sex scenes would distract anyone from noticing tiny details, but there’s no counting on that.

Those are practical considerations, but to tell the truth, I just really love the research. Often I get so lost in it that it slows down my writing, leading me on to new ideas to use as building blocks for new stories, but it’s worth it, especially when, as happens surprisingly often, what I find out confirms what I already thought, and lets my story go places I want it to go.

A few examples—or at least I’ll try to keep it to a few. Since the new collection is on my mind, I’ll start with examples from there.

For my story “Lipstick on Her Collar,” I researched life for women in the U.S. military during the Vietnam War. The anthology I was editing then had already been given that title by the publisher, and I figured there should be a story by that name in the book, so the obvious thing to do was to do research on the  Connie Francis song “Lipstick on Your Collar,” and on the singer herself. I found that she had entertained the troops in Vietnam and, as my character says, “gone places Bob Hope wouldn’t, hopping flights in Hueys and Chinooks to give the boys in the boonies a look at what they’re fighting for.” My story began to take shape. For accurate details, I read several memoirs of WACs and nurses who had been “in country.” In my story, of course, the “collar” in question is on a WAC jeep driver forced to act as guide to a female journalist. Both adventure and sexual sparks ensue.

For another story, “Pirate from the Sky,” I did research on an actual Chinese woman pirate, of whom there were, surprisingly, quite a few. The one that fit the time period I was using, the prelude to WWII, was Lai Choi San of Macao, also know as Mountain of Wealth, and more notably The Dragon Lady of Bias Bay (possibly the inspiration for the Dragon Lady character in Milton Kaniff’s comic strip Terry and the Pirates, though by no means as glamorous.) I made my characters be former female aides of hers, outfitted with a pirate ship for her profit, but now escaping into the far reaches of the Pacific and harrying Japanese war ships whenever possible. I also did research on the other main character, a female airplane pilot, but I’ll leave you to figure out the real person she was modeled after.

Even some of my more contemporary stories needed research, since I’ve never actually been in Paris searching out gargoyles, or in battle in the Middle East, or in a women’s prison. And I’ve never been in Amsterdam in the 1980s, where, as it turns out, there was actually a country/western themed club at the time like the one in my story. Research for the win!

Sometimes a bit of information or news leaps out at you and sets off a story idea that requires further research. My first and probably only novel, Shadow Hand, was sparked by news items about Kurdish and Yazidi women being kidnapped by ISIS into sex slavery, even being sold via social  media—and other news items about Kurdish and Yazidi women soldiers in the Peshmerga army of resistance. How my further research into sex-trafficking in the USA, particulary Massachusetts, also affects the book is a long story,  so I’ll be merciful, and let it go at that.

Yeah, I know, you want to know whether I did research on the sex for the stories, too, but let’s not go there now. You’ll have to read them to see if I got it right.  

The Truth or Something Like It

By Tim Smith

Did I ever tell you about my career in government service? I worked in the intelligence community, and one of my assignments had me going undercover to infiltrate a cartel in Cartagena, Colombia. My investigation helped close down a major drug pipeline. If I divulged more than that, I’d have to kill you.

If you believed any of that, we should play poker some time. Actually, some parts are based on fact. I did work in government service, but as a case manager for adults with disabilities. I gained some detailed knowledge of drugs, but they were prescribed by a psychiatrist. And I did conduct investigations, but they usually involved allegations of abuse, neglect or theft.

We all include little bits of our lives or personal experiences into our stories whether we realize it or not. I know I’m guilty of it. I may not use an experience for an entire story or book, but I’ll often drop in something that happened once upon a time. It could be anything from a brief encounter with someone, to a conversation I had or an incident during one of my travels. It keeps things real.

When I create a lead character, I tend to weave my personal beliefs and morals into their fabric. Someone once said “We are all the heroes of our own stories.” I live my life vicariously through my fictional characters because they get to do the things I can’t. My former spy Nick Seven lives in the Florida Keys with his Barbadian lover, Felicia, and owns a waterfront bar and restaurant. He gets involved in adventures that are straight out of my overactive imagination. My private eye hero Vic Fallon does the same thing. He meets interesting people, many of them attractive females, and gets to play the tough guy with a conscience, ala Peter Gunn or Mannix. Those are very far removed from my own mundane existence.  

Sometimes, an incident may happen to me and I’ll play the “What if…” game. I’m reminded of the 60s sitcom “Get Smart.” When Mel Brooks and Buck Henry pitched the concept, they said “What if James Bond and Inspector Clouseau had a child together?” The result was bumbling secret agent Maxwell Smart. I used that ploy when I wrote “Mistletoe and Palm Trees.” I had taken a vacation to Florida alone because my traveling companion had to cancel at the last minute. I thought “What if a guy went to the Keys by himself because his girlfriend dumped him and he meets a woman who is there under similar circumstances?” Lo and behold, I had a story concept.

My last failed marriage and the adjustments I had to make to being newly single became fodder for a couple of stories. In “Anywhere the Heart Goes,” I did an exploratory of a divorced middle-aged guy trying to cope with modern dating. “Who Gets the Friends?” was practically a blow-by-blow of my own experiences when many of my so-called friends stopped taking my calls after the divorce. I’ve also explored the cliched gal-that-got-away theme a few times.

Some of the previous posts on this topic revealed that I’m not the only erotic romance writer who has endured the question “How much of those sex scenes are based on your personal experiences?” Being a private person by nature, my first instinct is to say “None of your damned business!” Instead, I seized the opportunity to create a little air of mystique. I’ve found that a grin and a wink can go a long way when that question arises. I have to admit, though, that it gets tricky when the person asking the question actually knows you. I’ve had awkward encounters when a female friend reads one of my sizzling scenes then gives me funny looks the next time we meet.     

There have been occasions when something seemingly insignificant ended up as a story idea. I was lunching at a waterfront restaurant once and noticed some strange activity going on with a yacht that was docked nearby. It was probably nothing, but my crafty devious mind concocted a wild story about why the servers from the restaurant took food for four people to the yacht, but I could only see three. Who was the person inside the cabin with the curtains closed? Were they sick, or in the country illegally? Was it a celebrity hiding from their fans or the press? The possibilities were endless. And yes, I did use that one.

I’ve discovered that writing fictional adventures can be not only a good stress reliever, but therapeutic when dealing with personal demons and trauma. Writers tend to draw on personal experiences and channel them into what their characters are going through. There’s a lot of real-life emotion to use in those scenarios, and in my case, it helped me to cope by imposing it on my characters. If I couldn’t come up with a solution to the problem, maybe they could.

Living your life through your character’s fictional lives might not be a bad thing.     

        

Vicarious Vampire Lust

In my own fiction, one of my very favorite characters was created almost by accident. He was my first vampire. I was very intimidated by the thought of writing vampires at the time. Not sure if he whispered the fact in my ear or grabbed me by the throat and bared his fangs. But I wrote him a vampire, and a pretty damn scary one he is. Alonso Darlington’s story was the first proper M/M romance I ever wrote. Calling it proper, however, might not be the best choice of words. Some M/M fans were a little put off by his early vicarious use of his succubus familiar to help him find out details about Reese Chambers and satiate his lust for the man while at the same time keeping him safe. Alonso doesn’t normally play well with humans. 

I never imagined when Alonso Darlington shoved his way into my imagination that he would become one of the main characters in my Medusa Consortium novels, and that he would also become one of the characters my readers most lust after. Since his creation, there have been multiple sexy vampires, and his role as one of Magda Gardener’s most valued allies has made him an endless source of writing pleasure for me. Below is an excerpt of Alonso’s first encounter with Reese Chambers from my novella, Landscapes.Enjoy!

Landscapes Blurb:

Vampire, Alonso Darlington has a disturbing method of keeping landscaper, Reese Chambers, both safe from and oblivious to his dangerous lust for the man. But Reese isn’t easy to keep secrets from, and Alonso wants way more than to admire the man from afar. Can he risk a real relationship without risking Reese’s life? And if Reese finds out the truth, will there be any relationship left to risk? 

Find Out Who He Is - Landscapes Excerpt:

It wasn’t that Reese Chambers made my cock hard – though he did. It wasn’t that he was beautiful in a rugged, leather and stone sort of way – though he was. It was that Reese Chambers moved me in ways I had not been moved in a very long time, in ways that I, who never lacked just the right words to express myself, found my vocabulary inadequate to the task. Talia would call it an obsession, and maybe it was; from my first sight of him mantling his sketchpad like a bird of prey over a fresh kill, alone in the midst of the crowded pub, I could think of nothing else. It was my first night back on British soil. It is said that you can never go back home, and it had been a very long time for me. But the need to come home was in my blood like fever these past years, as were so many needs that never left me, but only sharpened with the passing of time. 

Next to me, Talia droned on about suitable residences in Cumbria, about the leasing of a car and the making of necessary renovations. The Twa Dogs was busy for a Monday night with tourist season past, but being invisible was always easier in a crowd.

*****

‘Find out who he is.’ I nodded in Reese’s direction. Before Talia could protest, I continued. ‘I have a roof over my head, and I’ve fed. There’s nothing that can’t wait until tomorrow.’

Talia’s cheekbones flushed with the rush of blood, and heaven knew how beautiful she was in such a state, porcelain pale skin, midnight blue eyes and hair, which was so close to black that no one but I would have noticed all of the other colours in her silken tresses. She knew what it was I asked of her, and she knew the delicate line she tread on the rare occasion when I did ask. A tremor passed up her long, straight spine, and a bloom of tiny goose bumps textured her bare arms. It would not be painless, what I asked, and I knew she feared it as much as she longed for it. I could hear the thud thud of her pulse in the thin, silken skin of her throat as she swallowed the sudden dryness of fear. ‘What do you want to know?’

I leaned forward to rake the tip of my thumb against the pulse point in her temple. ‘Everything, Talia. I want to know all of it. And when you know, come directly to me. I don’t care what time it is when you return.’

*****

It was nearing dawn when Talia returned to our accommodations smelling of sex, as I knew she would if she were to obtain for me what I wanted. By then my blood burned in my veins, and my body felt too close to me, as though the flesh that I dwelt in suddenly conspired to crush me with its demands. And though I knew that Reese Chambers could not have refused her even if she had come to him as a toothless, foul-smelling hag, I hated her that he had poured himself into her body while I had been left with only my fantasies kindling my lust to an inferno. 

Though my need was such that my flesh was fevered and my cock an insistent throb, until she returned, I held myself contained within skin that felt too thin. When she saw the state that I was in, she pulled the heavy drapes with an efficient tug, then with a nod of her head, motioned me to follow her down into the basement room that had been prepared for me. When she turned to me at the foot of the bed, before she could opened her kiss-bruised lips to speak, I took her mouth, starving for the first taste of him, the taste of his saliva, the taste of his blood, mixed with hers. She’d bitten him; he’d bitten her back. He was rough, and he liked to be treated rough, but he kept that to himself. He was embarrassed by it. His lips were slightly chapped from so much time in the sun and wind, and they’d slid against hers, suckling and stroking and pressing until her mouth opened to his. With ravenous laps of my tongue, I tasted him in her mouth, and she held back the moan of response, so I could hear the echoes of his groans, heavy with need he’d not satisfied in awhile, and I felt kinship in my own unsatisfied needs. Images of him flashed through my head. Christ, his eyes were green, dark green like the evergreen forests of the north, and he kept them open when he kissed her, taking her in with his gaze. 

I shoved aside the silk of her low bodice exposing her breasts, breasts that his hands had cupped. My nipples peeked to sharp aching points at the feel of his calloused thumbs raking, pressing and releasing. I breathed in his scent on her breasts, burying my face in her cleavage, licking the taste of salty, slightly picante maleness, sniffing and tasting until I could stand it no more. In one violent jerk, I tore the dress all the way down and shoved it off her shoulders, away from the flesh he had licked and kissed and mounted. I cried out at the feel of him, weight on one elbow, knee spreading her thighs, fingers opening her heaviness, anxious to penetrate, anxious to relieve his need. And then, with Talia free of clothing, Reese Chambers’ essence filled the room. Talia’s panties were still wet with his semen mixed with her humid desire, and I tore them from her and forced her onto her stomach, onto her hands and knees, so that it was not her face I saw, but his that I imagined. With hands on her hips, I raised her bottom in the air and spread her still swollen, still slippery folds with fingers made awkward by my arousal, letting the scent of his hot bread and honey release intoxicate me. Then I buried my face in her snatch and, as I ate his lust from her, I knew him. 

He was Cumbrian born and bred, and his accent was the soft lilting sound of the fells. He was a landscaper and a gardener by trade. His hands held the magic of the earth and his mind conceived ideas for beautiful outdoor spaces; those he liked best were patterned after Renaissance and medieval gardens. He was homesick and heartsick. He’d gone to Surrey to work with his father because the money was good. But his father had died recently and he had returned home to Cumbria. He didn’t care if he had to work in a pub or muck stables. He wanted to be home. He missed the people and he missed the fells. He missed the simpler, more honest rhythms of life. He was shy, even a bit reclusive. He read voraciously and widely, he liked astronomy and he was afraid of snakes, though it embarrassed him to admit it. He hadn’t had sex in a long time, and found it better to have a wank than a meaningless encounter. The facts of him, the details of his life raced at me in a flood I consumed ravenously with each lap of my tongue.

As I ate Talia I felt the shape of his face, the curve of his chin, the rise and fall of his chest as he had done the same. I felt the soft tuft of bronze curls nestled between the hard rise of his pecs and the courser, deeper curls that caressed his testicles and his cock when it was at rest, but it hadn’t been at rest. How many times had he taken her? He was thick enough to fill her and the friction of him inside was delicious and maddening. The shape of him – I wanted to caress the shape of him, with my hands, with my mouth, and the taking of his essence from Talia was an act of ripping away something that should have been mine. As I bruised her arse with kneading fingers and, as I licked the last of his release from her, she managed a breathless moan. ‘Take the rest. God, Alonso, take the rest, and release me.’

Buy Landscapes Here: 

Amazon UK

Amazon US

Amazon AU

Amazon CA

Too Close for Comfort #TrueStory #Adultery #Erotica

 

A post by Giselle Renarde.

Lately, I've been devoting a lot of my time to creating audio versions of my books.

Until this fall, when I bought myself a tablet (which I refer to as my "tip calculator" because I have no idea how to use it), I would record audio by reading from hard copies of my works.

But there's one book, in particular, that kept getting pushed aside.

I'd pick it up. I'd look at the table of contents. I'd flip to a story of particular interest and I'd read a paragraph or two. My words--words I wrote more than a decade ago--hit me in the heart. Like a punch.

They're too real. They're too true. I can't say these words out loud.

The book I'm talking about is Audrey and Lawrence, my collection of short stories inspired by the relationship I had with a married man. The stories aren't true--not strictly speaking. Well, some come pretty close, but most are completely made up.

The emotions expressed in those stories? The emotions are true. They're probably truer than anything else I've written. That book is my heart on the page. I can't get away from that. How can I tell those stories out loud? How can I say the words all these years later?

Audrey is not the most flattering depiction of me, but it is an honest portrayal. I hope I'm not so much like her now. I hope I'm a little less needy and a lot less jealous. I'd like to think that's the case. But reading those stories reminds me of my faults--of my character flaws and my missteps.

A lot of people from the romance world hate me because I write about adultery. And not just readers--authors too! I understand that they're not fond of cheating, but I'm not a romantic. Nothing I write is really romance. You aren't safe with my work. It's not safe. I'm not safe.

My reputation precedes me, and not just online. One time I was hired for a job only to discover that my boss went to school with my ex. I guess he did a little digging, asked around a bit, and discovered my true colours. After that, he started warning all the married men in his employ to steer clear of me.

I was a bad girl. I couldn't be trusted.

It was really such a shame, you know. I loved that job.

Anyway, here I am, many years later, wondering if this post is starting to sound like a cautionary tale. It's not. At least, it wasn't intended that way.

I just started re-reading Tristan Taormino's Opening Up and, as much as I now strive to live my life with honesty and integrity, I understand why people lie. I understand why people cheat. I've lived that life. Honesty is easier and even less hurtful, in the long run, but we cheat out of fear. Fear of loss. Fear of hurting those we love. Fear of admitting what it means when we love more than one person. Fear of opening up.

What fear is holding me back? Why can't I bring myself to create the audio version of Audrey and Lawrence? After all this time, why can't I say the words out loud?

Am I too scared to tap in to my inner Audrey? Am I too scared that she's still me?

A Mostly Untrue Story (#hotread #amreading #gayerotica)

Everyone always asks me if my books are based on my sexcapades. And if they don't ask, they just assume it to be true. Or they assume that I'm listening to everyone's dating and sex drama and turning it into fiction. I can tell y'all that's 100% untrue.

However, with that in mind, I thought I'd use this month's theme to promote my very first erotic book! It's the one that kicked off this massive suspicion that I'm sexually insatiable in my private life.

Autumn Fire

Cameron D. James

True gay love is a fairy tale. No matter what everyone says, that’s what Dustin firmly believes. As he starts his first year of university, Dustin is happy in the closet, where he can meet his gay needs secretly through anonymous hookups.

But when Dustin has his first hookup of the university term, with a muscular dark-eyed jock in the library men’s room, he can’t help notice the deep and immediate connection he feels, one that seems almost like love. It’s over as quickly as it begins and, as all anonymous hookups go, Dustin never expects to see him again.

The term gets difficult, especially when his math class begins. Dustin destresses with more hookups, but they don’t sate him the way they used to, and he finds he cannot stop thinking about his start-of-term encounter. Soon, his academic needs outweigh the sexual, and Dustin caves in and gets a tutor.

Attractive, well-built, dark-eyed…and a jock, his new tutor, Kyle, is none other than his anonymous hookup from the men’s room. Fate seems to have connected him to the man of his dreams.

Or maybe not, since Kyle is even more in the closet than Dustin is.

~ * ~

This book opens with an anonymous bathroom blowjob. And that leads into the story I love to tell about it.

I was at a writing convention that featured a "live action slush" session. Writers anonymously submitted the first page of their book to the event; a reader would read the page out loud; and a panel of four editor judges would put up their hand when they would stop reading the submission. The idea is that you see where you're losing an acquisition editor's interest.

The reader read the opening paragraphs with the bathroom blowjob and everyone in the room giggled awkwardly. I didn't make it through to the end, three of the four judges put up their hands when they would have stopped reading (and once the third hand goes up, the narrator stops reading out loud).

Interestingly, Canadian superstar sci-fi author Robert J Sawyer was the last of the three to put up his hand. He had a goofy grin on his face during the blowjob.

During commentary afterward, one judge explained why she put up her hand: "There's too much angst. This whole bathroom blowjob is totally unbelievable!"

The one editor who did not put up her hand, and thus the one that would have kept reading, knew that it was my submission; she came and told me that the other editors didn't know what they were talking about. And then she later cornered that "totally unbelievable" editor and demanded of her, "You've never been in a bathroom with a gay man, have you?!"

~ * ~

Excerpt

Dustin stared at the sneakered foot, just visible below the stall wall, as the other man stopped at the urinal beside him. He waited for the signal — until he heard it he didn’t know if this was CollegeJock22 or some random dude who had to piss.

Time seemed to slow as he heard a zipper open. With every passing heartbeat, he waited for the telltale sound of urination ... but it wasn’t happening. The foot shifted. The pant leg lifted, briefly flashing a white sock.

The signal! Dustin shuffled his foot close to the dividing wall, so the other man could see it, and flashed his own sock.

Dustin waited ... but nothing happened. Embarrassment swelled as he realized the awkward coincidence. This was not CollegeJock22. As soon as he leaves, I’m going back to my dorm and I’m just gonna jack off, Dustin decided. This was a mistake, to meet some random guy in a random washroom.

Then the other man’s feet moved. Dustin held his breath, not daring to make even the slightest sound of exhalation. He’d not heard the man piss — and he’d not heard the man zip up again. Maybe this was CollegeJock22. He just prayed the man wasn’t fat and ugly, that his profile hadn’t been one big lie. Dustin’s heart thudded as the man stood on the other side of the stall door. As planned, Dustin had left it unlocked. It squeaked softly as the man – CollegeJock22 — nudged it open.

All his doubts vanished. Quite simply, CollegeJock22 would be the hottest guy Dustin ever hooked up with. He was the rare man that not only lived up to his profile, but surpassed it. He easily stood five foot eleven and had tight golden curls peeking out from below his ball cap. His muscled chest pulled his shirt taut beneath his open jacket and his cock ... his cock was a gorgeous piece of meat, dangling from his open fly. The thick and semi-hard dick sprouted from a dusting of fine hair.

Click here to find out where to get your copy!

If in doubt, add dragons… (or some random thoughts from #Eroticon 2019)

I spent the last weekend at #Eroticon 2019. For those not in the loop, this is an annual conference held in London for writers of a sexy persuasion – bloggers, authors, sex toy manufacturers and road-testers, porn aficionados, and assorted kinksters. There are few such gatherings in the UK and I tend to go along to Eroticon each year. It’s good networking and who could complain about a weekend in London, especially on St. Patrick’s Day?

As ever, I am struck by the sheer out-there-ness of my Eroticon colleagues, and the fascinating niches we craft for ourselves. The kink community is brave and powerful, loud, gloriously colourful and endlessly imaginative. Who needs fiction when the facts are so bloody wonderful? I was wowed by a presentation on hypnotism and eroticism (orgasm trigger words – delightful!) and had  a bit of innocent fun playing about with dice writing. That’s a nifty little trick devised by an author friend of mine which uses the throw of a dice to introduce new twists in the plot and helps to unstick things when the old creative juices get a bit sparse. Then on to a sort of serious talk on the history of BDSM in art and culture, and from there a dig into the murky world of social media trolls.

But what has all this to do with fact and fiction, you wonder, whilst softly clearing your throat. Well, I'm getting to that.

My most perspicacious moments of self-awareness came in the session rather tellingly entitled Anxious Writers’ Club. This was a panel discussion on the dark and subversive forces at work which combine to stop us from writing or convince us that what we’ve written is utter crap and best flung on the back of the fire. Negative self-talk is destructive and pervasive when those mean girls get into your head and fling their poison about, their fiction dressed up as facts.

Here is (im)pertinent fact number one – I don’t need others to mess with  my head, I can do that perfectly well for myself. I am reminded repeatedly at Eroticon that I’m not the best judge of what is great writing. Readers often amaze me by displaying appalling taste. They might go loopy over things I think are rubbish whilst ignoring my finest prose with lofty disdain, and there’s no way of knowing which territory I’m in. And whilst on the subject, am I a writer on those days I don’t write? Instead of beating myself up, why not just ride the creative wave when it hits, and forgive myself on the days I have nothing?

I spent two self-indulgent and glitteringly enjoyable days listening to sexperts waxing lyrical about their uninhibited blogging, the best sex toys, kinkiest lifestyles, and so on as though these concepts were facts, true and tested, beyond doubt. Whilst an opinion can be a fact, i.e. it’s a fact that I hold such and such a view, I think I’s best that I never confuse what I write with facts. I do fiction. It’s made up, could happen, might have, to someone, but I make no such claims.  But at Eroticon none of that matters and I realise what a gorgeously eclectic world this is, full of juicy topics upon which I can have an opinion and be exposed to many and various different viewpoints. Where else can I listen to serious stuff about health and safety in the porn industry (important facts that could save a life) whilst sharing in the vicariously erotic fantasy of a shibari demonstration? At Eroticon I can be equally inspired by fiction and non-fiction, take whatever comes my way, value and savour the experience. It’s a little slice of the fantastically non-real dressed up in a not very respectable jacket.

Roll on Eroticon 2020. I’ll be back…

Reunion - #freestory #BDSM #Submission

In my post two weeks ago, I talked about the difficulty I sometimes have distinguishing between actual experiences and the stories they have inspired. Here’s a bit from the story Reunion that I mentioned in that post. It’s based quite closely on real events. I could swear my Master has actually seen me in my corset, but he claims that I’m mistaken.

In any case, re-reading this never fails to get me wet ... a full twenty years after that rendezvous.

The tale was originally published in Rachel Kramer Bussel’s anthology Do Not Disturb: Hotel Sex Stories. You can read the entire story for free on my website. In case you’ve never visited, I have dozens of free stories available, all neatly classified. 

 

This hotel is more than a hundred years old. I selected it deliberately, hoping that it might offer some Victorian style, but the room is fairly ordinary – no four-poster bed, no fireplace, no curtain fastenings that might serve double duty as attachment points for bonds.

There is, however, a fine wing-back chair next to the window, with a footstool. My master tosses his backpack in the corner and settles himself into the chair. He grins at me, and butterflies swoop through my stomach. “Well, Sarah. Alone at last.”

I stand on the other side of the room, the bed between us, clutching my bag. What I really want to do is to rush over and kneel at his feet. I can’t move, though. It seems as though I’m in a dream, rooted to the spot. Hardly surprising. I’ve dreamed about this meeting for months.

How shall we start, then? Should I strip? The last time we were in a hotel room together, years ago, he bound me to the desk chair with my stockings. The time before, he unscrewed the post from the fake colonial bed and fucked me with it until my screams brought the hotel management knocking on the door. But that was in another life, before I misread my master’s heart and chose a different partner.

“So, what do you have in your bag?” he asks finally, after watching me squirm for long moments.

“I have the corset.” I’d purchased it for myself, thinking to please him, knowing that there was no way he would ever buy me one.

“Good. And the other things that I told you to bring?”

“I have the ruler, the rope, the alligator clips, and the timer.” I remove the items one by one, arraying them on the bed for his inspection. Without announcing it, I take out a package of condoms and place it on the bedside table. His eyebrows arch in a silent question, but he just nods.

“I’m sorry, but I couldn’t find a rug beater, or the switches. It’s too late in the year; the trees are too brittle. Anyway, I wouldn’t have been able to carry them...”

“No excuses!” He sounds stern but I can see a smile twitching at the corner of his full lips. “I’m sure that you know better than to disobey me. We’ll see about your punishment later.”

He settles back in the chair, crossing one leg over the other. “Right now, I want to see you in your corset.”

I carefully extract the gorgeous black satin garment from its tissue paper wrapping. My master looks relaxed, but I know he’s not missing any detail as I pull my jersey over my head and attack the buttons at my waist. Of course I’m not wearing a bra. My nipples feel hot, as if illuminated by a spotlight. They seem to scream “look at me, see how stiff I am”.

My rayon skirt pools around my ankles and then I’m naked in front of him for the first time in nearly two decades. His eyes widen but he doesn’t say a word.

“Why don’t you close your eyes while I put it on? It’s rather an awkward process. And I want you to get the full effect.”

“You can’t hide anything from me, Sarah,” he says, but still, he turns to look out the window while I struggle with the clasps and laces.

My fingers don’t work at all, I’m so nervous. I know he’s getting impatient, yet I can’t seem to reach the last hooks. I suck in my stomach, worried that I’ve gained weight and I won’t be able to fasten the thing, but finally, I manage.

The boned curves press into my flesh. I move a bit stiffly, my breathing shallow so that I don’t burst open the hooks. The corset elevates and separates my breasts; they spill lushly over the top of the garment. Meanwhile, I can feel my bare buttocks bulbing out behind.

“Okay – I’m ready.”

My master leans forward, eager, his smile baring sharp white teeth. “Very nice. Come over here.”

Stumbling a bit in my high heels, I circle the bed and stand in front of him.

“Very nice indeed. Walk around for me, Sarah. Let’s see more of your tits and your ass.”

His mocking, lecherous tone thrills me. I’m terribly embarrassed, but I love showing off for him, and he knows it. My pussy swells and moistens. My nipples harden further, so painfully sensitive that one touch might send me into orgasm. He doesn’t touch me, though. He just watches, while I strut back and forth in front of him, swinging my hips.

I notice the seaweed scent, rising from between my dampened thighs. I’m close enough to him. I know he can smell it to. I don’t dare to look at his face. Instead I hold my head high as he taught me, imagining that I’m wearing the collar he once promised me.

I feel his hot eyes ranging over my body, and I rejoice, knowing that I please him, that he’s as aroused as I am. And all at once I’m awed by the power of our complementary fantasies. I want him to watch me; he has flown three thousand miles to do just that. He nourishes all my perverse notions, rewarding me for being the outrageous slut that I secretly am, the submissive, devoted wanton that he recognized in me, long years ago.

“Bend over,” he says, his voice gruff with lust. I know exactly what he wants. I stand with my back to him, between the chair and the ottoman. I bend at the waist, presenting my ass to his gaze, holding the stool for support. He leans closer, but for a long time he still doesn’t touch me.

His gaze traces paths across my bare skin. I swear I can tell when his eyes linger on the pale globes, or probe more deeply into the shadows between them. This inspection excites me beyond belief. I know that he’ll touch me, sooner or later. I think that I’ll die if he doesn’t do it soon. 

**** 

Read the rest of the story here!

Art vs. Life

by Jean Roberta

It’s too true that the relationship between erotic writers and our actual experience puts us between a rock and a hard place. If readers think we have actually done everything we describe, we are likely to be regarded as trash, especially if we’re women. If readers think our sex scenes are unrealistic, they are likely to think we’re out of our depth.

However, I don’t think anyone could seriously blame writers of fiction in general for using our imaginations. That is the only way to write fiction as distinct from non-fiction. Some readers don’t even mind if an author takes on a persona which resembles a character, but extended into what passes for the real world.

There have been various literary hoaxes in which a writer tries to pass him/herself off as someone else, sometimes as someone of a different age or gender, someone who has grown up in different circumstances. Some avant-garde readers simply find that sort of thing very postmodern. I find it as creepy as hell.

I hate being lied to, even when the lie is only intended to be entertaining, or to improve the plot of an anecdote from real life. Real life is often inconclusive or disappointing. Punch lines and great comebacks usually occur to a person after the confrontation is over. So I understand the impulse to embellish a story, especially if it gets retold over and over.

Folks, this is why a fiction market exists. If you want to tell stories, please do. You can share them with a small, closed audience, or publish them yourself, or send them to traditional publishers who might accept them for publication in a collection.

Or you can officially become a performer. You can play the role of Lady MacBeth or Everyman or whoever. You can write your own one-person play and perform in a festival. You can become a stand-up comic and adapt your own real-life material so that it sparkles and snaps with wit.

But please don’t confuse real life with your own imaginary revisions, because that way madness lies. I decided when I was still a child that I would save my story ideas for actual stories, not eyewitness accounts or explanations. When interacting with other real people, it’s important to tell the truth. Even then, two people who have experienced the same event are likely to have different emotional reactions. If the teller and the listener can agree on the facts, they can agree to disagree on their emotional significance. As long as they can’t agree on the facts, there is no resolution. Eventually, there is no relationship.

A recent issue of The New Yorker (February 11, 2019) and an issue of The Guardian (UK – not sure of the date) contain articles about American mystery writer Dan Mallory, whose own life is mysterious. He has told different versions of his life to various people, mostly those who have enabled him to find success as a writer and editor. He has won sympathy by claiming to have nursed his mother through her last illness, but a little investigation revealed that she is alive and well in the northeastern United States. He has claimed to have bounced back from brain cancer without losing any weight or hair. While living in England, he told stories about his American past, and after returning to the U.S., he was free to brag about his accomplishments in England.

“Dan Mallory” (which seems to be a pen name) is not alone. It’s not hard to see how creating various personae for oneself and living a double or triple life is parallel to creating characters and weaving them into a plot. Novelists, in particular, must spend much of their time in an imaginary world because that’s the only way that extended narratives get written.

Nonetheless, there are crucial differences between an artist and a liar. I don’t want to read the work of someone who can’t seem to grasp reality, no matter how much the work is praised. (If I know the work was written by a liar, I can’t trust that it wasn’t at least partly plagiarized, or that the praise itself is trustworthy.)

Maybe I’ve been soured by real-life sexual relationships with Significant Others who exaggerated their accomplishments, their feelings for me, and their intentions in order to get what they wanted in the moment. No matter how good the sex is, it can’t compensate for the feeling of being pushed out the window from the 13th floor of a high-rise when one discovers that Don Juan is actually Joe Doe who has no professional credentials, is not a genius at business, and only knows one language. And to top it all off, the man is likely to be married with children. If pressed, he will admit that he never planned to make a commitment to anyone else.

I’ve met raconteurs whose stories sound too good to be strictly factual, and I wish they would stop trying to pass them off as truth. I’m not condemning the art of conversation, but I think I’ve developed a bullshit-detector from long and painful experience. Those who lose my trust are unlikely to get it back.
--------------------------------

Fictional Fact, or Illusion?

I love to do readings in public along with the contributors to my anthologies, but I started so late in life that I think most folks would rather not even speculate that someone as old as I am would ever have done the things in my stories. Nevertheless I persist, channeling my characters, and it seems to work out all right. Still, I can’t recall anyone asking whether what I wrote was a true fact from my life--although once in a while it was, or mighty close to it. (Some of my contributors, on the other hand, might well be imagined writing from experience.)

In any case, I’ve decided to take a different tack with this blog. Instead of dealing with facts at all, I’ll stick to fiction, so I’ve been trying to think of any of my stories that feature unreliable narrators. I’m sure there are some, but they seem to have deceived even me by now so that I find them entirely believable. This one, though, does have a protagonist who doubts her own sanity, but doesn’t give a damn. This story was published in Kristina Wright’s Demon Lover anthology.
I know I shouldn’t post anything this long, but what the heck. And since this is in fact fantasy, nobody would question whether it was real. Still, there’s always the chance of believing it’s all an illusion  on Jayne’s part—and a very hot illusion indeed.

Freeing the Demon
Sacchi Green

In two years of drifting in place Jayne had seldom looked out the window. What was the point? At night, clients came, and went; in the daytime she slept. Sometimes, very rarely, she dreamed.
She might never have noticed him looming just beyond her balcony if a nervous college kid hadn't felt in sudden need of air.
"Hey, terrific gargoyle! French, probably, limestone, taking a beating from acid rain. Not much detail left." He grasped at the distraction. "They say gargoyles are demons cursed with eternal imprisonment in stone. Guess nobody figured even stone might not be forever."
Jayne's stroke on his thigh turned him from the window. Long, pale hair swung with the seductive tilt of her head. Gray eyes looked through dark lashes into his. "You like things...French?" He forgot about the gargoyle.
Jayne didn't forget.
On a rainy evening she watched through summer dusk as rivulets washed over the stone shoulders. Thin glistening ribbons of water criss-crossed in ill-defined grooves, giving a sense of layered scales, or feathers; something indelibly winglike.
The massive back was hunched. The twisted, upturned face hurled mute defiance at the heavens, while pointed ears and horns stabbed at the sky. The jaws had once spouted water from the eaves, but the intake had been clogged for years and the torrent spilled haphazardly down the head. The teeth were mere vestigial stumps. Jayne thought of the acid rain, and her own fleeting youth, and mourned for them both.
That night, after a bout with a truly nasty customer, Jayne leaned out into the light rain. Leopold sent such creeps from time to time to scare her, keep her in line.
She gazed at the still, dark figure as mist cooled her skin and a breeze swept the fouled air away. He hulked, blot-like, against clouds lit by ambient city light. "They're wearing us down, mon amie," she murmured.
As her eyes adjusted to darkness the stone face seemed to flush with a reddish glow. A dull light pulsed through slanted eyes and gaping throat, highlighting the teeth. At thirteen stories a connection to the basement furnace seemed unlikely, but Jayne was too drained to care.
In daylight she took a closer look, finding nothing but dry stone mottled by smoke and rain and bird droppings. Some obscure proprietary impulse drove her to take water and soap and a long brush and scrub as far as she could reach. A curse was one thing; debasement was something else.
Over the weeks she watched him in varying lights and weather. Only the combination of night and rain produced the strange effect, as though acidity ate away a thin veneer that resealed in daylight.
Jayne found herself trying to communicate. "Who trapped you? Someone higher up the chain of evil? Or a self-righteous moral bigot? I've known both kinds. There isn't much to choose." His pulsing glow seemed to quicken in agreement.
Her own sense of comradeship surprised her. Since the stone demanded nothing, she yearned to give. Not, of course, that she could think of anything worth giving.
In symbolic sharing she reached up to lay morsels of food on the stone tongue. When she tried this on a rainy night, the offering was sucked into the red cavern with a force that thrilled and frightened her. When she offered raw meat, the eyes glowed hotter and a swirl of smoke rose from the rumbling depths.
She blinded herself to the ominous implications, preferring to think, if she thought at all, that her sanity was slipping. What had sanity ever done for her?
Reality was increasingly hard to bear. Someday soon Leopold would forget, or cease to care, that he couldn't afford to mark her face or body.
On the night he finally snapped, rain splatted against the window and shards of his spittle flecked her face as he shouted and raged and shook her.
"Yes!" she screamed at last. "Yes! I held out on you! I hid money! Why not? I earned it!" The capitulation startled him into releasing her.
"It's out there, in the gargoyle's mouth." She gestured toward the window. "But it slipped down and I can't quite reach it. You get it, if you want it!"
"Like hell! In the fucking rain? In this suit? Get out there and don't come back without it!"
The cold rain slicked her thin wrap to her body. She'd lied about the money being there, though she did have a stash secreted elsewhere, saving for…for some other kind of life. Any other kind.
It didn't matter. She wasn't going back.
She looked down. Neon flashed and car lights crawled along the street far, too far, below. To sprawl in their glare, broken and distorted...no…
She turned to the gargoyle and clung. It felt warm, vibrant, even...responsive. If only she had known! Such opportunities lost.
Leopold came cursing and stumbling out the window. He had shed his coat, but rain soaked his silk shirt and rage twisted his face. His cronies on Wall Street would scarcely have known him, even those who knew this source of his money because they had paid for the pleasure of Jayne’s company.
Jayne stepped up onto the low balustrade, reached an arm into the gargoyle's mouth as far as she could, and willed herself to oblivion. Heat pulsed from within. Tremors shuddered through the stone.
Then Leopold was tearing and striking at her, not caring that her feet slid off the balustrade, that her arms were slipping from the stone torso.
The void below dragged at her, tried to swallow her--but something enfolded her, something warm and winglike and unseen, holdiing her safely while Leopold clawed at the stone and crammed his fist into the gaping maw.
Whatever she had hoped for, it was better and worse. His head went last. Hot blood streamed past, mixed with cold rain, and only when all ran cold did she know it was over. Then she was through the window, on the floor, not remembering how she had crawled there.
Dawn showed Leopold's crumpled coat beneath the window. There would be cash in its inner pockets, but Jayne couldn't bring herself to touch it. Yet.
No one would wonder at any extremity of cries from her apartment. Leopold would hardly be missed except by his creditors. If she could just make sure nothing could connect her to his disappearance...
When at last she steeled herself to look outside there seemed to be no trace of him, until sunlight glinted on a gold wristwatch dangling from a stone jaw and jeweled rings tilting precariously on vestigial teeth.
She reached out, tentative at first; then her touch became a lingering caress across the rough stone face.
How quickly, she wondered, did erosion wear away the stone? What would happen to the world when the demon, if such he were, broke free? Did she care?
She knew what she cared about. She remembered the embrace of invisible wings, the power summoned by night and rain and her need. Her hands moved sensuously, stroking the folded wings, the breast, the ridged belly slanting away between braced forelegs. She sensed the mounting tension in the rigid stone, and whispered promises, waiting for night, and rain.
For two days it stayed dry. Jayne took the necessary steps to change Leopold's jewelry into cash, and to make the cash secure along with what she’d found in his pockets. Attention to such details occupied a level of her mind that seemed to be waking after years of sleep. She no longer drifted.
On another level, she was willingly swept along on a tide of erotic fantasy, feeling rough stone where there were only plaster walls, seeing slanting, glowing eyes in taxi tail-lights. When the first tongues of rain licked her skin as she hurried home through the dusk, ripples of heat flowed over and through her. Her breath quickened in anticipation.
She started tearing at her constricting clothing in the elevator. By the time she thrust open the window she was naked.
The rain had intensified, and now it blew cold on her skin. The shock gave her mind a chance to catch up with her need.
When Jayne finally climbed out onto the balcony she was wrapped in a deeply hooded raincoat. She knew the allure of mystery, and slow unveiling; she also knew all previous experience might be irrelevant. Could her demon be pleased like human men? Until she knew his pleasure, she would simply please herself.
The light from his depths glowed hotter than ever before. In anticipation of her coming? Or had he gained strength from devouring Leopold? A shiver of fear sharpened her excitement.
She pressed herself against the rain-slick stone and inched the raincoat open. Chill gave way to warmth wherever skin touched stone, and when she stretched upward from the balustrade a deep vibration pulsed through the rigid mass. She pressed closer, bruising her softness on his ridges, melding pain with pleasure, but when she sensed a desperation in his trembling she loosened her grip and stepped down.
Jayne knew the art of pleasing watchers. They had been her only bearable customers. In any closer interaction it was she who would become the watcher, removed, unmoved, observing with vague repulsion what her other self must do.
She wondered whether he could see her, but when she raised the edges of the coat like dark wings the light beamed obliquely from his eyes to warm the pale flame of her body.
The coat, once released. did not fall but floated above and behind, supported by the light. She forgot the rain, forgot everything but herself and that burning presence, feeding on his hunger as it fed on hers.
Beginning with dance-like movements, slowly, sinuously, Jayne curved her hands from waist to hips, slimness to taut fullness. Her touch was the watcher's touch, but under her command.
Then she drew her fingers lightly upward, brushing them teasingly around the outer curves of her breasts, catching her breath at the sweet soreness. As she cupped them gently and then less gently the fullness, the firmness, grew; in her mind her outline transformed from slender to voluptuous.
The ripples of pleasure intensified. Urgency flowed down her body. She throbbed both with fullness and with an aching need to be filled.
Jayne thought fleetingly of pulling back. How could she bear it if this hot tide never flooded into release? But it was all she had to give. And besides, it was too late.
Hard nipples jutted from her round full breasts, yearning desperately for the stroke of hands that could not reach out, for the hot press and tug and bite of a mouth frozen in stillness. Her fingers teased their tips into greater, harder, unbearable tension, while her palms still cupped the swelling fullness. She thrust against her own hands and moaned, again and again, until a deeper echo sounded from the stone before her and she raised her eyes.
Red light pulsed from the depths. A low rumbling sound went on and on. How could she truly touch him, penetrate the shell of dark magic, bring his torment and hers to an ecstatic peak?
She had come to despise men's bodies, but now she cursed the spell, or sculptor, that had shaped the gargoyle, pressing the forelegs together to obscure the loins, leaving her without even a simulacrum of maleness to stroke, taste, press against.
Her hands slipped downward. Her breasts still yearned with fullness, but a hunger still more intense built in her depths, a pounding pressure that demanded a harder pressure in return, more, and more...
Detachment long gone, she could only open mind as well as flesh to him, projecting her own sensations, hoping for him to somehow tell her how to meet his need.
His vision of her flashed through her mind; eyes half-closed, lips full and parted, head twisting from side to side as damp, heavy hair coiled over her shoulders and slid across her thrusting nipples, rising and falling to the ragged rhythm of her breathing. It was his will that raised her hand to cradle and press one breast and then the other, gently at first, then harder, sending hot lances downward. She no longer knew which sobbing cries and moans were her own, and which reverberated from the stone.
Somewhere in the outer world there were sounds. Pounding on a door? Or her own blood pounding in her ears? The clamor of her body drowned any intrusion. Linked with this being who watched and shared and demanded, she moved in response to his will as well as her own, hips twisting, undulating, arching toward him, hands stroking and kneading and tantalizing but leaving the hot, pulsing void for him, for his filling, if only he would come to her, into her...
A sharp crack split the air. The balcony shook. A wave of force slammed her against the building, jarring her teeth into her lower lip until it bled. She force down pain-sparked anger; whatever she had incited she would willingly accept.
The pressure surged up and down her body. She couldn't breathe, couldn't see, mist swirled before her eyes...but the force eased at her struggles. She pushed against it and it eased again, in slight, unsteady increments.
As her vision cleared, distant lights and buildings twisted and wavered, distorted by something not quite visible, something trembling between being and not being. She reached out and felt a throbbing as of air propelled by beating wings, or a pounding heart.
She leaned into the pressure, then fell back as it surged toward her. Forward, back, approaching a balance; "Yes, gently, softly, but not too softly...now harder...." He was taking form now, still murky to the eyes but tangible to her hands, her skin, her demanding body.
Wingtips curved around her. Strong arms circled her and hands grasped the soft fullness of her buttocks to lift and press her up against him. Fiery crescent eyes flickered closer and closer as she stretched upward. He bent his head and with a tongue gently rasping, like a cat's, licked the drops of blood from her lip.
She clutched at his massive chest, iron-hard under deep velvet fur; gripped corded thighs with her own, straining to raise herself enough to meet the tip of the great cock pulsing against her belly. He lifted her higher, and she was there...there...but in spite of overflowing readiness she thought at first she could never fit him in.
She sobbed in frustration, thrusting frantically against him, and he raised her again until his hardness teased, stroked, licked at her, flooding her with wetness and sensation. When finally, slowly, he slid inside, the demanding fullness was a pleasure/pain almost more than she could bear.  
Distant sounds, banging, harsh words, impinged on her consciousness. Then he moved, and drove her to move, and the world receded. Hot surges of sensation wracked her, until they came so close and fast that she rose on the wave and rode it until it crashed, at last, into thunderous release.
Even the ebbing was glorious. She clutched the great body, now solid, dark, completely there, and held him as his wrenching spasms went on and on and on.
At last, when he seemed almost spent, she reached up to stroke his face; but it grew ever more distant as the presence that had filled her receded. She slid down until her feet touched the floor. His form dissipated slowly, like smoke, leaving her a last vision of a wraith-like hand outstretched in supplication.
Cold air chilled her fevered skin. She watched the glow intensify inside the stone and knew he was trapped again, though a thread of fire showed through the long crack newly formed between braced forelegs.
The rain had stopped. She forced herself to move, bent to reclaim the limp raincoat, turned toward the lighted window. Lighted? She hadn't turned on the lamps! Had she locked the door before rushing to the window? Sounds and words she had blocked out came back to her in a rush.
There had been banging on the door, thumping on the window frame, a harsh voice shouting, "For Christ’s sake, buddy, get it off already, will you!"
She knew that voice, like oily gravel. One of Leopold's "associates". She had expected to have to deal with him, or someone like him, but not in such a state of vulnerability. The raincoat felt wet and cold and gritty as she hugged it around herself and stepped through the window.
"Kinky bastard, eh?" He waved a heavy arm toward the window. "Isn't coming in? Afraid to be seen? I don't give a shit who he is. Just tell me where fucking Leopold is hiding out and I'll be out of here."
Jayne was shaky, but not as dazed as she sounded. "I...who..." She glanced vaguely around the room. "I'm sorry, Mr...Mr. Robinson, isn't it? I haven't seen Leopold in three or four days, and that's just fine with me."
The hair was impeccably styled, the skin pampered, but the wide mouth grinned in a toad-like face. "You don’t say! Considering new management?" She saw the move coming but couldn't retreat. He whipped her raincoat open and yanked at it, turning her until it fell off. "Rough stuff. Nice." A thick finger jabbed at the bruises on her neck and shoulders where Leopold had gripped her, and the scrapes from tonight's impact of stone and wall. Then he gripped her jaw and squeezed her mouth until drops of blood from her cut lip ran down her chin.
"What does it cost for a piece of that?" His voice had thickened.
"What's it worth to you?" Her purr masked her fury. Keep him off guard, find a way to kill him, feed him piece by piece to the stone jaws....
"Get rid of the john out there and we'll see." He adjusted his trousers. "Christ, he's going to freeze his ass off, if you’ve left him any!" He moved toward the window.
Without any clear plan she moved to intercept him. He stiffened. The toad slash curled into a snarl. "That's fucking Leopold out there, isn't it! Fucking Leopold, fucking! He should have stuck to that side of his business instead of pimping worthless mutual funds." He gave a bark of mirthless laughter and shoved her aside.
Rage coiled through Jayne like a steel spring. He would not foul her balcony with his gross presence, leer at the red glow of her lover's trapped spirit! She launched herself at his back, striking between his shoulder blades with all her weight and fury. His startled cry mingled with a roar from beyond as his upper body pitched forward, through the window...and beyond into a spray of blood.
Jayne watched in savage joy. Her demon was so strong now, he could reach out so far...
When it was over, though, she stumbled to her bed and sank, shaken and drained,  into darkness.
Late at night the demon came to her, in vision deeper than dream. Jayne saw his true form, merely caricatured by the stone carving; a shape more man than beast, long-limbed, graceful, powerful, covered with a thick black fur whose silken touch made her shiver with delight. The curved horns rose naturally from his proud head, extending the line of the pointed ears. His slanting eyes curled into crescents when he smiled, a wicked grin that showed strong, gleaming fangs. She had to smile back.
He held out a hand, cruel talons retracted, and she grasped it with her own. She pressed against him, but after a moment he swung her gently around.
Only then did she become aware of the surroundings in her vision. Walls of smoothly fitted stones, candles smoking fitfully in sconces, hangings in deep colors with intricate designs not quite revealed by the dim light. An ambiance profoundly other, yet vaguely familiar, a scene from a history book, or fairy tale.
He drew her to a small arched window, and she looked through iron bars down into a torch-lit courtyard. She watched, unseen, as a red-robed figure passed by, thick fingers stroking a heavy golden cross; but when she looked for holiness in his face she read only a cruel sensuality she knew all too well.
The demon gripped the bars, bent them with slight effort, then pushed with increasing tension against an invisible field of force just beyond. When she reached through the bars she felt no barrier; it seemed to be devised for him alone.
Ancient magic or future science?  She was distracted by the play of muscles across black-velvet shoulders, back, buttocks...no wings? But the wings were there, sweeping in and out of visibility as he strained against the unseen wall. They faded as he slumped back and turned toward her, face twisted in anger and despair.
The proud head bent, the tall form folded, knelt, until he crouched at her feet like a great dark knot of wood shaped by a master carver.
A wave of compassion swept her, and, in its wake, a resolve. If he asked for her help, it must be in her power to give. In the world she inhabited (however tenuously) they had already cut a strange and bloody swath together; she would willingly challenge whatever world held him captive.
She reached out to embrace him, pressing her breasts against his bowed head; the sheltering mantle of her moon-pale hair enveloped him. "Yes," she murmured, "yes," more certain of the answer than the question. A cool breeze stirred the curtain of hair. She saw brightening sky outside the window, and as she watched a shaft of hazy sunlight came through the window and crept toward them, until, with a convulsive lurch, her lover was gone from her arms and she was left empty, hollow, kneeling on her own floor in her own room in a cold pool of daylight.
Even with Leopold gone there were some regular clients to deal with. Those few who persisted despite her refusal went the same way in due course, each adding to her demon's strength. She began to think he might break free of his bonds while still in this world. It would be disappointing if she never got to follow him to that other place.
Jayne was disappointed as well that his continual gorging appeared to interfere with arousal. She savored for days the lingering feel of him, like a taste too intense to absorb all at once, but by the end of a week the urge for further tasting consumed her.
It was time for a test. He had devoured the latest victim at the very door of her bedroom, sucking him into that unseen dimension that claimed them all. Could he come in visible and tangible form just a few steps further?
She watched her reflection in the dark window. A long white satin gown caressed her skin, clinging and rippling; she might have been a caryatid, or an angel from a Renaissance artist's erotic dreams.
When she opened the window a stream of raindrops brightened with a reflected glow. He knew she was there.
Jayne stroked the creamy satin; then, deliberately, turned away. The lick of silky fabric over skin already sensitized drove her longing close to pain. If he didn't come she would have to go to him, and soon.
But he was there before her, lounging on the bed, watching with hot eyes and laughing mouth. She avoided his outstretched hand, letting a satin thigh just brush his fingertips. He kept talons retracted, willing to play the game.
When she knelt by the bed and pushed gently at his chest he leaned back onto the mounded pillows. Her hand brushed his erection, making it leap; she felt an urgent pang but kept her movements languorous.
The inner sweep of his thighs, where the fur almost disappeared, shivered under her strokes. Avoiding the most outstanding feature, she burrowed her face into his silk-furred belly, then pulled back quickly. He was gripping the blankets now and breathing faster.
Jayne slipped a white hand between dark thighs and cupped his heavy fullness with gently increasing pressure. His buttocks tensed, his back arched. She slid her fingers upward, moving along his pulsing cock, trembling slightly as she wondered how her cunt had been able to hold this immensity, and how long she could bear to wait before doing it again.
Too much protraction of this game and she might cheat herself, but to see him like this, to press him to the edge, to bend, taste.... His head was thrown back, his eyes slits, a low growl rumbling along with each ragged breath.
Her tongue flicked in and out, again and again, tasting the very tip, tormenting him with the lightness of each touch. His talons pierced through to the mattress as he gripped the bed. She pulled back to shrug the satin down over the peaks of her nipples, then leaned forward to brush them against his hardness.
She ached to be filled, but still... One more teasing lick, then her whole mouth plunged over him, filled with him, sucked at him, savored his salt tang, while her hand slid up and down the length that was too much for mouth and throat to hold. The throbbing began, the taste intensified...she had gone too far...
Great hands gripped her shoulders, pushed her back. Through streaming hair she watched him wrestle for control, a harsh moan grating in his throat, drops of blood welling where fangs clenched in his lower lip.
Then his eyes burned into hers, urging, demanding, sending a message she didn't understand. All she could do was what she did understand, sliding the satin gown up above her hips, moving over him, meeting his hardness with her own wild, wet need, sliding down over him slowly, slowly, until the fullness drove her to rise, and plunge, and rise.
He gripped her hips, stilled them, then grasped her shoulders. She was consumed by the need to move, but he pulled her until her damp hair brushed his face; then his tongue came out to lick at one of the drops of blood gleaming on his lip. She remembered that tongue on her own lip, her own blood....
Jayne lowered her head and ran her tongue along the line of drops, then closed her lips around his and sucked gently until her mouth was full of the metallic tang. She swallowed. A tingle spread through her body in a frothing tide, ebbing just as he began to move, at last, in the demanding rhythm she craved.
Then she knew only the driving ache of pleasure, the mounting of the great wave that must break at last into the maelstrom of release. But he held her there, riding the crest, farther and farther, until they spun at last completely out of the world she had known.
The blaze of sensation faded gradually into glowing embers. Jayne became aware of the beat of wings. Still they spun on, ever slower, until at last familiar stone walls enclosed them and all motion ceased. She buried her face in his velvet chest.
He stroked along her hair, and down her back. Her shoulder blades tingled. The sensation grew, swelled--and at last she understood, and felt her own power, and gloried in the unfurling of her own great white sheltering wings.
The red-robed priest might think to hold a demon captive, but he could never resist an angel of seduction, and ecstasy, and death.
-end-