Living Without Winter

By Lisabet Sarai

For the past seven years, I've resided in a tropical country where we have three seasons: the hot season, the rainy (and hot) season, and the laughably-titled "cool" season, when the temperature occasionally dips into the seventies. Thus, I've been deprived of winter for the better half of a decade. Before the move, though, I lived in rural New England for more than twenty years, so I have plenty of experience with all the joys the season brings, for example, blizzards, ice-storms and that nightmarish anomaly that seems to be a Massachusetts specialty, freezing rain. I remember winter only too well: power outages, snow tires, storm windows, shoveling, hauling firewood, pulling all the winter clothes out of the attic, making sure your anti-freeze is full... After spending two years in balmy California then returning to my native clime, I came to realize that winter in a place with serious weather is an incredible amount of work.

I usually go back to the U.S. once a year to visit family, but in the spring (during the excruciatingly hot season in my adopted country). Winter is a vivid but increasingly distant memory. I do find myself waxing nostalgic and romanticizing the season. I imagine the crisp, hushed beauty of a frigid night, when the stars glitter like faraway diamonds in the velvet sky. I remember the excitement of waking up to find the trees cloaked in a soft white blanket, the river a silent ribbon of ice, the footprints of a rabbit the only sign of life in the snow-smothered world. I find myself missing the camaraderie of working with my husband to clear a path up our long driveway to the street - conveniently forgetting aching backs and frost-bitten extremities. Memories of childhood delights return to entice me: racing down a snowy hill on my Radio Flyer, digging snow houses out of the piles left by the plows, sitting on the wooden bench next to the flooded and frozen tennis court to don my cherished white figure skates. The scent of wood smoke hanging in the air - Campbell's tomato soup topped with Cheerios and grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch after stripping off my soaked snowsuit - real cocoa topped with marshmallows to warm my numb fingers... I could go on and on. Yes, I do miss winter, no matter how hard I try to focus on the dangers and inconveniences it brought.

One of the side benefits of being a writer, though, is that we can use fiction to recreate what we've lost. I definitely do that when it comes to the erotic aspects of my work. The faraway sexual adventures of my youth provide seeds for many of my stories. I write partially to recapture the thrill of those heady days when I was first exploring the joys and perils of passion.

In a similar vein, I can relive the experiences of true winter by incorporating the season into my fictional worlds. My most recent release, Almost Home, takes place during a New England blizzard, which traps the two heroes and the heroine in a eighteenth century farmhouse (modeled after the home of one of my former neighbors). My M/M novel Necessary Madness is also a winter's tale. In one of my favorite scenes, the protagonists, driving home in a storm, stop at a closed, snow-clogged highway rest area because - well, they can't wait any longer:

They’d left in a rush, barely polite. In their eagerness to get back to Rob’s apartment, they’d refused offers of coffee and breakfast. The one-hour trip from Petersham to Worcester seemed endless, especially since the state of the roads demanded extra caution.

Rob’s erection throbbed, painful and demanding. He guessed that Kyle was hard too, though with the bulky jacket and scarf, he couldn’t tell for sure. Kyle felt Rob’s gaze. He raised his eyebrows in an unspoken question and his full lips curled into a smile, but he didn’t speak.

Rob couldn’t stand it any longer. They were coming down the hill into Gardner. There was a rest area near the city line. Rob yanked the steering wheel and the car swerved into the exit lane, cutting off a truck easing up from behind.

“What the hell are you doing?” Kyle yelled. The rest area hadn’t been ploughed yet. The Saturn skidded for several yards before it came to rest in a parking spot. Rob scrambled out, then came around to open the passenger-side door. “Come on. I just can’t wait anymore.”

The lot was deserted. Wind rustled the tall pines sheltering the building that housed the toilets, knocking clumps of snow onto the windshield. Rob grabbed Kyle’s hand and practically dragged him out of the car.

“Rob, it’s probably locked.”

“I’ll break down the door if I have to.” Rob was desperate. But the men’s room was open, although the electricity appeared to be off. Wan light entered via a dirty window near the ceiling. He pulled Kyle through the door and pressed him against the tiled wall, devouring his mouth. Kyle responded with equal passion. Rob ripped open the snaps on Kyle’s jacket and grabbed at his crotch.

“I’m sorry. I’ve got to have you. Now. I can’t concentrate. I can’t drive. All I can think about is you.” He unfastened Kyle’s belt and unzipped his fly, then yanked the jeans down around Kyle’s knees. The young man’s cock sprang out, huge and ready. Rob cradled it in his hands, then squeezed hard. Kyle groaned.

“Rob, what if somebody comes?”

Rob chuckled as he wrestled with his own cold fly. “Somebody is going to come—you and me!”

“No, really. If a state trooper came in to take a leak and found us here—you might lose your job.”

“I don’t care. I can’t help it. Honestly, if I don’t fuck you right now…” Rob didn’t bother to finish the sentence. He turned Kyle to face the wall, bracing the other man’s hands against the cold ceramic surface. He wrapped his arms around Kyle’s chest and rubbed his cock back and forth in the boy’s ass crack. Kyle whimpered and ground his butt against Rob’s hardness, until Rob was sure he’d explode.

“Do it,” Kyle gasped, as Rob reached down and gripped his partner’s cock around the base. Kyle bent forward, presenting his rump. Rob spit on his fingers, then slipped one into the crevice between those pale globes. He probed the tight knot of muscle guarding Kyle’s entrance.

“I’ve got a rubber but no lube,” he whispered, wriggling his digit into Kyle’s rear hole. Kyle writhed in response. “Nothing but spit.”

“I can take it.” Kyle caught his breath as Rob inserted a second finger. “I can take anything you give me."

When I wrote this, I was there. All the sensory details were clear. I could feel the sickening swerve of the out-of-control vehicle, hear the pines groaning in the wind and the muted splat of snow blown onto the windshield. I shivered in the bitter chill of the unheated building, the scent of disinfectant rising in my nostrils, goosebumps prickling my bared flesh. Pasting the segment in here, I am surprised to note that almost none of the wintery sensations actually made it into the scene. The focus (appropriately, I hope) is on the sexual tension building between the characters. Winter is in there in the background, though, a contrast to the heat of my characters' desperate coupling.

Unlike some people who move to the tropics, I didn't leave my former home to escape from winter. Life is easier now, I'll admit, but I sometimes hunger for a taste of the cold, dark, snowy season and the complex emotions it evokes - fear, frustration, comfort, awe, hope. When the temperature drops below zero, you truly appreciate warmth. When the sun sets at four in the afternoon, you kindle a fire on the hearth to remind yourself light will return. Living without winter, I write to keep those feelings alive.

Mistletoe Kisses

By Lisabet Sarai

Our topic this week at the Grip is "Holiday Sex". This had me stumped for a while. I don't really associate the winter holidays with things sexual. Halloween, yes - what else are outrageous costumes for? And Thanksgiving, believe it or not, because my initiation into BDSM took place during a Thanksgiving vacation. But Christmas? I don't really have erotic associations.

Then I remembered that I received my first French kiss in front of a Christmas tree, from the man who would later become my first lover. I can recall the scene surprisingly well. I was fourteen, staying with my aunt over the holidays. Although she was born Jewish and at time was a disciple of an Indian guru, she had for some reason set up a tree in the living room. I remember that the twinkle of the lights twining through the branches was the only illumination. The moment has a silvery glow in my recollection. P. encircled me with his arms and pulled me against his chest, while planting his lips firmly on mine. I had no idea how to react.

Then suddenly his tongue was in my mouth. The intimacy of that sensation shocked me. I guess I knew about French kisses, academically speaking, but the reality was like nothing I'd imagined. I felt excited and scared and very confused, not knowing what to do exactly, but really, really wanting to get it right. He held me there, exploring me, for what seemed like hours. Afterward, in my room, I was so high I thought I'd float right off the bed. He wanted me - me, shy and awkward as I was, with my heavy-framed glasses, plump thighs and frizzy hair... As for P., he was as beautiful as an angel, pale as snow, with hair like spun gold and sea-blue eyes. And he smelled so good... that's one thing I remember, incense and sweat and peppermint from the candy canes we'd been eating, strange, male, but so delicious...

Once I had dredged up that memory, my thoughts turned to other kisses, midnight kisses as the old year slipped away and kisses under the mistletoe.

I found myself curious about the mistletoe kissing tradition. Mistletoe, it turns out, has had spiritual or magical significance for millenia. It is associated with the divine male essence, hence potency and virility (possibly because the waxy white berries resemble drops of semen). The plant is also entangled in a resurrection myth.

An old Norse tale recounts the birth of the god Baldur, son of Frigga and Odin, the king of the gods. A prophecy regarding Baldur's premature death led Frigga to extract a promise from every plant and animal on earth, that they would never harm her son. Somehow, however, she omitted the mistletoe plant and when Baldur reached glorious manhood, Loki tricked Baldur's blind brother into slaying him with an arrow fashioned from mistletoe. Baldur was dragged into the underworld, but like Osiris and Persephone, was brought back to life by the efforts of a loving woman (in this case his mother).

After Baldur's resurrection, Frigga declared mistletoe to be thenceforth the plant of peace. None of this, of course, explains why mistletoe has become a license to kiss, although the links with the solstice season are clear. Mistletoe is evergreen, symbolizing everlasting life. Pre-Christian cultures associate midwinter with the death and rebirth of the sun. These themes continue to echo in the Christmas story itself.

Apparently American author Washington Irving wrote about the mistletoe kiss tradition as early as 1820. This suggests that it has been practiced for a good deal longer. Most of the sources I found pointed to Scandinavia as the original source of the custom.

However they originated, kisses under the mistletoe retain a sense of mischievous transgression. It doesn't matter who you are, how old you are, to whom you're married. If someone catches you beneath that sprig of emerald leaves and snowy berries, you must submit to his or her kiss. To resist is considered to bring terrible luck. And who knows what you'll discover, mouth to mouth, breath to breath? The potent magic of the Druid's sacred plant might lead to ecstasy - or even love.

I'll leave you with a literary kiss under the mistletoe, from my recently released holiday tale Almost Home.

---

The kiss caught her off guard.

One moment Suzanne was standing in the doorway to Helena’s den, scanning the occupants and wondering if she knew anyone at all at this party. The next moment someone twirled her around and fastened a pair of firm lips on hers. Out of instinct or habit, she closed her eyes. The darkness heightened her other senses. Powerful arms circled her body and pulled her against a fuzzy male chest. Her partner’s scent rose around her, a complex mix of soap and musk, evergreen and wood smoke. His tongue teased the seam where her lips met and she let him enter, her self-protective reflexes dulled by his warmth and the glass of merlot she’d downed on her arrival. His mouth tasted of eggnog and candy canes, appropriately seasonal. He was delicious, in fact—not just his mouth but the quiet confidence of his probing tongue, the sculpted muscle she felt under his sweater, his bold hands wandering across her back to her buttocks. She hadn’t enjoyed a kiss like this in a long time.

She’d felt chilled and tense ever since her plane touched down in frigid Boston but now her muscles began to unknot. He was a miniature sun, melting her, turning her languid and dreamy. She clutched at his solid form and returned his kiss, trading heat for heat. Tropical colours paraded behind her eyelids—fuschia, lime, peach, and aqua—shimmering like the water in her pool back home. She even began to perspire, her long-sleeved velvet dress suddenly too warm for comfort.

He pulled her full hips against his lean ones. A tell-tale lump, wonderfully hard, pressed against her belly. Her panties and tights dampened, too.

Normally she would have resisted but stress and alcohol made her susceptible. She allowed the kiss to lengthen and deepen, sinking into the pure pleasure of it.

---

Wishing you a Christmas full of merriment, mischief - and mistletoe!

~ Lisabet

Places I Remember

By Lisabet Sarai

There are places I remember
All my life, though some have changed
Some forever, not for better,
Some have gone, and some remain.

--In My Life by Paul McCartney and John Lennon

My husband and I were having a Mexican dinner the other night. "Remember the Forest Cafe?" I asked him. "That funky Mexican place on Mass Ave in Cambridge?"

He didn't. As I tried to describe it to him, however, I realized that I wasn't seeing the actual place in my mind. What I was seeing and remembering was my fictionalized version. There is a scene in my novel Incognito set in this restaurant. Now when I try to recall the place, how it was laid out, its atmosphere and decor, it's that scene that comes to mind. The fiction has become more vivid for me than the reality.

I've blogged before about the fact that I'm very place-oriented in my writing. Nearly every story I've written is set in a specific locale, often a place that I know well or have at least visited. I hadn't realized, though, how persistent my mental images of my settings become – strong enough to override or distort actual experience.

Raw Silk includes a scene in a luxury Bangkok hotel called the Montien. The hotel actually exists; many years ago I may have entered the lobby once or twice. Now when I think about that hotel, I clearly recall going up the elevator to the hotel room itself. I remember the thick carpets that mute my footsteps. I can picture the layout of the room, with its floor-to-ceiling windows, the king sized bed where Kate finds wrist cuffs and a collar awaiting her, the mirrored vanity where she watches as Gregory takes her from behind. I could draw a map. It's as vivid as if it happened yesterday--although it never happened, not in the real world at least!

I just finished editing a Christmas story called Almost Home, set in western Massachusetts where I lived for many years. The two heroes own a house that's mentally borrowed from one of my neighbors, a two-hundred-plus year old farm with the typical rambling barn and so on. However, I added a few touches: a row of evergreens in the yard, a big oak tree, a hot tub on the (non-existent) deck, just out of sight of the street. Now, I can almost feel the alchemy happening, the imagined details distorting my memory of the real ones. I'm willing to bet that in a few months, I'll believe that our thrifty, staid neighbors actually did have a hot tub where they lounged naked under snowy skies!

I tend to use my personal experiences as the seed for many of my stories. However, as soon as I begin to fictionalize an individual, an event or a setting, it starts to become real. I begin to have difficulty distinguishing what actually happened from what I've written.

One of the characters in Almost Home is based on a guy I knew in high school. I spend quite a bit of time describing him — romance readers want to know what the hero looks like — and I changed some aspects of my old friend's appearance. In particular I gave him longer hair and side burns, like a nineteen eighties Italian crooner. Now when I try to picture my real friend, I don't see his crew cut anymore. The image of my hero has taken over.

My confusion between reality and fiction is particularly a problem with sexual activities. As I've shared in previous posts, I've been involved in one BDSM relationship, which had its most active and intense phase many years ago. That relationship had a huge impact on me, physically, emotionally and spiritually. Since then I've written dozens of BDSM stories. Aspects of that seminal D/s relationship show up in almost every one, as core inspiration or plausible detail. Very rarely have I fictionalized an actual scene between my Master and me. Nevertheless, I'm embarrassed to admit that now I'm not completely sure whether he ever really flogged me (for example). I recall it quite clearly, but then, I've written about it so many times...perhaps I'm only recalling my fantasies.

I know, rationally, that I've had only fleeting opportunities to make love to a woman. I've never brought a woman to climax. Still, I almost remember the taste of my lover's pussy, the way she clenches her thighs around my ears and shudders when I nibble her clit. In this case, I don't have trouble keeping reality and fiction distinct. However, the recollections of my stories feel more genuine and satisfying than the memories of my brief and frustrating real experiences.

When I mentally review my life, I'm slightly in awe of all my adventures. Who would have thought that the chubby, socially awkward egghead I was as a teen would have the chance to sample so many of the delights of the flesh? I never guessed that my childhood dreams of travel to exotic lands would come true the way they have.

Now I'm a bit worried, however. What if I made everything up? What if all the thrilling recollections I know I'll have on my deathbed are nothing but stories?

My husband is fond of saying that “there is no reality”. (I suspect that his experiences during the Sixties have something to do with this opinion.) As for me, I believe that reality is malleable, shaped by beliefs, expectations and desires. And in my case, I guess, by the stories I create.