Writing on the Edge (#risk #darkness #amwriting)

By Lisabet Sarai

“Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable” ~ Cesar A. Cruz

I saw the above quotation on a bag at the Strand Bookstore last week. To be honest, I’m not sure my writing deserves the label “art”. For the most part, I write to explore my own fantasies and to entertain my readers (and myself), not to either comfort or to disturb.

The majority of my stories reflect the fact that I’m a sex-positive optimist and an incurable romantic. My characters tend to enjoy themselves and each other. In my tales, erotic pleasure often morphs into love. Even when it does not, sexual experience rarely leaves a bitter aftertaste. I don’t always write unambiguously happy endings, but my protagonists usually learn something valuable about themselves and the world.

Every so often, though, I get the urge to write something darker—a story fueled by the disruptive power of intense desire. I’ll create a scenario full of risks, with characters who have unacceptable but irresistible needs. In these stories, sexual obsession leads to blind desperation. The raw force of the libido overwhelms rationality and morality.

These occasional dark stories that emerge from my unconscious definitely do disturb readers—to the point that the tales are almost impossible to publish. A case in point is my short piece Unforgivable, originally written for the Grip on the theme of “Confession”. I included this dark story, which features rape and worse, in the manuscript for my lesbian collection Her Own Devices. The publisher politely asked me to remove it.

Then there’s “Renfield’s Lament”, about a henchman so overcome with desire for his vampiric master and mistress that he arranges for his own murder in order to attract their attention. I eventually self-published this bloody tale, as part of my paranormal collection Fourth World. Nobody else would touch it.

“Fleshpot” also fits into this mold. That horrific story of sexual addiction did make it into an anthology—a collection of tentacle porn! I guarantee it will make you squirm.

Now I’m sitting on a new piece that seems too edgy to be publishable. “Countertransference”, a story about a psychiatrist who’s erotically obsessed with her teenage patient, has so far been rejected three times.

Here’s a snippet from this unpopular work:

Watching Alisha Al-Maghribi is not part of my job.

True, her chart reads “Under observation; potentially dangerous to herself and to others”, an appropriate notation given that she slashed her father’s (thankfully empty) mattress to ribbons with a butcher knife, then set fire to his multi-million dollar beach house. However, the orderlies and shift nurses are responsible for monitoring her, not I. It’s assumed the clinical director of a prestigious psychiatric facility like The Elms will have more important tasks than keeping an eye on one particular “guest”.

As indeed I do. I should be reviewing my notes for this afternoon’s therapy sessions, tackling the endless paperwork my job entails, or perusing the clinical journals stacked neatly on the corner of my desk. Instead I spend my time riveted to the computer screen, unable to resist my fascination with my exquisite and disturbed patient.

She’s calm today. Her back to the me, she hums to herself as she bends over her drawing. Her honey-colored curls are clipped into a casual knot atop her skull, exposing her slender neck. The high resolution surveillance camera—best on the market, like everything at The Elms—reveal tiny blond hairs that dust the tawny skin of her nape. An undeniable heaviness settles in my pelvis as I gaze at that graceful, vulnerable curve. I swallow the saliva pooling in my mouth. It’s easy to imagine stepping up behind her, clasping those smooth, bare shoulders in my palms and running my tongue up her spine. I can taste the salt I’d lick from her downy flesh, sense the shiver that runs through her at my touch. She’s taut, fragile, ready to bolt like a frightened fawn, but there’s a melting in her, too, a tiny core of trust in me, her doctor.

Gradual, gentle, careful not to startle her, I trail my fingers down her sides and across her rib cage, then reach forward to cup her girlish tits. Alisha sighs and lets her head fall back against my more ample breasts. I fill my lungs with her scent of cinnamon and roses. A slick tightness coils between my legs, urging me to move faster, to take her before I lose my nerve. I bury that urgency, willing myself to a slow but inexorable advance, like an incoming tide claiming the beach.

A knock on my office door drags me back to the present. “Dr. Gardner? Are you there?”

I stab the off button on my monitor, shaking my head to dispel my lustful fantasies. The images scatter, but the shame and the wetness remain.

~ ~ ~

I’m not really surprised this tale has been so difficult to place. I knew when the premise occurred to me that it would be a hard sell. It violates all sorts of taboos, including the trust inherent in the doctor-patient relationship. Technically Alisha is of age, but any reader can tell how much of the attraction lies in her youth. Finally, the ending is anything but happy. Perhaps there are lessons learned, but there is also irremediable damage done.

Despite the knowledge that this story might be unpublishable, I couldn’t stop myself from creating it. When I feel the temptation to write along the edges of what’s acceptable, I almost always give in, partly as an antidote to the sunny perspective in most of my work. Everyone needs a change, right?

Sometimes I feel that these shadow-drenched tales are better written than my more popular fiction, if only because they explore more intense emotions. I guess that in some sense, they are closer to being art.

Dark Since Forever

by Giselle Renarde

I've spent the past three weeks working on a submission for a dark romance anthology. That's way too long to spend on one relatively short story, but I have a checkered past when it comes to the dark stuff.

See, my writing's been dark since way back. Darkness and despair tend to appeal to readers like me--fans of literary fiction. I want my characters to be miserable.  That's why I've all but given up on writing anything close to romance. That's also why it takes forever when I do try my hand.

It's hit and miss for me, when I send out dark romances for submission. A common reaction I get from editors is along the lines of: "Wow, you went waaaaay darker than I was expecting!"  Sometimes that leads to: "I can't resist! I need to publish this!"  Other times it's: "Ummm nope."

I'm never entirely sure which way it'll go.

To prove that I've been into the dark stuff right from the start, I'd like to share with you a dark tale I wrote many years ago. It's one of my most rejected stories of all time.  In fact, it would still be unpublished to this day if I hadn't included it in a paranormal erotica box set I put together myself (aptly named Paranormal Erotica Box Set--real original!):

A Jealous God

by Giselle Renarde

«Dieu aima les oiseaux et inventa les arbres.

L'homme aima les oiseaux et inventa les cages.»

~Jacques Deval

“You are My creation, wicked Eve.”

“Creator made Eve for the pleasure of knowing her and loving her.” She bowed her head as in prayer. Even with the Creator standing right in front of her cage, she cast her gaze downward. It would be presumptuous for a mere mortal to look upon such a luminous being.

“You are mine for the taking, and mine for the keeping,” He instructed. “You are mine to do with as I desire.”

“Eve is His creation,” she repeated, bowing lower, until her forehead met the ground. “He does to her as He pleases.”

She was merely the plaything of her all-powerful and all-knowing Creator. Without any right to self-determination, how could she contemplate the meaning of I? Eve had never heard of identity. She saw the world through the camera lucida of His gaze. With Him as the closest she knew to a mirror, how could she view herself as anything but contemptible?

Her cage was made of chicken wire, but escape never crossed her mind. If she left, where would she go? Better yet, why would she go? Eve sat each day in patient silence, waiting for Him to appear. She did not sleep while He was away, for fear of missing out on the thrill of His arrival.

The chicken wire cut her flesh if she held the same position for too long, so she tried not to move. Her knees were scarred red with pointed ovals like eyes without irises. Eve was blind to life beyond the chicken wire.

All day, she waited to hear His key enter the front lock. The door would open and then squeal shut, but Creator never entered her room right away. Her room was, of course, a faulty descriptor. It was not her room in any sense—it was merely the room which her cage occupied.

When He entered, she cast her eyes suitably downward. Offering neither greeting nor request, she waited for Him to make His demands.

“Foul beast of the earth.” His voice boomed as He caught sight of her piddle in the corner of her cage. “Go on the newspaper. What do you think it’s there for?”

Eve cowered, but made no reply. On days when pain from the chicken wire made her faint, she liked to sit on the newspaper for relief. She couldn’t do that if it was soiled.

“A dog can be housetrained,” He spat. When she made no response, He commanded, “Lie down. Are you no better than a brute? Present yourself to me like a dog.”

Sinking to her hands and knees, Eve backed up against the cage. She raised her posterior high in the air to ensure her two holes would be aligned with the padded opening in the chicken wire. She could never be sure whether He might fuck her pussy or her ass, or her pussy and then her ass. But without any sense of self, Eve had no concept of preference. She existed solely for the enjoyment of her Creator.

When she pressed her chest to the floor, her tender nipples caught the chicken wire at the base of the cage. She began to nudge her forearms underneath her breasts to alleviate the pain, but Creator caught sight and cried, “Stay!”

Eve allowed her face to fall against the floor, and the wire dug into her cheek. Still, she stayed. Though she averted her gaze, she could tell He’d worn his chaps. The scent of leather surmounted even those of urine and sweat.

“Have you any desires, filthy beast?” He bellowed. “Do you wish for me to fuck you?”

“Eve has no thoughts or wishes that are not aligned with Creator’s,” she replied. “Creator will tell Eve what to think and what to wish for.”

“You will think nothing,” He snapped. “You will neither wish, desire, nor long for anything at all. You are merely a vessel to receive the bounty I come to bestow upon the earth.”

“Eve is an empty vessel waiting to be filled with the gifts of the Creator.”

Creator never sank to his knees; He graced the ground with their pressure.

Through the hole in her cage, Creator watched Eve’s purple asshole throb and grasp. He poked it with His thumb, and her assring undulated like a brainless deep-sea organism, drawing in every unsuspecting lurker.

“Your ass is begging for it,” He mocked, pulling out His thumb. “Do you want to feel my cock plunge inside your tight little hole?”

Puzzled, she replied, “Eve seeks only to please her Creator. She has no desires but His desires.”

“A body doesn’t lie. Your asshole is praying to be fucked.”

“Then it would be pleased if Creator fucked it,” she replied, as though her flesh possessed some independent capacity for perceiving pleasure.

“It would,” Creator reasoned, “but there is an important lesson every asshole must learn.”

“Ah, yes?” Eve remained ready to accept any word or action. “What is this lesson every asshole must learn?”

“Most prayers go unanswered,” Creator replied. Reaching through the hole in Eve’s cage, Creator gave her pussy lips three preparatory smacks. “I shall fuck your cunt instead.”

Bracing at the sweet sensation of sharp slaps against her delicate flesh, Eve wove her fingers through the chicken wire at the base of the cage. “Thy Will be done.”

Into the clear juice of Eve’s pink pussy, He pressed a thick middle finger. Her grasping cunt drew Him in as her asshole had done before. Creator forced an index finger inside that moist hole. When she whimpered, lifting her wire-marked face from the floor, he fucked her with three fingers, sticky and wet from the liquid of her arousal.

“Your cunt now implores my compassion. I hear her fluid prayer.” Creator growled, His voice thick with displeasure. Frowning at the sight of her pussy juice on His fingers, He cried, “Wicked Eve, has your cunt learned nothing from her neighbour?”

An obedient student of her Lord and Master, Eve replied, “Most prayers go unanswered.”

“Correct,” He exclaimed, beaming with a bizarre form of pride. “Your asshole prayed to be fucked, and that prayer went unanswered. Now your cunt prays for my cock, and neither shall her desires be met.”

“Almighty Creator,” Eve entreated, her voice soft as linen. “How might Creator’s humble servant give herself to Him?”

“Make no mistake: you do not give to me; I do not receive from you. The Creator takes, and his servant is taken from. Now get on your knees, sinful creature.”

Eve followed His simple command, rising to kneel. She placed herself before Him, her lips level with the higher of the two padded apertures in her cage. Never meeting His all-knowing gaze, she opened her mouth and extended her tongue to receive the blessing of His cock. She closed her eyes. The scent of leather grew pervasive as His smooth head brushed salty fluid down her tongue.

“You see, my sinful child…” He gasped as He swept the seam of His tip into the pool of precum. “No spiritual plea goes unheard…”

“God hears all prayers,” she echoed. With a cock against her tongue, the words were mumbled.

“Precisely,” He exclaimed, almost a cheer. “All of humanity’s bitching and moaning irritates the hell out of me. Sometimes it puts me in such a mood that I give those importunate whiners exactly the opposite of what they want.”

All she could do to set His mind at ease was wrap her lips around His cock. He released an animal moan as the silken walls of her mouth closed around Him.

Grasping the grotty lumber at the top of Eve’s chicken wire home, He plunged His cock deep in her throat. She resisted the physiological urge to sputter and choke. After a few thrusts, she would grow accustomed to the pounding.

There was no expectation that Eve should ever thrust, suck, grind, or provide any indication of enjoyment during a sexual act. Her duty, as she was so often reminded, was simply to be and be taken.

“Then there’s you, Eve…” Creator grasped her erect nipples through the gaps in the chicken wire. “Always praying for me to join you here in this slum. When I arrive, your anus calls to be filled and your cunt implores that I pump it full of cum. Do you know why I chose to fuck your mouth instead?”

Eve began to nod, but realized Creator anticipated a negative response. Instead, she shook her head no.

“Your mouth was the only part of your body that wasn’t asking to be stuffed with cock. I did it with the deliberate intent to displease you.”

She pulled away to reply, “No action of Creator’s ever displeases Eve.”

Even the most thoroughly reflected responses were seen as smart-ass comebacks. Eve’s Lord and Master held tight to her nipples with the tips of His fingernails. He twisted them away from each other until she winced, then thrust his cock down her throat. It had no choice but to be receptive. He pulled on her tender nipples to bring her closer. To encourage motion, He allowed Eve to fall back a bit. He plunged again down her throat, tugging her tits through the chicken wire. There were no friendly apertures for winter-white breasts; the antagonistic wires left red marks on her skin.

“It is not merely to prevent your enjoyment that I fuck the lips of your mouth. Wicked, wicked Eve,” He scathed, jerking her tits tight against the wire. “I do it that you may not create life inside of you. It was I who created you. It was I who caused all things to be.”

“Creator brings forth all life,” Eve replied, her words once again garbled by His cock.

“You are but an empty vessel. I hold the power to generate life within you.” He grasped her tits through the chicken wire. “It’s a gift I deny.”

He fucked her face with a kind of brutal frenzy only He could succeed in. Piercing her hard nipples with His fingernails, He pulled her tits while He rammed his cock down her throat. Tears welled in the corners of her closed eyes, wetting her lashes before trickling down her cheeks.

She accepted the collision of cock and mouth with a virgin’s tender grace. As He tugged on her tits, her body hurled itself at Him like a doll, halted only by chicken wire. The scent of leather overwhelmed her senses, until she could feel nothing but the flavour of His coverings. Its aroma surpassed even the taste of cum as it hurled past her lips, barely settling on her tongue before coursing down her throat.

Clutching her nipples with all His force, Creator cried, “Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord!”

Gasping for air, she choked on His cum. The cock still lodged in her throat hindered her cries of devotion. When He pulled out of her mouth and released her stinging breasts, she fell back on her ass, whimpering, “Praise Him according to His excellent greatness.”

“What was that?” He mocked, turning to depart. “I didn’t quite hear you.”

Cackling like the devil, He closed the door behind Him, leaving Eve alone in the chicken wire fortress. “Praise Him according to His excellent greatness,” she whispered when he had gone.

Her fate was to live out her days in captivity, waiting for the Creator to appear unto her. She might love Him, if she only knew how.

He was in the next room now, cracking open a bottle. Eve wondered if He could hear her voice over the blaring television. “Praise Him in His mighty expanse.”

Her cage had no lock, but Eve knew nothing of freedom.

Wild and Angry Spirits

Sacchi Green

I’m good at suppressing anger. Maybe too good. I get angry at external events, violence against others, destructive and unjust policies of governments, but on a personal level I tend to see the other side, to know why someone else is acting the way they are and to know when indulging my anger freely would help nothing and cause harm. This doesn’t mean that I put up with abuse—that’s never been a problem. I just, as I said, see the other side of things. Maybe that comes with being a writer.

I was still surprised at how hard a time I had finding scenes of anger in my writings. But then I remembered that Lisabeth recently mentioned my story “The Wildest Spirit” in Mtizi Szereto’s new anthology, The Darker Edge of Desire, and, being a story of shapeshifting and memories of war and revenge (and sex,) there was inevitably a certain degree of anger there. Rage, in fact.

I’m not sure this excerpt from fairly near the end makes sense standing alone, even though I’ve let it be much too long, but here goes:
_____

On the day of the eclipse, the drifting fog tasted of death.
     She knew by his tension as they started up the trail. When she crouched beside the grimacing carcass he stopped her with a snarl.
     "Get away!" The harshness rose from his own rage and guilt, and his need to be alone before the change overcame him.
     Mist swirled between them as she tried to read his face. He avoided her eyes, focusing on the blood-red barberries, the tufts of gray fur caught on the thorny bush in the coyote's death convulsions.
     "Leave it! I..." The man-voice came with an effort. "I should have been here! If you hadn't kept me...."
     Blaming her couldn't ease his guilt. He should have been in the forest, on guard against senseless death, but he had let himself be distracted by the pleasures of human flesh, of hands and mouths and minds. His body still resonated with the memory, even as bones and tendons screamed to lengthen, shorten, change.
     "Get away! Leave me alone!"
     She straightened, arms clutched around her belly as though to keep herself from shaking. Her wide gray eyes burned through the fog.
     "You're right. It's time. I never meant to keep you, never thought...."
     Then she was gone. A last whisper drifted to him on a streamer of mist; "Good-bye, and thanks...." He blocked it out.
     He crouched in wolf-form in the underbrush through the day, a black hole masked by swirling cloud. Toward evening the air cooled and cleared; sunset glowered in the west as the moon rose in the east.
     He waited. Coyotes circled at a distance. Condensation soaked his outer fur, but the heat at his core burned steadily.
     The shadow crept across the moon, and across his mind. Only a bright sliver of clarity remained when tires crunched on gravel by the gate a quarter mile away and the scent he awaited trickled toward him on a faint breeze.
     To keep the wolf-form was to commit to a kill. In man-form, capture would still be an option. But something in him fought the change, and then, as he pressed, he knew with a touch of panic that it wasn't going to happen.
     He thought of the woman, mouth against mouth, skin against naked skin, but words stabbed through his mind; "I never meant to keep you...."
     The moon was a dull red bruise. Old images throbbed inside his skull; another darkened moon, other deaths, blood-scent heavy on the thick jungle air; another failed attempt to change.
     Coyote voices cut through his clouded thoughts. A few adolescent yips at first, then wave upon wave of howls, driven by the mystery of a full moon there and not-there at the same time.
     It might have been the eclipse that drained his power to change; it might have been the turmoil in his mind. It didn't matter. The wolf focused, committed, let his rage feed on the reek of fear and hatred spilling from the killer.
     Another howl, closer now, and the intruder slowed his approach. The acrid stink of his fear seared the air. He stopped, and the wolf tensed to pursue, but another howl from behind drove the man forward.
     A light wavered, glinting on a long knife and on the dull steel of a semi-automatic rifle.
     With what remained of man-thought the wolf wondered what dark fantasy drove the killer. He had smelled that bitterness before, that consuming hunger of one who lacked the strength of mind or body for true dominance. If coyote pelts on his wall fed the killer's lust for power, how much deeper would be the dark joy of defeating a wolf? Of defeating his own deepest fear?
     The human's fear of the coyotes was delusion; they were no threat to him. Even wolves were too sane to waste effort on revenge.
     Except for this wolf.
     The killer came on again, the beam of his light sweeping the brushy roadside. It swung past the wolf, stopped, swung back....
     In the absence of weapons the wolf would have taken time to savor the man's terror. Only a second now to display slanted eyes blazing with reflected light; then a snarl, just enough for a flash of teeth longer than any coyote's; then, as the light crashed to the ground and the gun swung forward, a twisting leap that carried him under and to the right of the burst of gunfire. A powerful, smashing shoulder; the man, unbalanced already by the gun's recoil and his own panic, went down with a guttural scream.
     Then the wolf was on him, slashing the forearm that clutched the rifle, snapping the bones with powerful jaws. The man still gripped the knife in his other hand, but the wolf scarcely felt it slice his thigh. The scent of his own blood was a mere trickle in the hot flood sweeping him as he tore through the man's shoulder, face, throat. Human blood in his nostrils, his mouth, his gullet, blood not just of this human but all those others, under that other bloody moon, as his comrade lay dying on the jungle floor and the wolf-form had no hands to help him, carry him, no voice to radio for help, no human thought but the thirst for vengeance....
      This man died too easily. Only that fleeting thought linked the wolf to the remnants of his own humanity.
     A bright crescent rimmed the moon's dark bruise. He moved, stiffly at first, then at a limping trot.
     He lay in a stream as the torrent flushed the blood from his coat and cleaned his wound. The slash was shallow; thick fur had obstructed the blade, but movement kept the wound bleeding and he would eventually weaken.
     He needed a den, a safe haven for rest and healing. His sense of place wavered as the woods around him warped into twisted, reeking jungle, returned to northern forest, distorted again....
     He emerged at last into a clearing and saw, by the light of the half-restored moon, the haven instinct had found. He crept toward the house and the waiting, moon-washed figure. The rightness drew him; the wrongness dragged at him and kept him low to the ground.
     She stretched her hand out slowly; he growled a warning. _No human touch_! But this touch, so familiar....
     She backed gradually up the steps and into the lamplit interior. He followed, stiff-legged, unable to close the distance, or to let it lengthen.
     Slowly she sank to the floor. Her eyes dropped, freeing him from the painful intensity of her gaze. She fumbled at her shirt collar, swept away her hair, and arched her smooth, vulnerable throat in symbolic submission.
     He crept forward, tested her with jaws that pressed from nape to windpipe. Then he released her neck and laid his dark head against her shoulder, gulping her scent in great shuddering sighs as her arms went around him and a cloud of russet hair fell forward to mingle with night-black fur.
     At last she leaned back enough to stroke the silver streaks at his temples. Her face still showed traces of shock, but more than a trace of tenderness.
     Then her hand moved gently toward his wounded thigh, and her touch set off such ripples of pleasure that he almost missed the signals of impending change.
     She stiffened at his urgent growl; he thrust his muzzle  against her eyes to close them, then tried to pull away.
     Her arms tightened. He gave in, let the change surge through his body as her voice flowed over him, murmuring, comforting, "It's all right, all right...." And her hands and body clung to his, explored him, as the wolf-form became man-form.
     At last he lay naked and exhausted in her arms. With an effort he raised a hand to open her still-closed eyes. The man-voice came with an effort. "You... knew?"
     "No... not _knew_I thought it was just my private fantasy."
     She stroked his head again, then moved her hand down over shoulder, chest, belly. When she eased from under him to kneel by his side and lower her face toward his loins a surge of longing stirred him, but her mouth went to his wounded thigh. Gently she licked away the blood.
     "Your blood--could it make me..."
     "No. You have to be born to it." And she wasn't, she couldn't be, he would have known if that flesh had ever changed. But there was something so unfathomable, so strange and wild, about her....
     "I thought so." A shadow more profound than disappointment crossed her face.
     Then she tossed the hair out of her eyes and stood. "He's dead?"
     It took him a moment to understand. "Yes."
     "Your clothes are out there?"
     "Yes, I should get them." He started to rise, wavered, then made it to the couch.
     "It's my turn now." She shrugged into her jacket. "Will it look as though coyotes did it?"
     "Coyotes couldn't..." The snap of a heavy arm bone between his jaws echoed in his head.
     "We can't let them be blamed, be hunted down. And talk of a wolf would be even worse." She felt in a pocket and drew out gloves. "Is the knife that cut you still out there?"
______

After which, the woman proves to be even fiercer in rage  than the wolf, with a spirit at least as wild as his own.

The Optimist's Apology

By Lisabet Sarai

In 1999, I published my first erotic novel. I had no idea what I was doing, no literary context for either erotica or romance. I'd read The Story of O, Anne Rice's Beauty books, and some Victorian smut, plus the one Black Lace book that inspired me to write Raw Silk, but I'd never read any Romance with a capital R – my idea of romance was tragic tales like Wuthering Heights - and overall I was woefully innocent of such issues as genre conventions.

Raw Silk had a happy ending – that is, if you would assign the description “happy” to a sexual contest among the heroine's three lovers, which leads her to reject her wholesome but virile hometown guy and an omnisexual Thai prince for an emotionally-constipated Dom with attitude.

My second novel (Incognito) had an equally positive conclusion, in which the heroine commits to the bookish colleague who has proved to her that sex doesn't have to be anonymous to be hot – though there are intimations that their bound-to-be-exciting future relationship will include encounters with Mark's cousin Marla as well.

My third novel (Nasty Business)? Yup, you guessed it. A happy ending, in the sense that the business rivals acknowledge that their mutual attraction may be the basis for some sort of longer term relationship. The heroine does reject the hero's proposal of marriage - he proposes as she's tied to the mast of his sailing yacht, after he has screwed her with a champagne bottle... Needless to say, that is not why she refuses!

Not until my fourth novel, an erotic noir, did I fashion a more ambiguous conclusion. Exposure ends with a massive question mark. Stella has suffered violence and betrayal. She has lost her home, her family memories, and very nearly her life. Two lovers, one male and one female, both want her, but she's not at all certain which, if either, she'll choose. Mainly she needs to heal herself. There's a suggestion that the best way for her to do this is to distance herself from anyone associated with the events that have scarred her. However, I don't offer any answers.

Since then I've published four additional novels, all deliberately targeted at the erotic romance market, so of course they all end at least “happily for now”. Although I sometimes complain about the constraints of the romance genre, I have to admit that winding these books up in a manner acceptable to romance readers was not that difficult. Usually, I had the conclusion in mind when I began the tale; it was in some sense inevitable (because of the story, not because of the genre).

The thing is, I'm basically an optimist. I've lived a fortunate life, and I tend to expect good things to happen. To me, a happy ending doesn't necessarily seem forced or implausible (though I've certainly read plenty of stories where the sudden crumbling of every barrier to happiness really galled me). Happiness isn't necessarily assured, in my view, but it's certainly possible.

What's important to me is that the conclusion make sense – that it flow from the premise and the characters. Furthermore, the characters must change over the course of the tale, and often, this change will be triggered by trauma or loss. In Quarantine, for instance, one of the heroes is horrifically wounded – almost killed – in an anti-authority riot. He loses his hand and his entire face must be reconstructed. Quite literally, he becomes someone else, and this experience both matures and embitters him.

Although I often write happy endings, I'm definitely concerned about the “romancing” of erotica. I have no problem with love, you understand. I just worry because it seems to be getting harder and harder to find publishing venues for stories without it, stories with darker themes or less-than-rosy endings. Optimist though I am, I've written a few of those myself. “Trespass”, a science-fiction treatment of Romeo and Juliet, ends with the death of both protagonists. That story was rejected by three editors before I found a home for it.

I suspect I'd never have succeeded in publishing “Fleshpot” (in which the narrator perishes in the tentacled embrace of a seductive monster) if I'd tried to submit it to one of the mainstream erotic publishers like Cleis, Xcite or Mischief. (It appeared in Nobilis' charity anthology of tentacle porn, Coming Together Arm in Arm in Arm.) And I'd guess that nowadays I'd be hard pressed to get anyone to accept two of my earliest (and I think, among my best) stories, “Higher Power” and “Communion”. The former ends with the narrator/heroine paralyzed from a BDSM stunt gone wrong while in the latter, the narrator is burned at the stake as a witch.

Still, the vast majority of my fiction, even the tales that clearly deserve to be labeled erotica, have happy or at worst bittersweet endings. (I've a particular fondness for tales of transcendent chance encounters, after which the participants part, forever transformed.) And here at the Grip, surrounded by some authors (Amanda, Daddy, Garce and Jean, at least) who write gritty, serious, intense, even painful erotica, I sometimes feel moved to apologize for my sunny view of the world. Sorry – I'm not trying to make things worse! I really do believe the world needs all kinds of stories, with all kinds of endings.

My worry about the market trend toward ignoring anything without a HE is pushing me to write darker erotica, though that does not come naturally to an optimist like me. We need some balance, I think. I welcome the advent of Burning Book Press (http://burningbookpress.com/) and Stiff Rain Press (http://www.stiffrainpress.blogspot.com/), independent e-presses who emphasize the erotic rather than the romantic elements in their offerings, and who pull no punches when it comes to taboos and darkness. I'm working on a story for the recently announced Burning Book anthology Written on Skin, which will end with the hero's death and the heroine's flaying him. Not exactly HEA.

Of course, the past few years have seen the demise of several publishers, like Freaky Fountain and Republic Press, pioneers who bucked the happily-ever-after-everywhere trend. (Freaky Fountain's Bad Romance deserved to become a classic.) I only hope that these newcomers don't suffer the same fate.

Given my generally positive perspective, I'm hoping for the best and looking forward to a literary renaissance on the darker side of sex.

My Newest Baby

By Lisabet Sarai

I'm sure I had something in mind six weeks ago, when I chose this week's Grip topic, “Pride”. Perhaps I planned to talk about the importance of patting yourself on the back for your own accomplishments – because you can't count on anyone else doing so. Maybe I intended to look at the sin of pride, and how being overly self-congratulatory can lead to the proverbial fall. Or, since June is gay pride month, I might have devoted my post to the current state of same-sex lovers in today's world, the recent gains and setbacks.

Whatever I meant to say – well, it's gone now, because I didn't have the foresight to jot down my thoughts in my notebook! So instead, I'm going to blow my own horn a bit, talking about my new book (due out within days), Bangkok Noir. Because honestly, I'm really proud of this novella, for a myriad of reasons.

For one thing, Bangkok Noir is hard-core erotica, not romance. There's nothing wrong with romance, mind you. It's my literary bread and butter. However, sometimes I find the requirements of the genre a bit constraining, compared to erotica. Readers of erotica have broader tastes, I think, and are more likely to accept and enjoy characters, situations, and resolutions that romance readers would reject outright.

One of the heroines of Bangkok Noir is a six-foot-tall dominant dyke in her late fifties, who has lost a breast due to a mastectomy, and her university job because of an affair with one of her students. Doesn't sound like your typical romance lady, does she? One of the heroes is a Thai police colonel, also in his fifties, tough and skinny, with a secret desire for submission. Not one of the handsome, muscular types who normally grace the pages of erotic romance. And yet I think (I hope) readers will find both these unconventional characters arousing in their interactions with one another.

I've been a bit concerned that I'd lost the knack for writing erotica. Writing Bangkok Noir has reassured me.

Another reason I feel proud is that in writing this book, I managed to overcome the inertia that normally plagues my stories. Usually, once I've written something, I find it's almost impossible for me to make significant changes. I believe this is a weakness. It suggests I don't have sufficient control over my work. This book started life as a 10K short in my collection Fire. For years, one of my close friends (one of the few who know about my erotic alter-ego) has been pestering me to expand it. I always felt that doing so would be far too difficult to attempt, but finally, for his sake, I decided to give it a try. The result is 32K long, and much richer and more complex than the source. Erasing the dividing line between the original ending (written nearly a decade ago) and the new material posed a significant challenge, but based on the response I got from my crit partner, I think I succeeded.

I'm proud that I actually managed to write something dark. My tales are normally pretty sunny; I wanted to stretch myself, to see if I could produce something just the opposite. Let me warn you, the title of Bangkok Noir is highly appropriate. The plot centers around a serial killer who targets girls from Bangkok's notorious red light districts and leaves his victims tightly bound, with clamped nipples and every orifice stuffed with sex toys. And no one lives happily ever after.

I'm also hugely proud of the cover, which does a fantastic job conveying the tone of the book. I didn't create the final cover, but I did find the art and suggest the layout. And I absolutely love it!

I don't want to overburden this blog with promotion, but I thought that maybe, just maybe, you might like to read a snippet. The POV here is that of the other heroine, a normally dominant Thai gogo dancer who is bewildered by her reactions to a stranger who takes her out of the bar, who just might be the killer.

There was the sound of the bathroom door opening. My heart beat ever quicker than before. I kept my eyes straight ahead, facing the ceiling. I felt his warmth beside me, but I didn't turn to look. Then there was a flash of light reflecting metal, and I couldn't help myself.

The farang stood very close to me. He was naked. There was blond hair around his nipples, and darker hair between his legs. His cock was hard. The pale skin on it was stretched so tight, it looked like it might burst. The knob at the end pulsed, bright red. I thought of the beacon light on top of a police car.

Saliva flowed into my mouth. I wanted to taste him, to suck him. I started to reach for him, to pull him closer. Then I saw. He had an open pocketknife in his hand.

I choked back a cry. The shiny blade gleamed as he waved it slowly in front of my face. I shrank away, out of instinct. He saw my terror. He loved it.

"Be still," he said quietly. "I told you not to move. I meant it." He leaned over me. I smelled his cologne and his sweat. The knife was close to my skin, close to my throat. I tried to scream. Somehow I couldn't. Because despite my terror, I didn't want to move. I didn't want to disappoint him.

I tried to close my eyes. He held them open with his stare. "Look at me, Nok," he whispered. His eyes were deep pools of cold blue. It seemed that something flickered there, like a frozen flame.

The flame seemed to spread from his eyes to my body. I was on fire with wanting him. At the same time, I was paralyzed by fear.

He hooked the tip of the blade into the fabric of my shirt and ripped it downwards. The shirt fell open, showing him my brown, swollen nipples. Swollen with desire for him. He laughed softly. Gently, he placed the cold steel flat against one aching nub. I shivered, and he laughed again.

"You are perfect, just what I need," he said. Leaving the knife in place, he sucked my other nipple into his mouth. Hot saliva and cold steel. Pleasure beat in my sex like another heart. "And I am what you need, the master you have been seeking."

No, I thought vaguely, no one is my master. I am the mistress, the one giving the orders. That thought melted away in the heat of his mouth.

He put the knife aside. He trailed kisses down my belly. I tried to help him unzip my shorts. He slapped my hand away. "Be still! Unless you want me to punish you..." He sat upright and his eyes flicked over to the knife. "If you won't obey me, I might as well leave."

This was far worse threat than the knife. "No, sir, please, don't. I won't move." I tried to remain motionless. It was very difficult.

He raised my hips with one hand and pulled my shorts down to my knees with the other. The smell of my sex was strong. He swiped one finger through my crack. I jerked in reaction, close to coming from that one touch.

A stinging slap on my left breast, then on my right. "Still, I said!" After the pain, the glow, the pleasure flowing through me like a river. "I'll have to tie you, I suppose. That will keep you in check." Roughly, he pulled off my shorts and tossed them aside. Then he reached under the bed. He came back up with a coil of black rope.

A faint flicker of fear, a dim memory. She probably asked for it. His face, hovering over mine, eyes burning into my soul. "Do you want that, Nok? Shall I bind you, so that you are helpless? So that I can do whatever I want to you?"

His fingers groped in my pussy and found my clit. He began to squeeze. Slowly at first, then faster. Then his fingernails, digging into my flesh. Each time slicing a little deeper. Each time creating sharper pain and more intense delight.

Still. I must remain still, I thought, even as I thrashed and struggled on the bed. Suddenly, he took his hand away. "No, please..." I pleaded, as the echoes of pleasure quickly faded.

"Please what?"

"Don't stop, please."

"But how can I continue when you won't be still?"

"Please, sir." I was lost, desperate, ready to do anything for his renewed touch. "Please, tie me up, if that's what you want. I'll do anything. Just don't stop. Don't go."

"Good girl," he murmured, bending to prod my clit with his tongue and send an earthquake through my body. "I think you are ready. Ready for the ultimate thrill."

The ropes tightened around my wrists. I felt a new surge of terror. Then all at once, new peace. I had made my choice. I was in his hands, for better or worse. All that mattered was that I please him.

He was fastening some sharp metal clamps onto my pussy lips when I heard my phone ring. In my pocket. On the floor. Across the room.

He plunged three fingers deep into my pussy. I forgot to be afraid.

Bangkok Noir will be released sometime this coming week, I hope, by Books We Love, Ltd. Check my personal blog Beyond Romance for details.

NIghtmares

By Lisabet Sarai

They're coming. I've locked the windows and the doors, but I know that won't keep them out indefinitely. Now I'm on the second floor, with no way to escape. I hear the squeal of the wooden front door being torn apart. Where can I hide? In the bathroom there's a cupboard under the sink, with a louvered door. I squeeze myself into the cramped space, close the door, hold my breath. Footsteps on the stairs. Shadows cast against the barred light that enters my place of concealment. My chest hurts; I must release the air trapped in my lungs. I allow myself to exhale, as slowly and quietly as I can. They've left the bathroom now and they're checking the closets. Maybe I'll be safe after all. Then the cabinet is thrown open and I'm dragged out, screaming, to stand before their leader.

Who are they, these invaders? Sometimes they are vampires, sometimes aliens or zombies, sometimes a cult of evil witches and sorcerers—always creatures with power. They are often fiendishly attractive, hardly ever physical monsters. Yet I know that they'll kill me, though I'm never sure why.

Just like my other dreams, my nightmares have elaborate plots. The motivations, though, are hardly ever clear. The only certainty in these dreams is fear.

Sometimes I try to negotiate with the leader, to bargain for my life. Sometimes I wake up just as I am dying. The worst dreams, though, are the ones where I discover I'm holding a knife or a sword, and plunge it into the villain's body, again and again. Then I awaken, drenched with sweat, my heart racing, trying to wipe the images from my mind. The most awful nightmares are the ones where I find myself turning into the evil one.

I shudder when I think about the sensations, the yielding of the monster's flesh as my blade enters. How do I know what this feels like? I've never stabbed anyone, but in my dream I don't hesitate at all. I can't get the scene out of my thoughts. I get up, use the bathroom, drink some water, trying to banish the taint of violence. Sometimes I'm successful, but the doubts linger. Am I really capable of such acts? Could I mortally wound someone under the right circumstances? If not, then why do I dream it?

In the real world, I consider myself a peacemaker. I dislike confrontation. I'm willing to compromise for the sake of mutual harmony. I consider most if not all wars unjust. I demonstrated against the Vietnam war and the invasion of Iraq. I strongly believe that violence is counter-productive, that it merely breeds more violence in a vicious circle of retribution. Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi and the Dalai Lama are my heroes.

So what does it mean that I sometimes dream of wielding a knife against an enemy?

Unlike many romance authors, I've never created a warrior hero. A few of my books, notably Exposure and Necessary Madness, include some violence—murders, beatings, arson, attempted rape. After all, it's difficult to write a thriller without some spilling some blood. I'm never all that comfortable writing about these topics, however, and I don't think that I do it very well. When I wrote Exposure, I worried that it was unacceptably dark; reviewers, though, seemed to see it as almost a romp.

I've mentioned in previous posts that I occasionally use my dreams as starting points for my stories. I wonder if I could harness my nightmares in the same way. Horror is a genre that I find totally beyond my understanding (other than at the level of parody). Dark erotica, however, like the work of Helen Madden or Polly Frost, is a sub-genre that I appreciate even though I've never been able to create it myself. Perhaps I could use my own dark dreams as a starting point. I should mention that in the recurring nightmare above, my negotiation is sometimes sexual. I'll offer myself for the pleasure of the evil crowd, in return for my survival.

The scenario above is not, of course, my only nightmare. I dream of elevator cables suddenly giving way (the classic dream of falling); of fat, chitinous bugs crawling out from the walls and across my skin; of losing my husband and having no idea where he is or how to contact him. The experience of assaulting my enemy is the most disturbing, though. I'd like to believe that's not me—but how can I disavow any of the images concocted by my mind?

For our Saturday guest, I've invited Kim Richards, horror author and founder of Damnation Books, to join us. Meanwhile, I'm understandably curious about the nightmares of my fellow Grip authors—and of our readers.