How Do You Celebrate the Holidays Following the Death of a Family Member?

a post by Giselle Renarde

Thanksgiving has never been a big holiday in my family. It isn’t as big here in Canada as it is in the states. I’d venture to say it also means something different. It’s mostly just an excuse to eat turkey. At least, that’s always been the case in my family.

My mother is a terrible cook, but she always cooks for us (myself and my siblings). Over-cooked, under-seasoned food is part of our tradition.

If we’re very lucky, my mom’s sister invites us to join herself and her husband for Thanksgiving. They’re amazing hosts and excellent chefs, the both of them.

We got lucky this year. We received a very unusual invitation, as far as Thanksgiving dinners go.

My family is in mourning at the moment. You know this, if you’ve been reading my posts of the last few months. In case you’re not aware, one of my cousins died unexpectedly of an overdose. What I’m learning, from this death more than any other, is that grief can weigh heavily on a family for a long time… potentially forever.

My late cousin’s immediate family—my aunt, uncle and cousin—are not okay.

Thanksgiving was the first time I saw them since the funeral. My mom’s sister planned a gathering with them in mind—with grief in mind. In a way, grief was the guest of honour. It sat among us, silently drawing our attention in its direction as we conversed.

The host of this gathering, my mother’s sister, was incredibly thoughtful in her approach. Knowing that the holidays are a hard time for those in mourning, the evening she planned was the total opposite of a traditional Thanksgiving dinner.

There was no turkey, no stuffing, no sit-down meal. In fact, we didn’t even eat indoors. We ate in the garage. It was lit by fairy lights and candles (fake ones, so we wouldn’t burn the house down). No meticulously laid-out table. No gleaming cutlery. No cutlery at all. We ate with our hands. It was all that sort of food.

My mother’s sister, who planned the gathering, told me she’s been learning that different people prefer different atmospheres. Some people like the darkness, especially during a mourning period. They don’t have to worry what they look like. And my aunt, uncle and cousin—they’re not looking so great these days.

When I got my aunt alone, I asked her how she’s doing. Some days are better than others, she said. Some days are terrible. Some are okay. She’s more concerned about her daughter and her husband. My uncle blames himself for his son’s death. She looks at her family, at her daughter and her husband, and she sees that they’re thinking… they’re thinking…

And I know exactly what she means, because I noticed the same thing. When we were all sitting around the living room chatting—with the lights on—I often looked at my uncle and my cousin, and I noticed them staring into space. No, not staring into space—staring into a space. Into that space occupied by grief.

As I said, grief sat among us. It was just more visible to those who felt they should shoulder the blame for my cousin’s death. The looks on their faces… well, it reminded me of a friend of mine, of when she used to have frequent PTSD blackouts. You’d look at her and she just wasn’t there. Her face seemed vacant.

One more reason the darkness at dinner was so welcome to so many of us. In the dark, there’s no one policing the look on your face, no one noting what you’re eating or not eating. Perhaps nobody would be judging you anyway, but in the dark there’s no false perception of being judged.

So, how do you celebrate the holidays after the death of a family member? Like this. In the dark. Maybe some people would prefer to cling to traditions, but for others, traditions bring on a wash of associations that are too much to handle when a family member’s death is still so fresh.

This will be a year of firsts, for my family. Thanksgiving was the first first. Next will be Christmas. I don’t know if we’ll dine in the dark for that, but I wouldn’t mind if we did. I wouldn’t mind one bit.

Supporting someone who is grieving deeply is so difficult, and most of us feel lost. We have no idea what to do and we’re scared of saying the wrong thing. I want to help my family, and in many ways (and for many reasons) I feel like I don’t know how. That’s why I’ve decided to donate all my October royalties from sales of my Erotic Older Women books to a non-profit in my city that does peer grief counselling. I might not know how to help, but they do, so please help me help the bereaved by purchasing:
Older Women, Wild Desires
Older Women, Lesbian Desires
Older Women, Kinky Desires
Or all three in one collection: Erotic Older Women

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.

How It Began

by Kristina Wright

A year ago in the very early morning hours of Thanksgiving here in the US, I sat in a dark room pounding out a few thousand words of a proposal for my first single title anthology. I had promised the proposal before the end of the week, despite the very busy holiday weekend, despite the fact that I had a not-quite-three-month-old baby sleeping upstairs (sleeping more than I was that week, to be sure) and a not-quite-two-year-old sleeping across the hall. So, before I had even put the turkey in the oven, before dawn had streaked the morning sky and running on an average of four hours of sleep a night for three months, I finished the proposal.

The proposal was approved, the book was contracted and I proceeded to write an eighty thousand word book in less than three months. The book hit the virtual shelves on October 25-- almost eleven months to the date of that dark Thanksgiving morning when I finished and sent the proposal. And because I wrote the book in such a compressed span of time-- and because there are roughly twenty short stories-- I have forgotten much of what I've written.

It's a strange thing, rereading my own writing and knowing I wrote the words because the story feels familiar, but not really remembering writing them. It has happened a lot in the past few years, as my production has risen while my sleep has decreased. Being pregnant, having babies, caring for children, being continually sleep deprived, having an endless stream of deadlines to meet-- it all makes for a sometimes faulty memory. And so I often lay in bed at night staring into the darkness and wondering how I'm doing it all, why I'm doing it all, whether I can do it all. Sometimes those questions-- and the lack of answers-- keeps me awake at night. It's a vicious cycle.

But this book I wrote in a frenzy at the beginning of the year, that is now available in all the usual online stores, is a point of pride for me. It is my first entire book in over a decade. I am proud of my anthologies-- six published to date, a seventh on the way in a month, four more contracted and in various stages-- but to have an entire book that is me, all me, has been a goal for several years. There is the inner critic that grumbles that it's "just" a collection of short stories and not a real novel, as I still dream-- scratch that-- plan to write, but even I can see how ridiculous my inner critic is being. I wrote a proposal, sold a book, wrote a book and saw it published in the span of a year. A very, very busy year, with a new baby in the house, a toddler going through all sorts of adjustments (along with my body, my marriage and my mind) and several other contracts and commitments to meet. I wrote a book in what everyone told me would be the hardest year of my life-- the year I had two babies under two. I wrote a book.

That thought, that single thought, is why I keep writing. Why I will always write, no matter what path my life takes. Writing sustains me. It keeps me awake in the dark, yes, but since I was a very young child, I have soothed myself to sleep by telling myself stories. The darkness is where dreams become words for me.

My book, Seduce Me Tonight (HarperCollins Mischief, October 2012), contains a collection of loosely linked short stories about couples in various stages of their lives and relationships. From people just meeting and falling in love (or lust), to long-married couples rekindling the passion between them, it's a book about people connecting in different ways, about the need to be held, comforted, loved, desired, wanted and understood. Many of the stories overlap, with recurring characters and settings. It was a fun book to write-- yes, even as I was killing myself to make deadline-- and I'm hoping it finds a wide readership who also believe in the power of love and lust.

Many of the stories include night scenes and darkness-- perhaps because that's where secrets are to be discovered. Here is a snippet from my story "Coming Home":

I knew I shouldn’t be there. I mean, hell, it wasn’t like I had even been invited. I’d broke in for god’s sake. I’d broken the law—and for what? To sit in the dark and wait for Quentin to come home so he could throw my ass out. Not for the first time, I wondered if he even would come home. It was 3 AM and I’d been sitting at his kitchen table for two hours already, running my fingers over the scarred kitchen table and planning what I was going to say to him. Two hours in—make that two months—and I still wasn’t sure what words were going to come out of my mouth when I saw him. For the hundredth time, I reflexively pressed the keypad on my phone and watched it light up with the time. 3:17.

Quentin and I were a lot alike. Both of us slung drinks for a living—alcohol for him and coffee for me—and we were both quiet and introspective, which made us good listeners for other people’s issues but not too good at sharing our own problems with each other. Quentin was stoic in dealing with life’s curveballs, whether it was his father’s unexpected death or a tree falling on his truck, and he could get focused on work or helping his brother rebuild that old Mustang of their dad’s, or repairing the fence on that piece of property out in the country, until the crisis passed.

Me, I was more inclined to run away from anything I couldn’t face head on—and sometimes that meant skipping town for a few days. Or a few weeks, in this case. I’d told my boss I had a personal crisis and needed to take as much of my vacation time as he could give me. He said my job would be waiting when I got back. All I could do was hope he was telling the truth. I was going to need a steady paycheck. Especially if Quentin bailed on me.

I knew he was still bartending at Kayla’s—but this wasn’t the city where bars stayed open until dawn. One or two, maybe, but it was getting on to the time where I either needed to pack it in and go or plan to make a night of it and hope he didn’t call the police when he found me on his couch in the morning.

I was still debating my limited options when I heard the distinct snick of a key in the front door lock. I threw a quick prayer up to the patron saint of stupid, lovelorn women that he hadn’t brought some chick home from the bar, and waited.

I hadn’t wanted him to call the police as soon as he pulled up, so I’d left the place dark when I’d helped myself to the spare key I knew he always kept tucked under the mat. He didn’t turn on any lights either, so he was just a shadowy figure standing in the doorway. Could’ve been anyone, I guess, except I knew it was Quentin. Five years with a man will make you remember tilt of his frame and the cant of his walk. And a whole lot of other things I didn’t want to be thinking about just yet. It was Quentin all right, and by the tight way he carried himself he had either jacked up his back again or he knew I was here.

“Little late for a visit, ain’t it, Rebecca?”
He knew it was me. “Hey, Quentin.”

Two months of trying to sort through the mess that was my life, two hours of sitting at his kitchen table, and that was the best I could come up with.

***

I like Rebecca and Quentin. I feel like I'm revisiting them after a long time away. So, I'm going to tuck myself into bed now (it's nearly 11 PM here on the east coast of the US) and finish reading their story. 
Good night.
(Seduce Me Tonight by Kristina Wright-- that's me!-- is available from all the usual ebook retailers.)