Ken, the Go-Go Boy

Every author has at least one favourite character that they've created.  For me, it's Ken from my novella series, Go-Go Boys of Club 21.  Whereas I normally try to create believable and fully-realized three-dimensional characters for my fiction, Ken began as a rather one-dimensional character.

He was a sex-crazed go-go boy in a gay club.  In the first two of the five novellas that make up the series, his scenes were pure sex -- wild, uninhibited, risky sex.  He was the type of guy that would do anything for dick.

By the time I reached the third novella in the series, I felt like Ken needed a twist in his storyline.  To this point, we'd seen him hook-up a couple times with Dan, the slightly-creepy and older bartender who was always hitting on the go-go boys.  Dan was similarly one-dimensional and would also do just about anything for dick.

On a whim, after a hook-up, I wrote a mild hint of emotional connection between these two fuck buddies.  I took it and ran with it in novellas four and five -- and suddenly these two one-dimensional characters blossomed into three-dimensional characters.  They go from sex-crazed men who go on hook-up after hook-up with random men to boyfriends (albeit in a semi-open relationship).  It wasn't a sudden change in characterization that was typical of bad writing -- at least I hope not -- but it was a huge sense of growth and personal development experienced by the characters and that the readers got to follow along with.

While the series started with Ken and Dan being almost throwaway characters who were in the books just to up the sexual content, they very quickly evolved into primary characters who almost competed with the main characters for attention in the series.

The language I used in Ken's scenes was far different than anything I'd done before -- straight to the point, sparse, and an interesting word choice here and there.  He was also in present tense, compared to past tense for the rest of the book.  (Dan's scenes were also in present tense -- this choice was to make their sexy encounters feel more real and in-the-moment.)  But all of that evolved with the character to a slower style, but still punctuated with Ken's almost unusual method of narrating.

Compare his first scene in the series with his last:

First scene:

*****

Break time.

The washroom door clatters closed behind me. I admire the hot asses packed in tight denim, lined up along the urinal wall like grocery store merchandise. I saunter to the lone empty urinal at the end, admiring. I’ll have a lick of that, a bite of him, and good God, I’ll bury my face in that one!

As tempting as each ass is, I’m not here to rim or fuck. No time for that and no way to clean up before going back out to dance. All I’m here to do is guzzle some fucker’s hot, salty cum.

I swivel on a heel as I stop at the final urinal and steal a glance at the cock beside me. It’s thick, semi hard, and has a fat, delicious vein snaking up the shaft. It unleashes a golden stream that splatters against porcelain. I look up at him and take in the rest of his gorgeous body. He’s all muscles and body hair and sweat; he is one hundred percent man — exactly what I lust for ... except for his douchey ball cap, but I’ll let that slide.

He notices my stare of seduction and gives me the nod that says, “Game’s on.”

I recognize him from the dance floor. He knows how to use his body, how to move it in all the right ways. I’ve had my eye on him for most of the evening.

Around us, a symphony of flushes and footsteps fill the air, but neither one of us moves until the washroom empties out. Alone. Mmm.

Ball Cap finishes pissing, shakes his cock until it’s dry — and hard. Wide, not too long to take in my mouth, this is gonna be good.

*****

Final Scene:

*****

Dan and I say goodbye and head out to his car. We get in and he puts his key in the ignition, but before he can start the car, I grab his shirt and pull him to me, kissing him, shoving my tongue in his mouth. Fuck, I need him. He turns in his seat so he can lean over me, dominating me in the car. Fuck, he’s powerful and it just turns me on all the more.

When our kisses slow and stop, I say to him, “What did you think of tonight?”

“The birthday party?” he says, and I see a fire in his gaze. “It was incredible. You have no idea of the things I want to do to you right now.”

I kiss him again and grope his crotch. He’s hard, thick, and ready to do naughty things to me, I know it. My cock swells at the thought of what that might be.

“I think you should take me home now,” I tell him. “And we can do some of those things you have in mind.”

“Mmm ... I can’t wait.” He rights himself in his seat, buckles up, and starts the car.

*****

It was a wild journey with Ken -- and one that Ken noticed in himself.  Below is the moment he comments on this change in himself.  It remains my most favourite line I've ever written for the simple fact that it sound ridiculous, but fits in perfectly with Ken's character and how he's grown.  It's a line that I don't think I could pull off in any other book.

*****

I smile to myself, still mystified at this change I’m going through. It’s like I’m metamorphosing from a horny slut caterpillar into a beautiful and majestic cock-hungry butterfly that has a boyfriend with a tasty dick.

*****

:)



Cameron D. James is a writer of gay erotica and M/M erotic romance; his latest release is Seduced by My Best Friend’s Dad (co-written with Sandra Claire). He lives in Canada, is always crushing on Starbucks baristas, and has two rescue cats. To learn more about Cameron, visit http://www.camerondjames.com.

Working Class Heroine

By Lisabet Sarai

I strip for the fun of it. Don’t let anyone tell you different. It’s not the money. I could make nearly as much working at the mill and keep my clothes on, but then I’d have to suck up to the bosses. Here at the Peacock, I’m the one in charge, and I like it that way.

Sometimes I think it’s a sort of revenge, for all the times I heard those nasty calls trailing after me: Honey Jugs, Monster Boobs, Bouncer. Not to mention those sweaty, awkward clinches in back seats, trying to please. Trying to be popular. Now they can’t take their eyes off my breasts, swinging back and forth in time to the music. Their tongues are hanging out. I can see the tents in their laps. They all want me. I know how to make them want me. I’m an expert. But I’m off limits. They can look, they can drool, they can beg me. But my job’s to turn them on and bring them to the bursting point, then send them home unsatisfied.

That’s my view, anyway. Some of the other girls think different. All in all, though, the Peacock Lounge is a pretty classy joint, not like some of the sleaze pits down near the railroad.

I love the moment when the lights come down, and the DJ introduces me. There’s this strange pause, as if I was floating. I can feel them out there, the audience, holding their breath. Then, I hear the first notes of my routine. Energy surges through me. I’m one hundred percent alive. My nipples get hard and my sex tingles when I step out onto the stage and meet their eyes.

That’s my secret weapon: eye contact. Up close and personal. I can bump and grind, shake my tits in their faces, bend over so they get a good look at the G-string settled in my ass-crack. It doesn’t do any good without my stare. I try to see their darkest fantasies. This one pictures me sitting on him, his mouth burrowing in my bush. That one wants me to hold his dick while he pees. That guy in the back, oh, he’s bad news. He aches to tie me up and beat me with his belt. Tough luck, feller. Dream on.

This is the voice of Stella Xanathakeos, the heroine of my erotic thriller Exposure. After seventeen years, nine novels and a raft of shorter work, it’s hard for me to decide on a favorite character, but Stella has to be near the top of the list.

I’d written three novels before Exposure. Stella was a real departure for me, the first working class heroine I’d ever created. Kate O’Neill (Raw Silk), Miranda Cahill (Incognito) and Ruby Maxwell Chen (Nasty Business) all have at least masters’ degrees. Stella has a diploma from a public high school in gritty Pittsburgh. Kate and Miranda are upper middle class, while Ruby is the scion of wealth. Stella grew up motherless in a shoddily built row house, which she inherited when her electrician father succumbed to cancer.

Stella doesn’t use fancy vocabulary. Her grammar isn’t always perfect. She’s tough, practical and assertive, a first generation Greek-American with strong ties to her heritage.

Even physically, she’s different from the trio in my first three books. They’re all petite (like me), or at least willowy. Stella’s a big woman, tall and imposing, with a lot of flesh on her bones in all the right places. She has the body of an Aphrodite, and she knows it.

“Just a moment, Jimmy,” I say, my voice barely more than a whisper. I stand and face him, continuing the work he began on my buttons. One hand unfastens them from neckline to waist, the other from waist to hem. He’s transfixed, watching me. I see the fabric between his legs stir as he grows more excited.

My timing, as always, is perfect. The delay at each button is painful and yet he savors the wait, the building suspense. I don’t try to get into Jimmy’s head. I merely watch him as he watches me. His excitement feeds mine, and mine his, in a hot loop spiraling tighter with each breath.

I shrug my dress onto the grass. “Take out your cock, Jimmy,” I murmur. “I want to see you. Touch yourself for me.”

Jimmy needs no second invitation. In a flash his fly is open and his erection is swaying in the night air. The taut skin on the shaft shines pale in the dim light. The knob is much darker. Without taking his eyes from mine, he cups the bulb in one hand, rubbing the swollen flesh against his palm. With the other hand, he grips himself near the root and begins a slow stroking.

“That’s lovely, Jimmy.” Exposed by the half-bra, my nipples throb each time he squeezes himself. I roll them between thumb and forefinger, wishing I could take them in my mouth.

There’s no point in removing the brassiere; he can see all my charms, and the black lace contrasts nicely with my dusky skin. But the thong is definitely in the way. I can feel myself blooming, unfolding in anticipation of having that hardness inside me. I suddenly lose patience with my gradual progress. Without ceremony, I push the panties down to my ankles and step out of them.

In twinkling city light, I think I must look like a goddess: breasts like globes, thighs like columns of marble flanking the dark entrance to the mystic grotto. Jimmy is hugely erect now, but he almost looks frightened, confronted as he is by the awesome mystery of womanliness. I feel a surge of affection that nicely seasons my lust.

Of course Stella is highly sexed. I find it amusing that she claims to be very discerning about who she beds, yet she has an erotic encounter with a stranger in the very first chapter. Like many real people, she’s capable of self-delusion. She’s smart, though, and amazingly brave, though perhaps a bit foolish in her persistent attempts to discover the truth about the murders that occur in Chapter 1. In fact, her stubbornness nearly kills her.

Stella was the first of my characters to literally speak to me. She sprang into being fully formed, unlike my other heroines, who really began as abstract concepts that I fleshed out as I wrote. In fact Exposure began as a short story called “Private Dance” which I wrote for an ERWA theme challenge—erotic noir. I sometimes wonder if that explains her vivid reality.

Exposure was also the first book I wrote that did not have a happy ending. Perhaps that’s why it has never sold well, though it has been through three publishers. Ultimately Stella unravels the web of treachery that spawned the murders, but in the process she loses her precious home—and her innocence. The novel’s conclusion is deliberately ambiguous in terms of which of her lovers, if any, she will return to. She’s damaged, her heart in some sense broken, by the deceits of those lovers and the terrible reality of evil she has encountered.

In Exposure’s three incarnations I’ve had some attractive covers, but none of them has presented Stella the way I envision her. When I was working with my first cover artist, Stella Price (at Phaze Publishing), I found this photo, which really captured the character for me. 

 

The artist told me it would be much too difficult to remove the background. The final cover for that edition was nice enough, but I’ve often wished I could have had my way. 

 

Of course now that I’ve tried making some covers of my own (including the one for the most recent, Excessica edition of Exposure) I know she was right. 

 

I sometimes think about resurrecting Stella in a new book. Perhaps she’ll manage to find the love she needs. Perhaps she’ll be confronted by even darker foes.

On the other hand, she has never been anyone else’s favorite. That’s too bad, because she deserves to be.

If you're interested, you can read another excerpt from the book, and find buy links, here:

http://lisabetsarai.blogspot.com/2016/05/sunday-snog-225-exposure-erotic.html

Do Machines Have Souls?

by Jean Roberta

"Tools" seems to define relatively simple objects. Machines seem like more elaborate versions of tools. Back in the day, girls like me were discouraged from touching any tool or machine more complicated than a broom. (And if we talked back, we were told to fly away on it.)

Had I grown up in a different cultural milieu, could I have learned to fly away in an abandoned vehicle like the Millennium Falcon in the latest Star Wars movie? Who knows?

My introduction to machines was not due to my inherently rebellious nature, but my interest in activities that didn't, on the surface, seem to require mechanical knowledge.

As a child, I liked to make doll clothing and even little embroidered squares by hand. When I was thirteen, my grandparents brought me their old sewing machine, circa 1916, because they had replaced it with a newer model, and they thought I could use their old one. It was one of the first electric models ever made, still based on the nineteenth-century design of Isaac Merritt Singer. (And to add an appliqué to this explanation, my mother had cousins whose mother was a Singer, related to the inventor, so my mother’s parents – the ones who gave me their sewing machine – were related to him by marriage.)

For more on the history of the sewing machine and how it works, see this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sewing_Machine

That machine was the equivalent of the magic wand that Cinderella’s fairy godmother used to create a ball gown out of spiderwebs and moonlight. (Luckily, I had parents who would give me money to buy fabric and patterns.) For the next two years, the rattle of the sewing machine, reminiscent of the sound of machine-gun fire from the era when it was made, could be heard coming from my room.

On several occasions, I stayed awake all night to make myself an outfit to wear to a special event the next day. My parents came to my door in shifts to tell me to go to sleep until they couldn’t keep their eyes open any more. I had the advantage of youth and determination, and by morning, I had my own version of a new gown hanging in my closet.

The first dress I made to wear to a school dance was a girlish thing with a princess shape (slightly-fitted, with no waist seam). It had long sleeves with ruffles at the wrists, but they were made from completely sheer fabric that exposed the skin of my arms. The body of the dress was made from a polished-cotton print of big black roses, in an impressionist style, on a white background. The fabric floated over my young curves, and its slight sheen caught the light.

I had figured out the basic principle of burlesque: the sexiest look is not the one that exposes the most skin or clings closest to the body, but the one that gives the viewer an unexpected peak at something that at first glance seems to be hidden.

Between sewing projects, I lubricated all the moving parts of my sewing machine with three-in-one oil, following the instructions in the manual. I silently thanked it for being my personal assistant, and it served me well.

My mother had her own sewing machine, which she rarely used even though it was newer than mine. When I tried it out at my mother’s suggestion, it gave me an electric shock. I couldn’t help suspecting that machines are like pets: they prefer their owners, and vice versa.

Later, when I earned my living as a clerk-typist-receptionist for various branches of local government in the 1970s, I noticed that the electric typewriters assigned to me didn’t always co-operate. I still remember a big black Olivetti that scared me a little, because sometimes when I turned it on in the morning, it would emit a growl like an angry lion, but its keys seemed to be jammed until I had turned it off and on again.

In honour of the various typewriters that worked with me (or not), I wrote “A Striking Dilemma, or Deus Ex Machina,” a steampunk-era threesome story featuring a manual typewriter, newly invented in 1873.



Here is the opening scene, told by Ruth, lover of Lizzie (and later of Henry, who rounds out the triangle):

I must admit that the new type-writing machine did not make a favorable impression on me at our first meeting. It sat on Lizzie’s parlor table like a vase of flowers, and she expected all her visitors to admire it.

At her urging, I walked clockwise round the table to observe the new machine from all angles. I didn’t find it any handsomer from the back than from the front. “It’s new and clever, Liz,” I remarked diplomatically, “and I know you like to keep up with the times, but unless you are planning to start printing your own newspaper, I don’t see the use of it. Your handwriting is perfectly clear.”

I’m sure many writers felt this way about typewriters at the time.

However, Lizzie and Henry are both more intrigued by the new invention. Unfortunately, they discover that the thing is cursed, or enchanted, to stop typing at the thirteenth word unless Lizzie (whose evil uncle/guardian gave her the machine) uses it to type out a wedding announcement for her own wedding to a man she doesn’t love. She refuses, and the typewriter jams.

The three friends debate whether the “curse” is real, or simply a scare tactic. Henry weighs in.

“Consider the alchemists of old,” Henry began, pacing like a college lecturer. “Their goal was to transmute the properties of various metals, and who is to say that they never succeeded? In our more prosaic age, we are all meant to believe that machines are soulless objects for men’s use—and women’s use—but they are formed from the same materials that had wills and personal traits for the thinkers of centuries past.”

Henry stood still, and looked at us intently. “Ruth and Liz, I know that Lord Bentley had a hand in the manufacture of this type-writing machine. His intentions are embodied in its very structure. Perhaps some secret words were even spoken as the hot metal was formed into the shapes it has now.”

Lizzie guffawed in a most unladylike way. “Henry, you ought to go into business selling worthless remedies for imaginary illnesses. Secret words!”

“Liz,” he begged her. “Please refrain from pouring scorn on me until I have thoroughly explained myself. In a less mechanical age, spells were used to change the forms of things. Consider this rhyme: ‘I shall go into a hare, with sorrow, and sighing, and muckle care.’”

Lizzie laughed a little too heartily. I guessed that she was trying to hide her unease. “Do you think it worked?” she asked.

“How would we know?” he retorted. “Our modern spells are advertisements. Consider this: ‘Make any meal into a feast when you use McMurray’s yeast.’”

“That’s hardly a spell,” she demurred.

“It’s a cantrip intended to entice customers. Lizzie, if you keep control of your inheritance, I would strongly advise you to buy stock in McMurray’s company. Its profits have been rising faster than bread.”

The three friends decide to outwit the typewriter by lubricating it with love-juice from all three. Henry considers the mechanism of the typewriter as a prototype for a kind of BDSM device:

“Think of the mechanism of the type-writer,” he advised us. “It cruelly strikes the paper to make a permanent mark, which carries meaning. It wouldn’t be hard to devise a much longer metal rod, attached to a foot-pedal. At the end of the rod would be a letter, or brand, which could be heated by fire. The person to be so marked would present his or her bottom, uncovered of course, and one press of the pedal would speed the rod to its target. The impact would eliminate the need to press the brand into the flesh of the victim, which is presently done with cattle. There would be a moment’s pain, of course, but then the mark would be permanent.”

“Henry,” said Lizzie, “I am not a cow, and I don’t consent to be branded.”

“But I propose that we take turns,” he explained. “All three of us would be marked alike.”

I was afraid of pain, but the thought of such an intimate sign of belonging appealed to me. “None of us would be able to sit down for several days. We would be a standing committee.” I snickered at my own wit.

The three friends put off finding a way to produce a branding device, at least for the meanwhile. After sex in the parlor, they retire to the bedroom to sleep. The typewriter seems to have been deprogrammed, but it still has something to say.

As I lay awake in the dark, I thought I heard a faint tapping from the parlor. I felt slightly apprehensive, but not seriously frightened.

In the morning, curiosity prompted me to investigate, although caution prompted me to don my night-gown first. I left my companions in bed, and entered the parlor. As I approached the table, I could see faint letters on the sheet of paper that had been left in the type-writer. They spelt: “whores.”

Strangely enough, I didn’t take offense. The word struck me as an invitation to a verbal game of badminton. I said aloud: “You’re in no position to judge. You probably need more lubrication.” I brushed my fingertips across the keyboard, and I felt that the machine was ready for service.

This story has been rejected for a sci-fi antho and a steampunk antho, so it is still unpublished. It probably needs to find the right genre (fantasy?). My suspicion that machines have personalities probably can’t be verified, but I’ve known many people who feel the same way. (Cars with names, anyone?)

My Favorite Sexy Tools

by Annabeth Leong

I didn’t start buying sex toys until I was in my late twenties. My ex-husband was one of those men who’s uncomfortable with the idea of a vibrator, viewing it as some sort of penis substitute that would eventually crowd his out. I had always masturbated just fine with my hands, so I didn’t think I was missing much.

My first masturbation tool was erotica. That I bought from a relatively young age, and I’d binge on it from time to time, staying up all night, not wanting to stop once I’d gotten started. Toward the end of my first marriage, I’d often stay on the couch long after my husband had gone to sleep, downloading books from the internet and reading them in long, breathless gulps—sometimes more than one a night.

Later, though, I started craving sex toys, partly because I’d gotten into reading BDSM erotica and I wanted to use the things I was reading about. I think most people, upon discovering the scene, go out and spend a ton of money on things they’ve been fantasizing about for a long time, but those things may or may not turn out to be as imagined. For me, I didn’t know at first what I actually liked and wanted to use in real life, and what things just seemed good in my fantasies. Then there’s the matter of certain toys requiring a partner who’s also into using them.

It would take way too long for me to talk about all the sex toys I’ve bought and what I thought of them, but I’ll share some highlights—both in terms of biggest disappointments and biggest successes.

Biggest Disappointments:

3. Spreader Bar
I’d fantasized a ton about these, and been turned on by what I’d seen of them in porn. I liked the idea of being forced open and exposed, and not being able to do anything to get away from, say, a spanking on the clit. (Oh, I still do—writing that turned me on.) In real life, at least with the spreader bar that I bought, I found that I could bang my ankles on the metal and twist in all sorts of dangerous ways. It’s also awkward and unwieldy. Probably lots of tying expertise could fix those problems, and maybe I’d feel different if I had some sort of built-in suspension ring in my bedroom. It just felt like more trouble than it was worth. I think I only used it once or twice.

2. Ring Gag
This is an A+ turn-on for me in an erotic story. Mention a ring gag, and I’m usually just a twist of the wrist away from an orgasm. In real life, the pain of the thing definitely works for me. I got one that I can barely fit between my teeth, and I absolutely love the feeling of my jaw being stretched. What kills it for me, though, is drool. In real life scenarios, I’m not into humiliation, and I find the drool humiliating. I didn’t realize from fantasizing and reading exactly how much gags would make me drool (the ball gag is, if possible, even worse as far as drool goes than the ring gag). This has made it mostly unappealing to use my ring gag.

1. Hitachi Magic Wand
You read that right. I love reading the Amazon reviews for this thing. One might be forgiven for thinking this was a Biblical product given how many times God and Jesus and angels are mentioned. I’m not trying to diss on a classic. However, the Hitachi Magic Wand is not, for me, the orgasm factory that it apparently is for some people. For me, it produces, even on its lowest setting, a barely tolerable level of vibration. I only ever use it through clothes. While there might be some sort of forced-orgasm sexiness to its extremes, that’s not how it goes for me. If I can’t come within the first couple minutes of using it, my clit goes sort of numb and tingly, and I’m locked in a frustrating almost-orgasm for a long time (usually until I give up and use my hands). I’ve had scenes where these qualities were harnessed to my benefit, but for the most part the Hitachi is a tricky toy, not a perfect one. There’s also the problem that, when I use it a lot while lying on my back, I often get wrist pain afterward (not at all cool for typing). I’ve tried lying on my stomach and riding it, but this exacerbates a tendency I have to get a headache along with my orgasm. That can happen sometimes anyway, but it seems to always happen when I use the Hitachi this way.

Biggest Successes:

3. njoy Pure Plug (smallest size available)
I considered just writing njoy the company, and putting them at number one, because all their toys are boss. (The things I’ve seen the Eleven do… Oh, my God). For the Pure Plug, though, I have a specific story. While writing Untouched, I wanted to use a butt plug for long-term wear (think of it as a sort of method acting for Celia, my sexually insatiable main character and constant wearer of insertables). I’d found, though, that the butt plugs I purchased weren’t comfortable while I was sitting at my computer. After a long and, dare I say, probing conversation with an njoy employee at the Fetish Fair Fleamarket, I decided to buy a Pure Plug. I did ignore her warning that many people regret buying the smallest size and wish they’d bought something larger. I love anal play, but I often feel some fear about it. I didn’t think I’d regret having the smallest one. Anyway, it was everything I dreamed it could be. It’s easy to insert, easy to keep clean, comfortable for hours, and really arousing. I like sitting with it. I also like inserting it just before sex. It intensifies all my sensations to have it there, and it’s not ever something I have to work up to.

2. Chair Dildo
I was almost afraid to buy one of these. I’d had a fantasy about them for a long time, and the words “chair dildo” in a story get me going like you wouldn’t believe. A deeply cherished fantasy of mine is to sit on one at the breakfast table, pretending nothing is going on, eating eggs, trying to look normal. After the disappointment of the ring gag, I was afraid the reality of a chair dildo would burst my bubble. Reader, it did not. It was, if possible, even more awesome than I dreamed it would be. I have a harness that quickly and easily attaches to any seat. I lube up the dildo, and slide onto it. It hurts in a good way, but I can also stay on it for a while. It’s fun to sit still on it and see how long I can resist doing anything else. I love to be watched while I use it. As I write this, it occurs to me that part of the success of the chair dildo is that it combines a lot of things I love: masturbation, exhibitionism, pain, pretending that nothing is happening when something definitely is. I think it took a lot of trying and failing with toys, though, to identify these sorts of elements.

1. Blackjack
In my opinion, the perfect impact toy. After much experimentation, I learned that my preferred type of pain is “thud.” There is nothing more deliciously thuddy than a blackjack. This is the sort of thing that comes down and strikes deep. You feel it in muscles you didn’t even know you had, and you feel it there more than you do on the surface of the skin. It leaves a sort of deep bruising that, if you’re into this sort of thing, serves as an incredible reminder the next day. Nothing takes me into my favorite masochistic place faster than the blackjack. I bought mine from Agreeable Agony, and the fact that it smells deliciously of leather hurts nothing. I tried several of their models, and I believe the one I chose could be described as medium intensity. This is nice for me because I like working into pain a bit. Starting out with very hard pain can make me call a quick stop. Also, the blackjack is one of the first toys that gave me a real desire to switch. I used to think I didn’t ever want to top, but the way I felt the first time I hit someone with a blackjack… I guess the thud appeals to me in all ways, not only on the receiving end. I think of this toy as something I came to as I matured in BDSM, something I only bought once I’d learned about myself and what I like.

***

Of course, this list is highly personal. I would definitely recommend Agreeable Agony and njoy as makers of quality sex toys, but my favorites are deeply tied to my interests and desires. And that, I suppose, is the point. A tool, after all, must serve its proper function.

Scope/Research/Logic

by Daddy X

Is ‘scope’ even a tool? Whatever. It’s a quality I look for in a read. When I engage with a book, I want more than just the story. I want to know what the story implies in a larger sense, how it relates to fundamental cause and effect.

When our mind wanders, one thought follows another, establishing a kind of sense to us, a logical progression incorporating our own knowledge and ideas. Problem is, to someone else our so-called logical progressions may not make sense. Plotting a path of logical thought can be a quite personal thing. If our reader knows something about a subject, it is perfectly possible for them to fill in connective blanks by supplying their own knowledge. But how do we supply just enough correct information to lead the reader to his/her own conclusions?

Perhaps a few examples will more effectively explain this tie-in of scope and logic:

When I read Simon Winchester’s “Krakatoa”, a non-fiction work, not only did I learn how big the explosion was in 1883, how it reckoned to be the loudest noise humans have ever experienced. I also learned that blast was heard in Australia, all the way from Indonesia. It affected the skies for years, creating lower worldwide temperatures. The eruption launched eleven cubic miles of the planet into the atmosphere. I learned that there was no dawn in the area for three days

I also learned the workings of the geological structure of the inner earth, below the crust we live on. How currents of molten metamorphic rock constantly flow in predictable patterns over millions of years. How these destructive vents we call volcanoes, though devastating in violence, are actually relief valves, periodically releasing pressure that if not checked, would result in much bigger cataclysms.

I learned that the eruption of Krakatoa could have been connected to the first known act of Islamic extremism. The notion that the world was ending made earthly matters no longer relevant.  How it all fits together. Logical cause and effect—backed by history and research.

Winchester does his due diligence. Research, research, research. In this case, research is certainly an indispensible tool.

Another book, this one fiction, “Smilla’s Sense of Snow” was a mixed read for me. Popular back in the 90’s, they made a film (which I didn’t see) of the screenplay. Although I read it at least twenty years ago, the conflicting impressions are still clear.

“Smilla” by Peter Hoeg began as an all-encompassing read. The first person MC, an immigrant female investigator, is working a murder in Denmark. While relating her story, the history of her mother’s native land and people comes alive with facts and anecdotes about the Greenland culture and how they fare socially when transported to Europe. Her people are described to fit within the sturdy genetic and cultural stock of our far northern Inuit tribes.

(See the village in “The Highbottom Affair”, available in “The Gonzo Collection” for a fuller, more fanciful description of these people.)

Those tangential drifts didn’t detract from either the flow of the story or a reader’s attention. Hell, it was one of those books that one resents any time not spent reading. The book had scope. Everything happening on the ground coincided with the MC’s drifts of whimsy. In the first half.

Unfortunately, at one point, the story turned around on its face. It was as though another writer (a not-too-bright one) had pushed the author away from the word processor and took over, turning the story into cheap sci-fi deep-core earth bullshit run-of-the-mill pap.

 If it sounds like I’m angry about that—I was. Although I got over it—at the time I felt as though something had been stolen from me. A stellar read had been bastardized and I still don’t know why. Maybe they ran out of info? Not enough research to get through the book? So they piled it all up front and filled in the rest with crap for readers with a double-digit IQ? Man, was I pissed!

Donna Tartt’s “Goldfinch” really did deserve its Pulitzer. Not only was the story wondrously compelling, her research seemed faultless. Being in the antiques trade, I saw that her impeccable references to art history and enlightened attention to aesthetics appeared to represent a tremendous amount of knowledge.

But did it really? Can authors, using selected and sometimes subtle facts and hints, fake that knowledge? Can we give ‘em a little that seems like a lot? Give the reader enough so their own logical thought progressions will provide veracity? This is fiction, after all.

The idea of research is daunting, and for me, not much fun. Writing is fun. But what constitutes the correct level of inside info to convince a reader? Yet not get weakened by inaccuracies or omissions? How to work those subtleties to our advantage as a writer? I know there’s no substitute for knowledge, but can we fake it in fiction? Is there some fine line that can be walked? Anybody have a process?

What would one even name that skill?

Maybe it’s a tool.

A Writer's Tools by Suz deMello (A Brief and Limited Look)

The size of our toolbox has increased in the last few years in a very pleasing manner.

It used to be that our tools were simple: pen, paper, and the words we put on said paper using said pen.

Maybe a hundred years ago, the typewriter started to replace paper and pen, though many were never convinced.

The next "Great Leap Forward" came about twenty years ago, when personal computers had become affordable. This time, most were won over, except that many us prefer to use paper and pen, Though I do most of my writing on my laptop, I needed focused effort to make this transition, but I'm happy I did. However, when I'm blocked, it's useful to take my journal and change scenery, perhaps to a Starbucks. That will often joggle loose whatever's got me stuck.

Still a fave!

Perhaps the most useful tool, and the most dramatic change in book publishing, came with the explosion of direct self-publishing that started in 2007 with Amazon's introduction of Kindle Direct Publishing, followed by the founding of Smashwords in 2008. While self-publishing existed before with services such as Lulu (2002), Amazon, with its massive customer base, quickly became the online favorite while Smashwords, with its easy publishing platform and user-friendly approach, is an author favorite (well, it's this author's fave. I like Mark Coker. He's very approachable.).

The stigma attached to self-publishing rapidly diminished as authors decided that we deserve the lion's share of our royalties rather than the measly 6-10% earned through traditional publishers. Even best-selling authors have suffered due to publishers' anti-author policies. I found traditional publishing to be a choice between incompetence or outright thievery, and vastly prefer to go my own way. Although promoting my books remains a mystery, I prefer to sink or swim on my own.

The Mother of All Tools

Sacchi Green

What a marvelous device! A tool that can grasp, lift, turn, reach out, withdraw: move with force and speed enough to be a weapon, or move slowly and gently enough to handle tiny, fragile things. A tool that can manufacture other tools, even robotic replicas of itself, sometimes to reach where it cannot safely go, sometimes to perform surgical procedures requiring even tinier, more precise movements than it can manage itself, in spaces where it cannot fit.

And a tool that can challenge any sex toy ever made, most of which require its help to function. Ropes or gags cannot tie themselves. Clamps do not generally open and close themselves. Vibrators have off/on buttons, and even electric wands must be held and directed. Dildos and other penetrative gadgets need to be fixed in harnesses or manipulated manually (with the exception, I‘ll admit, of a few outrider contraptions of a roughly “saddlehorn” nature.)

Manufactured. Manipulated. Manually. All words derived from the Latin for “hand.” Admittedly “tool” is understood to mean something used by the hand to perform tasks, if not directly, then by means of other tools dependent on hands at some point in their construction. I’m stretching the theme to the point of cheating to represent the hand itself as a tool. In fact my point is more that the hand is the source of all tools, and  sometimes the prototype, in the sense that many tools were first developed to extend what the hands could do. If hands could throw objects, a sling could allow the hand to throw them farther and harder.  If hands could, with difficulty, open a clamshell, a sharp stone could be used by the hand to do it more easily. If hands could pull strips of leather through slits in hides to fasten them together, an eyed needle made from bone could let the hands do finer work.

Still, calling a body part a tool is, as I admitted, a stretch. The alternate definition of “tool” that the Merriam-Webster dictionary gives so coyly: “d. often vulgar :  penis”, is a common usage, but irrelevant here.  I did learn something from exploring definitions, though; I’d always assumed that calling someone a “tool” was like calling him a “dick,” whereas it turns out that a more specific definition from The Urban Dictionary says, “One who lacks the mental capacity to know he is being used. A fool. A cretin. Characterized by low intelligence and/or self-esteem.” In any case, this too is irrelevant, except to display my own ignorance.

But there are some legitimate arguments to be made in favor of seeing the hand as a tool. Consider communication. If the pen is a tool for written communication, as is the typewriter, and now the computer, what about this?

In sign language, isn’t the hand a tool for quasi-written communication? And then there are all those hand gestures that make an unwritten point.

I won't try to make a case for that sort of communication as representing a tool, though. Well, maybe the Merriam-Webster definition "d" kind.


Moving along to the matter of sex toys. If one considers a sex toy as something that gives sexual pleasure without being the standard equipment for procreation, the hand is right up there. Ask any lesbian. Not that men don’t know that, too, and not just in the context of the traditional “hand job.” At least they’d better have figured it out. Men can learn a lot from reading good lesbian erotica. Just saying. There are ways in which the hand can do things even the “tool” in definition “d” can’t manage, and do it for longer. If they sometimes require added lubrication, well, so do a vast number of other tools.

Hmm. I suspect I haven’t really made a case for the hand as a tool, but I did say “The Mother of All Tools” in my title, and it’s true—almost true—that without the hand, there would be no tools. I say “almost true,” because there are a few birds who’ve learned to do things like holding sticks in their beaks to probe for tasty grubs, and octopi have been observed manipulating things around them in ways that could be interpreted as using tools. Maybe it’s just as well that octopi stay pretty much under water. With all those talented tentacles they might learn to out-tool humans if they were terrestrial. It doesn’t bear thinking of. Especially when it comes to sex toys. (Don’t think about that. Just…don’t. Although there have been stories written…)