Saturday, March 28, 2009

Animal Attraction

By Michelle Houston

Ah spring.

When someone asks me what first comes to mind when they mention the word spring it isn’t college kids going on break, or trees and flowers blooming, nor is it the sudden and quick showers that the Midwest US is blessed/cursed with.

It’s animals in the mood for love. Yep, that’s the first thing that comes to mind when someone says ‘spring’.

I guess I should explain…

As any parent with a child who loves going to zoos knows, spring at a zoo is just like spring in the wild. Animals get, well, frisky, and they don’t exactly care if someone is watching. My family has visited the zoo several times a year ever since my daughter was about 3 or 4.

One really memorable event occurred a few years ago. We visited the zoo during the early spring, and animals were doing as frisky animals do. Loving the meerkats as she does, my daughter wanted to sit and watch them. Unfortunately at the time, they were “wrestling” so we had to move on.


(This is a legit picture, and that’s its tail – you naughty minded people!) *snicker*

Image copyright Michelle Houston.


The zebras were especially playful chasing and dancing all over their pen. Nice to see them moving around, not so nice when the male caught up to the female.

Thankfully, the lions were separated, and she was able to enjoy her favorite animal without nature getting in the way.

Of course, the day was filled with innocent “what are they doing?” kinds of questions as we continued through the zoo. But it wasn’t as bad for me as it was for the poor teacher who was leading her students past the meerkat habitat while there was some kind of a group orgy going on. One wide-eyed little girl seemed to have some clue, and I about died laughing at some of the chatter going on as they were heading past us.

I still remember some of the questions I fielded … and my husband’s snickering about it. Big, bad, erotica writer blushing and stammering while trying to answer, yet not answer, questions about sex. Thankfully she was easier to put off with a vague answer, unlike some of the kids in that class. I still shudder thinking about it.

Oh yes, spring brings to mind the friskiness of animals as they do what animals do.

So I guess it’s appropriate that the beginning of my latest series, Animal Attraction, got its start in spring. It’s about male shifters, who allow their inner animals to play ... in a very frisky way. This time though I shouldn’t have to explain anything to anyone. Which is nice, because I still occasionally blush and stammer.



Animal Attraction: Taming the Wolf

Gay werewolves just didn't happen naturally. Ben had accepted that he would quite possibly live the rest of his life alone. Then one day Nathan, another rogue-made werewolf, turns up on his doorstep and he finds that maybe there is a mate for him after all, if he can teach the younger man how to tame his inner wolf.

Available for purchase at:


http://www.king-cart.com/Phaze/product=Michelle+Houston/exact_match=exact


The next two Animal Attraction stories have been accepted and scheduled. Embracing the Leopard is coming out in June, and Unleashing the Leopard in August.


Michelle’s website:

www.michellehouston.com

Michelle’s blog: Captive Dreams of an Erotic Pen

http://eroticpen.blogspot.com

Michelle’s Newsgroup:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/michellehouston/

Erotic Designs by Michelle:

http://eroticdesign.eroticpen.net

Phoenix Rising Authors:

www.isleofphoenix.com

Explore the Infinite Possibilities with the Phoenix Rising Authors:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Infinite_Possibilities/


8 comments:

  1. Great picture and wonderful post, Michelle! Thanks for guest blogging with us today at the Grip, and best of luck with your hot new series!

    Hugs,

    Jamie

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  2. I want to thank you wonderful ladies for having me on your blog. : ) Wonderful topic!

    And yeah ... that is one of my fav animal pictures.

    Michelle

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  3. Wow, I thought meerkats were special, but who knew? Snicker!

    Lovely post, Michelle. Thanks so much on sharing your take on spring with the Grip readers. Oh, I believe that should be animal lust, I honestly don't think there's much love involved with all that orgy stuff they do.

    We've got a woodpecker who's fallen in lust with our chimney cap right now. Not sure what the attraction is, but what the heck.LOL

    Hugs

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  4. LOL

    Because of my ornithology class I have been having to do a spot of bird watching, and I cheat. I added some more bird feeders, and now they come to me. : ) I can write, work on graphics, and still do homework.

    Thanks to some of the food I put out, I have three different species of woodpeckers - Redbellied, Downy, and Hairy. They swear we have Pileated nearby, since one of my neighbors has seen one at her place, but I haven't seen them yet. Damnit!

    We also have a mixture of Cardinals, Dark-Eyed Juncos, Finches, and Sparrows. Plus a few others I am forgetting at this moment. The Redtailed Hawks have been seen circling in the sky from time to time too.

    And yeah .. lust is probably a better term than love, but hey, I am giving them the benefit of the doubt. Although, my ornithology teacher referred to Darwin's finches of the Galapogos islands as having a triple X hoedown, so hey, nature does lust rather well.

    Although it is nice to think we have cornered the market on something. LOL Oh well ...

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  5. Animals in zoos have provided me with some of the most interesting stories. I'll never forget the time I watched the orangatangs in the National Zoo getting frisky. They're idea of foreplay probably falls under the taboo subjects for 95% of the erotica publishers I know. ;)

    It is interesting to see how erotica and erotic romance writers as parents deal with answering certain questions from their kids. I've often found it's not the question that's the problem, but where we're at when it's asked. I can answer anything when we're at home, but out in public I usually resort to "Not now, I'll explain later" routine.

    Wonderful post Michelle!

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  6. Thanks Helen. : )

    I'm actually one of the contraditions in terms. My mother's version of sex ed was to hand me a college biology textbook. She was obviously not comfortable talking about the subject, so I never really asked questions. Thus I never learned how to address it with my own daughter.

    Which unfortunatly means that even though I am a biology major as well as an erotic author, and despite understanding the how-tos, why-fores and the tab a to a whole variety of places, trying to figure out how to tell my now eleven year old daughter about sex is still a stuttering moment.

    She thinks it's funny. Oh yeah ... grand adventures. LOL

    We had the first of the masterbation talks the other day. Yeah ... barely made it throught that one. I want her to know its ok, but I don't to encourage her to explore, especially if she is not yet ready. Gah!

    I almost miss the innocent "What are the zebras doing? And why is that meerkat on top of the other one?" questions.

    Michelle

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  7. We just had our 12th annual Sandhill Crane Festival here and those crazy birds have some very unique courting dances and songs!

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  8. Way behind in catching up - as usual. But I really enjoyed your post. I also had a lot of pets in the house growing up - and quite a few questions for my parents when some of them were let out to play together, lol.

    Thanks for joining us,

    Kim Dare.

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