Monday, January 28, 2019

Obsessed

by Jean Roberta



Renaissance Publishing (Sizzler Editions) is planning my next single-author collection of erotic stories. My first collection with that publisher, Obsession, is a smorgasbord of characters, pairings, situations, and desires. Here is the blurb:

When a character with a kinky itch shows up in my own mind – I know I’m seeing the beginning of a story and I have to find out where it leads. The stories in this collection show where my characters have led me:

* What if a lesbian with a taste for older women goes looking for her birth-mother and is shocked to find out what King Oedipus knew? What if she only wants to impress a lesbian literature prof who knows the classics?

* What if a man dreams of finding a truly submissive woman, but when she appears like a gift from the heavens, he feels as if he is trapped in a nightmare?

* What if a person of any gender or sexual orientation wants to find the perfect companion, for a night or a lifetime, and finds one who is not exactly human?

* What if curiosity or compassion or a desperate need for cash leads a sensible-enough person to take unusual risks?

Be warned; not all of these stories end happily. The road to pleasure or love or admiration or material comfort is paved with danger. Some of these stories have old roots in myth and folklore, but none of them carries the old message that women’s sexuality is a source of evil, or that strong men are born to rule the world."

https://www.amazon/OBSESSION-Erotica-Those-Kinky-Itch-ebook/dp/B00IMVJLKO

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Excerpt from “Eros and Psyche” in Obsession:

The first letter was especially surprising because I wasn't expecting personal mail in the post office box, let alone an envelope featuring my name handwritten in green ink. That box had been used by various organizations that I was involved with over the years: the Women's Shelter, the Lavender Bookstore, a short-lived gothic journal named Dyke Demon. I had been the unofficial Keeper of the Key for years, so I had agreed to pick up the mail for the Women's Shelter during their fundraising drive.

The letter addressed to me had been mailed within the city, which didn't give me much information about the sender. My name and the box number were so elegantly inscribed that I decided not to rip into the envelope in my usual style, but keep it sealed until I could slit it neatly with a knife. That little decision was my first step on the path that led me to this point.

I was sitting over a cappuccino in Café Mocha when I opened the envelope, almost as though I had agreed to meet the sender for a leisurely chat. The letter read:

Dear Christina,

Do you know how you look when you think no one is watching? I think you should know.
I doubt if you have ever studied the dark depths of your own eyes, the wild grace of your bronze hair in the wind, the stubborn line of your chin, the fruitlike curve of your breasts, the sassy shape of your lower cheeks. You need me to describe these things to you because otherwise, you might never come to know yourself. I don't want you to stay self-ignorant.

Why don't I tell you these things in person? I think you can guess. You would feel threatened or pressured, and you would probably reject me. It's harder to stop reading a letter than to walk away or hang up the phone, isn't it?
Beautiful Christina, I've been watching you for a long time. I've been patient and I'm not planning any sudden moves. Watch for my next letter.

Sending you a kiss,

Your Admirer

My reaction to this message was alarming: it turned me on. I told myself in vain that a bullshit fan letter from a stalker with too much spare time and green ink should annoy or scare me, not excite me. All the same, I could almost feel two firm hands testing the weight of my breasts, squeezing my butt, stroking my face, running her (his?) hands through my hair. I decided to stop indulging in sick fantasies.

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15 comments:

  1. This is gorgeous!

    Funny, I was just thinking about this myth, too. Must be the imminence of Valentine's Day.

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  2. By the way, when is the new book coming out?

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  3. I would send you an anonymous Sapphic stanza in ancient Lesbian Greek, but I'm afraid you might guess the author's identity.

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  4. Sounds like very intriguing book! As Lisabet says, when is it coming out?

    How I wish I had studied ancient Greek when my mind was young and absorbent! I never got farther back than a smattering of Latin. I once did a lot of research about Sappho, since I wanted to write an alternate history story wherein a long-lost trove of pottery, amphorae, etc., is discovered in a submerged cave on Lesbos, with never-before-seen poetry by Sappho engraved into the pottery. But I had to give up the idea when I realized that I'd need to write at least a few of the new-found lines supposedly by Sappho, and I didn't have the chutz-pah, never mind the skill.

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  5. I've never written an erotic Sapphic stanza, just this Aeolian sea shanty, which I imagine sailors singing to the rhythm of their rowing. Perhaps Jean can use it in a story about Amazons going to war. :)

    The Sapphic rhythm is:
    -u---uu-u--
    -u---uu-u--
    -u-u-uu-u--
    -uu-u

    ησυχου λαβρον θαλασαν Ποτειδαν
    ευνοει ναυτηισιν Αμφιτριτη
    εις τοπον σαωζετε αμμε θειοι
    και παλιν αυθις

    τιμαονται οι υμμες οι δυνατοι
    κυριοι υγρου βασιληιοιο
    εις τοπον σαωζετε αμμε θειοι
    και παλιν αυθις

    Calm the stormy seas, O Poseidon.
    Be kind to sailors, O Amphitrite.
    Carry us safely to our destination, Divine Ones,
    and safely back again.

    You are the mighty ones who are adored,
    masters of the watery realm.
    Carry us safely to our destination, Divine Ones,
    and safely back again.

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  6. Wow!

    I don't imagine too many blogs get comments in ancient Greek. And in verse as well!

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    1. When I was first studying it, I found it impossible to write in ancient meters, especially Sappho's intricate, syncopated rhythm. Then I realized you can't just write it. You have to sing it in order to compose in it.

      All writing began as singing. Then we gradually moved away from that, perhaps to our detriment.

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  7. Very true. Lisabet and I have written in this blog about how we were both exposed to Gilbert and Sullivan operettas at young ages, and the anapestic/dactylic beat of the "patter songs" from those jolly Victorian shows has found its way into some of our structured poems.

    I've tried to explain metre to my first-year university students when discussing poetry, but some of them seem to have no ear for it.

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  8. If no one has ever done this, someone should make a recording of something written in Sappho's characteristic metre (from 600 BCE?). Somewhere on social media, I found a recording of an instrumental song that someone claimed to be the oldest known song, from about 3,000 years ago. It was surprisingly melodic.

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    Replies
    1. Ask and the Muse shall grant your request

      https://youtu.be/mOlIqozu3Fg

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  9. Unfortunately, I don't have a link handy.

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