A Tale of Three Homes

Sacchi Green

I tend to get deeply attached to places, and disoriented when I travel frequently from one to another of the three that feel like home. That’s a problem I’m not likely to have much longer, although those places will linger in my dreams or in my writing
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I mentioned a few weeks ago that for some reason my dreams are often set in my old home, the house where I lived from ten years old to twenty-two. I’m on the very verge of selling that house for my father, who is now, at 98, in a long- term care facility near me. For all the stress and trauma of cutting my ties to that house and land, I hope my dreams will manage to cut those ties, too. Why shouldn’t my continuing home here for the last forty-odd years be the go-to site for random dreams?

Dreams aside, I don’t think I’ve ever used either the old home territory or the current one as settings for any of my stories. That honor—for lack of a better term—goes to the third home, my treasured retreat for many years on the banks of a river in the Mount Washington Valley of New Hampshire. That area has been the setting for…let me count…well, at least nine stories, and influenced several others. It will probably continue to influence my work even after I’ve sold that cabin and land, which will probably be within the next year.

So it’s excerpt time! But not for all nine pieces, just a few. Maybe just one, in fact, a story that’s been posted for free on my blog for years but was originally published in Ultimate Lesbian Erotica 2005 from Alyson Books. It will be hard to choose just a few excerpts, but here goes.
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Healing

Sacchi Green

     Sunlight filtered gently through hemlock branches where an hour ago it had blazed onto the water-smoothed granite. Radiant heat still penetrated into places I'd thought would never feel warm again. My body adjusted to the stone's contours and felt, briefly, at peace.
     A rustling among the trees on the bank above made me tense. Someone stood there, watching. Move on, damnit, I thought, hating the unfamiliar sense of vulnerability, the suppressed jerk of my hand toward a gun that wasn't there. I kept my eyes closed, trying to block out everything but the ripple of water and the scent of balsam. Far below, where the stream leapt downward in the series of falls and slides known as Diana's Baths, there were swarms of vacationers, but they didn't often climb up this far. I'd hoped, foolishly, for solitude.
     Maybe I was only hallucinating being watched. Maybe the Lieutenant was right. Maybe I really wasn't ready to get back into uniform. After seven years, it wasn't as though I had anything left to prove about a woman being as good a cop as any man. There might still be something to prove to myself, though.  
     I sat up abruptly. A hemlock branch twitched, and through its feathery needles a pair of bright eyes met my challenge. A child, I thought at first, glimpsing tousled russet curls and a face like a mischievous kitten. Then she moved into clearer view, and I got a good look at a body that could have held its own on one of those TV beach shows. So, for that matter, could her bikini.
     She looked me over just as frankly. "Hi there," she said throatily. "I'm afraid I've got myself lost."
     Eye candy or not, I resented the intrusion. "Well, there's upstream, and there's downstream. Take your pick."
     "They both sound so good, I can't decide!" Her glance moved deliberately from my face over my body down to the long, semi-healed scar running from mid-thigh up under my cut-off jeans. The scar didn't seem to startle her a bit. I began to suspect a plot.
     It's not that unusual for women to come on to me when I'm in uniform, and I've taken advantage of their fantasies a time or two, but I was in civvies, and this was way over the top. She was so blatantly acting out a scene that I was more amused than anything else. Well, maybe not anything else. It had been a long time. A definite tingle was building where it counted most, and my nipples threatened to assert themselves through my gray tank top. I pulled on the sweatshirt I'd been using as a pillow. The New Hampshire State Police logo on the front didn't seem to surprise her, either.
     I looked downhill. "Hey, Dunbar," I called to the head poking around a mossy boulder, "who's your little friend?"
      "How's it going, Josie?" Jimmy Dunbar emerged from concealment. "I'd've introduced you, but you cruised right on by without so much as a nod for an old friend."
     "Sorry," I said. "Been a bit preoccupied lately."
     "So I heard. You okay?" He looked toward my injured leg and then met my eyes with genuine concern. Aside from his taste in practical jokes, Jimmy's not a bad sort, and we'd been friends since our teens when we cleared trails and packed supplies up to the Appalachian Mountain Club huts.
     "Can't complain," I said shortly. "A couple of weeks of enforced R&R and then I'll be back on the job. What are you up to these days?" I should've known better than to come where I'd be recognized. The newspapers had made the hostage case into a big deal.
     "He's building sets at the playhouse," the sex kitten chimed in, clearly tired of being ignored by everything but the mosquitoes. In that outfit, she was damned lucky black fly season was over. "We open with 'Oklahoma' tomorrow night. I could get you a ticket if you'd like." She picked her way carefully down the bank, gripping bushes and gnarled, exposed tree roots. Any bits of previously covered anatomy were revealed as she bent and stretched. I was willing to bet her breasts owed nothing to silicone. It might not have been entirely gallantry that prompted me to help her down the last, steepest bit, but when she tried to cling I spun her around and set her on her feet at a safe distance.  
     "This is Katzi Burns. She plays the 'girl who can't say no.'"  Jimmy sang the last part. Instead of grabbing the line and running with it, as I expected, she shot him a fierce look.
     "I should've had the lead! But at least I can have a little fun with this role. I'm so sick of doing 'wholesome' I could puke!"
     "That's what you get," Jimmy said unfeelingly, "for starting your career playing Daddy Warbuck's little 'Annie'."
     She yowled and took a swipe at him, and, while I figured he deserved a good clawing, my peace-keeper instincts kicked in. "So Katzi," I said, with a hand on her elbow, "what kind of parts would you rather play?" Then it hit me. "Holy shit! 'Annie'? How long ago?"
     She turned that feral kitten snarl on me. The anger in her amber eyes was a lot more attractive than the bimbo act. "Long enough! I'm legal! You wanna see my driver's license?"
     I grinned and looked her scanty outfit over appreciatively. "You bet, if you've got it on you somewhere."
     Her scowl cleared. "You could search me," she teased.
     I just patted her cute round butt and turned to Jimmy. "I hope you two have some clothes stashed somewhere. As soon as the sun gets a little lower the mosquitoes will be fierce. I don't much care what they do to your scaly hide, but it would be a shame to let Katzi get sucked dry just before opening night. The bites would be kind of a challenge for the make-up department, too."
     "What time is it, anyway?" Katzi asked, with a stricken look.
     "Close to five," I told her.
     "Oh damn! I'm screwed!" She slid and lurched down the hill toward where they'd left their clothes and towels. Jimmy and I followed, ready to pick up the pieces if her fashionable sandals skidded on the loose layers of leaves and needles.
     "So what the hell is that all about?" I asked Jimmy. "I may be on the injured list, but I can still manage to do my own hunting."
     "Hey, little Katzi takes hunting to a whole new level. She's only hanging out with me because she wants to meet you, and I said I'd heard you were back in the Valley. She clipped your picture out of the paper. Lord only knows what she does with it!"
     And Lord only knows what you've told her about me, I thought, and swatted him, on general principles. Maybe I should just just go back to communing with nature. Then I watched Katzi's sleek legs keeping up with our longer ones on the trail out to the road, and reflected that nature's blessings are many and wondrous, and not limited to rocks and trees. Being back in the mountains had always healed my spirit, but surging hormones might well spur the healing process of the flesh.
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Snip, snip, skipping past much of the story:
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When she'd gone into the playhouse I sat there for a minute, hardly noticing the people strolling along the village sidewalk. Then I headed north, up through Pinkham Notch, needing to center myself in the mountains.
     The peaks loomed dark against a backdrop of moon-gilded clouds; Madison, Adams, Jefferson, and, crowning the range, Mount Washington. I'd never needed more to be up there, on the slopes above treeline, looking down on a world made tranquil by distance. Or, even better, looking down on clouds filling the valleys with a ghostly sea while the stars above seemed closer and more real than the shrouded earth.  Best of all would be to watch the dawn, when the air is cold and still, and nothing exists except stone, and space, and the coming of light over the edge of the world.
     My gaze followed the contours of the mountains, my hands almost feeling their harsh ridges and swooping ravines. Then the thought of Katzi's softer curves and sweet valleys beckoned me with increasing urgency. I didn't want solitude, after all, at least not right now, I thought, as I drove back down the winding highway. Just a quick fling, I warned myself, a little summer diversion. She'll head back to New York or wherever soon enough. That's all you want. That's all she wants. Nobody gets hurt.
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Snip, snip, and the final few paragraphs:

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We didn't manage to see sunrise, but the morning light was still fresh and clear when I went down to the river and waded into the deepest part. The cold water rushing down from the mountains could always sweep away sweat, doubt, confusion. Then I sat in the sun on my favorite boulder and tried to clear my mind of everything but the intense blue of the sky.
     "You look like one of those paintings," Katzi said, coming to stand below me. "You know, the ones with girls sitting on rocks with mountains and waterfalls and stuff."
     "Maxfield Parrish?" I asked, without turning.
     "That's the guy. You look like what I wish he would have painted, instead of all those cute fluffy girls."
     "You'd have fit right in," I said, "but I always wondered how they got up onto those jagged mountains with bare feet." I wriggled my own river sandals, which were all I was wearing.
     She looked at my feet, then my legs; I steeled myself not to clamp my naked thighs together, and let her look.
     "Oh, Jo," she cried, aghast at the full extent of my wound. "Did he cut you that way on purpose?"
     I couldn't bottle up the anger, the guilt, forever. "Yeah. Probably. His wife had been going to leave him for a woman, but luckily the papers didn't get hold of that tidbit. We could've charged him with a hate crime, I suppose, from the names he called me, but there wasn't any point. Even if he'd lived."
     Her hand was on my thigh, and she could feel me trembling. "You had to do it, Jo, it was self defense, and who knows what else he'd have done to them?"
     I remembered the woman's screams, and the child's terrified cries. I remembered climbing the back of the building, finding foot and finger holds on ledges and chinks in the bricks, while my partner watched the front. Then came the shatter of glass as I dove through the window,  and the flash of the knife as I wrestled with him. I hadn't been able to climb with my gun drawn, and then it was too late. What I remembered most vividly was the crumpling of his larynx  under my hand.
     "There had to be another way," I muttered. "If...maybe if I had been different, gentler, softer somehow, I could've talked him around. That poor little kid had been through enough, without having to see all that."
     "But the mother lived, didn't she? My God, Jo, how can you kick yourself? I know it must have been awful, but..." She stood on tiptoe and laid her head against my side, and I bent to hide my face in her soft curls. Then she worked her lips gently downward toward the scar. "Let me, please..."
     I began to tremble in a different way. I wasn't sure I could bear to be touched. She looked up at me with such tenderness in her eyes that suddenly I couldn't bear not to be touched, by her hands and mouth and even more by her indefinable flame of life that warmed something in me deeper than the flesh.
     I leaned back with my arms braced against the rock and let my thighs spread farther apart, let Katzi's mouth move up, and up, toward where I needed it most. She reached her arms around my waist and pressed her lips and tongue against me so softly, gently, that I felt no pain, only a tantalizing stimulation I thought would drive me crazy. I tried to pull her head closer, harder--maybe I was healed enough!-- but she resisted. "Trust me," she murmured against my flesh, and I had to, even had to let her hear me whimper and moan. She kept on and on, driving me closer and closer to the brink, like hurtling on skis toward the headwall of Tuckerman's Ravine--and then I plunged over in an avalanche of fierce joy.
     Much later in the day I kissed her, told her when I'd pick her up, and watched her hurry into the playhouse. I really was healed enough, I realized, to go back on duty. Why rush it, though? I could still taste her, still feel her body against mine, still smell her scent clinging to me. Maybe something of her would always cling to me. I couldn't handle thinking about the future yet, but I was going to savor every moment of the present, and the healing force of nature that was Katzi.
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That should be all, too long already, so just consider this next snippet a postscript. It appear in my story “Meltdown,” first published in Don’t Be Shy from Ylva Press, and will be in my upcoming collection from Dirt Road Books. The setting of the flashback is a secluded, maybe even secret pool along a river that means a lot to me.
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Sigri was shaking her head by the end of my revelations. I picked up my drinking horn and took a sip of mead. “As you said, that’s enough about that. Too much, in fact.” Another sip. “Hey, this is really fine stuff! Smooth and intense. Wish we’d had something this good back in the day.”
“Nah, we’d’ve been too dumb to appreciate it.” She sank down on the couch by my side, took a longer sip than I had, licked her lips, and looked slantwise at me. “We were too dumb to appreciate a hell of a lot.”
“No kidding.” I raised my horn. Hers met it halfway. “Here’s to our wasted youth.”
A few more sips of mead later, I was on the verge of blurting out a maudlin confession, but Sig beat me to it.
“That pool.” She looked into the fireplace, not at me. “That day…”
I finished for her. “We bushwhacked off the Slippery Brook trail, discovered that huge gorgeous pool, and went skinny-dipping. The goddess place, I called it, and you told me not to go all woo-woo.”
“But you did. And you scrambled naked back up that rock to where we’d left our stuff before we jumped off, got your camera, and yammered on about how the rocks on each side of the little waterfall looked like spread thighs, and the knobby stone in between with moss on it was the pussy, and the—the water of life, I think you said, was pouring into the sacred pool.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s what I said. And you dived into the deepest part and came up with handfuls of pebbles that you kept throwing at me while I tried to get pictures from just the right angle.”
“Well, maybe I was as bad as your Maura at foreplay when it came to somebody like you. Girly types, no problem, but you? I figured you’d either laugh in my face or punch it if I made a move.”
I shook my head in self-disgust. “And I just kept on yammering to keep from jumping you and getting slammed for it. Talk about dumb kids! When you got fed up and left, I was desperate for the chance to jerk off, fantasizing about what it would feel like to be in a clinch with you.”
“Hah! I only made it to that other stream coming out of the beaver pond before my hand was in my pants. If you’d caught up with me then…”
I reached for the decanter of mead, poured us each a little more, and raised my horn again. “Well, here’s to the years of steamy dreams inspired by the sight of you naked in that pool.” Just as well not to reveal that I’d snapped a picture of her from behind that day, right when her muscular body arched, butt high, into the dive that got her those pebbles to throw at me. I’d carried a print of the photo around with me until I literally wore it out.
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Not So Psychic

by Giselle Renarde

My mom just got back from a vacation with her friends.

A couple weeks before she left, I had a dream my mother died during her trip. You'd think it would rip my heart out, but it didn't.  There was a voice in my head saying the universe had given me enough signs. I knew this was coming. So, emotionally, I was on the numb side of being okay.

It was a very bureaucratic dream. An unusually pragmatic one, for me. My dreams are usually fun, entertaining. This one was dull, grey. My siblings and I were dealing with all the mind-numbing paperwork that goes along with the death of a parent... instead of dealing with our emotions. That's par for the course, with us.

In my dream, I got the quote for how much it would cost to ship my mother's body home, since she died overseas.  I remember thinking, "My credit card won't cover this. What kind of person has a credit limit this low?"

I woke up the next morning to the familiar sound of an envelope shooting through my letterbox. Mail from my credit card company offering me a higher credit limit.

I'm not psychic.  I don't have precognitive dreams, never have.  But that one shook me. Not just the dream itself, but the confluence of dreaming about needing a higher credit limit and immediately being offered one.  That's a little spooky.

The last time I saw my mother, we were sitting around my grandmother's kitchen table.  My mom was saying how excited she was about this trip.  She mentioned that someone at the office was saying "Aren't you afraid of going there?" because the city she was travelling to has been hit with terrorist attacks in recent years.  She said she wasn't scared.  She didn't want to live her life that way.

Life is full of measured risks. She'd already decided she didn't want to be afraid about this trip.

That's why I decided not to tell my mom about the dream I had.  Yes it put me on edge, but I don't have a history of being psychic so I figured what was the point in frightening her?  Even if she dismissed it (which she almost certainly would), it would always be with her in the back of her mind. I didn't want her carrying that weight with her on a vacation she was so looking forward to.

The other side of the coin, of course, is: if I have what is potentially life-or-death information about someone else, shouldn't I share it with them?  Probably.  Maybe.  I don't know.  If someone knew I was about to die, would I want them to tell me?  I... guess... possibly?  What would I do differently? Get rid of anything incriminating. But if someone else had a dream that I would die, would I want to know about it?  I don't think so.  It's hard to say.

At any rate, my mother's plane landed safely back home this evening. I know because I checked the airport's website.  I can only assume my mother was alive and aboard.

Monogamy Blues

By Lisabet Sarai

We both know what’s going to happen. It’s understood, the inevitable consequence of the delicious tension crackling between us. Desire hangs around us like a perfumed fog. Reveling in the knowledge that you want me, I broadcast back the silent message that I feel the same.

Perhaps we kiss. I melt into your body, drunk on cheerful lust and the sense of rightness. We fit—but of course we do, this sort of natural magnetism doesn’t lie, but points us in the direction of blissful satisfaction. We’re not in any hurry. Languid yet buzzing with need, we explore one another.

Sometimes you’re a stranger. Sometimes you’re someone from my waking life, a startling revelation from my unconscious. Either way, I cherish these dreams for the sweet arousal they kindle, the traces of secret excitement that remain after the lascivious details have faded.

These nighttime visions always end the same way, though. Before we consummate our mutual desire, I remember. I’m married. I can’t go through with this, much as I want to. It would cause too much hurt to the man I love. This precious attraction is difficult to relinquish, but I have a responsibility to remain faithful.

The thrill dissipates. Reality bites, even if I’m still asleep. My dream reshapes itself. Sometimes I cry, or you do. Most of the time, the chimera of our perfect fucking simply vanishes, replaced by new images and emotions.

I’ve never told my husband about these dreams. What’s the point? In real life, I’m almost never tempted by anyone else—especially not now, post sixty years old. My wild times are behind me. My commitment is crystal clear.

I don’t regret anything. Still, those dreams evoke a bittersweet longing, a nostalgia for the woman I used to be.

I don’t think I’m fundamentally monogamous. I am perfectly capable of loving—in the erotic sense—multiple people concurrently. In fact when I met my husband more than three decades ago, I tried to get rid of him because I already had three serious lovers, and felt my life was sufficiently complicated without adding another, long distance relationship to the mix.

He was stubborn, and charming, however, not to mention a really good fit for me along almost every dimension. I didn’t really even choose him, not explicitly. It was just obvious that we should build a life together.

He’d had lots of lovers, too, before we met. Our marriage contract specifically states that we are both free have other sexual partners as long as we are honest with one another, and continue to give our relationship top priority. That was the principle. We never really put that clause into practice, not as individuals, though we explored swinging and polyamory together. As far as I know, since we married, neither of us has had sex without the other one being present.

It wouldn’t bother me if he had a girlfriend, I don’t think. However, the older we’ve become, the more I’ve understood that he’s a lot higher on the monogamy scale than I am. If I were to take another lover (which sounds ludicrous to me now—just goes to show how much I’ve changed), I’d wound him deeply. I don’t believe that the abstract notion of fidelity means much to him, but he’s lonely when I am not around. Plus I suspect that he’d worry about losing me to someone younger (since he’s a decade older than I am).

In my dreams, though, I’m still the lusty, experimental, open woman I was in my mid-twenties. And sometimes I wish that my sense of commitment wouldn’t intrude on my fantasies so reliably.

The only place I allow myself to be unfaithful is in my stories. There, anything goes.

I Wanna Party!

By Lisabet Sarai

When I first sat down to write this post, I was stumped, because in fact I don't really have a bucket list – a list of things I definitely want to do before I die. Don't take that wrong. I have fantasies and desires, just like anyone else. However, if I expired tomorrow - though I certainly hope that I don't! - I really couldn't complain. Life has given me more fabulous experiences than I ever expected.

From the time I was a kid, reading tales of faraway places and ancient civilizations, I always dreamed about traveling the world. Now I live in one of the most exotic countries on the planet. Meanwhile, I've visited Angkor, Dubrovnik and Machu Pichu, seen the emerald rice terraces of Bali and the steaming hot springs of Rotorura, stood awed by Sainte Chapelle and Borobudur, wandered in Istanbul's Grand Bazaar and the ancient lanes of Kyoto. I've still got plenty of places on my travel wish list – Egypt and the pyramids (though not just now!), the mountains and monasteries of Bhutan, the glittering palaces of St. Petersburg and the ruins of Tikal, to cite just a few examples. Still, I know it's unrealistic to believe I'll ever fulfill all my travel dreams, especially since I'm not wealthy. I don't mind.

Then there's sex. Anyone who reads this blog probably already has far more information than they'd ever want about my sex life. Growing up chubby, bookish, shy and insecure, I would never have believed that I could be sexually attractive – or sexually free. History smiled on me. I came into my prime during the best possible period, after the Pill and before AIDS. As it turned out, I was actually something of a sex goddess for a couple of hectic years. Who would have thought it possible?

Are there erotic activities I haven't sampled, that I want to try? Of course. Although I consider myself bisexual, I've never had more than fleeting experiences with a woman lover. The schedule of deviant activities that my master and I have discussed but never attempted gets longer all the time. With me married and with half a world between us, we both know these are unlikely though entertaining fantasies. I doubt my sixty year old knees and back could handle the physical reality in any case. None of this is bucket list material, in my opinion. As I understand the concept, a bucket list chronicles things you theoretically could do, but haven't managed yet. It's unlikely I could bear a real-life caning, as much as the idea excites me.

Fame and material success? Well, I never wanted to be rich (except maybe when I was spinning travel fantasies for myself) and I still feel that way. I've experienced the thrill of seeing my name on the spine of multiple books (which in fact was not one of my youthful dreams). In my professional life, I've won a few awards and earned the respect of my peers. I'm not sure that I'd want more fame than I have, given the trade-offs involved – extra worry about staying on top and compromised privacy.

Love? I've had that for more than thirty years, even though marriage was not on my list of things to do in my life. Sometimes we just don't know how things will work out.

One dream I had as a kid that I haven't fulfilled is going into outer space. I suppose that might still come true, given recent developments. Do I want that enough to work toward making it a reality? Probably not.

So I really wasn't sure how to respond to our fortnightly theme. I searched my heart for some burning desire that was feasible but not yet fulfilled, something I would regret not doing if I knew my life would end tomorrow. And then it hit me.

I want to meet you guys. I wanna party with my fellow erotic authors.

Living in Asia is fabulous, but as an author I'm horribly isolated. I can't tell anyone I know about my literary identity. I can communicate with my peers only via electronic means. Meanwhile, I read about author conferences, gatherings, open mikes and other meat-space social events with deep envy.

I would have done almost anything to attend the EAA conference in Las Vegas a couple of years ago. The roster of participants included so many of you whom I've “known” for ages, but never met. Then, just this June, my UK colleagues Victoria Blisse and Lucy Felthouse organized their Smut by the Sea event, a day for erotica authors and readers at Scarborough Beach (definitely on my travel to-do list, after reading Victoria's descriptions). To join them, along with K.D. Grace, Lily Harlem, Liz Coldwell, Justine Elyot, and all the other outrageous British authors I love – that would definitely have been a dream come true.

Indeed, I have been fortunate enough to meet a few of you, mostly briefly. Jean, I don't know if you even remember our having a drink with Rachel KB during that heady eight months I lived in New York City, before my cross-world relocation. Daddy X, Mommy X, DH and I shared a fabulous dinner a couple of years ago, during their perambulations in Asia. I was delighted to meet both Desiree and J.P. in LA during the 2011 Romance Times convention, at an amazing party organized by our publisher Total-E-Bound.

On the other hand, I've never had any face-to-face time with Garce. I think I've read everything he's ever written (at least, that he's shown to the world) and edited a good deal of it. We've exchanged long, soul-searching emails. He's helped me through rough times with my writing and my real world life, too. Separated as we are by space and our respective requirements for anonymity, a meeting seems improbable – but it's on my list.

Sacchi, we lived less than ten miles from one another for years, and never knew it! And Amanda – I've known you for at least a decade through ERWA. I've learned a great deal about you, and from you, since you've joined the Grip. What a pity you're in Canada and I'm here in the faraway Orient! I think we have a lot in common.

Giselle, you're a relatively new acquaintance, but I'm sure we'd have fun exchanging kinky stories. And Lily, I haven't known you long at all – but your attendance at my bucket list party is definitely required.

You're all geographically dispersed, of course. So perhaps what I want is three parties – or maybe four. One on the east coast of the U.S. One on the west coast. One in Canada (though given the size of that country, it might be easier for you to travel to the closest coast!) And finally, a bash in the UK. I'm dying to meet former Gripper Ashley Lister, who lives in Blackpool and whom I've know forever. And then there's Portia da Costa, the author whose work first inspired me to write Raw Silk.

Indeed, there are quite a few ex-members from Get a Grip whom I'd love to meet in the flesh. Kristina Wright, who bared her soul here for several years. The elusive and talented Charlotte Stein. The talented and unconventional Helen Madden, whom I miss terribly. Michelle Houston. Although she has crafted a bunch of covers for me since she left the Grip, we're strangers in the so-called real world. Devon Rhodes, who in her alternative incarnation has edited at least a dozen of my books.

Katherine Bradean, of course I want you there too. Our hour-long coffee meeting wasn't nearly long enough!

You're all invited. All the members of the ERWA blog members, also. I've met RG and M. Christian, but many of the rest of you are just much-admired names. And Bob Buckley (who hails from Massachusetts like me, but whom I've never met), Rose, Valentine, Dangerous Bill, Big Ed, D.L. King, all of my friends and colleagues from the Writers list. And of course Adrienne, founder of ERWA. I want to put faces with your names.

Clear your schedules. I want you all there.

We'll drink wine and talk about books, poetry, sex and life. We'll gossip about publishers and share story ideas. We'll dance – or at least, I will. In my opinion, it's not a party without dancing.

Of course, in reality, I know the parties I imagine probably aren't possible, for reasons of logistics. However, I'm going to commit to meeting as many of you as I can, individually if necessary, before I kick the bucket. And the next EAA conference – I'm going to work my butt off to get there.

I think that's something worth living for.

A Girl's Recurring Dream

Driving down a dark road at night. Unfamiliar road and car, and not driving, but riding in the passenger's seat. Just that alone is enough to render me uneasy from the start.

So far, there is darkness and loss of control. And nothing has happened yet.

A disembodied voice, that in my dream I know belongs to the driver, tells me to fasten my seatbelt. Reasonable request that sends shivers through me even as I comply, because I've been here before and I know what is to come. The prescience only heightens my dread.

I've had this dream dozens of times in my life, beginning around the age of ten.

And here comes the bridge. An old-fashioned bridge like you see in rural areas of the Midwest or New England, wooden with slats that don't seem suffcient to hold the weight of an automobile. Short railings along the side, and it's through these railings we crash, plummenting the thankfully short distance to the water below.

The water begins to fill the car, first slowly, then with a rush as the driver rolls down the window and frees him/herself, abandoning me to my fate. I frantically push at the old-fashioned push button release of the seatbelt, to no avail. It's stuck fast and the belt has tightened around me. Thrashing around, I try desperately to loosen the stricture. Nothing helps and the water inexorably rises as the car sinks.

Chest. Neck. Chin. Ears, as I tilt my head, still working at the belt, my fingers growing numb in the frigid matte black water. Temples, and now I'm submerged, thinking belatedly that I should have taken a deep breath before I lost the opportunity. My lungs are bursting with the need to breathe.

Just as I can hold my breath no longer...I snap awake. Sometimes bolt upright in bed. Sometimes in a random part of the house, always in motion as if I was running from my fate as I couldn't do in my subconscious. Always breathing as if to suck in every molecule of blessed oxygen within reach.

I don't know whether I've been holding my breath in actuality, as in my dream.

And I wonder sometimes what will happen the time I have this dream...and don't wake up in time. All I know is, I don't want to die in my sleep like many people say they do, because I fear this would be my last experience on earth.

Let me be aware and able to act, oh please, oh please.

Ride That Horse!

It's 6AM right now. I've been up for over an hour, had a shower, dragged myself downstairs, made a cup of tea, some toast, started the laundry. I didn't get to bed the night before until almost midnight, and I hate that I've had only five hours of sleep (less, if you subtract the time I spent tossing and turning). But that's the way the cookie crumbles sometimes. Sleep gets short shrift when I'm busy, and I am busy these days.

I've been thinking ever since I stepped out of the shower about what I could add to this week's topic. Not much, really. Like Lisabet, I dream and I remember my dreams. In fact, last night's dreams are still fresh in my mind, a confused jumble about me attending a science fiction convention and trying to find someone, maybe horror writer Matt F'n Wallace, to hold my purse (since when did I start carrying a fucking purse?!) while I run off to dance or chase aliens or go home because nobody at the convention likes me anymore. I dream a lot about science fiction conventions these days, probably because they've become so important to my writing career. I've attended five this year.

Of course, like Jenna, I've also had my bouts of insomnia, but unlike Jenna, I'm loathe to take anything for it. I guess I don't have insomnia that often, nor do I have a husband who's a light sleeper. I will say, however that for me, insomnia is the true nightmare. Every minute of sleep counts in my world.

Like Jude, I do have a tendency to work on stories while I sleep, though I don't recall dreaming about my writing when this happens. I just wake up and have a solution ready to go. Funny how that works.

Garce mentioned writers as people who live in a waking dream, bringing it to reality through the written word. Many of my stories come from vivid daydreams. In fact, the best stories are the ones that seize me while I'm awake, and I can't stop playing them over and over in my head, like a favorite movie, only I'm rehearsing the dialog and action and perfecting the scenery and plot with each pass through. I never get tired of doing that, either.

I obviously don't have Ashley's problem, since I remember my dreams, but I do sympathize with his wife. I woke up one morning and nearly punched Hubster's lights out because I dreamt he had kissed my sister. To this day, he gets into more trouble for things he's done in my dreams than for any actual transgressions he's committed in the real world. In fact, I think the worst recent nightmare I've had was about him divorcing me and refusing to give a reason why. I can't recall ever having woken up so angry and upset before.

I'm a vivid dreamer. I frequently recall my dreams. I usually post snippets of the more memorable ones on Twitter first thing after I get up. I've never used a specific night-dream (as opposed to day-dream) for any story, but somehow stories do manage to get written or edited while I'm off in Slumber Land. As for day-dreams, I'd be lost without them.

And all this has been covered by everyone else so far this week. So what do I have to add to this discussion that's unique, original, not yet mentioned?

Only myself, and my own weird dreams.

The first nightmare I can recall having happened was when I was five or six. It was about Flat Stanley. I dreamt he was shot and killed in the art museum robbery. I would never again let my parents read Flat Stanley to me, and in fact hid the book so I would never have to look at it again. To this day, I will not read Flat Stanley.

I dreamt once about a skull headed woman driving a horse-drawn cart. Her face and hair had been burned off in a fire, though the rest of her was untouched. I don't know why that one snippet of dream still hangs with me to this day.

In college, I dreamt about being on a search for a magical talisman. The search always took place in the same weird, endless underground city, in a rather seedy market place. That same year, I was taking a class on creativity. We had to pick a "talisman," an object to journal about (this was looooooooong before the days of blogging), think about, dream about. I dreamt about my object all right. My talisman was a piece of moss agate. I finally dreamt one night that I found my talisman in a dusty shop in the underground city. I broke it open and drank the milky fluid inside of it. It tasted flat, stale, salty, metallic. Nothing magical whatsoever happened as a result of that drink.

I dreamt once that Batman and Robin were hosting a news cast. Robin told a joke about the Marine Corps, and it was so funny, I woke up laughing. I startled the hell out of the Hubster, who asked, "What's so funny?" He says I told him, "It wouldn't translate well in real time." I spent the rest of the day walking around with a smile on my face that nothing could wipe off.

I dreamt that I went to visit my grandmother in a nursing home. I was sitting at her feet, chatting, when she suddenly said, "You know your old grandma is dying." I hugged her knees and said, "It's okay, Grandma." A month or so later, she did die, though that wasn't unexpected. That dream was the last time I really saw her.

I dreamt I was in my favorite aunt's house, being hunted by my other aunt, the one who had estranged herself from my family years before. The lights were all out, and I slipped from room to room, silently as I could, sticking close to the walls because even though I couldn't see it in the dark, I knew the floors had all collapsed in the middle of each room. My estranged aunt was always just a room behind me, hunting for me in the dark...

I dreamt once about the lousy part-time job I had as a cashier in a craft store. The dream was a nightmare, with nothing going right. In the midst of it, a man took me by the hand and suddenly I was standing in my yard with him. He asked me, "If you could be a goddess, what kind of goddess would you be?" I said, "I'd be a goddess of cats, and art, and creativity." "Then why aren't you that goddess now?" he asked me. I'm still trying to figure out the answer to that one.

When I really, really want to have a nightmare, I dream I'm back in college and I'm a cadet again. Either I can't find my dorm room, or I have to live in an apartment off campus but there's something wrong with the apartment or else I can't find it, and I know I'm going to get in trouble because of this. I hate dreaming I'm back in college. I really, really hate it.

I dreamt once I had a flying carpet and I rode it through my neighborhood. It was the neatest thing in the world!

I dreamt once that I stood in a train station, waiting for someone important to show up. A gorgeous young man stepped off the train and greeted me with a kiss. It's the only time I can recall having an orgasm in my sleep.

I dreamt once that I was the only person in a giant Barnes and Noble bookstore. It had millions upon millions of books, and the world's best cafe filled with all sorts of culinary delights. The second floor of the store was an endless series of baths, each one modeled in a different style, including a Roman bath and a Polynesian hot spring. Apparently the whole place had been built for me and me alone. It was my dream of Paradise. Then one of the tubs upstairs overflowed and the water rotted the floor until the top story fell into the bottom story and the whole place collapsed on itself. I woke up devastated.

During my second pregnancy, I dreamt I was a dominatrix, dressed form head to toe in a black vinyl bodysuit and thigh high boots. I was having strap-on sex with a friend, a woman I knew in real life. She wore a harness and nothing else. I was cruel and indifferent to her struggles against me. I woke up from that dream so disoriented and confused, for a while I wasn't sure if it had happened in reality or not.

Last week, I dreamt someone tried to mug me for my knitting. Yes, my knitting! I beat the crap out of the guy, but did not feel good about it afterwords.

And those are just a few of my nighttime dreams. The daydreams run the gamut from blisteringly hot sexual fantasy to the more mundane things like being on the New York Times best-seller list. And of course, I have those moments of waking lucid dreaming where I'm working on a story, and have become so possessed by the characters that I stand there, lips moving, mumbling dialog and narrative to myself like some sort of lunatic (do not let Garce and I sit in a cafe together; I'm certain someone would call the men in white jackets if they saw us both babbling and have us locked away).

Piers Anthony once wrote a book called "Nightmare" in which a jet black horse named Mare Imbrium delivered bad dreams to people. At the time I read that, I thought it was the coolest idea I'd ever heard of. Not surprisingly, I have dreamed of riding that horse.

It's all a dream...or is it?

Ghost of a Chance

By Jude Mason
ISBN: 978-1-906811-06-8
Contains: m/m, paranormal
Publisher: Total E-Bound
Publisher URL: http://www.total-e-bound.com/

When a ghost appears in his dreams and gives Robert Haskins the blow job of his life, it also drops him into a forty-year-old mystery that he's determined to solve.

Opening scene

Silken softness wrapped around his cock, sucking gently, exquisitely.

Robert shifted. Rolling onto his back, he stretched his legs out, barely conscious of being in bed, not really awake.

Wet suction pulled at his shaft. A tongue slid over the crown of his cock, the tip delving into the slit. His thighs eased open.

Yes, a dream. That’s what it is. A wet dream, a fantasy—a disembodied mouth, tongue, lips, teeth, all there just for his pleasure.

The suction eased, the lips barely skimming over his shaft—up and down, up and down. His hips twitched, his buttocks clenched, his thighs tightened. He splayed his knees wider. A tongue moved wetly up his shaft again. The sensation faded.

Excitement waned. He fell into deeper sleep.

A face appeared—dark hair tousled, thick brows with one arched more then the other, sideburns longer than fashionable. The nose had a bump in the middle. Eyes—brown, wide open, framed with beautifully long lashes—watched him. Lips—thick, moist, kissable—opened.

Robert’s hips moved, churned his ass into the bed. Soft sheets brushed against his shaft and its head wept and stuck to the material.

He reached for himself. A squeeze, a tug. He sighed and his slumber again deepened.

The beautiful, handsome face vanished, but the mouth remained. Lips, tongue, brushed the thick dome of his cock.

His balls shifted, moving up closer to his body. He clenched his ass. In sync, his hips rose, pushing his cock shaft further in.

Taking his hand off his cock, he reached lower and cupped the soft, nearly hairless sac below. Holding it, he pulled down on the two walnut-sized orbs.

He relaxed, his sleep deepened again. Time passed.

“You like that, don’t you, my love?”
---

Okay, this may not be exactly what Lisabet meant when she came up with this weeks topic, but this opening came to mind right away.

Do I remember my dreams? Do they play a part in my work?

I have a notepad and pen beside my bed at all times. I don't remember many of my dreams but I can't even begin to count how many times I've woken up with a book completely formed in my thoughts. Not just a little flash of an idea, but the entire thing laid out and ready to go. I rarely manage to get it all down before it fades away. My first book was one of those dreams.

Mostly though, I'll answer questions or fix mistakes I'm making with characters in my sleep. What I mean is, a character, like any person, have things about them that are a given. If I write something that simply wouldn't fit the character, I've dreamed about it, them complaining, telling me I'm full of it for having them do whatever. I've been woken in the middle of the night to go fix these things.

Ya know, it's not just sleep type dreams that bring stories. Daydreaming is almost as productive. Possibly even more so because I don't have to spend time trying to wake up enough to find the damn pen. LOL I can be sitting looking out the window, mind wandering, and an idea, or a complete story will happen.

So, yup, dreams really do become part of my writing. Not always, because I've had some spooky dreams, but enough so I do keep that notepad handy.

What do you think about his topic? Do you remember your dreams well enough to write them down, or somehow use them?

Dream on...or not

By Jenna Byrnes

I don't remember my dreams. I have plenty of them. Thanks to my bestest nighttime buddy Ambien, I have tons of vivid and busy dreams every night. I just don't remember them when I wake up. I might recall a certain person being there, or a tidbit of what the dream was about, but unlike Lisabet, my dreams don't tell stories or write books or poems.

Maybe I had better dreams before the Ambien, but who cares? I love that I sleep through the night now, and only once--once--have I gotten up and done something I didn't remember doing the next day. (This is a common side effect of Ambien, and concerning to people who don't have a light-sleeping husband lying next to them.) Some people *cough* Jude *cough* prefer to live more naturally and would rather not take pills if they don't have to. I think that's great. But for me? I say, you got something legal that will make me feel better/ look better/ sleep better, bring it on, baby!

Sleeping without Ambien is a tossing and turning nightmare. So I simply pop one tiny white pill each night and snooze comfortably until my alarm goes off the next morning. I sleep so well, in fact, that when I'm asked to answer questions about how I sleep I always say "Great!" and then have to remember to add, "With Ambien, that is." LOL

Back to the issue of dreams. Trying to remember my pre-Ambien days, I still don't think I ever used anything from one of my dreams in my writing. Dreams are freaking weird. Daydreams are so much more fun!

Daily campground admission: $8

Large outdoor blanket: $95

Pitching a tent in your sleep for everyone to see... Priceless.

What Dreams May Come

by Lisabet Sarai



The vast room stretches two stories up to a sky-lit ceiling. The trainers bustle about in white leather miniskirts and heeled boots, their hair pulled back into severe pony tails that shimmer down their trim backs. The slaves are shackled to walls, or more accurately, to jointed cantilever frames that extend out from the walls and support all manner of interesting and embarrassing poses.

I am one of them, a novice, recognized by the minions of the mistress for what I am, enticed here by their veiled promises. I am naked, bound and gagged, unable to move. I am simultaneously aroused and terrified.

My trainer, a stunning brunette with crimson lips, approaches me with an enema bag. “You must be empty,” she says, “so the mistress can fill you.” I nearly come from excitement and terror.

The scene shifts to an outdoor café. My own master and the mistress drink espresso at a wrought iron table. I crouch at my master's feet underneath, listening to their conversation. “She did well,” the mistress comments. “You've done a good job preparing her.” The pride I feel at pleasing her and showing off my master's skill is almost more intense than my sexual desire.

---

The above is part of a real dream. It's not a fictional vignette concocted by my dirty mind—at least, not my conscious dirty mind. I've always had vivid dreams. I recall that my brother and I told each other our dreams when we were just kids. I tend to remember more of my dreams, I believe, than the average person, even though I don't usually write them down.

I dream recurring landscapes: the cities of my youth morphed and mingled together, full of buses and trains and subways; a mansion with endless halls and stairways that I think derives from a long ago visit to the Winchester Mystery House; an ocean-front resort during a storm, threatened by the gigantic waves; the rural town where I lived for more than twenty years. I dream repeating themes. I've been given the chance to return to college once again and I'm thrilled to be able to explore all the wonderful topics I had to pass up the first time around. I'm in college again and it's finals week, and suddenly I realize that I've completely skipped attending several of my classes. Evil creatures, aliens or magicians or monsters, surround my house, while I try desperately to find a place to hide. And of course I dream of both my husband and the lovers from my past, as well as new women and men who tempt and torment me.

Sometimes I dream entire stories, with plots and characters who have nothing to do with me. In my dreams these days, I know that I'm a writer. I actually understand, while I'm dreaming, that there's a narrative playing out on the screen of my mind and I try to remember the details when I wake. Often I do. For the most part, though, I haven't managed to get these narratives out of my head and onto the page before they fade. Often I'll remember the premise and the protagonists, but the emotion evaporates all too quickly. Once the excitement slips away, it's hard to motivate myself to actually fashion the dream into a waking tale. It seems stiff and empty.

I did write a poem based on the dream above. That dream was triggered by one of my rare reunions with my master. I've also got a hundred word “flasher” based on a dream:

---

Conversation with the Marquis

I dreamed of de Sade. He smiled gently down at me. "Come to me when you are ready."

Pretending lightness, I replied, "I never said that I was interested in such things."

"You need not say. I can see it in your eyes."

I knew he spoke truly. When I looked at him I saw ropes biting tender flesh, instruments of steel and leather, candles, clamps, searing pain, scalding pleasure.

Suspended in awful desire, I fled. Waking, I found a volume of his tales by my bedside, inscribed with a single word.

"Come."

---

I don't think much of Freud's views on dreams, but I do believe that they can carry some sort of truth. My dreams reveal to me my passions and my fears. They show me who I really am. They also fascinate me with their emotional richness and their sensory detail. John Crowley's wonderful book Little, Big includes a character who spends as much time as she can sleeping, because she loves to dream. I'm not that extreme, but I've been known to wake in the middle of the night, go to the bathroom, then lie down again and resume a dream where I had left off.

I've also experienced a handful of dreams that I can only call prescient. In one, I sat by the hospital bed of a gravely ill former lover, trying to comfort him and ease his pain. I learned the next day that his father had committed suicide the night of the dream. In another, I dreamed that a dear female friend whom I hadn't heard from in months was going to have a baby. Within two days, an email from me informed me that she was in fact pregnant.

Actually, my explanation for these experiences is grounded more in psychic communication over distances than in precognition. I've never dreamed a future that didn't involve someone whom I cared about deeply. I suspect that there's some sort of emotional vibration—electromagnetic waves of some sort—that can be transmitted between people who have a strong bond.

I do dream quite a lot about sex (surprise surprise). Sometimes very strange sex, involving hermaphrodites and detachable penises and public masturbation, sometimes nothing more than a glorious flirtation which cloaks mutual desire. In the last few years, for the first time (that I remember) I've started to have orgasms in my sleep. At least it feels that way. Of course, sometimes it feels like I'm flying, too.

Even though my dreams have been directly responsible for relatively few of my stories so far, I feel as though they nourish my imagination. I use bits and pieces of dream imagery all the time. And I have written a number of dream sequences which borrow the tone of my real night journeys.

I've been thinking about this blog post for quite a while. Last week, I woke from a dream that may well have been catalyzed by my pondering the topic.

---

The blond young vampire sits on his motorcycle, his face serious. The air is heavy with erotic tension. “I've got to go,” he tells me and my girlfriend. “If I stay, I'll hurt you.”

I take his hand and place it on my breast. He caresses me through my clothing. Desperate lust overwhelms me. I know that he feels it too, that it takes every shred of self-discipline he can muster to hold himself back. “Maybe you could hurt us a little,” I say, trying to tempt him, unable or unwilling to let go of this intoxicating desire.

I wake, wet and trembling, before he can answer.