"Mama Says": A Vignette of Craving

“So, he says, “I was talking to your mama the other night and I asked her did she ever do 69?  And your mama says ‘no, I only did 56.’  So I say - how do you do 56?  and she says ‘That’s all the sailors I could screw in one night.’ “

So Ron laughs a little.

“You,” says Andy.  He reaches down and fiddles with the car radio, but it’s still dead or at least all static.  Nothing doing.

“So I asked your mama”, says Ron,” if your Dad’s a good fucker.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” says Ron. “I asked her ‘does Ron’s dad, does he fuck you good?’ Does he fuck your mama a lot?”

“What’d my mama say?”

“She said your Dad is 300 percent impotent.”

“You can’t be 300 percent.”

“She said your dad can’t ever get his dick up at all, then he burned his tongue and broke his fingers.”

“Oh fuck you.”

“Yes, sir.”  Ron sat, feeling the tension boil up in his loins.  This time he would try to hold out.  “You.”

“911 – I have an emergency,” said Andy.

“What’s your emergency?”

“I’m beating off my meat too much.”

“Sir, that’s not a problem.”

“See mom?  I told you it was okay!”  Andy fiddled with the car radio.  Nothing.

“I heard my mama yelled at you yesterday when you were alone with her,” said Ron.    First the tension began in his thighs.  Then spread to his stomach.  Then his fingers began to shake.  His hands were shaking.  He clenched his fists.

“Yeah?  Why?” said Andy.  “What’d I ever do to your mama?”

“My mama yells out ‘Andy, take off my blouse.’ And you did.”

“Okay.”

“My mama yells ‘Andy, take off my bra’, and you did.  You took off my mama’s bra.  And she yelled at you again.”

“Like what?”

“My mama yells ‘Andy, take off my panties’, so you did.  Then she yells at you some more.”

“Like what?”

“My mama says ‘If I ever catch you wearing my clothes again, I’m calling the cops.’ ”

“bada-bing,” says Andy, leaning his elbow out the window.

The old 1977 Toyota had never had air conditioning but no one had ever missed it, especially on cross country trips.  It was nice having the windows down, the smell of the fields, the occasional rotting animal, the briny whiff of the Gulf of Mexico on the other side of the levee passing by.

“Go,” says Ron, and now the shakes are in his voice.  Andy looks at him.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, says Ron, not feeling okay.  He knows he’s going to do it.  The old Altoids box is sitting hot in his jeans pocket waiting for his surrender.

“You’re not car sick?  You gotta ralph?”

“Okay,” says Ron.  His hand is on the Altoids box in his jeans.

“So anyway,” says Andy.  “I was talking to your Dad.”

“My dad?” says Ron, taking the Altoids box out of his pocket.  He hates himself for being weak.  He hates that he’s about to do this.  “What’d he say?”

“He said 20 years ago he went on vacation camping and your mom got pregnant with you.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.  So he says 15 years ago he went on an ocean cruise, and your mama got pregnant with your sister.”

“Okay.”

“He said last year he’s on vacation and your mama got pregnant with your sister Lisa.”

“Okay.”

“So he says this year he’s going to do it different.”

“How?”

“He’s going to take your mama with him.”

“What?” says Ron, opening the Altoids box.  “I don’t get it.”

“Think about it.”

Ron looked in the box, lifted one of the waxy squares and put it on his tongue.  The bitter sourness filled his mouth but his hands stopped shaking.  He felt relieved even as his stomach heaved.  He swallowed the waxy square, choked it down but the taste only became worse, hanging on his tongue like a pall.

“Okay?”

Ron waved his hand desperately.  Andy pulled over and waited.  Ron opened the door, leaned down, spit dryly and vomited in the grass beside the car wheel.  Andy waited, fiddling with the radio dial.  Nothing.

“Okay?”

“Gah.”

Andy reached behind, took a can of Budweiser from a paper bag on the back seat, popped the top and passed it to Ron.  Ron rinsed his mouth with the beer and spit it out.

“Good?”

“I’m okay.”

Ron closed the door and Andy pulled back onto county road 25.  “I was talking to your mama the other day,” says Ron.  He felt the urge rising again.

“Yeah?” said Andy.

“She said she had been thinking of a boob job and then decided to have her asshole bleached.”

“Her asshole bleached?”

“I told her she shouldn't.  I said I can’t picture your dad as a blond.”

Andy sat for a moment, driving.  “Huh?”

“You don’t get it?”

“No,” said Andy.  “People get their assholes bleached?”

“Maybe it’s a west coast thing, I don’t know.”

“No, what’s the gag?  My dad’s gay?”

“No,” said Ron, but his fingers were already back in the Altoids box.  “That’s not the joke.”

“Say the joke again.”

“Here’s a poem.”

“Okay.”

“There was a sweet girl of Decatur   Who went to sea on a freighter.  She was screwed by the master   -An utter disaster-  But the crew all made up for it later.”

“I don’t get it,” said Andy.

“It’s a limerick.  Isaac Asimov wrote that.”

“Who’s Isaac Asimov?”

“Anyway.  Let’s get something.”

They pull off a side road into a barbecue joint called Big Red Chief’s.  They order the lunch special from a busty southern waitress with a plastic tag that reads “Dolly”.  She and her cleavage hover over Ron, lays her fingers on his shoulder and coos “More sweet tea, baby?”

Ron watches her walking away to the next table, the sound of her voice making his lips move.

“You okay?” says Andy, looking away out the window, grinning.

Ron is not okay.  Ron is gone away to twelve years old at this moment, at home, rising up early because he can’t sleep.  He had a bad dream from the old Dracula movie on TV last night.  He leaves his bedroom because a light is on in the living room and there is cigarette smoke in the air.

His mother is sitting on the living room sofa, a cigarette forked in her fingers.  She is sitting naked and the curtains are open and cars are going by and the sun is coming up and she’s looking into the smoke rising and nothing else, like she’s not all there, like something has gone bad.  He has never seen a woman naked.  He knows he should not see his mother naked.  Maybe it’s in the Bible or something.  But he can’t look away.  She is naked.  She is a nude woman, smoking, who is also his mother.  Her mysterious, taco shaped breasts are pointed, the nipples looking down her chest.  Gray ash is falling indifferently on her thighs, collecting there.  Gray ash is floating down into her salt and pepper wad of pubic hair.  He watches it fall and says out loud -

“Holy fuck shit mom.”

His mother doesn’t move.  Her sorrowful and far away eyes move only and focus on him like gun sights.  

Discovering him.

“You said what?”

He doesn’t answer.

She doesn’t answer.  She’s still off somewhere in some unpleasant place.  She drops the cigarette on the floor, steps on it with her bare naked foot.  She stands up, thighs jostling, her breasts lifting a little, the wiry knot of tangled hair between her thighs fluffing out and Ron knows he should not being looking at this, he should cover his eyes and hiss like Dracula seeing a crucifix, something in the Bible probably says young boys should not see their mothers this way, but he cannot stop looking.  A naked woman, she looks so exotic and utterly alien.  She comes to him, walking across the room.  “You said what?”

“I don’t remember,” he says.

“You dirty boy.  Dirty, dirty boy.”

Naked she come up close to him, smelling of smoke, ash dribbling down from her legs, naked she reaches and takes his right ear, pinching hard in her fingers so that he squinches his eyes against the pain.  Like a leash she leads his ear to the bathroom, to the sink; her nude right breast keeps bumping its hard nipple against his cheek as she half drags him.  He could turn his head and take it in his mouth and suck it, it’s so close to his face, but somewhere the Bible probably says he should not do that either.  And the touch of that nipple, his naked mother’s nipple bumping at his face as she pulls him along– it makes his little pee-pee stand all up stiffy stick.  Which it has never done before.  It frightens him.  Maybe it’s broken or something.

She runs the water.  (“Mom!”) She takes the bar of white Ivory soap (“Mom!”),  breaks off a piece, opens his mouth and stuffs it in hard like a wad of poisonous taffy.  “That’s for your stinky mouth.”

“Gonna use the john,” says Ron. 

Although the BBQ joint is small, the men’s room is hard to find.  It’s off the side of the kitchen which smells for some reason like fried rice instead of meat.  Ron pushes the door and goes in.  Above the sink and to the side on the wall is a coin vending machine.  Four glass chutes.  One has condoms (For the Prevention of Disease Only), one has a soft rubber tube in a wrapper like a wide mouthed hairy caterpillar called only “The Tickler”, another has aspirin and another has a cascade of plastic combs.  Above the sink is a plastic globe shaped like a hot air balloon filled with syrupy green soap.  Ron dips his head, sticks out his tongue like a good boy without fighting anymore and holds his thumb under the tap button.  Thick green syrup drools onto his tongue and down his gullet.

The food is on the table when he returns. 

“What’d you do, fall in?”

“Yeah,” says Ron.  “I needed the bath after listening to your jokes.”  He sits near the window, feeling his stomach burble and boil portentously down deep into his bowels.   “So I went to see your mama the other day.”

“Oh, yeah?” says Andy, “My mama?  Why, you like to see my mama?”

 “I brought your mama this big bunch of flowers, I like her so much.”

“She like your flowers okay?” muffles Andy over a mouthful of pulled pork and sauce.

“She liked them so much she tore her panties right off and flopped down on her back and spread her legs and showed me her snatch and said  ‘You wonderful boy – this is for the flowers.’’

“What’d you say to that - ?”

“Gee lady, don’t you have a vase?”

 

Carved Cravings by J.P. Bowie

I love this small cafe I frequent on an almost daily basis -- or should I say nightly?  Here in the throbbing heart of London, this sequestered spot attracts the young and the gifted, and those who feel the need to hobnob with them. My discerning eye can pick out the ones last mentioned quite quickly. They gush, they pry, they push nearer to those they wish to emulate, as if youth and talent could be transferred somehow by osmosis. Has it never occurred to them that those precious gifts are exactly that -- gifts that can neither be bought nor acquired by rote?

Regardless of these charlatans, I enjoy to sit here and watch, over the brim of my wineglass, the interactions of the artists, writers and poets, recognizing the great bond with which they are connected -- admiration for each others' work.  One such young man had caught my wandering eye several nights before. Achingly beautiful, his hair a halo of golden curls, his skin alabaster with just a slight pinking on his cheeks and his eyes of clear, cerulean blue. It was a wonder to me that he was not surrounded by the sycophants that crowded in around the tables oohing and aahing over a particular work they neither understood nor would remember the next day. Sometimes I tired of these fools and would entice them into the alley that ran alongside the cafe. There I would drink from them that which I craved more than life itself before sending them on their way, their minds even emptier than when they were uttering banalities over some artist's latest endeavors.

My young friend, for that was how I had become to think of him, even though he did not know I existed, seemed  impervious to the presence of the fawning crowd. Never did he look up from his work, nor turn his head when a loud guffaw or a shriek of adulation could be heard over the general hubbub created by the cafe's clientele. His only distraction came when Phillipe, the cafe owner would personally deliver his dinner. Then he would raise his head and smile at his host, and my heart-- that part of me that should not pound nor quicken, that should lie dormant in my chest, would literally lurch inside  its cavity, and a need, so deep inside me, would roil and claw its way to the surface where my emotions could be laid bare. It took all my self-control to not jump to my feet and assail him with words that surely would be construed by him to be only echoing the sycophantic rantings of the mob that surrounded him every night.

And so I sit each night, only watching him while he eats. Each small piece of meat glides from his fork to between his finely shaped, pink lips then disappears into the warm, moist recesses of his mouth. His cheeks glow and his eyes glitter as he chews. He savors each morsel as though it were a gift from the gods themselves. I crave that -- that tempting meaty fragrance he so lovingly consumes -- perhaps more than I do the life blood that surges through his veins. How I wish that he would look at me, smile in that winsome way of his, and offer what to me would be a succulent piece of himself. I would part my lips in acceptance of what he he had carved with his own fork and knife, then my eyes firmly fixed on his, I would inhale the pungent aroma before gently tugging the red meat into my mouth.

My eyes downcast, I look away from what is all too tempting, and when I turn my head in his direction again, his place at the table is empty, and all I can do is wait, craving his return.

Unrequited

By Lisabet Sarai

Do I seem mad to you? If so, they are responsible. They've driven me mad with their beauty and indifference.

They don't even bother to hunt anymore. They spend their days in their king-sized coffin, alabaster limbs entwined in a frozen tableau of passion. They devote their nights to surfing the Internet, listening to Bach or Dvořák, or lounging on their deck, the endless grid of the city sparkling below them.

Except, of course, for the nights when they feed.

Occasionally, on rainy days when there's no risk, I muster the courage to lift the polished rosewood lid of their communal casket and peek inside. I'm always startled by the scent that rises from their inert forms, orange blossoms and sun-warmed stone, no hint of dankness or decay. Their exquisite pallor complements the perfection of their naked bodies. They seem like statues modeled from translucent, milky glass.

He slumbers with one palm cupping her pert breast, the other arm wrapped around her waist. Her honey-brown hair fans over his chest, fine as spider silk. She curls her fist around his cock, which is rampant even as they sleep. The bold gesture contrasts with her innocent features. She has the smooth cheeks, pointed chin and plump lips of a teenage cheerleader.

My fingers twitch. The urge to trace the shape of that sweet, ripe mouth is almost irresistible. More times than I can count, I've seen her girlish face grinning and smeared with gore. It doesn't matter. She will always be my angel, my inspiration, my heart's desire, my doom. My beloved mistress.

My master is equally magnificent in his own way, with a dancer's subtly muscled arms and legs and a head of glorious ebony curls like some pale gypsy. He has a bookish look, with a high forehead rising above bushy black brows and a sensitive mouth that cries out for kisses.

I've never dared to lean close and take advantage of his immobility, much as I ache to feel the chill of his flesh against my own. If I gave way to temptation, would he know? I'm not certain that their death-like daytime sleep stills their minds the way it freezes their bodies. I doubt he'd punish me, if he discovered my transgression. He knows I'd welcome the mark of his bullwhip or the icy invasion of his knife. No, more likely he'd mock me, or simply ignore me, refusing to acknowledge my existence. I couldn't bear that.

The sight of them, locked together in eternal stasis, holds me captive. Blood pours into my cock, blood I know they'd savor if they'd only take it, until I'm hard as the concrete walls of the basement room where they sleep. My pulse pounds in my temples as my futile erection strains my trousers. I am their creature, their slave, stunned into helpless worship by their unearthly beauty.

I know they need me. That should satisfy me – the knowledge that without me they'd might fry or starve or succumb to some overly zealous reader of horror fiction. Month after month, year after year, I guard them and I procure them their victims. It's my privilege to serve them. That should be enough. But I want more from them, God help me, more than I can ever hope they'll give.

From Renfield’s Lament by Lisabet Sarai

Our topic this fortnight is “Craving”. One can crave many things, of course: food, water, sweets, alcohol, drugs, attention, fame, money. For authors of erotic fiction, though, carnal yearning naturally takes precedence.

Unlike food or water, one can live without sex (as unappealing as that might sound), yet the craving for sex – or more commonly, for a particular sexual object - may well be more powerful than physical hunger or thirst. Sexual desire can be all-encompassing – physical, emotional, and spiritual. It can strip us bare, lead us to take actions we’d never consider if not under its irrational influence. Crimes of passion demonstrate the strength of this craving, its capability to render us temporarily insane with want.

Indeed the experience of sexual craving, that desperate longing for the desired other, may well be more intense than the pleasure achieved in its fulfillment. Yet erotica frequently focuses more on the latter than on the former.

When people ask me for my personal definition of erotica, I tell them erotica is fiction that portrays sexual desire. According to my definition, it’s possible to write erotica in which no actual sexual acts occur.

This is not a fashionable perspective. These days it’s tough to publish a story without at least one orgasm. A more popular definition of erotica is “explicit fiction intended to sexually arouse the reader”. Implicit here is the notion of satisfaction (either physical or vicarious). A tale of unrequited craving without the “payoff” may leave this sort of reader feeling cheated or frustrated. I guess I can sympathize. After all, so many people feel dissatisfied with their real-world sex lives; why would they want to be frustrated by the sexy fiction they choose to read as well?

As for me, I’m actually more interested in the desire than I am in the sex itself. I admire an author who can vividly evoke the state of neediness associated with acute sexual craving. One of the best tales in this category that I’ve encountered recently is Preston Avery’s “Won’t Last the Week”, in Tenille Brown’s recent anthology Can’t Get Enough. The narrator meets the woman of his dreams at a party. They spend the night on the beach, so entranced by one another that they forget to exchange phone numbers.

She isn't skinny like the girls I usually go for, like my ideal “on paper” woman, but curved and soft and she fits me just right. Her breasts are big with a delicious slope to them, and I know they will overflow my grasp. I could bury my face in the valley between them and never come up for air. I could have seconds and thirds and fourths of her and die a gluttonous happy man. She does everything I lead her into. I don't ask – words are still lost to us. The first time I lower one of my hands to those gorgeous mounds, hidden between a thin blue cotton shirt, she doesn't protest of push me away- she arches into me, into my touch, and makes the most beautiful noise in her throat. That moment, those moments, are all that I can feel. The future is as unreal to me as a unicorn on the planet Saturn. That place where names and phone numbers matter is at least a world away.

As the week goes on, dreams and fantasies of the lost woman consume the narrator. He wanders through his days in a trance of longing. He spends his nights re-envisioning their connection and rubbing his cock raw. Will he somehow manage to find her? Or will he go mad with need and frustration? The beautiful urgency of this story left me in wet wonder.

In fact, at the end of the tale, the poor guy does find his dream girl, against all odds. The story, though, is not really about that happy ending. Its focus is on narrator’s craving, so powerful it totally overwhelms everything else in his life.

And what about a story where the narrator does not get what he or she wants so badly? Can that still be erotic? I invite you to read the rest of Renfield’s Lament, over in the ERWA gallery. One of my goals in writing this story was to create a tale where the desires of the protagonist are ultimately frustrated. In fact the narrator does have an orgasm and achieve physical release. This, however, does not satisfy his craving.

Can I call this tale of unrequited desire “erotica”? Is it arousing? What do you think?

Plausibility

by Jean Roberta

(Note: An earlier version of this piece was posted on the Erotic Readers and Writers Association blog, May 26, 2014.)

My latest erotic story (see explanation below) was written in response to a call for submissions, and it involves the kind of plot/situation that erotic editors often ask for: sex with a Bad Girl/vampire seductress/or Lone Wolf/outlaw dude. Exciting sex between a character with whom the (supposedly average) reader can identify and a mysterious, unsettling Other sounds like a marketable concept. Whether this plot is believable on any level depends on each reader’s level of skepticism.

Persuasive character development depends on convincing the reader that this character would actually do that thing. Some writers, especially those who write first-time erotica (innocent youngish character loses his/her virginity in some sense by doing some sexual thing for the first time) try to pre-empt the reader’s skepticism by putting extreme ambivalence into the character’s consciousness. (“OMG! Did I really just accept the handsome stranger’s invitation to let him take me to his chateau alone? I can’t believe I’m doing this!”) The virginal character’s attempts to hang onto a clean and cautious image of herself (and usually this character is a her) ring false after awhile. Either she will or she won’t go to the home of a strange man. While there, either she will or she won’t take off all her clothes for him and let him tie her up. If she goes “all the way” (as it used to be called) and has incredible orgasms, then clearly she is the “kind of girl” who does that kind of thing. She can no longer honestly claim to be a virgin. Of course, she could still be a good person who treats others as she would like to be treated (and who harms none), but in that case, she needs to reject a shallow definition of “goodness” as sexual ignorance.

Erotica is often about transformations and epiphanies. Doing new things involves acquiring new knowledge, especially knowledge about oneself. This is part of the reason why character-driven erotica is interesting to read. However, critics will criticize a change that looks unbelievably extreme, OR a series of sexual adventures that leave a central character absolutely unchanged on the inside.

Writing plausible erotica is harder than it looks, especially since different readers have different thresholds for the suspension of disbelief.

Crits and complaints often focus on whether Character A would really be attracted to Character B, and what action, threat or proposition can or should be regarded as a deal-breaker. If Character B (the handsome stranger) says, “A pretty girl like you should be stripped naked and tied up,” and if Character A (the ingénue) then falls into his arms, some readers will complain that she is Too Stupid to Live, and others will say that in real life, she would rush out the door and resolve never to return to the bar – and for good measure, she would stop speaking to the mutual friend who introduced them.

Some readers will ask, “But why would Character A (law-abiding citizen) be attracted to Character B (rake, seductress, criminal, spy, visitor from another planet) when they are so different?” (Obviously, opposites never attract in the real world, even on the rare occasions when they cross paths.)

Sexual identity is actually a slippery thing, but some readers expect clarity: Lance is a gay-male porn star who was performing in the nude since birth. Bob is less flamboyant, but he knows he is attracted to men, and this is made clear to the reader from the outset, even if he won’t admit it aloud. Bob could possibly be seduced by Lance, but Bob wouldn’t make the first move. Bob couldn’t be married with children, and he could never enter Lance’s profession.

Some heterocentric critics have commented on the general acceptability of female/female sex scenes in sexually-explicit writing – but only if at least one of the characters finds Mr. Right or stays happily married, because she is not really a lesbian. (The real ones always wear labels, or strap-ons.)

During the period of suspense between sending a story to an editor and getting a response, I worry about all the possible reasons why the story might be rejected. A perceived lack of plausibility is high on the list, even if the call-for-submissions asked for vampires, werewolves, zombies, or a Romeo-and-Juliet romance between members of different supernatural species. (But would any self-respecting bloodsucker really . . . ?)

If and when I write my memoirs, I expect them to be rejected by the first 36 publishers on grounds that 1) the story lacks continuity, and 2) it lacks plausibility. For one thing, even if the author/narrator really lost her virginity in her teens, this can’t be stated in print without possible legal repercussions. And would she really have been attracted to the older brother of her Mormon friend? Why did the attraction not develop into a relationship? The plot trajectory needs editing.

I suspect that a certain incoherence is actually typical of real-life narratives, especially if written while the subject is still alive. A fictional version of the story is likely to be pared-down and simplified rather than expanded. Embarrassing, unlikely or seemingly irrelevant events and characters need to be weeded out to give a story the coherence which would give a comforting impression of logical cause-and-effect. I can imagine an editor’s comments on the complete, unexpurgated, five-volume version of my life-story to date: What is the theme here? Where are you going with this?

So I’m waiting to hear what an editor has to say about my story about a passionate encounter between mismatched acquaintances, one of whom needs to escape from the police as well as from a criminal gang, while the other wants to experience the “wild side” just for a night, without taking any big risks. A safe apartment, a safe job and a safe income look almost unbearably desirable to one who never had them, but the one who takes them for granted can’t see it.

What is realistic and what is not? The longer I live, the harder it seems to write fiction with the unmistakable flavour of life, especially if it is based on reality that is stranger than fiction.

(P.S. "Shelter," my story about the passionate encounter between mismatched acquaintances, was published in Forbidden Fruit: Stories of Unwise Lesbian Desire.)

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Ten Things That Turn Me Off

by Annabeth Leong

I want to talk about are things that interfere with my suspension of disbelief while reading romance and erotica, but I'm very aware that people's mileage on this sort of thing does vary. I operate by a certain set of beliefs as a writer, which I can talk about another time if it comes up. In this case, I'm talking about the stuff that bothers me as a reader—what makes me put books down because the spell has been broken. In at least a few of the cases below, it probably comes down to personal preference or experience, so please take this for what it's worth.

1. Alpha Male Jerkface

I almost wrote my entire disbelief post about how I can't personally believe that the alpha male jerkface is as popular as he seems. For a while, I thought this was some wrong-headed imposition on the part of publishers. Then I went to a couple conventions where I met tons of fans who are apparently into this loser and wish they could be with him. Holy Lord, the alpha male jerkface turns me off unless he is recognized as such. If someone is in his horrible clutches and suffering and crying for it, my fetish for extreme pain activates and I can be down. If they think he's romantic or sweet when he's actually being jealous, possessive, and borderline (or outright) abusive, I'm throwing a book across the room. It's not cute, and I can't believe in a hero or heroine who would really be swooning over that crap unless they have a boatload of life issues they're still trying to work out.

Since this is apparently one of the places where I have a strong personal preference that doesn't match the rest of the world, I'll add that I'm the child of an abusive relationship and I've been in abusive relationships myself. I've got a lot of education at this point about how to spot them, and I've got intimate, unfortunate, and painful knowledge of how badly they tend to turn out, even if they look romantic at first.

2. Lack of Protection

I know this one is controversial, but it is a serious, serious turnoff for me (I ignore it as best I can when reading the works of writer friends who believe descriptions of protection get in the way). If there's no protection, I need people to be in the sort of committed relationship where I can believe they've worked out birth control, or I need them to freak the fuck out while it's happening, or immediately after. Maybe it's my age, because I grew up post HIV/AIDS, but I just cannot picture blithely going without protection. I was shown way too many horrifying pictures of venereal diseases in health class. I also spent way too much time having fights with coercive guys who were claiming things like, "When I wear a condom, I could slam my dick in a car door and not even feel it," while I was thinking, "Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, getting pregnant right now would be so fucking terrible."

This is not to say I've never had sex without protection, but I have always found it to be a stressful experience involving coercion or extreme drunkenness and great regret the following morning. It's the opposite of hot to me, and it destroys my ability to believe that characters are having fun. (It's a bit different for lesbian erotica—I'm less upset when people forego the dental dams. This probably has something to do with my memory of walking into a health clinic as a teenager, asking how lesbian safe sex would even work (my conservative high school hadn't taught us anything about non-straight safe sex), and being met with utter confusion).

3. Rapid Fire Orgasms

My body doesn't work this way, and I've never been with anyone whose body does. Also, descriptions of rapid-fire orgasms tend to get repetitive and boring anyway.

4. Extreme Athleticism

I find a number of sexual positions difficult and exhausting when I try them out. When I have sex in the shower, I'm usually distracted by my fear of a fatal accident involving slippery tile and my cracked-open skull. It can be hard, sometimes, for me to believe that characters aren't breaking something or falling on their asses. I give exceptions for people who are, say, trained ballerinas, but there are plenty of positions that I think normal people would find challenging, to say the least.

5. 69

Am I the only person in the world who finds that this position is mostly about trying not to choke? At best, it's very difficult multitasking. It often results in a sore jaw, awkward attempts to balance on one elbow, or a literal pain in the neck if I'm on top, or, if I'm on the bottom, trying really hard not to let my teeth go somewhere they're not supposed to go while my nose is buried in my partner's asshole. It's hard for me to believe people do this and enjoy it, based on my own experiences.

6. One-Night Virtuoso

Things that have happened to me during one-night stands: I think I'm good at sucking cock, but my lover totally loses his erection when I try it. I discover that the girl I'm going down on has her period and didn't bother to tell me, not even after I licked her blood-stained tampon string. The condom breaks and the guy I'm with spends a while whispering about how I'm so juicy and it feels so great, like he's not even wearing a rubber—and then we figure out that the condom is broken and freak the fuck out. A certain brand of condom gives me an itchy, terrible rash, and I dry up completely and have to go to the clinic the next day. The girl I hook up with at a party has secretly invited her boyfriend to watch. She also won't reciprocate and go down on me.

Those are disasters. I've also had plenty of experiences that were just plain awkward—bumping teeth and not finding the rhythm and coming too fast or not coming at all. I've had a couple amazing experiences where things just clicked right away, but they've been few and far between, and I'm skeptical of characters who are consistently virtuosic with people they've just met.

7. Women Who Get Raped and Decide 10 Seconds Into It That They Love It

I'll be clear that I read and enjoy nonconsent. I'm also a feminist with some strong opinions about rape culture. Stories that have women decide that they actually love being raped manage to piss me off on both counts, in opposite ways. When I'm looking for nonconsent, I want it to stay nonconsensual, because that's my fetish. If she decides she loves it, that's a total buzzkill for the fetish. As a person who is familiar with realities of real-life rape, it's just irritating bullshit to assert that a woman being raped actually wants it. I've read a few very fascinating explorations of the mixed feelings of a person with a rape fetish in a nonconsensual situation, but I'm not talking about that sort of sophistication here. In its blunt, simple form, this is more stupidity that makes me want to throw something.

8. Infinite Pain Tolerance (and its companion, Terrible Things That Don't Make People Cry)

When someone gets caned, like, 50 times full-out without passing out, my eyebrow climbs into my hairline. A lot of BDSM writing seems to involve very little understanding of how things actually feel or how much they hurt. This is a place where I really want realism, or an acknowledgement that the character in question is extreme for some specific reason. I'm also frustrated by flat emotional reactions to terrible dilemmas (another thing I've noticed a lot in bad BDSM writing).

9. True Submissives

Here's another thing I could write a whole essay about. I am incensed by the idea that certain people are "true submissives" and therefore are naturally inclined to do whatever they're told by a "master," without question or concern for themselves. Asking questions or looking out for oneself does not mean one is not submissive. People who do submit without question are taking part in very extreme behavior. If they are healthy, they do that knowingly, not under a lot of coercion about how a "true submissive" would just do as they were told. This riles me up because the "true submissive" phrasing is often used in a way that portrays abuse masquerading as BDSM. It destroys my belief because in most communities of BDSM players, people won't let that sort of thing fly (or, if they do, it's because something is wrong). Again, sophistication can help. Greta Christina, for example, has written interesting explorations of the line between abuse and BDSM, sometimes involving this sort of unquestioning submission. I'm talking here about non-sophisticated uses of the concept.

10. Things That Would Get Your Ass Arrested

I get distracted by descriptions of behaviors that I don't think a person could get away with in public. My disbelief is especially activated by types of coercion that are so blatantly illegal and visible that I don't think anyone would actually try them. I know people do get away with things and do abuse their power, I just prefer when stories recognize that a risk is being taken.

***

There's my long post, set to maximum curmudgeon. I'm sure some of these things don't bother other people, and that there are things I love that would totally throw someone else out of the story. I'll be interested to see what people think in the comments.

Here's Depending on You

by Daddy X

This is my lame-ass shot at a second person piece on ‘Disbelief’ in the form of a letter. Can you imagine receiving this? I was interested to try it by the POV topic we had recently here on OGG. Enjoy-

Here’s Depending on You

Dear Joe-

It was so good to run into you last week at the bar. Where was it again? :>) Just kidding. But I was surprised that you’d left. Must have taken a little nap there. I did have more than two that night, after all. ;>)

By the time you get this, I’ll be in Thailand, out in the upcountry northeast of Chiang Rai. It’s beautiful out there, no TV, no internet, no cell service, and the pussy’s just great. Just have to be careful I don’t make the wrong gesture, say the wrong thing. Give some tribal elder a reason to force me to marry his daughter. Ha! It’s easier than you might think.

But I’m really glad you and Fran are going to my place in the mountains. Y’know, like we talked about. You two will just love it up there, the views, the fishing, all the wildlife. The utter remoteness of it all, not a care in the world. No cell or internet service up there either. Or electricity for that matter.

Years ago, when you and I used to hang out, I could never afford such a huge piece of land, so out of the way. Now that I’ve won that lottery, it’s hard to do everything—go everywhere at once. I haven’t been up there for a while, and the place can always use some looking after. If you don’t mind, you can do me a favor or two while you’re enjoying the place. Won’t take much.

I’d imagine you’ve already found the keys in the package. Yes, there’s quite a few. And by the way, don’t lose ‘em! They’re the only set I have. Christ, imagine how hard it’d be to get them all replaced! Sheesh!!! Cost nearly forty bucks just for the postage to ship the damn things to you insured, signature required.

About forty miles out of Hayfork, you’ll come to the end of the dirt road. There’ll be a locked gate and a sign saying “KEEP OUT—BOOBY TRAPS”. Heheh. I like to come off gruff but it’s probably not necessary. I had the entire cyclone fence surrounding the property topped with razor wire. Use the key marked “Compound—Main” Oh! And make sure you close the gate after you. Wouldn’t want any undesirables wandering in. Some of them can’t even fucking read. Hahah.  Oh, and yeah—make sure you hit the switch that says “Defuse All”.  It’s hidden in a bush about thirty yards up on your right, attached to a post. Don’t get out of the car to do it. Pull up close (not too close) and have Fran shut it off from her window. That’s important.

I probably shouldn’t worry about that sort of thing; the real losers seldom make it out that far. Plus, the next property over is a marijuana farm with lots of security. A Mexican family runs it, but they don’t seem to have many women around. Ha! Better lock Fran away. With an ass like hers, those guys just might pounce. :>)

There is one fella who comes by—Moosey—just to look after the perimeter, but you’ll likely not even see him. If you do, he likes when you call him “Mister Caretaker”. Big guy. He’s kinda shy about his looks though; face got messed up in an accident. Probably dumped a motorcycle, landed wrong. His teeth don’t line up right and he says he stays clear of towns because people stare too much. That and the pedophile bust. Doesn’t talk much. Lots of funny characters in that area. They give all the parolees a one-way ticket to Hayfork.

Just wait till you see the view from the master bedroom! You won’t believe it.

Seems like you can see all the way to the Pacific when you’re actually hundreds of miles away. It’s an optical illusion you shouldn’t miss. The bright sun reflects varying shades of beige, greens and yellows; the layers and layers of clouds create an illusion of topography. The blue horizon completes the mirage, making it look as if the ocean’s right there. 

If you take the trail behind the house—the one heading down—take a fly rod with you. There’s a rack of equipment in the shed. The salmon won’t be running while you’re up there, but the little native trout (rainbows) will keep you in tasty fresh breakfasts.  Not a put-‘n-take fish in that stream! Take one of the lighter graphite rods; they’re more fun. Re-lock all gates behind you on the way down. That means: TAKE THE KEYS!

 Before I bought the place, I made sure there weren’t any gold claims upstream, so the water never gets muddy from sluice pumps. The water stays as clear as Stoly. BTW, while you’re down there? you may hear a motor downstream. That means they’re working it. Don’t go too far that way; those guys can get pretty territorial. “Claim Crazy” they call it. All of ‘em carry guns.

You’ll find a freezer full of meat in the basement: Elk, venison, pheasant, coon, rabbits, squirrels. Eat whatever you like ‘cause it’s forty-five miles back to town. Plus I don’t want the stuff to get freezer burn. Best stock up whatever luxuries you’d like on your way in. Make sure you fill up with gas and get toilet paper before leaving Hayfork. There’s nothing beyond that little market to get anything. Carry in lots of water. The river’s way, way down below the house, and the well could be dry. Be careful of leaving any food on the picnic table out back.  Draws bears.

Speaking of the well- make sure the main shut-off is “OFF” before you leave, so the pipes don’t freeze this winter. Christ, can you imagine? You’re last one up there this season. I can’t depend on my so-called “Caretaker” to take any initiative.  Don’t worry about him; you and Fran are probably too old. :>)

Anyway, have a great time up there. I’m depending on you!

Believe Six Impossible Things before Breakfast

Sacchi Green

The White Queen was not necessarily the best mentor for Alice, but she (or rather Lewis Carroll, or, all right, Charles Dodgson) knew a great deal about the importance of  suspension of disbelief. His nonsense tales for children caught the imaginations of nineteenth century England at more or less the same time that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories of an ultra-logical detective were all the rage. No one was expected to believe in either Alice in Wonderland or Sherlock Holmes, but most paid at east lip service to belief in one or another traditional form of religion, and some—Conan Doyle included, strange as it may seem in a man associated with deduction from hard facts—turned to the newly-fashionable belief in the kind of spiritualism that involved such rituals as séances.

Humans seem to have a deep need to believe in something beyond the daily evidence of their senses. Some of this may have evolved from prehistoric attempts to explain things we couldn’t understand, such as why crops (or the hunt) succeeded or failed, or why a tornado could demolish many homes but spare others.  We also seem to have a need for stories that we can enjoy without believing in them (although as an adolescent I really, really wished that Sherlock Homes were real.) The imagination that lets us picture how things could happen enjoys the exercise of picturing things that haven’t actually happened, or even those that couldn’t possibly happen. We run into trouble when people have trouble telling the difference between belief and imagination, but there can’t be that many who think Harry Potter books are promoting Satanism (whatever they think that is.) Can there? Please, no!

Some kinds of suspension of disbelief are acquired tastes. Fans of science fiction and fantasy have no trouble enjoying wildly impossible stories as long as they’re written well enough, but some other readers just can’t get into them at all. When I started to write science fiction my parents admitted that they didn’t have the right frame of reference to enjoy them, but they did like the only historical mystery I wrote, a short piece set at a military carrier pigeon station on the south coast of England during WWII. (The title was “Cat Among the Pigeons” and it was published in a Barnes & Noble compendium called 100 Crafty Little Cat Stories. The editors had solicited work from SF writers because few mystery writers had the hang of writing short stories.)

In case you’re wondering, no, I never showed my parents my erotica writing, although they were vaguely aware that I did it. Much as I bristle at the stereotype of grandmothers as being especially shocked by mention of sex, and as amused as I am that my kids (one of them, anyway) gets very twitchy if I say anything about what I write, I really don’t want to know whether my parents had the right frame of reference to appreciate my erotica.

Reading sexually charged fiction has its own complications. The analytical part of our minds may suspend disbelief, but the part that responds to sensual stimuli really, really needs to go beyond suspension of disbelief into a state approaching actual belief. Any little erroneous detail that’s too blatant for the analytical mind to ignore throws the reader out of the story. Vicarious coitus interruptus is no laughing matter. Unless the erroneous detail is really, really funny, but even so, you don’t want to go there. Trust me.

Sex in fantasy and science fiction and “paranormal” romance (whatever that means, exactly) is a somewhat different matter, but only in that readers’ expectations already allow for some degree of unreality. Still, while magical (or futuristic) powers and influences are okay, getting confused about which appendages are where or whose parts are facing which direction is not.

Now that I’ve finally managed to work my way around to fantasy erotica, I can post an excerpt, if I can just remember which stories I’ve already used in previous posts.

Well, I’ve looked back as far as I can stand to, and I haven’t used this story in 2014, so I’ll go with it. This is from “Jessebel,” first published in Cecila Tan’s Women of the Bite, my only vampire story (so far) and possibly the only one that would qualify as paranormal romance, so I guess it fits here. Plenty of suspension of disbelief necessary, but the central character, a woman passing as a man after being a soldier in the Civil War is the most possible thing about it.
________________________  

“See there, Cap’n, ain’t she somethin’? Jezebel, they calls ‘er, but most likely she’s just plain Mabel or Hildy underneath it all.”
I looked through the drifting cigar smoke and shifting bodies. Maybe three or four of those figures were recognizably female—for damned sure not counting my own well-concealed form—but there was no doubt as to which one had sparked the old stable hand’s enthusiasm. I couldn’t see much; her back was to the door, and a rancher’s burly arms enveloped her in a most unchaste fashion as they danced, but even so there seemed to be a glow about her that drew the eye. Chestnut curls tumbled across slender shoulders, and emerald silk clung to rounded, swaying hips that promised the uttermost in carnal delights without sacrificing the least degree of elegance.
“Sure is, Bill,” I agreed, “but what’s a fine piece like that doing in a place like this?”
“Plenty of business, that’s what.” Bill elbowed me in the ribs. I only just managed to pivot enough to keep my bound-up tender bits from taking the full impact. When I turned back the girl swung around so that for a moment, before her partner’s bulk blocked the view, I saw her face, beautiful in spite of all its paint, not because of it.
The room swirled around me. The floor tilted. I clutched at the back of a chair, muttered an apology to the card player occupying it, and lurched back out through the swinging doors.
The last time I’d kissed that face it had been ashen, dirt-smeared, streaked with blood and my tears. The last time I’d held that dear body in my arms, life and warmth had seeped away.
The last time I’d seen her, she’d been dead.
Great gulps of cool autumn air revived me a bit. The dizziness subsided, and common sense got a foothold. I’d been mistaken, addled by smoke and old grief and going far too long without the pleasures of the flesh. Maybe the name, as well, far too close to the one I remembered. That painted, seductive, brazen whore looked nothing like Jessebel. Not my Jess. My Jess, who was gone forever. I knew that.
I was only too well acquainted with death. I knew it when I saw it, and all the savage ways war could rip the soul out of the body. War, and its aftermath. Jess and I had been together since Vicksburg, when I’d found her huddling in a farmer’s root cellar, gray uniform in such tatters that it scarcely hid her private parts. She’d been running away not just from capture but from something else she could never bring herself to speak of. I’d scrounged her a blue uniform small enough to fit, and watched over her for the last two years of the War, only to lose her to a looter’s bullet before we could start west to make a real life for ourselves.
___________________________

[Much snippage here, to cut to the chase, or at least the (least) chaste part.]
___________________________

“I was sure enough right, wasn’t I just!” he said in parting. “That fancy filly is really somethin’! Somethin’ else!”
Oh God, yes, I thought. Something else, But what?
I had to know. And whatever the explanation, or whatever…whatever she’d become, I had to see Jess again.
In the narrow alley behind the saloon I moved along stealthily, listening, trying to make out which upper room held Jess and her customer. A forced giggle through the first window was clearly from one of the other girls. On the far end, though, sounds so urgent and guttural they made my innards clench struck me like a brutal blow. They were hard at it. Jess’s soft, high moans that I remembered so well could be heard in between the man’s deep grunts of extremity. When those finally tapered off I could still hear Jess, her cries oddly muted now, as if her mouth were pressed to him.
I was in such a state of heat that I could’ve rubbed myself off right there, but my need to get to Jess was even greater. The alley was so narrow here that the low shed in back was scarcely more than an arm’s reach from the window, so I hoisted myself onto its roof and looked across.
The light of an oil lamp showed Jess’s bowed head as she knelt beside the bed, and just a glimpse of the now-quiet man. By the tremor of her naked back and shoulders she seemed to be sobbing, whether in grief or pleasure, but at that moment I didn’t care which. I just hungered to feel her touch on me, her mouth crushing down hard where my pounding need was so intense it burned, her fingers squeezing into flesh demanding to be unbound, her rounded buttocks filling my hands.
Then she raised her head, and I saw her wipe a trickle of blood from the corner of her mouth. The brute had hit her! She saw me at just the same time, sprang up, and threw open the window. “Oh God, Lou…help me!”
I was through and into the room so fast I had no time to think about it. The man on the bed didn’t stir. What help did she need, whoever…whatever…she was now?
“Lou!” Jess’s eyes had a strange, glazed look, and she scrabbled at the lacings of the tight corset she still wore. “Lou, please!”
I got right at the garment, tearing and peeling, looking for injuries, but her body beneath was unmarked by anything beyond the normal lines and creases such fashionable instruments of torture impart. Before I could halfway finish Jess kept interfering, grasping at my hands, trying to press them to her breasts, her belly, and the hot sweet cleft below.
“Touch me, damn it! Fuck me!” Her voice was rough with urgency. “He was so…such hot blood…so full…”
I tried to stop her talk with a kiss, but her head jerked sideways, so I dropped my head to her breasts and sucked fiercely at one extended nipple and then the other. That did the trick, and I managed to finish stripping her, hard though it was with her demanding thrusts and whimpers and the swelling of her flesh against my tongue.
When I was finally free to get at all of her skin, she writhed and panted and seemed to demand everything at once, pulling my hands here and there and here again, grabbing at her own tender bits when I clutched at her elsewhere, until I tore off my shirt, yanked up the bindings of my breasts, and held her so tightly against me she could scarcely move.
“Hold still so’s I can get at you!” I was in a frenzy of lust myself by then, with her wriggles against my own nipples coming near to undoing me, but I pushed her back against the wall, got my fingers between us and right into the wet heat of her center, and gave her what she needed with the sure, hard strokes that had always driven her to glory. She got there right away, riding the peak hard and long, gasping and crying out until she had no breath left, but still clenching me inside her fit to bruise. I began to fear she’d faint from it.
She slumped finally enough for me to reclaim my hand. Then she rested her head against my breast, which of course kept my flesh perked right up. I figured she was too wrung out to give me a turn yet, and wasn’t sure how I could bear it. But after a moment she twisted out of my grip, dragged me toward the bed with a strength she’d never shown before, and heaved at the sheets until the man lying there tumbled to the floor on the other side. He still didn’t stir. I didn’t look close for fear of what I wasn’t prepared to see, not while Jess was pulling at my belt and pushing me onto the mattress.
I got my turn, right enough, but in snatches between Jess’s fits of renewed desire. She rubbed her body all over mine, took a goodly expanse of breast into her mouth, tweaked my imploring clit between her fingers, and then got distracted by the need to grind herself against my hip or belly or rump until she exploded again. And again. And again. I was streaked all over with her juices. She was insatiable, beyond thought or pleading. I was in such a fury of lust myself that it didn’t take much to set me off, and when she rode my thigh with her knee pressed tight into my crotch, or when I could hold her right over me so that her writhings hit in just the necessary spot, I went off like firecrackers too, more times than I’d ever done before.
Finally Jess slowed enough that I could hold her face steady down where I needed it most.  Once her tongue got a taste of my flow she set to working me in steady strokes that got me riding a long, rolling wave of pleasure that ended only when my breath and voice gave out.
She hitched herself up beside me at last and clung tight, her face hidden between my neck and shoulder. “Lou,” she murmured, “I don’t want to hurt you. Don’t ever let me hurt you.”
I stroked her long tangled curls, new to me even though the texture and scent of her hair had been imprinted in my heart long ago. “I’ve never minded any hurt from you before.”
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What it comes down is this: the main requirement of erotica is that you may not need to actually believe it, but you should damned sure be able to feel it. The White Queen could get away with “Jam every other day…The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday – but never jam to-day." But that was in a context of humor and sly satire. For erotica, that jam had better be served up today, served up hot, and the reader had better be able to taste it as well as believe it.