Pre-Millennial and Space-Age Reading

by Jean Roberta

For the past few weeks, I’ve been spending whole days revising my old erotic novel, Prairie Gothic, which was available as a download from a British publisher, Amatory Ink, from 2002 to 2006, when the publisher folded. I wrote the novel in 1998, when I had more enthusiasm than skill, and I had a paid two-month break from my teaching job, which in those days didn’t offer many other perks. (No expense account, no job security.)

After rereading this saga, most of which I had forgotten, I decided to keep the period flavour as well as the local colour. However, the head-hopping now makes me groan. It demonstrates my concept of “omniscient viewpoint” at the time.

What to do? There are two central characters, and several secondary ones who have valuable insights into the comedy-of-errors relationship between the two stars. I don’t want to lose all the snark from the sidelines.

The original novel was divided into nine rambling chapters of uneven length. I’ve been breaking them up into chapters of 2-4K. I think this makes the narrative more digestible, and also allows me to stay in one head per chapter, even though it seems necessary to head-hop between chapters. (For example, chapters 1-4 focus on Kelly, a young woman who goes to the local gay bar for the first time, and meets several regulars. Chapter 5 has to show the viewpoint of Kelly’s new girlfriend Vivienne, because she is visited by her bad-news ex while Kelly is in self-exile on the family farm. Chapter 11 must show the viewpoint of Rae, who has an uncanny experience with a ghost.)

This format allows me to flesh out a few details that were simply mentioned in passing in the original version. The original is only 56,000 words long, which is short for a novel. I expect the new version to be considerably longer, which will make it more of a standard size.

Once the shiny new version is ready, I plan to offer it to a certain publisher. If the novel isn’t accepted there, I plan to post it on Excessica.com. I’m excited to know that one of my early efforts can be recycled, and not left to waste space in my “Documents,” too good to delete but not good enough to resell.

Lethe Press recently sent me two books for review. I wrote a review of the anthology, His Seed: An Arboretum of Erotica, edited by Steve Berman, published under the new Lethe erotic imprint, Unzipped, and posted it on Facebook.

Here is a brief overview:

It’s hard to believe there is a theme in erotica which has not been overdone and yet seems visceral, organic and succulent. Here it is: sex between men, in which plants play various roles. This is not a joke. Several of the stories in this collection have horrifying endings, based on the undeniable fact that plants need nutrients, some of which are found in human bodies. Of course, this fact can also lead to interdependence, or mutual cultivation.
The stories cover a wide range of genres and tones, from stories that are basically sex scenes to fantasies about the Green Man or the Woodwose, the spirit of the forest in the form of a virile man. (One of these is a moving tale by our own Connie Wilkins about a man who has lost his lover in the first world war, but he discovers the Green Man living eternally in his native England.)

Among the sex-scene stories is “The Greenhouse” by Spencer Krell, in which a semi-sentient (genetically-modified) pumpkin vine makes advances to its cultivator, Aaron:

“He’d been about to get back to work once more when he felt a slight tickle against his ankle.” This is not random contact; this is seduction.

Even for readers who are not gay men, these stories are entertaining and unsettling. Plants are the ultimate alien lovers, beings who are clearly alive in some sense, yet who are profoundly different from human beings.

According to the editor’s introduction, this anthology was compiled on a dare. I would say the experiment works so well that it wouldn’t surprise me to see more plant-themed erotic fiction some time, but I doubt if a copycat collection could outdo this one.

The other Lethe Press book is a single-author collection of speculative fiction by A. Merc Rustad, who is identified as “a queer trans-masculine non-binary writer and filmmaker who likes dinosaurs, robots, monsters, and cookies.” The collection is titled So You Want to Be a Robot, and consists of 21 stories. I haven’t written a review of this book yet, but it is fabulous, especially for a reader who has seen individual stories by this author in various places, but not all together.

Picking a favourite story in this collection is hard, because each one pulls the reader into an alternative world that is both completely unreal and completely believable on an emotional level.

For those of us who wonder if there is any hope for democracy or justice, “The Gentleman of Chaos” is grimly satisfying. Here is the opening passage:

“People call him the Gentleman of Chaos, but he is not gentle.

By popular count, he’s assassinated thirteen kings, seventy-two princes, one thousand nobles, and five queens.

By popular legend, he’s immortal, a god of commoners, a death-demon summoned to feed on corruption, a shadow that devours the unjust. He never unmakes the innocent, it is said.

He is not gentle; I have seen what he does.

But I tell you this: part of his title is true. He is a man. And men can die.”

The rest of the first-person narrative shows how ironic this description is. For one thing, the “gentle” in the term “gentleman” originally indicated high social class; it is more closely related to “genteel” than to the modifier in “gentle touch.” For another thing, the being who eventually takes on the title in the story is mortal, but not exactly male.

This shadowy executioner is a kind of personification of karma or logical consequences. Even if there is no benevolent Deity, a ruler who slaughters everyone who might threaten his power tends to create more and more opposition. Sooner or later, the dictator's paranoia bears fruit.

One theme in this collection is that apparently inanimate objects have wills of their own, whether they are human-made robots/androids, engines, or natural phenomena such as mountains. In this sense, this book of non-erotic fantasy and sci-fi goes well with the “arboretum” of plant stories. I highly recommend them both.

Library Voices

by Giselle Renarde

Once upon a time I was a teenager at the Toronto Reference Library.

A friend had introduced me to this edifice downtown, far from the wilds of suburbia, where books were housed, of course, but in addition to books they had all sorts of other media.  Oh sure, so did my local library, but the difference with the Reference Library was that they had listening booths. 

My friend showed me how to select a CD to listen to (a CD!  I didn't have a CD player yet!  This was really the future!) and check in with the lady guarding the listening booths and put on headphones and sit... and just listen.

We were both big on Broadway musicals, so we both picked out musicals to listen to.  I don't remember what she selected, but I picked out a musical called City of Angels.  I'd never even heard of it.  To this day I remember nothing about the soundtrack, but I remember the experience.

I wasn't the kind of kid (or teen) who went out with friends very much. I had too many family responsibilities, plus the cost of going out was prohibitive. To get to the Reference Library, I had to take a bus and a subway, and, while my mother covered the cost of my transit fare to and from school (I went to a high school that was out of area for me, a good hour from my house), any time I wanted to go anywhere that wasn't school-related it was my responsibility to cover my transit costs. 

Part of the reason I didn't go out with friends much is that the things they wanted to do cost money.  I was saving my money for university.

From the time I could write words on paper, every year at Christmas I would put the same one item in my letter to Santa: a university education. My parents hadn't gone to university.  My grandparents hadn't finished high school.  I would be the first in my family to get a degree.

You'd think a mom would be proud that her child had such lofty aspirations, but something else won out over pride with my mom--either pragmatism or crab-bucket jealousy, I don't know.  Every year she'd laugh at my letter to Santa.  She'd say, "If you want to go to university, you're on your own. I'm not paying for it."

I got my first summer job when I was 8 years old.  Picking berries. Same first job my grandfather had 58 years before me.  He earned half a penny per pint.  I earned 25 cents. Thank you, inflation.

But that money didn't last long.  Because the thing about living with a substance abuser is that sometimes they steal from you. Sometimes they steal every penny of berry picking money you earn. Babysitting money, birthday money. Addiction breeds desperation.

It's true what they say: life isn't fair.

And, you see, this is why it was a very difficult decision to go out or not to go out: can I afford to spend $1.35 on transit fare?  It'll take a lot of dollar-thirty-fives to add up to a university education.

So, more than not, I stayed home. 

But that day, when my friend invited me to the Reference Library, I decided to go out. Of all the friend-dates a person could go on, the library's a pretty good one.  And not just because it's free, although that's an attractive quality for sure.  It was more the fact that we could sit side by side at listening booths and just... listen.  No talking allowed. 

Libraries were different back then.

Not being allowed to talk can really be quite freeing.  People found me standoffish as a teen, but that's really because I had so much shame about my family of origin.  I didn't want people trying to get close to me and discovering what was behind the facade.  I didn't want people asking questions.

My friend didn't ask me a lot of questions. I didn't ask her questions either. I knew it was just her and her mom.  I didn't ask about her father because I didn't want her to ask about mine.  By that time my mother had a restraining order against him. He lived in a motel room in a small town, but he often swung by our place to break into our house, destroy our belongings, and threaten to murder us all.

One time my friend invited me to her place when her mom was at work.  She wasn't supposed to have people over, but her mother would never know.  It was kind of exciting for me to take the streetcar to her neighbourhood because she lived in a gentrified area with lots of quirky boutiques.

As it turned out, her house was one of the forgotten left-behind ones.  It was the tiniest house I'd ever seen, just two small bedrooms off one main living area that incorporated the kitchen. There must have been a bathroom somewhere but I can't recall seeing it.

The bedrooms had carpeting, but the main room was just a dirt floor covered in pine needles.

My friend transferred out of my school in Grade 10.  I heard she went to an alternative school, but I don't think she lasted long there. In Grade 12, I went to a university fair at the convention centre and there was my friend! I hadn't seen her in two years. I was overjoyed to see her again. I loved her in a way I still hadn't learned to express.

But she wasn't attending the university fair as a prospecting high school student. She was working it as a security guard. She'd dropped out of high school. She hoped to return at some point but she and her mom really needed the money and, well, you know how it is...

After working part-time and summer jobs throughout high school, I was able to afford my first year of tuition at the University of Toronto, but it was tight. Throughout university, I think I spent more time working than studying.

When I finally had that degree in hand, it was really a non-event. Aside from my grandmother, nobody in my family seemed to care much about my achievement.  But I never expected them to.

http://gisellerenarde.com

TheYellow Path

   I’m digging through an old email account I haven’t looked at for a long time.  The Yellow Path is not a story, but a series of notebooks.  My ADD addled brain has never been very good at remembering details, and most thoughts occur to me as  mayflies floating on the surface of a stream that have to be snatched immediately from below as though I were a fish and recorded on anything handy or they’re lost to the ages.  J Alfred Prufrock said he’s measured out his life in coffee spoons.  I measured out mine in notebooks.

There is something specific I’m looking for I had called, years ago, “The Yellow Path”.

I’m digging through the email folder marked simply “Back Up”.  I can’t imagine what my living environment would be without the advent of digital folders.  I’d be a pack rat buried in towers of papers and composition books.  Ghosts of ideas that had their moment but won’t leave the room.  Instead I quickly caught on to emailing myself documents, long before cloud computing came along, and from these documents, a snapshot of lost times.

My consciousness has been measured out and spread like peanut butter over a dozen sites and emails and cloud accounts and places, and yes, even the old paper notebooks that litter my bookcases at home going back to 1973.  I had tried seriously to study shorthand thinking it would make my journals unreadable to others, before I finally realized the obvious, which is that no one wanted to read them.  Then the next obvious thing, that my handwriting is so densely encrypted that even the nosiest person would give up.  Sometimes even I can’t read what I’ve written over the years.  I may as well be an archaeologist pouring over Egyptian hieroglyphs.

There they are, I’ve found the Yellow Path leading through the jungle of attachments of all kinds spanning some two dozen emails.   How to exercise.  How to clean a room.  How to clean my car.  Checklists and after-action notes, time capsule relics from my past self to me hoping to avoid making the same mistakes over and over.  But the same mistakes will always be made over and over, like ghosts reenacting a scene in a haunted house, refusing to rest no matter what you do.  

The Yellow Path simply refers to a physical notebook, a fancy little yellow one I bought at an art museum, decades ago, that fits into my jacket pocket, therefore portable for an on the spot reference wherever I go, in case I need to clean my car or give a story critique in the middle of a desert.  This is an another aspect of my life.  Though my road years ended decades ago, I’m still living on the road, evident of the things I can carry in my pocket.  For someone with an unreliable memory, that grows more melting with age, notebooks become a form of high art.  One of many vagabond things I can carry in my pocket becauseI’ve never really left the road, I’ve only stopped being a nomad.  Only the technology changes.  Before I carried very small books in my jacket pocket, like a monk with his precious codices. Now I have a cell phone that carries entire libraries.

These notebooks are so well intentioned that I want to weep for the person who wrote them, myself in a previous incarnation though in this life.  I meant so well, documented everything so sincerely and in such detail.  How many dumbbell lifts to do followed by how many chest flies.  When you clean a room, remember to check the walls for paint nicks, not to mention dead bodies and the furniture for dust. Empty the dust cup on the vacuum cleaner before you begin.  Mop the kitchen floor after you wash the dishes, not before.  As though speaking to a moron, and who says I wasn’t?

A civilization has its many incarnations.  In China, or the middle east, digs find lost and forgotten tombs of Kings whose stare once made men tremble rightly for their lives, now erased from human memory.  Words and images are carved into stones in the worlds deserts and jungles for people long extinct.  Any child walking along any lake or forest trail might reach down and dust off an arrowhead, carefully shaped from quartz or flint by some forgotten soul who, at the time, spent an afternoon meditatively chipping it out, maybe teaching his son the craft while filled with worries and hopes that any modern man would recognize as timeless.  

These sincere and obtuse little checklists.  Who was that person?  When did he change and become me?  Where do I vanish to, in the gentle oblivion of sleep?  Or finally death?  

Here is a checklist, how to pack up for a fishing trip. When did I go fishing last?  Why did I forget to take time to fish?  When was the last time I went on a picnic or a hike?  I had forgotten these things could be done.  I didn’t realize I was growing old until this moment when I ask myself – when was the last time I went hiking with my kid in the park?  Well, he’s gotten older too.  The world is moving on.

Here is a journal entry I typed about a friend I haven’t talked to in years.  Where is she now?  Should I contact her or let her float away downstream, and keep our lives that less complicated?  We go on collecting people like shards of love.  And then list their names.

Reading and Writing and All That Stuff

I haven’t started a new book in a good long while. I’m still reading my old standby — the latest Star Trek book. This one is a Deep Space Nine novel titled The Long Mirage by David R George III. I’ve said it before and I”ll say it again — George is one of the few authors who truly gets Deep Space Nine and his writing is a pleasure to read.

However, this is an erotica authors blog, not a Star Trek fan blog, so I won’t go further into detail about the joy of this book and this author’s skill.

I’ve been in heavy editing mode with my publisher and thus haven’t had much time to read books outside of those I’m working on. (Reading aside — I haven’t even had time to sit down to type a smutty story in far too long.)

Even when editing is at its thickest, I do strive to manage to read a chapter or two of a book — any book — before bed. So, I’ve been slowly making my way through that Star Trek novel.

It’s commonly advised that authors should make time to read. I agree with that whole-heartedly. An author needn’t always read the genre they’re writing in — though it is advisable to do it now and then to keep on top of the genre — as long as they’re reading something.

A writer who doesn’t read (and believe me, I know some) is a writer who isn’t exposed to the skills and strengths (and weaknesses) of others. Seeing the strength of another writer, seeing how they unfold their plots and develop their characters and explore their worlds, pushes an author to strive to do better. That “do better” might be intending to write as well as the book in their hands or it might mean outshining the dreck contained in the pages of that purchased book. Either way, it’s a beneficial experience.

An author who reads only their own writing and doesn’t explore outside that box is thus stuck inside that box. Yes, that author might make slow and steady gains, but they might be in the wrong direction or they might be far slower than those gains should happen.

In my free time (excuse me while I laugh), I try to teach myself the violin. I could’ve bought a self-teaching book (in fact, I did) and struggle through the lessons on my own. However, I’d go much slower than someone who even minimally invests in professional lessons. If I did it entirely by self-learning, I would still be holding the bow wrong, which leads to hand cramps and an inability to play properly (because I can’t maneuver the bow like someone who holds it properly).

On the other hand, though, to learn violin, I don’t need to exclusively take lessons. In fact, I took lessons for about a year to help get a fairly-decent grasp on the basics. From there, I proceeded with self-directed learning (with long stretches of doing nothing, if I’m going to be completely honest here). I’d print off some music or flip through my student book and I’d struggle with something.

But, just like an author that needs to read books to stay engaged with how others do it, I occasionally take violin webinars or look up lessons on YouTube. Looking to the professionals now and then allows me to learn techniques to shake off bad habits and strengthen my basic skills. I’m still moving slow and it’ll take many years before I can perform in the local open mic night, but it’s because of those brief and semi-regular exposures to professional lessons that I am able to improve as an amateur violinist.

Being an author doesn’t necessarily mean reading for two hours every day — rather, it means intentionally keeping up with some sort of a reading schedule, regularly exposing oneself to writing other than their own, recharging their creative batteries, and then sitting down at the computer to reach for new heights.

Read what you want, no matter what you write. I read a lot of Star Trek, but I don’t write science fiction.

(I’ll try to read a sexier book next time this topic comes up.)



Cameron D. James is a writer of gay erotica and M/M erotic romance; his latest release is The President And The Rentboy. He is publisher at and co-founder of Deep Desires Press and a member of the Indie Erotica Collective. He lives in Canada, is always crushing on Starbucks baristas, and has two rescue cats. To learn more about Cameron, visit http://www.camerondjames.com.

Erotica and Literature (#erotica #censorship #amreading)

My TBR shelf

By Lisabet Sarai

I’m reading several books at the moment, with many more on the stack (see above!), but I want to focus on only one title in this post: ASport and a Pastime by James Salter. I’m about three quarters of the way through this slim novel, which manages the unusual feat of being both intensely literary and unabashedly erotic.

It’s a common observation that sex and literature don’t generally play well together. I’ve encountered many articles (some posts on this blog as well as on ERWA) which observed that literary novels can include sex only if nobody enjoys it. Of course that’s hogwash, but one can note a definite trend toward dysfunctional relationships and unhappy endings for sexually-active characters in books labeled as “literature”. We erotica authors often complain about the fact that literary authors can write with impunity about topics like teenage sexuality or incest, while any story of ours that touches these subjects will be promptly banned, or at least relegated to the dungeon. This double standard is especially irritating to those of us who experiment with themes as well as stylistic and narrative techniques that might, in another genre, be considered “literary”.

I first became aware of A Sport and a Pastime while reading an interview with another author, about his favorite books. I’d never heard of either the book or its author, but the article offered high praise for both its beautiful writing and its sensuality. I was intrigued enough to go buy a brand-new copy, something of a rarity for me.

From the interview, I’d thought the book was relatively new. However, it turns out that A Sport and a Pastime was published way back in 1967. Furthermore, it is considered by many to be a modern classic. While searching for it on Amazon, I found Cliff Notes for students who were assigned the book in class!

The novel is narrated by a middle aged man whose name, if given, is unimportant. He’s an intellectual, a photographer, a writer perhaps. Certainly he’s a keen observer with a talent for vivid description.

Here is the first paragraph of the novel:

September. It seems these luminous days will never end. The city, which was almost empty during August, now is filling up again. It is being replenished. The restaurants are all reopening, the shops. People are coming back from the country, the sea, from trips on roads all jammed with cars. The station is very crowded. There are children, dogs, families with old pieces of luggage bound by straps. I make my way among them. It’s like being in a tunnel. Finally I emerge onto the brilliance of the quai, beneath a roof of glass panels which seems to magnify the light.

The narrator flees Paris to take up temporary residence in the house of friends, located in the provincial French town of Autun. His motives are a mystery. He seems melancholy, or at least moody, as he settles into the backwater and gets to know his neighbors.

Occasionally he returns to Paris, to participate in glittering, superficial cocktail or dinner parties with friends. At one such event, he meets Phillip Dean, an attractive young man from a wealthy family who has dropped out of Yale and is traveling, rather aimlessly, around Europe. A few weeks later, Phillip shows up at his door in Autun, driving a borrowed vintage car, and takes the narrator touring around the region. In a raucous club in Dijon, they meet Anne-Marie who is hanging out with a group of black men. She is obviously not innocent despite her long hair and sweet face. Later they encounter her again, in Autun, and Phillip begins an affair with her.

The nameless narrator exposes bits and pieces of Phillip’s and Anne-Marie’s relationship, chronicling their intense physical attraction, contrasting it with their difficulties in communication. Patrician Phillip barely speaks French. Anne-Marie comes from a poor, common family. Their expectations and assumptions could hardly be more different. Still, something luminous binds them.

The radio is playing. They undress in the winter daylight. Dean is a little embarrassed at his condition. His prick gets hard whenever he looks at her. He can’t help it. His chief desire is to raise her on it, exultant, to run her up into the sunshine, into the starlight, where she can see the world. They begin to dance a little, naked, in the early darkness, the music thin and foreign, their feet bare on the rug. Then they make love, she astride him, in the favorite manner of the Roman poets, as he informs her. He lies gazing up at her, his hands encircling her ankles. The rich smell of her falls over him. At the bottom of it all, his eyes lingering there, the mute triangle in which he is implanted.

How, though, can our narrator know these intimate details? He’s not present at these trysts, yet he describes them in achingly beautiful language. Is the love affair only in his imagination? He clearly identifies with young Dean, understands the younger man’s confusion and his overwhelming desire. Are these echoes of his own youth that he is projecting on strangers? Are Phillip and Anne-Marie merely figments of his melancholy nostalgia?

These questions, perhaps, are what defines A Sport and a Pastime as literary. The narrator admits his own unreliability:

Certain things I remember exactly as they were. They are merely discolored a bit by time, like coins in the pocket of a forgotten suit. Most of the details, though, have long since been transformed or rearranged to bring others of them forward. Some, in fact, are obviously counterfeit; they are no less important. One alters the past to form the future. But there is a real significance to the pattern that finally appears, which resists all further change.

The sex scenes in this novel are perhaps less graphic than some I would write, but they don’t flinch from the physical. They have an breathless intensity that I at least found exciting. Furthermore, I believe this arousal reflects the author’s intent. Three quarters of the way through the book, I suspect this relationship will not end well—or at least that it will end. Youthful passion rarely endures in the best of circumstances.

Nevertheless, James Salter is not suggesting that carnal desire is shameful or trivial. Quite the contrary. It may be premature for me to comment on the author’s final purposes in writing this gorgeous kaleidoscope of a novel. However, he may be implying that as we age, desire, or our memories of desire, are the only thing that really matters.

The Dirt We Never Saw

As others have said during this cycle, I'm not really all that dirty with my writing. Hell, it took me until my mid-30s to start understanding how people work. I'm in love with the intensity that comes from one-on-one, male-on-female nookie. Vanilla or tainted vanilla, when written strongly, is deeply touching to me.

It would probably SHOCK people to learn that I'm also quite partial to girl-on-girl action. I know, they really broke the mould when they made Willsin!

So I thought I'd make my post about the dirtiest stories I never wrote. Ideas I had when I considered climbing aboard the pseudo-incest train back in 2012. And hey, who says I won't end up flagging down the taxi and chasing that trend some day? Maybe these titles well get polished up and put out at some point.

----

Gang Bang, You're Dad
This one was going to be the story of a barely-legal woman who attends her first group sex session, only to find out one of the participants was her step-father. I hadn't developed the intricacies of the concept, but there would be masks a-plenty, and one in particular was to end up being shoddily fastened. Can we guess whose?

----

Uncle Sandwich
I was playing on the idea of "a knuckle sandwich" with the title, but the concept would be kinda obvious just from reading it. I hadn't decided, from memory, if it was to be an MFM or MMM story, but either way, I don't know that it was going to be a tough one to grasp.

----

Baker's Cousin
Again, the synopsis part of this one was pretty light-on for details. A baker and his cousin getting friendly in an inappropriate manner. I did make a note that there would be plentiful kneading, so that's something I suppose. I'm sure there would have been all kinds of double-entendres and puns related to "rising" and "cream" and "buns". Maybe I would have called the cousin Martha and he could have told her, "you have a delicious muffin, Martha". Which would most assuredly have dated me.

----

Have A Niece Day!
Hmm...the complexities of this concept are so interwoven and subtle it's almost impossible to fathom exactly what it could be about. I guess potentially it could be the same story as Uncle Sandwich, only told from the men's point of view. One part of the small concept I'd written down included some references to France. Specifically that the heroine might have been born over there, and possibly in the city of Nice, which would have allowed a little bit of delicious homophonic action.

----

So there we have it. My four dirtiest stories that I never wrote.

Being Dirty, Feeling Shame ( #ExtremeErotica )

by Annabeth Leong

For the last two weeks, we've been wrestling with the question of what "dirtiest" means. I'm not sure I know what it is either. What's dirtiest can be what's desperately hot, or what's desperately shameful, or both at once.

There was a time in my erotica writing career when I pushed into the deepest recesses of things with a sort of innocence, without knowing that I might find strange things in corners, or disturb myself, or bring up questions that I didn't know how to answer.

After a couple years of writing, I started getting emails from Joe at Sweetmeats Press, and he said he wanted my wildest stuff—the dirtiest and the most creative. I believe I delivered for Joe. I went into some of my deepest fantasies (he's the one who published my book, Untouched, which some of you have read).

For another story, "Safekeeping," I played with a fantasy that had been in my mind for a long time. I used to housesit, and at one point I got fascinated with the inhabitant of an apartment I visited often. We had a very intimate relationship, despite not knowing each other at all. From that was born a story of obsession where I went for it with all my heart. The narrator of the story is obsessed with the object of her affection's body—every trace of it that she can find.

One typical review said: "[This] story really pushed the raunchy-dirty envelope I actually cringed at some of the things that went on."

I know some erotica writers take this stuff in stride or wear it as a badge of honor. I think, though, that I used to believe in some sort of basic similarity between people. I thought my fantasies weren't really any weirder than anyone else's. The stuff I wrote for Sweetmeats proved me wrong. And it made me uncomfortable to feel different or somehow dirtier.

This was the beginning of a period of me learning about this, of finding out that even in our field there's a way you can wind up feeling unacceptably slutty or unacceptably perverse.

I'm here to write dirty stories, right? But there are times when a story can feel too dirty, as in too dirty to be generally acceptable.

So I really like the stuff I wrote for Sweetmeats. I think it's poetic and hot, and it comes from a really deep place in me. But I have trouble recommending it, and if people tell me they're going to read it, I feel scared. And maybe that's what makes this my dirtiest story.

Here's the part of "Safekeeping" that I think made people cringe, if you're curious.

***

But, like all good things I suppose, that blissful, innocent time had to come to an end eventually. For me, that moment came the night I peeked into the wastebasket beside the bed, having just arrived for another week with Sasha, and saw three used condoms coiled atop a bed of discarded tissues.

My heart stopped, reactions warring in my chest. First, this meant he had another woman, that someone else had lain in his bed and moaned for him. The thought crushed me. It destroyed me. I think I went a little mad from the picture of an unknown beauty with her legs spread, her hips curling up toward Michael’s fingers, her hands on her breasts perhaps, her bright pink tongue just visible through parted lips.

And he had fucked her. Three times! He’d fucked her until she ached. He’d fucked her so she’d feel it the next day, a little bruise at the base of her belly that would make her remember the head of his battering cock. I didn’t know whether to feel pride for my Michael’s prowess or chagrin that he could betray me so many times so easily.

Still, I loved him too much to focus on my resentment. The condoms in the wastebasket presented an opportunity I could not bear to miss. They offered me a chance to finally taste him. For once, I wouldn’t have to seek Michael out through layers of associations. I could place him straight on my tongue. A shiver passed through me, then settled in my cunt. My inner walls quivered for him. Almost, I could convince myself he’d left the condoms as a gift, that he’d understood what I needed from him.

I pulled the first one out of the wastebasket, then sat on the edge of the bed, cradling it in my lap. Would he think I was pathetic if he knew about this? Would she? I imagined the woman he’d been with, smirking at the extent of my desperation for the man I loved. She would pity me if she knew I went through the trash for him, that I treated any little thing that had come from his body as holy. She hadn’t wanted him the way that I did, hadn’t been with him skin to skin.

My heart convulsed with a virtuous ache. The goodness and sincerity of what I felt for him became as clear as my passion. I knew I could not doubt or hesitate. Michael needed to know how utterly I craved him.
I lifted the condom slowly but with purpose. Her scent leapt to my nose, and I had to choke down my jealousy. This bit of latex had been wrapped around Michael’s cock. I soothed myself with that knowledge. I stretched it out and stroked its length, as my cunt wept with desire. In the reservoir at the tip of the condom, I saw my prize, a milky pearl of pure Michael.

When I was ready, I raised the condom to my lips. With my tongue, I parted the rubber ring at the base and delved inside, feasting on stale salt and musk that gave me precious hints of how they would have been when fresh. A sob rose from my throat. I wanted him all to myself.

Soon, the condom sheathed my tongue. I coaxed it with my fingers to I could reach ever deeper inside, needing to taste that pearl. Finally, the point of my tongue made contact with Michael’s come. Before I could control myself, I recoiled at the bitter, thick, room-temperature substance I encountered. Then I reminded myself what it was, and the purity of my love turned the flavor into something sweet. The dried residue revived when it joined with my saliva, melting over my tongue as if it had spurted from his cock just moments before.

I closed my eyes and groaned my ecstasy. Imagining he could see me, I dropped to my knees beside the bed. If his cock were in my mouth, he would want me there on the floor like that.

Growing bolder, I turned the condom inside out into my mouth, slurping and sucking. If not for the other woman, I would have put one of the condoms inside my cunt. Instead, I contented myself with slipping my hand into the waistband of my skirt and down inside my panties. Too impatient to bother with finesse, I forced a thick mass of fingers into the entrance of my cunt, the material and the awkward angle preventing me from getting as deep as I would have liked, but the blunt stimulation doing the job nonetheless.

I frigged myself, grunting harshly around my precious mouthful. As my orgasm neared, I cared less and less about whoever he’d fucked. I just needed more of him. My teeth ground into the little wad of latex in my mouth, but I wanted more.

Frantic with impending pleasure, I scrabbled for the wastebasket with my free hand. In the other room, the dog’s trimmed claws tapped against the wooden floor, probably in response to the way I was crashing around the bedroom. I paid no mind to anything but my prizes. Two other condoms, filled with Michael. He’d tied these at the base. I popped them into my mouth, wincing at the sour taste of the other woman.

Somehow, I had to make him want only me. My cunt spread wider at the thought, admitting a little more of my hand. I bit down into the condoms and they burst inside my mouth, releasing a gush of Michael.

I swallowed for him, the liquid heating inside me as it traveled down my throat and into my stomach. With the palm of my hand, I cupped my belly, treasuring it for holding him.

Then I redoubled my efforts, fucking myself so hard I collapsed to the floor face-first, panting. When the orgasm came, it almost hurt. Pleasure stabbed my brain like a migraine. I lay dazed, chewing latex. Now that my need had been sated, I could taste spermicide, too, and bitter clarity filled me.

The parts of Michael that I’d just swallowed had lain inert for days, like every other bit of him I’d managed to claim. It didn’t matter how intimately I knew his home and his life. It didn’t matter that he trusted me to care for his dog. The truth was, he’d given much more to that other woman. He’d given his vibrant, living self. He’d given her the heat of his hand, his breath in her ear, his hot come surging straight from his balls.

I had to have that, too. I’d thought I could be content with what I was getting, but because of her I now knew that wasn’t enough. Somehow, I had to find a way to let Michael know I needed more.

***

If you're into this, the story was published in Made for Hire, which is for sale here.