As Darkness Falls

by Kathleen Bradean

I go to work in the dark; I come home when it's dark. I tell people I don't do sunlight. But what does darkness mean to me? I'm not sure.

After I get home from work, one of us cooks dinner and the household gathers to share the meal. Then we're off to our separate pursuits. Mine is almost always reading or writing. I recently bought a laptop so I wouldn't have to sit in the coldest part of the house while I write. While R plays Call of Duty and C does homework, I'm in the midst of their noise and part of their conversations now. It's distracting but I can write. I still won't tackle sex scenes if anyone else is in the room though. It seems inappropriate. Funny, since I'm writing sex scenes to be read. Consistency apparently isn't one of my hobgoblins. Don't worry, I have plenty others.

But what about the dark? It's cozy. It's the time of day that's mine. I settle into it like a comfortable chair and relax. Nothing out there is as strange or dangerous as what's going on in my head.

I swear there are songs that sound better at night. Anything by Moby or Linkin Park or Led Zeppelin falls into that category for me. Classical music has it's nocturnes, music meant for the night hours, so this isn't a new concept. Given my schedule, it's a good thing I like driving at night, seeing the brakes lights reflect on the pavement, and on the opposite side of the road, the headlights contrasting with the red. Traffic is a great snake slithering through the city.

I often write stories set at night, when the darkness builds a wall around the scene, setting it off from the rest of the world. Characters huddled on their little islands of light, clinging to each other, dealing with the isolation. Dark, I suppose, can be scary, but that's because it frees the imagination. Stories are best told at night. We've always known that, we humans. Maybe it's because stories are, ultimately, illumination.

In the dark...

By  Essemoh Teepee (Guest Blogger)

Nature dragged me from the soft warm embrace of my bed into the chill of the hotel bathroom and the shock of cold porcelain against my skin. I must remember not to leave the seat up, but this is a strange place, one I am not used to so I guess I can forgive myself.

My back aches a little from the unaccustomed work out it got earlier. My lover arrived yesterday, or is it still today, perhaps it’s tomorrow, I wonder if jet-lag is contagious?

The warmth and cotton comfort of the bed next door embraces her as she lies asleep, her skin silky smooth, her thighs sticky from me. I will go back to her soon.

To hold her in my arms again after so long apart is difficult to describe, familiar and comfortable, yet fresh, strange and exciting at the same time. Like one of those optical illusions where you can see the profile of one woman and the face of another if you crash mental gears.

The bathroom is dimly lit; a low crimson glow from the smoke alarm barely allows me to see the outline of my own hand. Instead my mind’s eye sees her rounded breasts filling my field of vision, her peaked nipples begging for my tongue, my lips, my teeth… I can feel my cock stirring, filling.

I can still taste her, feel her back arching as I suckle between her thighs and drink her essence that she gives forth so freely at the urging of my mouth. My nose grinding against her clit is not a sense memory that will easily fade, nor will the sound of her orgasm in my ears be a fleeting recollection. She comes so hard for me and I am once more feeling so hard for her.

There is a magnetism that draws me back to the bed, to her. Positive attracts negative, natural polarity destined to merge and cancel out in a flood of orgasmic energy. I pause at the nightstand to search for the tube of lube with night vision fingers. The slippery coolness filling my palm soothes the ache of my cock, momentarily. The firm strokes of my fingers stiffening my purpose. Stealthy hands, knees and elbows move me across the cloud soft bedding, the sooty dimness hiding her hills and valleys from me.

I remember the warm tightness of her earlier, welcoming me, engulfing me, getting wet for me and I want that again, I want that now. She is still and quiet, she does not stir at my touch. Does she sleep still or just pretend to slumber on as I prepare to ravish her?

My hands on her thighs, spreading her wide. My weight upon her, my erection pressing my petition for urgent entry. Slick with lube, hard with lust, I slide easily into her heat, burying my want in her. The sounds she makes as she wakes to my fucking her, spur me to greater efforts; my hands trapping her wrists. The taking, the having, the possession draw me on. My ankles pressing down on hers, binding her to the bed. My lover is wide open and accepting beneath me, arching against me, clutching at me, squeezing me inside.

I am near and so is she; I want to hold back, to ensure she peaks first. I pause and she cries out.

“Just one more, please…”

I thrust hard into her, deeply, fully; once, twice and she screams into my face. I let go and fill her, my needs satisfied…for now.

Essemoh Teepee is an author, editor, audio producer and publisher. You can find out more about his erotica and sensual hypnosis audios at www.esensualbooks.co.uk and www.smotp.com

Couples in Touch is a series of Directed Erotic Visualisation Audio ‘Better Sex’ experiences for hetero couples due for release in December from Audible.com

Nothing in the Dark ( a story of the dark)

 Darkness has no name.  It has no being.  It was not aware of the darkness until it was aware of itself. It was nothing wrapped in a nothing.  Within the nothing was a ripple rising from the indifference of awareness without identity, like the beginning of a new wave on an ocean.

 The ripple grew in force and then in awareness.  It felt pain and retreated and felt itself asserted against.  In its resistance there was will and a desire for oblivion.  Something pushed back against the desire for the dark and the desire became stronger.  As the desire moved with purpose, so moved the pain. 

 He opened his eyes in darkness and memories flooded him, broken like shards of a mirror.  None of these feelings were welcome.  Painless oblivion was now out of reach.

 He struggled in the darkness, but there was no strength in the body as he became gradually aware of it.  Things attached to it.  Something attached to his face that blew fresh breezes.  A red light was blinking urgently off past his right hand and there were soft noises approaching.

 I hope nobody sees me like this, he thought and then there was nothing.

 When the emptiness stopped and light began he opened his eyes again and became aware of eyes and light and a bitter dampness on his tongue and movement around him.

 Three women were standing beside the bed.  One dressed in a light blue uniform fussing with something by the wall he couldn't see.  The others were women, one young, one old; they stood looking troubled. 

 "How are you, dad?"

 I don't like women to see me like this, he thought.  Weak.  All water and dry vellum. Like a worm caught on a hot sidewalk, blind and twisting and baffled.  I don't like it.  They should have seen me only as I was.  Furious youth foaming at the moon, ripe and dangerous - Naked women!  Bare chested Goddesses at whose cunts I worshiped! What else were they invented for?

 Oh for god sakes.  Wormwood.  Wormwood.

 The strong darkness returned and beyond it voices calling him in fear.

 Who are these women?  Should I know them?

 He opened his eyes again and there were two women there who seemed to be made of light.  And then a word that sounded like "puce".  He moved his lips trying to pronounce it.  His lips struggled with his will to produce a sound.  Suddenly it seemed like the most important thing he would ever do, to pronounce the word "puce."

 He became aware of the water in his body turning cold.  A burst of sparks rising in the air.  It wasn't that he couldn't see, there was nothing to see and there was only the memory of the room and then that was gone.  It wasn't that he couldn't hear, but that sound had vanished to a solitary ringing tone of silence.  It was not that he couldn't move, but that he couldn't locate his body.  All that he had been was withdrawing into a cold ball that melted into -

  - a park. 

 Swing sets and a battered push merry-go-round beside a small white church. Small and hungry and filled with feeling.  Blowing brown leaves at his sneakered shoes that spoke of broom stick paper witches in frosted windows and grinning pumpkins and the moving along of the year into cool dying and all the future stretched out like an infinite road undamaged by decisions.  Bending his knees in corduroys, at the end of his arm stubby fingers with a Mickey Mouse band-aid on his thumb picking up a leaf and crushing it, holding it to his nose.

 The park - no park.

 The sky - no sky seemed filled with bright moonlight.  It was not the moonlight, but the quality of the dark in which a moon ought to be shining but was not, a cast of brilliance without illumination.  A feeling of safety as though awaking into joy and the soft steady drumming of a great heart. The things that had seemed so important before had the feeling of a dream already drifting away past range of caring. He felt silly.  A great rising of desire, an intense longing to join himself fiercely to the thrumming loins of woman and the warmth of this strong desire turned the sky orange then to red, then to clear light-no light.  And then nothing. 

 A great unraveling of smoke and there was no self and no boundary as space swelled and curved into freedom. 

 But is this all?  And he was afraid. I don't want to stop - existing.

 And who is this watcher who cries in the dark?

 Memories flooded over him, overwhelming memories of women and children, thoughts about money, people who had wronged him, things he had hoped to do and could not. Emotions and regrets in a fury of florid music.  Jigjag.  Jigjag.  Jigjag.  Beds.  Women.  Children.  Jigjag.  Jigjag.  Twining of lovers.  Vacant hilarity.

 Thou hast sinned against my light and I have made thee a servant of slaves.

 Warmth and closeness, folded in a living warmth and the gentle tick-tock of a heartbeat, which all seemed strangely familiar and forgotten. Swaying motion, strange sounds.  Urgency and explosion.  A room of sound, squinting painfully against the light and crying in fear.

 Cooing and warmth and something against his small mouth.  A woman, a breast, a nipple.

 The memories retreated forever and he began again remembering how to sleep in warm arms.

Dark Magic

By Lisabet Sarai

She's so gullible. Over Thanksgiving dinner (an unexpectedly wonderful feast at an atmospheric inn they'd stumbled upon, tucked away in the hills), he'd dropped hints about magical powers inherited from his Celtic ancestors. She'd swallowed his tale as eagerly as the turkey and the red wine, hanging on his words, focused on his face, wet (he knew) as she anticipated what might occur when they returned to his apartment. Her plump, perennially erect nipples teased him through her turtleneck jersey. His nipples, now, to play with, to torture, though perhaps she didn't think of them that way – not yet.

How had he managed to lure her here? He'd surprised himself with the success of his epistolary seduction. Before, in graduate school, they'd been only slightly more than friends. When he vanquished her at chess (despite the distraction of her bra-less state), there had been flickers of something less innocent in their interactions. Then he'd left, moved west, and one day, on a whim, written her a clever, flirtatious letter, fantasizing all the while about her lush breasts, parted lips and the nicely-rounded ass he'd never seen. He hadn't really expected her enthusiastic response, especially not when he broached topics like spanking, bondage, and melted wax. Clearly he'd been right to trust his intuition more than his intellect.

His bedroom is shadowed, lit by a single candle that spikes the air with patchouli. He hovers over her, weight balanced on his arms, the contrast between his big frame and her petite body making him worry. He wants to hurt her, but not in any way that causes damage. A half year's worth of fantasies – both the ones they've shared and the darker ones he doesn't dare expose – have him achingly hard. He jerks a bit, so his cockhead brushes her tangled pubic curls. They both shiver.

Her cunt draws him, but he resists that magnetic pull a while longer, making her wait for what she obviously wants. Control is difficult but necessary. He hasn't bound her (though there are holes drilled in the bed frame and a coil of rope ready in the bed table drawer). He hasn't marked her yet. Candlelight dapples her fair skin, previews of the stripes he hopes to leave there. Tonight though, there's just her voluptuous, eager body and his, primed by hours of self-abuse (the term seems apt, given the images that obsess him). They could be any pair of new lovers. But of course that's not true. What binds them together is more urgent than mere passion, darker than love.

She does not speak, though he has not enjoined her to silence. Her eyes are wide, riveted to his. When he finally allows himself to enter her juicy depths, she gasps, though he's on the down side of average in size. Still, the fit is tight and sweet – it stokes his fever. Pulling back, he rams into her, letting loose all the frustrations built up in month after month of solitary imaginings. He reads her face as he does, ready to stop if she seems to object. They are, after all, practically strangers, despite the explicit letters and breathless phone calls.

There's no resistance in her, though. She keeps her wrists crossed, arms above her head, exactly where he placed them. The position highlights those outrageous nipples she flaunts with such apparent unconcern. Leaning towards her, he catches one in his teeth. Her body ripples and her back arches, driving him deeper.

Fuck me, her eyes say. Use me. So he does, pounding her with his cock again and again, rough and raw, reveling in the slick grip of her cunt around his impossibly hard dick. His thrusts are brutal, but he hears no complaints. Amazed, almost disbelieving, he understands. She wants this as much as he does.

You're mine, he thinks, exulting in his power. He wills his cock to grow and swell. He wants to fill her completely, stretch her to her limits and beyond, tear her apart. It may be suggestion, but he feels huge inside her. Her eyes are pools of wonder.

It's all that he had imagined - no, better, because she's soaked and hungry and more open than he could have dreamed. Then unexpectedly, reality shifts. Some sort of psychic conduit opens between them. Her emotions flood his senses, her desperate need and her profound surrender. All at once, he really can hear her thoughts, and he knows, with complete certainty, that she can read his.

Mine. Mine!

Yes, yes – please...

Be still.

Her writhing ceases. Her tiny moans quiet. He ravages her with his gigantic cock and she takes it - willing, trusting, grateful.

She is truly his slave, bound by his command, and he is her born master, caring or cruel as it suits him. She has died for love of him, and he's taking his last pleasure from her still-warm corpse. He is the devil and she's the soul he has ensnared and lured into darkness.

Yes.

He comes with shout of triumph, pouring his seed into her welcoming heat. Her climax shimmers through her, and he feels that, too, the inevitable welling up of sensation so different from his own sharp release. For an instant he really can't tell which feelings and thoughts are his own and which belong to her.

A spark of fear – a flutter of rebellion – she pulls away from him the tiniest bit, reclaiming her will. The crystalline energy between them clouds. He does not fight the change. No one could bear the intensity of that connection for long. They lie in each other's arms, exhausted and groggy with joy.

The candle gutters and winks out. They sleep. He wakes a bit after dawn to find his bed empty. Did he imagine it all? Was this just another fantasy?

Rubbing his eyes, he wanders out of the bedroom. She is seated at the dining room table, naked in the pearly light of a foggy morning, writing in her journal. Her bowed neck speaks both of submission and strength. He sees that despite her tiny frame, she's anything but delicate.

Barefoot, he steals up behind her, cupping her luscious breasts, twirling her nipples. She leans back, with a sigh, her curly locks soft against his bare chest. He nips her earlobe, runs a wet tongue along the line of her jaw.

“What are you writing about, Sarah?” he asks, a bit afraid of the answer.

Her face is luminous as she turns to him.

“Magic.”

from morning until night

Ack. I've been so busy trying to juggle various activities that I haven't found time to take any new pics.

Okay, I'll try showing a typical day in my life in metaphorical pictures. (After all, metaphors and analogies are a major topic that I discuss with my students).

When the alarm clock wakes me up, I let my sweetie go on sleeping (LOUDLY - she seems to snore most in the morning).

Our menagerie of creatures demands to be fed.

I quickly shower while one creature or another scratches the bathroom door.

I dress quickly and go down to the kitchen, accompanied by the herd.

I look out the window, hoping to see this:

This week, however, whenever I look outdoors, I see a scene like this:

Sigh. I put the kettle on for tea, warm up some of Spouse's homemade food for the dogs (meat & vegetables run through the blender -- they love it).

Spouse comes down to the kitchen in due course, we drink tea & eat breakfast, then we bundle up and go out the back door to the car:

We manage to get the snow & ice scraped off the car, remind ourselves that we desperately need a garage (next on our list of home renos), then she drives me to work.

I go to my office, which actually feels like home, especially since I brought in a space heater to warm it in winter. I gather up whatever I need for my first class, and go to face my audience:

(Please note that I now have a better hairstyle than when this photo was taken. I found an excellent hairdresser who works out of her home, so the price is reasonable.)

In the afternoon, I usually wish I had time to write creatively (even a book review or blog post), but have to spend most of my time marking student essays. Sometimes my mind wanders:

But I resolve to soldier on and continue the fight to improve the composition skills of young adults:

I comfort myself by remembering the results of the recent U.S. election:

Then Spouse picks me up after work, or I take the bus home if she is too busy.

Yesterday after work, we went to the fundraising Steak Night of the English Students Association, where we indulged in food, drink & revelry:

Today there is no revelry on the agenda, so I hope to do some writing! I have 3 book reviews to write a.s.a.p., an editing job to do for a former student (why did I agree to this?), plus more revisions to make on my article on teaching vampire fiction (deadline: early December).

I sometimes contemplate my technological ineptitude, and wish I could do a better job of wowing students with bells & whistles in the classroom, or wow potential readers on-line.

Spouse is better at this stuff than I am. At home, we will cook something, then she will check her Facebook messages and play games on imaginary farms and zoos while I read, mark, edit & revise. Even when we're not conversing, we will enjoy a cozy evening in our warm house, surrounded by our dogs and cats, while the wind howls outdoors.

It's a good life. :)

A Very Good Day in a Very Good Life

by Kristina Wright

Now that I have a toddler and a baby, my day starts earlier than I would like. I 'm not a morning person, so the boys have learned to fend for themselves and get their own breakfast.

I try to get the kids outside to play after breakfast. The fresh air is good for all of us. Well, maybe it's just good for me. It seems to bring out some aggression in the little ones.

 After we've played outside for awhile (and I've recovered from the wrestling match), 'll load up the boys and Big Monkey (center) and go for a "Jeep truck" ride, as my oldest calls it. They have fun pointing out the school buses, big trucks and police cars with lights and sirens blaring behind us.

We get home from our ride shortly before the babysitter arrives for a few hours. The kids and I spend some time doing things like looking for lost toys in the grass and collecting the mail from the very enthusiastic mail carrier. Some days are very good mail days, indeed.

 When Katherine the babysitter arrives, I make a break for the door kiss my beautiful children and drive to my neighborhood Starbucks, where I spend the next five hours (give or take an hour) checking email, posting exciting Facebook updates and chatting with the baristas writing.

There are some days when the words just won't come (or people just won't leave me alone) and I feel stressed and frustrated. Ever had one of those days? Maybe I should monitor my caffeine intake more closely.

Sometimes I just need to take a break and remind myself why I write. Seeing one of my books on the shelf with THE BOOK is motivational.  Encouraged and hopeful that some day MY book will be THE BOOK, I will do a little more work and pick up a treat for myself.

In the afternoon, it's home for playtime with my three guys and our new dog. My life is filled with handsome boys! (Thankfully, the dog is a girl. I need someone on my team. We're going to get matching pedicures.)

While the boys are playing, I might be a good mother and bake some cookies. You know, to make up for that breakfast fiasco.

If I can manage to wrangle the kids to sit still, we might have a video chat with my best friend in Chicago. She gives the best fashion tips. My fashion tips amount to a) make sure it's clean before I put it on, b) double check my hair for stray Cheerios, c) avoid solid colors, they show stains.

If it's Friday, our date night babysitter Ashleigh will be over after the boys have dinner (which may or may not be those cookies I baked). Then we're off for our own dinner-- preferably at a restaurant that allows us to have a peaceful conversation. Sometimes we talk about having another child. (Usually after I've had too much wine.)

Many nights are spent writing, editing and blogging after the boys go to bed. Some nights, though, all I want is a drink as big as my head. Nod if you understand what I'm talking about.


I thought so.

Most nights, I make it to bed sometime after midnight. Sometimes a little later. Depends on the obstacles.

Once in bed, I indulge myself in various ways... 

I always fall asleep with a smile on my face.

I love my life. I really do.

Enormous Success

Here is a day in my life! Hooray!

 

First, I have a period of intensive research.

 

Then comes time for my impeccable grooming routine. I usually start with styling my hair into the above creation of extreme and undeniable beauty. This is achieved by leaving a towel on my head for an extended period of time after showering. I call it the "Lost The Will To Live" method of beautification.

 

More research.

 

Usually by this time it's about five in the afternoon, so of course you can see how dedicated and involved my research process is - not to mention the strain of trying to take my hair unawares and wrestle it to the ground. I tend to think of my coiffure as a wild animal, so I don't think it's unreasonable to judge my efforts in the same way you would if I punched sharks for a living, or Ju Jitsued bears. Then, once I have done the shark punching and bear Ju Jitsuing, I make a valiant attempt at writing. Of course, by this time I am so exhausted and mentally drained from all the frantic researching and hair battles, that writing is reduced to an increasingly angry assault on my laptop, with my fists - as illustrated.

 

And no, I have zero clue why my fists look like pale sponges. Please don't email me to ask. I've just spent three hours painstakingly drawing these masterpieces in Microsoft Paint and now I'm too tired to make words, which is probably another stage I should have added to this day in my life:

 

"Time Spent Being An Idiot"

 

Which then leads me to the next portion of my day:

 

Sleeping and/or crying under the duvet.

I may be crying because the shark fought back after I punched it. We cannot know for sure.

 

 

 

More research. But as you can see, this is a completely different and far more involved type of investigation into important matters (such as the age old question: "how am I supposed to deal with Lee Pace being a vampire?"), that is totally justified even though it's now nine o'clock at night and I've only actually written a paragraph.

 

More crying and/or sleeping when I realise I've only written a paragraph.

 

 

 

And that is the end of my day. Personally, I judge it an enormous success.