Exile’s Lament

By Lee Benoit

I grew up with a beloved stepfather who, as a very young man, had come to the United States from a Dirty-War-torn Argentina. He lived with us for years before he dared a return visit and when he did I remember the tension and worry adults in our circle tried to hide. My stepdad shaved his beard, cut his hair, so I scarcely recognized the man we left at the airport. The weeks he was gone were twisted and cold, like waiting for bad news. He made it back to us, to my mother’s relief, but I didn’t believe it was really him until our rented house smelled like his pipe tobacco.

To this day, nearly forty years on, Gardel tangoes and a certain strain of pipe smoke excite an exile’s nostalgia in me, though I never have escaped a beloved homeland.

As a teenager, I joined a local chapter of Amnesty International (this was back in the pre-internet days of potluck meetings in strangers’ living rooms). I think part of me wanted to save the man-boy my stepfather had been before he left Buenos Aires that first time. It was foolish and romantic of me, of course, and futile, but slowly I learned I was doing some good with my earnest letters to unknown bureaucrats and colonels.

I majored in Anthropology in college, traveled to Kenya and Cuba and America’s Native Nations. Had a son and named him for my stepfather. Earned a Doctorate in Making Things Better. I took a job in the Ivory Trenches (an urban community college) and embraced their social justice mission with the same eager resolve I’d applied to those Amnesty International Urgent Action letters thirty years ago.

And I started to write. I did it for fun, for myself, as a reward for bulling through grad school and escaping a bad union with my mind and children intact. I came out, proudly. I wrote from a place of strength and discovery and wonder. And I started to notice something.

In story after story I wrote, my characters were Strangers in Strange Lands. They were exiles and outcasts and wandering seekers. Even those characters whose stories played out in their imagined hometowns were singing songs of longing and loss. They were singing the exile’s lament. (This isn’t to say I don’t write lighthearted, silly stuff too, but if you look closely, the lament is always there.) All my stories also feature Queer characters, and there’s an element of the exile to those of us on the sexual-minority spectrum, don’t you think? Geopolitical exiles must leave their homelands in order to survive, and Queer folks too often live in socio-political exile within their homelands, so they’re not the same thing. Not really. But there’s more in common there than I ever realized before I started writing fiction.

At the risk of becoming maudlin (I confess more than a few tears fell as I remembered) let me just say how exhilarating it was to discover Alessia Brio’s Coming Together volumes, and to have a story accepted into Coming Together: At Last which benefited Amnesty International. The story itself was inspired by a pastel by Michael Breyette, entitled “Pride.” Exiles we may be, but to join with fellow travelers and lift our voices together transforms the exile’s lament into a song of hope.

Here’s a description of and not-work-safe excerpt from “Proud Is the Dancer, Pride Is the Dance,” from Coming Together At Last, Vol. 1:

When Danny discovers his lover, Cuban exile Calyx, was once an internationally renowned dancer, he thinks he's found the key to reviving Calyx's lust for life. Calyx resists, tormented by his memories of persecution and torture. Danny discovers that Calyx has lost more than his homeland and his vocation – he's also lost his connection to the Santería tradition that sustained him in his youth. They struggle to bridge their cultural divide and with the help of friends and their city's upcoming Pride celebration, they both realize that their connection to each other is the real key to choosing to live, rather than merely to exist.

EXCERPT:

Undulating with Calyx inside him was the most complete Danny had ever felt, as if his lover’s body joined with the little piece of Calyx’s soul Danny carried around with him always. He wondered if Calyx felt the same way.

“Mi amor, ay, mi vida,” Calyx chanted as he rocked, those elastic hips of his showing Danny the edge with each shift, but never tipping him over.

Danny’s responses were inarticulate at best. He arched his back, canted his hips, reached over and over for bliss. He squeezed his muscles around Calyx’s prick, over and over again, until they were both grunting indelicately, coming endlessly.

“You killed me, mi amor,” Calyx sighed as he pulled out gently and rolled over.

Boneless, Danny agreed with a breathy chuckle and wrapped his arms around his panting lover. He closed his eyes, just for a minute…

…and woke with a start. Late afternoon sun slanted through the window, gilding Calyx’s dulce de leche skin. A glance at the clock confirmed Danny’s fear.

“Calyx. Cal? Wake up, I’m late.”

“Hmm? No, nene, it’s early. Rest with me.” He snaked his arms around Danny’s middle and sank deeper into the mattress.

“No, Calyx. Please. You’ve gotta give me a ride -- I’ll never make it if I take the bus.”

Those molasses eyes gazed up at him for a long moment. “It’s perfect, to sleep the afternoon with you. I could kidnap you, tie you up and keep you here.”

“You’d never,” Danny said, smiling inside and out at Calyx’s words. He loved it when Calyx teased. Loved it when he woke up slowly and happy instead of suddenly and terrified. Most days, Danny would have indulged his lover, grateful for a peaceful awakening, but he really was late for work. He played his trump card: machismo: “The ladies will be disappointed if I don’t show up. I’m teaching them about small business loans today.”

With an exaggerated groan, Calyx levered himself up, rubbing idly at his smooth belly. “Bien, mi amor. I will take you to work. Shower first?” That last was said with such lascivious hope Danny had to laugh.

“Separately, you tempting thing. I’ll never get to work if I get wet with you.” Danny grabbed a clean shirt and headed down the short hall to their tiny bathroom.

©Lee Benoit

Bio: Before dawn and after dark, Lee Benoit is a writer of queer fiction, some contemporary, some speculative, some historical. During the daylight hours she is a professor of sociology & anthropology. In the old days, Lee traveled the world doing field research. Nowadays, she lives in the middle of a New England hayfield where being a two-spirit single parent provides more than enough excitement. Lee also paints watercolors, bakes wild-yeast sourdough bread, rears guinea fowl, and shares her bed with a pair of cats and an abjectly adoring hound-retriever mutt. Whenever she gets itchy feet and misses the world of research and advocacy, Lee invents a new world in her head and takes notes on what happens there.

Visit Lee at www.leebenoittales.com

Find Lee at http://leebenoittales.com/blog

Buy “Proud Is the Dancer, Pride Is the Dance” as a single title: http://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-proudisthedancerprideisthedance-417340-144.html

Or buy the original Coming Together: At Last, Volume 1: http://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-comingtogetheratlastv1-411318-144.html

Commenters to this post will be entered in an additional random drawing to receive a PDF copy of any one of my backlist titles (barring my Coming Together story). Please be sure we have a way to reach you in case you’re the winner. My thanks to Lisabet for hosting this amazing month of guests!

Poets

By Daniel Burnell

I don't blog or know how to blog and, much as I would like to, can't begin to know how to post something in this worthy venture. As far as contributing to Coming Together, I simply liked the idea that people of open and independent spirit wanted to link their creative explorations with worthy causes and that Alessia and other well meaning folks had created a real way for this to come about. It seemed that the personal and creative was also political and communal, an ideal of mine. It not only helped make the world more humane - but what fun! As a neophyte writer of erotica, I checked out Coming Together and saw some pictures of these folks and thought 'Sexy and cool, they're trying to live a life based imagination and freedom in oneself and from authority" and I wanted to contribute to that. My interest is in writing stories that are both artistic, turn people on and create more humanity in the world. I hope that my contribution to Coming Together: As One (a collection of stories about ménage) does that.

What follows is an interview I did about my story "Poets" which was originally published by Coming Together: As One and then subsequently expanded by me into a novella published by Naughty Nights Press. Coming Together was one of the first places that saw fit to publish my erotica. Perhaps this interview will serve to show how a writer for Coming Together goes about creating work that affords artistic and voyeuristic pleasure. It's the best I can do for you and I hope it serves.

NNP: What inspired you to write Poets?

DB: As I got into the writing, there was an interesting disconnect in the narrator between the repressed, conventional, well-meaning persona she presents to the world and her wild, wanton inner self straining to break free. I found this interesting and sexy and worth pursuing as a writer. She’s real and regular. She’s sitting next to you on the bus on the way home from work. As I got to know her and wrote in her voice, I was struck by the authenticity of her fierce wishes for a wilder life and how they powered her to go beyond wishing to actually acting out step by step her most sexy savage desires. Because she turned out to be a keen observer of the world, her close observation of the stripping away of her inhibitions with these two poets was a real turn on. Sometimes I write erotica without getting turned on. Not this time. It was the slow stripping of clothes and inhibitions that made her absolute nakedness so authentic and sexy.

Here’s something else: A version of “Poets” actually happened to me years ago but because I was, in the intro above called ‘the mysterious Daniel Burnell’, I’m not going to reveal who I was in the ménage, the woman, one of the men or the voyeur next door. It doesn’t matter. As a writer, you have to imagine characters and let them lead you. This time, unlike most of my stories, I used an actual event to help inspire me to create the voice and character of the woman and then just followed her.

NNP: Have you always wanted to be a writer, Daniel?

DB: Yes, absolutely, ever since I read and was carried away by great literary works as a teenager (among them in the beginning, “Huck Finn”, “Catcher In The Rye”, “Lolita”) I said to myself, ‘I want to be able to do that’ and set out to accomplish it. Nothing else seemed nearly as worthwhile. How else do we know we want to write except by our experiences in reading? Those great authors created worlds that were more real to me than my own world and characters more revealed to me than I was to myself. Writing fiction seemed to me to be a heroic quest. You set out all on your own into uncharted territory and come back, if you’re lucky, with a treasure to present to the world. It’s a true test of the whole self.

Let me say, right here, that I write all kinds of things, plays, literary fiction, reviews, under my real name. Writing erotica these last few years, I have had to bring all my skills to bear on the story telling and the writing has totally engaged me. It’s let me have a creative outlet for material that’s unacceptable to the literary world though the lines between the kinds of writing are getting more blurred (and that’s a good thing). Sometimes I get into a story and start to wonder, is this erotica or not? Several of the stories, I started out thinking were erotica, I wound up publishing under my real name. As a writer, you have to like being different people.

NNP: What comes first for you, the character or the setting when you begin writing?

DB: You know it varies and the process feels magical to me. It seems that my imagination is working on its own in private, that the various elements of story telling, character, setting, voice, dramatic action, come together organically without my participation until the story tears through into my awareness and must be written, almost like writing down a dream. That’s the kind of alchemy that has to go on for a story to catch me up. I hardly ever consciously say, I’m going to write about his person or this place. Something has to go on unconsciously for my imagination to be truly engaged. I do my best thinking in my sleep.

NNP: What is the main quality you like to see in your characters?

DB: First off, they have to be interesting. Really, interest is the only thing that matters and that usually comes down to the authenticity of the human truth being presented. Get your readers to believe in the truth of who they’re reading about and they’ll follow your characters anywhere. There are lots of ways to achieve this authenticity, voice, how the characters see and behave, the step by step truth in the rendering of their experience. But if characters don’t become ‘as if’ real, forget it. Erotic scenes, no matter how descriptive, are just plain boring, if the reader hasn’t been made to care about the people. It’s flat, cliched, formulaic, not sexy. Only believable characters can inspire voyeuristic pleasure in watching them behave.

NNP: What type of research do you do for your writing?

DB: Hate research. Never do it. I know a lot of writers thrive on it but I like to make everything up. I’d probably benefit from research and that I don’t like to do it has no doubt limited me as a writer. I can understand how research creates a treasure of authentic detail.

NNP: Do you have any type of ritual that you go through before you begin to write?

DB: When I feel a story is about ready to be started, I’ll clean up my workspace. As I straighten things out, it seems the elements of the story are being arranged by other hands.

NNP: Do you have any other books in the pipeline or due for release that our readers should keep an eye out for?

DB: There’s Marietta's Exorcism, a novella just out from Etopia Press,

Set in Liverpool in the 1870’s during a Halloween-like revel, it’s the story of a beautiful, aristocratic young woman’s night long debauch to avenge a betrayal. Hide this one from the children.

I also have stories in a few current or forthcoming anthologies Gotta Have It and One Night Only from Cleis Books and Lyrotica: An Anthology of Erotic Poetry and Prose from Vagabondage Press.

And here's an excerpt from Poets, for your delectation.

***

There was a point at the beginning of the proceedings in Vesuvio's Saloon when certain thoughts tried to undermine and stop me from doing what I was apparently determined to do that night: 'This isn't you. You don't do things like this. You're a responsible person who has to get up early tomorrow morning to teach your wonderful first graders. Why are you letting it happen?" But in almost no time at all, I had to admit that many things about my life were false and this crazy thing felt like one true thing at last.

I was sitting at a small, round table upstairs in Vesuvio's in the semi-dark sandwiched between two guys, both of them poets, good poets - I'd made sure of that - with one poet's hand on my left thigh and the other's hand on my right and both pretty far up there but neither touching anything private yet; and one poet's tongue in my mouth and the other poet's finger tracing my breast through my blouse, tentatively, as if it was wild, caged animal he wasn't quite sure of yet.

I liked it a lot, really a lot, the tentative, exploratory, poetic attentions of the breast-tracing poet. He was barely indenting my tit, being quite artistic about it, sensitive, bringing me to life gently, after my long sleep. His touch was of the nerves, flesh and skin and not of the nerves, flesh and skin, sensual and not sensual, electrical and not electrical, personal and impersonal, kinky behavior in a saloon and a new poem written into my flesh. I was becoming someone other than who I was and more completely myself at the same time, the truer version. And of course, the regular bodily reactions were happening down below, my pussy, hot and wet, and throbbing wildly with the beating of my heart but I didn't want the poets to kiss me or feel me up any harder or touch me anywhere else just yet, though I certainly would have permitted that and any other poetic or dirty thing these guys wanted to do to me. I wanted them to take me wherever they wanted to go but slowly, poetically and for a long time, just like they were doing.

My breasts felt like they were waking up after a long winter's nap and starting to realize just how hungry they were after their dormancy of not being touched by anyone for many months. Just keep doing it like that, poet, tracing and tracing my flesh, making me quiver and shiver just like that. At the spring rains you may switch to the other one, Sir, and when summer comes, after these delicate attentions, I grant you permission to feel me up like a fumbling teenager in the back of his car and then devour me whole.

I was in a trance, enchanted and patient rather than wildly lustful. I decided I liked that breast tracing poet best. If only I was sure of his name. I thought I knew it, I did know it, because I had heard him give a poetry reading some time back and was impressed with his writing but then his name slipped away somehow and I didn't want to say the wrong one so I was waiting for someone else to say it but no one ever did or would the entire long night.

Let's call him Anonymous.

The other poet, a busy bee, a hard worker, whose tongue was mopping mine and swabbing my palate and determinedly rounding my teeth and gums, his name was Tom. Tom, the name just stuck heavy and hard, like a mudball on the wall of my mind even as Anonymous' name kept slipping away. Strange.

It wasn't that I didn't like kissing Tom. I did, a lot. I slid further down in my chair and tilted my head back to give him better access while making sure Anonymous could still do whatever he wanted to my tits. I clasped my lips to Tom's and opened my mouth pretty wide. Tom tasted like the tequila he'd been drinking, woody, primeval, intimate. His moustache bristled animal-like against me as we breathed through each other. I got into the hot, fat, slow worminess of his tongue, into the strangeness of the feeling after such a long time of not being kissed, and really into Tom's determination to probe my mouth as if it and I must belong to him completely. The concentration of these poets' intentions and the way I was going sort of slack and open as they worked me was a real turn on, the abject surrender of me letting it happen.

All this attention, all these sensations, all this strangeness, I wanted to experience all of it as consciously as I could. That's why I wasn't drinking, because I wanted to go into this sober, with eyes wide open and all my wits about me. I didn't want to be physically overwhelmed and dominated, the cliché about when a woman takes on more than one guy. I'd never done anything like that before probably because I'd never had the opportunity or admitted to myself that I really wanted it. As I had already decided to that it would happen, I didn't want to be out of control but to go slow and feel everything intricately, in wonderful detail, sense detail as poets say. I didn't want to lose my mind, I wanted to gain it and be most poetically aware of what was happening to my body.

The truth was, I wanted to be a poet too but didn't have what it took or so I thought and so I taught first grade and went to poetry readings when I wasn't too worn out from work, looking for more mystery in my life. That night, I guess I was settling for poetic muse.

Feasting upon “Feast of the Incarnations”

By Gayle C. Straun

An erotic story about intellectual piracy.

At least, that was my goal. Circlet Press, for which I had previously written some microfiction and full-length stories, had advertised a call for submissions for pirate-themed erotic tales, and the gears in the brain started spinning immediately. My partner loves anything which deals with pirates: Talk Like a Pirate Day, Errol Flynn, Cutthroat Island, the Polly and the Pirates comic books, the Dread Pirate board game, and so on. Anything to do with pirates—no exceptions.

Most writers are probably trying to impress someone close to them, rather than the vague and nebulous “audience” many professors implore us to remember—at least, I am, especially when writing erotica. And maybe most writers think to themselves, as did I, “How can I do something different?” After all, this was supposed to be a collection of pirate stories, and no doubt the editor would be swamped with the usual celebrations of a pirate’s life, albeit with a bit more sex and sci-fi than is the norm. But I wanted to play with the definition of piracy a little bit, craft a story that would stand out among all the iterations of yo-ho-ho and the endless buckling of swashes. Therefore, I thought to tackle intellectual piracy. (In my defense, the original call for submissions was pretty open as to what constituted a pirate story.)

I had just finished reading Stanley Payne’s The Franco Regime, 1936–1975, and there quickly formed in my mind a skeleton of narrative about a dictator who tries to keep his regime together by having himself and his councilors download their consciousness, each evening, so that their minds could be implanted into robot forms in case of any assassination—ensure continuity, forever and always, world without end. In fact, I fashioned much of the world in “Feast of the Incarnations” after Franco’s Spain, including the marriage of Church and State he perfected, represented by the literal marriage of the General, the main character, and the High Priestess, who fulfills a pontiff-life role here. (I must also credit philosopher Steven Lecce, whose Against Perfectionism: Defending Liberal Neutrality proved an immense thematic inspiration.) So, very clearly, the act of piracy would entail the act of illegally downloading these consciousness files and putting them to some nefarious, anti-regime purpose, and since this was supposed to be an erotic anthology, you can well imagine to what purposes they were put. (Oh, sorry, was I supposed to write “Spoiler Alert” somewhere before this?) Certainly, one of the challenges of writing erotica is attempting to integrate the sex into the plot, making it a cornerstone without which the story would not make sense, rather than simply inserting some vivid insertion into a story that could actually stand without it. The advent of various pornographic versions of YouTube, combined with the endless parade of politicians and preachers succumbing to sex scandals, gave me the very inspiration for pulling that off.

The problem was that, when I finished my story, I didn’t really have a pirate story anymore, even accounting for loose definitions of the word. Sure, acts of piracy took place, and I even dubbed the anti-regime forces “Pirates,” but anyone who might be called such a pirate did not appear at all in the story, and any acts of piracy took place outside the narrative, which followed the General rather than those opposed to his rule. The arc of the story was much more tragic, more King Lear than Captain Blood, and there was simply no escaping that fact. (For full disclosure, my partner said, “That’s one of the best stories you’ve written. But it’s not a pirate story.”) So I cast about for places where it might fit until I came upon the Coming Together: In Flux call for stories centering the transformation of body or mind. (While bodies certainly do transform in this story, I was prepared to defend it on the basis of the somewhat more metaphorical transformation of the body politic, if it came to that.) Having this story of creative challenges to oppression accepted into an anthology that would benefit the Woodhull Sexual Freedom Alliance—which fights for the right to “privacy and consensual sexual expression without societal or governmental interference, coercion or stigmatization”—was too perfect by half.

Not that many years ago, science fiction and fantasy were not considered respectable pursuits for “serious” authors, but that has since changed. Philip K. Dick’s works are being reprinted by the Library of America, Dorris Lessing won a Nobel Prize for Literature, and Salman Rushdie is reportedly working on a screenplay for a sci-fi television series. The same might be said for fantasy, especially in the wake of motion picture and television adaptations of the works of J. R. R. Tolkein and George R. R. Martin, respectively. Genres once derided as the stuff of children and nerds now are recognized for their ability to analyze the human condition as thoroughly as acknowledged works of literature. A similar transformation awaits the genre erotica. The more we learn about the sexual side of human nature, the more we understand our life as sexual beings twenty-four hours a day, from birth to death, then the more we will turn to erotica for enlightenment and enjoyment, for the means of understanding ourselves and the world around us. That is why I write erotica, and that is why I am proud that this anthology benefits the Woodhull Sexual Freedom Alliance.

One day, none of this will be cutting edge. Let’s make that day come sooner.

For your enjoyment now, I offer the first few pages of “Feast of the Incarnations.”

****

The camera clicks to life pointed at a pair of feet, and it takes just a moment for the operator to bring those feet into focus so that all can see the little toes curled up, as if snuggling together for warmth. But then it slowly starts to creep upward, up smooth calves that glisten with a slight rub of oil, up thighs that might belong to an experienced horseman, and then here it lingers where those two magnificent legs come together, a point crowned with the kind of penis Renaissance sculptors never graced their subjects with: not the discrete nubbin of endless Davids but something rather more befitting that ancient king’s most notorious foe. The camera pulls back just briefly from that erect and fleshy spear, and a hand reaches out, from the viewer’s direction, to run delicate fingertips down its length, down to the very bottom where that hand cups those two balls before so softly sliding upward again, circling the pink tip before retracting again into the void behind the viewscreen. And now the camera is impatient. It skirts up his chest quickly to rest upon the face of a man who—whatever his irregularities below—is pure David here, the kind of man gods, women, and men could so easily fall in love with at first sight. The curl of his hair. The gleam in his eyes. The curve of a smile that could melt lead. And now the camera takes itself from the bed upon which this man is resting and, with some fidgeting and tinkering, comes to rest at a point in the room from which it can see the full length of the man, toes up to head. He looks this way expectantly, his expectations finally manifesting themselves in the body of another who moves into the line of sight. From this angle, the head of the second man cannot be seen, so he is just another body, another average nakedness, his skin pale, his features not quite as chiseled. But the first man does not mind. As the second man stops near the head of the bed, the first man looks up into a face that cannot be seen, as if seeking permission, and then leans over, taking the other’s cock in hand and then mouth. He opens wide and buries himself full upon the member, moaning satisfaction, moaning as if he had been waiting his entire life to enjoy this very moment.

**

“They call themselves rebels,” the General thundered to his audience of thousands below, “and yet we know that they are nothing of the kind! We know this from their insignia, that most ancient of symbols—the skull and crossbones, the flag of the Pirates who roamed the high seas of legend in their endless quest for plunder and adventure. Or so the stories tell us. But the stories lie!” And here, the General hammered down upon the podium, and in the two, bigger-than-life screens on either side of the stage, his immense image, twice replicated, made the same movement with the same clenched fists. “Yes, I tell you, they lie. The Pirates of old were not the agents of independence. They were not the sentinels of freedom and liberty. Rather, they were hirelings, the base mercenaries of competing empires, thieving their way across the wide oceans. And so we know today that the people who operate under the flag of piracy cannot be called rebels. They cannot be called freedom fighters. We know them for what they are—the hired thugs of other nations, nations envious of our shining successes. And because they are mere goons, bought and paid for, we owe them no quarter, no mercy whatsoever!”

The audience cheered faithfully, enthusiastically, as the General stepped back and raised his arm in a stiff salute, as if it were a blade. The swell of voices, all one voice now, rang upon the air so loud that it seemed the stars were about to shake down from their posts high above. He savored the great swell of zeal but did not let it drag out for too long, finally stepping back to the podium and signaling the audience to let him speak yet again. And now, he took a more solemn tone as he said, “My people, you know that, this very morning, these… Pirates”—and he spat out the word—“tried to assassinate Chancellor Briggs.” Here, the crowd tried to boo and hiss, but the General cut them short. “As you might guess, they failed in this, as they shall fail in all their attempts to tear down our glorious nation. Chancellor Briggs is being treated at Ford Hospital for only the most minor of wounds and shall likely be released today, if we can pull him away from the nurses.” He lets the audience chuckle just a bit. “The lesson from this is that money can never overwhelm the power of love—the love all your leaders feel toward our people, and the love we all have for our country. Love is the weapon with which we shall destroy all our oppressors!”

The General could still hear the roar of the crowd even as the engines of his personal ornithopter roared to life and lifted him and his entourage from the stadium, high into the air above, and they cheered all the more as the whoosh of his take-off blew across them like the visitation of some ancient storm god. Soon, the aircraft was deep into the late afternoon sky, and everything below was just geography again. The General always liked this view of the world: high up enough, and it all magically became clean and ordered, a veritable map across which one could move troops and armor, if need be, or place new housing settlements, a dam, a power plant. Whatever the people required. But too close, and it all descended into chaos because the people didn’t understand their own needs well enough, could not see their lives from his vantage point, how it all worked together like the gears of a machine. Up here, removed from all the flesh and dirt, the machine worked.

*****

Gayle C. Straun has published microfiction and book reviews for the website of Circlet Press and has stories forthcoming in two anthologies by that publisher. In addition to her story in Coming Together: In Flux, she has also published the stand-alone story “Gravity” as part of the “Occupy Coming Together” series, which benefits the Occupy Wall Street movement across the nation.

Do The Write Thing

By Allison Wonderland

Allison, I said to myself, take the advice of Virginia Chance and stop procrasturbating, would you please?

When I volunteered to participate in Share the Love, I was delighted to be among the authors coming together for Coming Together.

And then I sat down to write—about my ideas, my inspirations, my motivations—and I couldn’t think of a single “profound” thing to say.

I mean, I can’t say that writing for Coming Together makes me feel like an audaciously awesome altruist. It’s true, sure, but sort of narcissistic, don’t you think? Like, I’m so vain, I probably think this post is about me. (Don’t I, don’t I?)

Dismayed, I delayed, until I had no choice but to get back on the write track.

Okay, so why do I write for Coming Together?

Well, in P!nk think, it’s “wrong in all the right ways.”

I think erotica is something of a guilty pleasure, not just for the readers but for the writers as well. We’re a perpetually prudish society that thinks Salt-n-Pepa are out of season—in other words, let’s not talk about sex. But it’s hard to feel guilty when you’re giving. When I give a poem or a short story to a Coming Together anthology, I’m donating differently, and I think the same goes for those who consume our collections.

I’ve been a phil-anthro-pist since 2008, contributing to five CT anthologies. Proceeds from the sale of these anthologies are donated to Amnesty International (At Last), Conservation International (Al Fresco), V-Day (Into the Light), ONE (As One), and the Coalition for Positive Sexuality (By Hand), all veritable charitable organizations.

Basically, I get a big bang out of beneficence. I also get the privilege of sharing the spotlight with the cliterary elite—each collection is a potpourri of creativity, showcasing the diversity of perversity.

Now I’d like to share a snippet of “Quite Contrary,” my short story from the masturbatory medley that is Coming Together: By Hand…

****

No candles.

Check.

She never understood how truncated wax could generate a romantic ambiance. And she is quite certain that her beige voile curtains, a wedding present from her mother-in-law, are not flame retardant.

No music.

Also check.

She cannot possibly expect to concentrate with the husky voice of a husky male crooning about desire and devotion. She will feel as though someone is in the bedroom with her, supervising, scrutinizing, salivating.

She crosses to the table displaying her china doll collection. Carefully, she rotates the stands, ensuring that the dolls’ line of vision is obstructed by the paisley print pattern adorning the walls.

To further safeguard against voyeurs, she jiggles the doorknob to make sure it’s locked. Though she has the house to herself, another resident could return at a moment’s notice and neglect to announce his arrival.

Her eyes survey the room, pausing to inspect Chester, the hibiscus plant suspended near the window. Mentally reviewing her morning agenda, she recalls that at 9:05, shortly after breakfast, she tended to her companion. This comforts her, for she cannot have a dehydrated plant hanging over her head.

Satisfied that everything is in order, she approaches the bed, folds down the coverlet, and lowers herself onto the sheets, crisply ironed and boasting hospital corners.

She glances at the alarm clock. 10:10. She has several hours before she must begin getting ready for her surprise party, where she will be forced to smile and feign appreciation for a blouse she will want to exchange and a gift certificate for a beauty treatment she did not even know she needed.

In the interim, she will have a private party.

She has spent months pondering the commemoration of the five decades she has coexisted, however discordantly, with the rest of the human race.

And there is only one gift that will suffice.

She has a surfeit of degrees, framed and fastened to the walls of her office. She has an abundance of accolades, conferred upon her by colleagues who both envy and extol her novel analyses of English literature. She has a doting daughter, who is attending a nearby university and following in her mother’s footsteps. She has a husband, too, but their relationship, while amicable, has been tempered by routine and familiarity, and he is more often her buddy than her lover. And, of course, she has Chester.

But what she doesn’t have, what she’s never had, is an orgasm.

****

I’d like to invite you to our protagonist’s private party:

http://www.eroticanthology.com/byhand.htm

And then, I’d like to invite you to go f*** yourself.

But before you go, please take a moment to enter my giveaway. All you have to do is comment on this entry by March 1, after which I will select at random one winner to receive the e-book The Bad Girl’s Sweet Kiss, which contains my f/f story “Getting Her Rox Off.”

Curiouser and curiouser,

Allison Wonderland

About the author:

Allison Wonderland has been writing erotic fiction and poetry since 2007. Her specialtease - er, specialties - include lesbian erotica, vanilla erotica, and erotic romance. Find out what else she’s into and up to at http://aisforallison.blogspot.com.

Nymphosium

By Raziel Moore

The following is a dialog between personae; my personae to be exact. Truth to tell, stuff like this goes on in my head all the time, but rarely split so definitively between voices. Let’s say I’ve taken some artistic license with myself, after a couple glasses of decent wine, and a serious lounge on the couch.

Raziel: Smut writing doesn’t pay the bills for a lot of us. I would wager for most of us. And for folks like me writing has to live in a hobby status. That makes for erratic writing schedules and stretches of various lengths where you can’t write due to ‘life’ or having fallen out of the habit. I’m in one of those stretches now, ever hopeful to emerge soon, but I don’t want to talk about the travails of hobby-smutwriting. I want to talk about the dichotomy in some writers – well, this one in particular – between the professional and writer self.

Monocle: Jesus Christ you talk a lot. It’s no wonder we haven’t gotten a good dirty story out in so long. You’re so fucking analytic about everything you’re not paying attention to your dick any more. I just want to fuck something with words. Ok, someone. Ok, many someones. Is that too much to ask?

Raziel: Sometimes it is a lot to ask. Sometimes the rational throttles the perverse.

Monocle: Oh, bull. You’ve spent many an hour slaving away at work with a hard-on. The sensual and the empirical are not always either/or.

Raziel: Indeed. Well, it helps to enjoy what you do. I do science-y stuff professionally, and, frankly I find a lot of what I do stimulating in a pretty sensual way.

Monocle: Science is Sexy, as they say. But we don’t get turned on by the nitty gritty of code or models. The real almost erotic stuff is where you are discovering something new. Where we remove one more layer of Mother Nature’s diaphanous gown.

Raziel: Er. Something like that. I don’t usually think about it quite that way when I’m working on it though.

Monocle: But I do.

Raziel: Granted. The issue is that there comes a point where I do have to get buried in the code or the reference search, or other blood and guts of the work, and that’s not very sexy while I’m doing it. Maybe after. And then there’s the opposite…

Monocle: You mean like when sensation and lust grow so strong you can’t think rationally at all?

Raziel: Well, there are times when you get so wrapped up in the doing that nothing else really exists. It’s kind of analytic fugue state, where entire afternoons can disappear in what feels like a few moments.

Monocle: Yeah, well, I usually can’t last an entire afternoon, but it sounds pretty damn familiar. Except analysis is the thing that disappears, overwhelmed by sensation and emotion, and ends with climax instead of data tables.

Raziel: It seems that if you go far enough to the extreme of either side, it curves around to meet in some kind of common ground.

Monocle: Like politics?

Raziel: Don’t even start with that analogy. I’m trying to concede a point.

Monocle: I know how hard that is.

Raziel: All right, so learning about the world, or studying the universe is like an extension of your senses via instrumentation. In some ways, the discovery of something new has a similar thrill to the disrobing of a body; secrets hidden within revealed, and all that. The poetic side of the description of science does have a lot of sexual semiotics; unveiling, probing, revealing, penetrating mysteries.

Monocle: Now you’re talkin’. See, it’s no surprise that some scientists are pervs at heart. And vice versa.

Raziel: Empiricism is more closely related to sensualism than I might have thought.

Monocle: And that’s one reason I write that stuff. Same mind, same drives, different – but really not that different – application.

Raziel: And it tends to go better with collaborators, too.

Monocle: Now who’s being a perv? But I catch your meaning. Of course I tend to prefer writing about pairings of people (or entities). The interweaving and interaction of desire and discovery between two (or more) is what I like to feel when I write, usually, but not all the time.

Raziel: Oh, brilliant! I see a segue coming!

Monocle: Stop with the ‘brilliant’. Don’t be narcissistic. But yes, sometimes the story is not strictly about coupling, such as in the one story I have so far in the Coming Together collections. It’s called “Start Without Me”, a short one in Coming Together by Hand – about masturbation.

Raziel: Though strictly speaking, it’s also about voyeurism and loss of control.

Monocle: Perennial favorites. And we get to show a little excerpt as well, like this:

****

I almost drop my armload of supplies along with my jaw at the bedroom door. “Go ahead and start,” I’d said. And you have.

You do have your little crooked smile on, below half lidded eyes, pillowed head propped up and looking at me. But I don’t have to guess you’re naked under the covers. No. There you are, lying in the middle of the bed, pale and beautiful, and spread. Your knees wide apart and bent, I catch your crimson-painted toes digging into our matching comforter. Because you have started without me.

In all the years we’ve been together, I’ve never seen, never watched you masturbate. Nor you me, for that matter. I mean, we each know the other does it, but it never comes up in conversation. It’s for when one of us is too tired, or not in the mood, or out of town, or the other of us is too horny to wait. But now, here, right in front of me, you’re touching yourself, playing yourself, and it is the fucking hottest thing I’ve ever seen. I know I’ve said something, probably a curse word, but I don’t know what it was.

"You said I should start . . .” Your breath catches on the last word, because your wet finger has just crossed over your clit, and I can see the shiver pass through you. You smile at me, wickedly, challenging me. My heart and cock both lurch.

I almost drop the wine and the other supplies again while setting them on the bureau. Only a fraction of my attention is on what I’m doing. Everything else is focused on you. My eyes take you in. You look at me, sultry, wanton, yet private—I’m an observer, not a cause, of your pleasure.

One hand gropes your breast, tickling your own side then coming up to circle and tweak one nipple and then the other. Your movements are subtly different than what I do when I touch you there. Of course. You know precisely what to do to get the stimulation you want. I try to make a note of each difference for later.

I look down along your quivering belly, watching your breathing interrupted by the little shucks of pleasure you give yourself. The fingers of your other hand slide between the folds of your slick, flowing cunt. I absently begin disrobing, following the urging ache between my own legs, eyes fixed on your wet fingers delving, dividing, teasing yourself.

And you are turning yourself on. I can see it, hear it in your sighing voice, scent it from across the room. Your hips undulate, not like you are trying to entice me, but because you’re getting yourself hotter. You’re getting me hotter, too.

I’m naked, I think, naked enough, anyway; cock free and pointed where it wants to be. I step to the foot of the bed and get on, approaching one knee after the other until I am kneeling between your widespread legs. I know you can see what you’re doing to me. How much I want you. You pause, fluttering. I see the tiny spasm in your wanting cunt.

“Come inside,” you beckon me.

***

Monocle: One thing we can actually see here is just a bit of the battle between intellect and sense. Clearly our narrator is not going to be able to last very long just observing, just thinking. But I won’t spoil it.

Raziel: Good idea – invite the reader to read. I should note that Coming Together: By Hand benefits the Coalition for Positive Sexuality, a grassroots, not-for-profit, activist organization providing teens with candid sex education materials.

Monocle: And it has a bunch of other really excellent stories about wanking.

Raziel: Crass.

Monocle: Guilty. But, as they say, there’s more! I’ve done my share of philanthropy, too. A while ago, I edited a little anthology about the carnivorous, consuming aspects of love – called Hearteater ( published by Republica Press, where my other collections also live - http://www.republicapress.com/Monocle.aspx). It’s a fantastic little mixture of poetry, short stories, flash fiction, and graphic design (suitable for the Valentine month – if you’re equally into the macabre as the lovey-dovey), and its proceeds all go to the charity WaterAid (http://www.wateraidamerica.org/), because water is life.

Raziel: You could go into sales as well as smut with that, you know.

Monocle: Don’t tempt me.

Raziel: I also think we can reward the patient reader, who’s stuck with this wine-fueled multiple personality dialog with a giveaway. At the end of the month, one person who comments below will win a free copy of any one of the e-book anthologies I have over at Republica (which offers a variety of e-book formats).

Monocle: So write us something down there. Where’s the line between your intellect and your rutting beast? How do you reconcile the two? And please, please, I want the lurid details.

Raziel: Of course you do.

Monocle: I’m out of wine.

Raziel: Let’s remedy that…

Please Kiss the Messenger

By Annabeth Leong

“Don’t kill the messenger,” people say, and yet that’s exactly what I want to do most times I’m confronted by a request for charity. I’m mad that someone has interrupted my dinner with a phone call, rung my doorbell for an awkward debate I’m not ready to have, or asked me for change on the street where I’m embarrassed if I choose not to give.

My own sense of inadequacy is really what makes me feel angry. I’m not sure whether I do enough for others, I’m not sure if I’m unselfish enough to be a good person, and I’m not sure if I belong in the company of the angels or the devils.

I don’t even know if I fit with a lot of organizations devoted to good causes. I feel too dirty for them sometimes. I say “fuck” way too much. I actually fuck way too much, in too many perverted ways.

This is where the naughty angels involved with Coming Together save the day. Donate to a good cause and get a book of hot stories? Sign me up. That’s not money I’m thrusting at someone to make them go away and stop making me feel guilty. It’s money I’m using to buy something I want, and then I get to feel good about myself as a bonus. My dirty mind becomes an asset, not a liability.

I’ll be honest--the first time I submitted to Coming Together, it wasn’t out of a deep sense of altruism. I just liked the idea for the anthology. I wanted to write the story. When I started getting e-mails addressed to “erotic altruists,” I thought, “Who, me?” Eventually, I realized I’d contributed my work to a good cause, a little by accident. Without feeling badgered into it.

And sometimes I still feel I’m not worthy of this. The people who started Coming Together--the people who are really involved with it--have real passion and artistry. I feel small beside them. But I’m pretty sure that’s not what any of them want. Over and over again, it’s been clear--you publish one story with Coming Together, you’re part of it. You read the books, you’re part of it. And if you participate, you’re part of it.

You can’t be part of something like this without feeling a sense of pride in it, followed by a sense of responsibility. I think of myself sometimes as a sort of prodigal child of Coming Together--maybe not as committed as I ought to be, maybe not as passionate or able. No one has kicked me out, though. Every time I get it together to put something into this, people have welcomed me.

Coming Together’s approach offers a messenger I want to kiss, not kill--stories I want to take to bed at night, people I look up to. These people show me there’s no need to feel so inadequate. There’s plenty of beauty and altruism in sex, plenty of goodness, plenty of sacrifice, and plenty of times that joy spills over with lots to spare for all.

And this brings me to my excerpt, from “The Hunt,” which appeared in Coming Together: As ONE, a collection of menage stories that benefits ONE, the campaign to end global poverty.

A long-standing fantasy of mine served as the foundation for this story. I called it “the bridge fantasy.” I imagined being the conduit through which two others expressed their love for each other. My body would be the canvas, but the sex act would stretch beyond me.

In “The Hunt,” the main character, Nikia, lives this fantasy, offering herself to the goddess Artemis and Theron, a hero who worships her. Artemis will suffer the touch of no man, but she wishes to reward Theron for his devotion. The resulting encounter, excerpted below, is a threesome in which Nikia serves as bridge between man and woman, mortal and immortal.

She’s a real erotic altruist, a messenger you would kiss and kiss again. But, like me, maybe it’s a little by accident. Nikia has plenty of selfish reasons for what she does, and plenty of reasons to think her efforts won’t matter in the end. And now I’m thinking this is how it looks whenever we reach beyond ourselves--we will always appear small and inadequate beside the greater glory of a good cause.

****

We came once again to Artemis’s secret place in the heart of the forest. Intoxicated by the heady scent of the goddess’s body, we dismounted just outside the clearing. Theron took my hand before we passed through the undergrowth and onto the wet brown earth beside the pool.

She appeared then, her body deadly and glorious. She wore nothing but bow and hunting knife. Her eyes flashed at our intertwined hands. I pulled away from Theron, but she stopped me with a gesture. “I won’t be jealous,” Artemis said, her voice large as battle but still soft as a flower. Theron fell to his knees, pulling me with him.

“Rise and come here,” she said to me. When I obeyed, she took me in her arms. The pleasure of her touch pounded through me, too strong for my body. “I will know the touch of no man,” Artemis purred. “But my Theron deserves some reward. Give him this for me.” She bent her head and kissed me full on the mouth, her sweet tongue pressing my lips open and slipping into me. I would have fallen, except the goddess held me up and pushed me into Theron’s waiting arms.

Trembling, I wound both arms around his neck, letting him support my weight. He shook, too. Even in the full presence and terror of Artemis, I smelled Theron’s body and longed for him. I gave him her kiss, and a little of mine, too.

His eyes on the goddess, he caught his breath, still holding me, and said, “If the goddess will accept it, I would have you repay her this in turn from me.” Theron loosened my robe and let it drop from my shoulders and into the mud. He picked me up and wrapped my legs around his waist, then lifted my breasts to his lips, kissing and sucking on the nipples. I groaned and ground against him, my blood thudding in my ears. At last. I didn’t mind being a vessel for her, as long as he touched me that way. When he set me on the ground again, I turned back to Artemis in a daze. Her eyes flashed, but she nodded her permission, and I took her nipples in my mouth one after the other, nibbling them gently as Theron had nibbled mine, trying to transmit to the goddess every nuance of the lips and teeth I had dreamed of for so many nights.

I ferried caresses between them for what felt like hours. I trailed kisses down his chest for her, ending by dragging teasing fingers up both his thighs. For him, I pressed my lips to the insides of her elbows, the flesh behind each knee, and the place where her neck met her shoulder. I vibrated with the touch of mortal and immortal alike, until my mind thrummed with pleasure and power. My fingers explored Artemis’s sex, as Theron had explored mine. I didn’t think I could walk another step. Artemis made me lie down in the earth beside the pool and beckoned Theron closer.

“Look at me, but do not touch,” she said, this time to him. The goddess looked down at me then. “Do you give yourself to me and him?” she asked. I swallowed hard and nodded. Artemis settled her sex over my face, her scent going straight to my head. I gripped her thighs with both hands and opened my mouth wide to her, letting my nose press into her opening as I suckled the hard nub between her legs. She gasped and laid her hands over mine, squeezing. A moment later, I felt Theron probing the wetness between my legs, then replacing his fingers with his long, hard cock. The sensation as the two consummated their love through me filled me more than to the brim. I forgot myself as man and goddess gasped above me.

I think the orgasm started in Artemis, but it passed from her into my mouth and down my body until I shuddered and rolled my hips up to meet Theron’s thrusts. Then it caught hold of him, too, and he clawed at my hips at his own release. Almost before Theron finished pouring out his seed, Artemis disappeared, leaving us alone in each other’s arms, and yet not lonely.

***

There are plenty of awesome giveaways in this blog bash--see the first post of the month for full details. As a small contribution of my own, I’d like to offer a copy of Spankalicious: Erotic Adventures in Spanking, the most recent anthology in which my work has appeared (another menage story, in fact). Leave a comment and your e-mail address after the post, and I’ll draw a winner on Tuesday, February 28 (to give time for people to comment).

***

Annabeth Leong found relief in erotica. Reading others’ stories opened up a world of freedom and exploration. Writing it increased the thrill. Since her first published story in 2009, she has written for anthologies by Cleis Press, Ravenous Romance, Coming Together, Forbidden Fiction, and Circlet. Her novella, The Six Swans, is forthcoming from Coming Together: Neat. Her work has appeared online at Every Night Erotica and Oysters and Chocolate. Besides freedom of speech, Annabeth loves shoes, stockings, cooking, and attending concerts--probably in that order. She lives in Providence, Rhode Island. She can be found on Twitter @AnnabethLeong, and blogging at annabethleong.blogspot.com.

Love for the Blessing and Gift of Amnesty

By Aliyah Burke

I grew up working with charities and non-profit organizations. It was what I lived and breathed outside of school. It wasn't an oddity for me; it's just how it was. It was the life of our family. We spent our time helping those who were less fortunate. And I have to say, it was an amazing way to grow up. I learned so much, met such amazing people and have connections all over the world because of it. It taught me that my life truly wasn't that bad at all. I'd not lived in fear of every noise that sounded in the night. I never worried where or if the next bit of food was, and I never had to worry about my rights as a human being ignored. The people I worked with didn't have that luxury.

When I first found out about the call put out for this collection, I was immediately intrigued. This collection was a call for interracial stories which is mostly what I write and I'm always of the belief that two people, no matter what they look like, should be able to share their love with one another without any fear of retaliation. Not to mention the charity this group of stories would be supporting. Amnesty International. They focus on ending abuses to human rights. Two things which are very important to me. So I decided to submit a story I had written for hopes of publication with the CT anthology, At Last.

Not to mention I was reminded how long it has been since I've done something else to benefit another person or a group of people, other than giving things to Goodwill or writing off a check to someplace. My excuse…no time, well that wasn't good enough. Not anymore. It was time for me to help out again, to put others first.

I mean, let's face it. I'm a writer, surely I could write a story that would benefit other people and hopefully touch some as well. I'd done it once before, I could do it again. And so I did. I am so honoured to have worked with and be a part of an association which focuses solely on benefiting others. But this is not about me but about Coming Together and how it is and has benefited so many.

It is hard to find the time to support causes. I know this, we all do. Life is hectic and it seems so easy to say, "I'll do it later." The great thing about Coming Together and the stories they offer is that you can do something and get a great read out of it as well. So many charities to support and so many different types of tales to read. And I humbly thank each and every one of you who supports the various charities by an act so simple as purchasing a book.

My CT story is titled, Love Under the Endless African Sky, and it is for support of Amnesty International. Henrietta "Eddie" Buxton, a civil engineer, is over in Zimbabwe helping some locals install an irrigation system. With the uprising trouble between the army and the rebels her father asks for a favour to get her home. That favour comes in the form of Ryder Matthews, an ex-marine. It's his job to go there, locate her, and bring her home safely. Only Eddie refuses to go with him and Ryder learns more about helping others staying with her under the endless African sky.

Excerpt for: Love Under the Endless African Sky--Coming Together: At Last Vol.2

She stretched out and had just closed her eyes when a low voice reached her. “How’re your batteries?”

Eddie grinned in the dark. She should have known he was not really asleep. “Never better.”

“You should upgrade,” he said in a whisper.

“Upgrade to what?”

“Me,” he said right by her ear.

Eddie knew it might not be the smartest thing but she didn’t care. There were parts of her body she’d ignored way to long. Tossing back her blankets she said, “I hope you aren’t bluffing about how good you are.”

He slipped in beside her. “I’ll let you decide.”

She groaned as his hands began to explore her body. Callused skin slid under her shirt, skimming her ribs, and teasing the undersides of her bare and sensitive breasts.

“Take it off,” he commanded, tugging on her tank top.

She did and groaned as he covered her body with his own. Strands of his chest hair teased her taut nipples. Eddie trailed her hands down the muscled expanse of his bare back.

His lips nibbled along her jaw line, his stubble sending extra shockwaves through her. One hand moved toward a breast. She moaned as he cupped it and flicked the pebbled tip. Ryder licked and nipped his way down her neck and sternum. His tongue swiped the inside slope of each breast before he sucked one tip completely into his mouth.

Oh, shit! Her back arched off the cot and her hand threaded into the thick hair he had, pressing him as close as possible. His mouth moved between her breasts, keeping her tense and so close to an orgasm. It was like he knew and backed off before she reached it, and then get her all worked up again.

Torture. It was exquisite torture.

Eddie could feel the moisture leaking down the inside of her thigh. Her hips undulated against him, his long, hard cock pressed against her, tantalizing her.

She spread her legs wider, craving the feel of him between her thighs. Desperate to have that ridge stroking her clit. She whimpered as she felt it. Eddie tried to move faster but he wouldn’t let her.

“Impatient,” he murmured in her ear.

“Stop teasing me,” she growled trying to push down his pants.

“I’m not teasing. If I was I’d do this.”

Before she knew what happened, he’d shoved two of his large fingers deep inside her pussy. Lights flickered behind her eyes as the orgasm swarmed her. “Ahhh!” she screamed.

A scream he cut off with a kiss.

The kiss was anything but gentle. His fingers slammed into her. Over and over as his tongue plundered her mouth.

He stopped as fast as he’d started. “If I was teasing, I’d leave you like this.”

“No,” she begged. “Please don’t leave me like this.” Her body longed for so much more.

“Don’t worry, Henrietta,” he purred. “Your hot pussy needs to be fucked. Thoroughly.”

“Yes,” she sighed, her skin on fire. All that mattered was his touch and the ecstasy it brought her.

Ryder helped her out of her pants and when his body rubbed against her, she reveled in the feel of his nakedness. His thick cock pressed against her wet slit but didn’t enter.

“I can’t wait to feel you milking my dick,” he rumbled against her ear. “I know you’re so fuckin’ tight just by the way you squeezed my fingers. My cock was made to fit in this hot pussy.”

She dripped even more onto her blankets. Reaching between them, Eddie wrapped a hand around his warm erection and guided it into her pussy.

“Yes,” he groaned. “Bring me home, baby.” His hips flexed and he sank completely into her heat.

“Ohhh!” she hissed in pleasure. Dear God this feels so good.

Ryder kissed her, gentle this time as he slowly began moving inside her. Deep, even strokes.

She dug her nails into his shoulders as her ankles hooked behind his back. The cot squeaked with every thrust and that was followed by a low moan.

Eddie sucked hard on his tongue and clenched the muscles in her pussy as an orgasm bore down upon her.

“So tight,” he muttered into her mouth. “So blessed tight.”

“Faster,” she ordered, desperately needing the relief he could bring her.

Ryder was rapidly losing his control. Her hot, tight, wet channel held him like a custom made suit. There was only one person designed to wear it. For him, it was Henrietta Buxton.

His balls were so close to exploding. He had known she’d be amazing, but this…this was off the charts.

Each stroke brought a mewl from the back of her throat which enhanced his passion. He began to thrust faster, sinking balls deep in her velvet heat and drawing back groaning as her muscles clenched around him as if begging him to stay.

Ryder had no intention of leaving the bounty before him. Her body writhed beneath him, hips arching to allow him deeper penetration.

“More,” she begged over and over until it became her mantra.

“Oh yeah,” he promised and picked up his speed again. He placed his hands by her ears and plunged in and out.

Harder.

Faster.

Deeper.

A low rumble was born in his chest as he pounded into Eddie. His balls tingled and he knew he couldn’t last much longer.

“Please,” she panted.

“Please what?”

“I need…I need…”

He knew what she needed. Supporting most of his weight on one hand, he slipped the other between them and played with her clit.

“Ahhh!” she bit back her scream and pressed her face into his shoulder.

Her body shuddered as she orgasmed. Her pussy contracted hard around him, the rippling muscles working him like no woman had ever done before.

Once.

Twice.

Ryder propelled himself as deep as he could go and unloaded his sperm within her. The roar escaped from him as his cock ejaculated in her. On shaky limbs he lowered himself on top of her.

“Are you okay?” he asked, feeling the rapid speed of her heart rate.

“Uh huh,” she mumbled.

Rolling in the narrow cot, Ryder maneuvered them so he was on the bottom and her body lay on top. He pulled the blankets up to the top of her shoulders and fought to find his breath.

She sighed and burrowed her face into his chest, raining little kisses all over it. “I bet that wasn’t in the colonel’s plan.”

Ryder wrapped his arms around her and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. One hand moved in an idyllic motion. “No, I don’t suppose it was.”

And I don’t give a damn.

“While I’d love to further my exploration of your talents, I have to get some sleep.” Her words were soft and laced with exhaustion and contentment.

He smiled in the dark. His heart melted as she reached up and kissed him once. Softly. It wasn’t long and Ryder knew she was sound asleep.

Buy Links:

http://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-loveundertheendlessafricansky-417343-144.html (eBook single)

http://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-comingtogetheratlastv2-411319-144.html (Coming Together: At Last Vol.2 in eBook)

http://www.amazon.com/Coming-Together-At-Last-v2/dp/1450542905/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1327692433&sr=8-2 (Coming Together: At Last Vol.2 in print)

Thanks for stopping by today and I hope you've been enjoying this month long celebration that Lisabet Sarai has hosted here at her blog. I'm giving away a print copy of either What the Earl Desires or The Detective's Lover to one commenter on this post. I will pick one winner, Sun 26 Feb 2012, so please make sure I have the necessary information (a working email addy) to get in contact with you.

Happy reading,

~Aliyah

Bio:

Aliyah Burke is an avid reader and is never far from pen and paper (or the computer). She loves to hear from her readers and can be reached here, or feel free to apply to join her yahoo group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aliyah_burke.

She is married to a career military man, they have a German shepherd, two Borzoi, and a DSH cat. Her days are spent sharing her time between work, writing, and dog training/showing.

Website: www.aliyah-burke.com

Blog: www.aliyah-burke.com/blog

Facebook author page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Aliyah-Burke/283998078320168

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/Aliyah-Burke/100000592826953

Joni's Ballet and Giselle's Tangled Roots

By Giselle Renarde

Despite the fact that my avatar on Twitter, Google, Amazon, and pretty much everywhere else on the web is a ballerina's leg, I'm actually not a huge fan of dance. It takes more than the usual Swan Lake slippers and tutus to get me to the ballet.

Why? Well, I guess I'm afraid I won't understand narrative in motion. I tell myself I need words. That’s why I’m a writer. So a couple years ago, when dear friend invited me to attend a ballet called "The Fiddle and The Drum", I almost passed.

“No, you have to come,” she said. “It’s a collaboration between the Alberta Ballet and Joni Mitchell!”

Well, that changed everything. I’m half in love with Joni Mitchell. Of course I would go if she was involved!

Even now, nearly four years later, "The Fiddle and The Drum" remains the most spectacular dance piece I’ve ever seen. Joni Mitchell’s music and words gave the dance the narrative structure I needed while her photography cast across a backdrop in shades of toxic green gave the ballet a haunting air.

The composition was a daring, biting criticism of the American/Albertan obsession with oil and the lengths to which we’ll go to secure something that’s only helping us slaughter our beautiful planet.

What stayed with me, conflated with this gripping dance, was a single sentence from the program. Jean Grand-Maître of the Alberta Ballet states that “as Ms Mitchell is incensed with human folly, she made it clear to me from the onset that this ballet could not be escapist entertainment when the world is in such shambles.”

That sentiment dwelled on my mind. I couldn't stop thinking about it, actually.

I write erotica for a living. I had to ask myself, “Is what I do important? Does it help anyone, or is it fluff? And what is art if not escapist entertainment? Can't art, whether it be visual or dance or writing, be both titillating and meaningful?”

If I'm producing erotic art in prose form, I want it to be more than just people fucking. I mean, I write "people fucking" erotica too. I write it when I'm in the mood for others to read when they're in the mood. But it's important to me to also write stories like Tangled Roots.

Simone, the heroine of this heteromance, isn't the most likeable character in the world. I'm the first to admit it. She's a composite character of a few different people I've known over the years--and, sure, I'm mixed in there too. A little bit of me is in all my characters.

Unfortunately, Simone's been taught, albeit subtly, to hate herself. When you hate yourself how can you ever love others? You can't. You need someone to show you the way--and that's where her Moses comes in.

Tangled Roots makes quite pertinent social statements about the shape of Aboriginal identity in Canada, about systemic racism, about how internalized dominance and subordination can both manifest hegemonically in the same flawed individual.

I’m hoping Joni would be proud.

If you buy the Coming Together: Neat edition of Tangled Roots, proceeds will benefit entrepreneurs in developing nations via micro-lending through Kiva. I love this concept because it's a hand up, not a handout.

So if you're into helping people help themselves, a great way to get started is to buy a copy of Tangled Roots by Giselle Renarde.

TANGLED ROOTS

Control. Over her relationships, her heritage, her career... and above all, her emotions. It is what Simone desires above all else, and what she had managed to keep. But now that is changing. She is lost in the wilderness, and it will take a man named Moses to lead her to a promised land she never knew she wanted. Together, they will untangle the roots of her past, so they can grow together into their future.

Excerpt

“I love you, Moses,” she said in disbelief. “I love you.”

Kissing her forehead, Moses replied, “Maybe you do. And maybe you’re looking for something beautiful to counterbalance the pain. Either way, Simone, you are loved. You are worthy of love. I guarantee it.”

The tears she cried turned from tortured to awed, like when she used to cry in church, never knowing why. Running her hands across the prickly hair of his head, Simone pulled Moses in to take comfort in the warmth of his mouth. His tongue still tasted of black liquorice and of her. She kissed him hungrily, desperately, like she could consume his spiritual knowledge this way.

Simone expected him to push her away, ask her to stop, thinking she was too emotional. He didn’t. No, Moses kissed her back, wrapping her body in his tremendous arms, leaning her down until her hair touched the pine needles. Hungry for love in any form, in all its forms, Simone pulled off her clinging top. No more weeping. Her awe was silent now, and she wiped the traces of tears from her cheeks. Firelight kissed Moses’ skin, making him look like an angel in hell, while it warmed her naked breasts.

“I’m sure,” she whispered in anticipation of the question he seemed about to ask.

Her eager nipples piqued in expectation, pointing up to the greener-than-green treetops. An errant raindrop found its way through the cover overhead, bursting against her chest. The bristle of Moses’ hair excited Simone’s skin as he followed the rain down her breasts. There he worshipped, taking the luscious orbs in his hands as he pressed his beautiful face into them. Softly, he kissed her flesh, leaving wet lip marks in his wake. Slowly, he ran his hot tongue along the cleave, from the base of her round breasts up.

His soft mouth against her nipples sent a message, like an electrical current through her body. The feel of his wet tongue on her breasts ignited her pussy, and that raindrop sensation came back to her abdomen. With every nerve-ending Moses touched, new feelings of beauty awakened in her. He wrapped her in his protective arms, sucking at her breasts. The dew of his mouth on her skin made her body bloom like a patch of white trillium flowers. In her mind, she could see pure white petals bursting through every precious green bud in the forest. The sun and rain together inspired new birth. As Moses planted loving kisses across her chest, a drop of crystal rain kissed her forehead. It flowed like holy water through her hair, cleansing her guilty conscience. Simone’s eyes opened wide. She was awakened.

--

Giselle Renarde

Canada just got hotter!

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