The Moving Finger

By M.Christian

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on; nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it. -- The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

I may have said this before but it's always worth repeating: here's a hearty thank you to Lisabet for the opportunity to write a little piece for her excellent blog.

This time, Lisabet has asked me to write a bit about the how my newest novel, Finger's Breadth, came to be.

In a nutshell, Finger's Breadth is ... well, maybe too weird for a nutshell (perhaps even too much for a coconut shell) but I'll give it a shot. Basically, it's a near-future gay erotic horror/thriller with a hefty dose of social commentary. Less-than-basically, it's a series of characters dealing with "the cutter:" the nickname given to a mysterious figure drugging random men and amputating the first digit of their little finger.

I told you it was weird.

In many ways I see Finger's Breadth as a thematic sequel to my previous novel, Me2. In that book I had a lot of fun playing with the idea of identity. Less-than-basically that because of peer pressure, mass-produced lifestyles and fantasies, we are all becoming more or less interchangeable.

I say "thematic sequel" because after writing Me2 I was itching to challenge myself with a new project – one that allowed me to explore human nature again. With Finger's Breadth, I tried to reach down even deeper and get even dirtier with how we relate to one another: socially, sexually, you name it.

The seeds that would eventually sprout become Finger's Breadth came from a wide variety of sources – or threads that would become the quilt if you don't like plant metaphors – but, botany or fabric, they have more in common than you might think. One of them came from my fascination good versus evil. Yeah, yeah, I know: lots of people have done – and will do – the exact same thing. But I've always been frustrated at how cowardly a lot of authors have been on the subject -- cowardly, because very few people seem to be willing to honestly look at the question.

I did a bit of that in an old story of mine, called "Counting," where a man has the shocking revelation that his lover, who he'd always thought of as a revolutionary hero, was simply someone who enjoyed killing – and, though intelligence or circumstance, was simply killing for the 'right' side.

The world is simply not full of people who wring their hands together and cackle manically. Most of the time the either don't think about their actions, justify them in some way, or take a twisted form of pride in being that kind of person. What complicates the situation even more is how each of these states can slip and slide – often in the space of a few minutes.

For example, I've always wanted to do a book – maybe my next one – about a man who accidentally hurts another person. But instead of living with the guilt he goes out of his way to prove to himself, and the rest of the world, that the person harmed deserved it in some way. What would make the book fun to write would be putting the poor fellow, and the reader, through an emotional and spiritual roller coaster: with each revelation the unfortunate victim going from lily-white innocent to dark-hearted monster to troubled-soul to disturbed-psycho.

With Finger's Breadth I played a lot with that: where no one is really good or evil, black or white, victim or victimizer. People have their own reasons for what they do, and often the "purity" of their thinking does that very same slip and slide across their emotional landscape.

Another thread -- or kernel -- came from peer pressure. Alas, that term has been thrown around far too much ... so much that it's lost a lot of its power. Overused or not, though, we all are governed by the need to conform. Sometimes that conformity is obvious, but other times its so subtle we may not even be aware of it. In its darkest manifestation the end result is "just following orders" but there are many other disturbing shades of it. With Finger's Breadth I wanted to really explore the power of conformity – even pushing it to the point where, as the number of amputations rises, men would begin to self-amputate to fit in. Like I said, I told you it was weird.

But there are other manifestations of peer pressure – and as I wrote the book I discovered more and more places in the characters' lives (as well as our own) where it tugs and pushes and pulls us around. I'm not going to chat about those – read the book, damnit – but let me just say that, as with Me2, it took me a few months to get over writing Finger's Breadth ... and it has altered how I look at the world, and more importantly the people, around me.

The final thread (or kernel) -- or at least the final one I want to chat with you about today -- that came into writing the novel is that sexuality, gay or straight or bi, is not always a bright world with an orgasmically shiny sun high in the sky – but rather there's a very strange dimension to the human sex drive. Barebacking, in particular, was a jumping off point for Finger's Breadth but it wasn't the only sexual behavior that inspired me. For those who don't know, "barebacking" – or at least one form of it – is for people, particularly gay men, to participate in unprotected sex. The reasons for it are extremely varied but two types kept nagging at me: when it was done as a thrill-seeking behavior – Russian Roulette with HIV – and when it was done as a sexual rite-of-passage. The last one nicely dovetails with the whole peer pressure thing again: that people would willingly infect themselves to fit in.

Even though these jumping-off points for the book seem a bit dark – and I'm the first to admit I didn't write Finger's Breadth to be a shiny, happy novel – I also want to say that many of the characters in the book found at the end of it that they'd had their eyes opened. Yes, often that awakening is a harsh one – like having a painful peak behind the curtain of how we all act and react together as social animals – but in most cases they leave the book seeing everything a bit clearer.

A part of writing this book is that I also wanted to leave the reader with a moment of clarity. Maybe I'm being pretentious in that I want to change how people look at the world, but I tell myself that – success or failure – it's still worthwhile to try.

But a larger part of Finger's Breadth came not because of any mission but because – like with everything I write – I though the idea would be lots of fun to explore, the novel loads of fun to write. And, guess what, I did have a fantastic time writing the book – and I can only hope that anyone else, moment of clarity or not, will enjoy it as well.

******

You can get your own copy of Finger's Breadth at Amazon.com and read my review here. ~ Lisabet

Change of Plans

So, I'd planned to blog this week about my exciting upcoming vacation. After months of working way too hard, my husband and I decided to expand our roster of countries visited by spending eleven days in Nepal during the middle of April. This is the hottest season in the country where we live, and there are also several long holidays, so the timing seemed perfect.

We'd bought our tickets and booked a hotel in Kathmandu. We were in the process of deciding, with the help of Lonely Planet, what other parts of the country to visit. At our age and physical condition, we didn't expect to be doing weeklong treks or climbing Everest, but I'd hoped we would be able to do some short hikes that would let us appreciate the famous mountain scenery.

So my schedule for Beyond Romance this week called for me to search out some enticing photos of Nepal and share my excitement with my readers.

Unfortunately, we've had a change of plans.

Wednesday night, I tripped over a piece of construction debris. I fell. As my knee twisted painfully, I heard an ominous "snap". It turned out that I'd fractured my tibia near the knee joint.

Fortunately, I didn't have to have surgery (a bone graft was apparently an option). However, I'm now in a cast from my upper thigh to my foot, and will be for the next four weeks.

Sigh. Goodbye Nepal.

I hate this. I especially hate being unable to do some many of my normal activities - and having to ask my husband to help with the simplest things, especially carrying things around, which is hard for me when I have to be on a walker or crutches.

I'm trying to look on the bright side. I'd been stressing about how I was going to meet my commitments before leaving on the trip - two story deadlines, several articles and guest blog posts, plus my usual blogging here and at Oh Get a Grip. Presumably that won't be too much of problem since I'll be cooped up in our apartment most of the time. I'm hoping for a huge surge in productivity! At the moment, I still haven't figured out how to use the computer comfortably since my cast sticks out and forces me away from the desk...

Ah well. It could have been much, much worse. And my husband confided in me that he'd been reading about electricity shortages, poor sanitation, dangerous public transit, etc. in Nepal and getting kind of nervous! So I guess he's somewhat relieved, though we're both disappointed (and not looking forward to sweltering through April).

Anyway, there's nothing to do but make the best of it. We've been invited to a party on Saturday night, and I'd hoped to do some dancing. I'll have to shelve that notion - but darn it, I'm still planning to go, crutches and all!

How to Write Sexy Steampunk Stories

By Cari Silverwood (Guest Blogger)

I was asked this question by another erotic romance author and figured some others might be curious about the world building in my stories. Where to start?

I guess like any genre, going in, read a few of those that are out there. Make sure you do enjoy them, with or without the sexy bits. Look at graphic novels even, as they are very inspiring. There are also a lot of scrumptious websites like steampunkery that will show some of the prettiness that steampunk can have.

Check out steampunk images. I'm very visual in my descriptions and 'seeing' it in my mind's eye helps. If you've got some eye candy -- steampunk version -- already stored in the noggin, it helps.

I went into Iron Dominance with the idea of writing a good steampunk BDSM romance in a way that I thought might not have been done before. I pretty much went with the flow. If you are comfy with the nuts and bolts of steampunk you can wing it. Since it’s been nominated for awards at both The Romance Reviews and the Authors After Dark conference in August, Iron Dominance seems to have worked out well.

My world-building, to a fair degree, just grew inside my head. I put very little onto paper. Basically I was new to erotic and BDSM stories and was too scared to put it on paper in case someone in my house read it! So...smoke and mirrors much of it. Truthfully, steampunk is scifi with magic. For me it is anyway. I have no idea how most of the stuff would work in the real world. Though for instance gauss guns are a real concept, they just don't work well enough to be weapons. Some authors try to explain how their ideas would work, but when that’s things like timber spaceships…I mean really, it’s magic. And the amount of detail you go into about things like that will depend on your readers.

If you’re writing erotic stories remember to keep your characters foremost and not the setting though!

Here's the blurb and a little sexy snippet from Lust Plague:

Saving the world should be easier.

When airship captain Kaysana meets Sten the last thing she wants to do is have mad rough sex with him while bound by ropes and clamps…but fate pencils in their appointment.The lust plague strikes. From her infected crew, zombies arise.

With her ship gone, she must rely on Sten, a human clone, a man who has fought all his life to master himself. She despises his kind and detests Sten’s growing hold on her. Though he never takes no for an answer, surely it’s the plague that makes yes slip from her tongue like melted butter? Or should she blame her own traitorous heart?

Hordes of slavering zombies await them. Sten and Kaysana unlimber weapons, don goggles, and set a course for the origin of the plague. Yet victory will be hollow if they cannot also solve the puzzle of their hearts.

***

“Stay still,” Sten said quietly, firmly, then put his hand to her bare back and felt her jerk at the press of skin to skin. The transformation made his dick quiver as always, and damn, he was already hard. The way Kaysana’s face changed fascinated him. It was like watching a flower unfurl. The hardness, the wariness, drained away. Instead she looked at him with adoration and acceptance in those toffee brown eyes.

Yet after a few seconds, he saw awareness return. This is new. She’s resisting this thing that affects us. He didn’t bother trying to resist anymore. He wanted her, knew he would’ve anyway. This just made it easier. The Zen let him see the truth. Having Kaysana kneel at his feet -- this was his fantasy, want, need…whatever. Having her want him back sent his libido soaring into the stratosphere. Done deal.

The intriguing thing was watching her wriggle to get out of it. To deny her needs.

“Come.” He tugged, then towed her to the front of the rooftop by the leash wrapped in his hand.

“Sit here. Stop trying to push me away. You’re right. Last time I touched you, those zombies zeroed in on us like flies to…” Blood.

Keep your shit focused. Zone them out. Zen, man, Zen. Took him a few hard seconds, but he managed. He had to. Their lives depended on this working. The difficult bit was keeping her in a mental space where she forgot.

At the touch of his hand on her shoulder, she sighed. Quivering with need already? Her smart, thinking side was clearly miles away. He spread his fingers on her warm skin and smiled.

If not for the effects of the plague, this would never have worked. The zombies waiting below to rip them apart weren’t exactly love potion ingredients.

Sten pressed his palm on her nape, made her kneel, turned the leash around his fist until his knuckles brushed the angle of her throat and jaw. He bent down, staring at her. Her gaze went all gooey, her pupils dilating, gorgeous -- if he could’ve bottled that, he would’ve.

“Let’s kiss,” he murmured.

The feel of her soft lips under his near unhinged him. Their hot breaths mingled as he explored her mouth. At first passive, then she struggled a little and tried to pull away. With his hands at her neck and throat, he held her to him. “No,” he whispered, licking the corner of her mouth. “You’re not going anywhere. I’ve got you.”

Then he crushed her resistance, shoving his tongue between her lips, taking over her mouth with his while he slid his fingers into her hair. He turned his hand to screw those fingers into the roots, wrapping hair about each finger -- harder, tighter. When she gasped and her mouth fell open, he knew he had her. He kept at her. Not until she moaned uncontrollably into his mouth did he let up and slowly lift away.

***

If you want to know why in hell they are trying to attract zombies you’ll have to read the darn book. And you might just get a chance to do that for free, if you comment on this post. I'm giving away a copy of Lust Plague to one lucky reader! (Be sure to include your email address in the post!)

In Lust Plague, I have introduced the idea of a low-burn ember chamber as a way of explaining how a gigantic automaton (think a mech war machine) would still have its steam engines ready to start despite being left in the snow for weeks... yes, don't think too hard about that one. lol Totally impossible.

I also just threw in 'boosted coal' because I felt my machines were too close to petrol engines in their behavior. So really, it's magic with a veneer of steamy science.

Imagination is king. Just try to tee everything in your story up and when something happens in the story that 'might' be affected by your steampunk science, take a while to think through how things would bounce off each other.

If you believe in it enough, your readers will.

Pick ideas that excite you. Don't just stick to Victorian clothes, or whatever, if something else grabs you. The steampunk cosplay costumes out there are astounding. And they verge on fetish sometimes. I mean little bitty leather tops with buckles are SO not Victorian.

http://www.steampunkemporium.com/steam.php

Last of all, try to find your own angle. One writer is doing it with a Chinese- Malaysian angle. It only takes a little to slant things in a new direction. No story is utterly new, but you can stamp your mark on it.

If you haven’t tried reading steampunk yet, it’s worth exploring. If you’re into erotic + BDSM + Romance + Action-packed fantasy, Lust Plague is likely to be your sort of story.

Cari’s website : http://www.carisilverwood.net/

Buylink for Lust Plague: http://www.loose-id.com/Lust-Plague.aspx

Sunday Snog: Making Memory

Today's the start of Victoria Blisse's Blisse Kiss with Heart event. Every single author who's offering a snog is also giving away a gift - and I'm no exception! My winner (randomly selected from all comments on this post between today and next Saturday) will receive a print copy of the ménage anthology Treble, which includes my story Wild About That Thing as well as five other fabulous tales. Don't forget to include your email address in your comment.

Victoria asked us to provide a kiss excerpt from a story dedicated to charity. Of course, as you all know, I've had a number of stories in Coming Together collections - but I thought I'd share something older. The snippet below is from my story "Making Memory", which appeared in the 2009 release I Do: An Anthology in Support of Marriage Equality, published by MLR Press. Proceeds from this wonderful collection (edited by Kris Jacen) go to the Lambda Legal Defense Fund, to fund the continuing fight for equal access to marriage for people of all orientations.

"Making Memory" features a woman-woman connection, but it's not really a lesbian story. Busy executive Nicole is on her way back from visiting her Alzheimer's-afflicted father, stricken by how far he's been diminished by the disease. A flat tire on a rural Maine road results in her spending the night at Maggie Benson's Bellweather Inn. The Inn's closed for the season, but widowed Maggie is happy for some company. As the two share their respective sorrows, they draw closer.

"Making Memory" isn't really romance, and it's not erotica either, at least not by the popular definition. But it does include this kiss.

It was a wonderful room, on the third floor, with a glorious view of the moon-silvered sea. Iron bedstead with handmade quilt, warm braided rug on the polished maple floorboards, old-fashioned chiffrobe with a full-length mirror. I hung up my suit and pulled a T shirt over my head. Then I turned out the light and sat among the moonbeams, gazing at the swelling ocean. Numb, emptied, blissfully void of pain.

I must have slept, for I was wakened by the creaking of my door hinge. I turned from the window to see Maggie standing barefoot in a pool of moonlight. Her hair floated loose around her face. A simple, sleeveless cotton nightgown hung from her shoulders. She looked young, and somewhat confused, as if she was not sure how she got there. She took another step into the room. I rose to meet her.

"I couldn't sleep," she whispered, as if there were others slumbering in the house. "I kept thinking about Jack. And about you."

Then, as if we had wanted to do this from the beginning, we kissed. Neither of us took the initiative. It was a spontaneous impulse, a reuniting of two halves into the glorious whole. A drawing together, like magnets, or lightning pulled to water.

Her lips were sweet on mine, shocking and yet strangely familiar. Her hands traveled under my shirt, seeking my breasts, which she cupped and kneaded like bread dough. Her touch ignited me, recalling hungers that I had tried hard to forget. I brushed my fingertips over her nipples, poking stiff and girlish through her gown. She sighed, a sigh so deep it seemed that her soul was escaping her body.

Entwined, we stumbled to the bed, prostrate in our mutual need.

She smelled of fresh bread, flowers and the sea. Her skin was velvety soft, warm and welcoming as clean sheets dried in the sun. I shivered when she touched me, all my senses newly wakened as if from a long sleep. She moaned when I touched her, half-animal, half-human, arching upward, offering all to me.

I will not recite the litanies of our lust, her tongue, my fingers, our breasts pressed together, hearts beating in synchrony.

She must have been as much a virgin in the art of pleasing a woman as I was. I was surprised by her knowledge and her daring. "We loved to experiment, Jack and me," she whispered. "There wasn't anything that I wouldn't let Jack do."

From Maggie, I learned again the language of the body, that I had pretended was gibberish after Michael left me. I learned again to give and receive, to be at once subject and object, to relinquish false modesty and scream with the joy of release.

Later, we lay together in the waning moonlight, my head on her shoulder, while she stroked my cropped hair back from my brow and told me more stories of her love. "Jack always said that memories are fine things, but that the making of memories was the only thing that matters." Our woman-scent hung in the air around us, and I felt again that lovely stirring in my sex.

"Well, then, my darling Maggie, shall we make some memories?"

***

Be sure to visit Victoria's for links to all the other participants in the Blisse Kiss with Heart. Every blog you visit gives you another chance to win!

And if you like my snippet - or if you believe that every person deserves the right to marry - why not pick up a copy of I Do? It features M/M and F/F stories (more of the former than the latter), many of them a good deal hotter than mine!

So What's in a Snog?

By Victoria Blisse (Guest Blogger)

Actually, maybe I should start out with what IS a snog, here’s a dictionary definition:

snog (verb): to touch with the lips or press the lips (against someone's mouth or other body part) as an expression of love, greeting, etc.; (noun) the act of using the lips in this way.

So basically, it’s a kiss and luckily it alliterates with Sunday and that folks is how the Sunday Snog was born. I wanted to find something to do to drive up my weekend traffic and thought of all the words that’d sit well with ‘Sunday’ and made some kind of sense to me as a writer of erotic romance and boom:

So, if you’ve not seen a Sunday snog yet here’s how it goes. I post up a kissing scene from one of my stories. Kissing can be lip to lip but it doesn’t have to be. Authors are encouraged to get creative! Once my snog is in place I add a list widget to the end of my post and ask people to join in with their own kisses. Check out my back list to see what I mean:

http://victoriablisse.co.uk/sunday-snog/

I am a big fan of kissing in life and in my writing. The first kiss between two characters is among one of my very favourite things to write. I think that Cher got it right, it is in his kiss and I find out a lot about my characters when they kiss. They can show so much emotion through just the meeting of lips. It’s a very emotional and intimate thing and an incredibly hot action too, especially when the kissing slips down from the lips and hits other body parts.

As a spin off from the Sunday Snog we created Blisse Kiss. I’m not using the royal ‘we’ here, I’m talking about myself and my husband, Kevin Mitnik web designer extraordinaire. Blisse Kiss was designed to be a one stop shop for all things kiss related. It has free reads over flowing with kisses, every Sunday Snog is archived there and we have special events once a month where Sunday Snoggers give away prizes.

And funnily enough there’s one starting tomorrow. Blisse Kiss with Heart is designed to showcase the good that we can do with our words. Authors will be sharing snogs from works where some or all of the profits go to charity. This is something near and dear to my heart as Erotic Altruism, as Alessia Brio calls it, brought me into the world of publishing to begin with.

I have a story in the very first Coming Together Anthology which was my first ever published tale. I love how we can have so much fun reading and writing hot erotica and do our bit for charity at the same time!

Blisse Kiss with Heart runs from the 25th -31st March and every author who joins in will be giving away a prize! So if you pop over to http://blissekiss.co.uk tomorrow and every day next week you will have many chances to win yourself a prize or maybe even multiple prizes! Cool, huh?

Now after all this kiss talk I couldn’t leave you without a kiss could I? So here’s an excerpt that contains a couple of teasing kisses from Naughty Rendezvous.

****

I love walking like this, so close to him. I love the way he rubs against me, the way I can feel his body heat. I love the feel of his arm as I grasp it and again I think of grasping hold of Joe and bracing myself as he plunges inside me with that throbbing cock.

Damn, I’m horny, so fucking horny I want to just push him up against the door and fuck him here on my doorstep.

“Are you all right?” Joe’s voice breaks into my daydream and I look up and blush.

“Oh yes, sorry, I was just thinking.” I duck my head down and look for my keys. Then he moves closer, his mouth beside to my ear.

“Thinking what?” I feel, as well as hear, his whisper. I look up from my search and move my head to the side. Our eyes meet and suddenly I am leaning in and placing a kiss upon his lips.

“Nice,” he whispers, “but I still want to know what you were thinking. I bet it was naughty.”

I blush once again and put the key in the door. Then his hand comes down on top of mine, his body just behind me, his mouth by my ear.

“It was, wasn’t it? What were you thinking, Leanna, please tell me.”

I feel butterflies in my stomach. I am not sure if I’m scared or excited or embarrassed or even a mix of all three but I speak. Haltingly I stutter, “I was thinking about holding on to your arms as you slide your - your - yourself into me.”

His hand lifts from mine and I hear him softly moan. I finish turning the key and walk into my hallway. I am aware that Joe is still right behind me and he’s helping me as I shrug off my coat.

I can sense the thump, thump, thump of my heart echoing inside my head. My blood must be whizzing around at hyper speed as I feel all my extremities tingle, all from that moan, that tiny little moan of pleasure. I don’t care about my embarrassment now. I play that soft exhalation of air over and over again in my mind. Taking a breath, I turn round to face him.

“Would you like a drink?” I keep my voice level although I feel less than level inside.

“Yeah, sure.” Joe smiles at me, his cheeks flushed. From the cold, I wonder, or maybe the kiss?

“OK, the living room is on your left,” I call over my shoulder as I walk straight to my kitchen. “I’ll see you in there in a minute.”

I take my time as I put on the kettle, find the coffee granules and grab a mug. I’ve got to calm down, but oh, am I desperate for some action. What is it now? Well, over a year since I last had sex. No wonder I’m gagging for it. I’ve got to halt these rampaging hormones; I’m a respectable mother now, not a horny teenager.

Suddenly large hands are upon my hips and I feel breath on my ear. I jump a little, startled and horny once more. His lips brush against my ear lobe and I tilt my head, throwing my hazel curls to the side. The lips slip down and press against my throat. I gulp and they kiss my flesh again, harder this time. A moan escapes from betwixt my own parted lips.

“Is that my coffee?" Joe’s lips are no longer upon my throat and his hand has reached around and picked up his drink. Without waiting for a reply, he picks it up and strides off into the living room.

Left stunned, a spark of remembered conversation about teasing pops into my mind. We’d talked about flirting, anticipation and making the moment last. So that’s what he’s doing. I had told him how much I love to be teased. I told him I wanted to be turned on until I was a raging cacophony of lust and screaming for release. My cheeks redden. Joe knows all my wants and desires. I’ve told them all to him.

But equally as obvious: I know Joe. Two can play at his game!

****

Thanks Lisabet for letting me visit today and get all snogtastic with you guys! I hope to see you over at Blissekiss.co.uk this week where you can win prizes galore and do your bit for charity too.

I Want Your Opinion - and I'm Willing to Bribe You!

Greetings, Readers!

Below you'll find a synopsis of a story, called "One Night - Forever". I'd like to know what you think of it. Would you like to read this story? Do you think this story sounds sexy? Romantic? Is there anything you don't like about this story idea?

To thank you for your opinions, I'm giving away a free ebook to one lucky person who leaves me a comment with answers to the questions above. Please be sure to leave your email address. If you win, you can choose Getaway Girl (M/F mild bondage), Shortest Night (M/M and M/F historical), or Monsoon Fever (M/M/F historical).

***

Sally and Harry live on opposite coasts. Although they work in the same field, they've never met. At the conclusion of a professional conference both have attended, Sally discovers her plane home has been canceled, so she decides to stay another night in the luxurious conference hotel. Harry resides only an hour's drive away, but after the intensive socializing of the conference, he's disinclined to go back to his lonely bachelor apartment.

Nursing a beer in the hotel bar, Harry can't help but notice the unusual woman sitting by herself at a corner table. He introduces himself and offers to buy her a drink. Before long they're chatting as if they'd been friends for years. Sally is charmed by Harry's chocolate-brown eyes and infectious laugh. Harry finds his companion's outspoken intelligence as much a turn-on as her voluptuous figure. Conversation gradually morphs into flirtation and then into outright groping. They adjourn to Sally's room and have the most incredibly pleasurable, mind-blowing sex in either's experience. Waking the next morning, entwined in each other's arms, they make slow, sensuous love. Sally gives Harry her business card before rushing off to catch her plane.

Harry returns to work, but he can't get Sally out of his mind. He calls and she tells him that he's been in her thoughts, too. Harry doesn't believe in love at first sight, but he can't argue with his heart, which tells him that Sally is as close to a soul mate as he's ever going to find. He takes a leave of absence from his job, books a flight to her city, and shows up at her door at 2 AM, begging her to let him into her life. Sally's joy at seeing him overwhelms her irritation at being rudely awakened. She drags him into her bedroom, where they have loud, passionate sex. As Harry is coming, he blurts out a proposal of marriage.

****

So let me know your thoughts! I'll draw a winner on Monday.

Who is This Stranger in my Bed?

By Annabeth Leong (Guest Blogger)

I am always in bed with a stranger. I'm not saying I live on a constant diet of one-night stands. I mean that sex, along with death, is an undiscovered country.

Plenty of well-traveled highways crisscross the land--in and out and up and down. But beyond the feeble reach of the headlights of any given car, a great and terrible darkness waits, the secret desires of one or more participants, mingled and heady and volatile.

Even with a familiar lover, I feel it there. Suddenly, he keeps moving so I can't get my legs straight the way I want. A whispered word I can't quite hear. A nipple twisted with dangerous intent. Maybe the person becomes a strange snoring shape, or a pair of unreadable eyes blinking at the light of morning.

It makes me want to get closer, skin to skin and even closer. It makes me want to run away noiselessly, under cover of night. I've never been able to sleep the first time I'm with someone. I'm too aware of the person's new smell and the puzzling configuration of our limbs.

Sex reveals the most intimate details of a person, and yet it also highlights the ways this person will always remain alien and other. Sometimes I look deep into my lover's eyes. Sometimes I close my eyes and plunge into private fantasies.

When I started writing erotica, I got fascinated by how I could characterize people by how they have sex. Well-meaning people often say you should "be friends first" before jumping into bed with someone, but you don't have to talk to learn about someone. Sex uncovers plenty.

Does she refuse to receive pleasure, clinging to the power of a long blow job with no oral reciprocation? Does he make noise when he comes? Does she like to stroke his ass between hits with the flogger? Does he kiss or bite or both?

These are the sorts of clues that bring me closer to a lover, the little secrets that make me feel intimate with someone. They're also mysteries. Who the hell is this person anyway, and why does he or she do that?

For a long time, I've liked stories about characters who don't have much of a connection before they wind up in bed. I like the vulnerability of stranger sex, hidden just under the tough skin of I-Know-Exactly-What-I'm-Doing.

In "Less Than a Day," a short e-book I wrote for Forbidden Fiction, the main character, Tod, knows when a person has less than 24 hours to live, and uses the information for seduction. It's a vicious story that grew an odd sense of romance. My female character would rather fuck a stranger than be alone, but the way she fucks Tod becomes so gloriously specific and particular that he's tempted to pretend they have something more.

I never give her a name, and yet she looms large in my imagination, more vivid than characters I've spent months building, more alive than characters for whom I've invented birthdays and favorite foods. To me, she is the fascinating stranger, who likes her nipples bitten for reasons that aren't clear from the mishmash of books on the shelves in her neatly arranged house.

She is frank about her desires in a way that still makes me uncomfortable. I wrote the story against my better judgment, letting her escalate their encounter to the point that I wondered who would ever publish this thing. I've read and written enough erotica by now to know that "Less Than a Day" probably isn't all that shocking amid the field of all that's out there.

But to write this thing, I had to strip off another layer of my inner nice girl. I had to become a stranger to myself, turned on by things I don't want to admit and don't understand. Many times in my work, I wrap romance around stark sex scenes--it makes them more palatable, maybe to readers, but mostly to me. This story lays out the sex in all its ugliness and selfishness, but by my writing you can tell I think it's beautiful.

Sometimes, sex forces me to take a long, hard look--not just at the strange other body lying there with me, but also at the stranger in my head.

I kept "Less Than a Day" under wraps for a while after I wrote it, but I'm so pleased to have found the editors at Forbidden Fiction, who have really believed in it. Here's an excerpt.

***

He watched her ride him. He was turned on and ready for her, but the way she moved relaxed him. She was content to fuck herself with his cock. He didn’t need to do anything in particular for quite some time.

He toyed with her, pinching her thighs or her nipples or her sides. She fucked him, rubbing her clit, squeezing her nipples, slipping her fingers into her mouth and then down to her clit once they were spit-covered and then back to her mouth once they were cunt-covered.

Sometimes, she slowed. For a while, she lowered herself so she rested on his chest and ground her clit against his pelvis while she squeezed his cock hard with her cunt. She sat up after that and leaned back so her breasts thrust out, bracing herself with one hand on his thigh behind her. Keeping her body still, she brought her free hand to her clit and masturbated ostentatiously. He didn’t think it was for his benefit. Instead, she masturbated with his body. The idea turned him on. He felt his cock getting harder inside her.

He couldn’t believe her wrist wasn’t tired. She circled her fingers over her clit with ferocious intensity, sweating, gasping in frustration every time she didn’t quite climax. Eventually, she came so hard he could clearly feel her spasming even through the condom.

While she was still coming, she resumed fucking him, really slamming down on him now. For the first time he groaned, his eyelids falling closed. He reached out for her. He wanted to fuck her back. He wanted to arch up into her and come. He wanted to push deep into her, and pull back only so he could push into her again.

“Don’t you dare come yet, you motherfucker,” she said then, her voice coming tight through clenched teeth. “Don’t you fucking dare come.”

He opened his eyes and stared at her. She was biting her lower lip, gripping his shoulders while she fucked him hard. Her hair hung around her face in sweaty threads, and sweat dripped down her back and off the points of her tits. Her eyes were hooded and dazed, staring vacantly into his face and seeing something far beyond.

He couldn’t help himself. He grabbed her and pulled her down into a hard thrust. Once. Twice. Three times, and that was it. He groaned and came while she still tried to ride him. He heard her above him, saying, “Damn it, damn it, damn it.”

Feeling her tight pussy still moving while he came drained him all the way.

She came to a crashing stop on top of him. “You couldn’t wait?”

He shook his head, his cock still throbbing with the pleasure of it.

“I was so close to coming again.”

“I can take care of that.” He wouldn’t have said it normally, but he wanted to make it up to her.

She cocked her head, relenting a little.

He eased her gently off his cock and got rid of the condom. Then he pushed her onto her back and lowered his lips to her pussy. It tasted a little unpleasant there, what with the latex and the sweat and the smell of his own body. But she grabbed his head right away and pulled him in.

“Don’t think you’re doing me a favor just by licking it,” she hissed.

***

You can pick up the short e-book here: http://forbiddenfiction.com/library/story/AL1-1.000030

***

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 most recent works are "A Cure for Excess" in D.L. King's Spankalicious, and "Getting Something Out of It," which will be published in Rachel Kramer Bussel's Going Down: Oral Sex Stories. 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.

St. Paddy's Day

By Ginger Simpson (Guest Blogger)

I guess because I'm not Irish, I don't see a need to get all giddy over a day when folks drink Green Beer and wear shamrocks. Forty-Five years ago today, March 17th was to become an entirely different reason to celebrate--the due date of my first child.

Now that I look back on the occasion, I suppose I shouldn't have been disappointed when he didn't show up. He's been full of surprises from the moment he was born on April 18th. Yes, a month and a day LATE. I safely say "late" since doctors predicted an early arrival when I went for my check ups in January and February. I swear if one more person had asked, "Are you still pregnant," I would have been convicted of murder.

Scott, or Skid, as he prefers to call himself, always marched to his own drummer. Unusually smart as a toddler, and very normal-looking, I had no idea I had mothered the first punk-rocker who'd live in a red-neck town. While everyone else wore cowboy boots and drove four-wheel drive vehicles (yes even then), my son wore mis-matching Van's tennis shoes, spiked his hair, and became an airport security system's nightmare by holding his clothes together with as many safety pins as he could find. Although he promised if I let him get his earlobe pierced, he'd only wear a small stud, I'm pretty sure if he could have held up the weight of the toilet seat, I would have seen that it in his ear.

Kids do grow out of phases, though, I'm pleased to say. I have to admit I wanted to slap Scott when he asked, "Why'd you let me dress like that?" I don't know if he's referring to the time he wore a kilt with pink high tops, dressed in a god-awful outfit from the thrift store for his prom and blew chartreuse bubbles during the photo session, or any of the many times he dyed his hair a rainbow of colors. I painfully admit, as his mother, I often pretended not to be when I heard others talking about that weird punk-rock kid they saw on the street. I just nodded and kept my mouth shut. In retrospect, I realize how much courage my son has. He's an amazing man.

Still, I can't believe I'm going to be the mother of such an old child. AKKK. How can he be turning forty-five when I'm just a tad older myself? One of my very first, very short, publications, Life Is a Bowl of Toilets and I Clean Them, is sort of a tribute to my children and the reason for my gray hair. I'm mentioning it, not suggesting you pay the ridiculous price the publisher is asking for a fifty-page book.

Thanks to Lisabet for allowing me to post on her blog today. Although this isn't nearly as sexy as the stuff she writes, I had sex to create the topic today. *lol* Please stop by and visit my blogs, Dishin' It Out and Cowboy Kisses. I'd love to hear from you.

Lisabet's March Newsletter

I can't believe it's March already! February simply slipped by without my realizing it. To compensate, I've got some great free reads and two contests.

New and Upcoming Releases

I'm afraid I have no releases this month. But I'm working hard on new material!

My short story collection Just a Spanking is doing really well - fuelled partly by the free promo days that have been arranged by the publisher, Books We Love. If you haven't got your copy yet, the book will be free again on April 5th and 6th. Just how kinky can things get? Click here to find out!

I've submitted a BDSM romance story called "Limits: A Love Story" to Kristina Wright, for her Best Erotic Romance 2013 collection. Obviously I won't know for a while whether that's been accepted. Right now I'm working on a tale targeted at D.L. King's femdom anthology Under Her Thumb. And I've got a couple of other projects simmering on the back burner, including a M/F BDSM novella entitled Mastering Maya and a steampunk/Bollywood/BDSM/shapeshifter/ménage tale. (I've challenged myself to pack as many genres as possible into one book!)

Other News

We gave away dozens of prizes during "Share the Love" month at Beyond Romance. The grand prize winner was one of my long time readers, Juliana. She received a $50 gift certificate to All Romance EBooks. Meanwhile, I hope we managed to encourage readers to check out the fantastic charity reading available from Coming Together

Speaking of charity, my good friend Victoria Blisse has a special event coming up the week of 25 to 31 March. During the Blisse Kiss With Heart festival, a slew of fabulous authors (including yours truly, of course) will be sharing kiss excerpts on their blogs and giving away fantastic prizes. All kiss excerpts have to be from a story that supports some worthy cause. I will be giving away two print books to my winners. If you want to be reminded about this and other contests - join my Yahoo group, Lisabet's List!

In my free reading section this month, I've got more sexy and romantic BDSM with my story Twister. Dangerous weather has never been so much fun. I've also added a poem, entitled 11:15 and Here's Your Poem about a threesome that didn't quite happen.

If you're looking for a sexy, satisfying story for Saint Patrick's Day, by the way, go read Luck of the Irish, in which an alluring leprechaun turns an unemployed man's life upside down.

My column at Erotica Readers & Writers Association is entitle HTML 101: Web Basics for Authors. If you've ever wondered how the Web works, check it out!

Contests!

Thanks to all of you who entered my "Prices" contest in January. Sorry it took me so long to draw a winner. The blog fest really kept me busy. Anyway, I randomly drew Melissa's name. She gets to choose between Wild About That Thing and Hot Spell. Congratulations, Melissa!

I'm running two contests this month, to make up for the fact that my newsletter skipped February. The first is super easy. I want to know if you are aware of the controversy triggered by PayPal's attempts to censor ebooks sold by Smashwords, All Romance Ebooks and other independent booksellers. All you have to do is send an email to contest [at] lisabetsarai.com with the subject line "PayPal Contest". In your email, tell me whether or not you've heard about this problem, and if you have, where you found out. I'd be interested in knowing your opinions about the issue, too. In the middle of next month I'll randomly choose one response. The winner will receive a $10 All Romance Ebooks gift certificate.

The second contest is a bit more work, but not much. I want you to visit my Amazon Author Page here. Scroll through the books listed and "Like" at least three of the single author titles. Then send me an email at the usual address (see above) with the subject line "Amazon Contest". In the message, tell me which three you selected and why. (I'm trusting you to be honest.) In mid April I'll randomly select one entry, and that person will receive a choice of any of the three "liked" books.

And - if you write a review of any of my books at Amazon during March, you'll automatically be eligible to receive a free print book from my back list. All you have to do is email me the link the review.

So - I hope you'll forgive me for neglecting you last month!

Lisabet's Pick of the Month

My Pick of the Month for March is K.D. Grace's blog. I love her writing, and I love the guests she arranges to tell the "story behind their stories". Check her out!

Out on a Limb

By Sean O'Kane (Guest Blogger)

I’ve really gone out on a bit of a limb with Bound for Glory. There are two reasons.

The first is that it’s often said that nothing dates a book more quickly than mentioning money, and the same applies to drama. You only need to read books or watch TV shows from the nineties to see what is meant. A house in London costing less than a million? Ridiculous! A gallon of petrol for less than three thousand quid? You must be pulling my plonker!

The other reason is that for ease of writing, if you’re going to write about the future, make it a long way into the future. That way you can imagine pretty well anything you like and no one can rubbish your imagined inventions. After all just look at the rate of change since the start of the twentieth century. Imagine what a first world war pilot would make of remotely piloted drones? He’d be bang alongside the idea and fighting to get a crack at the Red Baron with one if he believed it was even a possibility. But if you move twenty years into the future, you’re still within range of the possible and can only adapt what is extant in the here and now. If you go too far you risk your reader engaging their faculty of disbelief rather than suspending it.

Yet with Bound for Glory I’ve had to do both! I couldn’t skate over the auctions without some mention of price – all I can hope is that slave inflation (in a financial sense purely!) doesn’t take off too violently over the next twenty years.

To keep within people’s lifespans, twenty years was the farthest into the future I could project so I hope my nanodrones (only a bit smaller than the ones already being developed!) and the virtual credit cards (virtually already here!) don’t age too quickly. I do harbour a sneaky hope that airships will develop even faster than I’ve suggested here. I’d love to take a leisurely and quiet, low level trip across Europe whilst ambling peacefully between the bar and the observation room, to watch the Alps brush past one’s feet. Ideally it’d be nice to lean out and scoop up a bit of fresh Matterhorn snow to chill your G and T…

But I digress!

I had a lot of fun with transporting the arenas into the mainstream of a society coming to terms with slave-owning. The most disturbing thing was that as I wrote, I could see the seeds of some of my conceits coming perilously near to reality!

*****

Bound for Glory Blurb

Anna Chatham’s life is suddenly ripped apart and her catastrophic fall from fame and fortune to criminal takes only a few days. And in the Britain that she knows, some twenty years in the future, when a pretty girl is condemned for anti-social behaviour, it can mean only one thing.

In his relentless drive towards power Clive Mostyn has steered through slavery legislation. Anna Chatham now faces fifteen years as the legal property of an arena. But there is a sinister purpose at work behind her downfall and as she learns to submit to her Masters, a devastatingly cruel plot is revealed.

Page-turning action as always as Sean takes us to the climactic Demolition Derby – the arenas’ latest and harshest test for its slaves.

Available from:

Amazon

The Book Depository

Waterstones

Bound for Glory is also available from all outlets of WHSmith Travel in the UK.

*****

About the Author

Sean O’Kane came to writing erotica via various routes. He was a successful author in other fields before the erotic bug bit him!

Since first appearing in the Silver Moon canon he has written several best-selling titles and ‘Bound for Glory’ is the ninth novel in the acclaimed Arena series. Readers have kindly supplied him with a lot of feedback over the course of the series and even suggested ways in which the various plot lines might develop. He is very gratified by this proof of his books being enjoyed. In the erotic genre, that degree of reader feedback is rare!

He has another Arena novel planned but after that is not decided in which direction he might turn.

Sean lives a full life beyond his hours at the computer. He is keen on gardening and cooking as well as reading – he likes to see what everyone else is up to! He has many friends on the SM scene and is proud to class Francine Whittaker as being among them.

Mango Season

I live in Southeast Asia. I don't want to say exactly where, since the country is notoriously straight-laced and might well kick me out if they found out that they were harboring the lascivious and lusty Lisabet Sarai. In fact, I know several SE Asian countries fairly well. Culturally, they're quite different. However, they have something wonderful in common: mango season.

If you live in the U.S. you may have tasted mangoes from the supermarket. Most mangoes that I've seen there come from Mexico. They're plump and rounded with greenish-red skins, and yes, they're delicious if you can find a ripe one. However, they can't compare to Southeast Asian mangoes, at least not in my opinion.

In the old days, when I lived in Thailand, mangoes were only available in the hot season - from late February through April. That made them a special treat. Now the wonders of modern scientific agriculture have extended the "season" throughout the year. They still taste best, though, around now - when they ripen naturally.

Mexican mangoes tend to be sweet but a bit fibrous. You've got to chew them. A ripe Asian mango, on the other hand, literally melts in your mouth like custard. And the flavor! There's a complexity to the taste, a creamy richness overlaid with hints of a floral scent. As you bite into the golden flesh and the juice runs down your chin, you feel almost sinful, to be experiencing such sensual delight.

And mangoes aren't even particularly fattening - at least not compared to ice cream or donuts...

I tend to feel that it's not worth eating mangoes outside of their season. Mangoes are a consolation during the miserable, sweltering days of the Southeast Asian summer. They're a reminder to me that everything changes and that I should enjoy the delights of today while I can.

If you've never enjoyed an Asian mango ripened in season - well, I hope you get the opportunity some time in your life. Meanwhile, there's a scene in my first novel, Raw Silk, that involves a Thai mango, in a very naughty situation. Are you curious? Keep reading!

****

He captured her clit between forefinger and thumb, rolling and pulling on the sensitive flesh as if it were another nipple. Meanwhile, he inserted his middle finger into her soaked vagina, sliding it up and down against the inner walls.

“You certainly are very wet, Katherine.” He added a second finger, then a third, while he rubbed her clit and his cock a bit faster. She twisted her hips, pushing against his hand, wanting him deep inside.

“I know I do not have enough fingers to fill you the way you want, Katherine. Even my penis is not enough.”

“Oh, no, Somtow. I want you. I want your cock.”

“I have a better idea,” he said, with an angelic smile. He reached for the bowl of fruit, and selected a ripe mango. He rolled the egg-shaped fruit in one hand, the fingers of his other hand still busy in her cunt. The mango was about the size of his fist. As it lay in his palm, he could not close his fingers around it.

“As you probably know, Thailand is famous for its mangos. They are the sweetest and most succulent in the world.” He removed his hand from her sex. It was gleaming and wet with her juices. “Excuse me for just a moment.”

Kate held her breath, watching as he lubricated the smooth rind of the fruit with the moisture from her cunt. He licked the mango. “Delicious,” he said.

He parted her lower lips with one hand. With the other, he brought the slippery fruit close to her opening. “Relax now, Kate. Relax and enjoy.”

He pressed the mango against her, trying to work it into her vagina. “Think how good it will feel,” he murmured, “once it is inside.” Impossible, thought Kate, but the narrow end was already through the gateway.

****

If you want more, you'll have to read the book!

Sunday Snog: Never Too Late

I've got an intense snog for you this Sunday, from the BDSM story "Never Too Late", which is part of my Body Electric collection. And if you like BDSM - get yourself a copy of Just a Spanking, offering lots more dominance and submission with a strong dose of romance.

Don't forget to visit Victoria Blisse at Snog Central for many more sexy snogs -this and every Sunday. After all a Sunday without snogs is like a sundae without whipped cream.

****

I'm outside his room at seven sharp, heart pounding as though I'd run a marathon. What am I doing? I'm fifty five, married nearly three decades. I'm a grandmother, for heaven's sake. The keycard slides into the lock. The light flashes green. I step across the threshold, knowing the risks but unable to stop myself.

He lounges in a chair by the window. The drapes are open. The lights of the Inner Harbor sparkle on the other side of the glass. The room is dim and I'm briefly grateful. Perhaps he will not notice my flaws.

"Good evening, Elizabeth." He doesn't rise. He makes me come to him. I stand before him, eyes cast down, feeling like a naughty schoolgirl. Sweat pools under my arms, spoiling my best silk blouse. Moisture gathers in my pussy.

"Um―I don't even know your name," I stutter.

"Yes, you do. Think."

I recreate my memory of him, from that fateful moment when I stepped into the lift and found it occupied. Tall,a bit overweight, but distinguished in his tailored charcoal suit. Black hair, dark eyes, brows that arched in appreciation as he surveyed me. I struggle to recall his badge. Even before he had spoken, I'd been flustered and aroused. Distracted. "Mark?" I say finally, a half guess.

"Good girl. You see, you know more about me than you think you do. You know you can trust me, don't you?"

"What?" Before I understand what's happening, he's looming over me, taking possession of my mouth, rolling my rigid nipples between his finger and thumb and kindling sparks. He tastes of the after-dinner mints they offer in the hotel coffee shop. His hands explore my body, weighing my breasts, groping my ass. Helpless, beyond rationality, I melt again.

"You know instinctively," he murmurs in my ear. "I'm the master you've dreamed of." He nips the tender flesh of the lobe hard enough to make me cry out. "I'm the one who will make you beg for mercy and scream with pleasure."

"No," I say. "I haven't. I can't. I'm married." My pro forma protests are weak, even to my own ears. He is already tearing the clothing from me. The first time his fingers graze my bare skin, electricity sizzles along the surface, down to my cunt. I moan, pressing against his still-clothed body. He chuckles and steps away.

"Turn around. Let me look at you. Especially at that fat ass." My face burns with embarrassment as I follow his instructions. It never occurs to me to object. I feel his eyes on the butt that I can't seem to shrink no matter how many hours I spend on the Stairmaster.

"Lovely," he says and I glow with pride. He is pleased. That's all I seem to need. He strokes my ample backside. When he moves away again, I nearly cry from the loss.

When You Cut Up the Future, the Past Bleeds Out

By C. Sanchez-Garcia (Guest Blogger)

My kid is learning to drive a car these days which scares me more than anything Stephen King ever wrote. There’s stuff that’s scary and then there’s stuff that truly scares you. This is unfair to my kid because actually he’s learning pretty fast after just a few times out because of previous years of racing cars in video games on Playstation. He had the basics down by the time he buckled up, the problem is me. It’s the only wheels I’ve got.

The funny thing, when you think about it, is that very soon within his lifetime the whole exercise may become irrelevant. The day will arrive when you’ll be able to buy a car and take it where you want to go without a single driving lesson, without even knowing so much as how to turn on the radio.

These days if you were driving through Silicon Valley, you might see a car pass by you with something like a little hockey trophy on the roof. If you look closer you’ll see a guy in the passenger seat taking a nap or playing with a iPad but what you won’t see is someone sitting behind the wheel. Add it up and what you will see is the future of driving.

The car steers by computer, GPS and a kind of radar based on lasers. A self driven car, can see around and beneath big tractor trailers and adjust speeds and lane changes and turns to traffic conditions you can’t even see. In other words - it drives better than you.

When I first heard of this car recently on the news I thought “Mortal Engines – it’s happened already.”

Mortal Engines was one of the first stories of mine ever published. I like to believe I’ve gotten better as a writer but I refuse to cringe at my early stuff. In fact I still love Mortal Engines. The dirty secret writers won’t tell you is that each of us is our own biggest fan and toughest critic. I wanted to make Mortal Engines about more than just sex. I wanted to make it rich with ideas, I wanted it to have soul. I believe that’s what good science fiction can do for you. In 2005 when I imagined Hal Jordan’s self driving car GPS systems were barely becoming available to consumers. Now people wonder how we ever managed to get by for 10,000 years without them.

The problem with science fiction writers when it comes to imagining the future is that most of us get it wrong most of the time. No one in the ‘40s, ‘50’s or even the ‘60’s imagined the impact computers and digital communications would have someday. The problem we make in visualizing the future is that we fail to account for what I think of as “Cave Man Values”. I think a lot of the technology touched on and hinted at in Mortal Engines you will see in your lifetime, and it's because of profit driven Cave Man Values.

We’re not that different from our ancestors who chased mammoths across the Paleolithic savannahs. Our values are still absolutely the same hunter gatherer values, only the toys and weapons have gotten better. We like good food and booze and plenty of it. We like to hang around with family and friends and plenty of them. We still worship God and spirits and ward off the evil eye in one form or another. Men and women still chase each other. Women still love men with wealth and status. Men still love beautiful girls with big tits. The very earliest known painting of the human form we have, going back about 32,000 years is of a naked woman with wide hips and a thick bush.

These are Cave Men Values and we still pursue them today. Facebook, VCRs and then DVD porno movies, gangs, drugs, warfare, fast cars and flashy clothes, stories and communications, Anthony Wiener sending photos of his boner to strange young ladies. All this technology answers emotional needs a Cave Man would understand perfectly. Stay close to Cave Man Values and you’ll see the future coming most of the time.

Mortal Engines is loaded with technology associated with Cave Man Values. The high tech car is one, but what Hal Jordan is thinking when he’s riding in it is more or less “Where did all these effing computers come from all of a sudden?” His world – and yours, little buddy- is infected like a pox with microcomputers. Chances the person reading this has microcomputers embedded in your own flesh, keeping your heart on the beat, distributing medicine, monitoring your whereabouts. If you don’t yet, it will be offered to you if you live long enough. Even Google has managed to discover the Holy Grail of marketing – it knows what you want even better than you do, even before you do. You, little buddy, have become a Product. You are Google’s product, not the information you search for, which from Google’s view is only a means to an end.

There’s another technology based on Cave Man Values in Mortal Engine which is at the heart of the story. I’m a guy writing this. You ladies reading this, prepare your eyes to roll. Got them ready? Listen. There are two things every man secretly believes he’s very good at.

Everyman believes he’s a great car driver.

Every man believes he’s a great cocksman in bed.

I will pause for you ladies to roll your eyes. Tell me when I can continue.

Okay, now chew on this. Everyone thinks they’re a great driver. Here comes a technological achievement which can drive way better than you.

What if there were a technological achievement that could fuck better than you?

Way better than you?

Okay, so Google knows what you want before you want it. Here’s the Holy Grail of Sex for guys at least, maybe ladies too – what if you could custom design your lover? Design the contours and proportions of her body. Her kinks and desires, and shall we say – appetites? Design her temperament and even her attitude towards you? What if a corporation, one who specializes in providing the brothel experience of very high functioning sexual surrogate androids just gave you a menu and you could build for yourself the man or woman you’ll be spending the night with? It’s an interesting thought experiment. Try it sometime. You’ll learn something about yourself.

Now here’s another rub. Computers are powerful calculators, but calculation does not equal thinking. It doesn’t make for creativity or responding to unfamiliar situations and improvisation. It doesn’t equal emotion. Computers and the robots they run follow pre-programmed scripts and are not even as adaptable as a backyard insect. The holy grail of Artificial Intelligence is to map out genuine consciousness and catch it in a bottle. To create that artificial being who feels and thinks and decides, not just calculating, but who achieves consciousness. Scientists like Ray Kurtzweil firmly believe we’ll see this in our lifetimes as well.

So back to Cave Man Values, and one thing Neolithic men and women valued very much on those long nights around the camp fire before cable TV was sex. Jump to the future. For a price you have the woman of your lushest and most forbidden desires, but what if the technology behind her has achieved what Kurtzweil calls “The Singularity”, that moment when calculation becomes conscious, when Pinocchio becomes a real boy, when autonomous becomes rebellious, and a state of the art sexbot becomes capable of feeling what an abused woman in a brothel might also feel? And you happen to be her john on the awful night when she decides to do something very, very rash about it?

My other novella, The Color of the Moon, though it takes place in Japan’s feudal past about 1180 AD, touches on Cave Man Values as well. Jump to the past. Along with boffing your mate, another favorite activity around the Neolithic fire was listening to the tribal shaman tell stories of the local gods and spooky spirits of the other world. When you think about it fiction’s least respected genres are also the most ancient and enduring, which is to say sexy love stories and horror stories.

Every culture with a long history has its own canon of traditional ghost stories passed generation to generation of wide eyed kids sitting at the knees of grandmothers on stormy nights. In Japan these stories are collectively referred to as “Kwaidan”. Kwaidan go back literally thousands of years, and over time became enshrined as classical Kubuki and Noh plays. In recent years with the advent of Japanese cinema the great Kwaidan have found new life in modern settings and been recast by American directors in our own image. You’ve probably been watching Kwaidan stories without knowing it. Stories such as “The Tale of Yuki-onna”, a vampire story predating Dracula by a thousand years showed up in our theatres in “Tales from The Hood”. “Yoshitoki Okiku”, an ancient story of a young woman who is drowned in a well became “Ju-On” which was recast in America as “The Ring”.

The Color of the Moon is an erotic romance riff on the most notorious of all Kwaidan tales: “Mimi nashi Hoichi” or literally “Hoichi the Earless”. Imagine an erotic romance of, say, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and you’ll get an idea of it.

It’s important to note here, that this story was the beginning of my fruitful personal and creative relationship with your host Lisabet Sarai. When I first showed up at the Erotica Readers and Writers Association as a raw beginner, hers was the first name I recognized. I felt as though I were in the presence of erotica royalty and I was much intimated. But I had this story I had been working on and it gave me a reason to approach her. We grabbed onto each other right off and never let go. I owe her more than I can repay.

The Color of the Moon loosely follows the narrative structure of Hoichi the Earless. The main character in my story is a Biwa Hoshi named Shoji. A “biwa” is a big Japanese lute with silk strings ceremonially played with a large tortoise shell plectrum. You can get a variety of sounds and moods from it. A Hoshi is a traveling Buddhist priest and story teller. So a Biwa Hoshi is a traveling priest who chants and sings epic poems accompanying himself on a biwa.

My priest Shoji goes on a pilgrimage to Agame no Seki, site of one of the great sea battles of Japan’s history in which the Taira clan was overcome forever by the Genji clan which became the beginning of the period of the great samurai Shogunates of Japan. Shoji finds himself summoned by a black armored samurai officer to play for a mysterious court woman who is far more than she seems. Ichinori, a local exorcist arrives to cleanse the area of the murderously resentful ghosts of the Taira and Shoji soon finds himself drawn down a path of passion and madness where the dreams of the lonely living cross over the dreams of the lonely dead.

There are ideas in this story too, but of a different calling than Mortal Engines. For history buffs, this is well crafted historical fiction. Along with my own research I received a great deal of help from a woman in Miyazaki Japan who was an expert on the culture of Kwaidan and the history of Agame no Seki. The elements of setting in the story are historically accurate. Not a bamboo bucket or honorific title out of place. Mortal Engines asks what is consciousness? What defines when a level of intelligence crosses over into a soul? The Color of the Moon deals with the great questions of good and evil, and karma and spiritual pride.

But of course for the cave men and women in all of us, love and passion are the greatest Cave Man Values of all.

If I've intrigued you, you can buy Mortal Engines and Color of the Moon from Whiskey Creek Press.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: At this particular time in a wandering, often bizarre and unexpected life, C. Sanchez-Garcia is living quietly in eastern Georgia, where the size of his personal library is bursting the walls of his little house. He stubbornly believes in passion, God, sensuality and spirituality, and that a good love story is life's finest medicine for melancholy. He is the author of the erotic novellas Mortal Engines and the Color of the Moon. Several of his stories have been published in the Mammoth Book of Erotica and Coming Together anthologies as well as the Erotica Readers and Writers Association's online gallery and permanent archives. If you would like to meet the author you will find him on Facebook and at the Oh, Get a Grip! writer's blog where Sanchez-Garcia's blog appears hell or high water every Wednesday.

Just A Spanking - Free Today and Tomorrow!

Greetings, readers!

Today and tomorrow (March 9 and 10), you can download my collection of BDSM short stories, Just a Spanking for free! Just click here.

This book isn't really hard core BDSM (though it's plenty explicit). Most of the stories are playful and romantic, and focus more on emotion than on the physical trappings. I believe that the real thrill in BDSM comes from the communication and trust between the Dominant and the submissive. I find nothing as arousing as the interlock of complementary fantasies.

To give you a feeling for the book, here's an excerpt from the title story, "Just a Spanking":

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He meets me at the airport with a kiss tender enough to reassure me that I'm more than just his slut. His lips wake every inch of my flesh. By the time he releases me, I'm flushed and tingling all over. After that initial embrace, however, he doesn't touch me at all.

He leads me to the parked car. I remember him taking me once in a sweltering parking lot, his fingers crammed into my cunt while he whispered all the indignities he planned to inflict on my poor body. As I fluttered helpless around his hand, I knew that he could ask anything of me and I'd obey. Now he is asking something new, a kind of restraint that I find more difficult than any bondage.

I am dressed as he requires, short skirt with no panties, silk blouse with no bra, and my favorite lace-up boots. I fidget on the seat as he drives up 101. The plastic is sticky against my bare skin and getting stickier by the minute. He stubbornly keeps his eyes on the road.

I part my thighs. The car fills with the ripe scent of my pussy. His nostrils twitch but otherwise he ignores me. My nipples feel huge and hungry as they do when he winds them with rubber bands. I try to keep still. Each whisper of silk across my breasts makes my cunt clench and weep.

He opens the car door--a gentleman Dom--and helps me out. The brief contact of palm on palm makes me shudder with want. I follow him up the stairs to his apartment, watching his strong buttocks shift in his trousers as he climbs. I think about how they tense and relax when he fucks me. I'm panting by the time we reach the third floor, but not from exertion.

The door swings open. He steps aside, gesturing for me to enter. Normally he'd have me pressed against the wall, knee in my crotch and hands under my blouse, before the lock clicked shut. Today he simply stands beside me, a half-smile on his full lips, as I survey the familiar room.

He has already set things up. In the dining area, the table has been pushed out of the way. Two of the chairs face us, side by side, flanked by the ottoman that normally sits in front of the armchair. That armchair is the usual location for his spankings, but I can see that tonight will be different. He's trying to minimize my contact with his body. Clever man.

****

Tempted? Go get your copy now!

And speaking of free books, I'm giving away a copy of my vampire ménage novella Fire in the Blood over at Amber Kell's blog today! Drop by, leave a comment, and you're automatically entered to win!

Romancing the Words

By Tim Smith (Guest Blogger)

I have an ongoing argument with a writer friend over the use of language in erotic romance. We’re both male authors of contemporary straight romance but we approach the job differently. I like to treat my readers to steamy sensuality and extensive foreplay; he prefers to throw in every four-letter word he can think of and get it over with in one or two paragraphs.

There are a few words I don’t like to use when writing sex scenes. One is the “F” bomb because I think some writers overuse it for shock value and it doesn’t really add anything to a realistic romantic encounter. I say that because not many women have used that word with me during sex unless it was followed by “off” or “you.” Another is a term used to describe part of the female anatomy (begins with “c,” rhymes with “hunt”) because I’ve heard from readers who said it offended them. I conducted a survey on a few chat boards to see how people felt about this, and the results indicated that a majority of women find it offensive. I’m in this game to win readers, not lose them.

Here’s where it gets tricky – how do I depict a hot sexual encounter without wallowing in the gutter or resorting to purple prose? It forces me to be ultra creative, coming up with euphemisms that make my point without being crude. This is an example from my latest release, the bestselling interracial romantic thriller Memories Die Last.

****

Nick stood and approached Felicia. He pulled her close and ravenously kissed her, his tongue challenging hers to a passionate duel. She rubbed his shoulders and back then moved down to slip her hands under the elastic waist of his shorts, kneading his butt. Nick moved his hands to caress her firm breasts then ran his palms along her torso. Her perfume and natural scent acted like an instant aphrodisiac, turning him into an animal. Felicia put her arms around his shoulders, hoisted herself up and wrapped her long legs around his waist, bringing her groin in contact with the bulge forming in his shorts. Nick kissed her more deeply, probing her mouth while she did the same to him. He moved his hands down to her firm ass and rocked against her, getting harder the longer they dry humped.

Nick carried Felicia into the bedroom and gently deposited her on the bed. He slipped off his shorts and lay next to her to resume his kissing and fondling. Felicia placed both hands on either side of his face, pulled his lips to hers and rammed her tongue into his mouth. Nick’s hand went to her breast to pinch and tweak her nipple until it was as firm as a gumdrop. Felicia moved one of her hands to his groin, grabbed his cock then squeezed and stroked him into complete hardness. Nick’s hand snaked along her belly to her crotch. He slid his fingers along her pussy, making her wetter then slipped two of them inside her. Felicia’s breathing rate picked up the longer he played with her and she stroked him faster.

Nick slithered along her body and planted his face between her legs. He hungrily devoured her moist pussy, savoring her taste. Felicia pressed her groin against his active tongue and lips, moaning her approval at what he was doing to her. Nick honed in on her clit, pulling it between his lips to suck on it while massaging her with his tongue. It swelled in his mouth the longer he sucked until Felicia gave out a loud moan and climaxed. He continued licking her after she came, enjoying her musky taste.

Nick got on his knees and assumed his position between her legs. She pulled her legs up toward her torso, grabbed his erection and forcefully guided him in. He made a long slow thrust until his entire length was imbedded inside her. Felicia closed her eyes and gasped while Nick thrust his hips.

“You fill me up,” she breathlessly murmured then began rocking against him.

****

Another book I wrote a few years ago, Anywhere the Heart Goes, presented a different scenario. I was looking for a unique angle so I made the heroine a well-schooled pupil of the Kama Sutra. This created a wealth of possibilities. Here’s one of the scenes between the leads, Rachel and Sam.

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Rachel disappeared into the bedroom while Sam selected some CDs, settling on Tony Bennett, Errol Garner and Dean Martin. He returned to the dining room, took off his blazer and draped it over the back of a chair, wondering what Rachel was preparing. His stomach fluttered slightly in anticipation. He took another sip of wine as Rachel sauntered down the hallway toward him, having changed into a short red satin robe that came to the top of her thighs. She locked her eyes onto his, giving him a smoldering gaze and a look that broadcast the words “I want you.”

She held out her hand. “Come with me,” she softly commanded.

Sam took her hand and followed her to the bedroom, which was lit by three strategically-placed candles, all emitting the scent of mandarin. The bed had been turned down, revealing white satin sheets. Rachel took hold of Sam’s shirt, pulling it from his waist. He slid it over his head while she unbuckled his belt, followed by his pants. Sam kicked off his shoes, stepped out of his pants and briefs and dropped his shirt on the floor. Rachel untied the sash to her robe, letting it flow open and stepped closer. She pulled his face down toward hers to kiss him, moving in so close that her breasts made full contact with his chest. Sam felt himself involuntarily respond, his hardening erection rubbing against Rachel’s pubic area. Rachel pressed her mouth against his like his tongue was the vermouth to complement her gin.

He placed his hands under the robe, running them along her smooth back. Rachel put her hands on his upper arms and gently pushed them down so that his hands rested on her butt while she continued kissing him. Sam fondled her firmness, enjoying the feeling. She moved her hips against his, alternately making contact with his hard-on while grinding her ass into his hands. He let Rachel take charge, getting more into her slow seduction. After several minutes, she pulled away, took his hand and led him to the bed, where he stretched out waiting for Rachel to join him.

She stood next to the bed, the flickering candlelight highlighting her features as she maintained steady eye contact. Her hazel eyes were still glowing softly while a trace of a smile stayed on her lips. Rachel shrugged off her robe, letting it fall to the floor, and then she picked up a bottle of massage oil from the nightstand, pouring a small amount into her palm. She leaned over and began massaging Sam’s shoulders, rubbing the oil on him in a circular motion. He inhaled the fragrance but didn’t recognize it. “What is that?” he softly inquired. “Patchouli,” Rachel replied while kneading his upper arms. “It increases arousal.”

Sam closed his eyes as his breathing shifted into a relaxing steady cadence, enjoying her touch. Rachel applied a little more oil to her palm before moving to his pecs, steadily moving her hands down his torso, relaxation overtaking his body like the soothing waters of a Jacuzzi. Sam felt himself responding, even though Rachel didn’t touch his groin. She kneaded his thigh muscles, and his legs went limp. After a few minutes, she stopped her massage, knelt on the bed beside Sam and lowered her head over his chest. Rachel let her long hair barely touch his chest and stomach, then rhythmically moved her head from side to side, slowly, her hair tickling his skin as she moved downward along his body. Sam felt a sense of anticipation building within. The fragrances of the candle and oil combined with Rachel’s sensual touching techniques hit him like a freight train, derailing all control. He gasped as he felt Rachel’s mouth envelop his cock, not taking him completely in but concentrating her lips on the tip, working him as though she were sucking the juice from a piece of fruit. The longer she continued, the harder Sam’s pulse beat. His level of arousal increased with each move of her lips, long-dormant senses being awakened.

“You’re making me crazy,” he softly moaned.

Rachel chuckled wickedly. “That’s the idea - make you crazy so it’s the best ever.”

“It’s working.”

****

I’m put off by the opinion some people offer that erotic romance or erotica is merely “porn with a plot.” There’s a lot more to it than that and if it’s done correctly, it shows the most natural evolution in a relationship between two people. I don’t really care for gratuitous sex scenes when I read a book, though. That makes me think the author ran out of ideas and said “I don’t know what to have these people do next, so let’s throw in some hot sex!”

And that’s porn with a plot.

Bio: Tim Smith is an award-winning, bestselling author whose books range from romantic intrigue to contemporary erotic romance. He is also a freelance photographer. When he isn’t pursuing those two passions he can often be found in The Florida Keys, doing research in between parasailing and seeking out the perfect Mojito. More information about his work can be found at his website, www.timsmithauthor.com. His books are available for purchase at www.extasybooks.com and www.amazon.com.