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.

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.

The More the Merrier

By Lisabet Sarai

Yes, it's me again, your hostess, with an excerpt particularly appropriate for a "Share the Love" event. The excerpt below comes from my story "Detente", in the volume Coming Together: As One, a ménage-themed collection which benefits ONE, the campaign to end global poverty. This story features a woman who lives with two men, her husband and her master. Although this might seem like the ideal, their jealousy and bickering make her life a hell. She takes off to visit a female friend, but returns to find that the dynamics of the threesome have changed in totally unexpected ways.

In addition to celebrating Coming Together, my post today is also part of Ranae Rose's multi-author Red Hot V-Day Blog Hop, which runs from the 7th to the 14th of this month. Check out the list of participants at her blog. Each of us is giving away a prize, plus Ranae is offering a grand prize $60 gift certificate to one lucky reader.

By commenting here, you're eligible for her grand prize. You may also win my prize for today, a copy of my ménage novella Monsoon Fever. And of course, all your comments today also count towards the Share the Love grand prizes - the $50 gift certificate and the Kindle Fire.

Talk about multi-function!

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the excerpt. Note that it includes M/M interaction and some hints of dominance and submission.

*****

In less than thirty seconds, my clothes are in a pile on the floor. I turn my attention back to the center of the room. David's hands rest, motionless, on Eric's buttocks. Eric lays with his cheek against the padded table. They're both watching me, looking nervous but also appreciative. They wonder what I'm going to do next.

I cup my breasts in hands still slick with lotion, then flick both nipples with my thumbs. Lovely darks of pleasure pierce my sex. Eric gives me one of his enigmatic half-smiles. David licks his lips.

I look around, locate a stool, and seat myself on it with my legs spread rudely. I smooth my hands down over my thighs, then up along the inner surfaces, until my thumbs rest near my pubis. David's swollen cock throbs and twitches as he follows my every move. Slowly, I burrow into my thatch and open my cunt lips to their gaze. A drop of liquid flows from the splayed folds and traces a lazy path down my thigh. The air fills with my funky perfume.

Eric squirms a bit on the table. David releases a shaky sigh.

"So, did you miss me?" They both nod, apparently speechless. "It does seem that you've been keeping yourself busy..."

Casually, I slip the two fingers of my right hand into my cunt. My juices overflow onto the wooden seat. I slip a third finger into my cleft. Blood surges in my clit. With the forefinger of my other hand, I begin to draw little circles on the head of that aching button of flesh. Each touch makes me shiver with pleasure.

The uncertainty is gone from my lovers' faces. All that remains is lust. I beckon to David. "Come over here and eat me," I command. He doesn't need a second invitation.

He kneels between my legs and buries his face in my bush. I nearly come the first time he plunges his tongue into me, but I hold myself back. I want to make him work for a while.

David licks and sucks energetically at my flesh, making obscene slurping noises that arouse me even more. I stroke the dark tangle of his hair, murmuring encouragement. Over his head, I catch Eric's eye. I don't see any bitterness or jealousy there. His mouth is half open, as if he's panting.

It's too delicious to resist for long. I close my eyes and surrender to sensation. David tickles, gnaws, probes, swallows me whole. When he takes my clit between his teeth, my whole body begins to shudder. After four days without sex, I come in a thundering flood. The world crumbles around me and is swept away. The aftershocks gradually subside. I open my eyes. David's still between my thighs, his mustache limp and dripping, his cheeks smeared. He looks awfully pleased with himself.

"Was that good, Margot?" he asks.

"What do you think?" I reach down and pinch the taut flesh of his cockhead. He winces in response. "But you're not done yet."

"What is your pleasure, Mistress?" He's jesting, but in fact I know that he'll do as I say.

"It's time for Eric to have some fun," I tell him. "Eric, slide down so that your feet are on the ground. Just your chest and shoulders on the table."

I've never given Eric a direct order before. He looks daggers at me. I realize that I've miscalculated.

"David, make Eric do as I said."

"Boy, move your ass. Feet on the floor, thighs spread." I can hardly believe this is my David speaking. Even more astonishing is the fact that Eric promptly complies. A wave of new lust washes over me at the sight.

From the supplies cabinet, I retrieve a tube of lubricant and a condom. I hand the latter to David. "Put this on." Meanwhile I squeeze a thick rope of lube onto the small of Eric's back.

I want to be the one to smooth it into his crack, but I don't dare. "Grease him up, David. Get him nice and ready."

David is torn. He's afraid, but he wants to do it, too, wants to slide his lubed fingers into Eric's asshole.

"No, please," Eric begs, his voice cracking. "Not that."

The protest, and my silent insistence, help David to make up his mind. "Quiet, boy. You'll take it, and you'll love it. You know you will."

It's true, I understand now. Having David fuck him will be a thrill that Eric will never forget.

I watch, totally aroused, as David smears Eric's sphincter with slippery goo. He probes with one lubed finger, then two. "Relax, Eric," he says. "Don't fight it. You'll enjoy it a lot more if you loosen up."

I realize that this is the first time he has called Eric by name.

I almost come when David first eases his cock into Eric's butthole. I'm totally fascinated, holding my breath, as the pole of rigid flesh disappears inch by inch into the depths of Eric's body. How well I know that awful, glorious sense of invasion! My own muscles spasm in sympathy.

Eric moans softly. David's in to the hilt, his wiry pubic hair brushing against the white flesh of Eric's cheeks, which still show the marks of David's whip.

He keeps his slender body motionless for half a dozen breaths, letting Eric get used to his bulk. Then David begins to pump, slow and gentle at first, but gradually increasing the speed and force of his strokes.

He weighs much less than Eric, but the force of his thrusts shakes Eric's frame. David grunts each time he slams his pelvis forward; Eric groans a fraction of a second later. I can see everything in lewd, outrageous detail: the way that Eric's anus stretches when David pushes in, the way the muscles flutter loosely when he pulls out.

David's cock seems bigger than usual. He's gritting his teeth, trying to keep control as he pounds away at Eric's poor butt. Meanwhile, Eric is arching back as if to impale himself more deeply, offering himself to David. Completely open.

Love and lust are so mingled in me that I can't distinguish them. I crouch down under the table, kneeling between Eric's legs. His cock dances in front of me, vibrating in time to David's strokes. "Master," I murmur. Gently, reverently, I take him into my mouth.

I don't even need to suck. He explodes immediately. His bitter semen floods across my tongue and drips out of my half-open lips. He wails and jerks his hips, spurting fresh gobs of come onto my face and hair. Now David is yelling too, grinding himself into Eric's guts as he finally allows himself to let go.

And me? I'm shaking, laughing, crying. I don't know if I've come, and I don't care. It doesn't matter, at this moment when we're all connected. It doesn't matter at all.

******

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