Charity Sunday: Doctors Without Borders - #CharitySunday #DoctorsWithoutBorders #giveaway

Welcome to my last Charity Sunday of 2018. I asked the members of my VIP Readers list which charity I should support today: PlannedParenthood, Doctors Without Borders or Amnesty International. All three of these organizations are favorites of mine, and all of them got votes, but Doctors Without Borders was the clear winner. Readers also offered suggestions for several other charities—which I will support in future Charity Sundays.

In case you’re not familiar with them, Doctors Without Borders, also known as Medecins Sans Frontieres, works to provide health care and humanitarian assistance to refugees, people in conflict zones and victims of disasters. The medical professionals involved volunteer their time and knowledge, often in perilous circumstances, to help other human beings, around the world. MSF is currently active in Yemen, where civil war has devastated the population and millions are on the verge of starvation; in South Sudan, where new violence has erupted; on the U.S. border, where Central American migrants deal with hunger, squalor and disease as they wait for word on asylum petitions. What I particularly love about MSF is the fact that they never take sides. They will help anyone who needs it, regardless of their affiliation. In fact this courageous position often puts volunteers on the ground in severe danger, but the organization will not compromise its principles.

Anyway, as is the case for all Charity Sundays, I will donate one dollar to MSF for each comment I receive on this post. I’ll leave this open until January 2^nd. In addition, I have an excerpt from my holiday BDSM erotic romance tale Silver Bells, which is one of the stories in my Coming in Costume volume. I will give away two copies of this book to randomly selected people who leave comments.

May your days be merry and bright!

“Tinkle, tinkle.”

I nearly dropped my cup into the punch bowl. Under my loose black velvet tunic, my clamped nipples throbbed with fresh heat. Blood rushed to my cheeks as well as to my steel-pinched clit. Embarrassment and lust mingled until I didn’t really know what I was feeling. It was simultaneously awful and delicious.

I didn’t dare whirl around to discover who had whispered the taunt in my ear. The tiny silver bells Greg had affixed to the thumbscrews above and below might ring more loudly. Swallowing my moan and gathering the shreds of my dignity, I turned at a stately pace to find Greg’s old friend James standing behind me, sporting a naughty grin.

“Did you say something, James?” I managed to hold his gaze with some degree of poise, though I knew my face must be flushed. Wearing my party heels, I was only a few inches shorter than my guest. Behind his wire-framed spectacles, his brown eyes gleamed with mischief. For the hundredth time I wondered how much he knew about the nature of Greg’s and my relationship.

“Just that it’s a lovely party, Isabella,” he replied. Was he laughing at her? “Simultaneously elegant and festive. You’re a very talented hostess.”

“We’re glad you could make it.” I was astounded at how cool and in control I sounded. The ache from my tortured nipples and clit was nothing compared to the fear that my perversity might be revealed to the outside world.

“Well, when I found out about the conference here in Manhattan, it seemed like the perfect opportunity. Especially since it was close to the holidays. I’ve been wanting to visit you two for quite a while. Seems like ages since the wedding.”

“Just a year and half.” James had been Greg’s best man. Apparently they’d known each other since college, and kept in touch through grad school. Greg had implied more than once that James had kinky interests that paralleled his own, but I thought it was unlikely he would have shared the thrilling and sordid details of our sex life, even with his closest friend.

My husband was a very private person. We didn’t go to clubs or play parties. He enjoyed threatening me with exposure, and we’d occasionally engaged in some semi-public scenes (the sudden recollection of one spanking in Central Park set my pussy flowing), but most of the time he preferred to test and torment me at home. To be honest, I was the one with the exhibitionist fantasies. Greg understood my warped mind only too well. Hence the bells.

“California’s quite a ways from New York. And of course, I’ve been really busy with work.” James looked exactly like the Silicon Valley super-nerd he was: unruly black hair too long to be fashionable, geek glasses, a sensitive mouth, penetrating eyes, a complexion without the slightest trace of a California tan. He was well built, though, neither flabby nor too skinny. The company he’d founded must have had a gym. “I’ve thought about you quite a bit, though.”

About me? About us? I didn’t have the nerve to ask.

Don’t forget to leave a comment! Help MSF help others. And please include your email address, obfuscated if your prefer, so I can find you if you are my winner.

Charity Sunday: Doctors Without Borders - #CharitySunday #conflict #emergencyresponse

We’ve reached the second Sunday of January already, which means it’s Charity Sunday once again. 

Today I’m supporting one of the organizations closest to my heart, Doctors Without Borders, also known as Médecins sans Frontières. MSF is a network of volunteer physicians and other health professionals who provide medical and humanitarian assistance around the world, in some of the most horrific environments and desperate situations on earth. MSF volunteers bravely help people victimized by disasters and conflicts, regardless of their nationality, ethnicity or political affiliation. The organization is officially neutral (a stance that has seen them expelled from some countries where they are sorely needed). In 1999 MSF was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize – deeply deserved, in my opinion.

When a magnitude 7.0 earthquake devastated Haiti almost exactly seven years ago, MSF was there, treating the wounded and helping to prevent disease in the shanty towns of displaced Haitians. When super typhoon Haiyan slammed into the Visayas islands of the Philippines in 2013, killing more than 6000 people and affecting 11 million, MSF was on the ground in days, building field hospitals, providing clean water, serving the hordes left homeless. Today MSF is at work in the battlefields of Syria and the Central African Republic, dodging bullets as they try to meet the health and humanitarian needs of civilians fleeing from violence. In the refugee camps of Yemen and in Bangladesh, right now, MSF is battling separate epidemics of diptheria, a disease of the past that is a new threat due to shattered health systems and over-crowded living conditions.

I urge you to visit the MSF site, watch some of their videos, and consider making your own contribution. In any case, I will contribute one dollar for each comment I receive on this post.

If you want to do more, you might also consider purchasing a copy of Coming Together: In Vein, an anthology of vampire erotica and erotic romance that I edited. All sales from this book support MSF. 

 

Meanwhile, as usual, I have an excerpt to amuse you this Sunday. This bit comes from my MMF erotic romance Monsoon Fever. The book is set just after the first World War, at a tea plantation in Assam, India owned by a British couple. In this snippet, Priscilla and Jon Archer and their lawyer (soon to be lover) Anil Kumar help the people of the nearby village to deal with a landslide triggered by violent rains – exactly the sort of situation where MSF might deploy its resources. This excerpt has special poignancy given the recent, deadly mudslides in California.

Priscilla saw it first. The note was scrawled on a scrap torn from a ledger, and fastened to the dining room door frame with a nail.

“Landslide at the village. Gone to help.” The writing was barely legible, but she recognised Jon’s hand.

A landslide! Priscilla recalled the heaps of mud and rock piled by the road on the way to Gauhati. 

“We must go to them,” Anil insisted, reading over her shoulder. “A landslide can bury a whole town, or sweep it away.” He searched her face. “Do you have shovels or picks? And buckets, buckets would be useful.”

“In the utility shed, behind the house.” 

Anil was already on his way out the door.

Jon had taken most of the tools, but they found a short spade and a mattock. They grabbed them and scrambled up the slippery path toward the village, rain still washing over them in dense squalls. As they approached the site of the village, home to the plantation workers and their families, shouts filled the air. Lanterns flickered in the wet, black night.

Priscilla had visited the village several times, bringing sweets for the children and English soap for their mothers. She hardly recognised the scene of devastation before her now. There was no sign of the wooden huts that sheltered the workers. She saw only a vast sea of mud, with splintered planks and beams jutting out at odd angles. Half naked men dug frantically in the muck, looking like an army of demons in the shifting lantern-light. Children hung onto their mothers, wailing or watching the rescue efforts silent and wide-eyed. An elderly woman, tattered sari clinging to her wizened body, crouched under a tree half-crushed by a huge boulder.

Priscilla saw Jon near the far perimeter, wielding a shovel and yelling orders to the other men. She stumbled across the ex-village, the treacherous mud sucking at her feet, and threw herself into his arms.

“Darling! I was so worried.” she cried. “Are you all right?”

Jonathan held her so tight she could scarcely breathe. His chest was bare and streaked with dirt. His blond hair was black with rain and soil. “Priscilla! Thank God! I’m so glad to see you!”

“How bad is it?”

“Bad—nearly all the houses were destroyed—but it could have been much worse. Most of the villagers were up at the shrine when the hillside gave way. We think that there are only a few people buried. We’re trying to find them before it’s too late.”

“Let me help. I can dig, too.” She held up her spade. 

Jonathan looked at her for a moment, appraising her strength, then nodded. “Take the north east quadrant. Be careful—you don’t want to slice into someone that you’re trying to rescue.”

“What about me? Where do you want me?” Anil had come up behind them during their embrace.

“Anil! Wonderful! Can you organise the men working in the south west? I’m not sure that they understand everything that I’ve been telling them.”

“Certainly, I’ll do what I can.” Anil strode off toward the group that Jon had indicated.

Priscilla waded over to the area Jon had assigned to her. The Indian men eyed her curiously as she dug her spade into the saturated dirt. The mud resisted, sticky and heavy as cement, but she refused to be discouraged. She raised one spade-full, then another, scanning her expanding excavation each time for any sign of a body.

Her shovel hit some buried wood. The impact sent a jarring shock back through her shoulders. She thought that the thump sounded hollow. Priscilla dug in again, listening more carefully. Definitely hollow.

All at once, she heard a muffled cry, a human voice. “Jon! Over here, I think there’s a partly collapsed house here, and someone’s inside. Alive!”

The men swarmed over to where she was digging. “Careful now,” Jon cautioned. Don’t disturb the timbers or the whole place might collapse.” He showed them how to lift off the soil in layers, standing away from the hole so that their weight would not affect the precariously balanced ruins underneath. It took half an hour, but finally they pulled an old man out of the ground, crushed and bleeding but conscious.

A shout rang out from the other side of the mud field. Anil’s group had located another body. Priscilla went over to lend her spade to the efforts. Digging side by side with her husband and the Indian lawyer, she worked steadily to strip away nearly two feet of dirt. Underneath, they found the mangled corpse of a woman cradling an infant. The woman was beyond help. The baby, though, let out a lusty wail as the fresh air filled its lungs.

Priscilla bent down and took the naked child in her arms. It was covered with scratches and abrasions, but miraculously unharmed otherwise. A boy, perhaps six months old. He looked up at her with chocolate coloured eyes and cooed, waving his chubby limbs.

Tears streamed down Priscilla’s cheeks, mingling with the raindrops.

~ ~ ~

Please leave a comment. Every one means a dollar for Doctors Without Borders. In fact, to encourage you further, I will give away an ebook copy of Monsoon Fever to one randomly selected individual who comments on this post.

Bloody Good Erotica

Happy Thanksgiving to those of you who celebrate! Even if you don’t, I hope you’ll take a minute to remember and acknowledge all your blessings, and to hug your loved ones.

My Thanks-Giving Back post today features Coming Together In Vein, a multi-author collection of vampire erotica that I edited. The book benefits one of my favorite causes, Médecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders). MSF works to provide medical services to the world’s most desperate, often in areas torn apart by war or devastated by natural disasters. They provide care for all, regardless of race, religion or political affiliation—and they’ve suffered for that humanitarian position.

When I compare my own life with those of the people MSF serves, I’m humbled and grateful. This anthology, which includes fabulous stories by M. Christian, Cheyenne Blue, Giselle Renarde, Xan West, Nobilis Reed, and many more of my favorite authors, is worth buying for its own sake. In addition, every cent of the purchase price goes to support MSF’s courageous and compassionate work.

I’ve included a sample from my story in the book, “Vampires, Limited”. Leave me a comment with your email, and I’ll choose one person to receive a copy of my paranormal collection Fourth World, which includes two vampire tales.

“Try the next picture.” The man’s body was tense, as though he was working hard to hold something back. Slowly, tearing herself away from the soulful gaze in the photo, she turned it over.

The photograph that followed ripped her apart. Although vampiric in theme, it was nothing like the camp pictures that her publication featured. The same red-haired woman lay nude on a satin-draped bier, graceful and pale. Her wrists crossed on her abdomen, just below the modest swell of her perfect breasts. Her face was turned toward the camera, her eyes closed, her lips parted. A trail of crimson fluid trickled from her neck, across the white satin and onto the stone floor.

Behind the bier stood the vampire. His right hand held a white candle that fitfully illuminated the arches of the vault. His left cupped his victim’s breast, thumb resting lightly on her prominent nipple.

His blond hair was pushed back from his brow, damp with sweat. His skin was flushed with the blood that he had swallowed, the blood that still smeared his lips. Looking into those eyes, eyes dark as hell, Lara felt it all: his grief, his guilt and his awful, all-consuming lust.

Who was she, the ethereal, terribly convincing victim? And who, who was he?

She didn’t see him move. Yet all at once he was behind her, his hands on her shoulders, murmuring in her ear. “Barbara was her name. She was my girlfriend, back in college. A terrible mistake.”

He was so close, she should have felt the heat of his body, but it was as if a mannequin was pressed against her, instead of a living person. She could smell him, though, a sharp grassy scent that made her think of the country and wide open spaces.

Casually he trailed a finger up the side of her neck and circled her earlobe. A shiver raced through her, winding tight around her nipples, spiraling down to her sex. He nipped at her ear, playful, but hard enough to make her gasp. “As for me, you know who I am, don’t you? Or at least, what I am.”

Lara knew what he was saying. She just couldn’t accept it.

“Here.” Still behind her, he grabbed her hand and placed her fingers on his throat. His skin was cooler than the air, cool and smooth as marble. “Do you feel any pulse?”

“No—but—it’s just not possible. It’s just a myth. A fashion, a fad. Everyone these days pretends...”

He brought her wrist to his lips, flicking his tongue over the spot where the veins were closest to the surface. His mouth was hot, unlike the rest of him. A violent shudder of desire rocked her body. “Close your eyes,” he murmured.

Thanks-Giving Back Hop Links

Sunday 22 November

http://lisabetsarai.blogspot.com/2015/11/sunday-snog-for-good-mm-201.html

http://leighwantsfood.blogspot.com/2015/11/coming-together-giving-back-hop.html

Monday 23 November

http://lisabetsarai.blogspot.com/2015/11/giving-it-away.html

http://delilahnight.com/2015/11/23/giving-back-blog-hop/

http://paidbytheweird.blogspot.com/2015/11/coming-together-thanksgiving-giving-back.html

http://wp.me/p1EqZm-Vt 

Tuesday 24 November

http://lisabetsarai.blogspot.com/2015/11/funny-brutal-tender.html

Wednesday 25 November

http://lisabetsarai.blogspot.com/2015/11/erotic-visions-for-brave.html

Thursday 26 November

http://lisabetsarai.blogspot.com/2015/11/bloody-good-erotica.html

http://annabetherotica.com/

Friday 27 November

http://lisabetsarai.blogspot.com/2015/11/release-day-for-another-coming-together.html

Saturday 28 November

http://lisabetsarai.blogspot.com/2015/11/where-no-man-has-gone-before.html

 

Sunday Snog (#193) for Refugees

My Sunday Snog today comes from my short story “Refuge”, published in the altruistic anthology Coming Together: At Last. That anthology celebrates cross-race and cross-cultural desire, with proceeds supporting Amnesty International. The story is set in a refugee camp on the Thai-Myanmar border. The heroine Prean is a young woman from the Karen tribe, one of the many ethnic minorities who have been subject to brutal treatment in the past by the Myanmar government. The hero Nu is a Thai soldier, a guard at the camp. Nu is from a poor and marginalized region in the northeastern part of the country, subject to discrimination and abuse by his superiors. He’s drawn to help Prean despite the danger to his own safety.

“Refuge” is a story of hope, of love and humanity in dark times and places. It seems particularly relevant now, as the world struggles to deal with the millions of refugees streaming out of Syria and neighboring regions. It’s enough to make one feel hopeless. What can one person do in the face of the suffering millions?

Whatever we can. So I will donate $1 to Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières or MSF) for each comment I receive on this post. MSF is actively working to help refugees in a variety of locations: in Greece, in Serbia, in France, and elsewhere as needs shift during this global emergency.

Please help. Read my snog and leave a comment. Share this post with your friends and family. Put it on Facebook. Tweet it. Make a donation of your own to MSF or another charity working with refugees.

People are not numbers. Every refugee has a story.

(Once you’re done with my snog, by the way, head back to Victoria’splace for more sexy Sunday kisses.)

I watched her body sway in front of me. My eyes had adjusted to the darkness. I could see her slender back, with its cloak of gleaming hair. I swallowed hard at the sight of her hips, their swell distorting the patterned fabric of her sarong. I was sweaty and nervous as she led me through the forests near the camp boundaries and up to higher ground. The aching lump in my groin made it difficult to walk.

The path opened into a grassy clearing. Moonlight poured in. To my left rose a steep wall of limestone. The plash of falling water reached my ears. Rivulets emerged from the cliff at several spots and tumbled into a mossy pool at its base, before spilling over and flowing down hill toward the camp. The cool breeze was rich with the scent of growing things, free of the fetid aromas of the caged humanity.

I took a deep breath. Prean stopped by the pool. She turned to me, her arms wide in invitation. I stood rooted in that magical spot, snared by her beauty.

“Nu?” Her voice released me. I gathered her in my arms, burying my face in her fragrant locks. The soft flesh of her breasts pressed against my chest, sending a thrill through my limbs that settled in my groin. Amazed at my daring, I ran my palms over her cloth-wrapped hips, around to her buttocks, and pulled her body tight against mine.

She ground her pelvis against my swollen cock. I moaned, finding her lewdness shocking but irresistible. “Mmm,” she murmured. “I guess that you do like me, after all.” Before I could stop her (and only part of me wanted to), she had slipped her hand between us and unfastened my fly.

My rigid penis sprang into her hand, an arrow to its target. She stroked it delicately, like some fluttering bird that might escape. It swelled at her touch. As it hardened further, she started to squeeze, pumping rhythmically from base to tip as though she was milking a goat. She smeared the sensitive bulb with moisture leaking from the eye, and I nearly lost control. Meanwhile, with her other hand, she grabbed my head and pulled my lips to hers.

Her mouth was open from the first. Her kiss was bold, all tongue and teeth, honest in its need—the hot, hungry kiss of a woman starved for loving. I returned the kiss, as best I could, lost, dizzy with lust. My senses reeled. It was too much. The fever of her mouth, the cool silk of her fingers on my cock. Her scent, grass and smoke, salt and musk. Her taste, lemon and mint. I felt my balls contract and groaned, sure that I was about to embarrass myself by spurting all over her hand.

Prean knew. At the last moment, she released both my cock and my mouth. Her smile was full of mischief and understanding. Stepping away from me, she pulled her tunic over her head. Jet locks tumbled over her bare shoulders. I stared at her breasts, white and plump as little chicks with tips dark as tamarind pods. My palms ached to cup them, to feel them yield under my touch. She loosed the tucks holding the sarong around her hips. The fabric dropped to the ground, revealing her flat belly and winking navel, her pale thighs and shapely calves, and at the center of the universe, the tangled patch of black fur that hid her sex.

My cock twitched, eager for a taste. I was too shy to move.

Her scent was sharper now. She knelt and spread the sarong upon the grass, then lay on her side, watching me. “Please. Take off your clothes, Nu. I want you.”

Remember – every comment means a donation to MSF!

Typhoon Haiyan - You Comment, I'll Donate

 

Dear Readers,

The Philippines may seem very distant to you. As I live in Asia, the country is more or less in my backyard. And as the horrific images and shocking news pour in about the devastation wrought by superstorm Typhoon Haiyan, I feel the need to do something, however minor, to ease the suffering of the survivors.

Not since the tsunami of 2004 has there been a disaster of this proportion. I lived through that, too. My entire adopted country wore black for a month. Haiyan "only" killed 10,000 according to current estimates, not the 100,000 or more souls wiped out by the giant wave, but even 10,000 deaths is hard to imagine.

Meanwhile, life hangs by a thread for those who escaped Haiyan's wrath. They need food, shelter, medical care. One of my favorite charities, Medécins Sans Frontières, is already on the ground, caring for the sick and the wounded.

Below you'll find a snippet from my upcoming release Rough Weather (coming in January), which features a violent storm (though nothing like Haiyan). Read. Comment. Think about the poor people half a world away from you and if you can, donate to MSF or the Red Cross. And for every comment left here on this post, I'll donate 50 cents to MSF, up to a total of $50.

 

-->

She fought the wind along every inch of the path through the dunes. Crouching low, leaning forward to offset its force, she battled against fierce gusts that threatened to sweep her from her feet and dash her to the sandy ground.

The intermittent showers had become a chill downpour. She paused to catch her breath, peering through the grey curtain that obscured her view of the sea ahead, and sent her mind questing for another trace of Marut. Thunder crashed around her. Otherwise there was no answer. Dread tightened into an aching knot in her chest as the rain beat down upon her nakedness and plastered her hair to her head.

The rain is hers, the sweet springs and the salty billows, all of the watery world.

Although usually she loved the rain, now it was just another obstacle keeping her from her lover. Enough. As soon as she issued the silent command, the precipitation slackened to a drizzle, though the wind continued its relentless assault. She had no time to wonder at this. Ahead of her, massive breakers rolled onto the beach, up to the very foot of the dunes. The rocks where she’d first seen Marut were half-submerged in a roiling whirlpool flecked with ivory foam.

Stepping into the seething ocean, she felt the current tug at her ankles and draw her deeper. A sheer wall of water loomed over her, gleaming like polished black glass. She dove into the wave before it could swallow her, kicking hard to send herself into calmer waters closer to the bottom. 

 

You comment - I'll donate.

The Vampires are Coming!

I just sent out acceptances for my charity anthology Coming Together: In Vein. It's going to be a sensational collection, and of course, all proceeds will go to Doctors Without Borders, to support medical and emergency care for victims of disasters and conflict worldwide.

What can you expect from In Vein?

A graveyard tryst involving two vampires and a zombie...

An artist who paints with blood...

Love and death among the ruins of Sarajevo...

Blood sucking in the aftermath of the Civil War... 

Elective nanosurgery to implant custom fangs...

A vampire whose lover's semen releases her from the need to kill...

Life in the fast lane as a vampire learns about recreational drugs...

A vamp muse who offers inspiration in return for sustenance ...

and much more!

The book is targeted for release around New Year's. Don't worry, I'll keep you posted. If you're bored with the vampire tales you've been reading, this is the collection for you!

Call for Submissions: Vampire Erotica Anthology

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.