I can't wait any longer -- #MFRWsteam #MFRWAuthor #SteamPunk #Erotic

Welcome to the MFRW Steam Hop! Today’s the day when those of us who write erotica and erotic romance come out to play. So grab a cold drink (or maybe have a cold shower close by) and get ready to sizzle.

My excerpt today comes from my pseudo-Victorian steam punk novel The Pornographer’s Apprentice. This is the first book in my series The Toymakers Guild. I’m currently working on the second.

Enjoy! Oh, and I’m giving away a free copy, to one person who leaves a comment. Don’t forget to include an email address (obfuscated is fine) so I can find you if you win!

Blurb

She wants to build sex toys... if they'll let her.

In prudish, patriarchal Victorian England, nineteen year old prodigy Gillian Smith finds a secret society dedicated to the erotic arts. She’ll need both her intellect and her physical charms to earn the permanent position she craves.

Inspired by a salacious catalogue found in her deceased uncle’s library, she applies for an apprenticeship with the Toymakers Guild. The Guild fabricates bespoke sexual artifacts for the private pleasure of select clients – an occupation for which Gillian, with her technical abilities and her lascivious temperament, is eminently suited.

The other apprentices, initially skeptical about a female engineer, become enthusiastic supporters once they’ve tested her erotic aptitude. The voluptuous Governing Director, and the dashing French journeyman likewise help expand her carnal repertoire. The final decision, however, rests with the reclusive Master Toymaker, who has been missing for nearly two years.

When an unscrupulous nobleman sets up a competing enterprise, he threatens not only the livelihood of the Guild’s members but their lives as well. Gillian hatches an audacious plan to entrap the villain, save the Guild, and leave the absent Master no choice but to grant her heart’s desire.

If you like steam punk erotica with a kinky feminist bent, you'll love The Pornographer's Apprentice. 

 

Excerpt

The cottage was built of the same stone as the manor but seemed older, with thick walls and a thatched roof. The sill of the one window was nearly a foot deep. Axe-marked beams outlined a low doorway. There was no bell or knocker on the plank door, just a wrought iron latch. She was about to rap her knuckles against the splintery wood when the door swung open.

Rawlings loomed in the entry way, a burly silhouette against the light from the grate behind him. Ducking his head to get through the door, he stepped into the night, reached for Gillian, and crushed her trembling form against his bare chest. With her nose buried in the curly hair that furred his skin, she breathed him in – grass and earth, smoke and sweat. Lust ripped through her like a forest fire, consuming every thought, every scruple. She would have crumpled to her knees if he had not held her up with one powerful arm. His other hand roamed over her breasts, her hips, her buttocks, exploring her body with possessive confidence that made her pant and moan.

“Jill,” he murmured, his breath hot against her ear. “Ye’re here at last.”

He swung her off her feet and carried her into the stone hut, kicking the door shut behind him. His strength dizzied her. She barely had time to glance around the sparsely furnished interior before he’d deposited her on the thin mattress of an iron bedstead in one corner. Then he stood back, hands on his hips, and gazed at her as though he could hardly believe she was real.

His ragged hair half covered his eyes. The stubble she’d noticed earlier was thicker now, darkening his cheeks and chin and giving him a feral, dangerous look. Naked to the waist, with his swarthy complexion and abundant body hair, he seemed like some mythological creature, half man, half beast.

His lips curled into a smile, revealing surprisingly white, even teeth. “Off with those duds, lass.”

Clumsy with eagerness, she tried to comply. Her buttons resisted the efforts of her shaking fingers. The laces of her overskirt tangled into an intractable knot. The long sleeves of her bodice clung to her arms, refusing to release them. Finally, clawing and tearing at the fabric, she managed to free herself.

His grin stretched wider when he saw she’d left her drawers at home. Exposed and aroused, both proud and ashamed, she huddled on the bed and awaited his next order.

His gaze travelled over her body, lingering on her swollen nipples and her damp cunt fur. Though her cheeks burned with embarrassment, she nevertheless parted her legs to show him the wet folds of her hungry quim. Without comment, he unfastened his trousers and let them fall to the floor. His massive cock sprang free, bouncing merrily. He captured it in his big hand, stroking up and down as his eyes continued to devour her.

Gillian was so aroused it was almost painful. Her clit throbbed. Her breasts ached. Juices dripped from her spread-open sex onto Rawlings’ mattress. “Please,” she whimpered. “I can’t wait any longer.”

“Nor I,” replied the giant. In two strides he was by the bed. He reached out to fondle her breasts, squeezing and pinching, then pushed her back onto the mattress. Hovering over her prone form, he grasped her thighs in his huge paws, pulled them wide, and without any further preliminaries, sank his enormous prick into her drenched cleft.

To finally have him inside her was nothing short of glorious. His engorged cock woke exquisite sensations as it slid back and forth across her slick inner walls. Despite his massive size, she felt no pain, only a million shades of delight at being filled and stretched to her utter limit. He began to thrust, pushing deeper than she would have believed possible. She wrapped her legs around his waist so she could ride his incredible hardness, rocking into each stroke, mashing her clit against his rigid shaft. Already she felt the sweet heaviness of a climax gathering in her pelvis.

“Reckon ye missed me, wench,” he grunted. “Ye’re wetter than Aune Head Mire.” Prying her thighs away from his body, he flipped them onto his shoulders and leaned in so that she was nearly bent double. Now Rawlings was totally in control. He seized her ankles and jerked his hips, nailing her with his massive rod. The power of his thrusts drove the breath from her lungs. Gasping for air, moaning with need, she let go completely.

Gillian Smith, engineer, disappeared. There was only Jill, wanton, hungry, shameless, aching and eager to take whatever he gave her. Rawlings’ cock battering her sex, his fingernails digging into her flesh, his harsh breathing and the musky, earth-tinged smell of his body – these were her only realities.

Buy Links

Kinky Literature – https://www.kinkyliterature.com/book/8424-the-pornographers-apprentice-the-toymakers-guild-book-1/

Amazon US – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08MWMZZGP

Amazon UK – https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08MWMZZGP

Smashwords – https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1053072

Barnes and Noble – https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-pornographers-apprentice-lisabet-sarai/1138144978?ean=2940164724573

Kobo – https://www.kobo.com/th/en/ebook/the-pornographer-s-apprentice-1

Add on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55857159-the-pornographer-s-apprentice

Don't forget to leave a comment and enter my drawing!

And I do hope you'll sample some of the other spicy excerpts on offer today!

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Talking to My Selves: What My Pen Name Taught Me - #bdsm #shibari Kink #giveaway

By Holly Ryan (Guest Blogger)

About a year or so ago, I decided I wanted to be someone else. Day to day life was smothering me, I’d fallen into a funk with the books I normally write, and I needed something fresh and different. So I started writing really steamy books under a pen name. I named her Holly Ryan after the street I grew up on (Holly) and the name my parents would’ve given me if I’d turned out to be a boy (Ryan). I even gave her a whole backstory because I can’t help creating stories for everyone, even people I see at the grocery store.

Holly lives in the middle of Kansas City, for now, where she bases a lot of her sexy stories. She lives near the top of an apartment high-rise with her goldfish, Muddy. She’s single and prefers it that way, and all she does is write on her laptop, drink red wine, and have sexual adventures with a long line of worshiping men.

We have some things in common, Holly and I, but she’s much better at suspending belief than I am. For example, if vampires are dead and therefore don’t have blood flow, how do they get erections?

“Shh,” Holly tells me from her high-rise in Kansas City. “It just works. No one needs to know why.”

And dragon shifters… How is it that when they shift into men again, they’re fully clothed or conveniently buck naked as the situation warrants? Where do they keep their clothes as a dragon?

“Magic,” Holly says. “You’re clearly over-thinking this.”

Okay, but is it realistic for a man in his thirties who just orgasmed to be ready to go again so soon? What about…recovery?

“It’s realistic enough.” Holly studies me over the rim of her wineglass as she takes an extra-long drink. I often have that effect on people."

“Oh, you just reminded me…” The city lights outside her window twinkle over her glass as she juggles it to her other hand. She opens her Story Ideas document on her laptop and adds tentacle robot sex book to her list. “That needs to happen.”

I suppose it does, but I have no idea how I reminded her of a tentacle robot sex book.

If Holly has taught me one thing, it’s to lighten up, have fun, and to explore details about myself I’d never realized before. I would absolutely read (and write) a tentacle robot sex book, no question. Since “meeting” Holly, I feel more liberated and can look at life through a different pair of eyes, see new details I may not have otherwise noticed, and write all the vampire/dragon shifter/tentacle robot sex books I want. It’s refreshing. 

 

Blurb for Bound to the Boss:

When Addison Blevins lands a job at kink.club.com, she never expected to be working for the man she used to be in love with.

But even this company has a hands-off policy. What will it take to bring these two together?

Bound to the Boss is a kinky 11,000 word short story. All kink.club.com are standalones and can be read in any order.

Excerpt

He dragged the tip of the rope across my right nipple, tightening it into an aching bud, then coiled the rope behind my back. When he’d wrapped it around me once, he drew my hard nipple into his mouth and sucked and licked until I threw my head back and moaned. While he lavished attention on it, his hands worked the rope around me a second time, this band underneath my breasts. He pulled away, his lips swollen and wet, his eyes hungry, and continued to bind me. Slow and methodical, he paused several times to kiss me and to stroke my body with both his hands and the rope. Soon, intricate designs decorated my body, held in place with knots as well as my curves. He handled the rope like a real artist.

“It’s like cross-stitching,” I said.

He stopped and looked at me, his lips twitching. “It’s not like cross-stitching. Arms behind your back.”

I complied, my breasts sticking out even farther between the ropes in this position. The ropes fit snugly, not enough to stop my circulation or breathing but tight enough so I couldn’t move easily.

Once he’d bound my wrists, he said, “Raise up higher on your knees.”

The ropes creaked as I tried, and I didn’t get very far. He snaked the end of the last length of rope up my thighs, slowly, his other arm wrapped around my waist to help support my weight. He stroked the rope along my pussy lips, and I cried out. The bumpy but smooth feel of the rope rubbed me just right. My hips bucked and I moaned for more. His hand parted my thighs a little more, enough to maneuver the end of the rope up inside me. I tried to push down my hips, but he held my waist tight so he could control the movement. I whimpered. I’d never been so desperate to fuck the end of a rope in my life.

Buy links:

mybook.to/boundtotheboss

About the Author

Holly Ryan is a pen name for a USA Today bestselling author who one day said, “Screw it. I’m gonna write books with some serious sizzle.” She’s fueled by wine, which is where the idea probably came from.

You can sign up for her newsletter for epic sneak peaks and contests here: https://www.subscribepage.com/u6r1u1

Or you can check out her website here: www.hollyryanwrites.com

Thanks for reading! Leave me a comment with your email to let me know your opinion of Holly and her stories. I’ll give away a $5 bookstore gift certificate to one of you!

Sex as metaphor, dialogue, plot.... (#lgbtq #giveaway #paradise @FarzanaDoctor)

By Farzana Doctor (Guest Blogger)

Greetings, everyone!

Lisabet asked me to write about the following question:

I feature many erotic authors on this blog. Given that it deals with the swinging sub-culture, would you consider All-Inclusive to be erotica? How much explicit sexual content should readers expect?

Thanks for your question—it’s one I think about a lot.

I don’t consider the novel to be erotica, but literary fiction, and I know that the lines are fine between these two genres. Readers will see seven sex scenes where the main character, Ameera, explores her sexuality, often with couples.

I was recently invited to speak on a festival panel about these distinctions. All the panellists had written novels in which the sex lives of their protagonists were front and centre and yet they all insisted that their books were not erotica, but literary fiction. What made them say that? Here’s a list of things they said about their books, and I found myself agreeing with them:

-Sex as a metaphor. In All Inclusive, it’s a metaphor for the character’s overall growth. Sex strengthens her to explore some of the other, deeper issues in her life.

-Sex as form of dialogue, sometime without words. Writers use sex to show a character’s motivations and foibles. Ameera’s sex scenes allowed me to show her in some of her best and worst moments, where she is clumsy, awkward, inspired or transformed.

-Sex as a plot device. Ameera’s choice to have sex with swinger tourists (essentially, her tour company’s customers) puts her in peril, and this is part of the plot development.

So in literary fiction, sex scenes are not there for the enjoyment or titillation of the reader (although the reader might feel titillated). In fact, the opposite might be the writer’s intent. Some my readers have told me that Ameera’s sex scenes made them nervous or frustrated because she was risking her job.

I’d love to listen to a panel of erotica writers where they talk about why they place themselves in that genre, rather than in literary fiction. Might they say they do exactly the same things that literary fiction writers say they do? As I said, the lines are fine, and sometimes even controversial. We writers like the comfort of our own genre boundaries!

I’m curious what lovers of both genres would say about all of this. Feel free to drop me a line if you have an opinion!

Blurb

A story about an all-inclusive resort, the ghost of an unknown father, and the tragedies we can’t forget.

What’s it like when everyone’s dream vacation is your job? Ameera works at a Mexican all-inclusive resort, where every day is paradise — if “paradise” means endless paperwork, quotas to meet, and entitled tourists. But it’s not all bad: Ameera’s pastime of choice is the swingers scene, and the resort is the perfect place to hook up with like-minded couples without all the hassle of having to see them again.

Despite Ameera’s best efforts to keep her sideline a secret, someone is spreading scandalous rumours about her around the resort, and her job might be at stake. Meanwhile, she’s being plagued by her other secret, the big unknown of her existence: the identity of her father and why he disappeared. Unbeknownst to Ameera, her father, Azeez, is looking for her, and they both must come to terms with the reason why he abandoned her.

A moving new work from award-winning author Farzana Doctor, All Inclusive blurs the lines between the real world and paradise, and life and death, and reminds us that love is neither easily lost nor found.

Excerpt

Azeez

June 21, 1985, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

I’d been watching her for a full ten minutes. She sat at the table next to mine, reading a textbook entitled Understanding World Religions. It was the first day of summer and my second last in Canada.

She absent-mindedly played with her long auburn hair, her fingers moving like a magician’s, conjuring it into a single braid. She didn’t tie off the end, and her hair eventually resisted the arrangement and pulled itself free. I nibbled my honey cruller, and waited for her to notice me. For another ten minutes, I scripted my words. I was a chatty fellow back then, but it took immense bravery to speak to a woman I didn’t know. I chided myself: what did it matter if I sounded like a fool?

“That looks like interesting reading.”

She glanced up, and her cheeks blushed crimson. I loved when white girls did that. It just isn’t the same with brown girls; their pigment allows them to mute their embarrassment. The girl smiled and nodded and returned to her textbook, her lavender highlighter squeaking across the page. But I could tell she was no longer concentrating on the material.

About the Author

Farzana Doctor is the author of three novels: Stealing Nasreen, Six Metres of Pavement (which was a 2012 Lambda Literary Award and the 2017 One Book One Brampton winner) and the recently released All Inclusive which was a Kobo and National Post Best Book of the Year. Farzana was named one of CBC Books’ “Ten Canadian Women Writers You Need to Read Now”. She is also a Registered Social Worker with a part-time psychotherapy practice. She curates the Brockton Writers Series.

Website: www.farzanadoctor.com

Twitter: @farzanadoctor

Instagram: @farzanadoctor

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/farzanadoctor

Buy Links

Indie bookstore: http://www.charisbooksandmore.com/book/9781459731813

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/All-Inclusive-Farzana-Doctor/dp/1459731816/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1503271113&sr=8-6&keywords=all+inclusive

Book trailer:: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqTStZedIao

Book club guide: https://www.dundurn.com/sites/default/files/supplementary/AllInclusive-BookClubResource.pdf

Farzana Doctor will be awarding a $15 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner and a print copy of the book to 10 randomly drawn winners (US Only) via rafflecopter during the tour.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Review Tuesday: A Sport and a Pastime by James Salter (#erotic #ReviewTuesday #classic)

A Sport and a Pastime by James Salter

Farrar, Straus and Girard, 2006

I first became aware of A Sport and a Pastime while reading an interview with another author, about his favorite books. I’d never heard of either the book or its author, but the article offered high praise for both its lyrical style and its sensuality. I was intrigued enough to go buy a brand-new copy, something of a rarity for me. As an avid reader, as well as an erotic author, I was curious to see how well a self-styled literary novel handled the question of sex.

From the interview, I’d thought the book was relatively new. However, it turns out that A Sport and a Pastime was initially published way back in 1967. Furthermore, it is considered by many to be a modern classic. While searching for it on Amazon, I found Cliff Notes for students who were assigned the book in class!

The novel is narrated by a middle aged man whose name, if given, is unimportant. He’s an intellectual, a photographer, a writer perhaps. Certainly he’s a keen observer with a talent for vivid description.

Here is the first paragraph of the novel:

September. It seems these luminous days will never end. The city, which was almost empty during August, now is filling up again. It is being replenished. The restaurants are all reopening, the shops. People are coming back from the country, the sea, from trips on roads all jammed with cars. The station is very crowded. There are children, dogs, families with old pieces of luggage bound by straps. I make my way among them. It’s like being in a tunnel. Finally I emerge onto the brilliance of the quai, beneath a roof of glass panels which seems to magnify the light.

The narrator flees Paris to take up temporary residence in the house of friends, located in the provincial French town of Autun. His motives are a mystery. He seems melancholy, or at least moody, as he settles into the backwater and gets to know his neighbors.

Occasionally he returns to Paris, to participate in glittering, superficial cocktail or dinner parties with friends. At one such event, he meets Phillip Dean, an attractive young man from a wealthy family who has dropped out of Yale and is traveling, rather aimlessly, around Europe. A few weeks later, Phillip shows up at his door in Autun, driving a borrowed vintage car, and takes the narrator touring around the region. In a raucous club in Dijon, they meet Anne-Marie who is hanging out with a group of black men. She is obviously not innocent despite her long hair and sweet face. Later they encounter her again, in Autun, and Phillip begins an affair with her.

The nameless narrator exposes bits and pieces of Phillip’s and Anne-Marie’s relationship, chronicling their intense physical attraction, contrasting it with their difficulties in communication. Patrician Phillip barely speaks French. Anne-Marie comes from a poor, common family. Their expectations and assumptions could hardly be more different. Still, something luminous binds them.

The radio is playing. They undress in the winter daylight. Dean is a little embarrassed at his condition. His prick gets hard whenever he looks at her. He can’t help it. His chief desire is to raise her on it, exultant, to run her up into the sunshine, into the starlight, where she can see the world. They begin to dance a little, naked, in the early darkness, the music thin and foreign, their feet bare on the rug. Then they make love, she astride him, in the favorite manner of the Roman poets, as he informs her. He lies gazing up at her, his hands encircling her ankles. The rich smell of her falls over him. At the bottom of it all, his eyes lingering there, the mute triangle in which he is implanted.

How, though, can our narrator know these intimate details? He’s not present at these trysts, yet he describes them in achingly beautiful language. Is the love affair only in his imagination? He clearly identifies with young Dean, understands the younger man’s confusion and his overwhelming desire. Are these echoes of his own youth that he is projecting on strangers? Are Phillip and Anne-Marie merely figments of his melancholy nostalgia?

These questions are part of what defines A Sport and a Pastime as “literary”. The narrator admits his own unreliability:

Certain things I remember exactly as they were. They are merely discolored a bit by time, like coins in the pocket of a forgotten suit. Most of the details, though, have long since been transformed or rearranged to bring others of them forward. Some, in fact, are obviously counterfeit; they are no less important. One alters the past to form the future. But there is a real significance to the pattern that finally appears, which resists all further change.

Phillip’s and Anne-Marie’s relationship does not end well. We can anticipate this from the start. Youthful passion rarely endures in the best of circumstances. Meanwhile, Phillip is clearly too feckless and self-absorbed to return the love she obviously bears him. Though Anne-Marie wants to build a life with him, for him she is no more than the sport and pastime of the book’s title.

Nevertheless, the two young people share moments, days, and nights, that will burn forever in memory—theirs, the narrator’s and the reader’s. They tour France in Phillip’s borrowed sedan, visiting towns both renowned and forgotten, sleeping in cheap hotels (Phillip is perennially short on funds), eating in cafes, arguing, making love. They come from different worlds, but their bodies speak the same language. It is perhaps the only language they have in common.

Speaking of language, Salter’s prose is, as promised, exquisite: evocative, vivid, almost poetic in its concrete simplicity. The brief extracts above will give you some idea; nearly every page, I found myself pausing to savor some particularly lovely or apt passage.

The narrator, toward the end of the story, describes Phillip as a hero. I found this strange, though consistent with the narrator’s fascination with the young man. Dean hardly admirable, with his irresponsibility, callousness and lack of direction. His only heroic qualities reside in his unquestionable charm and his courage to engage life and love, without plan or intention.

The narrator, I believe, wishes he had these qualities. In fact, I think he’s a bit in love with Phillip Dean himself. He lingers on descriptions of Phillip’s sun-browned skin, his wiry body, his rampant erection. There are definite homoerotic echoes in this book. (I wonder if the Cliff Notes mention this?)

Highly recommended.