Halloween in the Castro

I'm thrilled to announce that one of my favorite stories, "Halloween in the Castro," is featured at the ERWA story galleries this month. The story was inspired by my experience at the famously wild San Francisco parade back in 1985. The parade has since been outlawed, but the memories remain!

The Big O: What's Not to Love?

What’s not to love about orgasms? The very word gives a supercharge to the title of an erotica anthology, which is why I’m very excited to have a story included in the hot new ebook, Stories of O: Orgasmic Erotica, edited by Alex Algren. The anthology includes works by Saskia Walker, Kristina Wright, A.D.R. Foret, Sinclair Sexsmith, Thomas Roche and yours truly. If you can’t resist—and why would anyone turn down orgasmic erotica?—Cleis is offering a special two-for-one bonus, buy the book, get another free!

My story, “The Big O,” is about a woman whose lover is away on a six-week meditation retreat. To while away the time, she decides to follow the “Sexercise Prescription” program that she discovered in a women’s magazine. The program promises to tone her sex muscles and improve orgasmic pleasure for both herself and her lover. I can’t resist a spoiler—it works!

I always have a lot of fun writing my erotic stories because I like to play around with our culture’s attitudes about sex, in this case the obsession with sex advice in women’s magazines. But the advice is not always obvious or silly. Unfortunately even in this more enlightened age, women especially are still conditioned to see an orgasm as something a lover “gives” you. Sure you can take charge when you’re alone, but with a partner his skill is what takes you over the top.

I’m glad to say I discovered, with the help of sex advice books over the years, that both women and men have a lot more fun in bed if they take charge of their own pleasure and their own orgasms. Figuring out what works for you, then sharing it with your partner, is crucial part of mutual satisfaction. My protagonist in the “The Big O” learns that the process of discovery can be just as enjoyable as the grand finale.

Here’s a brief excerpt from the story to give you a taste:

"I wouldn’t exactly call it an addiction.  Let’s just say the Sexercise Prescription was one workout routine I had no trouble fitting into my busy schedule.  In fact, as suggested, I did the official three-part series on my way to work and even squeezed in a few during boring meetings.  But I always waited until I got home to do the fourth part of the series.

After a few weeks, I’d settled in a very pleasurable routine.  First I stripped naked and knelt in the middle of the futon.  After I warmed myself up with a set of exercises, I’d close my eyes and take a deep breath.

Suddenly, I was no longer alone in my bedroom.

Instead I’m in a mirrored dance studio, with a dozen students kneeling in a circle around me, all eager to become strong inside just like me.  They are all nude, too, and I take a moment to admire their beauty.  Some have enviably curvy figures—lush hips and full bosoms that beg to be weighed in my hands.  Others are boyish with high, tight buttocks and perky breasts.  The diversity of grooming habits catches my attention, too.  A few wax themselves bare, while others trim their pubic hair in fanciful heart shapes.  One earth mother sports a luxuriant bush of curls I long to comb with my fingers.  I know it’s unprofessional to stare, but their nipples are my weakness, lined up before me like a buffet.  I imagine sucking the dainty raspberry bonbons of one student, then tonguing the generous mocha-colored demitasse saucers of her neighbor.

Discreetly swallowing down the drool, I lead the class efficiently through the warm-up exercises:  slow squeezes, butterfly wings and the elevator.

Squeeze and hold, ladies, squeeze and hold.

By the end our bodies are glistening with sweat, our eyes glow with delicious exertion.  Smiling, I announce a special reward for their hard work—a guest instructor who will help them get in touch with a new level of inner strength.

Adam steps from behind the folding screen in the corner, flourishing his magic brush.  He takes his place before the first student, a small woman whose pale skin flushes when she’s aroused.  Now her chest is covered in tell tale splotches of pink.

Gently I instruct her to lie back and spread her legs for the new teacher.

Brow furrowed in concentration, Adam leans forward and inserts his brush delicately into her vagina.  When he touches the tip to her inner labia, she moans.
'Let’s breathe with her and be one with the sensation,' I urge my other students, who stare with gaping mouths, transfixed by the intimate performance before them.

And so we all breathe together, our own pussies clenching in sympathy, as Adam traces the timeless circle of her flesh.  Yet, again, right before he reaches her clitoris, he stops.

Her eyes shoot open in dismay, but before she can protest, she climaxes, with a dainty, 'oh, oh, oh.'

The next student in line immediately lies back without prompting.  This lusty woman bellows when she comes. Some of the students are now rubbing themselves as they watch.  In this manner, Adam works his way around the circle, stroking each woman to ecstasy with his artist’s touch.

Of course, he saves me for last'

Read more here!

The Big Book of Submission: Remaking the Rules

It’s my great pleasure to be today’s blog tour stop for Rachel Kramer Bussel’s The Big Book of Submission: 69 Kinky Tales. This luscious book is a smorgasbord of tales from veteran eroticists and new voices, all less than 1200 words, but packing a powerful punch because you get nothing but “the good parts.” There is definitely something for every taste!

Fifty Shades of Grey has brought the appeal of D/s erotic play into the popular consciousness, but my story, “Perfect Gentleman,” illustrates that rules and restraints are not a fad, but a timeless component of eroticism. I’d argue that the reason themes of dominance and submission are so enthralling to us is that we humans are hierarchical creatures and the negotiation of power is a force as vital to us as water, food, and yes, sexuality.

I came of age in the era when sexual fantasy meant Penthouse letters and Nancy Friday’s My Secret Garden. In my understanding at the time, sexual fantasy was an escape from real life to a place where boundaries are broken so that all of our sexual desires came true in a blaze of pleasure. Think impromptu orgies in college dorms or the mailman popping in for a hot sexual encounter while making his appointed rounds. In that view, it wouldn’t “make sense” to fantasize about frustration or restriction or pain or power exchange. Everything was supposed to be free and equal and beautiful. Of course, I’ve long since come to appreciate the marvelous capacity of sexual fantasy to get the better of simplistic explanation.

What if, rather than merely a means to escape society’s restraints on sexual impulses, our creative minds could play with these rules, twist them around, intensify them, yet still bring us to a satisfyingly pleasurable outcome?

This is why I had so much fun writing “Perfect Gentleman,” indeed, I smiled the whole time! My characters play with old-fashioned rules of conduct for ladies and gentleman, turning propriety on its hypocritical head. I’ll leave you with a very proper excerpt to whet your appetite for a delightfully improper collection of tales:

She narrows her eyes, cat-like.  “Aren’t you going to try to kiss me again?”

“May I?”

She giggles, but opens her mouth to him easily enough.  Their tongues dance.  She makes mewing noises, like she always does when she’s ready to go at it.  Yet whenever he tries to touch her breast, she twists away.  She’s not wearing a bra, either, but some weird, rigid undergarment—a corset?  His penis throbs in his pants.

“Control yourself, please.  Remember that I’m a lady.” 

In spite of her protest, she’s the one who practically pulls him down on top of her. 

“No, please,” she whimpers as she lodges her thigh between his so she’s putting just the right pressure on his cock.

“Come on, let’s do it,” he begs.

“You know I’m saving myself for my honeymoon.”

Cut the crap, he almost blurts out.  Suddenly he understands those suckers in days gone by who proposed in the heat of the moment.  He’s so desperate he’d do anything to get inside her pants.  (Spoiler: the ending is happy for all concerned.)

Check out the rest of the virtual book tour here!

Slave Girls Tour: Passing the Final

When I saw the call for D.L. King's anthology Slave Girls: Erotic Stories of Submission, I knew I had to submit. Not just because D.L. King is an overall fantastic editor--which she is--but because ever since I met her in person at an erotica writers' salon in New York in 2008, she has inspired many idle daydreams and many of my favorite stories.

I've written about that fateful evening here (scroll to the bottom for the spicy part) on my blog before, but since a picture is worth a thousand words, I thought I'd repost my photo of D.L. King's toy closet.

I mean, we all hear about readers of Fifty Shades of Grey buying all the rope in the feed stores of Iowa (an urban legend, I believe), but Madam King is someone who not only talks the talk, she walks the walk. I'm all about authenticity in my writing, and I like that in my editors, too!

I've enjoyed following the Slave Girls blog tour (see a list of sizzling stops here), and am in special agreement with Victoria Behn's comment that submission is really about trust and ultimately gaining control of your pleasure. My story, "Passing the Final," definitely plays with the slippery exchange of power, where things are not always what they seem. Where you give away to get back, where submission to another's rules brings new self-mastery. As I wrote, I had a general path in mind for my tale, but the unfolding was as much a mystery to me as it was to my protagonist. The writing process was a submission of sorts with a very satisfying ending--being part of this wonderful project with so many amazing writers.

In that spirit of mystery and discovery, I'd like to whet your appetite with an excerpt from the story's opening:

From "Passing the Final"

She’d always done well on exams, but this one was different. There was no reviewing of notes or practice questions.  She was simply to prepare herself as if for a date she knew would end in bed—a little extra perfume in secret places and sexy underwear—and report to his house at nine o’clock sharp.  Of course she did exactly as she was told.

Her stomach clutched sweetly as his eyes flicked up and down her body. 

“You look lovely.  Now go into the bedroom, take off your dress, and put on the robe on the bed.  Then lie down and wait for me.”  His tone was as neutral as a beige ceiling, but her pulse leaped.  This was how their games always began.

His bedroom was illuminated only by two thick, round candles arranged like an altar on the nightstand.  A satin robe lay shimmering in the golden shadows across the pillow.  She hung her dress in his closet, kicked off her shoes, and slipped the robe over her lacy, bride-white bra, matching thong and thigh-high stockings.  She paused to check her reflection in the closet mirror.

Don’t be afraid.  The Master said you were ready.

He hadn’t elaborated exactly what she was ready for, but she would find out soon enough....

Get yourself a copy of Slave Girls, and so will you--I know you're ready!

National Write Whatever the Hell You Want Month!

In my February column at ERWA, "Will You Take the NWWTHYWM Challenge?" I invited everyone to participate in an informal month-long indulgence to... write whatever the hell you want for a whole month.

Fellow Writers, that’s one whole month when you can write whatever the hell you want without feeling you have to meet some external standard of worth or profitability. Your ending doesn’t have to be happy or edgy or ambivalent--it can be as many of these things as you can manage. The protagonist doesn’t have to be attractive or likeable or complex or sexy. There can be as much or as little sex as you like and the length can be “too” long or short. The taboos—and isn’t it interesting that supposedly transgressive erotic expression has more publishers’ rules than any other genre?--need not apply because publication and pleasing someone else is not the goal here.

Partially inspired by November's National Novel Writing Month, NWWTHYW Month is somewhat different in that there are no rules or goals for output, unless you set them yourself because... the whole point is to do whatever you want! I had a lot of people say they were interested in trying a month of expectation-free creativity, so we're on for March!

With the help of ERWA blog mistress, Lisabet Sarai, we've set up a NWWTHYWM page where anyone who feels like it can weigh in about the ups and downs and ins and outs of writing whatever the hell they want. Please join us and have some fun!