MFM: Excerpt from Weight of Duty

As mentioned in my last post, Uniform Behaviour is newly out, and we're all doing our best to promote it, so we can make piles of money for Help for Heroes! (and well maybe a little for us hard-working writer and editor types, too!) In an effort to entice you to do just that, I've posted a little tease from my story in the anothology, The Weight of Duty. Enjoy!

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Once we managed to find it, McNally's turned out to be a really nice place. It was only half full, which I had been led to believe would be impossible to find during Tattoo week, and they had a surf and turf on special for only fifteen bucks, which included an enormous whole lobster and quite possibly the most delicious steak I had ever tasted. We each got one, and a local beer called Keith's Pale Ale which turned out to be really good, too.

Lisa was really good company. In between her smart-assed comments—which, to be honest, were starting to give me one hell of a hard-on—she told me a little bit about what it was like to play in a pipe band, and how to pretend to be listening to someone when you've get heavy-duty earplugs in to preserve your sanity. In exchange, I told her a little bit about being on the gun running team, and explained that “Gunner” wasn't actually some amazing title you got for sniping enemies, but was really just the equivalent of a private in the artillery. To her credit, if she was disappointed to hear it, it didn't show.

She let me pay, which was a nice surprise, and once we made it out of the restaurant, she used the front of my shirt to pull herself up on her toes and me down low enough for her to suck me into a mind-blowing hold-nothing back devour every inch of me kiss that left me dizzy. She tasted like steak and beer, which was really fucking hot, and she smelled like lobster, which was, well...not. So did I, for that matter, and I suggested going back to my bunk to clean the fishy-smell off us. Thompson would be out getting shit-faced, as was his daily ritual, and wouldn't be back until at least 2 am, I promised.

I won rock, paper, scissors and got the first shower. The cheap motel bathroom was kind of dingy, but the water was hot and clean and fresh and felt amazing pelting my naked skin. I knew enough to bring my own body wash with me instead of hoping that the dives the put us up in provide tiny little bars of crap soap, and the rich lather on my cock and balls was almost one stimulation too many after an evening out with Lisa.

I was still debating whether a quick jerk-off was a wise move considering how close I was to coming already when she decided to join me. Clothed, Lisa was pretty fucking hot. Naked, she was like a miniature goddess or something. Every inch of her skin was the same creamy peach, there wasn't a tan line in sight. Hard pink little nipples pointed straight up from tits that were just the right size to fit in a hand each with nothing left over, which I didn't waste a minute doing, getting her as lathered and wet as I was. She didn't shave her pubes, which was a relief to me since I always felt like a creepy old dude whenever I fucked someone who was clean-shaven down there. They were blond, which explained the blue eyes, and she purred like a kitten when I soaped them up.

She pulled in close to me under the pelting water, and took my cock in her one hand, grinning up at me when she produced an unwrapped condom in the other. I leaned down to kiss her, then, guiding her arms up around my neck so I could roll it on. As nice as her hand had felt, I needed more than that right then, and I reached around to cup her ass in my hands—oh my fuck she had the most perfectly grabbable ass there ever was—and lifted her onto my cock. We kissed again, and she wrapped her legs around my waist and writhed against me like crazy but at these angles, this was just a tease. Don't get me wrong—having her moulded to me like that felt really fucking good, but there was no changing the fact that the lower half of my cock was pinned between our bodies instead of buried in hers, which is what we were both starving for.

Uniform Behaviour on sale now!

It's here, it's here, it's finally here! Uniform behaviour, which includes my short story "The Weight of Duty" is out for sale now! The image above takes you to the Amazon store if, like me, you're a kindle addict, or see the release announcement here for other formats!

...isn't the army boy on the cover PRETTY? 

MicroFiction Monday Inspiration: Butch

If you've read any of this blog before, you know that I'm often looking for new inspiration to put in my less-than-stellarly-regular weekly mini-smut Microfiction Monday posts. Alison Tyler's delicious little “Flash Fuck Me” contestlings are a good example of inspiration that I use regularly. Today, I'm looking somewhere a bit different.

If you haven't heard of the amazing Sinclair Sexsmith of the Sugarbush Chronicles fame, then I suggest you remedy that situation. She is an amazing writer, educator, activist, and editor and she's got a new project. It's unnamed so far and the title is a secret, but what's not a secret is her first call in the project: Symposium #1 ~ What is butch? How do you define butch? What do you love about it? What does it mean to you?

I am not stereotypically butch. I am, even while quite overweight, shaped like a friggin' hourglass with extra curves to spare. I'm easily identifiable as female, even when I'm wearing a suit and my hair is 1” long. I have a lot of butch tendencies, though. My partner has been known to say on several occasions, in response to people who can't figure me out that “you just have to understand that she thinks like a man.” Despite my lack of outward masculinity, I have a love affair with the term butch. I think that every person alive has a masculine and a feminine side, and I'm incredibly turned on by people who ride that line between either extreme, be they femme men, butch women, genderqueers, androgynes, or anything else in that lovely big wide stripe of rainbow colour in the middle of the gender spectrum. Butches, though, are the ones most guaranteed to make me melt with their deliciousness.

I especially love it when butch is an expression of sexual abandon. Let's face it, there are a lot of genetically female people out there who don't fit the only two common labels for sexually free women: slut or whore. But damn are they ever cads, Romeos, Dun Juans, lotharios, Casanovas, or philanderers. Of course, butches are often charming, courteous gentlemen, it's just that I'm magnetically attracted to the rogues.

To me, a butch is anyone who lets the masculine side of their personality out to play, and I hope that some of them come out to play with me. And thank the gods for the butches who make me smile every time I see them walk down the street, reminding us all that gender isn't dichotomous, and it sure as hell isn't defined by the random luck of the draw that configured our chromosomes to be shaped a certain way.

In celebration of butches, and of the eloquent Mr Sexsmith's new project, this week's Microfiction's objet d'amour is deliciously butch. I hope you enjoy it!

Microfiction Monday: Trussed

Okay, I know. It's Thursday, but um... Thursday is the new Monday, right?  RIGHT? I finally have my computer back in my happy little hands, and I shall celebrate by giving you some smut. Voila!

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Trussed

      I know your type. You clean up nice, and you turn the charm up to 11 for everyone in the room in a skirt and heels, used to having them eat out of your hand. And why not? You're gorgeous, and smooth, and generous both with compliments and drinks. It's just your bad luck that I decided to wear the heels tonight instead of my shit-kicking stompers. Well, I say bad luck, but if we're being perfectly honest, you're looking a bit flush. I wonder— if I plucked your packer out of your jeans right now, how slick would I find the base? 

       Damn. I love it when you growl like that. Nothing like it. I could sit back and watch you struggle and fight all day, as long as I left myself a few breaks to get myself off. You look just beautiful all trussed up like that. Especially when you shoot me that look, yes that one: lust and fury and pain, all at once. Even more than I like that angry hiss when my belt hits again across the lovely curve of the back of your shoulder. I know my way around a knot, you know, you're just going to tire yourself out.

      If I let you know how delighted I am with you right now with a chuckle, will I get another growl from you? I hope so. And yet, you're still so far way from the words that will make it all stop. Machismo. I love that about you, too, my boy. Not to worry, I'm in no rush—I'm sure you'll express your regret at calling me a “little lady” sooner or later. If you want to know...I'm cheering for later.

A Quick Update and some Pretty!

Well, my computer is still off being repaired and it has kidnapped all of my writing with it. Yes, I do now see how much less annoying this would be if I'd backed everything up online. *sigh*

I do have some pretty for you, though!

November's issue of Safeword magazine is out with my story in it, and wow is it pretty!

Check it out here!

Micro Fiction Monday : Yeah, I'm a coffee-porn addict

You heard right. Another bite-sized bit of smut devoted to coffee. 

Double-double was published last night at Every Night Erotica, which means that it's the featured story until a new one comes on tonight!

Here's a little teaser:

Anyone who’s lived in a small town in the Maritimes will tell you that in order to get all of the most recent dirt on the local residents, you need look no further than the nearest Tim Horton’s. Since Eric had lived in most of them, he knew the score. Today’s topic of discussion—and the reason that he was here—was Melissa Thornton.
He was careful to prop a free trader rag in front of him while he nursed his double-double and honey cruller, hoping that to anyone casually looking his way, he appeared to be minding his own business. instead of actively eavesdropping on any bit of gossip the locals were willing to provide on the woman. While they proposed the scenarios, his imagination was free to fill in the much-wanted details.
“All’s I’m saying is that there’s a reason she never comes to the church breakfasts and bake sales. She’s too busy getting sugar from her flavour of the week!”
Forced chuckles recognized the weak pun.
“You guys remember last March, when she was having her living room redone? The painter’s van parked right there at the bottom of her driveway—didn’t even try to hide that he was there three days, and never went home at night. I think the reason she gets all her work brought in from the city is that she hires them from an escort service!”
“Do escorts do housework? I think I want one, too!”
Eric thought of naked, paint covered bodies rolling around together on the tarp-covered floor of Melissa’s living room and the chatter around him faded to unintelligible noise.
read the rest of the story here

MicroFiction Monday: exceprt from a WIP

Hey guys. So I have been writing like a maniac this week. Unfortunately, none of it is a microfic. I don't want to deprive you of the secksy, though, so here's a snippet from one of my WIPs. (WIPes? WsIP?)

Anyway, here it is, enjoy!

Kris leaped back to the couch, and knelt on the cushions, straddling Anne’s lap. She reached forward, and cupped the smaller woman’s face with both hands, murmuring against her lips between soft, loving kisses.

“I don’t care. I haven’t seen you in three weeks and I missed you. So I want my baby, and I want her now.”

Anne moaned and arched up as high as Kris would allow her, sinking her hands into her lover’s short hair, and managing to say, somewhere in between desperate, hungry kisses:

“Mmm... say that again.” She pulled herself up so that her own much larger tits were crushed up against Kris’ perfectly hand-sized firmer ones. She moaned and sighed into the kisses, each time her nipples rubbed against her lover’s chest sent ripples of electric pleasure right to her cunt. She suddenly wished that all those layers of clothes weren’t in between them, but she was too horny to pull away from Kris’ kisses and fondlings to get undressed yet.

Kris slid her hands in between their close packed bodies to cup her lover’s breasts with her hands, tracing teasingly light circles on her nipples with her thumbs. Pulling away from Anne’s mouth, she ran her tongue along her jawline to her earlobe, tugging it in between her teeth, nibbling and sucking on it, breathing out the words in between nibbles.

“I.” She trapped her lover’s nipples between thumb and forefinger, rolling them, and rubbing them against the rough fabric of her blouse. Anne arched her back and moaned in appreciation.

“Want.” She thrust her hips, pinning Anne’s ass to the very back of the couch, grinding her crotch against her lover’s, humping her fully clothed. Anne’s grip tightened in Kris’ hair, moaning and sighing in between shuddering gasps for breath.

“You.” She bit down hard on Anne’s earlobe, in just the way that always drove her wild, picking up the pace of her thrusting and grinding against the redhead’s hips. Anne cried out loudly as teeth dug sharply into the soft flesh of her ear, stifling the loud noise halfway through with a gasp and a shudder. She’d have to be more careful: they were still in an open building on a school night. It was getting to be very hard, though, if she had to wait much longer to be properly fucked, she’d wind up coming anyway.

“Now.” She let go of one of Anne’s nipples, and used the free hand against the couch back to propel herself backward, landing on the floor, on her knees before her lover. Her free hand ran up Anne’s thigh, under her skirt, until her thumb ran along her crotch, sliding slickly along the thin strip of her very, very wet panties.

MicroFiction Monday: Special Coming Out Day Edition!

Today's MicroFiction Monday is double-dedicated!

Once in honour of Coming Out Day and once to the FABULOUS swties, who entered my contest not once, but TWICE! This is the result of her second entry. Just a reminder that the contest has been extended indefinitely, so if you have a list of three things that you'd just LOVE to see in an erotic microfiction, post them here and one Monday soon, you will!

And so, without further ado: 

A Spoon, a Knife and a Fork

I was asking too much of her, too soon, I knew. Honestly, I shouldn't have brought it up at all, but it seemed like she was at a crucial fork in the road of her life. I worried that if I didn't show her that I was willing to go with her down whichever path she chose, she might make a choice out of fear of losing me, instead of what was best for her. I wanted her to be able to say no, and have me right here to hold her and love her and tell her that was alright. That's exactly what happened, too.

My one. My love. She looked so perfect sitting there on her knees at my feet, wearing nothing but the double-linked sterling silver chain that I had put on her. The padlock that could keep it locked there forever had been open on my palm until she made her decision and wrapped her hands around mine, closing it away again, for now. I could feel a tremble in her hands when she released mine and moved to undo the clasp of the chain at the back of her neck.

“Not yet,” I whispered. “We still have an hour together before we both have to get ready to go to work, wear it for me until then.”

She looked surprised, and then relieved as it sunk in. This wasn't an all-or-nothing ultimatum, how could it be? I'd rather lose an arm than lose being able to be close to this part of her. This was an offer, and nothing more. I pulled her up onto the bed with me, and wrapped her up in my arms, spooning her. Holding her like this, skin against skin, with my bare breasts crushed soothingly against the creamy smoothness of her naked back, everything felt right with the world. If we weren't both so keyed up, we might have dozed off and wound up being very, very late for work. As it was, the hour passed by far too quickly. When I nudged her to show her the time, she sighed with the regret that I felt.

“I don't want to take it off,” she murmured into the pillow. She had interlaced the fingers of her left hand with mine and held them far enough away from us so that she could better admire the matching white gold of our wedding bands. I was struck yet again at how lucky I was that someone as amazing as she was would agree to marry me in the first place.

“Yes, you do.” I regretted saying it, but it was true.

“Okay, I do, or at least I need to. But I also don't.”

“I know, love. It's okay, I understand. There's coming out and then there's coming out. Being gay almost makes us social celebrities in the circles we travel. Being leather and gay might just make us pariahs. I won't push you, I just needed you to know that I will be here, and waiting, with the offer still standing when you're ready to take that step. I have something for you.”

I nudged her until she let me up, and pulled open the bedside drawer where I'd hidden the pendant I'd made her. It was shaped as a lower-case lambda.

“It's the blade from the first cutting I ever did on you. I melted it down while it still had a drop of your blood on it. This, you can wear when you can't wear the chain, as a reminder that the lock will always stay with me, and belong to you, until you choose to have it locked on your throat. I love you Sarah. I love the beauty of your submission to me, and I will never, ever ask you not to give it to me, for as long as you choose to.”

She cried, and I joined her. We kissed, and I was walking on clouds. I was the luckiest woman in the world. We came out as a couple on this day two years ago. Last year, on the same day, we were married. Maybe, a year from now, we will come out as something even more, but not today. Today, we will just celebrate our luck, and our joy.

EBook Review: Daron's Guitar Chronicles Volume 1

Daron's Guitar Chronicles Volume 1 is the first 40 chapters of an enormous body of work by the same name that has been released regularly now as a web serial at http://daron.ceciliatan.com. I confess to being a less than religious reader of the serial there. Daron was just the right age on 1986 to have been an older sibling or cousin of mine, the kind whose room I would sneak into at night to steal his cassettes and dub them so that I could listen to whatever he thought was cool and be just like him.

I love getting the whole immersive experience, so I will occasionally take a break from my regular reading or writing and take in a whole chunk of chapters at once, being sure to click on all the youtube links so that I can be musically transported back to the 80s of my tweendom while I read. When I saw that they first 40 were available in ebook format (and for FREE too!) I just HAD to have a copy, but found myself missing the accompaniment. (Each chapter is the title of the song, and in the web serial there is a Youtube link to them. This is obviously not the case for the ebook!)

I found a way to fix that problem, though. See, I put all those chapter titles in a playlist, so that I could timetravel back to the 80s while I watch it unfold in the story. You can't honestly tell me you're surprised at this.

Ebook Review: Daron's Guitar Chronicles Volume 1

The strength of Cecilia Tan's fiction has always been her characters. She can write delightfully wicked villains that you can't help but love to hate. She can pen a cad with the best of them. But in my opinion, she shines the brightest when her she writes a character who is simply heartwrenchingly sweet, especially when that character seems to hope beyond hope that this wasn't true of them.

The protagonist of this story is one of those characters. Rock guitarists are supposed to be thick-skinned and effortlessly charming cads. Daron isn't this at all: Daron is...well, he's real. It's 1986 and Daron isn't even 20 yet and he's already well on his way to being a future rock god. Unfortunately instead of being a womanizing sweet-talker he's an averagely awkward 19-year old who just happens to be gay (even though he can't even bring himself to say the word.) He doesn't know anything yet about who he really is, or what he needs in a partner, or even if he wants a partner at all. All he knows is that in his business “faggy,” “queer,” and “gay” are the most viciously insulting words there are.

There is a fantastic scene early on the in the book in which Daron is walking around the East Village in NYC with Carynne, a girl his age who is desperately trying to sleep with him while he is desperately trying to come up with excuses not to without confessing that he's gay:

***I kept my own eyes ahead, trying not to stare at the graffiti splashed across the steps ("Queer By Choice") trying not to hear the conversation of the two men coming the other way, trying to shut it all out. My hands felt damp as they brushed against my jeans. Everything here was a signal, a secret handshake, a subliminal image, and I wondered how long it would take Carynne to see right through me. What would I do that would give myself away? Even I had no way of knowing.***

The author does a fantastic job throughout the book of generating empathy for her lead character without provoking pity. We as readers can feel his hurt and his confusion, and share his victories and regrets. Being gay is an integral part of who Daron is, but Ms Tan doesn't fall into the trap of allowing his sexuality to become his identity entire. He is a well-rounded sympathetic and delightful character in a charming, at times poignantly sad but always engaging book. Rock on, Daron, rock on!

Rating: 5/5 Happy Rainbow Flags!

Book Review: Bad Ass

I must begin by planting my tongue firmly in my cheek and saying that someone made a giant grammatical error in the book's title by placing a space between 'Bad' and 'Ass.' This book may be all about asses but they are beautiful, hot, sexy, wonderful to play with and fuck asses, but there's nothing bad about them. If, however, the authors in the anthology meant to name their collection "Badass," well, I'd have no qualms about that one. The authors—and their sexy stories of anal play—definitely fit that bill.

When reading a collection of anal sex short stories, you go in with certain expectations. You expect something sexy, a little bit dirty, and probably expect to find something a little rawer, maybe more aggressive and naughtier than your standard “straight sex” or even oral sex anthology. What you don't tend to expect (or at least, I didn't) is a set of stories that are sharp, smart, sensitive, sometimes silly, that explore the power that people can and do have over one another when they begin any kind of sexual relationship, and that challenges societal gender norms. Whew! It must be that beautiful rolling Ssss at the end of “Bad Ass..ss” that has got me in such a sibilant mood.

Perhaps if I were feeling sssmarter this morning, looking at the list of contributing authors might have given me a hint that I was in for more than just your average plotless whackoff book. There are five beautiful, intelligently written stories in this collection, and since I loved each one of them for different reasons, I just have to give each one its due.

I don't know why, but I have a soft spot for melancholy in my smut. Maybe because it allows for such dramatic contrast when the sexual energy comes into full swing. That's certainly the case for Kristina Lloyd's bittersweet piece, Dark Side of the Moon. This is the first story of Lloyd's that I've had the pleasure of reading ,and she's definitely now on my “to read” list. Dark Side of the Moon takes the concept of a lifelong partnership drifted apart and treats it with sensitivity, intelligence, and lots and lots of heart. Fans of hot sex scenes don't fret, though because where sweet and melancholy reign early on in the tale, the lack of steamy anally inspired sexiness is made up for by the end, I promise!

DISCLAIMER: Do not read Alison Tyler's Pegged while in your office, or your kitchen, study, sewing room, or garage. You might want to consider steering clear of doorknobs, rounded handles, pegboards, large utensils and small bottles, too. Trust me on this, you'll end up perverting half your hardware and being distractedly horny in those rooms for a long while afterward. Pegged maintains a frantically lustful pace throughout the whole story, and by the end of it, you might just be asking your copy of this story “was it good for you, too?” My book answered 'yes' to me, and the last line, which I will not repeat here so as not to give anything away, had me grinning like a hyena. Pegged is definitely making it to my 'I need to get turned on in a hurry' re-reading list.

Didn't every bi and straight woman at one point in her life dream of snagging herself a hot, macho yet sensitive at the same time cowboy? The girl who's got Jax Baynard's Night at the Rodeo star in her sights has certainly decided that she wants one right this second, for hot n dirty out in the back alley butt sex right this minute! She's not exactly the type of arm candy that big macho guys tend to want to be seen with though, and our hero certainly proves his sensitive side by being able to say 'fuck it' to what other people might say about her, and 'yes, yes, hell yes!' to what their mutual lust tells them they want to do to each other instead. Lucky readers, because that means we get to voyeuristically enjoy the whole sexy, sexy show. And boy is it hot. One thumb up, but only because the other hand is um.... busy right now. A second, exhausted thumb up will come later, I promise.

Power play and lots of delicious, well-written and hot as hell anal sex. Win-win, in my book. Sophia Valenti's Power Plays had me purring from beginning to end (and possibly drooling a bit, too.) It also reminded me how much fun it can be to have two equally strong and naturally dominant characters rolling in the hay together, so to speak. Hot, hot, hot!

Sommer Marsden is a woman after my own heart. I don't know who let her in on my fetish for storytelling as a sex toy, but it still wasn't fair for her to use it so openly, thus guaranteeing that I would be incapable of disliking her story. Not that I think I would anyway, since like I said, a hint of melancholy for some reason makes porn attractive to me. I generally don't associate 'anal sex smut' with sweet, sensitive, gentle and loving, but Sommer pulls it off beautifully. I fell in love for her characters in this story, and found myself cheering them on the whole way through. Admittedly, this story turned my heart on more than it did my naughty bits, but that was okay too, because my hand was pretty tired by the time I got to story five.

Bumping Up the Contest!

For the sake of some fantastic new readers (thank you thank you thank you for reading!) I am bumping my microfiction contest, and calling for more submissions. On those Mondays when I don't have a new microfiction being posted on an affiliate site (like Trollop with a Laptop and Circlet) I will be combing the below comments for ideas that strike my fancy, and then dedicating a MFM piece to you, my amazing, fantastic, and delightful readers! If you haven't entered yet, and would like to, the details are below. If you have, and I haven't written yours yet, not to worry, I will eventually! And if you *have* entered and had your story written and dedicated to you, there is no reason that you couldn't submit another idea, if the fancy strikes you!  I can't wait to see what you all come up with!

Hugs and virtual love to you all,

-Mad




I was lurking around Circlet Press' lovely Livejournal today, because it's always a fun place to waste some time. They host the occasional author chat with their published authors. This week's featured author is Kal Cobalt who I hadn't previously heard of, but appears to be full of much awesomeness.

During the author chat, Kal's set up a contest, and asked for readers to submit a list of 3 things that they'd like to see in a story. The winner gets a story written with those things in it, cool eh?

This is a game that I LOVE to play as a writer, so I thought I'd see what happened if I posted the same type of offer. (apologies, and many thanks, Kal!)

So here it is: anyone who posts a comment here with three things (as specific or arbitrary as you like) that they would like to see in a story has a chance to see those ideas put to fiction in an upcoming Microfiction Monday!

Microfiction Monday : For Fulani

In April, I posted a contest that promised the winner(s) a MFM entry based on their list of three things they'd like to see me put into a short story. Now that MFMs are back after such a long break (shame, shame, Mad!) I am finally going to make good on my promise.

Winner number one is the marvelous Fulani who, despite the unfortunate use of a Whartenburg wheel and a feather for an avatar (two of the most despicable things to ever have stumbled upon creation) is a kinky smutter of no small talent for Excite and Pink Flamingo. Really, you should check it out!

This entry actually inspired a 7000-word paranormal D/s story that I just finished. The MFM story below is purely fictional wishful thinking on my part about its first beta reading.

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A Raw Onion, A Book, and a Green and Purple Dream

Kel got the spanish onion from the freezer. On top of being a fantastic practice dummy for all my rope bondage inventions, she was a font of such wisdoms as “freeze an onion for thirty minutes and it won't make you cry.” I, on the other hand, stick to only one wisdom—surrounding myself with friends who can make me look smart so I don't actually have to be.

Sure enough, the onion was sliced tearlessly. I was supposed to be re-braiding Kel's waist piece, but mostly I was watching her dance around the kitchen as she prepared our lunch. She was wearing the black leotard she always wore to my “brainstorming over her body” sessions, and shiny white nylon rope was still coiled around her wrists and ankles, and crisscrossed over her black spandex-shrouded torso. Gift wrapped. The problem with working with such a delicious-looking practice partner was that I always wanted to unwrap and play with her before we were done.

There was a twirl, a wiggle, a flourish and a mandatory moment of me cheering and applauding as her lunch creation was revealed. Despite the fact that the accolades were for her performance and not the food, lunch was pretty fabulous. She'd taken ground turkey, feta cheese, kalmata olives and spices and turned them into burger art. Served on a ciabatta bun with thick onion slices, spinach leaves and—because I'm only capable of straying so far from familiarity—ketchup, they were beyond a doubt the tastiest burgers I'd ever tasted.

Kel snatched the file folder from the table in between our place settings with an excited “ooooh, is this it?”

I answered with a glare and pointed at my mouth which was full of burgery goodness. She took the hint and started to read the first few pages of the story to herself.

Yet another of Kel's sundry talents was that she was a phenomenal beta reader—she had a perfectionist's eye for typos and grammatical errors, and always knew how to couch the more...constructive...criticisms with encouraging praise. When she volunteered to help me copyedit my short stories, I promised her that the tenth one she read would have a protagonist based on her. This was story number ten, and all she knew about it was that “her” character's name was Colleen, and that she was somehow supernatural.

She was on page four by the time I'd finished lunch.

“Okay, I have to know: this cool superpower I have in the dream sequence, the one that lets me sense people's emotions as colours and, you know, taste them and stuff—do I get to keep that when I wake up?”

I grinned. “Forever and ever, bay-bee.”

“Neat. So, this guy here, he's all purple. What does that mean?”

“Purple's spite. Tastes like slightly fermented plums.”

“Ah. And green is envy, I suppose?”

“Please. Give me credit for not being that cliché. I didn't actually use green, but in my mind it's not envy, it's hope. Probably tastes like pesto or something.”

“You and your worlds you create. I bet you've got a whole mental rainbow catalogue of colour and flavour combinations that don't appear anywhere in your story.”

I held up my hands in self-defense. “I plead the whatever-it-is we have instead of a fifth amendment.” Stupid Law and Order ensuring that the entire Canadian population know more about American law than our own.

“Alright, fine. If you won't answer that one at least tell me what my character is, for crying out loud! I'm on page five and you still haven't revealed it. Is she a psionic, a robot, a witch, a vampire, what?”

“Nope, none of those.”

I stretched out the pause with a grin. “She's a were-coyote.”

“A were-coyote?”

Kel paused to give that adequate consideration, then she nodded.

“Sexy. I like it!”

I fucking love my friends.

Yup. Pimpin out my blog for free swag....

...but it's free paranormally smutty swag for you, so that should buy me a pass, right? The contest linked at the bottom of this page is giving a way a yoooge stack of free stuff. I eat through books at a crazyfast rate. If you do too, why not see if you can add a new author to your favourites by maybe getting a free book of theirs to try out? I mean, it's free, right?


Win a copy of A Safe Harbor by Moira Rogers!
Find out how it all began...
During the bite of the Great Depression, sole female dominant Joan Fuller struggles against the rise of cruelty among her alpha counterparts. The men tolerate her interference--until she breaks from the pack and allies with a witch and a vampire. Now the Boston alpha intends to bring them all forcibly back into the fold--and teach her a lesson she may not survive.
Seamus Whelan and his werewolf bootleggers intend to retire from smuggling and savor their fortune, but first they must do a favor for an old friend: escort some female wolves to safety. An easy job, if their leader wasn't a prim ex-debutante with enough power to challenge Seamus himself. Chance makes them allies; powerful need makes them lovers.
Together, they have the opportunity to build a sanctuary for their kind, but first they must free themselves from Joan's past, and the powerful man who would see her destroyed.

If you, too like things that are free, and wanna win a digital copy of A Safe Harbor, leave a comment here and next Monday, right before the next microfiction installment, I'll draw a winner at random and poof, you're one book richer! (and yes, books are a valid form of wealth. They are!)

This contest is a part of Moira Rogers' & Vivian Arend's Fall Frenzy Event. For your chance to win books, gift certificates, ereaders and more, visit http://www.moirarogers.com/contests/

Eeee! A REVIEW!

Okay, I admit it. I'm vain. In an effort to find something that I'd lost into the vast unknown of cyberspace, I googled myself, and then I found I just couldn't stop looking. During this moment of extreme narcissism, I stumbled upon this snippet of review by Tori Rebel for my story in Please, Ma`am:

"Mr. February" by Madeline Elayne is by far the most endearing and romantic story in the book, which is a nice change in an erotica compilation, especially that in the D/s genre. It tells the story of the All-American guy-next-door husband who discovers his submissive self and though afraid, presents his desires to his loving wife, expecting the worst, but he is pleasantly surprised.

It seems I enjoy hearing nice words said about what I write even more than nice words about me!

 I'm all grinny now, hee. The rest of the review is here

And of course the book (which really does rock, by the way. The stories in it are delicious!) is available here:

Please, Ma`am

Ebook Review: The Lord of Misrule, by Kannan Feng

Ebook Review: The Lord of Misrule by Kannan Feng

I feel I must start with a disclaimer. I began reading this book with a very strong bias toward liking it before I even cracked its virtual cover. Not because I already knew that I liked Kannan's writing style (though this is true), or because I had already read and enjoyed the short story that became the basis for the novella (also true.) I was biased toward this book because it's my kink on the pages. Despite obvious anatomical incongruities between me and the protagonists, I'm most deeply attracted to pairings (or multiplings) on the queerer end of the spectrum, and a blend of sadomasochism and power play blended with a nice, sharp edge of pushing and seeking for intangible limits pushes ALL my buttons. So needless to say, this novella turned me on, and isn't that the holy grail of erotica? Honestly, though, I really couldn't say how someone whose tastes were more contrary might view it.

I found Lord of Misrule delightful. Rich, privileged and brilliant scholar Verity is the type of character that you can cheer to see taken down a notch or seven with no misgivings, and the choice of his servant—cool, unreadable and ever-so-proper Iskander—as the one to bring on the taking down brings about many opportunities (well taken, I might add) to play with the more interesting aspects of power exchange as a sexual mechanism.

The relationship between the two of them is in a constant state of flux that appeals to me greatly. Verity struggles with the fact that his wants and needs when it comes to Iskander are contrary to his normal role in a relationship, and the intensity of his feelings for him are often on the edge of becoming just too overwhelming to handle. I'm happy to say that he does manage to eventually crack that implacable shell of Iskander's. Once or twice, a little bit, at least. The emotional honesty with which the characters are written, especially Verity's struggles, allow the reader to identify with, and even like, a character who has more than a few flaws.

I found the writing style flowing, easy to follow, and paced at such a rate that I wanted to keep turning e-reader-pages until I'd run out. As is the case with many e-books, especially in the erotica genre, there seems to be a slightly higher concentration of copyediting errors than their paper counterparts, but it passes the litmus test that I use to measure such errors with ease: never did I find myself being wrenched out of the book, or otherwise unpleasantly distracted by their occasional blips.

A solid 4.5 stars (or erect nipples, if you prefer.)

Highly recommended to anyone whose idea of good smut involves a bit of the queer and kinky.

Microfiction Monday (oh yeah, baby, it's back!): Stiletto

Fear.

Logically, I know that this has nothing to do with her hurting me, and everything to do with fear. Logically, I'm perfectly safe here.

When you're kneeling bound and blindfolded in the middle of the floor, though, logic can just go fuck itself. My body, not my logical mind, rules my emotions right now, and my body is afraid.

I'm sweating and shivering at the same time—big, convulsive tremors that seem to shake the whole room. A noise behind me, the soft metallic click that I know so well, tells me that she's just drawn the stiletto that she keeps in the sheath on her wrist. A wave of terror—and an equally powerful rush of arousal—courses through me, so unopposable that I'm shocked into absolute stillness. Heart in my throat, I strain for any sound that will tell me where she is.

I bask in the agony of not knowing when I'll feel her next touch, or the cool menace of the blade in her hand. Will she press the flat of that magnificent blade to my lips to kiss? Cut my bonds with it? My clothes? Or will this be the one time, the first time, that its razor-sharp edge parts flesh instead of fabric?

Entirely at her mercy, I wonder how long she can keep me from knowing where she is, or what she intends to do.

Forever, I hope. This is my favourite part.

What a Summer!

Wow, I have been a very, very bad blogger this past season.

Let me try and catch you up.

My brain liquification took far longer than planned because of some dosage issues with the medications causing the mind-goo in the first place. Eventually, though, the fog started to lift and I even started to write (a bit!) again, mostly for the very very special cause of Alison Tyler's Smut Marathon.

...and then shit happened, as the old saying goes.  This summer was one of much family turmoil in many shapes and sizes finished off by a much-needed vacation in the internets-less wilderness.

But for now at least I am back, and actually occasionally writing in complete and gramatically correct sentences (can you tell that my brain was still partly gooey in the first round of the marathon? Bah, sentence structure is just for old fogies, right?)

My long list of family emergencies began just before round three of the marathon, when I had to very regretfully bow out. Coming up next, though, just for you dear readers, is the story that would have been entry three if things had been less chaotic.  I hope you enjoy!

-Mildly-less-mind-muddled Mad

Conspicuous absence... of my brain!

So there's been radio silence on my blog recently, even on Microfiction Mondays. I'm embarrassed to say that it's because my entire brain has been on a vacation recently. My doctor recently reshuffled my medications to try and find a combination that actually worked to get rid of all my varicolored symptoms. She *did* warn me that a temporary side-effect of starting one of them was that I could have a kind of "brain fogginess" for up to 4-6 weeks. I didn't actually think that it would mean that I'd actually not be able to remember words like "door" on occasion, but that's exactly what happened. I tried to write a couple of times, and the resulting crap was something I wouldn't let a dog see let alone you wonderful people. So my apologies for the sudden vanishing. I am starting to feel more human as of late, but since I showed up this afternoon at the office my doctor hasn't been in for over a year for my appointment, it's obvious I'm not completely out of the woods yet. Another attempt at writing will be made this weekend, and I'll keep you up to date about my progress. Any and all well-wishes for my brain to find its way back to me intact and full of its usual verbose kinkiness are welcome!

-Mad, the slightly addled (but hopefully recovering)

Microfiction Mondays: Stay Tuned!

Starting next Monday, stay tuned for the stories inspired by the delicious suggestions in my contest post! I'm excited, are you excited?

Book Review: Random Acts of Lust by Primula Bond

Have you ever had one of those days when the whole of the universe seems to be telling you “why not?” When you notice the cute boy at the front desk checking out your legs and flashing you a smile that's just a little bit too long, and you know that he would be yours for the asking? Or you think back on your school girl days and that moment when your best friend's hand accidentally brushed against yours and you wondered what it would be like to explore each other further, but couldn't bring yourself to even consider it?

Primula Bond's Random Acts of Lust is all about visiting the fantasy of those “what if moments.” The women in these short works of literary escapism all decide to throw caution to the wind and indulge in those naughty sexual adventures that all women fantasize about but most of us never do anything about.

Shadows, the book's opening story, is a somewhat sad one of a woman who sees an echo of her dying husband's youth in her stepson, and the two of them find love and solace in each other's arms. The mood of the book takes a decidedly upward turn from then on in. Each new woman introduced brings the reader further into a fantasy of sexual inhibition and desire. Who hasn't at some point wanted to pull the bitchy queen of the PTA off her high horse, tie her up and punish her until she repented her stuck-up ways, or take that sexy, innocent new university student home to teach him all the ways of the world that he's been missing out on?

The book is well structured, with the stories arranged in a delicious crescendo of sexiness ending in an amazing orgy scene that would leave anyone hot under the collar. Taken individually, each story definitely had points that drew me in, and a healthy allotment of steamy sex scenes, but there were also several points where awkward changes of points of view or scene changes jarred me out of the immersion that makes erotica most pleasurable. The dialogue was also a place where it was difficult to remain in the fantasy, since I often had to spend a lot of time trying to puzzle out exactly who was speaking and to whom. After most of those moments, though, the sheer steaminess of the sex scenes was quite enough to bring me right back into the action.

Random Acts of Lust seems tailor made for any woman who has ever had something (or someone!) turn them on, but decided against trying it, for whatever reason, only to wonder later “What if I'd just gone for it?” If you happen to be one of those women (and honestly, how many of us women aren't?) then chances are there is something, possibly many somethings, in this book that will appeal.

Random Acts of Lust @Xcite

kindle version

Microfiction Monday: Femme Fatale

This week's Microfiction Monday is presented to you by the delicious Circlet Press, who posted my teeny tiny microfic story, "Femme Fatale" this past Friday.

Find it Here!

Microfiction Mondays: If Only

If I had tonight to do again, for once in my life I'd trust myself.

I'd believe my initial instinct—the lilt in her voice when she said goodbye was her way of asking me to take the first step. I wouldn't smile, say goodbye too and hide my insecurities in that tepid fraternal hug.

Instead I'd lift her chin, and press my lips softly to hers. The tip of my tongue would tease at the front of her teeth when her lips parted ever so slightly, but no further: the delicate, tentative tease of a first kiss that promises many more explorations to come.

She would taste like cinnamon, and the spice would linger on my lips long after she'd walked up the steps to her apartment. The slowly fading tingle would remind me that she'd actually been there.

...if only I had tonight to do over again.

Writer Love

I am an incredible novice at this writing/submitting/getting published game. I submitted exactly two stories in 2009, and instead of writing more to send out, I made the mistake of waiting around to see if either of them got accepted, on the assumption that if neither one were wanted, then why bother sending out any more?

One of them sold, and one was rejected, and eventually made its way to a free stories website, and is now happily nestled (with a couple of major rewrites) in my WIP folder as the first chapter of a novel.

Those of you in the know, though, understand that finding out the fates of these two stories took months and months during which I chewed my lip and waited to find out if there was any chance of my being able to “hack it” as an erotica writer.

That leads me to right now. I've been writing again for a few months now. I try to punctuate working on longer shorts, anthology submissions and my never-to-be-completed novel with tiny bits of short short fiction that I can post on my blog and other websites that collect such things. I find it makes it easier to keep up a certain writing pace.

Of course, only having been at it again for short a time, I've heard virtually nothing back from the places to which I've submitted. This isn't terrible, of course—in fact since rejections often come far faster than acceptances, it could possibly be considered a good thing, but it is what it is, a “dead zone” that I've created for myself by not having written during the period that would have resulted in my hearing something right about now.

I have to tell you, sometimes it makes you want to sit back and just wait to see if anyone will actually like what you've been writing and sending out. Especially since I don't have many acceptance letters to draw on in the past. I'm not going to do that, by the way...I'm just sayin'.

In the meantime, though I have to say that it just makes my freaking day if I happen to get a nice comment on something that I wrote. Seriously, I mean you can check up on visitor counters and see that there are actually people reading your stuff but it's a rare person who actually says something about it. When I open my blog and see that someone has said “Hey that story's pretty hot, thanks for writing it!” my mood inches up a couple of good notches for the rest of the day. It might be a bit pathetic, but there it is.

Now I admit freely to my fairly newness to this smutting business and there a chance that I will get jaded and calloused and not care quite so much who writes a 5-word comment on something out there in cyberspace, but I sure hope not. Knowing how much it means to me to get one, I try and leave a comment whenever I stumble across something that I really like, too. I mean, if you really like an author, buy their books and tip their serial novels if you can, but to me, at least, feedback is support, too, and I really appreciate it immensely when someone takes the time to send some my way.

Today, though, I had a brand new experience (I told you I'm nearly a smut virgin, right?) I was plugged! Wow. I think I'll be giddy all day today. Kannan, if you wind up reading this, you rock my socks off! I am entirely barefooted and it's all your fault! Again, this might just be because I'm so new to this whole business, but still, that's too freaking awesome.

If there's a writer in your life whose stuff always makes you smile, consider leaving a comment in their online writing, or a nice review on their Amazon page, or plug them to someone you think would like their work. It's easier than stalking and it's not even illegal!

***Cyber-hug your favourite author today***

Microfiction Mondays: Coffee, anyone?

Today's Microfiction is not here, but a lovely new site that combines two of my favourite things: massive amounts of caffeine and lots and lots of smut. Who could go wrong? They recently held a flash fictions contest about both those things, and I found myself unable to resist. (Yes I know, I'm easy!)

Here's a quick sneak peek at my entry:

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She was my coffee goddess. We didn't have any sort of a regular “thing,” but any time we wound up at the same club together we'd eventually meet on the dance floor, and inevitably stumble back to her place in a panic of frantic gropes and kisses.

I know—you hear “goddess” and think “yeah, just another guy thinking his girl is the hottest thing ever.” Yeah, she was smokin', but I say it because sex with her was like...a religious ceremony. A coffee religion.

read more on site, and if you like it, consider voting for it!

Microfiction Mondays: Good Morning

This is the only day of the week you get to sleep in. God, I wish it weren't. You're bundled in what I swear must be at least a dozen blankets so that all I can see of you is one single ear poking out of your cocoon.

One ear, that's all. But it's enough. I'm lying in bed next to you, trying to wrangle enough incentive to actually get up and on with the day and all I want to do is trace every contour of that beautiful little ear with the tip of my tongue. I want to wrap my lips around your earlobe and trap it ever so gently between my teeth. While I tug at it possessively and growl I want to whisper to you all the dirty, wonderful things that I wish we were doing right now.

But even more, I want you to be able to enjoy your one and only day to sleep in, and if I carry on any more about what I'd rather be doing right now, I'll never leave you alone. So I propose a compromise. When you wake up and get this, feel free to call my cell. I'll leave the cordless receiver here by the note, on the bedside table. If, after you've called, I come back to find you still in bed, I'll wake you up in all sorts of naughty, wonderful ways—starting with that wickedly tempting ear.

Microfiction Mon... erm Wednesday! Water, fall

Note from Mad:  Sorry this one is so very very late, guys!  I deserve to be punished!  (hee hee, please!)  But um.. better late than never?

-------------------

Her lips were blue. Kind of ironic if you think about it, since it was the hottest day of the year by at least a good five degrees.

April was stretched out the full length of the dirty old futon in a tiny white tank top and thong and nothing else. Her long sun-bronzed legs shimmered with tiny beads of sweat. I'd been banished to sitting on the floor beside her, with her free hand dangling in my lap—the most physical contact we could stand in this heat.

She had filled an ice tray with fruit drink earlier and was now letting one of the cubes—an odd space alien blue—slowly melt against her lips. When she noticed me watching her, she palmed the ice and took her time licking the sticky punch off her thumb and forefinger with long, slow strokes of her blue-streaked tongue.

The rest of the juice was rapidly becoming unfrozen but no longer aimed at her mouth—a huge drop skipped its way down her throat to nestle in that little indentation where the neck meets the breastbone, and that for some unknown reason I've elected the sexiest part of the female body. She gasped in surprise and arched her back, sending the liquid rolling down an eerie blue trail along the line of her shoulder-blade.

I watched in silent fascination while the droplet continued its path along her bicep to come to rest again in the crook of her elbow. Strange that I should notice it was only about half the size it was before it started its exploratory journey of my lover's body. April was so still that I could see the tiny hemisphere of liquid bounce in time with her pulse.

One...two...her third heartbeat set the liquid rolling again on a path toward her open palm.

I wondered if it had enough substance left to make it to the end while I watched it mimic another delicate spidery vein down her wrist, and weave its way through the maze of lines that creased her hand. What would a palm reader make of that cerulean map?

The juice chose her pinky finger to follow, and it didn't need to stop when it reached the tip—it had faded completely into a tiny pinprick stain of vivid aqua. I lifted her hand to my face and she slid her finger into my mouth. It tasted like raspberry candy, but there was nothing cold about that tiny trace I'd tasted. I slowly started to lick up the blue line on her palm. I wasn't worried, I knew that If I followed the lines, I'd run into something cool and refreshing eventually. It was a lazy summer day—I had all the time in the world.

Microfiction Monday: Forever

Is it Monday again already? Phew!

Yes, I'm overly sentimental, and also a big math nerd. Now you know!

---------
Forever


She was so beautiful she took my breath away. The way her hair lay all dishevelled around her head, her cheeks flushed and her eyes, bright but staring off somewhere beyond me— it all entranced me. I traced a line of salty kisses down her chin to that wonderful little depression between her shoulder and her neck. I was so hard it hurt. When I tried to pull her toward me, though, she hesitated, and the spell of her arousal faded.

“They say I won't want to do this as much, you know, after the operation. Maybe even half as much even with drug therapy.” She seemed close to tears, which made me feel as if my heart was going to burst.

I propped myself up on my elbow and grinned at her, trying to lighten the mood.

“You know what the coolest part of math theory is?”

She actually giggled, thank goodness. “From hot, sweaty sex to math? You really are a nerd!”

“Well, maybe, but the fact remains that there are some very cool things about math. Like infinity. Did you know that if you take something that happens regularly, and make it happen half as frequently, but continue forever, it'll still happen an infinite amount of times?”

I rolled onto my back and gently pulled her to me, and onto my now very eager cock.

“You're my forever, love... and when you're offered infinity, who'd be stupid enough to ask for more?”

-------

originally posted as a response to Alison Tyler's blog contest, here.

Microfiction Monday: Mr. February

My short story, Mr February, is set to be released early this summer in Rachel Kramer Bussel's anthology Please, Ma`am by Cleis press. Today's Microfiction Monday is an excerpt:

When you've been married to someone for 20 years, they know every inch of your body. Ellie had seen him naked so many times that Mark was sure she could draw him perfectly from memory if she needed to. Still, standing there in the hallway, facing the open door of the bathroom where his wife was waiting with her arms crossed and an expectant look on her face, Mark was suddenly very, very embarrassed, and only partly because he though that he and the rest of the male gender looked decidedly silly from the waist down.

“What, here, now?” His question met chilly silence.

Blushing furiously, Mark unzipped his jeans and stepped out of them.

“Those, too.” Ellie pointed impatiently at the red boxers that were conspicuously tented by an erection that was heroically resisting Mark's humiliation. I can't believe it, he though as he slip down the boxers and kicked them into the open bedroom door with the jeans, that's my wife in there, leering at me like I was an appetizer at the cannibal buffet!

“Yummy! Okay, you can go now!” With a slam, Mark was standing naked and beet red, staring at the closed bathroom door behind which his wife was, presumably, getting equally naked without his participation. He thought he heard giggling coming from behind the door, and made the decision to believe that he was just imagining it, and rescue what little dignity he had left. His stubbornly erect cock betrayed him by bouncing happily with each step he took down to the kitchen.

Microfiction Monday: Pin-up

I was reading over Allison Tyler's blog the other day and saw a silly contest (and who doesn't love a silly contest?) The premise was to base a story around a vintage typewrite key that GwenDelicious had tunred into lovely jewelry. Cute, eh? I didn't win, and to be honest the story would have worked better at twice the length, but here it is, anyway:

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Pin-Up (or, for the love of proper punctuation)

April was squirming beautifully on the X-shaped cross in the middle of the room, with four palm-shaped circles drawn in red marker on her naked skin. The little tail on a bottom one curled right above her right hip.

“This isn't fair!” She was cute when she whined.

It was true, it wasn't fair but I didn't say that. Instead, I started clipping tiny clothespins to the outline around her left breast.

“Colons are used before a list or a quote. Did you put a colon in the email you sent me to ask if I would play with you tonight?”

I moved on to tracing the bottom left circle with the clothespins. She made the most delicious pained whimpers every time I added one.

“Yes.”

“And was it before a list or a quote?”

“Well, no.”

The circle on her right came very close to her nipple. She squeaked when I put a clothespin there.

“Semicolons separate two independent clauses. Was that what you should have used?”

She was up on her toes to escape the pinching. Apparently the tail was in a sensitive spot.

“Yes!”

“So, tell me again why this isn't fair?”

“Because you're not mad at me for that, you're annoyed at all the grammar butchery you had to read today at work!”

This was true, too. Smart cookie. I could have told her that but instead I told her to save her voice.

“For what?”

“For screaming.”

And she did, in a delicious crescendo, when I yanked the string connecting the pins to pop them off all at once. I think she came right there, I know I nearly did. My jeans were soaked through.

It wasn't fair at all, I thought, when I let her down to collapse all quivery into my arms, but I sure did feel better.

Microfiction Monday: The Kiss

     Jennifer was in the study working, as she had all day, on her seemingly interminable thesis. She rubbed her neck; it had been a long day already, but a sense of duty if not the promise of any more productiveness tonight kept her going long after supper time. If she were paying more attention to her surroundings she'd have heard the door open a bit more than an hour earlier, and the sounds of Nat coming and putting her things away, but if the sound registered at all, it was only in the back of her mind as peripheral to the task at hand. She definitely didn't hear the soft barefooted steps that brought her lover to her sanctuary, or even the meticulously slow 'click' that meant the door was being closed and locked behind her.

     Jen was leaning back to read over her most recent paragraph when a hand caught her throat, and pressed her and her expensive ergonomic chair backward a good half foot before something stopped it rolling back. She managed a quick gasp for air before her breathing was cut off completely. Her lover kept a firm controlling hand wrapped tight around Jen's throat as she slid her way up her lap until she was straddling her, their crotches so close that they could feel each other's heat. Nat's free hand reached into her partner's shirt, and caught the surgical steel ring that Nat had lovingly threaded through her nipple last year for their second anniversary. Nat let go of Jen's throat just as she pinched and twisted the piercing, and Jen gasped for air, a shiver rocking her whole body.

     Nat smiled, and landed a far more tender kiss on her lover's lips, then slipped out of her lap, and headed for the door, pausing to look over her shoulder and wink. She was wearing Jen's favourite lingerie, a black spaghetti-strapped silk nightgown that barely made it past her hips. Jen groaned in appreciation as her lover left the room and closed the door behind her. Eventually, she shook the stars from her vision, and sighed, turning back to her monitor. What she saw made her smile and moan in anticipation at the same time. Nat had placed their electronic timer on top of her keyboard, set for an hour, and ticking away.

     Sometimes, there are better ways to express your desires than words.

New short story to be published in June

My short story, "Mr. February," is slotted to be published in Cleis Press' anthology Please Ma`am: Erotic Tales of Male Submission this June. You can see the details for the anthology, edited by the fabulous Rachel Kramer Bussel, here: Please, Ma`am Anthology It's available now for preorder on Amazon.com (hint, hint!). Due to be released on June 1st 2010. Very exciting!

Microfiction Monday: Angela

This morning, I promised myself that for every day this year, my erotica portfolio would be somehow bigger or better than it was the day before. There were no other conditions to my resolution than that, whether I edit something short, write something new or add to a work in progress, I simply have to do something, anything at all, each day. Not so tough right? Somehow, right now, it seems to be.

I am a rational, free-thinking human being, so of course I don't believe that I have a little angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other constantly bickering over who gets to give me advice on all the choices I have to make in a day.  Come on, I'm not Bugs Bunny!  What I do believe in, however, is her.  If the Jungians got hold of me, they would probably say that she is the personification of those portions of my psyche that are clamouring to be heard at any given point.  If I were schizophrenic, she would be what the doctors called the voices in my head.  Since I'm neither of these things, I gave her a different name:  Angela.

This is a deceptively innocent sounding name, and I chose it on purpose, because Angela herself is often quite deceptive.  She is cunning, tempting, and often very, very wicked.  She's a chimera of all my desires, weaknesses, drives, motivations (or lack thereof) and rationales.  She's a shape-shifter, picking up whatever avatar best suits her purpose of the moment, and hoping that she can trick me, if even for a moment, into believing that she's someone else:  someone more... credible.  She's my own personal devil's advocate, bringing each and every one of my decisions into question.  And today, oh my goddesses.  Today she was in fine form.

Today she was all alabaster skin in flimsy amounts of flowing crimson silk with matching fuck-me lipstick.  She chose to wear ass-length ebony curls, and her plentiful figure was deliciously smooth and rounded, with curves all in the right places.  Right down to her calf-hugging impeccably polished black leather boots, her entire being today was meant to bewitch, delight, tempt and seduce me.  
Many times I've sat down at my desk today, with the intention of doing something, anything at all creative. Each time, she's crept up behind me, her breath hot on my ear, leaving the tiniest smudge of her ruby red lipstick as she whispered to me huskily "You know, you haven't checked you email recently."  Her nails have scratched down my arms as she's moved to lay her hands atop mine, and guide them to see who's been updating their Fetlife accounts instead of to the word processor.  She's moaned in orgasmic delight as her tongue traced the contours of my ear, seducing me into having just one more game of Sudoku.   When she thought she might just lose me, she bit down hard on the lobe of my ear, making my masochistic side crazy enough with lust to check out which of my regularly visited pornographer blogs had been updated in the last two hours instead of my initial intent to re-tool the hated chapter 6 of my ever-unfinished novel. 

Angela, demon temptress that she is, has learned well from having been born inside my head.  She knows all my weaknesses, and how to exploit all temptations to the fullest.  She is very good at what she does.  As a being of my mind, she also knows one very important thing:  that if I am not able to take this first step, and fulfil my promise to myself for today, then there is no hope at all of my ever making it to the end.  This, of course, is her lofty goal, and knowing just how easy it would be to foil a whole year's plans in a single day, she got excited, she tried too hard.  Instead of letting me look at how awful my 6th chapter was, how hard it might be to fix, and then slowly trying to coax me into doing "just one more thing" that could be instantly gratifying, she leaped into my lap instead. 

"Look at me!  Not the screen!"  She whined,  "Don't you remember that House is on tonight?  And you have that new bag of kettle corn!"

She tried too hard, which made me finally see what was going on, and I did just that.  I looked at her.  That's when my sultry, mysterious, subtle temptress became my pushy girlfriend instead.  I know just what to do with those.

Angela has spent the last hour  tied up and gagged in the corner, whimpering in frustration.  I spent it writing this, and my sadistic side likes that just fine. Now I have a silly bit of short fiction, not my most glorious erotica, to be sure, but it fulfils the quota of something new or better for today. Tomorrow, I can go on to bigger and better things. Maybe Angela has met her match.