Category Archives: guest blogger

Guest Blogger Jade A. Waters Gives Me the Best Assignment Ever!!!

I am practically lachrymose posting this piece, because I am sooooooooo very proud of my friend Jade A. Waters! Unless you have been living under a rock, you know that her amazing first book, The Assignment in her new series has been released. To see Jade’s star shine like this makes my hear glow! She was one of the first friends I made in this community, and I love her to bits and pieces. I love having her as a guest, and to be privileged to be part of her book tour is beyond humbling.

Jade is the real deal, a writer and poet extraordinaire and, and…well here is Jade!!!

Hi everyone! I am so excited to be here today—and I’m sending a giant thank you full of juicy kisses to the generous F. Leonora for having me over! As many of you are probably aware, F. is one of the sweetest supporters of our genre—and on the entire planet—so I was tickled she invited me to stop by to talk about my new release, The Assignment. Thanks, F!

Now, our lovely host left the door open for what I should discuss today, and since the two of us often talk about poetry on the social media circuit, I thought I’d spend some time focusing on flow. I mean this in two ways. One, in a writerly sense—as in, the style we each use in choosing our words and pouring sentences on the paper in the formation of a cohesive whole. For me, the second manner sweeps fairly naturally in and out of the first, in that I have a bit of a watery world obsession that keeps sneaking its way out into my stories.

Let me back up a bit—I’m still not sure if it’s because I took too many emotional walks under a downpour of rain as a teen, or that we should blame it on a last name of Waters, but I’ve long had an obsession with watery environments. I’ve lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for almost twenty-five years, which means I’ve had my fair share of exposure to coastlines, piers, beaches, and pretty much anything to do with life this near the ocean’s edge. Having spoken before on how important building the setting of The Assignment within the Bay Area was to me, the essence of our near water life of course had to make its way into the story. How could it not? We have views of majestic bridges over churning spans of the Bay, coastlines on which one can take a contemplative walk, calming beaches so easy to get to, marina life at our many docks and ports, the perfect (and moderate) sprinkling of rain in the winter months and in general, all this water, water everywhere.

And we mustn’t forget the tides. They affect so much—flooding parts of our freeways and cities at lower elevations after all—but they are beautiful nonetheless. I guess I’ve always considered the rise and fall of tides much like love; it’s a crashing wave sweeping in and overpowering everything beneath it at times, and yet, a wondrously slow, retreating roll at others, leaving remnants and bits (good and bad) in its wake. I wanted that tidal churn to serve as a backdrop to the romance between Maya Clery, the heroine of The Assignment, and her romantic lead, Dean Sova. Sure, they live in this watery area—but as I worked, I envisioned the rise and fall of tides as a sort of quiet echo of their budding romance and D/s dynamic. In some moments, it’s heavy and intense, a dance of sexual play between them. But at others, it can just as easily be a gentle caress or sweet, soft words they share.

Pulling it back to the craft level—while the two of them are actively engaged in their play together, I, too, am playing with my words. I love stories that ebb and flow, prose that draws you in and cocoons you in details rich enough to let you feel sensations as the characters do. It can be the smell of the salty air, the sound of the waves, the view of the crests rolling up on to a sandy shore—I want it to envelope you as deeply as the swell of their romance, or the anticipation and tension in their sexual encounters. This desire might be thanks to many years of writing poetry, which started as a way to address a gush of feelings I didn’t know how to say aloud. But with rhythm and pacing so important in verse, I found that when I’d immerse myself in writing a scene between Maya and Dean, the words had to dance for me like the couple did. Each action had a purpose, each snippet of dialogue had to further the connection, and every movement needed to flow into one cohesive whole. No scene can be a mass of prose, or all dialogue, just as it can’t be a repetition of short staccato sentences or excessively long ones. They must work together, dance together, as if swirling around to create a symphony of expression.

I am continually learning and growing as I write more and more. Hell, just through the course of the entire Lessons in Control series, I’ve found myself challenging and morphing how I write, playing with patterns, words, and styles. But no matter how I change it up, I like to hold on to a lyrical feel in the moments I can. Erotica is, after all, focused on a sexy, smooth act—and I like the words to follow a similar course.

All right. That’s enough technique mumbo jumbo for one day, don’t you think? I might have gotten a little swept away. 😉 But, since I’ve mentioned all the poetry, I’d like to wrap up with “Earth,” something I’ve posted in the past on my poetry site. This particular poem was inspired when I took a jog along a coastline near my house (much like the heroine of The Assignment, Maya Clery, often does). I kept envisioning a scene near the end of the book that she shares with Dean beneath the rain and on the coastline. It’s a highly emotional scene—one of my favorites, actually—and somehow this poem popped out in their honor. If I could build a poetry-track rather than a soundtrack for The Assignment, “Earth” would definitely kick off the album:

EARTH

We lie here, together
One with this earth
Bodies writhing,
Chests pressed
Arms stretching in soil,
We seek to grab anything,
Clawing into ground.
Muddied and sore,
Our fingers lace, tight—
Mine are yours
Yours are mine
And your kisses
Take my cheeks, my lips,
Shocking like raindrops
That tumble down from
The murky sky.

As we fuck, the dirt
Spreads, surrounds,
Hugs the grind of our hips
The arch of my back,
The dig of my heels
On this sandy shore.
Ours are desperate groans
That sway and hum;
They are the sweep of waves
Filling the universe
With an infinite, noisy lust.
For this, we press on,
Our hunger that of the dirtied—
Wanting, bearing down;
Together in this soil
We are one.

There is a tremor
Earth-shattering
A cry that fills our ears,
Rattles our souls
And we shudder in this caress.
This is closeness,
Us
But our need is harder,
Heavier,
Sweaty and raw
We are lost
In this feral clutch,
Longing to be closer
To be deeper, and part
Of the very earth
On which we grind.

I hope you have enjoyed both “Earth” and my musings on flow today. You’ll find much of the watery life in The Assignment, as well as later books in the Lessons in Control series, and while that certainly isn’t the focus of the story, I do hope it’ll sweep you in and that you’ll catch yourself floating alongside their relationship as you follow their tale.

Until then, happy reading to all, and a tremendous thank you to F. Leonora for hosting me today!

XX,

Jade

Jade A. Waters is an erotica author and poetess in sunny California. A lover of candy, coffee, dancing, and endless karaoke, she is happiest when surrounded by words—be they on the page or shared in good conversation. Her short fiction and poetry is featured in over a dozen anthologies from Cleis Press and Stupid Fish Productions, and currently, Jade is hard at work on the next book in the Lessons in Control series from Carina Press. Visit her at http://jadeawaters.com, or follow her at http://twitter.com/jadeawaters.

Guest Blogger KD Grace Tells Us What It Feels Like…

I am literally gushing! I love hosting my friends, and I am gushing all over K D Grace right now! I met her when I attended my first Eroticon, and she was so lovely and gracious. I developed a friendship with her, and it is something I really treasure because I admire her so much. Between two continents, we have managed to stay in constant contact. So when she comes out with a book she wants to promote? I am onboard because she is my friend, and because she has the chops! She is so prolific, and The Tutor demonstrates that–let KD tell you all about it!!!

What Does it Feel Like?
That must have felt amazing! I can’t imagine how that felt! I wonder what that felt like? Oooh! That couldn’t have felt very good! Did you feel that? What does it feel like? How many times have we asked someone, that big F question? We don’t usually mean what does something physically feel like, when we use one of the F phrases. Most of the time any of the “feel like” phrases means we want that experience, we want to understand, to empathize, to share it, to let someone know we get their experience and if we don’t, at least we’d like to try.
The feeling phrases are connecting phrases, they’re a mode in which we commiserate with the rest of the human race, they’re a chance to be more intimate with each other. In a lot of ways they’re like the secret password that gets us into “Club Human.” We seldom think of them in terms of true physicality, though when something is physical, we tend to think of it as far more real than when it’s just a nebulous idea or emotion that “touches us.”
And when the feeling, the touching words are meant in a physical way, the somehow seem more intimate. Physical touch isn’t just for anyone, it’s for people we trust, people we know a little better, people we might want to know a whole lot better. But what happens when two people who are attracted to each other can’t actually touch? Can they still find a way to be intimate? What exactly is intimacy anyway, and is it really dependent on being able to touch each other physically? I wanted to explore the elements of intimacy in my novel, The Tutor. How much of what binds us to someone and what makes us close depends on being able to physically touch?

In my novel The Tutor, I wanted to explore what it feels like when someone can’t feel, in the literal sense of the word. Renowned, but reclusive, sculptor Alexander “Lex” Valentine, is extremely haphephobic. Since the car accident that took his mother’s life when he was a child and nearly took his as well, he had been unable to tolerate the touch of another human being, nor is he able to touch anyone himself. To do so causes a severe physical reaction. Lex lives in a world of forced isolation for his own protection.
Enter Kelly Blake – struggling novelist moonlighting as a sex tutor, who has a completely hands-off policy with her clients. Kelly is just what Lex needs, and when the two meet, the sparks fly. But is it possible intimacy to develop and love to grow when two people can’t touch each other?
When physical touch is impossible, intimacy may become a powerful work of art or a devastating nightmare—but, above all, it’s an act of trust.
Here is a little excerpt.

What Does it Feel Like?
“Look I don’t expect you to deal with what a fucked up mess I am. I realized that what I really want to know is what it feels like, what you feel like, what any woman feels like when she’s with a man, or even when she touches herself, and I have no one I would feel comfortable asking without wondering the whole time if they thought that by my asking I had given them permission to try and fix me. Does that make any sense?”
She had little time to do more than nod before he continued. “Oh I’ve watched enough porn that I get that it feels really good. I’ve read enough erotica to get some picture of how it’s supposed to be, but my take on it’s always one-sided,” he raised his hand and wiggled his fingers as though to demonstrate. “I can’t know anything but my own touch, certainly I can’t feel anything else, so I want you to tell me. I want you to answer my questions. I want you to tell me what I would feel if I touched you, what you would feel if I touched you. As for what I would feel if you touched me, well,” he shrugged and offered her a smile that seemed slightly forced, “for that I’ll just have to use my imagination.”
She took a deep breath, as though she were about to dive under water. “Okay, well, I’ll start with my lips because lovers often start there. I would have made sure they were moist for you before you kissed them, but not so wet as to be off-putting, and you would have done the same. And your first kisses would be tentative, if you’re really good, almost like a feather lighting against my mouth softly and repeatedly until I’m breathless for the want of more; and then I would part my lips to give you more surface area so that we could feel each other better.” She chuckled softly as she realized they’d both raised their fingers to their mouths. “And then we would both press harder and rub harder. The more surface area we touched the more we’d want and, I think lips swell, not just from the pressure, but in an effort to create that surface area, and when they can swell no more, when I feel like I want to completely take my lover into my mouth, then I would open to him and there would be a whole new surface area, wet and slick and warm, there would be a whole new motion when our tongues discover each other. I think a kiss reflects what happens in penetrative sex. It’s sort of an intimation, if you will,” her gaze locked on him, and for the first time she noticed just how blue his eyes were, “a promise of things to come.”
“Yes,” he whispered. “I’ve thought of that in my art. I’ve thought of the interchange we make with mouths and cocks and vaginas.” He struggles with the last word
“It’s okay to call it a pussy or a cunt or whatever works for you.” She said.
He laughed softly. “How the hell would I know?”
“Well,” she stretched out on the countertop and rolled onto her side, resting her head on her hand. “you just have to try them out and see how they fit your mouth.”
This time they both laughed. “If they fit my mouth, I wouldn’t have to worry about what words I used, would I?”
“Good point,” she said.
“Not quite, but getting there fast, thank you.” Again, they both laughed, a strangely relaxed laugh under the bizarre circumstances.
“The thing is,” she said, rolling onto her back and staring up at the long rack of copper bottom pans above her head, “words are often as important in sex, and as erotic, as touch. I write in my other life, and I find that while some of my characters get turned on by waxing poetic between the sheets, others get hot by talking dirty.”
“How does your cunt feel when some fucker talks dirty to you,” he said, though not without a hearty blush.
“That would depend on the fucker and the circumstances and how badly I wanted to ride his cock.”
“And if it was a fucker whose cock you really wanted to ride, a fucker who was hard and heavy for you? What words would he use, and what response would he elicit?
“It wouldn’t hurt for him to observe out loud what he sees about my body’s state of arousal, and how he admires it.”
“You mean like how lovely your breasts are when your nipples are so taut that even your areola are visible through that shirt, which I imagine feels like a caress every time you inhale. You mean like the way your lips are parted and moist. You’ve not completely shut your mouth for the past five minutes, the way you rock your hips, almost but not quite secretly, and grind you bottom against the countertop. Is that what you mean?”
“Jesus! We shouldn’t be doing this.” She sat bolt upright on the surface and then froze as though someone had hit the pause button. “Alex?”
The man perched on the edge of the counter, just far enough away that she couldn’t easily touch him. He had kicked his shoes off and his own nipples peaked to bullet points through his white polo shirt. That would have been enough to hold her attention indefinitely had it not been for the heel of his hand stroking the very obvious, very anxious erection through his jeans.
It was all right. It was fine, she told herself. She’d had more than a few occasions where her job involved watching and coaching someone while they masturbated. This was just her job. That’s all.
“It’s more obvious with me what I feel,” he said, raking her body with a hooded gaze. “And your nipples, well you could just be cold. Please tell me what you feel when you see me like this, when we talk like this.”
She moved to the edge of the counter giving him space, then motioned him onto it and she opened her leg. “If I weren’t wearing trousers, if you could see my panties, you’d know that I’m wet.” She nodded to his erection. “You’d know that the thought of what you’re doing, the sight of how your body is responding to mine, is making me wetter.” She cupped her breasts in turn, through the white blouse. “Every part of me feels heavy, Alex. My breasts feel like my bra can no longer contain them. My nipples ache. And my lips,” she touched her mouth, and then, holding his gaze, moved her hand down to rest on the crotch of her trousers. “My lips are swollen, so swollen and slippery and ready to be penetrated.” She nodded first to his mouth and then to his erection. “Do I want the fucker to give it to me hard and deep in my cunt? What do you think?”
“Oh God,” he managed. Then he stopped talking altogether. His breath came in tight little grunts and gasps as he moved against his hand, holding her in his gaze as surely as if he held her in his embrace; and it was in that instant, the instant she slid her hand down the front of her trousers and into her panties an action he mirrored, that she knew neither of them would make it out of here intact. She wanted to run, but she didn’t. She wanted to take off her clothes and feel his gaze all over her body, but she didn’t. She wanted to demand that he strip for her, that he come just for her eyes, but she didn’t. She couldn’t. She could only cup and grope her breasts until they hurt. She could only stroke herself while she watched him do the same.
The space around them crackled with their energy, and their desperate efforts to breathe were the only sounds beyond the stroke of skin against fabric. In a hungry attempt at relief, they both rocked and bucked, mirror images of each other with one hand down the front of their trousers while the other groped and cupped and tweaked and pinched whatever part of their anatomy it came in contact with. Then breathing stopped, time stopped. Everything around them disappeared until they saw nothing but each other, locked in each other’s gaze, more physical than any embrace Kelly had ever felt, and it was enough. Heaven help them, it was enough. He came first by a split second, roaring like a wounded lion, arching back until she feared he’d either break his neck or fall off the counter. But the sight of him so vulnerable in his passion, the fact that even in his release, he kept his eyes on her was all she could handle, and she convulsed against her own hand, convulsed as though she would break apart, never taking her eyes off him, never breaking that connection.

Buy The Tutor Now!!!

eBook:

Totally Bound Publishing

Print:

Totally Bound Publishing

About K D Grace/Grace Marshall

Voted ETO Best Erotic Author of 2014, and a proud member of The Brit Babes, K D Grace believes Freud was right. In the end, it really IS all about sex, well sex and love. And nobody’s happier about that than she is, otherwise, what would she write about?

When she’s not writing, K D is veg gardening. When she’s not gardening, she’s walking. She walks her stories, and she’s serious about it. She and her husband have walked coast to coast across England, along with several other long-distance routes. For her, inspiration is directly proportionate to how quickly she wears out a pair of walking boots. She also working out at the gym – she has a thing for kettle bells — reading, watching the birds and anything that gets her outdoors.

K D has erotica published with Totally Bound, SourceBooks, Xcite Books, Harper Collins Mischief Books, Mammoth, Cleis Press, Black Lace, Sweetmeats Press and others.

K D’s critically acclaimed erotic romance novels include, The Initiation of Ms Holly, Fulfilling the Contract, To Rome with Lust, and The Pet Shop. Her paranormal erotic novel, Body Temperature and Rising, the first book of her Lakeland Witches trilogy, was listed as honorable mention on Violet Blue’s Top 12 Sex Books for 2011. Books two and three, Riding the Ether, and Elemental Fire, are now also available.

K D Grace also writes hot romance as Grace Marshall. An Executive Decision, Identity Crisis, The Exhibition, Interviewing Wade are all available.

Find K D Here:

Websites: http://kdgrace.co.uk/

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Guest Blogger Adrea Kore Flashes Us Today!!!

Social media is often criticized, but it is through it that I met my guest and friend, Adrea Kore. Adrea is luminous, and the first person I have known to do a right on American accent! She is a brilliant, brilliant writer of all forms–and today she is going to flash us! I mean prep us all to enjoy the art of flash fiction. Get comfortable, and savor every word of hers…

I’m delighted to be here with F. Leonora, as her guest blogger. As a regular contributor to her Friday Flash monthly meme, I want to share some thoughts on the short-short story or “flash.” Sometimes also referred to as micro-fiction, flash fiction is the quickie of erotica.

I started writing seriously, and getting published, in the erotica genre in late 2012 – so I still feel like a relative newcomer. My very first story accepted for paid publication was actually flash fiction – on a femme-porn and erotica site called For the Girls. Then Go Deeper Press accepted Dangerous Curves for their flash fiction anthology, Dirty Little Numbers. dirtylittlenos_cover2 Of the twenty or so paid story publications in anthologies and online since then, about a quarter of them have been for my flash fiction. A fan of both short stories and poetry from way back when I was in pigtails, it’s no surprise that I succumbed to the allure of “flashing” as soon as I discovered that such a thing existed.

Although length definitions differ for flash fiction, most publications seem to opt for 500 words as the maximum word-count. Some insist on even leaner stories, cinching in the word limit at 200 or even 100 words.

The practice of writing flash fiction, with the restraints of that svelte word-limit, can hone your powers of description and storytelling in wonderful ways. Each word has to work harder to convey meaning and emotion – which inevitably makes us better writers when we return to longer fiction. Whether on the page or in the boudoir, it seems I’m definitely into restraint.

The more flash fiction I read, the more incredible variations I see in style, expression and tone. A lot can happen in five hundred words. The form seems to deftly distill a writer’s style and voice, so that the reader may experience it more vividly.

Flash fiction is a tablet and mobile-friendly fiction, a way to showcase your style to your readers, which is also why I’d recommend giving flashing a go and getting some on your blog or website. It’s fiction for the nomadic, distracted population with truncated attention spans that we have supposedly become. That said, as a reader, I approach them more like poems, preferring focused time to contemplate them. Writer Vanessa Gebbie describes them as “a flash of narrative lit up, then extinguished,” but also stresses that a good flash is “never incomplete.”

I’ve observed that a compelling flash embodies elements of both poetry and film.

Like a film, it may show the reader crucial narrative “beats,” as quick cuts from one image to the next in order to tell its story. These could be close-ups or wide shots, but not lingering or panning shots – you simply don’t have the luxury of wordiness and leisurely pacing for too much of the latter. The reader sees these images via a few crafted words and sentences before moving onto the next element, but the information lingers in the retina, the memory, gathering detail, momentum and meaning. Like a film, it may also utilize dialogue as a narrative device to progress the plot with fewer words than descriptive narrative.

Like a poem, flash fiction may harness imagery, word play and metaphor to convey narrative, subtext, and atmosphere in compressed form. Additionally, the use of poetic language allows for multiple layers of meaning, using the same cluster of words. This approach allows you to say and suggest far more than you may initially think is possible within that leaner number of words. Like a poem, pared-back language is desirable; part of revising drafts may be to eliminate excess words such as “the,” “and” and “now.”

I’m comfortable writing flash in the zone of 400 – 500 words. It’s amazing how much scope five-hundred words allows to create a story arc and some steamy erotic detail. A 200-word limit for me is like trying to make a luscious cake with only flour and water. Given a 100-word limit, I may as well (and more happily) be writing poetry. I’ll leave those shorter versions for more hardcore flashers. Give different word limits a try, and see what works for you.

I once read somewhere that the Chinese term for flash fiction translates as “the cigarette-long” story – something you can mull over on a cigarette break, taking about as long to read as it does to finish your smoke. As a non-smoker, and a lover of coffee, perhaps I’d rename it the espresso-long story.

Here are my tips for crafting compelling flash fiction. Like any “tips” list, they are not prescriptive, but rather intended to provoke thought; whether they work for you may depend on your style.

Work your verbs hard

Lazy, vague verbs such as “went” tend to immediately require adverbs to prop them up. Why write “He went quickly towards her,” when you can write “He careened into her?” Why write that your character “said” anything, when instead they can leer, whisper, insinuate, proposition? A specific verb can convey so much about a character – how they walk, talk and kiss. Sweat the verbs, and you’ll need less adverbs, and less words generally.

Choose adjectives like they’re gourmet chocolates

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They’re expensive, so you want to choose the perfect ones with just the right flavors for your story. To choose too many will weigh your story down and make it too fat to fit the flash format.

Build atmosphere with quick shots of imagery and word-play

This is one of my favorite ways to write flash fiction – take your central themes and refract your imagery through the story, like different facets on a cut diamond. They’ll all sparkle in a slightly different way, but make the whole more dazzling. My latest flash, Hurdy-Gurdy Love, takes the carnival theme as a metaphor for a relationship and riffs on that in several layers.

Start near the middle of your story, not the beginning.

I borrowed this one from flash fiction maestro David Gaffney. You don’t have space for preamble. Crash land the reader closer to the middle of the story in terms of action. You can make nimble references to backstory when necessary. See here for how that can be achieved.

Use dialogue to convey character and give narrative momentum

Some writers excel at using dialogue in this way. You could try writing a flash that is ninety-percent dialogue, if you’ve ever fancied yourself the screenwriting type. Or you can see how I use fragments of dialogue here, in Celluloid Dreams to convey character, backstory and theme.

Maximise the function of your Title

Your title is a bonus few extra words for free, so make them count. Like a well-made poem, a flash title (the title of any work of art, really) can be employed to reveal another element of your story, or create the lure of a double meaning. I love a flash that, once read, has me returning to the title to ponder, and find something new.

The sentence fragment is your friend

One, two, three-word sentences seem right at home in micro-fiction. Micro-sentences. They can work well scattered through “proper sentences.” To convey fragmented perspective. Suspense. Movement, fast or slow. Futility. Finality. See, I’m doing it here, and it’s so much fun.

Pay special attention to the last line

David Gaffney beat me to it, but this tip probably shows up on all flash fiction craft articles. After readers devour your flash fiction, give them a final line that will linger in their senses; an aftertaste, an aroma that doesn’t make this a read they can easily forget.

Gaffney is firmly against flash fiction that deploys a punch line or last-minute gag ending, saying that a “story that gives itself up in the last line is no story at all, and after reading a piece of good micro-fiction we should be struggling to understand it, and, in this way, will grow to love it as a beautiful enigma.”

I agree, although I may have been guilty of writing at least one punch-line flash along the way. Sometimes, they are just fun, especially when the topic is playfully sexual.

Create some Negative Space

Just as if it were an abstract sculpture or a charcoal sketch, give your flash some negative space as part of its overall effect. One way you do this is to eliminate and pare back excess words, as I’ve mentioned. Another way is to play with ambiguity, or place some spaces in the narrative for the reader to enter. This is particularly effective, I believe, in erotic flash fiction. Let the reader catch a glimpse of themselves in a hotel room mirror. Let them recall that exquisite orgasm through your erotic detail of a mouth, a hand, a sensation. Vanessa Gebbie aptly surmises:

“A great piece of flash fiction creates a complete world in very few words, draws you in, and makes you complicit. You become the creator too, in partnership, filling in the gaps the writer leaves behind … And because it is, to some extent, ‘yours’, it has a lasting effect.”

There’s lots of great flash fiction available online to read, and I’ve provided a few links below. I love Leonora’s meme here , because as a writer I often respond well to an intriguing image as a prompt. If you’ve not done this before, give it a try. Writing a flash story can also be a good warm-up exercise after a writing dry spell, or to begin exploring an idea for a (longer) story.

So, take that spark of an idea, set that pen on fire and light up a little narrative with your own writerly brilliance.

fire_pen_by_independentpen

Adrea Kore is a writer, poet, and developmental editor, focusing her lens on female sexuality and creative expression. Her erotic flash fiction, short stories and poetry have been published online and in numerous anthologies. Most recently, her poem “Made in Darkness” landed in Lustily Ever After, erotic re-tellings of myth and fairytale.

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Adrea enjoys being distracted from her long-term writing projects by short term pleasures such as this article. She collects corsets and antique tea-cups. Find her wearing one and sipping from the other here, and browse her flash fiction gallery from the menu.

Look out for her sexy story “Dance for Me,” featured in the newly-released erotic anthology For the Men: And the Women who Love Them (edited by Rose Caraway). Available on Amazon, Smashwords, iBooks and coming soon in audio-book format.

Read Adrea’s latest post about her story in the anthology here.

Craft Articles

David Gaffney

Vanessa Gebbie

Online Sites / Journals for Flash Fiction

Erotica Readers & Writers Association

Malin James

Flash Fiction

Matter Press

Guest Blogger Mrs. Darling on Exhibitionism and More!!!

I met Mrs. Darling at BDSM Writers Con last year, where I was dazzled by her retro style and am BEYOND thrilled to have her as my guest today with her new book! Read on to discover how it all came together for her!

Three years ago, I awoke in the middle of the night and felt like crawling out of my skin. It was the evening after a BDSM lifestyle event, not much different than any I have attended over the years. But something I was asked that evening, was like a splinter stuck in my brain keeping me from peace. At some point during the easygoing conversations amongst friends and strangers, a question came to my Dominant and I. It was a question that kept coming up over and over again.

People wanted to know about our transition from a vanilla egalitarian marriage, to the one we lived in at the time. We lived 24/7 TPE D/s (which means full time, all day, in and out of the bedroom, Dominance and submission). Our new marriage was so inherently different than our “old” one.

“How did it all start?” I was asked over and over again.

We gave a simple explanation as always: we were unhappy in our non-kink relationship. One of us brought the idea of BDSM up, and together we began researching and educating ourselves, practicing power exchange in the bedroom first, etc. Every time we told the story my husband (referenced in my non-fiction writing as Mister or MR), clasped my hand tight to slow my rising pulse and comforted me in the invisible way only those closely connected can communicate.

This story, the real and rich deep down story, circled around the worst time in my life. Every time it came up I walked down a path filled with sorrow and tears, all while smiling and speaking with a forced politeness. I looked forward to the drive home so I could sit in silence and let the tears fall, feeling alone and ashamed and afraid of anybody learning the heartbreaking path that was actually “How did it all start?”

It started as catharsis.

So in moonlight after another evening of mournful recollection, with a silent house asleep around me, I pulled out my laptop, turned on some tunes and started writing. I wrote it out; wrote it all. The bad. The worse. His mistakes. Mine as well. I wrote of struggling to see the silver lining. I wrote out my anger in knowing for so long that I wanted BDSM and submission to be a part of my life, but feeling like I was a damaged person for wanting it. I wrote of my husband’s struggle in his path as a Dominant. I wrote about fucking, I wrote about fucking up, I wrote about fucking around. I wrote about our developing SM play.

I wrote for a year. In the middle of the night, in the early morning over coffee with my children’s cartoons playing in the background and during their nap time. Some of my hobbies went on the shelf, to make room for writing time. It consumed me.

I wanted to cut this story out of my system. I wanted control back of our beginning. I wanted to confront my emotions head on for the first time since living the experience.

See, the truest story about “How did it all start?” for us in Dominance and submission is the basic story of the phoenix. The Mister and I, the “old us,” had crashed and burned. We were entirely broken, had died emotionally, and had no other choice but to help first ourselves and then each other rise from the ashes. It was so… incredibly… painful.

Writing it out freed me from the pain. Submission though, submission is what allowed me to fly again. When I became a submissive I began journaling my path. I wrote my private journal and shared it online, in a public forum and quickly fell in love with the kindness, support and camaraderie I received from the BDSM community. I waded through submission and there were others who had walked similar paths, and encouraged me along the way. I always have simply written from my heart.

I almost exclusively wrote non-fiction about our experience in kink, about our 1950s household, about our bedroom affairs. I’m not one to craft a character or storyline; any attempt comes up flat. People seem drawn to my authenticity. One of my friends once wrote in comment to a very personal journal, “You’ve got this wonderful ability to suck the reader in, put them in your shoes, and then drop them on the other side feeling awed to have gotten a glimpse.” All of a sudden it clicked for me.

I am an emotional exhibitionist.

It manifests itself by way of creative non-fiction.

Darling Discovered: A True Story of Submission is an encapsulation of the two.

This book that I wrote over the course of three years gave me exactly what I needed. It is a way for me to both expose my weakness to the world, ensuring that it can never jump up on me again, but also give me power over the story told. While writing Darling Discovered, I probably shed as many tears telling the story as I did living it. I laughed, I lost sleep over it, I re-lived the tale. Creative non-fiction, which presents real, accurate information in a fictional literary style, gave me both the structure I needed to once and for all answer, “How did this all start?” and the literary freedom to expose my soul to the reader.

The happenings happened, sure.

But when you can accurately articulate things like self consciousness. Ecstasy. Rage. Remorse. Anticipation. And not just articulate the guess of those raw emotions but write from actually living the situation described, well, it lends the story an authenticity that I personally find hard to duplicate. In the end it leaves the reader as the voyeur in this true story of starting submission. Even for those not interested in kink or BDSM, this is a tale of self-acceptance, self-awareness and of learning to love the imperfect version of ourselves.

I am grateful for that night years ago when I was asked, “So, how did you go from there to here?” It gave me the courage to answer it openly and honestly, once and for all.

I am finally free.
Darling Discovered: A True Story of Submission won in the non-fiction category at 2015 BDSM Writer’s Con and was published June 2016. It is available in print and all ebook formats at major retailers. DarlingDiscovered.com for more information.

A special thank you to F. Leonora Solomon for hosting this guest post onto her lovely website, fdotleonora.com.

Mrs. Darling is the lady of a Modern Day 1950’s M/s Household. She is a regular contributor for SubmissiveGuide.com and her work can be seen elsewhere online.

Guest Blogger Exposing 40 Exposes All for the Camera!!!

It makes me sad that my elegant friend Exposing 40 lives so far away. I got to spend a few days with her while I was abroad, and even though we talk all the time virtually there is nothing like the real thing. She is amazing! She gave me this stunning guest post, that I now I get to share it with you…

Coming for the Camera

Lovers have photographed me. I have leant back on their cocks, as they pushed up my skirt to let the camera get a better view of my cunt. I have leaned forward as they grabbed my tits in their hands and clicked the shutter. I have looked into the lens, and met its eye as I sucked their cocks. But until you I had never fucked myself for the camera of a man who wasn’t my lover.

I am an exhibitionist. For as long as I can remember the fantasies that make me come are the ones where I am being watched. And not ones where I am being watched by a secret voyeur, but ones where I am performing – on stage, in a shop window, to neighbors I know are watching…

I knew I would come for you. Even when I was still finding my confidence in the evening, relaxing with my first glass of wine, I knew I would masturbate for you. For your camera. I was surprised when I lay on my bed and slipped my fingers under the fabric of my knickers to find my cunt already wet. Very wet. I hadn’t even been conscious of getting turned on.

As I write this I can feel my cunt pulsing at the memory…

Is your cock twitching now?

Can you feel it starting to strain against your jeans as you remember me circling my clit with my fingers beneath the lace of my knickers, my breath quickening? Did your cock press against your jeans that night as you pulled my knickers down to my ankles so your camera could get a better view of my cunt. So you could get a better view of my cunt.

I felt you close at one point. My eyes were closed, but I felt your camera so close it was almost touched me. My hips bucked, my cunt reached up to your camera, as if it were reaching up to greet a cock. As turned on by a camera as I am by a cock.

You fucked me with my glass dildo. Hard. It hurt, but felt good, I wanted it to stop, I didn’t want it to stop. I wanted you to keep fucking me with the dildo. I wanted you to keep photographing me. I fucked myself with the dildo for your camera. I came quickly.

Later on the sofa you moved around me, you dropped back to the doorway, you photographed from above, you stopped and watched. At one point I opened my eyes and you were lying on the floor, leant back on your elbows, a quiet smile playing on your lips. You looked content. That turned me on more. I wanted to see that look again.

You moved behind me. You went quiet. I heard the gentle unmistakable sounds of you masturbating. I looked up and caught your eye. I kept masturbating but my mind is racing – I wanted to stop and watch you, I wanted to watch and come as I watched, I wanted you in my mouth. Then the taste of you was on my lips. I came again.

Please be sure to leave comments about how sexy and eloquent this post is–I am trying to get the lady to write a TON more!!!

photo via Exposing 40

Guest Blogger Lana Fox Invites Us Inside the Castle of Depravity!!!

Lana Fox is no stranger to my blog, and I am delighted to have her back to talk about her latest, Castle of Depravity! Ever the sensualist, get ready for Lana to set your senses to boiling with this one, another nod to Anaïs Nin!

On Kinking Shame – Castle of Depravity

Shame. I was raised in it, soaked in it, and I “left my body” because of it. I believed my erotic feelings, which saturated me as a teen, were the reason I’d go to Hell.

I thought the universe loathed me.

But you know what? When I found erotica, I started to say, “If I’m going to Hell, then I might as well choose it. And I might as well have fun before I burn.”

It took several years of reading erotica before I put pen to paper myself, but once I had, I began to realize that the shame I was recovering from was the same stuff I longed to kink. In fact, I was obsessed with the Baron in Anaïs Nin’s ‘The Hungarian Adventurer’ in Delta of Venus, and enjoyed The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty by Anne Rice, both of which indulge in what I call “kinking shame.”

My most recent release is a 1920s series entitled Belted Venus, which honors Anaïs Nin in its title (you’ll notice it’s similar to Delta of Venus) also plays with this kink. In fact, the delectable chastity belt in Delta of Venus helped to inspire Book One, Castle of Depravity (also available at NOOK).

In Castle of Depravity, Lucerne comes of age and goes to stay with her stepbrother Simeon whom she hasn’t seen for years, even though he has forbidden her visit because of the sordid life he leads. As Lucerne soon finds out, Simeon lives in what he calls “a castle of depravity”—an old castle by the sea where rich, sexually adventurous Englishmen pour their wealth into a life of carnal pleasures. Simeon, rather like myself as a teen, has accepted that he is surely going to Hell, but when he and his sister find themselves desperately attracted to each other, he has to decide whether he can bear Lucerne going to Hell too—and all because of the power of his desires.

So strong is their attraction, in fact, that watching his sister being seduced by his friends is both torture and delectation for Simeon. After all, she is still a virgin—and one who longs to lose that “chastity.” Even so, Simeon soon finds a delicious way to kink his own shame and prevent his sister from taking all that she truly wants:

My brother slid the chastity belt up my legs, glossing my bare skin. We were in my bedroom at the time, moonlight dancing through the arched castle window, and he was crouching behind me, his hot breath falling against the small of my back. Standing next to the mirrored wardrobe, I was naked in front of him. I felt like every feather-light touch might tip me into an agony of bliss — one I desperately needed.

I was trembling and wetter than ever before.

The belt was formed of layer upon layer of gold chains that clinked and jingled against my flesh, rather like the jangling contraptions that bellydancers wore — or so I’d heard. These chains also formed a gusset at the center, which would pull between my thighs like underwear, clutching at my sex and hanging heavily on my hips, as if desperate to drag me to the ground. I whimpered with excitement. This was all too sensual, too torturing and forbidden.

He rose as he slid the belt higher and higher. At one point, he clasped my lower thigh as if he might fall if he didn’t, and the groan he released made me run my hand over my naked breasts.

I was quivering, amazed at the sensations in my body, which were pouring through me, crashing into my sex, hardening my nipples like never before. Every graze and shimmy of the metal against my skin made me gasp with pleasure, especially since I knew the perpetrator was my own stepbrother.

When he pulled the belt over my thighs, where its coldness broke my breath, I grew dizzy and had to steady myself against the wardrobe door because my brother was touching me where a brother never should! As I caught myself, he let out the deepest of moans and clutched my thigh suddenly, as if he, too, had stumbled from sheer erotic need.

The chastity belt that stimulates and also denies struck me as a wonderful BDSM punishment. If every step you take brings you both pleasure and captivity, prolonging your erotic torture and thus building your thirst, how deeply you can kink the notion of shame. You are, after all, prevented from true release, yet also erotically tortured for your “sordid” desires.

The belt also pushes me to be erotically inventive as an author. And yes, there’s tons of ridiculously kinky sex that can be had while it stays on….

What fun!

I have to say, I think the kinks in Castle of Depravity have been more erotically enticing for me to write than almost any other. That castle by the sea brings a whole host of exciting scenarios, and a reason to lavish every scene with deeply explicit material.

I hope you’ll take a look and let me know what you think, if you do….

Thank you to the lovely, talented F. Leonora for having me!

Buy Castle of Depravity at Amazon

Buy Caslte of Depravity at NOOK

Guest Blogger Camilla Saly Writes About Falling in Love, and Her Upcoming Anthology!!!

My friend Camilla Saly has an exciting new anthology coming out with my publisher Riverdale Avenue Books, which I wrote this post about a few months ago. The Morris-Jumel Mansion has a special place in Camilla’s heart, as well as its once mistress Eliza Jumel…who happens to be a namesake for the Eliza in my Wicked Wednesday series! I invited Camilla to come tell us all about the magic of Eliza Jumel and the history of her home, which will take place front and center in her anthology!

I fall more and more in love with Eliza the more I get to know her: Eliza Jumel, I mean, owner of the house on the hill, the Morris-Jumel Mansion.

Eliza’s house is at 65 Jumel Terrace, right behind St. Nicholas Avenue, a few steps from the 163rd Street C-Train stop in Washington Heights. When I say it is Eliza’s house, I don’t mean it was Eliza’s house. I mean it is Eliza’s house – it still is. She may have been dead since 1865, but it is as much Eliza’s house as it ever was.

Whenever I go there, I give a gracious greeting and a courteous farewell, ask permission or pardon when necessary and make sure to mind my p’s and q’s. I know she is watching.

Children see Eliza more easily than adults do. I feel her presence at each visit, but they’ve seen her. Even as recently as a few months ago school children saw her move a candlestick across a mantelpiece without anyone touching it. The Mansion is surrounded by a lovely, small park: the only remaining portion of her original 130 acres, and Eliza has been known to chastise children who are playing loudly in her grounds, showing herself at the balcony, calling for them to “shut up!” when they become too boisterous. She expects that children should mind their manners. She conveys a clear message to us moderns about what she feels is acceptable behavior, and what is not.

My husband Mark and I were married at the Morris-Jumel Mansion in the summer of 2015. The date of our wedding fell, incidentally, on the day of the duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. On our day we reserved a chair in a place of honor for Eliza Jumel. Her story was part of our ceremony, and we provided details about her life in our wedding program. We felt honored and proud that Eliza would share her house with us for the afternoon.

Eliza Jumel was a brave, sexual, powerful woman who dared, uncompromisingly, to be herself at a time when women rarely did so. She was sexual, smart, business savvy and eccentric, long before American society would begin to recognize a woman’s right to political, social and sexual self-agency.

Let me tell you a little more about her. Eliza Jumel was born Eliza “Betsey” Bowen in a Providence, Rhode Island brothel, to Phebe Kelley Bowen on April 7, 1775. Her mother’s madam was a free Black woman, and Eliza grew up “in the life.” At seventeen, Betsey Bowen was illiterate. Upon her reappearance in New York City a few years later, she both read and wrote in French and English. After a brief career on the stage as what today we would call an “extra,” she gained the reputation as “Manhattan’s greatest beauty.” Soon she met French merchant Stephen Jumel, twenty-five years her senior. Jumel’s fortune came from selling fine wines from France to the American colonies. She lived “in sin” with Jumel as his mistress for four years, until, fearing abandonment, she feigned illness, and, in a deathbed seduction scene straight out of a romance novel, begged her lover as a “last request” to make her “an honest woman.” He succumbed, married her, and the next morning Eliza sprung out of bed, her illness ‘miraculously’ healed. With her marriage to Stephen Jumel in 1804 she gained legitimacy, but despite her beauty and wealth she was repeatedly rejected by New York society, who knew of her checkered past.

In 1810 the Jumels purchased the Morris house on Harlem’s Heights. Built by Roger Morris in 1765, a Royalist to the British Crown, the house was abandoned by the Morris Family, who fled the United States when New York began to heat up with the stirrings of Revolutionary War. Subsequently, it quartered General George Washington during the Battle of Harlem Heights, from whence he commanded his troops. It also took a brief turn as an inn, and, in the early days of the US Government, was a gathering place for many of the “Founding Fathers.”

The Jumels travelled back and forth to France, and Stephen remained there at length, while Eliza returned to New York and the mansion with Stephen Jumel’s power of attorney as a “femme sole,” a special status usually afforded to unmarried women, wherein she had the right to own property and make contracts in her own name. Once in New York, through power of attorney, she entitled herself to all profit and control of the entire Jumel estate. With great business acumen, Eliza bought and sold real estate, tripling the Jumel fortune. In 1832, Stephen Jumel died in an accident. Fourteen months after her husband’s death, Eliza Jumel married the controversial former United States Vice President Aaron Burr. She married to increase her stature by marrying the former vice president and “founding father;” he married for access to her fortune. Burr squandered Eliza’s money with alarming rapacity. Eliza filed for divorce in 1834, utilizing the suspicion of adultery as cause—an action that prompted one historian to marvel, “Nothing more vividly revealed her business ability than the efficiency with which she got rid of Burr.” The divorce was granted on September 14, 1836, the day of Burr’s death. Madame Jumel lived the rest of her life in the mansion, where her increasing eccentricities gained her notoriety throughout the countryside. She died there in 1865 at the age of 90.

An almost life-sized portrait is prominently displayed inside the mansion of Madame Eliza Jumel. It gives an unmistakable fierceness and strength to her countenance. You surely wouldn’t want to cross her, but despite that no-nonsense appearance, throughout her life she showed great compassion, adopting her sister’s children, and employing Anne Northrop, wife of Solomon Northrop (12 Years A Slave), and providing a place in the house for her and her children while Anne’s husband was imprisoned. Eliza Jumel was anti-slavery and pro women’s rights. In life, she was flamboyant, sexual, smart, and uncompromisingly herself: an empowered woman, a strong woman, a kindred spirit.

CALL FOR STORY SUBMISSIONS:

It is with a great sense of gratitude to Mme. Jumel that I find myself editor of an anthology of paranormal romance and fantasy fiction based on her home, the Morris-Jumel Mansion, Manhattan’s oldest house.

Requirements:

The stories must prominently feature the Morris-Jumel Mansion, in the past, the present, future, or in an alternate universe, and may include its historical inhabitants (including Madame Eliza Jumel, Stephen Jumel, Aaron Burr, and other Revolutionary War and pre-Revolutionary War characters, slaves and servants), the Mansion’s visitors, fictional or otherwise, and/or hauntings, visitations, or supernatural beings (including angels, devils, werewolves, vampires, etc), with elements of time-travel, science fiction, erotica/romance, paranormal, steampunk, or gaslamp fantasy.

The deadline for story submissions is June 30th. For more specifics about the anthology, click here. For information about visiting the Mansion, which is now a museum, click here. I am also happy to personally provide a tour of the Mansion to any potential story-contributor who wishes to visit. For any questions, or to schedule a tour, I can be reached at mjmanthology@gmail.com.

Bio: Camilla Saly is a lifelong New Yorker, writer and educator. Her writing has been published in numerous magazines and websites under a pseudonym. Newly retired from teaching, she continues to write and edit, and looks forward to publishing under her own name. Camilla lives in Harlem with her husband Mark, one bad cat, and one good cat.

Visit my calls for submission page for Camilla’s call and others. If you have one you want there, let me know!

Happy Mother’s Day Guest Blogger (And Sexy Mother) Kayla Lords Writes Us Kinky Love Notes!!!

So in case you did not know, I adore Kayla Lords! This is not her first rodeo as my guest blogger either, as evidenced here and here. When I heard she had a new book of poetry, I had to have her over again! And on what better day than Mother’s Day, for a sexy mother like her? Salivating for sexy verse? Read on…

XOXO to Leonora for letting me visit her sexy corner of the world today! I’m here to pimp myself, er, my new book, actually. No, it’s not a steamy story of a Dominant with brooding eyes and a submissive who melts into them (although that does sound like a good story…). Nope, this time, I did something a little different. I put together a book of erotic poetry specifically with Dominants and submissives in mind. Most of them are simple haikus which sounded like kinky love notes (so the title Kinky Love Notes was born).

My hope has always been that my words will inspire others to their own kinky fun or turn them on so much they can’t keep their hands off of themselves. This time, I’m hoping to do it in as few words as possible while at the same time giving D/s couples a way to help express our desires and love through poetry. But ya know, if I turn you on while you’re reading, I’m gonna call that a win. Ha! I hope you check it out and enjoy!

About Kinky Love Notes

Pictures are often painted with words. Lust, love, desire, and kink are no exception. Instead of lines and lines of prose to express need and want, Kayla Lords uses simple poetry. Within these pages, you’ll find haikus, couplets, and free verse with one thing in common: notes of the sensuous pleasure, kinky fun, and power exchange found between a Dominant and a submissive.

Excerpts from Kinky Love Notes

The Things You Do To Me

Waiting patiently
For you. Hot and wet, dripping.
Anticipating.

You make me feel things
In every nerve ending.
Don’t stop. Give me more.

You belong to me.
The taste of you imprinted
On my tongue always.

***

Please, Sir?

Collar me,
Cuff me,
Restrain me,
Blindfold me,
Want me.
Please, Sir?

Spank me,
Paddle me,
Flog me,
Bruise me,
Mark me.
Please, Sir?

Bite me,
Finger me,
Fuck me,
Take me,
Use me.
Please, Sir?

Stroke me,
Hold me,
Kiss me,
Soothe me,
Love me.
Please, Sir?

I know you want more of Kayla’s poems, here’s where you can get your copy:

Amazon: http://mybook.to/KLN

Barnes & Noble: http://bit.ly/1qkrscT

iBooks: http://apple.co/1qLwQGN

Smashwords: http://bit.ly/1Q3LtJL

Kayla Lords Bio

Kayla Lords is a kinky submissive, an erotic author, a sex blogger, and a podcaster. She writes about BDSM and kink from a loving and realistic view. This is her first book of poetry, erotic or otherwise. She also is a regular contributor to Kinkly, Fetish.com, Fuck.com, and Submissive Guide.

Follow Kayla Lords

Website: http://kaylalords.com

Amazon: http://author.to/KaylaLords

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/KaylaLords

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/KaylaLordsAuthor

Google+: http://plus.google.com/+KaylaLords

Tumblr: http://a-sexual-being.tumblr.com

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/kaylalords1/

Guest Blogger Delilah Night Blurs the Lines Between Fiction and Reality — and a Contest!!!

It is with so much pleasure that I host Delilah Night! Delilah is a writer’s writer, every time I read something of hers I am moved, and want to run my fingers over her words. She is also such a cornerstone of the community, she engages with everyone and I am honored to consider her a friend. Read below to be blown away by her like I have been–and a chance to win her latest!!!

I’m so excited to be on your blog today, Leonora! I’ve gotten to know Leonora on my blog and in the Twitterverse, and she is a delightful friend. I always look forward to seeing you in my feed! If you’re not following her photography 365 blog, you should be! I hope your readers will enjoy my post, and stick around for the contest!

For my guest posts this week (check out Malin James’s blog on Thursday!) I thought it would be fun to talk about how much of myself and my husband can be found in the characters of Meg and RJ.

Ways in which Meg and I are similar

Meg is a teacher, and I also used to teach sixth grade math. There’s an anecdote that Meg shares during breakfast that I lifted from my own experiences.
Meg is a photographer, and I’m a photographer. Almost every photo that Meg takes can be found on my hard drive. The photo above the excerpt is one of mine, and you can see how I worked it into the story. Alas, I did not have a naked photoshoot in Preah Khan—those are fictional photos.
Meg is really frightened of being hurt, emotionally, again. When I first began dating my husband of ten years, I told him I wanted to be “just friends” after our first date because I was so frightened of being that vulnerable again.

Ways in which Meg and I are nothing alike.

She’s a natural red head. I remember watching The Little Mermaid and desperately have wanted red hair since. I have spent many a pretty penny on attempts to get red hair, but you can’t get that natural red shade out of a bottle. Sad face.
I don’t have an ex who haunts me in the way that RJ haunts Megan. My exes are—at best—fodder for bad boyfriends in fiction. I’m looking at you guy who helped me move to NYC and then, while giving my college roommate who had also come down to help me move a ride back to Boston, asked her out before we had even broken up. Among others.
Meg has an awesome sister (Rachel is one of my favorite characters, ever). I am an only child, although I dreamed of having a brother or sister.

*Exclusive Excerpt*

Angkor Wat was such a massive temple complex that, even with hundreds of other tourists on site, Meg and RJ were often alone as they explored. Rather than enter the main temple through the front entrance, they walked along the left outer wall. Their footsteps echoed as they wandered along a covered gallery. The wall on their left was covered in a bas relief carving depicting a battle scene. Lines of marching soldiers looked as though they might step out of the stone at any moment. Generals directed them from the backs of elephants. Meg stroked the trunk of an elephant, her finger following a gleaming path made by countless fingers before hers. Small, sporadic chunks of the image were missing, leaving only scarred stone where art had once thrived. The right side of the gallery was open to the elements, supported by a series of columns, allowing a cooling breeze to provide a brief respite from the intense heat outside.

“The holes?” RJ asked, his voice barely above a murmur.

“Thieves. My guidebook said the missing pieces had inscriptions that people thought held magical powers. It’s also why there are so many missing or headless statues, too. At least they couldn’t steal all of the wall carvings.”

The geometry of the empty hallway they’d just walked down with its repeating doorways, dark stone carvings on one side, and the light filtering in between the columns opposite, called to her.

Click. Chiaroscuro.

“Show me?”

Tilting the camera so they could both see the screen, Meg pressed a button to bring the picture back up.

“I just saw doorways. How did you see that, Meg?” RJ asked.

“That’s because you glance and I watch,” she answered.

“So you’re saying I should take more time to see what’s right in front of me before I move on too quickly?”

Meg switched her camera back to shooting mode. “I was talking about photography.”

“So was I.” His expression was neutral.

Sure you were.

You never forget your first love…

Meg and RJ were passionately in love. But that was six years and a broken engagement ago.

Meg has only one day in Siem Reap, Cambodia, before she must leave for her sister’s wedding in Bali. She fulfills her dream of taking a photograph of the sun rising behind Angkor Wat, one of the oldest temples in the world. But her joy is short-lived when she turns around to see RJ standing behind her.

RJ threw himself into work after Meg ended their relationship. He’s built a successful business, but it’s a hollow victory. He’s come to Siem Reap to win back the woman he’s never stopped loving. But first he has to convince her to spend the day with him.

Meg is as physically attracted to RJ as she ever was. Maybe the secret to finally getting over him is a one day only, no strings attached fling.

Can RJ win Meg back, or will she love him and leave him?

Capturing the Moment is on sale everywhere!

Bio

After 30 years of snowy New England winters, Delilah Night moved to steamy Southeast Asia. While she doesn’t miss shoveling snow, she does miss shopping for bargains at Target.

In 2014, Delilah visited Cambodia for the first time and fell in love with Siem Reap. Many of her misadventures from that vacation (including the one with the monkey) made their way into this story.

Connect with Delilah on her blog, Twitter, or Facebook

Contest—Win a free copy of Capturing the Moment!

Which fictional character do you most identify with? Leave a comment, and I’ll pick a winner on Monday, May 9, 2016.

Guest Blogger C. P. McClennan Straddles Multiple Genres for Your Reading Pleasure!!!

I remember the first time I met C.P. McClennan, and his lovely wife in Bristol at Eroticon. I remember the last time I saw them in New York…I can tell you they are awesome, lovely people. C.P. astounds me, because he is one of the most prolific writers I know–and he writes sci-fi that makes me HOT! Excuse me, I need a moment…you know what? Let me just hand the post over to C.P. …

You might need a moment too…

For the love of Savannah

First off, thank you to my friend F. Leonora Solomon for the kind offer of a guest post on her site. I’m a bit later than planned, as I seem to recall the initial offer was a year back. I was busy writing something or other, though, and never got to it until now.

Oh right. I remember now.

That something or other is my newest release of Darwin’s Sword – Savannah Book Two. This is the second book in The Savannah Trilogy, with the third coming in October of 2016.

First, allow me to introduce myself. Who am I?

“I’m 24601!!!”

I’m sorry. There are good reasons why I should never sing.

My readers know me as C.P. McClennan. I write for my sex-blogging and erotic fiction website, Stranded in Toronto. My friends simply know me as Chris.

I write a lot of erotica mixed with sci-fi, horror, humor, urban fiction, or whatever. I just can’t write romance. It is hard enough getting past the raised eyebrows at being a male erotic writer in a traditionally female field, but then avoiding romance sends the other eyebrow skyrocketing alongside its brethren.

I came at this from a different direction than most. Although I have read some traditional romance novels, my influences are more from the likes of Douglas Adams, Stephen King, and Neil Gaiman. My cauldron also adds in crime procedurals by Lillian O’Donnell and Ed McBain. The closest influence in the traditional romance writers would be J.D. Robb.

But enough about me.

Savannah is someone I rarely talk about.

Okay, and I write a lot of fiction, so as that last sentence proves, I often lie.

Savannah began in late April of 2013 when I found out I had a work trip to Savannah, Georgia coming up that June. A discussion ensued with a fellow sex-blogger, Stella Kiink, as to how cool the name Savannah would be as an erotic character.

The first short story was written after that. It was more intended as a part of another ongoing series I was writing on my website, called “The Songbirds.” That short story became the first chapter of Just Prey – Savannah Book One, which released in February of 2015.

“Just prey, they said…they were supposed to be just prey.”

Savannah in Just Prey – Savannah Book One

Obviously, the story took on its own life beyond the initial intent. “The Songbirds” main characters, Nigel and Sheila, have become prominent characters in both of the first novels as well. Even more so in the third, but I can’t share all that much about it yet.

Savannah is an alien from the planet Kettelgian. Go ahead, try and pronounce that…I dare you. I’ve been writing the word for five years now and still can’t decide how to.

She is sent to Earth to prepare for eviction. The Kettelgian are succubus, and feed on the sexual energies humans give off during orgasms. The results are quite devastating to humans, as one might imagine. This situation becomes far worse, however, when Savannah realizes she loves a human and can no longer go through with her mission.

She was sent to activate “The Predator” who has been on Earth a very long time. Instead, she tries to stop him.

In book two, The Predator has more of his past story told that includes well-known historical characters. This will be the first time I mention this openly, but bringing Arthur Conan Doyle, Bram Stoker, and a third (sorry…for the third, you’ll just have to read the book) into the mix was an absolute blast.

“Oh shit, Arthur. Now I really need that drink.”

Bram Stoker in Darwin’s Sword – Savannah Book Two

Darwin’s Sword opens with Savannah and Gerald chasing down the Predator in an attempt to save the few humans left. A shocking discovery of a human colony and the introduction of The Assassin take them deep into the darkness of space.

The story, so far, rides the rails between horror, erotica, and science fiction. Book three will move much more into the horror side of all this.

The third book is The Orphan War – Savannah Book Three, and will be out October 7, 2016.

“Oh, you know. We had an orgy. Everyone came.” – Savannah

“Wise ass.” – Nigel

The Orphan War – Savannah Book Three

I do have other releases, by the way. Next to Savannah, my longest running releases would be the seven (as of post time) short stories of Skelly Manor. Parts 8-10 are in my draft folder and will finish my writing of the series this coming July before I pass that baton onto another friend, Aaron Abby to carry on. A series based on a fictional swingers resort in a factional area I know rather well, The Kootenays, which are a range of the Canadian Rockies. A series that, for me, has now run its course but Ms. Aaron will be blowing new life in with a set of stories following that.

Screaming was all Millie could hear as she walked along the

fourth-floor hall passing other rooms towards her own.

Good screaming. Orgasmic screaming.

Snowbound, The First Skelly Manor Short Story

More of a humorous bit, Director Jake is another character who began life as short stories on my web page about a porn director where things just can’t seem to go right.

Jake raised his hand intending to yell cut again. It seemed moot,

however, once the sheets ignited from the hot bulb against them

Director Jake

I will take this opportunity, and am pleased to announce, that this will now be a series as Director Jake in the Dungeon of Crimson will be on Amazon Kindle June 17.

There is a new piece that I have begun work on. In fact, it will likely be showing up on my short erotica posted on my blog in the very near future (or near past depending on when Lady Solomon posts this). “On The Drift” is a working title, but it will be the follow-up to Savannah. It will be my attempt to work erotica into a space opera universe. I’m not in a position to share much more here as, much like space itself, the idea is very fluid and keeps expanding.

So that’s it for now.

So many see erotica as being the literary equivalent of porn. My attempt here is to be a hybrid between how people view erotica and the more modern popular genres. It always feels more real to me knowing my characters actually have libido to deal with rather than simply being driven by one over-riding factor such as greed, power, or ego.

Whether horror, sci-fi, or humor, both protagonist and antagonist are going to want to have sex at some point.

My Savannah Trilogy shows this well. Might just be worth taking a look for you to see how.