Category Archives: writing

Wicked Wednesday Prompt #99 — Safe Sex

Eliza guessed she dozed off, there was a secret smile inside her when she woke because they had not had to leave as quickly as they had the first time so that she could return to Rafe. She rolled onto her side and relished when he squeezed her simply because he felt her move, easily she maneuvered from under him and out of the bed. On the dresser, she pulled a tissue from its dispenser and moved the used condom that was there. She walked into the bathroom, the cool tiles underneath her feet startling her from the still warm feeling from being with him again.

Oddly she removed the condom from the tissue and looked at it for a moment. Her fingers French manicured as a joke because she was going to Paris, with the thinnest lines of white because she just started to grow her fingernails a few weeks before. She had been a diligent nail biter. Those manicured fingernails caressed the used condom which she tied in a knot. The evidence of what she had done with him, this man who had wrecked her inside even when she did not believe she was ever going to see him again.

One thing that she cared about in this whole affair was that she was safe about it. Rafe deserved that much from her, if nothing else. She knew what Rafe tasted like, what he felt like inside her, bare and warm. She liked it, she had liked everything she thought…

Dumping the condom into the wastebasket, she washed her hands then sat on the toilet and was distracted by sensation of urinating that made her want to have sex all over again. She wondered what exactly was she doing? Why had she done this again when it had wrecked her? Now Paris was not going to be about business, it was going to be about pleasure. Pure pleasure no matter what happened when they walked out of this hotel room, and he walked out of her life for a second time.

Flushing the toilet, and hopefully her emotions, she washed her hands again and walked back into the bedroom. He was lying on his back with one leg up and looked at her.

“Did you bring your restlessness to Paris, cherie?”

Walking as if she was fully clothed at one of her meetings, she crossed her arms and flexed her foot.

“Business brought me to Paris. Was that a question?”

“What is this Jeopardy? Yes, it was a question.”

“I thought there were no questions, no guilt, no rings…”

Her ring was still on.

“I have to know about you now, because I am going to need to know who you are in case you show up in the next city I am in.”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” she said sitting on the edge of the bed. “This was an aventure.”

He pulled her close to him.

“You speak a lot of French don’t you?”
He kissed her and she was sure she was flowed over his body like a waterfall, her sharp words betrayed by her body.

“I have cocktails tonight with some clients, I have to go,” She pulled away slightly.

He released her.

“I have something tonight as well, what are you doing after?”

Eliza studied his face and could not decipher what he was about. What he wanted.

“Is your fiance here?” he continued to question.

She shook her head.

“Are you alone?” she asked him, now that questions were allowed.

He nodded, as he pulled her close to kiss her again. She did not resist, even though she did have to go. When they pulled away, she looked into his eyes posing a question and answering his at the same time.

Cocktails later were a blur, she kept looking at her watch and wondering if it was almost time to return to him. She had two drinks and sipped them laboriously as one of the men at the table tried to flirt with her furiously and she did not want to end up in the mist of another aventure. It seemed that it was true that ever since she had gotten engaged more men seemed to notice her.

Slightly tipsy, she walked out of the restaurant and hailed a cab for the first time in Paris. Delivered to her hotel, because she had a meeting in the morning, she went up to her room and he was already there. His mouth tasted of scotch, and she sucked on his lip to get all the taste of it.

“So how was your meeting Eliza?”

“How do you know my name?”

He pointed the suitcase in the corner with her name tag on it.

Eliza shrugged.

The telephone rang and she ran to it, kicking off her heels.

“Rafe?”

Her conversation with Rafe was as hushed as she could make it, as he walked about the room pretending to be distracted.

“I love you too,” she whispered and then hung up the phone. “You do not have to pretend to be distracted, the conversation is over.”
He turned around,

She rushed over to him, placed her hand on his chest.

“What is your name?”

“Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name…”

His smile was broad as he quoted the Rolling Stones’ song lyrics.

“You are the devil,” she concurred. “You are…”

She closed her eyes and the special darkness of his kiss commanded her life and she wrapped a leg about him. Tipsy and full of need, she did not care what this devil’s name was for the moment.

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photo by f dot leonora

I'm Going Hopping

My friends Lise Horton and Del Carmen were doing this blog hop, and I decided to hop along! It never hurts for me to remember why I do this:

1) What am I working on?
I am working on a variety of things including editing several projects for Ravenous Romance, posting to this blog and trying to write some short stories. I have been very inspired to write since attending Eroticon 2014, editing is  a lovely thing and I love it but creating is something I love as well.
2) How does my work differ from others in its genre?
One thing I learned when I was taking writing courses was that no one is going to break the mold. All the stories have been told, the only difference is that I am telling it. I like erotic romance, I like stories where people love like their life depends on it. Love that is inconvenient and dominates the people who fall in it. I like the dark side of things not always BDSM, but the darkness that is revealed when people love that hard. When they are exposed and vulnerable…I love exploring the madness on the other side of that.
3) Why do I write what I do?
I wanted to be an actress at one point, a psychologist at another. I had more of a inclination to be creative, but acting was too much exposure for me. Writing allows me to take the risks I might have taken with acting, but instead I research it and probably go deeper with words on a screen. I was always told I was a good storyteller, and it seems like I let people talk me into believing it. I have always been driven to tell the stories people do not see or they may not want to see.
4) How does my writing process work?
This morning I got inspired by a name of a restaurant. It reminded me of an old actress, and I wanted to name my character that. Since I write nothing but love stories, it was how is she going to fall in love? Then I remembered I was already working on a story, and I know that character is going to fall apart in love. I do not really need to do anything but write the story. Sometimes I create a character who does something I am not familiar with, and I have to research to make it real. The same way that I will explore something that a character in a novel does like the time I was in a Tibetan restaurant and had tea with butter and sugar like I read about in Nicholas Christopher’s Veronica, that is the same way I will explore something just to get an idea of what it is like so I can make it ring true. I learned early on to write about what I know, some of my stories are very far from what I know, but I have stepped into the shoes of my character’s in some way so that I can tell it. Writers are really only mediums as I see it.

photo courtesy of www.feltmusic.it

What Makes You Stop?, Part II

I had not planned on writing a sequel to yesterday’s post, but the irony of this situation made me have to…

Just as I was about to lift the handle to the gate to my place, I saw that the red window was still not lit across the street. However someone in another house across from me had a poster of Mohammad Ali. I found that striking, because I could not see the whole thing, but I did see that it looked like a scene from a match that he won. I assumed it was in a bedroom, and wondered if it was there for inspiration? For the aesthetic?

I thought about what windows reveal, what they say about the person behind them. I thought about the desire to have things around you that create an atmosphere. I usually keep my windows closed, blinds drawn, no Edward Hopper voyeurism into my place. Things I have hung up inside for my aesthetic and inspiration include a map of Paris, various pictures of butterflies, postcards from friends including one of Sophia Loren staring at Jayne Mansfield’s breasts, and an old calendar with an old pulp cover that is subtly erotic. And books. Everywhere. I am used to it all, but I love it all around me just the same.

Tonight for a change, I was able to remember that I saw this poster across the street, and wanted to write about the irony. Oh irony!

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

NWWTHYWM

Today I am joining Donna George Storey in NWWTHYWM, or NaWriWhaTheYouWaMo. It is a kind of reverse of NaNoWriMo, which I have done several times and won. The last time I did it I lost, it was sad because I had to give up due to my work schedule. I never had a problem with pushing myself until the loss, and believe me pushing yourself to write seven to ten-thousand words a day was a necessary evil. I am not bitter about it though, that is not why I am doing NWWTHYWM. But I do want to write and have it be complete ignorant bliss. To write because I want to. And yet, I found myself editing myself when a story came to me today, thinking to myself it is not related to anything that I am working on professionally. And yet is that not the point of this challenge?

This story arrived unexpectedly, much like I drove past a restaurant today I have wanted to try, saw it and remembered I wanted to go. I saw something that intrigued me creatively and built a scenario like a brick layer. The story stands alone–erotic, glass-covered and full of possibility. It is just something I want to explore, and I am going to explore it and free to do it because of NWWTHYWM. I want to feel free to write for the sheer pleasure of it, and not be invested in a numeric limit or an angle that agrees with something I am working on.

I will write just because I want to, will you join me?

That's What Friends Are For…

Even though I have an insanely busy schedule, I make time for meeting up with friends. There is the data that supports longevity with having a good support network, but friends are good for a lot more too. Especially as a writer I can say I am really appreciative of the contributions of my friends.

My friends especially the non-writing ones see what I do as almost if I have a wand and apply fairy dust everywhere! As a writer of fiction, I can pull a rabbit out of a hat and create a story. It’s a pleasure for me to think of an idea and execute with words. Additionally, no one can resist a smile when they ask me what I edit and write because there is still a stigma about sex in our society. Everyone alludes to it in all artistic mediums, but no one wants to go all the way. I do, as an erotica editor and writer. My friends have been supportive and impressed with what has become of my career and my dedication. Half the time I am looking down at my iPhone, it is for work. One of my friends and I had to take a time out from our phones while out together, yet we still managed to talk shop.

Another friend is a copyeditor of something other than erotica, she is my official beta reader. She told me it was a pleasure not to have to read the word-heavy material that she edits. I feel the same I would much rather edit erotica, than sit with the journals she sits with!

My friend who is a talented photographer, draws and studies art, advised me in her apartment as I was telling her about a career move I was contemplating. She paralleled it to something she had done before, and gave sobering advice about the pipe dream I was entertaining that I had not even considered…

My girlfriend who has been through a lot with me over the years reminded me of dreams I had put on the shelf. Didn’t you say you wanted to do this? Yes, I did, and now I am thinking about something I had forgotten I wanted to do.

And at last but not least, a writer friend told me about a ton of things she was planning, and I followed her advice with my own writing. The result was extreme happiness because it makes my work even more layered than a mille-feuille.

There is nothing magical about me. I think my friends are fairies, all of them beautiful and sprinkling their fairy dust on me…

Tweaking

Tweaking, not twerking! This blog is new, and I am trying out new things with it so if you see that things are moving about it is just me tinkering with the appearance. The Anaïs Nin quote I have added will likely remain in the same place:

I am so thirsty for the marvelous that only the marvelous has power over me. Anything I cannot transform into something marvelous, I let go. Reality doesn’t impress me. I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me, I escape, one way or another.

I got so angry years ago, when a Nin biography came out and a book reviewer claimed that she did not refer enough to the war that was going on in her diary. Really? Whose place is it to define how another person captures their own life? Maybe her diary was an escape from what was going on at the time. Why do we dream? Fantasize? And even during times of war people still have sex, fall in love and make babies. Maybe I am like Anaïs, when I put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard, I want to transcend my reality. I want to fly…