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Wicked Wednesday #100 — Full Circle

Eliza was happy that she was going to meet Rafe at his sister’s gallery opening. Meeting him there, she could blame her state of mind on jetlag and not having eaten. Quickly leaving her luggage at the coat check, she had barely walked into the space before she was handed a glass of champagne she gladly accepted.

“Eliza!”

Fiona rushed to hug her. Eliza enjoyed the genuine warmth from her sister-in-law-to-be. Fiona was the artist her parents had not expected to have in the family, and the reason why they and Rafe tried to mold Eliza into the daughter they had really wanted.

She was perfect by their standards and Rafe’s.

Her husband-to-be stood behind his sister, his appraisal of her was appreciative and she felt placated. Her back in New York dress was one Rafe had selected himself. As soon as Fiona let her go, Rafe moved forward, caressed her hip and took her in his arms.

“I missed you,” he breathed behind her ear. She smiled more so because she was ticklish there as opposed to returning the sentiment.

She was not unhappy to see Rafe, but it was not as easy this time to leave Oscar…

Oscar, she whispered his name over and over in her head since she learned it, saying it to herself when she thought about him which was often.

Paris had been Oscar and Eliza. Oscar was in Shanghai now without her, and she was in New York with Rafe. She looked up at Rafe, into his eyes that studied her as if he was making sure there was nothing different about her. He closed his eyes, and pressed his lips to her forehead. Later when they were alone, she knew that the darkness in those eyes was going to be her very sensuous reality and she was very eager for that. To learn him again, her hands pressed to the expanse of his wide chest before she buried her face there. His lips were on the top of her head, as he caressed her face and pushed her hair away from her cheek.

Her eyes were glazed as she stared at the Francesca Woodmanesque photos that Fiona had filled the gallery with. It was clear that Woodman was an influence on her, Fiona’s work was a happier expression of that style. Champagne and delicacies flowed about them, as they strolled through the gallery.

“Fiona, this is gorgeous,” Eliza said, still in Rafe’s embrace.

“You always know the right thing to say,” Rafe whispered to her after his sister walked away.

The sepia photos were lovely, and Fiona was young, fearless and not afraid to use her body as an instrument.

Eliza wished that she had that kind of confidence.

Rafe’s parents appeared around a gallery corner and kissed her before they kissed their own daughter. Eliza had that kind of relationship with his parents. She had now come full circle from her accidental transgression.

This was where she belonged.

“How was Paris?” Rafe’s mother asked her beaming.

“Paris is Paris!” she exclaimed brightly, as Rafe squeezed her.

“It was more lovely while you were there,” he said.

She closed her eyes as Rafe kissed the tip of her nose. His mother continued beaming,

“You lovebirds! Let’s go have dinner, we have reservations close by…”

Dinner was pleasant talk about Paris reinvented by Eliza without mention of Oscar. Fiona was silent all throughout, having expressed dismay at her show.

“It was a lovely show Fiona, I am not sure why you are so miserable,” her mother said to her.

“I need inspiration Mother. Everything I am doing seems so homogeneous…”

“So you are saying you have come full circle with your art?” her father asked.

“You want to travel again?” Rafe asked with weak patience for his younger sister.

Fiona played with the gooey chocolate cake she had ordered, not looking at anyone at the table.

“I have only really ever gotten grants to work in Europe. There is a grant I could get in Shanghai…Eliza, you speak some Mandarin don’t you?’

Eliza choked.

“Yes, I can write a bit too.”
“You said you wanted to go somewhere exciting for your next vacation. Maybe if Rafe will loan you to me, we could go to Shanghai I want to visit anyway. I have a friend there who is an artist, and the scene there is kind of ambitious and if one of us speaks the language…”

“Of course Rafe will loan Eliza to you Fiona,” Rafe’s mother eyed Rafe and Eliza strongly which Fiona could not see because she was sitting next to her.

Rafe and Eliza were silent. She was going to be the obedient faux daughter, and go to Shanghai with Fiona.

Oscar, she almost said out loud, but caught herself as she exhaled a whoosh of air to disguise the sound of his name.

Home later with Rafe, he took off his tie.

“This would be the second place that I cannot come with you. Paris, now Shanghai…”

He held his tie, and opened his shirt.

“I can still say no,” she said walking over to him, putting her hands on his chest.

She wanted him to tell her no, wanted him to tell her not to go. She would have listened.

His dark eyes appraised her.

“I cannot disappoint my parents, they will not let Fiona go without you, and that means Fiona will go however she has to. We are a family, sometimes we have to make sacrifices…”

She nodded, looking down, he raised her chin so she looked up at him and kissed her.

“She can borrow you, but you are mine. My perfect girl…”
Eliza looked up at the cracks on the ceiling, moaning as he kissed her and again on a deep whoosh of exhaled breath, she hid the name she almost moaned and thought of Shanghai…

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photo via wikipedia

Paris

New York is the perfect city to live in if you are going to travel the world, it is incomparable to any place else that I have been. I feel proud and happy when it is my destination after a trip somewhere. My love for New York was completely full and undivided…

…until I went to Paris.

I wanted to go to Paris since I was a little girl, doesn’t everyone? I wanted to go, was always planning for the potential trip and finally I went last year after Eroticon 2013. London was another desired destination, but there was no way I was going to be that close to Paris and not go! After the conference, I hurried to bed for an early train to take me to Paris. In my taxi from Gare Nord, with my charming driver who knew very little English, my eyes were so wide. I kept expecting to hear accordions in the background (when I did on a train I would have tipped the accordionist if I had change).

I was afraid to go to Paris in a way, because I was so in love with it already I was afraid the reality could not live up to that sentiment. The first thing I discovered was that it is a real city, not a museum. People live there, and I tried to be very respectful of that even though I was gawking at everything I saw. Paris is smaller than New York City. As weird as it sounds as a native New Yorker, I hate crowds. I cannot imagine living in a very small town, but sometimes New York is overwhelming. Paris meanwhile is not empty, but you can walk down a street by yourself and hear yourself as well.

On every corner there was a cafe, restaurant, chocolate store or art museum. The things I live for…Sadly there are a lot of bookstores too, but my French is very light. I know how to say perfunctory things, but cannot elaborate the way I do well…here!

I stayed at the same hotel for two separate trips to Paris, and I am planning to stay there for the third trip as well. I love the arrondissement where I have stayed, which is bad-mouthed in all of the guidebooks and good! I want it to stay that way. I have barely eaten outside of the neighborhood, and the last time made friends with the bartenders who served me free snacks. There is a cheese store across the street from the hotel, and I still dream of the cheese I bought there…

Paris is for me a lovely place to exist and be hidden at the same time. As a visitor who is not fluent in the language, I am not an active part of the scene so I can be a voyeur. I enjoy it intensely because Paris is beautiful. On my second trip, I started to see how I could walk from place to place instead of taking the Metro. I started to feel like I was getting the hang of things.

Of course, the erotica editor and writer in me had to go to the Musee de l’Erotisme. I went to Pigalle on a rainy Saturday, down the block from the museum is the Moulin Rouge–with Starbucks across the street! You are not allowed to take pictures there, but my best memory was on the third floor I think, with a wall that told the history of prostitution in Paris. I walked that whole floor so intrigued, reading everything that was written.

Someone asked me why was I going to Paris again, and I answered because it is Paris! I was incredulous that a person could ask such a thing. The only thing about Paris that is a challenge for me is the language barrier, but someday it will not be a barrier either. I am a communicator, I cannot let it be a barrier…

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

Last Day

I have given up coffee for a while for Lent. I have no desire to discuss religion, I am not even that religious. But I do have a spiritual side, that makes me give up coffee. Coffee is given up because I know I can, and because it is something that I remember I have given up every day. Thus my relationship with coffee is more than just reaching for a cup first thing in the morning, it is more layered and involved.

My mother actually used to give me coffee in the morning when I was a little girl. Mine had milk, and hers was black. I cannot drink black coffee even to this day it makes me jumpy. When I was a teenager, I drank it because the boy I had a crush on at the time did, coffee with milk–a lot of it–and sugar–a lot of it too. I stopped after I didn’t like the boy anymore. I picked it up again when I was in college, because boys always bought coffee for me when we would sit in the cafeteria to be philosophical like you think you are when you are in college.

I never made a decision to have a cup of coffee because I wanted it on my own, just had a desire for it until I was out of college. It was then I would end up in a cafe to have coffee. I liked it at that point large, with half and half and a ton of sugar. Once in a Starbucks, someone said I liked a little coffee with my cream and sugar. There is a dear cafe in Brooklyn called The Tea Lounge, that made Turkish lattes…I bow to that greatness. I drank coffee at this point more as not a social thing, but something I did while writing. Coffee meant my solitude.

The decision to give it up was made because I just felt like it seemed like something to give up, to build character. To say I can do this. I cannot remember really giving anything up when I was in Catholic school, but this decision was made as an adult and I have stuck to it. One torturous year, I was drinking coffee with multiple shots of espresso, lost track of Lent and had a headache for the whole of it. To be clear, I do not give up caffeine, just coffee and coffee-flavored things. But not even cups and cups of black tea could soothe the headache I had for the entire of Lent.

This year was not so bad, I was very disciplined. I am not a cheater, if I say I am not going to do something I don’t. I will not waver in my decision, I am very faithful…There have been some points where I just drank water because any thought of another tea or chai made me almost nauseous.

My chosen cup tomorrow, I have not decided yet. There will likely be two. Half and half has been replaced with soy milk–which I learned how to say in French during my last trip to Paris–and I might add a flavored syrup but no sugar. I like simple cafe au laits for the most point, no weird concoctions. Half the time I even choose decaf. I like the flavor of coffee, the mug or take-away cup held between my hands warm, the warm fluid savored on my tongue for its every nuance and its warming me inside as it goes down. In the summer, I can be prone to milky iced coffee if it is really hot, then I like its cool sensation best on my tongue.

Knowing I give up coffee for 46 days every year (it looks so little when I type it, but feels so big when I do it), makes every bit I have over the rest of the year feel precious and almost exotic. I will hopefully be sipping a cup tomorrow, and not even feel like I missed a day…

photo by f dot leonora

Wicked Wednesday Prompt #98 — "Hunger"

I guess I got attached to my characters from last week, because in the middle of trying to write something completely different this story came to me:

She had no idea Paris was rainy, everyone knew it except for her. This trip to Paris was her first, and by herself. Rafe was still in New York, unable to leave his job and join her.

Paris was more than she expected it would be but even so, she was hungry for more: of the city, of life or of something she could not define while studying her alleged grande cafe which had beads of honey on the edge of it from the spoonful she had put in it. Her heel knocked against the wooden leg of her chair.

“Your engagement ring is lovely, you must have quite a love story.”

Eliza looked at the man at the table next to hers, her heel stopped knocking.

“I do,” she said as she would say eventually with Rafe when they married.

Her foot tapped again on the wooden leg of her chair.

“Do you want to tell me?”

She shook her head, and stood up on the high heels that Rafe had encouraged her to be comfortable in.

“It’s a long story.”

His answer was lost in the rush of heat that overcame her, at the sight of the man walking toward the fountain across the street. Eliza put several euros on the table and walked outside in her trench coat. She looked down from both from the rain and not wanting to be seen.

What would she say to him, him to her? She did not know his name, only his body and scent. She had to abide by his rules–no guilt, no names and no questions–because she had none of his details. It felt suddenly as if her heart had moved from her chest to between her legs, she felt her labia twitch in response. The thumping there was so intense, she could barely walk but she did staggering far behind him. He did not seem to have a destination, so it was awkward for her to appear as if she was not following him.

She took a deep breath, and turned in the opposite direction.

The next few days were filled with meetings. Her heart had returned to its rightful place in her chest, and she had nonstop correspondence with Rafe.

After one meeting she saw Angelina, their notorious hot chocolate called to her from what she had read about in guidebooks. The chocolate would be a meal as well since she had not eaten. Waltzed into the grand dining room by the hostess, she immediately ordered a hot chocolate in French, and when the waitress walked away her heart dropped back down between her legs.

He was sitting diagonally across from her, there was no way he would not notice her. She looked down at her napkin until the word Angelina on it became a blur, as she studied it to not look at him. When her hot chocolate arrived, she looked up helplessly and he was staring at her. Only because he was looking at her, did she look back at him. If she had wanted to say anything, he silenced her by putting his fingers over his lips. The thumping increased between her legs, she could barely sit still.

Eliza dipped a spoon into the whipped cream next to her chocolate. She remained silent after a quick merci to her waitress who handed her more napkins. Using peripheral vision, she watched him sign his check and get up. She closed her eyes as she brought the chocolate to her mouth to savor the rich liquid. It was everything she imagined it would be: Paris, the chocolate, but she was empty.

When she opened her eyes, there was a hotel card on the table and she knew he had left it there. She wanted to jump up from her seat, and the reckless way she desired to she would have spilled her thick liquid chocolate all over her lap. Instead she pretended that she was savoring the chocolate that had become flavorless because she was so excited to follow him to the room number written on the card. She licked her upper lip for flavorless whipped cream and chocolate. When she paid her bill and got up, she felt as if she would black out from anticipation.

Relying heavily on the GPS app on her phone to get to the apparently nearby address, Eliza managed to find the hotel which was blocks away. He waited for her. Burping up a little bit of hot chocolate that she had sipped too quickly, she walked over to him. Nervously twisting her engagement ring, she stood in front of him. He took her hand and kissed her fingers, and almost the diamond of her ring.

She became lachrymose. It was not that she was sorry about what she was doing. She had never done anything like this until him, and she wanted to do it again. Wanted to touch him again, wanted him to kiss her again, wanted him to everything again. Her thighs tremored with the heavy thumping between her legs.

She had hungered for him, for what she had had with him in a dark hotel room ever since she had had it. Nothing had been the same since. Even with Rafe which was nice, but it was not this. Rafe fucked her like she was perfect, and she was not perfect.

She wanted to be fucked like an imperfect woman.

They got into the elevator together, Eliza studied his long fingers pressing the buttons for the floor they were going to. This hotel was not like the mirror-filled one where they had met, but she was happy. She did not want to see the lust on her face, just wanted to feel it thumping between her legs.

Inside the hotel room, he kissed her and she gnawed at his lower lip as if it were a meal. She wrapped one leg about him, and he kissed her neck. Offering more of her neck to him, she pressed her head to the wall as he pressed himself to her. And even as between her legs thumped harder with lust, she felt something quench within her.

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photo by f dot leonora

Sticky Notes No. 2

I have been very inspired this week, and very inspired today. This day in Twitter, there were several tweets about a woman walking a man on a leash in London, which became my singular fascination for the day. Was it that he was “smartly dressed?” Or that he was so obedient as she walked with her to-go coffee or tea? A media source said people did not dare suggest this was a BDSM scenario…

Having my pink sticky notes in my purse ever since I was inspired to by Being Blacksilk’s blog post a few weeks ago, I wrote my second very short story on the train which I am pretty sure I will expand at some point…

This is the sticky typed out:

it was almost his idea, but anything great that came from him was ultimately inspired by Her and he had no desire to take credit. it was a pleasant evening at home with her early summer so still bright. he saw the sun from her feet and when he looked up at Her the setting sun made Her look like the Madonna. she rubbed just under his chin, and he was soothed. she was happy with him and it was then he suggested that they go outside on his leash.

“Please Sir,” he asked her humbly.

photo by F Dot Leonora

Wicked Wednesday Prompt #97 — "Hotel"

Eliza was always waiting. As a younger woman with her friends in bars looking for Mr. Goodbar like the novel and movie she had read and seen. Now she was in the hotel bar waiting for her fiance. Curled protectively over her drink, she thought about all the things going on in her life, all at once at a pace she could barely control. Slowly, a man sat beside her at the crowded bar, everything about him was slow, measured including his smile at her. Eliza felt inside her as if everything had stilled in that moment.

She tried to be still, still curled over her drink. The man did not even seem to notice her after he smiled, which she felt was for the best as she stirred her drink aimlessly with the cutoff straw that was inside it. She crossed her legs, hooking her ankle so her legs seemed crossed twice.

“You’re engaged?”

Eliza’s lips had just touched the rim of her glass, as she looked up at him startled by his sudden speech.

“Yes,” she choked slightly even though she had not had a sip. Looking around nervously to avoid looking in the man’s eyes, she remembered she was waiting for her fiance conveniently.

“Looking for your fiance? He’s probably not going to come.”

“What do you mean?”

She was sure her eyes darkened like Rafe told her they did when she was mad at him. The stranger was taken off his game for a moment which pleased her.

“I mean I don’t think your fiance is going to come, and I think you are coming with me.”

He held her upper arm loosely, but his grip was firm nonetheless.

“My fiance–”

His finger on her mouth was soft, almost a caress, and she was lulled into silence. She knocked over her drink, and burned with embarrassment. When she looked up at the bartender, he waved her off and she got off the stool as she was being gestured to by this man who she did not know. Her heart was beating calmly, nothing about her was wild as he took her out of the bar.

They waited near the elevators, as he took out a pack of cigarettes. He offered her one, she shook her head but he kept the cigarettes extended until she took one.

“You are going to have a hard time with the obey part of the vows, aren’t you?”

“They do not have that in the vows anymore.”

“They should,” he said inhaling smoke.

Eliza raised her eyebrow at him as he lit a cigarette for her. She had stopped smoking a few years ago when she became domesticated, or rather when she started living with Rafe. But now the feeling of the cigarette in her mouth made her feel happy. Made her think of a time when she was free. It was almost as if she were that person again.

“You think so, huh?” she said blowing out her own cloud of smoke. “Does your wife obey you?”

He snorted.

“I’m not married. But if you vow to be with a man you should obey him, and he should protect you.”

Eliza inhaled and shook her head. She wondered if Rafe was looking for her now. It was a very dim thought in her head, she did not think it would be awful for him to wonder where his perfect fiancée was for a moment.

Perfect, perfect, that was what he said about her and what he expected. She did obey him, and he did protect her but it was hard to be perfect.

“My fiance is perfect,” Eliza said out loud what she was thinking.

“Then what are you doing out here with a stranger when he is looking for you?”

Shrugging and swinging her cigarette back with her arms, from her perfect black dress that Rafe loved her in so much, she declared.

“I am not perfect.”

He grabbed her and kissed her so hard she thought she would lose her breath. Her lips throbbed from his after he pulled away from her, and put his arm about her.

The elevator was right on time and they walked into it. It was mirrored all around and she could see every angle of their bodies.

He kissed her again, this time she was not out of breath but wanted more even as he gave it. When they pulled away this time, he lifted her chin so she looked up at him.

“Are you going to obey me?”

“I am not getting married to you,” she stuck out a her tongue with insouciance.

He pulled her close to him.

“But I will protect you if you do.”

“Protect me from what?” she questioned looking up into his eyes. He looked down at her without blinking.

“From what will happen if you don’t obey me.”

Her eyes fell to the floor, she felt him looking at her. When he tilted her chin to look up at him again, she tried to avoid his gaze, but he made her look.

“I have simple rules: no names, no questions, no guilt and you keep your ring on.”

“That’s it?”

He nodded then pressed her to the coolness of the mirrored wall, kissing her so that she almost believed she would go through the glass. Peeking for just a moment as they kissed at the overhead mirror to see how it looked to have him cover her. The view made her so wet she shifted her legs, so he pressed himself all the more to her. She moaned unexpectedly even to herself, as he kissed her neck which was always her weakness.

They came to his floor and managed not to look so disheveled, since she could see in the mirrored hallways. But in his room, he did not turn on the lights. There was just the light from the moon outside.

“No lights?”

She clapped her hand over her mouth.

No questions.

He took her hand from her mouth and kissed it. She did feel protected from herself when he did that, as if to say he was okay that she had forgotten for a moment.

He pulled her hands up over her head, and pulled her body closer than close to his. Eliza was on a tilt as if dangling from a puppeteer’s string, pressed herself to him and closed her eyes opening herself to the darkness. His mouth on hers was so divine she almost wanted to pull out all of her hair as he tugged at it, her hand rose tugging at her hair with his until he kissed her fingers after pulling her hand away.

Everything she experienced was going to be him: his hands, his mouth, his body. And he was much more gentle than she would have expected considering how brutish he came off at the bar and in front of the hotel smoking. She liked the smell of cigarette smoke on their clothes as they floated past her against the wall.

Against the wall he pounded into her, her head rolling and bobbing, knocking her into another reality. He held her so close she almost could not breathe, she closed her eyes and embraced this other world she was in where she was not perfect. A world in which her arms were tight around a man whose name she did not know, but whose savory scent she wanted to scrape with her teeth.

Because it would end, this would end…

They dressed in the moonlight, and he walked her back out into mirrored hallway, and into the mirrored elevator where she watched him cover her overhead in the mirror again with a kiss. The elevator opened and revealed the bar from a distance. Eliza walked out first, Rafe was standing facing the opposite way at the bar. She walked over to him with a spring in her step, knowing she was imperfect.

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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

Skimming

Jade A. Waters had the best blog post this week, recounting firsts. Aside from being dazzled by her eloquent writing, I became nostalgic about my own first reading of the erotica genre.

Until I was in my late teens, I was always sneak reading books I was not allowed to read in the open. Beside my mother’s bed was a treasure chest of romance novels (like mother, like daughter). There was a well-worn copy of Jackie Collins’ Chances that if my mom left me alone in her room, I tucked into while listening for her footsteps so I would not be caught with it.

I never was caught with a book that I was not supposed to be reading.

I skimmed so extensively piecemeal, that I practically had read the entire book by the time I was allowed to read it in the open, Shanna by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss. It was actually funny when I read the entire book, I was finally able to put all the love scenes into some context. And even discovered some additional love scenes that I was not sophisticated enough to decipher because I was looking for the obvious ones.

Now the thing that intrigues me about how guarded we are about children these days, and what they see on television and read, is what happened to me from my experience of skimming books with material that I was not supposed to. It is how I became an erotic romance writer and editor. I was not taught that sex was dirty, my mother was always forthcoming with sexual information from the time I was six. My Barbie and Ken slept naked side by side like I saw on television, and my mom did not say a word to me about it or make me separate them.

When I skimmed Chances, I formulated a plot in my preteen head for a Montague/Capuletesque family saga with one family on the wrong side of the law, and the other family on the right side. I have to say writing the bad family was much more fun than writing the good family. In an issue of Cosmopolitan, Jackie Collins said she never used an outline for her stories. This is how I structure my stories as well, and since I am not capable of ending a love story badly, I usually know how it is going to end!

Shanna I think, and honestly any Kathleen E. Woodiwiss novel is the gold standard for romance. After skimming it, reading it in full and still skimming to this day for the good parts (which are not all sex scenes), I become lachrymose when I read Shanna. It is one of the best love stories I have ever read. My mother and I quoted from that novel, it left that kind of impact on us. The only time I have ever missed my stop on a train, was reading Forever in Your Embrace written years later by Woodiwiss. Kathleen Woodiwiss taught me how deep a love story has to be. If you are going to write a romance and not just an erotic piece, that love has to be everything. Something to die for, something to strive for…

None of this was a stretch for me, because I have always been violently, hopelessly romantic. I always look for love, I probably skim life looking for love…

photo courtesy of Amazon.com

Sticky Notes No. 1

I met a lot of luminous people at Eroticon 2014, and attended equally as luminous sessions there. A lot of people were able to do a roundup of everything on their blogs, I fear I am not that gifted to capsulize everything in that way. Today is three weeks since the conference began, and it still is impacting me. For all the sessions I attended it was nice to compare notes with everyone else, especially when they attended a session I did not.

Being Blacksilk attended a conflict session that she described to me, and promised she would post her notes from it. She did, and I was so appreciative. I was even more appreciative when I saw her latest post. I attended Kristina Lloyd’s Flash Fiction session, and had every intention of trying my hand at it. However seeing Being Blacksilk’s sticky note micro-fiction prompt made me realize even I could do that! So I did on the train this morning, and took a picture of the sticky note on my lap with my iPhone.

I really liked this story, after I knew what I would name my protagonist I was ready to go. I actually am itching to finish this story, and just might. At first I was like maybe I would do it as a series of sticky notes, but that is not going to be powerful enough for me to explore it all. I am thinking I might start more of these in the future on sticky notes, and I will probably share them intermittently. I need inspiration however I can get it, so I will be keeping a pink post-it pad in my purse…

Below is the transcript of the story in case you cannot read it, although I do pride myself on my very neat penmanship acquired from Catholic School!

Eliza was always waiting. As a younger woman with her friends in bars looking for Mr. Goodbar like the novel and movie she had read. Now she was in the hotel bar waiting for her fiance. Curled protectively over her drink, she thought about all the things going on in her life, all at once at a pace she could barely control. Slowly, a man sat beside her at the crowded bar, everything about him was slow, measured including his smile at her. Eliza felt inside her as if everything had stilled in that moment.

photo by f dot leonora