Sirens & Other Beauties

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So, I’m in Cologne, Germany, at the moment. No, I don’t really have any reason to be here, other than there was a cheap place available and I had time on my hands (Hm… do I sense a theme?). But I’m here. Mostly without Internet, definitely without a phone, but with eyes wide open, camera shutter fast clicking and fingers tap-tap-tapping out stories.

Good news has arrived mid-travel, and so I’m also in sort of a pinching myself daze, just to make sure it’s all real.

First, my sireny horror short story, “The Lure of Dangerous Women,” has been accepted for the upcoming anthology, Blood Fruit, put out by the fantastic QueeredFiction. I’m so excited — this is one of the stories that was inspired by my cross-country trip this spring; it takes place in New Orleans and was inspired by this absolutely beautiful and incredibly rocking musician I happened to see while I was there. Also, look at this amazing cover. Isn’t it just gorgeous? Somehow, it seems not only dangerous, but also sexy. Which actually fits the theme of my story pretty well.

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Second, Circlet Press has accepted my story, “Skin Deep,” for their BDSM fairy tale collection, Like a Thorn. I love Circlet Press; I’ve loved it for a long time, but it was one of those places that seemed so far above me that I never dared to submit. Until now. And I’m so, so happy that I did.

Not only did they take it, but the editor made me blush with her nice words in the acceptance email: We loved the dark tone of the story, as well as the unexpected interpretation of the relationship between Beauty and the beast. The images, i.e. clocks, birds, and mirrors, are beautiful and haunting, and seamlessly incorporated into the story’s sexual aspects.

Oh, wow. See? Pinching myself. Lots and lots, just to make sure it’s all real.

Kiss kiss bang bang, s.

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Instead of my usual quote, I though I’d share some snippets from the stories. Hope you enjoy them!

From “The Lure of Dangerous Women” (plucked right out of the middle, so it probably doesn’t make much sense):

Stopping still, I flicked my lighter against the paper end of a cigarette, cocking my head toward the music. I had one of those sudden glimpses of how I looked from the outside—hair sex-tousled and in need of a cut, dressed in jeans and a men’s t-shirt, scowling, inhaling desperately from a cigarette while I listened, entranced, to just another washed-up singer cranking the blues down the street. It was the first time I’d wanted to paint anything since I’d gotten here, and what I wanted to paint was me. Me in the act of listening to her.

Then the moment passed, and I was just me, inside myself. Lifting my head, I realized I was at the intersection of the hotel, and I could take a right, turn back to Michelle. Throw away the pack of smokes on the way. Make nice.

But I knew I didn’t want to. I wanted to find the voice, to sit in a dark and smoky room, filling an ashtray with butts, losing myself in the rugged purr of her.

She wasn’t hard to find—her voice carried through the streets and caressed me, guided me like a native to her place. I slipped in, took a seat in the back. The bar, like so many in New Orleans, was just right for hiding in. Poorly lit, half-full of men who’d had enough drinks that they’d forgotten they didn’t know how to dance, girls in next-to-nothing, offering sugary shots from test tubes tucked in their chests.

But it was the stage that captured me. No, not the stage. Her, on it. Dressed in flowing green pants that curved around her hips, flowed around her legs as she moved in time to the band. A tight, shimmery shirt—black or grey—that showed off a strip ofof the seas.

And her voice, ah, god her voice. Didn’t matter what she sang—oldies, blues, a pop request from the drunken guy trying to stand at her feet—she crooned and cranked, a sound that I could feel not just in the hammer and anvil and stirrup of my ears, but in every bone in my body. My femur and radius, my clavicle and pelvis. I don’t know how long I sat. An older man who was trying to kiss the singer’s feet was rewarded with a choke-hold from one of the bouncers and was led out the door. The couple off to the right of me started making out; she was nearly under the table with her head in his lap. But none of this really held my attention. I watched her move through the grey screen of my cigarette smoke and I listened and listened. smooth belly beneath the hem and cap sleeves that did nothing to hide her arms. Strong, lean. Swimmer’s arms that held the mic while she swayed, lush as seaweed, rocking in tune to the music

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And from “Skin Deep,” the opening lines:

They say I am the Beauty. Capital, like that. Beauty. In a softly brushed script that makes you feel safe, that gives you images of beauty beyond your imagining. Sometimes with flourishes and fleur-de-lis and a bird tucked into the bower of the B, as though all of those things will make it true. They even named me Belle. Which, in some ancient country, stands for beauty. All those Bs, the way they roll off the tongue. B. Buh. Buh. A stupid sound, for a stupid, pretty girl.

But B can stand for so many other things, can it not? Beast. Bad. Bare. Bones. Bitch. Blood.

I am all of those things inside. Aren’t we all?

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My father brought me a rose from the creature’s castle. He picked the most gorgeous one he could find, I’m sure—my father is a kind, big-hearted man, if he is a bit blind. The flower was red as blood, and big around as my fist, each petal wide and curled as a tongue. I thanked him kindly—I am nothing if not a dutiful daughter—and then I took the flower to my room and stripped every petal from it, every silky slip of flesh, and threw them out the window.

Let my sisters have the dresses, the rings. The silk and pearls. Let them have their twittering laughter like fragile birds, as they twirl in the light.

I wanted for other things. The broken mirror. The poisoned comb. The cursed spindle.

They say I went willingly, and that part is true. It wasn’t for the rose, or even for the beast though—after all, I hadn’t met him yet. Would I have gone if I’d known what awaited me? Oh yes. Oh yes.

But I went for the stem, the thorns. Strong as a lash, sharp as claws. I bent the long stem of it over and over in my hands, closed my palms on their curved points until they pierced my flesh.

Oh, yes, I went willingly. Wantingly. Wantonly. A thorn in each hand.

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PS — Funnily enough, as I was writing this — I literally mean as I was in the process of writing this post, I got a rejection. From a story that I really liked. The kind of “I enjoyed the story but it’s not right for this collection,” kind of rejection, which I actually get quite a lot. Just wanted to add that, lest people think that I’m just getting accepted left and right over here. The rejections never end, do they? And they never stop stinging, at least a little bit.

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Sunday Pleasures #29

Yeah, I’m kind of addicted to Contemplating Reiko. “Hello, my name is Shanna. I’m a Reiko addict.”

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Poem Alert!

Rose Red, on Sibling Rivalry, Susan Slaviero

Marketing Alert!

Bones and Boats and Experimental Publishing

The Trouble With Double X: Is the niche-ification of the Internet amplifying or ghettoizing women’s voices?

Geek Alert!

Device Makes Radio Waves Travel Faster Than Light

A Trend With Teeth

Laugh Alert!

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Today’s Sunday Pleasures brought to you by a few timeless words from Rhett Butler. How can you go wrong with a man who says things like this?

“No, I don’t think I will kiss you, although you need kissing, badly. That’s what’s wrong with you. You should be kissed and often, and by someone who knows how.”

“I’ve always thought a good lashing with a buggy whip would benefit you immensely.”

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Kiss kiss bang bang, s.

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Kreative Kats

So, I’m blushing. There’s this thing my face does when I get excited or nervous or overwhelmed or aroused. Or embarrassed. It’s sort of beyond blushing. It’s… beating. Beat red. Heart beat thumping in my face. I look down. Watch the world through my eyelashes. Stammer and stutter.

I’m doing that now. Both Donna and Nikki and Danielle nominated me in the Kreative Blogger Award (Donna for this site, Nikkie and Danielle for Chapter 37), and I’m just floored. And, did I mention?, rather pink. Pleased and pink.

In turn, I get to play along, and list seven bloggers that I think deserve the award, along with seven things I love.

A lot of the bloggers that I totally dig have already been listed by others (we’re a delightfully incestuous group around here sometimes!), so I went to the far edges of my blogger-kingdom to choose bloggers that many of you may not already know. I find these blogs particularly inspirational, funny, creative or just generally ass-kicking. I hope you agree.

Blog call please:

• Katherine Center
• The Bloggess
• Maira Kalman
• Lipstick & Dipstick
• Writing the Life Poetic
• Jay Lake
• Art or Porn: You Decide

And then I have to list seven things I like. Shit. Double shit. I like so many many things. So this will be my list for seven things I like today. How’s that? To wit:

• Walking on the Scottish beach while talking to friends, discovering bird skulls, jelly fish, and baby dolls along the way.
• Iced soy mochas. This has been on my list for years and years, and might very well have crossed over into addiction by now. (I actually love good food and drink of all kinds, but won’t bore you with all the details of fresh berries off the vine, oysters scooped from the salty sea, salads with blue cheese and mushrooms…)
• The kind of girl friends who make me blush, laugh, lust, giggle, squeal, think, drink and just in general, desire to be more, do more and see more. (Namely, off the top of my head: Alana, Alison, Gina, Nikki, Annie, Bri, Amy…).
• Great books scattered around me, half-open, partly read, their pages and covers beckoning.
• My shiny candy-apple red MacBook. Who, by the way, had a fantastically sexy and gorgeous name, but has recently been re-christened the Crapple. -hugs her baby- Aw, poor thing…
• Weather. Ever-changing. Storms that crackle and hiss, sun that strokes and soothes, the moment right when everything’s changing and anything could happen.
• Lust. Found in a look over a pair of wire-rims, the ‘just right’ phrase at the ‘just right’ moment, a growl along the curve of my ear (or between my thighs), the perfect ring on someone’s hand, nice calves, sunshine on a pair of bare shoulders, the croon of a fantastic song, the sound of plastic falling hard against skin, a hand-made leather flail… gah, oops. I think I used up more than my share of seven there. Okay, okay… I’ll stop now. I swear it. But, also, those girls in perfect summer dresses. You know the ones. With the great hips… Now I’m done. Really.

Kiss kiss bang bang, s.

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“The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.” ~Albert Einstein

Sat Sub: Oz

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What does Dorothy really have in that basket of hers? What does the tin man do with his heart once he’s got it? Who’s the real ‘evil witch’ in Oz? Now’s your chance to tell the story of the Emerald City and all its inhabitants your way. Shadows of the Emerald City is looking for stories about Oz — the ones you’ve never heard before, the ones that make your cowardly mane shiver and shake, the ones that make your heart beat hard inside all that tin..

So, come on… break out of Kansas and stretch your writing boundaries!

Kiss kiss bang bang, s.

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Shadows of the Emerald City.

Submission period ending: July 31^st, 2009.

POD Anthology.

No other story has touched as many hearts and endeared itself into the American fabric as �The Wizard of Oz� by L. Frank Baum. Often toted as America�s first Fairy Tale, this heartwarming classic has been made and remade again and again across every medium known to man.  The themes are timeless, the characters themselves beloved.

And now, here is your chance to rip that all to bloody, meaty pieces.

Like all fairy tales, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz has one foot rooted in the fantastic, and the other foot planted in blood. There are some very adult themes taken lightly in this novel, themes of child abduction, murder, cannibalism, torture, witchcraft, and more. Shadows DO fall in the Emerald City, and where they are their darkest is where you will find the true terror of Oz.

What we want to see are horror stories based on the world of Oz. This includes the characters, the settings, the world itself. We�re deconstructing an American institution, so we�d like to see what you can come up with. Blood and gore, or explicit sex? By all means. As long as it reads as part of the natural progression of the story and not some fucked up penthouse letter.

Scare us. Disgust us. More than anything though, give us a reason to turn the page.

Tentative Publication Date: Fall 2009.

Particulars

Stories should come in under 10k words. Now I say should, because I�m not going to leave something amazing on the floor because it�s 11k words, but it had better be something very special to be seriously considered. Anything in the 5-10k range is perfect. Unpublished work preferred, but please query if you have a previously published work that you think would fit this collection.

Payment

Payment is $20.00 US and 1 contributor copy, paid on publication. I am paying for the right to use your stories one time (AKA ONE TIME WORLD WIDE RIGHTS) for this particular short story collection, and all rights will revert back to you upon publication.

Submission Format

Please send all stories, questions, and complaints BY EMAIL ONLY to ozhorror @ gmail.com. Please remove the spaces prior to mailing. or click the TWO handy links I created just for you. Standard submission format is acceptable. RTF files only please. Return time will be <4 weeks, depending on volume. Also, if your story makes it out of the slushpile you will be sent a letter informing you the story is being held for consideration. At this time I may also ask for rewrites/changes, if acceptable. Final cuts will be made over the summer, with publication coming in the fall.

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Kinky Stories From Real Life

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How can you not love a slogan like that? Kinky stories from real life… I read that on the back of this book jacket, and I nearly had a heart attack. It’s just so… yum.

News is that contributor’s copies of Pleasure Bound: True Bondage Stories are on their way, which means that the book has hit the shelves! Hurah!

The TOC is … holy crap. Hot stuff. Nikki M’s gorgeous short “Handfast.” Kristina Wright. Sommer Marsden. Teresa Noelle Roberts. Donna George Storey. Kristina Lloyd. Thomas S. Roche. Alison Tyler. Stephen Elliot. And a bunch of other new authors that I’m sure Alison has hand-picked for their amazing stories. I can’t wait to get my hands on this hot little collection.

My story, “Deal,” is about high school and those learning moments that happen in the classroom. Not from some teacher or some lesson, but in the in-between spaces. Here’s the opening section. Hope you enjoy!

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Hearts

Slap, slap, slap go the cards across the big wooden tables. The wood’s so old and used you can’t see the grain anymore. Just the layers of acrylic in primary colors, the dark stains, the etched promises of eternal love and hate. Below the hand I’m being dealt, Sherri True Love Forever’s Bobby in black sharpie, her TLA interwoven as though that alone would make it true. Andy carved his name in ’98, or maybe earlier and was merely scratching his hope that by ’98 he would be allowed to leave this place.

This place was once an art room. For the underclassmen, it still is, I’d guess. Earlier in the year, it was for us too. We’d walk around with our cameras hung from our necks, snapping shots for the darkroom, our fingers smelling always of chemicals, our pupils dilated from the constant change of light. But now it’s April and our cameras sit forgotten beside our elbows. Graduation is upon us like wild dogs, and we can’t think, much less be creative. Our teacher merely watches us from his desk, reading art magazines with half-naked women on the covers. He’s been through this before. He knows that for us seniors, 18, some 19 although they don’t want to say it, it’s no longer about brushing gesso over canvas to prepare a proper medium or pounding clay into the table until the grey chunks become part of the grain.

Now, it’s about this. Euchre. I don’t know where we learned it. Someone moved here and brought it and now we all know the rules. Fast cards. Jack’s high. Bower. Follow suit. Trump. Shoot the moon. Winning Tricks. It’s the language of the space in between.

We play Euchre in school, and we fuck out of school. Our obsessive brains ignoring classes, college fears, hopes for the future in exchange for something quick and unthinking. I dream of cards and cocks, of plays and ploys. I hear the shuffle in my sleep and wake with a start, fingers itching to curl a hand around them. The sworded queen inching across my sheets. The one-eyed Jack come to fuck me and make me his….

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Kiss kiss bang bang, s.

Wiped

Whew. The final three submissions on my June to-do list went off into la-la land today. To which I say: hallelujah and goddamn good riddance! And also… damn, I’m tired.

That, let’s see…makes the tally for June (and, yes, I know it’s July today, but it’s work done in June, so it counts in my book):

• 6 new erotica stories submitted
• 15 poems submitted
• 2 new horror stories submitted
• untold numbers of stories, poems and essays started that didn’t get finished (including work on the Bloody Book).

So, all told, I’d say it was a good month. Despite the Lyme’s disease that knocked me on my ass for three weeks or so (and which, sadly, continues to plague me, although not half as dilegently or destructively as before), and various other things going on that took my attention away from writing. Now, to wait and see how many rejections I can garner! Quite a few, I’m sure.

Of course, you know me. I’m never satisfied with what I have, or what I’ve achieved, so my goals for July must be higher. Harder. Faster…

No, wait, wrong thing… More, more, more? Well, that works for both, I suppose.

Either way, here are my goals for the month of July. Read them and weep. I have a feeling I’m going to be doing just that!

JULY GOALS:

• 6 new erotic stories submitted
• 1 new erotica novella submitted
• 6 poems submitted
• 4 new horror/sci-fi stories submitted (eek!)
• 20,000 words on the novel (double eek!)

[Update: Ooh, looksie! I figured out enough HTML to make myself a to-do list over on the side ----> That is one scary mo-fo of a list, isn't it?! Gah!]

I think that’s… probably far more than enough to tackle in the next thirty days… I think I need a nap now! Actually, I think I’ll take a walk along the beach. Look at the pretty stones. Kick at the waves. Save a starfish or two. Celebrate.

Kiss kiss bang bang, s.

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“You get whatever accomplishment you are willing to declare.” ~Georgia O’Keeffe

Food Pr0n

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I’ve never been one to combine food and sex. It’s just not my thing. Which is kind of funny for a couple of reasons. One, almost everything is my thing when it comes to sex. Two, I like food. Good food. Quite a lot. And I do think foods in themselves are sexy — cherries, figs, oysters (oh my gods, so sexy!). But I don’t really want the two to be combined.

That’s not entirely true. It’s not that I’d be adverse to it, truly. I’ve read some stories and seen some pictures that have made me think, “Okay, yes, that is sexy. Soooo sexy.” Lovely kitchen goddess Gina makes food sexy for me. So does the sexy and oh-so-culinary Donna. I’ve read a few stories about fruits and fucking that made me… well, cream. But for the most part, nope.

I guess ‘food and sex’ just too often makes me think of cliches. Huge cucumbers in private places. Nine and a Half Weeks. Whipped cream on my nipples. No thank you. Still, I know that most likely, it’s one of those things, like so many, where I’ve just never had the proper opportunity to really explore the two together.

Which all makes it odd that two of the three erotic stories I’ve written this week are focused on food. Where did that come from? I have no idea. But there they are, and sometimes you just have to follow the fluttery, fucked-up muse where she leads. This week, she led me to eating disorder groups and food-filled funerals…

From the draft of “Craving Madeline”:

There is, it seems to me, nothing more cruel than bringing donuts to an eating disorder group. And yet, there they sit every week, two dozen of them. And the good kind of donuts too. Cream-filled, chocolate-topped, with and without sprinkles, iced pink and green. Right next to the bad coffee, and non-dairy creamer in little packs that have to be a hundred years old.

My group has anorexics, over-eaters, bulimics, bingers—that’s me—and those who are all and none of the above. Almost all women. There’s one male who comes sometimes, but he takes two donuts each time he’s here, two donuts without stopping to stress, without even hesitating or caring what kind he gets, and he eats them both. In the way that normal people eat. I think he’s faking it. For sympathy or women. After all, to someone with an eating disorder, donuts are never just donuts.

Maybe people think the same about me. In a group filled with bone people and fat people, and no in-betweens, I’m an anomaly myself, being average-sized. If I work out and eat healthy most times, it seems the binges don’t wreak as much havoc on my body.  I haven’t binged—seriously binged—in almost six months. The group is helping, I think. Or something is.

I tend to get to the meetings late, partly because I can’t stand to be in the same room with those powdery, sugary temptations for very long. But I also show up right at the last second because I like to walk in and see Madeline sitting there. She always takes the same chair — the one right across from the door. She’s like a donut herself, all soft, pale curves inside a stretchy brown dress and she’s got this short, hot pink hair that’s cut close to her head. I want to run my hands over it, pull her into my chest, beg her to lick the soft, sensitive curves of my chest.

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And from the draft of “Sustenance”:

In the middle of my mother’s long and exhausting funeral, my stomach starts to growl. Loud and long, a rolling rumble. Not a sound that should be heard during any kind of death service. Blatant enough so that people look back. They look away again, of course, as soon as they realize that the protesting stomach belongs to me. Or they give me this long, quiet look, that tilt of their head that is supposed to convey, I suppose, sympathy. Or empathy.

After all, to all outside eyes I’m the grieving daughter. If I look gaunt and pale, if I haven’t eaten for hours, for days, it is acceptable. Forgiven. Perhaps even expected.

Only Raul knows better. His look carries none of those expressions that people give when you are grieving, those perfect arrangements of lips and eyes that are supposed to make you —or themselves — feel better. He merely drops his hand to my skirt-covered thigh, tightening it so that his nails dig through my black nylons. The gaze of his dark blue eyes settles on my profile — I can almost feel the heat as he contemplates me — and somehow his thoughtful silence is louder than anything else in the room. Louder than the friends who break down halfway through their odes to my mother, louder than the tick-tick-tick of the continual clock, louder than my stomach even, although I can hear it, hear its groaning emptiness and everything that sound carries, more clearly than almost anything else.

“Tessa,” he hisses so softly under his breath, raising one thick, black eyebrow. It is a question, but also not. It is a hiss of displeasure, of disapproval. A flutter of fear slides through my empty stomach, and I duck my head.

He slides his free hand into the pocket of his dark jacket, letting go of my thigh just long enough to unwrap a small piece of candy, the crinkle of the plastic burying the drone of the woman speaking at the front of the room.

I keep my chin to my chest, eyes closed, feeling the hard curve of the piece of candy as he pushes it to my lips. It smells sickly-sweet, of strawberries and cherries and calories, and my stomach revolts. I tighten my lips closed, holding my breath until it is pounding behind my eyes, asking to be let out. His hand tightens into my thigh, nails pointed against my pulse until everything narrows into those tiny pin pricks of pain, until all I can feel is my blood heating up beneath the clench of his nails.

I exhale in a gasp, my head swimming with the new air, and Raul slides the candy between my lips. But the candy is on my tongue and Raul’s hand is covering my mouth. Beneath the scent and taste of sugar, there is the scent and taste of him—heated flesh, the piney soap he uses, the metal of his ring. He never tastes of food, only of inedibles. Trees and stone and silver.

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Where in the bloody hell is YOUR muse leading you these days?

Kiss kiss bang bang, s.

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“The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.”  ~G.K. Chesterton

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PS – Fantastic photos from jozychen.

Sunday Pleasures #28

Shirts I wish I’d thought of...

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This week’s edition brought to you by damn sexy geeks, hot boys in bolos and homecoming dances from hell.

53rd Annual Mantis Homecoming Dance, Tim Pratt

Chicks Can’t Write Sex, LA Times

Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland

Theater and Gender Bias, NY Times

Role-Playing Cliches (also good for writers)

Read Tim Pratt’s fantastic first Marla Mason book, Blood Engines, for free (scroll down for the free one, then buy the rest, as they’re fabu and he’s a fantastic guy and writer who could use your money)

When Gods Die

Yum. That’s all.

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Kiss kiss bang bang, s.

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Great Minds Sink Alike

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So, just after I put up my Saturday Submission post about pirates, I see that Alison T. has a new contest: Fuck me on the High Seas. You really, really should write something up and enter. She has damn good prizes, always. (And if you don’t know the “I’m On a Boat” reference, check it out. And laugh until you puke. Just stay away from the sea gulls).

And, as if you need more proof that great minds really do sink (or float) alike, here’s a snippet from the story I just finished yesterday called “Many Waters.”

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The Boy is already in the boat, still wet himself, his arms reaching down to grasp me by the elbows, help me up. His head brushes my shoulder as I’m lifted, long wet strands that graze and sting like jellyfish. I feel bruised and battered, exhausted, as though I’ve been beaten back to health by a masseuse with too-big hands and a careful understanding of my weak points. I also feel grateful, and alive. My skin is washed clean, my hunger for new tastes and journeys honed by all that time in the quiet depths.

I nod my thanks and practically flop into the boat. He kneels down, pulling off my flippers for me. “You’ve got a small cut, you know,” he says. When I look down, I see the blood sliding down over my knee. It’s a slow dribble of color. I never even felt it. “Looks like a clean cut, nothing to worry about.”

He grins, those big lips slipping into a slow curl. “Be glad there’s not sharks. They’d have eaten you up.”

A quiet moment of silence rests between us, heavy as a stone. For a moment, I imagine him saying something out of a movie, like “I’d have eaten you up,” and I imagine what I’ll do if he says it. Laugh? Groan and pull his mouth to mine? Lift my hips toward him in a silent plea?

He does none of these things. He dries my legs with a dark towel and then presses the fabric to the cut with a hard press of his palm. “It’ll stop in a second. It tends to bleed a lot, because of the water.”

“Where did you learn that?” I ask.

“I’ve learned a lot of things.” And this is the moment, right here, that could be so fucking cliché, Sam. Like you would have laughed if you were here to see it. But it isn’t that way at all, the way this boy slides his sunglasses back into his wet hair, then drags his gilded gaze right up me, making my skin sizzle and pop. The way he leans in and brushes his lips, very softly, sideways across mine. It isn’t a kiss. It’s something else.

I want him with a sudden fierceness that makes my soaked skin feel too dry. I want him to slide his tongue between my lips. To feel that sharp press that young boys have, the impossible hardness of his cock nudging between my legs. I ache to throw my legs around his thin hips, to drive him back against the floor of this boat, to ride him and the waves and water until we are both coming. Until I can stop talking to my dead husband in my head. Until I cannot hear him answering.

The boy brushes his lips down the length of my neck. In response, my body, such a traitor, such a horrible, horrible wild creature, arcs up off the seat, presses into the downward curve of his hips as he leans against me. He is as I imagined, all hard-on, throbbing and raging inside the cage of his shorts. Groaning against me, rubbing into me like a creature past curiosity, past anything but want, and I’m opening my hips against his desire, the material of my swimsuit doing nothing to hide my want.

“Stop,” I think I say. I mean to say. I’m panting, my tongue and teeth are finding the curve of his ear even as I beg him to go away, and my hand slides down inside the soaked material over his ass, finding the perfect, muscled curve, kneading it.

“Okay,” he says, and I realize with sadness that I have said the word aloud. And that, unlike you Sam, he believes it and will abide by it. And somehow I know this is how it should be.

I touch his unlined cheek with one hand, draw my thumb along the burnt, peeling top of his lip. “Just for now,” I said. And I realize that what I meant to say as comfort is actually true. That if I stay here long enough, I will have this boy. I will teach him the things you taught me, and I will begin, finally, slowly, painfully, to let you go.

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Kiss kiss bang bang, s.

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“Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it.” ~Song of Solomon 8:7

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PS – Fab image by JBPhotog

Sub Sat: Skulls & Crossbones

Your challenge for this Submission Saturday? Hoist the sails and fire the canons! Or just write a sea-frolick of a story about women pirates! Or, both. Although if you do both, I want to come along for the ride. Yar! (or, as one of my friends says when he does his pirate imitation, “YARG!!!”)

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Call for Submissions: Skulls and Crossbones

A collection of short stories that features women pirates in any setting, any time period.

Editors: Andi Marquette and R. G. Emanuelle.
Publisher: Mindancer Press (Bedazzled Ink), print and ebook editions

Stipulations:

No longer than 7000 words; no shorter than 4000 words
Will consider original and previously published stories.
$35 per story, paid after contract is signed. Story rights revert back to authors 18 months after date of publication. Each contributor will receive one print copy as well as one ebook copy of the anthology.

GLBTQ/heterosexual characters are welcome BUT EACH STORY MUST FEATURE A WOMAN PIRATE, either as the main character or the focus of the story (e.g. another sailor on the ship who hates the woman pirate and through his/her eyes, we observe the woman pirate). Again, the main character or the focus of the story MUST BE A WOMAN PIRATE. We will consider main characters that identify as transgendered (male to female), but that identity must figure prominently in the story as a driving force and/or something that speaks to the character’s experience as a woman pirate.

Extra caveat: The focus of the story cannot be a romantic hook-up/sex/erotica. Sex, eroticism, and romance may be part of the story (as long as they fit within the story’s overall plot), but they cannot be the reason for the story or the driving force of the story. We want stories that feature adventure, intrigue, antiheroines/heroines, battles (epic, personal, or small-scale), something to be accomplished/overcome, vengeance, trickery, thievery, and/or assorted banditry and outlaw behavior.

Absolutely NO stories that feature acts of pedophilia, incest, bestiality, or rape.

Deadline for submissions is September 1, 2009

Final selections will be made by October 1, 2009, with publication tentatively slated for January 2010

To submit your story, send as an email attachment in RTF format, double-spaced to pirateanthology@gmail.com

Please include your name, pen name (if applicable), mailing address, email address, story title, and word count on the first page of your submission.

If you have questions, drop us a line at pirateanthology@gmail.com

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PS — Wickedly cool self-portrait/pirate shots by incoldmirrors.

Barbed

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I am trying, trying, trying to finish up a million stories for approaching deadlines.

A threesome at a Dead Head concert, a funeral-mash of dominance and submission, a lust-crush at an AA meeting, a rendezvous on a boat in the middle of the sea, an autistic girl and a swine-god…

My brain is awash with images and characters and ideas, and yet … the. words. won’t. come. It’s like my hands are tied. Or perhaps my tongue is. Or perhaps the electric sparks are just shorting out somewhere between my brain and my fingers. This is a place that I hate, when I’m churning with inspiration and have no place to put it. It leaves me feeling barbed. Edgy. Thwarted.

The words will come. They always do, taking their own twisted time. If nothing else, I can feel the deadlines approaching, their lashes whistling that sweet tune to the air before they land. I’d better hustle, I think, if I want to beat the slash of a whip. Or perhaps I can learn to write in time to their strokes along my skin…

Kiss kiss bang bang, s.

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“A woman’s dress should be like a barbed-wire fence: serving its purpose without obstructing the view.” ~Sophia Loren

Aural Ecstacy

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You gotta’ love the way Susie Bright does things. Not only does she create the coffee table book of all coffee table books — X: The Erotic Treasury — now she’s had it turned into a fantastic audio book to boot (and it’s even on sale if you get it soon!). I can’t wait to hear my story read aloud. It’s such a treat to hear someone who knows what they’re doing turn your words on the page into words in the air. Go check it out. You won’t be disappointed!

Kiss kiss bang bang, s.

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“Clinton lied. A man might forget where he parks or where he lives, but he never forgets oral sex, no matter how bad it is.” ~Barbara Bush

Sunday Pleasures #27

You Must Click This. Yes, You. Have I ever led you wrong before? (I just typed, “Have I ever read you long before?” And then, in trying to fix it, I typed, “Have I ever led your wrong before?” Ha!).

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FUCKED UP:

• The End of the World as They Know It: Voluntary Childlessness “Unnatural” and “Evil”

• Auto-Asphyxiation Controversy: The Passing of David Carradine and the controversy of risk-aware kink, Violet Blue

• Support Those In Iran: What’s happening in Iran and what you can do to help

WELL-FUCKED:

• Smartest Marketing Ever: We Killed Amanda Palmer

• Buy For Me (or You): Royal Stamps Mythical Creatures (plus Neil Gaiman’s description of them)

• Leave It to Me (or You): Make a Will

• Covet This Website: The Strain, Guillermo del Toro

Kiss kiss bang bang, s.

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“PRUDE, n. A bawd hiding behind the back of her demeanor.” ~Ambrose Bierce, Devil’s Dictionary.

I. Can. Do. This.

Is it bad to say that this picture is exactly how writing novels makes me feel? Well, books in general, truly. I’ve written books and novels that were not my own (meaning, ghostwritten, which I believe I’ve talked about before as being a bit like a surrogate mom — all blood and money, and nothing to hold at the end of all that labor), but I swear that writing my own long things is SO much more difficult.

I know there are lots of authors who thrive on novels. They love them. They even go so far as to find them easier than short fiction. “Short stories are so hard!” they lament, in the exact same tone of voice that I use when I whine about novel-writing. And, yet, it’s like we can’t resist the thing that we find so difficult. What draws us, I wonder, to this thing that we supposedly hate? I may be a masochist, but it only goes so far. After all, I’m not one to touch a hot stove (at least not more than once, and not on purpose), so why must I keep dragging myself through the burning barnyard that is novel writing? I wish I knew.

If put under duress and forced to take a guess, I’d say it’s the challenge. The “I can fucking do this, damn it,” which is a mentality that’s earned me almost everything I’ve ever gotten in live, both good and bad. (And, by the way, I discovered there are some things I just can not do, not even with that ram-headed, Aries mentality. Skateboarding, for example. Playing the guitar. Dunking a basketball. Making it through more than the very first chapter of the Holy Bible. God knows — I’m sure he/she/it/nebulous ball of gasses knows, that I’ve tried. But I keep getting stuck in all the Begats…)

Still, novel writing is not a luxury item on my list. And so, I perservere. Again and again. Despite the scraped knees. The broken nails. The deflated ego. The boredom.

Today, after a solid month of fucking around researching and planning, I got the first scene of the new novel down. It’s not much, it might not seem like much at all, actually, but I think the first few scenes are always the hardest, so I’m feeling pretty damn good. It’s off to my reader, and I’m hoping she tears the holy hell out of it. More to come, including some excerpts, as I keep plugging away, trying to tame this new beast. (Wow, I am mixing my metaphors like a mo-fo today. Jeez. Kill me now).

I’m working on three books total while I’m here, and the planning stage is mostly complete for all three, and I’ll begin actually doing the writing now. You can keep track of progress, if you desire, up above, under the current tab. There’s not much yet, of course, being that it’s day one. But just wait… I promise!

That’s all for now. I have three stories on the docket to edit and submit, another two that I’d like to finish the drafts of, and about two dozen emails in my inbox, just awaiting my dancing fingers. And, yet, if that first scene was the only thing I’d accomplished all day, I’d still feel pretty damn good.

Kiss kiss bang bang, s.

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“Writing a novel is like making love, but it’s also like having a tooth pulled. Pleasure and pain. Sometimes it’s like making love while having a tooth pulled.” ~Dean Kootz

Heatsong

Maybe it’s a sign of all the work I’ve been doing, tucked away here, writing.

Maybe it’s due to the fantastic work that my first readers have been doing on my stories.

Maybe it’s in honor of the new season of True Blood… (which I managed to catch the first episode of online over at Watch True Blood. I have no idea if that website’s even legal, so if it’s not, don’t tell me, please. True Blood and Lost are the only two TV shows I’ve cared about watching in… well, years. So to have it available online just made my freaking morning.)

Most likely it’s a combination of all three and more. The news? I just heard that my sung-sweet lesbian vampire story, “Heatsong,” has been accepted for an upcoming anthology collection by Torquere Press. Torquere is a fantastic publisher of GLBT erotica, romance and young adult fiction, and I’m delighted to be included among their stable of writers.

I’m also really glad they found it in their hearts to take on “Heatsong,” since it isn’t your typical “vampire” story by any means. For one thing, it’s more prose poetry than story, told in the narrator’s near-song voice, although it has a plot. (And, no, she doesn’t sparkle. Not one little bit.)

Here’s a snippet of the story, pulled right out of the middle. I hope you enjoy it! And, of course, I’ll let you know as soon as the collection hits the shelves.

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Heatsong (excerpt)

Language of the forest, you learn like any other. Listen, bear witness. Soon you know what spiders say, scuttle cross the spit-dried dirt, spelling and spilling their true intent. Know what the wolf howls to the moon, snout sky-faced and teeth-split, calling. You tilt your head just right, the moths wing-whisper of the approach of another, take that white-light flight into the center of the overhead lights, flickering red and orange, casting the sunset kind of dark into the forest’s night.

A branch crackles. Not near. Another. Closer. Foreign breaths snuffle-snorting away the smell of dark, smell of light. I wonder if Sachi’s new ones catch the scent of shadow, how it long lingers in the nose, in the roof of the mouth, spider-spun and dirt-dusted. Course I know they don’t, or they wouldn’t come.

“A’most here,” Geena says. No longer sun-slowed, heat slicked, her toe tap-tap against the wood, hammock going faster so it creaks just kinda, a cricket rubbing its legs together in a low, slow ask for mate or prey. A whisper of wings through still air, echo and call. But I can’t hear Stachi, drill and beat of her breath. Not yet. Not yet.

“I can hear them.” Kyle’s ears, better than both Geena’s and mine. He pulls his long legs in, scrape of skin over concrete, barely a sound. His eyes open fully, his chest rises, but that’s all. The rest of him still, still, still, like it was hot day and not quick cool night.

I don’t say nothing. I never do. Words belong to ones like Geena and Kyle. Their mouths still form something to say, pushing letters and words and sounds out between lips and teeth, their curling tongues. Out, out of their mouths. All those words and sighs, cries and slow, hot breaths.

My mouth is quiet. My mouth is only take. Hunger that inhales and inhales, swallows whole.

*

Kiss kiss bang bang, s.

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“All writers are vampires.” ~James Gandolfini

Sunday Pleasures

Okay, kind of funny. Actually, pretty funny. Except the “hot chick” bit made me want to stand up (dressed in my sexy black dress and thigh-high boots, of course) and yell at him.

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Read Please:

boil a rabbit, tricia louvar

indiana jones, with camera, and better than brazil, both by gwen masters

Learn Please:

writers are brave, m. christian

Laugh Please:

funny poems at poemeleon, barbara crooker (scroll all the way down for Hamlet on IM)

period, xkcd, a webcomic

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“I like sadism, necrophilia, and zoophilia. Am I flogging a dead horse?” ~Tallulah Bankhead

Here Kitty, Kitty…

Started the morning off with a rejection on some new poems. Blech. Poems are so f-ing hard. At least, they are for me. Poetry was/is my first love. Long before I wrote fiction or essays or novellas, I wrote poems. And yet, there’s still something so difficult about them — I feel like I’m stuck three-quarters of the way to understanding poetry, and I haven’t made it over the final hump yet. Someday, someday…

The good news is that on the heels of the rejection comes the news that my short story, “Good Kitty,” has been accepted for the Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 9, edited by the talented and prolific Maxim Jakubowski. This is my second time subbing to this collection, and my second yes, so I’m pretty chuffed. Not to mention that “Good Kitty” is one of the stories that people suggested I send. That pretty much rocks!

The story, which is about pussy play (kitten play? cat play?) was originally published in Alison Tyler’s collection, K Is for Kinky (Erotic Alphabet). So, thank you, Alison for giving this naughty little pussy a home!

Kiss kiss bang bang, s.

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“All right, said the cat; and this time it vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone.” – Lewis Carroll, Alice In Wonderland

Sub Sat: Shark Poems

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The first time I got to touch a shark was fantastic. The skin velvet-sleek. Like a perfect glove that would protect me from everything. One of the movies that scared the bejesus out of me was Open Water. Like, so scared that I was pissed off. Furious at the movie. Jaws didn’t scare me though, not so much. I think it because I always knew that the shark wasn’t real.I’ve written about sharks before. Fiction, of course. A poem about sharks, that’s what today’s submission asks for. That’s something entirely different. Can I do it? Can you?

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EXPRESS YOUR FEELINGS ABOUT SHARKS AND RAYS IN OUR SHARK SUMMER POETRY CONTEST AND YOU MIGHT HAVE YOUR POEM POSTED AND PUBLISHED!

Shark Poetry Contest: Aquarium of the Pacific

http://www.aquariumofpacific.org/sharksummer/poetry_contest/

The winner will have his or her poem posted on the Aquarium’s website and published in the Aquarium’s exclusive magazine Pacific Currents, along with passes to the Aquarium and a behind the scenes tour for four people. Entries will be accepted online or via mail through July 31, 2009. Poems must be no longer than 200 words. You must be 16 years old to enter. Only one entry per person.

All entries must be received by July 30, 2009. Upload your poem at

http://www.aquariumofpacific.org/sharksummer/poetry_contest/

or mail to:

Shark Poetry Contest
Aquarium of the Pacific
320 Golden Shore, Suite 150
Long Beach, CA 90808

Please make sure to include all your contact information (name, email, phone, mailing address) in the actual document as well.

Enter here.

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“I’ll catch this bird for you, but it ain’t gonna be easy. Bad fish. Not like going down the pond chasin’ bluegills and tommycods. This shark, swallow you whole. Little shakin’, little tenderizin’, an’ down you go.” ~Quint, from “Jaws”

The Semi-Illustrated Dictionary of Alison Tyler

Alison. Author. Artist. Amazing. Amazon. Ambiguous. Alphabetical. Anytime, Anywhere, Anyplace. Absolutely Undefinable. Almost Another Year Older.

Bound.

Cock-Wielding. I simply was male. And I wanted things from my woman that were extreme. Caning. Belting. I wanted to feel the soft leather of her pointed-toe boot between my legs. I was splayed and bound. She was taunting me. I knew if she kept up the punishment I would come. –Blog post

Dervish. See, Zen.

Encouraging. “I have prizes for everyone! Because that’s the type of hostess I am. (You know. One who calls you names like slacker first and then rewards you with goodies after. Sort of like bending you over my knee for a spanking, then wiping away your tears. Okay, it’s nothing like that. I just felt like talking about spankings. For no reason at all.)” –Blog Post

Friend. Shanna’s Note: I made the mistake of searching through my emails looking for that particular quote from AT that would have exemplified the word, ‘friend’ when it comes to her. And I found just far too many things in her words: Laughter, kindness, worry, fear, joy, excitement, exhaustion, care…  So you’ll just have to trust me on this one. Oh, hell, what am I saying? Most of you know exactly what kind of friend she is. The best kind.

Gorgeous. Shanna’s Note, Redux: Okay, I don’t have a link for this particular word. But I’ve met the woman. And let me tell you what… my heart fucking stopped. It did. I managed not to drool on her, but that’s only because she kept feeding me and making me laugh.

Heart-Stopping. “When I pick up a book of erotica,” says Alison Tyler, “I don’t want to read about ‘beautiful’ and ‘loving.’ I want to read about sweaty and heart-stopping.”

Inquisitive. I want to go to bed with you. Wait. No, that’s not right. I want you to want to go to bed with me. Nope. Well, actually… What I really want is for you to send me a picture of your bed. Or your bedding. Your sheets. Or your pillows. You can be in the bed if you are extra talented and know how to set the timer on your digital camera—or if you have a partner who wants to take your (not X-rated) picture. But mostly, I want to see where you sleep. Show me your sheets, will you? — AT, from the Boudoir Blog.

Jamming.

Kinky. I’m all for Pussy Play. I think that’s purrrfect…. –Blog Post

Laugh-Inducing.

Wetting myself in the heat of the moment?

Sexy.

Wetting myself in the heat of the radiology center—something I sure as hell never want to experience. –Blog Post

Married (Happily). Natch.

Naughty.

Oral. “I want to see you flirt. I want to know what you look like when you’re making eyes at another man.” –From “Kiss”

Publisher. Pretty Things Press, baby.

Questing for Perfection. “I know I’ve said before, but Frenzy was a bit of a bear to put together. I read hundreds of stories, and I do this funny shuffling game when I put books in order. I move the stories over and over again, trying to create the perfect layout. I want the anthologies to take readers on a satisfying ride from the moment you buy your ticket until you step off, light headed and giddy.” –Interview with AT

Real. Oh, so Real. I wanted to melt into nothing. Disappear into a silver mist. Over one midnight confession, I’d asked him if he’d spank me…and then, unable to actually voice the request, I had simply put his hand over the front of my panties. “Spank me here…?”

For some inexplicable reason, I was always waiting for the moment when I’d go too far. When he’d give me a disgusted look and push me away. I didn’t realize that Connor’s own fantasies were darker than my own, went farther than I’d dare to dream.

He’d laughed, not mean, not cruel, but he’d laughed at me. As if it went without saying that he’d do what I asked. “Baby,” he said softly, “I have no problem punishing your pussy.”

Ah, fuck me—

–From “The Last Goodbye.”

Smokin’. Alison Tyler has an amazing ability to seek out those stories that not only arouse but also bring a literary excellence to the genre. –Review of “Playing with Fire.”

Trollop. “Why am I giving away trollops? Because they need a good home. And also, I like the thought of people walking around with my mark on their skin. That just seems kinky to me.” –AT

Uncategorizable. That’s how I felt in the dressing room. When I had on a zippered PVC dress in scarlet, I became an evil queen. When in a form fitting navy skirt suit with snaps that ran down the jacket, I was the type of soon-to-be-unrepressed librarian that men dream of. Piles of clothing towered on the black lacquered chair in the corner of the dressing room. And still Jack wanted to see more. –Blog Post

Verse-Maker. My best friend, Antonia, is a wisp of a girl, with pale blonde hair as soft as eiderdown and a translucent complexion reminiscent of a pre-Raphaelite model. Sometimes she wears layered antique slips snagged from second-hand stores on Melrose. Clad in faded rose satin with lace at the collar, she might have just stepped out of a 19th century print, a low flush to her cheeks, a secret half-smile on her lips. Other times, she wears those gauzy, ethereal dresses that are so in right now. Always, she looks like a half-frightened wood nymph, her cherry red hair loose and alluring around her cameo face. –From “Antonia’s Beast.”

Well-Fucked. “I’ll punish you tomorrow,” he says, mouth to my ear. “For making me have to fuck you today.” --Blog Post

XX&Y. One rainy night, I found myself unexpectedly engaged in a threesome with the sultry music editor from our newspaper and her dark-haired, dark-eyed roommate, an up and coming soap opera star who boasted the mournful look of a young Dean Martin… –Blog Post

Yes-Woman. When he’d told her to prepare herself, she’d licked her bottom lip, sucking it into her mouth, something she did when she was scared. “You’re sure?” he’d asked again, right before sliding the needle through, and she’d simply said, “Yes. Please.” –From “Pierced.”

Zen.  I’m a dervish. Maybe this is how I get so much done in such a short span of time. I spin. There is not a single Namaste bone in my body. I am the opposite of OM. I move from one project to the next, without taking a breath. By now, I’ve mastered multi-tasking to the level where I really don’t know how to do one thing at a time. –Blog Post

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Footnote: Happy birthday, A! You inspire me, guide me, delight me, challenge me and encourage me more than you’ll ever know. And I know for a fact that I’m not alone when I say that. May the coming year bring you health, love, happiness, and writing and orgasms in abundance. Big love, s.

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PS: For Other Birthday celebrations around the blog globe, check out these naughty attendees:

• Nikki struts her stuff
• Gina Marie takes her panties off
• Smut Girl kisses Frodo
• Craig makes Alison-flavored poetry
• Donna serves up delectable delights
• Alana dishes up hot boys
• Jeremy waxes his words
• Kristina 1 sends the world’s most awesome card
• Kristina 2 sends horny kitty wishes
• Isabel gives a tart to the tart
• Emerald goes through her panty drawer
• Robin throws a party
• Heidi makes us pant for boys in pants
• Ella gets her groove on
• PS revs us up with cock cake
• Janine gives a proper spanking
• Marina makes music
• Justine opens up on Alison
• Lady Stone gives gifts

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Kiss kiss bang bang, s.

Want to Help Out?

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So… I’m in need. Yes, again.

See, I have fantastic critters for my fiction (I just need to throw a HUGE thanks out here to Mat and Elazarus, who have rocked my fiction into shape with sharp eyes, fast minds and honest feedback in the past month or so. I’m so eternally grafeful).

But, gah, I need someone who’s willing to look at poems and go after them with a hammer. (I’d say fine-toothed comb, but I know myself well enough to know that my poems often need something… less refined. Like maybe a blowtorch. Yes, Corvid, I stole your blowtorch. Sue me.)

So, anyone up for the job? Have a sharp eye, a solid understanding of poetry, and a willingness to tell me what sucks without reserve or pussy-footing? If so, I’m your girl. And, of course, I’m happy to crit your poems in exchange. And, to be honest, I just don’t write poems that much anymore. I know, Bad Shanna. Slap my hand. Or some other body part. But, still, it means you wouldn’t have to crit things very often.

I have a poem right now that needs a heavy hand, and another one on the way. What do you think? Up for the challenge? If so, you know how to reach me. I’ll be in your debt until… well, until I’m not.

Kiss kiss bang bang, s.

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“Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what’s wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.” ~Neil Gaiman