Tuesday, January 24, 2017

Living With My Boyfriend, Loving My Girlfriend - Part Two

Rise & Shine – 
Part Two
Read Part One Here

Please check out the rest of this story in this exciting, new anthology from Supposed Crimes!

"These talented storytellers captured womanhood, and women on stage and screen, in all their beautiful, wonderful glory. These are the ones that made me laugh and cry and want to sing. There are erotic and sensual tales, gender non-conformity, trans women, lesbians and bisexuals, politics, falling in love, parenting, youthful crushes, opera, toe-tapping musical numbers, death-defying stunts, humor, and more. This anthology is a celebration." - AM Leibowitz, Editor.

Stories Included:

Presenting the Revial of Jan, Aila Alvina Boyd - Years after blowing her Broadway debut, a former actress is convinced by the playwright to come out of retirement in order to revive the role that pushed her to the brink of insanity.

The Helsinki Incident, Renee Young - After an unexpected, erotic encounter with a mysterious and beautiful stranger, the lead guitarist of a band touring mining outposts across the solar system rediscovers her love of music.

I, Stage Manager, Marolyn Krasner - A short love story about a stage manager, eccentric theater types, a kooky best friend, and leather daddies.

End of an Era, Althea Blue - In the years leading to the death of the silent film, many careers were ended prematurely. But do we really know everything there was to know about the silent stars who faded away?

Knife’s Edge, Geonn Cannon - Amid the insanity of the circus, Arlie and Ru must place absolute trust in each other. Arlie trusts that the blades will hit their intended target, while Ru trusts that Arlie won't flinch. It would only take the smallest of mistakes to destroy that trust.

I Think I’m Gonna Like It Queer, Allison Fradkin - Theatre is an ensemble of inflection, projection, and rejection. So when 16-year-old Reyna—a performer who's part prima donna, part dreamgirl next door—desires a duet with Melinda, the ingénue who plays her best friend, she can't just run and tell that. Or even run and tell Melinda. But with the arrival of a triply threatening romantic rival, it's five to places and ten to one that Reyna had better act on her feelings before the curtain closes on her chances.

London Lark, JL Merrow - Repairing a salvaged automaton becomes a labour of love for apprentice tinkerer Harriet Hodgkins. But the clockwork coquette is destined for resale, and Miss Pandora’s restoration will signal their separation—unless Hodgkins can engineer a more auspicious ending.

Prima Donna, Kathleen Jowitt - Everybody knows why the great Signora Valli left the Licorne opera company. Everybody, that is, except Monsieur Perret, who's taken the brave - some would say foolish - decision to cast her opposite rising star Delphine Vincent-Leclerc in Rossini's Tancredi. But what everybody knows is only half the story.

Oh No She Didn’t!, Debbie McGowan - Once upon a time, in the not so faraway land of small-town amateur dramatics, there lived a widow called Marcy and her beautiful, grown-up daughter, Ginny…

Rise or Shine, Sonni de Soto - What is Cadence Carrington to do? Her public life is colliding fast with her private persona, when her boss at the governor's office sets his eye on shutting down the club she secretly performs burlesque at as featured dancer and femme fatale, Rebel Rouser. It's only a matter of time before she's found out, but the question is will she choose Cady's steady, straight-laced life or will she choose to be the Rebel she knows she is at heart?

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Read about my and my story's part in

THINK YOU OWN ME?
Please check out my novel Show Me, Sir from Sinful Press that celebrates feminist kink!


FORGIVE ME, FATHER, FOR I HAVE SINNED!
Please check out my story in Sexy Little Pages' anthology that explores the taboo juxtaposition of holy and sensual!

REBEL WITH US!
See how Kat & Peter will face our uncertain future in Coming Together's defiant, charity anthology that celebrates diversity and equality!
And Listen to an Excerpt
LET ME KNEEL AT YOUR FEET!
Everyone has secret, kinky desires. Please check out my story in this anthology that explores that hot flush that comes with the discovery of a new, sexy, sometimes unmentionable desire!


Find even more great reads and Put Your Money Where Your Orgasm Is!




Also, find out how you can support me and collaborate with me on my Patreon Page!

Living With My Boyfriend, Loving My Girlfriend - Part One

Rise & Shine-  
Part One

In the mirror’s glassy surface, I watch detachedly—almost disembodied—as a familiar hand applies makeup on my face.

The foundation is thick and matte. Powder goes on like dust from a flaking cake that shimmers on skin as the brush caresses cheeks, forehead, nose, neck, and breasts.

Blush.

Eyeshadow.

Eyeliner.

Mascara.

Lipstick, for color. Red. Fire-engine bright. Slathered on in a pretty, painted smile, it reminds me of a clown. Or a corpse.

I hear someone call for me. It’s time. Time to get up. To go. To rise.

A tear slides down my cheek, ruining all my work, causing the paint to smear.

All except that smile.

My smile is—as always—perfect.

———

“I can’t believe this!”

I look up from my desk, hearing the crinkle of newspaper beside me.

“I cannot believe this!” My brother’s voice booms again, snapping the paper open. I roll my eyes and look at Keith. “Look at this, Cady, just look at this!” He waves the paper at me. “The governor’s priest—Father Whatshisname—just came out of the closet today in the Sunday paper. The front page!”

I finish the email I’m typing to some campaign contributors, thanking them for attending last night’s event before turning to him. “A priest came out as gay?” I brush my blond bangs out of my eyes before leaning back in my office swivel chair, wondering why Keith cares so much.

“Not gay.” Keith scoffs. “I wish. We could have spun that to our advantage.” He sits on the corner of my desk, making me move my mug before it spills coffee all over my keyboard. I take a sip as I see thoughts—campaign plots and strategies—churn in his intense gaze. “No, he came out as a member of,” he pauses to shake his head before saying through gritted teeth, “that club.”

I stop, perking right up—choking on the coffee I’d just sipped. I sit back with a squeak as I sputter and cough. “Donovan’s?”

It’s the governor’s latest endeavor to clean up the city. After struggling with his war against drugs, Governor Jacob Reynolds realized that, if he’s going to be re-elected next term, he needs a war he could win.

So he’s aimed his sights on Donovan’s. Kink clubs. Dungeons. Bath houses. And sex workers. It’s the latest craze for politics. Publicly shutting these organizations down—with lots of cameras and media present to document, of course—works as an instant way to boost voter morale and an official’s lagging approval rating. And, let’s face it, they’re easy targets. Nothing excites religious conservative voters quite like a sex scandal happening right under their noses.

So Governor Reynolds and his entire staff jumped on the bandwagon.

I gaze at Keith over my mug as I take a deep swig and think, some had leapt more enthusiastically than others.

I’ve always considered myself a conservative, ever since eighth grade civics. I believe in fiscal responsibility and slow and steady change. And I believe that, unless it’s broken, there are parts of a person’s life where government just doesn’t belong.

I firmly believe in the politics—lower taxes and giving more power back to the state governments—that had built Jacob Reynolds’s first campaign, when he was just an up-and-comer in the republican party. I’d volunteered and interned and eventually got hired to work on his campaign on those promises.

And then the political sphere shifted. Tom Rosen, a celebrity tycoon with a flair for drama and presidential aspirations, changed the world. Suddenly, the nuance of tax code and financial reform got outshined by border walls and birth control rights. The rhetoric against the strain of overspending and the choke holds of regulation were replaced with rants about the evils of immigration and vice. Instead of debating the points of political rivals, suddenly we were debating the rights of those deemed the undesirables.

It shouldn't have been possible. A man who made more than half the country his enemy—women, minorities, the LGBTQIA+ community, immigrants, liberals, and even conservatives who refuse to get in line—shouldn't be able to become the next president of the United States. His promises to “make America Rise Again,” like some callback to Confederacy days, should have fallen on deaf ears. The American people should have known—should have learned from our past—that in order to truly rise as a nation, we cannot be content to leave our own people, whatever their race, religion, gender, or orientation, behind. A man who would sell the soul of our country, that had been won with the blood, sweat, and tears of those before him, should never have been elected to lead.

And yet it happened.

Right before my eyes.

And, suddenly, I wasn’t the same kind of conservative that Governor Reynolds and the rest of the party had become. Or that Keith had slowly morphed into. Or even like our working-class, rural, Protestant parents want me to be.

The Risen. That’s what Rosen’s followers call themselves and what those in the party are expected to be. Deifying him into some figure who could do no wrong, no matter how outrageous, unconstitutional, or unconscionable his words or actions. How this self-righteous, alpha-male, might-makes-right, nationalistic sideshow became the focus—the face—of political conservatism, I’ll never understand. But somehow they—along with a good amount of fear-filled disinformation and flat-out ignorance—had taken over the party, casting the entire conservative stance as caricatures and endless fodder for late night comedy shows.

“Donovan’s,” Keith grumbles, tossing the paper aside. I stare as it lands on my tidy desk between us. “We’ll get them—they’ll eventually slip—but this,” he says with a sweeping gesture over the newsprint story, “looks bad for us.”

Yes, it did. Reynolds had won on the merits of a campaign touting faith-based civic service. If his religious advisor had been part of the big, bad enemy all this time, what did that say about the state of faith in his flock?

“Listen to this.” Keith picks up the paper again. “ ‘When asked why he felt the need to announce this now, Father Nicholas Bailey of Anointed Assumption Church said, “This issue is being framed in terms of lust and lasciviousness, of squalor and sin. But, in my three years as a member of this establishment, I’ve seen sinners find salvation, of a sort. I’ve seen the lost become found. And I’ve seen couples—often lost in mistrust or mired in the grind of modern life—find love again. These are gifts given. These are miracles witnessed. My faith tells me that God places upon us the sweet demands of love, so that we may find happiness by responding to them.” With unshaken faith, Father Bailey has no plans to leave Anointed Assumption.’ ” Keith balks, his hazel eyes—so like her own, usually kind with a sheen of undeniable intelligence—bugged. “Can you believe this guy? Using religion to defend this whorehouse?!”

“It’s not a whorehouse.” I nearly groan, knowing that was the absolutely wrong thing to say as soon as it’d been said.

“We can’t prove that it is,” Keith insists, “not according to the letter of the law as it’s written today, but it’s only a matter of time.” He rolls his eyes dramatically—his whole head and shoulders getting in on it. “Men pay to get into this club to engage in sex acts of…” he shakes his head as his lip curls in disgust, “all kinds. If that’s not prostitution—sex trafficking, even—of some sort, I don’t know what is.”

Except that the men—and women—paying to get into Donovan’s aren’t paying to have sex, not that I really see what the big deal would be, if they were—so long as everything’s consensual. But, at Donovan’s, the patrons are paying to get into a club where, yes, nights often end with consensual people having consensual sex exchanging nothing more than mutual pleasure. Which happens at nearly every club and bar anywhere.

Which is why the governor is having such trouble shutting Donovan’s down.

They aren’t doing anything illegal, whatever your stance on the morality of it.

And, believe me, I would know.

I grab my phone from my desk when it dings, my fingers and palm spread over the screen.

“Who’s that?”

I stare at the screen. I should have shut off notifications. At least on this app. But then I’d have missed this message.

See you tonight after the show, right?

I suppress a smile. Hallie. Clutching the phone tight in my hands, making sure that the screen isn’t visible by anyone but me, I click on the kinky social media app many of Donovan’s members use and type Absolutely! back.

Good. Just be warned, zombie girl: I bite back.

I’m counting on it. I slide my phone back into my bag.

“Who was that?”

I blink. I’d forgotten Keith was still here. I shrug. “No one. Just a friend.” The words feel awful in my mouth. Hallie is so much more than that. But Keith wouldn’t understand. Maybe he would have—would have at least tried—a few years ago. But now…

I’m not sure anymore. He feels different now. The world feels different now. There was a time where I’d have laid my life on the fact that family meant more to my brother—to my parents—than anything else. That, for me, for my happiness, they’d have been able to see past politics and religion. But now.

I know I should just come out. Should have done it years ago. But, as bisexual, it hadn’t felt necessary. For a long time, I’d been attracted to both men and women, but really only dated men. So why come out, when it would just complicate things unnecessarily?

But then I met Hallie. 

It should have made things simpler. Now there was a reason to come out. I want to be with her. To do that—to really, honestly, fully do that—I need to come out. And, what’s worse, I know—I just know—if my family got to know her, they’d love Hallie with her sweet demeanor, easy laugh, and tenacious strength.

But I met her at Donovan’s. Which, until recently, hadn’t felt like it was anyone’s business but my own. My government doesn’t need to know and my brother and parents certainly never need to know.

But where does that leave Hallie? Suppose that Keith and our parents could accept Hallie as my girlfriend, how do we answer basic questions like “Where did you two meet?” How could I ever hope to explain my family to Hallie? To my friends at Donovan’s?

And, God, what about my job? If anyone at work found out that I’m a member of Donovan’s, that I perform at that club, that I’m dating someone from the club—dating a woman from the club—I’d be ruined. Everything I’ve ever worked for, wasted. Even if my party is a mess at the moment—going through some strange growing pains—one day, hopefully soon, it’ll go back to what it once was. Won’t it? It has to. And, when it does, I want to be in position to make a real difference. If I walk away now, will I still be able to do that? To do everything I’ve hoped for?

And, dear God, if my friends at Donovan’s ever found out where I work—who I work for—I can’t even imagine what they’d think. Would they hate me? Think I’m some kind of traitor for holding my nose through all the hateful rhetoric and spiteful politics, that I despise and am disgusted by, in exchange for my hopes for economic reform that could save or at least help struggling people like my parents? Would they question my convictions, thinking my concerns over long-term debt mean nothing in the face of appalling present-day policies that threaten their freedoms and safety right now?

But what scares me most is that they could be right.

No. It’s best to just keep everything the way it is. I hate Rosen and what he’s done to my world, but he won’t be president forever. I, just like the rest of the world, simply have to get through this administration. I just have to keep my eye on the future. Keep my family and work life out of my personal life and keep Donovan’s and Hallie out of my everyday life. It’s not perfect—not even ideal—but what other choice do I have?

Keith shakes his head. “Well, if it’s not work-related, then help me out with this. This is a major problem. We cannot be connected in any way to these perverts.”

It’s hard not to flinch at that. If he only knew.

“Come on, Cady.” My brother looks at me like I’m his saving grace, his only hope. “You’ve gotta help me here.”

———

“Look, I’ll have the statement about Father Nicholas done after I finish my section of the tax proposal edits. They should be ready tomorrow morning in time for the meeting, I swear,” I say quickly before I hang up the phone on a panicked Keith, a gloved hand cupping the phone’s mouthpiece furtively. I know this all is important to the governor—and I’ll get it done—but this is important too.

“Rebel!” Elin the stage manager of Donovan’s Burle-Q Burlesque Troupe hisses, “The Risen number’s up next.”

I breathe out deep and slip my phone into my bag before standing tall on wobbly heels. I fix my long, brunette wig, fluffing the bangs over my grotesque zombie gore makeup as I lean in close to the mirror.

Showtime.

I’ve been performing as Rebel Rouser, a Russian Bettie Page, a doe-eyed devushka with a heavy accent and too many stilted A-meri-kan idioms, for nearly five years now. It’s a fun escape to play the clueless tourist or the tough-as-nails, sexy-bitch spy. To step into a role so different from myself.

But, since the election, the Burle-Q girls had been performing as The Risen, sexy Rosen-supporting zombies who shimmy and shamble aimlessly over the stage losing limbs and clothes throughout the dance. A real crowd pleaser.

Stripped of my usual conservative suit or Stepford sweater set, I hardly look like myself. With ample cleavage showing and my long legs exposed by the torn “We Shall Rise” dress, the woman I’d been earlier that day—the prim and proper campaign aide—all but disappeared. With the dark wig and heavy makeup, I couldn’t recognize myself at all.

It’s almost frightening how easy it is to lose yourself. To erase all traces of the life you’ve built and the person you’ve become. A change of clothes, different hair, some makeup, and a brand new person’s born.

Which is the point.

Cady Carrington doesn’t exist in Donovan’s. In fact, outside a very well-protected file kept under digital lock and key, that part of my life has no ties to the club or any of its shady clientèle. And there are a whole bible of rules and regulations keeping it that way. Cameras, video, and recorders of any kind outside of the club’s sanctioned security are strictly forbidden. Anyone caught outing or telling on any fellow member is banned.

Donovan’s believes in privacy for its clients above all else. With all their efforts—not to mention my own—the two halves of my life remain completely separate.

Sighing, I blink at the image in the mirror and wonder who the hell I’m looking at.

“Rebel!” Elin calls. “Cue’s up in ten.”

I adjust my props—a detachable zombie arm and breast—and rush out of the dressing room to the stage wings.

The other girls are in place, making last-minute adjustments to costumes and props.

Elin hands out mic packs and says in a hushed whisper, “Good luck, girls, knock ‘em dead.”

The lights dim as the other performers clear the stage and we take our places. As the eerie music starts and the lights come up, I blink, blinded by the brightness. But soon my eyes clear and then—the first sight I see is her.

Hallie.

Smiling that brilliant, beautiful smile, she’s clapping, cheering us on. Cheering me on.

Hallelujah.

As we go through the routine—a mix of old school vaudeville humor, tawdry striptease, and good old fashioned bump and grind—all I see, all I can think of, is Hallie.

Even after the show is done and all the yocks have been had, I still can’t get her out of my head.

She’s so stuck in my head that I don’t even notice her watching me while I take off my makeup and change out of my costume. But, when I look up, there she is reflected back at me in the full-length mirror.

“Great show,” she purrs, her Southern belle tone drawing out the sound. “As always.”

“I’m,” I say, suddenly flustered and nervous as I futz with the edges of my robe, trying to decide whether to close it or not, “so glad you could come.”

“Well, you know me,” she drawls as she saunters close, snaking a hand beneath my robe to grasp my hip. “I rarely pass up the opportunity to come...”




Read Part Two Here

Friday, January 20, 2017

We Need a Nasty Nation - Moving On Anthology

There are a few days that I will remember—with near painful vividness—for the rest of my life.

The day of the Columbine shooting, the day I learned schools weren’t the safe haven of learning I thought they were.

9/11, the day the whole nation was attacked and mourned while the world changed.

The day my dad died and I was viciously reminded how short life is and how little control we have over it.

November 8th will be a day like those. That is now burned into my brain and stamped on my soul. It was the day I felt hope die.

The hope for progress and tolerance. The hope for a better tomorrow. Hope that my country loved me as much as I love it.

That night, as I cried myself to sleep in the arms of my partner, I lost hope. In a way that—somehow through all the other tragedies in my life—I never had before. 

Which, I know, sounds so overdramatic and like eye-rolling liberal tears.

But it’s not.

This isn’t a liberal/conservative thing. This isn’t about tax plans or health insurance or court appointments or drug laws—even though all these issues are indeed very important and I wish they could be the biggest issue we have to worry about. This isn't about an outside enemy; this is about the darkness within our borders. One we must live with and work alongside to survive.

What terrified me in that moment—what terrifies me still—is that the rhetoric and sentiments being spread by this administration and its supporters tries to rob the people they view as their enemies—liberals, immigrants, people of color, muslims, women, the disabled, veterans, and so many more—of their humanity. Of our humanity.

And, terrified or not, with tears in our eyes and fear in our hearts or not, we cannot allow that.

When Hillary Clinton embraced the term “Nasty Woman,” so many of us cheered. Because the title and the emotions it evokes resonated within us.

We have been called nasty because we refused to fit ourselves into the boxes they issued us. We’ve been called nasty because we railed against their limitations and expectations we didn’t want to live by. We’ve been called nasty because we would not make ourselves less just to make someone else feel like they were more.

In that moment, nasty became a badge of honor.

We, as a nation—as a people, as a world—need more of that kind of nasty.

Because there are some crazy, improbable things happening right now. The world is becoming a crazy, improbable place. And, like other times in our past where this has happened, we must give this moment in history a voice.

We must become the thing they fear. The voice and vision of an era. We need to take all the anger and terror inside us and let it fuel us. Fuel us to act and to create. We cannot fester under the weight of our sorrow; we need to use it or we risk losing ourselves in it. We need to share it or risk missing our moment to put more empathy into the world. To allow it to see the things—the ideas and, more importantly, the people—it would rather ignore. Few things make people meet those they view as problems as people like art. Few things change the mind and touch the soul like art. 




Art has always been an act of rebellion. And they know it. One of Trump’s first budget plans is to “privatize the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities entirely.” Artists have always been targets for the power-hungry. We have always been tasked to be freedom fighters. Have always needed to be bold. We explore the impossible and make the inexplicable real. We are the light that shines on society and shows it for what it is and what it could be. Times like these require more, not less, from its artists.




We cannot cower. We cannot be complacent. We need to “ask one final question man to man. A simple yet profound question recently asked of me. ‘When the stage is dark and the lights and cameras are off … Who are you? And more importantly, who do you want to be?’ ”

I don’t know about you, but I want to be bold.

I want to be nasty.

I want to be an artist. 




This is what I tried to do in my stories in Coming Together’s Moving On anthology. In “When There Are No Words,” I wanted to capture November 8th, to let its demons out into the light. To give voice to the scars I will now carry for the rest of my life. And, hopefully, it gives someone who doesn’t understand that fear and sadness a peek at an experience outside their own. In “The Help,” I wanted to explore the idea of power and submission. The difference between who we feel forced to submit to and those who we freely share and exchange power with. Because, if freedom and equality are truly ideals we want to live by, we need to examine that difference closely.

Please check out this great, defiant anthology that celebrates diversity and equality in the face of our uncertain future, whose proceeds go to Move On.



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PRIDE & PUNISHMENT!
Please check out my story and get ready for some fit-on-the-streets-but-fun-in-the-sheets, pervertable play this PRIDE!






COME GET CORRUPTED
Please check out my story, "Safeword," in this new anthology from Sexy Little Pages, where women reclaim and recognise their power in myriad ways, and it's not always pretty. 
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SHOW ME WHAT YOU’VE GOT
Please check out my LGBTQ+ burlesque erotica story, “Rise or Shine” in this anthology that captures womanhood & women on stage & screen in all their beautiful, wonderful glory from Supposed Crimes!
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UNIDENTIFIED FETISH OBJECT
Sometimes really it sucks being female! Please check out my feminist, space alien novella from Less Than Three Press! Available Now On
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THINK YOU OWN ME?
Please check out my novel Show Me, Sir from Sinful Press that celebrates feminist kink!





Find even more great reads and Put Your Money Where Your Orgasm Is!






Also, find out how you can support me and collaborate with me on my Patreon Page!


Wednesday, January 18, 2017

The Transcendent Taboo - Sacred & Profane Antholog

“There was no need to separate the things we do on Saturday night from the things we do on Sunday morning.” —Prince

I’ve found that, like as Prince says, prayer and play are not as far or as distinct as we often like to think of them. 

Like I’ve said before, I was raised Catholic and, like Dan Savage, I wonder how much that played a part in my also being kinky. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that growing up Catholic “made” me kinky—I don’t think that’s how sexuality or kink work—but it did mean I grew up with a respect and affinity for pageantry and ritual. It gave me the ability to, with a few words and motions, reach a transcendent headspace away from the everyday.


And, while I’m skeptical of the study’s methodology and conclusions, even science seems to find a connection between prayer and pleasure. Hell, even the Vatican is trying to roll out a Tinder-like app—a Sinder app, if you will—that seeks to hook-up believers and the Church. No matter how we try to deny it or contain it, religion and sex are inexorably linked. 


And part of me thinks it’s like Michaela Coel says, “Sex and God are like the two most taboo things [...] because it’s something that everyone’s so private about.” So often, we pray and play behind closed doors, locked away in bedrooms and confessionals. So often, in our most intimate moments, we do it alone or with just one other person, striving hard to reach a nirvanic state beyond ourselves.


Even when we do perform in public, in churches or dungeons, it’s among our flocks, communing with the like-minded, as we seek to connect with something bigger than us.


I remember my very first play party. It was during Easter weekend so, of course, there was a Catholic nun scene. It was the last party for a pregnant kinkster, before she took a break from the kink scene during her third trimester. So, as a send-off, her friends had devised a fallen nun scene, where she was handcuffed to her girlfriend, who played the fallen nun’s confidante, while they were punished by her primary partner, who played the scandalized yet titillated priest.


I remember watching and wondering how this could possibly be my life. Here I was, embarking on the most transgressive act of my life, only to come face to face with my finger-wagging childhood. Suddenly, all my excitement was being doused as I wondered whether I ought to be offended by this or not. Even as an agnostic in Catholic-recovery, this seemed the epitome of blasphemy.


I mean, it was not a good Catholic scene. 


The outfits were thrift-store Halloween costumes. The plot and rehearsed lines were so corny, even the kinksters in the scene were laughing their way through them. Hell, even when they started reciting the “Hail Mary” prayer, they couldn’t even remember the words.


So, as the only one in the crowd who’d gone to Catholic school, I head-shakingly fed them their prayers, line by line. Becoming part of their scene. Being swept up in their scene.


In the crowd. In the laughter. In the ridiculousness. In the taboo. And, yes, in the joy.


The scene was bad. Corny and unrehearsed. It toyed with the offensive and yet…somehow, in that room full of giggling kinksters, the taboo had transformed into the transcendent. Had become about more than just those three kinksters. It’d become a communal moment, a shared experience. A profanely base, joyfully sacred, utterly human moment that could never have happened any other way and would likely never happen again. It was the definition of a you had to be there moment to ever truly understand.


I wanted to capture that moment in my story “Genuflect” in Sexy Little Pages’ Sacred & Profane anthology. That odd moment of conflict, where guilt meets pleasure, and somehow leads to clarity. I wanted to explore the undeniable truth that both prayer and play have a unique ability to shed light and insight on who we are and what we could be.


After all, like Prince points out, Saturday and Sunday just seem too close not to be connected.


Check out my story "Genuflect" in Sacred & Profane: Priest Erotic Romance, edited by the wonderful Torrance Sené, that's out now at all major online retailers and is also available in paperback:




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Wednesday, January 11, 2017

Don't Yuck Other People's Yum; Even When It's Funny

Look, I get it. We’re all feeling a bit crazed in the face of this post-truth, Trumpian world looming ahead of us. And when salacious news drops in our laps...well, how can we not laugh?

At the ridiculousness of it all. At how, while the coolest, classiest president was giving his final impassioned, eloquent, inspiring speech to the nation, a story about our president-in-waiting hiring Russian sex workers to pee on the bed his predecessor stayed in like some pissant punk with a hard-on for immature and ineffectual vengeance and more money than sense leaked online. At how this is the state of our great nation now. 

I get it. Sometimes you have to laugh; it's either that or break Canada’s immigration site again.

All I’m asking is, like with all jokes, make sure you're aiming your humor correctly.

You may find what Trump allegedly did to be disgusting or gross, and that's fine, but the vindictive golden showers—childish as it may seem or unpleasant as you may find it—isn't the part you ought to focus your disgust on. Hiring sex workers, however you may feel about paying for sex, isn't the part you ought to be grossed out by.

The possibility that Trump lied to the American people about having ties to Russia, about his possibly knowing about Russian interference with our election, and the very real impacts both those things would have on our country and our democracy should be the story. Should be the things we all sit up and pay attention to.

If you want to attack that, I’m all for it. If you want to use piss play humor to shine a spotlight on that, hey, whether the rumor is true or not, I’m pretty sure that, with his manipulation of the media, he’s more than earned that.

But you know who hasn't earned your scorn?

Consensual clients of consenting sex workers, said sex workers, and kinksters who engage in consensual water sports.

If you talk or joke about how disgusting and gross Trump’s actions were and ONLY talk about the piss play or the sex workers, even when it's funny, that's part of the problem. Because, when you say, “Look, Trump got caught doing golden showers with sex workers; isn't he gross?!” all you’re saying that doing water sports and hiring sex workers is gross. That THAT is what we should be upset with. And, by logical extension, everyone else who does those things are gross and upsetting. 

But is that really what we mean? Other than in a tabloidy, gossipy way, do you really care about Trump’s sex life or what he chooses to do in bed between, hopefully, consenting adults? Other than in a tabloidy, gossipy way, does it actually impact your life? And, if it does—which it does just not in the way too many of us are talking about—how does it affect us and how can we make the conversation about that?

Because, yes, the man IS gross and disgusting, but those acts are not what make him so.

The man has given—and no doubt will continue to give—an unending supply of deplorable material to work with. From possibly colluding with Putin to undermine our democracy to insulting the disabled, veterans, minorities, women, and countless others. From courting a segment of the nation by preying on their fears, hate, mistrust, and ignorance to reducing the bragging over sexual assault to “locker room talk.” There is no shortage of disgust to speak of as we approach this horrifying transition of power. 

Keep focus. 

And, again, I get it. I’m not even going to pretend like my first reaction wasn’t to laugh and make juvenile jokes.

But, if we’ve learned anything over our vast human history—particularly these past few years; hell, over these past few weeks—we need to be better. We need to demand better from everyone else. It is the only way we, as a whole, will ever get better.

We need to make sure that our humor is directed at the right people, at the right things. Poke fun, poke humorous holes, at the hypocrisy or corruption in power. Use wit and laughter to make people pay attention to the establishment and their actions. Like, I’ve said before, humor is a powerful tool for forcing us to look at the ridiculousness of our world and to inspire us to change it for the better. 

But, if it’s not actively harming anyone, don’t yuck someone else’s yum and don’t let others do it either, not even for a joke. Because, to be funny, we shouldn't need to use kinksters’ or sex workers’ humanity—or the dignity of anyone who doesn’t deserve it—as a punchline for our humor.

Humor is a tool; we decide if we want to use it to fix what’s broken or as a weapon to blast at the world, damn the casualties.

If we want to actually hold Trump accountable, we have to use all our tools—from humor to ire to attention—to highlight what’s important. If we make this story about piss play and sex workers, not only are we vilifying the wrong things, and implicitly the people who engage in those things consensually, we’ll all be mindlessly laughing at the jokes, while we let him get away with the dangerously unfunny and potentially criminal acts we ought to be holding him accountable for.

Which would kinda kill the fun out of it, right?

Tuesday, January 10, 2017

Damn It, Trump! Don't You Ruin Kink!

Reminder that consensual water sports isn't a crime, consensual sex work shouldn't be a crime. Too often our prudish tendencies let us lose sight of what's important. Even in the court of public opinion, we need to punish the acts that are actually criminal.

Tell your friends. Cause if not you, who?

Why Do We Kink? - We All Have Our Reasons

We do kink, like we do most everything, for a great many and varied reasons. And, so long as no one is being harmed, all those reasons are valid. They may not match yours, you may not even like them, but they're still valid all the same.

"You can have a great amount of fun in the moment, feel connected to the people you did it with, give some thought to the experiences and look for patterns and things you can learn, but also be willing to feel things about them and let that be meaningful, too. Human interaction is complex. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t allow our kink to be complex, too."

READ THE REST HERE

Sunday, January 1, 2017

Sixty Seconds with Deep Desires Press

Did a Sixty Seconds with Deep Desires Press for my new story "Give To You," which comes out Tuesday, January 3!

Why do you like writing erotica / erotic romance?
- Love and sex are just so universal; everyone has and will be touched by them at some point in their lives. So you’d think that we’d know how they work, right? And we think we do. We love to think of ourselves as or think we can become experts, but we can’t be. Because every relationship is different, every person is different. Which means every love story we tell is a new discovery. Exploring that endless diversity and all the ways and times our “expertise” fails us is really fun...

READ THE REST HERE



"Give to You" is
And Listen to an Excerpt


LEARNING A NEW WORLD
Please check out my novel The Taming School from Sizzler Editions that explores discovering kink!
Available Now On
LOVE EROTICA? LOVE CONSENT?
Please check out my story in The New Smut Project's anthology and see how consent makes everything sexier!

REBEL WITH US!
Erotica is an expression of rebellion. Please check out my stories in Coming Together's defiant, charity anthology that celebrates diversity and equality in the face of our uncertain future! Available Now On
And Listen to an Excerpt

THINK YOU OWN ME?
Please check out my novel Show Me, Sir from Sinful Press that celebrates feminist kink!

HAVE YOURSELF A KINKY, LITTLE XMAS!
Please check out my story in Coming Together's charity anthology that lets your feel-good do some real good!

PRIDE & PUNISHMENT!
Please check out my story and get ready for some fit-on-the-streets-but-fun-in-the-sheets, pervertable play this PRIDE!






BREAKING THE RULES!
Please check out my story in this hand-held library of erotica & explore to your libido's content!





Find even more great reads and Put Your Money Where Your Orgasm Is!




Also, find out how you can support me and collaborate with me on my Patreon Page!