Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Pop My Cherry, Would You?

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I could lie and say the first time I was twenty-nine. Late bloomer. Truth is, however, my first time I was thirteen.

It went like this: Boobs, period, pimples, masturbation, smut. Wait.

Boobs, period, pimples, Harold Robbins, masturbation, boy named Dale, smut.

That's how it went. I hit puberty. Started reading novels by Harold Robbins (Goodbye Janette, Dreams Die First, The Betsy; god, there were tons of them) and then started to masturbate bout the time I developed a four-year-long crush on a boy named Dale. He took me into a barn once, led me up to a loft, put his hand inside my underwear and touched my cunt lips with one finger and then pulled it out and lifted it to his nose, inhaled me off his finger. He said, "Thank you."

Same year, I began to write stories, often rip-offs of something I'd read. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton or Salem's Lot by Stephen King. I wrote with pencil in long hand on yards of continuous-feed computer paper my father allotted me in weekly increments. Many of these stories survive today, except the smut, which my step mom confiscated one afternoon from a desk in my bedroom and then gave to my father, who destroyed all of it.

Weird thing about my father: He censored/controlled everything in my life: movies, music, clothing, friends, the words I wrote in long-hand on continuous-feed paper. He never censored, confiscated, or destroyed books though. I could read what I wanted and did. Although my early attempts at smut a.k.a. erotica no longer exist, I assure you they were hybrids, Harold Robbins meets Stephen King kind of stuff. Blood, guts, and coming.

Toward the end of high school, when I could hide stuff at my best friend Christine's house, I began to write erotica again, over-the-top sentimental stuff. Examples of these stories survive. For instance, a story dedicated to John Taylor of Duran Duran called "Sunshine Boy" I wrote in red ink on wide-rule notebook paper. (Note grammar, punctuation, and spelling errors in the following excerpt haven't been corrected in order to preserve authenticity.)

She asked him if she could bum a cigarette and felt her fingers trembling. John said "Yes" in his sexy British accent that sent shivers over her whole body. His gorgeous eyes didn't even blink, making her blush. A fire she felt all over her body! Fire spread all over her body, that's right! Lerah hadn't wanted someone so much before . . . she didn't know what to do. What should she do?! Maybe go crazy with passion for her dream man, John Taylor!

Two pages later . . .

John kissed all over her shaking, shivering body. She was shy, she was trembling hard in his arms as his hands squeezed her boobs and then touched her face with his hands. He kissed her over and over again until she couldn't stand it anymore!

"Please, fuck me, please John!" Lerah screamed hard.

He didn't use words. Not John. He got on top of her and put it inside her. He was inside her, it only hurt for a minute. And then she felt in total ecstasey!

*****

If you asked a lesbian I met at a graduate school party four years ago she'd say I'm an "over sexualized" person. I prefer sexual, as in a sexual being, an artist/writer/woman interested in, intrigued and inspired by human sexuality. I lost my virginity when I was five days shy of my eighteenth birthday. I spent six years disrobing for money in a gentleman's club. I've never been sexually molested or raped. My lovers have been of both genders, mostly male but a few female. In 1996, I sold my first piece of smut to Playgirl Magazine. I mentioned it before. Remember "I'd Marry Fox Mulder This Second?"

"Private Investigation," my first erotica sale, was my version of what happened when Fox Mulder decided to screw his partner, Dana Scully. They did it in an abandoned building on a cruddy old mattress, scene of a brutal crime. Limbs wound together like twine, lips bruised by kisses.

Trust me. It wasn't a good story. The story behind the story is actually better. During the spring of 1996, a friend of mine who used to live down the street from me and worked with me at the gentleman's club, drove up the street to my house one afternoon and then banged on my door.

When I let her in, Adena held a Playgirl Magazine in my face.

"OK," I said. "What?"

"Kirk is in this magazine," she said. "Kirk!"

I had to think a minute. "Oh, you mean the guy you used to sleep with?"

Adena nodded then flipped the magazine open to the centerfold. There was Kirk. Not my type, truth be told. He was the consummate Playgirl Magazine Romance Novel looking guy. Beefed up and tan, frosted hair and shaved chest. I took the magazine from Adena and flipped back to the table of contents.

"Does this magazine publish stories, you know like fiction?"

Adena shrugged. "I don't know. Who cares?"

I thumbed through the magazine and found it: Reader's Fantasy Forum. "Send us your best fantasies . . . Fantasy of the month receives one hundred dollars."

I looked at Adena, thinking. "Can I borrow this over night?"

Adena smiled. "Why?"

"I'm going to write a story." I glanced through the examples. "I think I can do this."

Adena shrugged. "Fine. But I want it back tomorrow."

"Yeah, yeah." I pushed her toward the door. "See you later, tomorrow. Yeah, yeah. Bye."

I shut the door behind her and then went to my computer. Sitting at my desk I read each "fantasy" twice. I studied format, vocabulary, premise. I conjured Mulder and Scully. I began to type. I kept thinking, "I can do this," until eventually I thought, "I can do this better." I typed and typed and typed. Four hours later I had a story. "Private Investigation." Complete with cock and cunt and whole lot of moaning and groaning and coming.

Not a great story. Not even especially good. But Playgirl Magazine bought it in the summer of 1996 and featured it as the "Fantasy of the Month." Within the next year, I sold nine more stories to Playgirl Magazine. Yeah, forever grateful. Because of my success with Playgirl Magazine, I became more confident about my writing. I also got serious about reading and writing as much erotic fiction as possible, the best erotica I could get my hands on.

Someday, I'll tell you about a story that changed how and why I write erotic fiction forever, something from the Herotica series called "Make Me" by Sonja Kindley. Until then, let me hear your first time accounts. How old were you when you write your first piece of smut/erotica? What was it about? Does it survive today? Care to share an excerpt?

Peace,

Alana

12 comments:

Nikki Magennis said...

Alana, I love the total ecstasey! Wish I'd been that precocious. I think I started off writing very maudlin poems full of fading rosepetals and weeping women. Not much has changed...


You can read my first erotica story here. I wrote it on the island. (You say 'The Island' in hushed tones, like the movie voice-over guy.) I'd exiled myself there, knew no one, lived like a pauper and just wrote and wrote and wrote. This was a test I set myself - just to see if I could.

Anonymous said...

Oh Alana. How worth the wait was that?

Your John Taylor smut is my favourtie thing on Lust Bites ever. It just captures that confused adolscent crushing so perfectly.

Priceless.

I started writing smutty stuff when I was about 14. Felt pens, long hand. It didn't really have full sex in it so much as hurt-comfort and bondage.

So little has changed.

Anonymous said...

Oh, too addictive... Look what I dug up instead of working

http://tillytilly.livejournal.com/335465.html

Erastes said...

*waves shyly* I haven't really posted on the group much yet.

Good topic! I discovered that I wanted to write smut after finding fanfiction - had never heard of it before - read a few Snape/Lucius stories and thought "Hmmm I can do this..." wrote a 66k word novella and then realised that was a waste of time as I couldn't sell it, and decided to write for publication!

Anonymous said...

I had a friend ask me to write a HP slash myself, I ended up doing "Ron and Giant Squid." It was silly, light-hearted and just pointless.

I remember my first erotic writings. I actually had my high school teachers editing them. And more than once, I've managed to each out a little flush from them. But, I can't find those stories. And the poems were at the end of my "I like vampires and werewolves" stage, but they sound so trite today.

Alison Tyler said...

How strange that Alana and I not only wrote rock 'n roll erotica in high school, but we had the same lead. (I wasn't a fan of Duran Duran, personally, but I wrote my stories for my best friends who craved Simon and Roger and John. My girlfriends wouldn't have appreciated my taste in rock gods. Did anyone but me want to sleep with Lou Reed and Nico? Or Tom Waits?)

I sold my first fiction piece to Playgirl, as well. I think I was 22. I got a rejection on my initial submission—too much S/M, and then sent in a second piece. The editor called me to accept it, and I screamed as if I'd won the lottery. I think I sold 12 stories to Playgirl over the years—traveling though six or seven editors.

I'll look through my files to see if I have any original pieces remaining...

Kristina Lloyd said...

I still want to sleep with Tom Waits - especially the way he looks on the back cover of Blue Valentine when he's got the girl sandwiched gently against the car and he's looking down at her and his lips are slightly open and there's a neon sign in the background ... and, ohhh, smelling salts, please.

My first smut featured one woman and a lot of cowboys - something I'd been fantasizing about pretty much since I was in the womb. It was off the scale, completely unpublishable, outrageously dirty. Not long after that I sold a sort of mafia-porn story to a mag called Desire. First line went: 'There was an ear in his chow mein.'

Forum took quite a few of my shorts when I was starting out. They were good to write for.

Oh, I wish I still had that cowboy story. When's Kate's novel out? I need it bad.

Anonymous said...

Ah, I'm such a late bloomer...

Not just in writing smut, either. I always had sex on the brain when I was younger, but I'd be ashamed to admit how old I was before I figured out how to have an orgasm. (I told Alana at lunch once and her eyes got bigger than our very large plates).

So, here's my first erotic story, which I wrote the same year it was published. Actually, I'm not even sure it's erotic. But it's about sex and it's a story, so that should fit the bill close enough.

http://www.cleansheets.com/fiction/germain_07.31.02.shtml

Which isn't to say that I wasn't writing, and that there wasn't a sexuality to my pieces before this, but it was mostly journal entries and a few poetic-like snippets.

Oh, and Alana, you made my day with those early snippets of your story! What a lovely look at how we grow as writers :)

Best, s.

Unknown said...

No Shanna, I am a late bloomer...
I was always fascinated by sex and for most of my teens I had an intensely private little world in my head where all the stuff I wanted happened, like a continually running roll of film.
Six weeks after having my 4th kid I sat down at my lappie and wrote my first erotic Regency-seems a weird time to start writing erotica I suppose but I suspect there was a reason.
It was a revelation to me-all those years, all those reels of tape I'd collected and cherished in my mind found a way out and onto the page.
I haven't looked back since...

Kristina-cowboys comes out in March in the UK I think and May in the U.S. but my short story in S in P "Cowboy Up" has cowboys in it too!

ADR Forte said...

I started pimping my smut in middle school. I'd write adolescent crush fantasies for my friends starring their favorite rock n roll god/boy band hottie/prime time leading man.

In 9th grade I even wrote a few for guy friends-- I secretly enjoyed the Shirley Manson one and the D&D elf-girl one, but the Kennedy (MTV vj) request just weirded me out.

And I accepted payment in the form of soda pop and candy which let me save my allowance to buy Jackie Collins, Anne Rice and Sidney Sheldon.

Oh and Nine Inch Nails CDs :)
I never could manage to write a Trent story for myself though. Real boys were better, not to mention readily available.

My first published "story" ended up in Awakening the Virgin 2. It was based on a real experience and I still don't believe I actually wrote it, even though I changed names and I'd long lost touch with the girl who inspired it. Sometimes I wonder if she'll ever read it, and if she'll know it was about her. *evil grin*

Alison Tyler said...

Hey Alana,

I was inspired to dig up some of myold work...
Check it out!

Cheers,
Alison

Dayle A. Dermatis said...

Drat it, Blogger ate my first response!

Ah, my first time… I did it for a t-shirt.

I was in college, and Penthouse Forum was running a deal whereby if they published your letter, they’d send you a t-shirt.

I’d been writing fiction for years, and had several novels under my belt already, but all of it was SF/F. Erotica was a whole new writing experience. And I loved it. I giggled madly all the way through that first letter, and went on to write for Forum and Variations for beer money (okay, vodka money). Oh, and I still have that t-shirt.

At the same time, I was starting to read and consider writing romance. It irked the hell out of me that the same sexual act could be described in both romance and erotica, and one was proudly displayed in the local bookstore where the other was hidden in the back of a seedy shop. Why was “throbbing manhood” acceptable but “cock” was not? Granted, word choice can influence tone, but why was one “good” and the other “bad”?

So I’m thrilled romance has finally caught up with the idea!