Ancient and Modern

GEMINI HEAT and GOTHIC HEAT - Portia Da Costa

I'll keep this brief as I had a day on the blog last Friday too. Then I talked about how scary it was to write a sequel ten years on from the original novel... but I don't think that is anywhere near as scary as having my first ever BL reissued on the same day as my most recent one. Eek, it just invites a critical comparison, doesn't it? Is she as good as ever? Or has she lost it and should she be put out to pasture to make way for younger, hipper talents?

Well, I *think* I’ve improved. I’ve learnt a lot in fourteen years, both in terms of writing and life, and with any luck that shows in my stories and my characterisation. Okay, so there was a freshness I had back then that I feel a wistful nostalgia for but fingers crossed, I’ve gained far more with the years than I’ve lost. [I just wish I didn’t have to say the same about my waistline too!]

Will I still be writing in another fourteen years? Gosh, I’d like to hope so... even though I might well be balancing my laptop on my arthritic knees as I sit in my bath chair on the sea front at Eastbourne. Either that or I’ll be scribbling on the back of an envelope as I crouch in a cardboard box under the viaduct because I’ve become a destitute bag lady…

How about you, gentle readers? What have you learnt in the last fourteen years? What do you hope to learn/do in the next fourteen years? Let me know in a comment, and one lucky person will win a copy of both my then and now books!

Love

Portia
Still crazy after all these years...

More about Gemini Heat here

More about Gothic Heat here


Oh, and while we're about it, here's a taste of Gemini Heat... which is about identical twins. Both Deana and Delia fancy Jake de Guile, but Peter, the boy next door, is in love with Deana. When Deana goes out with Jake, it's down to Delia to console Peter...

Confused?

Read on...

'This must seem pretty weird to you,' he went on, pausing to swig down more wine, 'I'm telling you that I'm in love with a woman who looks just like you?'

'Not as weird as you think,' Delia answered taking another sip of her own wine as an unthinkable idea occurred to her.

With the slow, simple rationality of the far from sober, she saw an elegant solution to the sexual dilemmas of both herself and Peter.

'Do you want to make love to her?' she asked bluntly, feeling fire building low in her belly. She could see pictures in her head. Pictures of Deana, her legs wide open, being possessed by dark, ruthless Jake... But no, it wasn't Deana! It was herself. Delia. Her face! Her body! If she closed her eyes she could slip herself into that scene, live it, make it happen. All she needed was a hard, male penis to melt around.

And if she could make an illusion for the man who provided the penis?

Draining her glass yet again, she rose to her feet and walked across the room with infinite care. Pulling off her own tee-shirt, she dropped down onto the sofa next to Peter, and cupped her bare breasts in her hands, offering them to him as if they were a pair of sun-ripened fruits.

'Make love to me, Peter,' she said, her voice faint as she flicked her nipples to make them stiffen and grow hard for him.

'Delia... I don't...'

'It's "Dee",' she corrected him, 'Dee Ferraro. I play games, remember?' The wine made her powerful and she reached for his narrow hand with its square, neatly-trimmed nails and placed it on the peachy-soft slope of her breast.

'Just for tonight, Pete... Please?' It seemed strangely apt to be pleading. She would've grovelled to De Guile, wouldn't she?

'But I know the difference,' replied Peter, his voice cracking. He was protesting but his hand was already moulding her flesh and enjoying it.

'For comfort then... If you can't pretend.'

'Oh Dee,' he sighed, moving in on her, even though she'd no idea whether it was for comfort... or for fantasy's sake after all.

For a moment, she drew back within herself, and looked at the real man with her, not the sex-fiend who'd hijacked her body this morning. Peter wasn't Jake; he wasn't dark, or mysterious, or an insatiable creature of wealth and power. But his smooth, pale body was hard and wiry - and far from unpleasant on the eye.

His thin arms were strong as they pulled her to him and crushed her in a shockingly tight grip. Her nipples and his were pressed against each other, and as his mouth met hers, he moaned into it, shimmying his body against her as if his small brown teats felt all the pleasure that her larger rosy-red ones did.

And his tongue was bold too. Probing and tasting as their wine-scented saliva mingled in a way that pre‑shadowed a far greater blending.

'You're so good to me, Dee,' he murmured, then sucked hard on her tongue as if it were a lollipop, a nipple or a clitoris. Delia moaned, her hips lifting and beating against him with a life that was all of their own. There was a pressure and a heat down there now, a pulsating, tingling discomfort that wasn't really a discomfort at all. The mouth between her legs seemed to whimper and beg and cry out. She was hungry. Hungry for maleness. For flesh. For filling. Perversely, she knew still that Jake de Guile was the one she really wanted in there, but Peter was the man who was here. The man with the available penis. A penis that was hard against her body and pressing towards her sex like a unseeing missile homing in on its target and oblivious to the several layers cloth in its path.