Last minute Frenzy!

by Janine Ashbless

Okay, okay, I know we should be bowing out gracefully but I couldn't resist telling you about this new anthology from Cleis Press and the unstoppable Alison Tyler. Just in time for your Xmas shopping comes Frenzy : 60 stories of sudden sex. It's available on Amazon UK and on Amazon US and does exactly what it says on the tin: 60 short short stories - ranging from 100 words to 1500 - which are fast and hot and frantic, and come to you from some wonderful writers.

A not-very random flick through reveals stuff like:

"There were no sheets on the mattress. We fought our clothes, came out naked, fell on the floor. The silver crucifix round your neck hit me in the face as we fucked - fast, urgent, silent."

(Madrid - Nikki Magennis - hey, she's in twice!)

"Sherri hauled the massive door nearly shut behind them. She used his own cuffs to secure one of his hands to the chair, then tied the other back with the partner to the stocking over her head. 'Don't make a sound,' she said."

(The Heist - Andrea Dale)

"I also realised the uncomfortable pressure againt my bum-cheek wasn't a pistol stock: it was an importunate hard-on. I twisted round to flash my pirate a look. He grimaced and muttered, 'Sorry.'

I grinned and gave him a wriggle to let him know the only hard feeling involved were those of his cock. He tensed up. He was a tall bloke and he had a good view straight down over my shoulder into the capacious depths of my cleavage. Like I said, I blame the costume. "

(Pirate Treasure - Janine Ashbless )

"But mostly right now what I want to do is kiss you all along the edges of your apricot panties, following the bikini-cut boundary across your belly, around to that ticklish spot in the small of your back ... and downward, ever downward, taking care to kiss each millimeter of the hidden place where the gusset clings against the very upper insides of your thighs..."

(You in Your Apricot Panties - Jeremy Edwards)

"I need this now. Need the pain. Need you, specifically, to give it to me.

Even if the rules were to change, I would still be bound to you, still waiting patiently (no - impatiently, but attempting to show patience), ass in the air, pussy dripping, nerves dancing, waiting for the first blow of the cane."

(Love Song for the Cane - Teresa Noelle Roberts)

"'That's it baby. Tell me what a whore you are. Tell me how much you like that cock inside you.'

I started to shake. I was going to come soon, and he knew it. He knew what effect his voice, his cock, had on me. I loved the feeling of his strong hard body over mine. But even the simple mindfuck was enough to make me beg for more. And so I did."

(Simplicity - Gwen Masters)

"There's been petting and kissing in the car and in the elevator up to his place. But we're at that moment, when the glaze is over us. That sex glaze that makes everything seem speeded up. Your heart's pumping so fast, and your pussy. I was dripping. And I do what he says. I bend over and hold my ankles. I've got these striped thigh-high stockings on and high heels, and I'm a bit unstable, but I do my best."

(Bastard - Alison Tyler)

"So now she rises first thing, as she did this morning, and steps into the shower. Beneath the hot water she masturbates, swiping away the crumbs of her desire. She closes her eyes, imagines that her fingers are dripping with chocolate, with caramel, that her body is slathered with frosting, that the salt from her skin is sugar, honey, sweetened ice tea."

(Appetite - Shanna Germain)

"The lightning now is so close it sizzles. The cool room smells hot. Your eyes are wild and your mouth is wide in a silent scream that gives way to clenching orgasm. Your rebel yell is absorbed in the bass drum thunder. Your fingernails impale my back with another orgasm."

(Photo Finish - Craig J Sorensen)

Plus 50 others from the likes of Rachel Kramer Bussel, Donna George Storey and Thomas S Roche. The perfect pix-n-mix!

Buy at Amazon US : Buy at Amazon UK

---

And brand new out this week - in fact TODAY in the UK - is Best Women's Erotica 2009 which is edited by battle-robot-building Violet Blue and contains my story Ritual Space. Here's a quick excerpt:

‘This is ritual space: anything could happen here. The supplicants would be lying alone in the pitch dark. Keyed up. Hyperventilating because they’re scared and claustrophobic and horny and there’s not much air. Reaching out to touch the protective sigil above them. They’d be capable of seeing things even without priests prompting them.’

Hayden rolled carefully onto his side to face me, his shoulder nearly brushing the roof. ‘Horny?’

I shrugged, thinking that my words had run away with me. ‘Perceived peril makes people more aroused. It’s freshman psychology.’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘Well thank God it’s not just me then.’

I laughed, mostly from tension, and he chuckled with me.

‘So … Did it make you horny, working down here?’ he wondered.

I blushed and ran my tongue across my lips. ‘Sometimes.’ My voice sounded weak. ‘It’s the silence…’

‘Did you ever do anything about it?’

Those eyes would not let me go. I bit my lip and nodded.

‘Down here?’

‘Yes,’ I whispered.

He grinned, soft and slow. ‘I’m not sure that’s good archaeological practice.’

‘No,’ I admitted. Our voices were very low now.

His face moved closer to mine. ‘I want to know what you did, Alex ... when you should have been working.’

‘Why?’

‘Professional curiosity.’ But the sweep of his lips was a caress described on the air. My skin tingled.

‘I … would sometimes touch myself.’

‘Through your panties?’

‘Sometimes. Or I would pull down my fly and … touch myself properly.’

‘Ah. Were you wet before you started?’

‘Usually.’

‘Are you wet now?’

I nodded.

‘Show me.’ His eyes were shining. ‘Show me how you did it.’

---

In her introduction to BWE2009 - which you can find in full here - Violet Blue reimagines the myth of Persephone (one of my favourite, and I am truly glad I wrote my Persephone story for the upcoming Dark Enchantment - out January - before she wrote this or it would look like I was plagiarising!) and calls me "the supremely talented Janine Ashbless."

Can I say that again, in colour?

Violet Blue calls me "supremely talented!"

*swoons*

Buy at Amazon US : Buy at Amazon UK

xxx

Janine

L is for Leather

Line up, Lusties and leather-lovers everywhere, the Erotic Alphabet series has reached the letter 'L' and yes, yay, yes, L is for Leather.



Oh look at the precious little book! As I said to editor Alison Tyler when I laid eyes on A-D, "Purty on the outside, dirty on the inside." What is the bodacious cover tramp wearing? Oh! I believe it's a Little Black Dress, which just happens to be the title of my story in this collection. But! First things first.



Oops! A photo of L Word hottie Shane made slightly less gratuitous by the fact that she's in a leather vest. L Word...L is for Leather... no?

This slim anthology begins with a bang. Our own Kate Pearce invites us to "Meet a cowboy after church who understands your deepest desires and knows a few good tricks with his leather belt," in her story Sunday Service.

On the second Sunday, she'd waited until the preacher hurried home for lunch before turning to find the cowboy behind her. He pushed her up against the shadowy side wall of the old wooden church and undid the buttons of his long duster coat to reveal a coarse denim work shirt, jeans and a low-slung gun belt. Then he opened the pearl buttons of her thick winter coat and leaned into her, his Stetson carefully angled over her head, his big body aligned to hers from shoulder to knee.

When he touched her lower lip with his tongue, she'd opened her mouth for him. He tasted of strong coffee and cigarettes and his kiss was as fierce and dark as she'd expected. The press of his erection against her stomach made her melt, her sex pulsing and eager for the first time in over a year. Without releasing her mouth, he picked her up until her legs came around his waist. His jeans-covered cock ground against her core. She came for him - even through the layers of her Sunday-best dress, petticoats and panties.

He smiled for the first time.

"Meet me in your father's barn after lunch."

And she had.

OK so Kate's contribution is simply one of the hottest short stories I've ever read. I'm not going to give anything away, except to say that there's lots of leather in this piece, including fringed leather chaps, an old leather belt, a new leather belt, and a saddle horn, and they're all put to terrible good use.

In Little Black Dress, written by Madeline Moore, aka me, a submissive woman interrupts her Dom's plans to abandon her by making the extravagant, guilty, blush and rush inducing purchase of the little black leather dress (part one) and then donning it to make a bold statement at his Bon Voyage party. (part two)

1) The invisible zipper rasped, then the leather was lowered over her head. The saleswoman started talking about the designer's triumphant show in Paris and how he'd recently selected just three shops in all of North America to carry his merchandise. Melissa half-listened but she was grateful for the background noise. It made the hammering echo of her heartbeat inside her head less overwhelming. She stood with her arms up. It had to fit. For a moment everything went black, then her warm body was welcoming the sheath of cool leather, eager to make the hide live and breathe again.



2) Melissa wore no jewelry whatsoever - her skin was the only accessory she needed with this dress, and vice versa. Did he really think he would ever find, anywhere, skin as soft and pale as hers? As if to prove her point, her throat pulsed blue with every breath. That wasn't it, he'd sworn up and down. "I couldn't ask you to give up everything," he'd said. As if he'd ever asked her for anything.

His jaw dropped when he saw her, though her arrival wasn't a surprise. He was caught mid-pontification, his index finger stuck midair.

"Melissa!"

She sank to her knees. The dress slithered up her stockinged legs with a hiss.

Gratifyingly, the crowd parted. He stared. She raised her face and stared right back...

..."Master?" She was trembling and she knew she'd paled to a ghostly white but she caught his gray glance and held it with hers.

"What do you want?"

"Take me with you, or kill me, please."

As if these excerpts aren't enough to make you want to buy the book, there are also stories by a host of other fine writers, with Alison Tyler, as always, contributing the final piece, appropriately titled, Hide.

Leave a comment and maybe you'll win the copy of L is for Leather we're giving away today on Lust Bites. Yeee-haw!

(All photos are from Photobucket except the tattooed cowboy, who comes to us courtesy of modernfabulousity.blogspot.com.)

K is for Kinky

By Mathilde Madden

We're on K. And K is for Kinky. I don't know why they asked me to do this write up, I really don't.

Oh yes, it's because I have a story in the book. And I do, along with Lustie Shanna Germain and lots of special kinky Lust Bites pals like Emily Dubberley, Sakia Walker, Donna George Storey and Jeremy Edwards.

Plus the wonderful Alison Tyler herself, who appears in each alphabet book and here excels herself with hot knife action in Blades:

I like the challenge of working when there are people present. Security guards. Overly attentive shop girls. And other customers. Especially, other customers. Those housewives who trundle along after a new paring knife, one with a handle that won’t break off this time, thank you very much. The atrocious newlyweds exchanging a set of butter knives for a fancy blade that will cut through the slimy seaweed skin of homemade sushi.

“We’re making it ourselves,” they gush in saccharine-sweet voices, eyes on each other rather than the prices of the expensive weapons displayed before them.

But my eyes are focused on the razor-sharp edges that can do such damage in the hands of those less experienced, and even more damage in the hands of those who know what they’re doing. I like the high-end knives, often imported from Europe, with black handles made of heavy-duty rubber. Usually, these blades are trapped behind glass. You have to ask for permission to touch.

“That one,” I nod to the helpful pink-cheeked salesgirl. “The small one.”

I get wet as soon as the slick rubber meets the flesh of my palm. My thumb works up the edge slowly, to dance lightly over the ridge of the blade. It’s a tango between steel and flesh, and flesh, I know, will always lose.

My own story is a simple one. Nothing more than a heated conversation between a woman who's not in the mood tonight and a man who's keen for his weekly kinky fix:

He cocked his head and fixed his coyest expression. He lived for Wednesday nights. Work had been hell these last few months and he didn't think he could bear to trudge back into London without some kind of tension release. 'You don't have to do anything,' he said, very gently, 'I'll wait on you. Please.'

'I said "No".'

He swallowed and moved closer to the desk until he was near enough to rest his palms on the top. 'But why? You know you want to.'

She held his gaze. 'Don’t tell me what I want. You are really pushing your luck now.'

'Am I? What are you going to do about that?' He lifted one knee onto the desktop and lowered his gaze, deferent and needy and hard. Ready.

Her expression was unreadable. 'Oh do you take me for some kind of fool? I told you. Now leave.'

'Make me,' he hissed, hoping that this banging heart wasn't audible as he raised his other knee, and gingerly climbed up to kneel on her desk.

She fixed his gaze with flashing eyes as their faces drew level. 'No.'

So there are lots of kinks in the world. You want to tell me yours? Or try and guess mine? (Like that's hard.) One lucky commenter gets a copy of the book.

Mat x

Item: one absent trollop

Where have all the trollops gone?
Long time passing…
Where have all the trollops gone?
Long time ago…
Where have all the trollops gone?
At their laptops, every one –
When will they ever learn?
Will will they e-ver learn?

Attentive readers will have noticed (because you all scroll down and scrutinise the sidebars for changes, we know) that our favourite Trollop with a Laptop, Alison Tyler, has apparently jumped overboard. DON'T PANIC. In large friendly letters.

Alison's on sabbatical with a huge – and hugely exciting – project, writing a non-fiction guide, to which like the original nun she will be devoting all her attention and spending the rest of her hours in quiet meditation and prayer. (Or at least, research, and as it's Alison writing the guide, it's safe to assume the research will be pretty damn fun.) She's off the blog-roll for the duration, but will turn up like a bad penny in the comments. So until she returns with the guide to change our lives, please enjoy this musical interlude:

(arythmic guitar strumming, with slight gaps in the music as the guitarist fumbles for the next note)

All together now!

Where have all the trollops gone...

Got Naughty?

Alison Tyler



I don’t even have to ask, do I?

If you’re reading this, if you’re sitting before your computer screen with LustBites bookmarked on your hard drive, then you have to admit to being among the naughty. But don’t worry if your bright red stockings are destined to be filled with coal each year, because naughty is the best way to be.

Why?

When you’re naughty, you can leave a few extra buttons undone, revealing a glimpse of bare skin or a bit of racy lingerie. When you’re naughty, you can hold a stranger’s eye for an extra long beat, imparting visions of twisted sex fantasies with your gaze alone. And when you’re naughty, you can plunge yourself into the delicious confections created by the authors in my brand-new anthology Naughty or Nice—all of them just as naughty as you are! Or perhaps even naughtier still.

Why do I focus my attention on this holiday? Why did I start with Merry Xxxmas and let the stories spill into a sequel? That’s easy enough to answer, isn’t it? A holiday dedicated to an older man who’ll put me over his lap and tell me that I’ve been a bad girl… God, that’s my daily fantasy, isn’t it? Of course, other writers have a different yuletide take.

Check out Shanna Germain, for instance. Her character might pretend to be a good little girl. At least, at first. But when she goes before her lover who is dressed in drag as Santa, the truth comes out:

“I don’t see you on my good list, though,” Shannon pulled at her beard with one white-gloved hand. “Something tells me you were a bad girl this year.”

“Oh no, Santa, I was…” I didn’t know what to say. Had I been good? And if so, was I going to get whatever I wanted? But if I was bad, then maybe I would have to be punished. I couldn’t decide.

But it didn’t matter, because Shannon was rubbing her gloved hands up my bare thighs. The fabric was soft and silky against my skin, and I imagined her pressing the tips to my clit, rubbing, soaking up my juices. She was whispering in my ear, her beard scratching against my skin. “I think you were a very bad girl, don’t you?”

In “Carol’s Christmas,” Lisette Ashton retells the famed Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Unfortunately, Carol doesn’t learn from the lessons shown to her by the Ghost of Christmas Future. But that doesn’t mean she won’t get what she wants for Christmas:

The menacing darkness of the future vision was powerful. Carol had dabbled with BDSM before but she had never expected to find herself being chained, pierced and secured to stones. The totality of commitment – the dedicated involvement to submissive satisfaction – was more than she had ever thought she would find. More than she had ever dared hope she would find.

Another spasm of euphoria exploded from between her legs.

When she finally blinked the tears of satisfaction from her eyes, she realised the spirit was pointing at the vision’s stone. He didn’t speak. He was strong and silent and incapable of speech. He simply continued to point, quietly instructing her to obey his command and look at the stone.

“Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point,” said Carol, “answer me one question. Are these the shadows of the things that will be, or are they shadows of things that may be, only?”

The spirit remained still and silent.

The inner muscles of Carol’s sex convulsed in a greedy triumph.

Being naughty can add spice to any relationship, as deliciously displayed in Domic Santi’s humorously sexy “Mulled Wine.”

“Why does your dick taste like mulled wine?”

If Glen and I were monogamous, that would be a problem. Fortunately, we’re not. So I grinned when I looked down at him and said, “I stopped at Jake and Karl’s Christmas party on the way home.”

“Oh, indeed!” Glen leaned forward, once more sucking my dick into his mouth. His short blond curls bobbed against his Santa hat and his blue eyes twinkled up at me. He sucked me long and slowly, like he was drawing the flavor off my skin to differentiate each of the specific tastes. “Cinnamon, clove,” he laughed, pulling back for a moment. “Perhaps a hint of allspice….”

In my opinion, life doesn’t get much naughtier than performing a taste-test for exotic spices on your lover’s cock. And as the Queen of Naughty, I should know.

Now, tell me. What’s on your Xmas list this year? I mean, aside from Elvis.



For a complete list of contributors, go here.


XXX,
Alison

P.S. Comment for a chance to win copies of both Naughty or Nice and Merry XXXmas. Playboy.com says: No night before Christmas is complete without reading from holiday erotica collection Naughty or Nice.

Vampires! Vampires! Vampires!

by Madelynne Ellis et al.

We're trying something new at Lust Bites today, the magic extendy post. Yep, you read that right, it starts off small and grows with stimulation! So hang on to that refresh button and don't be surprised if there's some gnashing of fangs along the way.

Vampires are such a horror (and erotica) genre staple that it's easy to forget that the modern image of the gentleman of the night only dates back a couple of centuries, to a fateful night on the banks of Lake Geneva, Switzerland.


Prior to Dr John Polidori's Byronesque "Vampyre", our fanged fiends were typically uncultured monsters, crawling around graveyards and generally making Nosferatu look like Brad Pitt.


Well today on Lust Bites (see we're even appropriately named) we're celebrating our favourite Vamps. The ladies will be along during the day to introduce you to their personal favourites. I'm expecting a certain Angel to sneak his way in there amongst the Draculas and Lestats, along with a few less obvious surprises, and of course we'd love you all to share you're own favourite vampires, be they from literature, stage or screen.

Anyway, to start us all off, I offer you my personal Vampire favourite, this is Alex (aka Julian Sands in Tale of a Vampire), doing what Vampires do best. As for why I love him, well you only have to look here and here to know that I like them bad, angst-ridden and bloody.

Janine Ashbless says: Well, watch me throw down the glove! I'm the voice of dissent today, because vampires do nothing for me. I mean - I am happy with them as predators, or as vehicles for introducing dominance and/or a little necrophilia to an erotic story; it's when the author wants to use them as characters that my eyes glaze over. Why? This is epitomised by a montage scene in Interview with a Vampire where years pass over New Orleans. In these centuries human beings with their pitiful short lives have created beautiful art and architecture, established complex societies and communities, turned swampland into a thriving city. What have the vampires, with their eternal youth and their physical superiority and their accumulated experience, achieved? Well, they've killed some people and drunk absinthe. And one of them plays the piano a bit. Boring, boring bastards.

Having said that ... I do have a soft spot (and you can guess where) for Dracula in Dracula 2000 (or Dracula 2001 in Europe because the film got there later). He's a mean predator, he's Gerard Butler and he has a backstory so clever that I smote my head and shrieked "Why didn't I think of that?!"

Olivia Knight says: Whereas I love vampires because they're supercilious, arrogant, knowing, cultured, and effeminate. It's not always what one wants in a man, but they're top of the "what I look for in a vampire" list. The blood-letting is an unfortunate side-effect for me; the eternal rage and worldweary ennui of perpetual youth is delicious. They come with the added advantage that, being nearly immortal, they probably know more than me, and being a jumped-up supercilious arrogant little know-it-all myself, I appreciate occasionally being trumped. Mostly, though, Lestat's goth-rock and intensity are what catch in my throat. (Nothing to do with the narrow planes and sharp angles of his face at all)
One more thought - the moment of blood-exchange (preferably without the actual dead-body bit afterwards), the feeling what someone else feels, gaining access to their heads - closer than sex, more heated than mind-reading, complete and perfect union: yes, please.

Portia Da Costa - me like Frank Langella as Dracula. :) Suave.Seductive.Romantic.Mass Murderer - the Count who never flashed his fangs.

Madelynne Ellis back again. Darn I couldn't resist coming back for some more. Here's a snippet from my tale, Lust for Blood, in Love on the Dark Side. Because, you know Lucius is one of my favourites.

And he advances.

Perversely, he's prettier now than he was on the edge of the dance floor. It's an ethereal, otherworldly sort of beauty, frighteningly cold, and horribly arousing. A montage of images enters my mind from somewhere outside: licking the blood from his face, smearing it across his chest, him going down on me while I bleed. I can see his tongue delving between my pussy lips, and somehow that seems horribly wrong.

There's a girl dying, right now, because of him.

My sensible self fights its way through the fog in my brain, yelling: "Run! Run! You stupid bitch." But I don't run. I'm numbed. I just shuffle backward until I hit the sinks, which dig into my back, cold and impossibly real.

"What are you doing to me? Don't come any closer!"

My fist tightens around my phone and I wish for the nineties and something a bit heavier. This slender silver shell won't cause more than a slight bruise before it snaps.

"What am I doing to you?" His voice is in my head. His eyebrow asks the question. "I'm not the one with these fantasies."

Alison Tyler says: I can’t think what my first vampire movie was. I’m sort of afraid to admit that it might have been Once Bitten! But I am definitely a fan—in fiction and film, porn and prose. Kiefer is one of my favorites, but I think that Bowie will win the prize for me this time.



By Kate Pearce
I don't really get the whole vampire visual, probably because I'm a wussy and hate the sight and smell of blood. But, I do occasionally like to read vampire romances and two series really impressed me this year from J R Ward and Lynn Viehl. They are both quite different, Ward being more like an addiction while Viehl's are more gruesome and bone cracking.


Apologies for the Amazon tags but I'm rushing a bit here!

Deanna Ashford - I just go for sexy, brooding reformed vampires like Angel and Henry Fitzroy in Blood Ties. I find the fact that they are in some way trying to atone for past actions highly compelling.

Kristina Lloyd says: OK, so I realise David Beckham isn't actually a vampire, and that he doesn't look much like one either. However, he does look like my vampire, Billy, from my novella, The Vampire's Heart. There was a moment on Lust Bites back in January when Mat posted a pic of Becks looking mean and dirty in his army gear. I fell in love, right there and then, and you all saw me do it. And you can see it again right here! I was plotting my vampire novella at the time and I'd already invented Billy - a muscled vamp, blond mohawk, army gear, yum-fucking-yum. And there was Becks on our blog, my lead vampire come to life! Months later, and the novella's about to be published - next Thursday in the UK and January 1st in the US - in a volume called Lust Bites! Ain't life strange? Next week, I'll be here with Portia and Mathilde to tell you more about the book. Did I just do Becks and a shameless plug in one paragraph? I think I peaked.

Teresa Noelle Roberts:
I have mixed feelings about vampires, I have to admit. When I think about the genre too much, I get irked. They're so damn angsty and so many of them shallow, stuck in perennial adolescence despite their great age. You're five hundred years old and hanging out in a nightclub, Mr. Vamp. What's with that?

That said, I can't help picking up vampire-themed books, even if a lot of them don't end up being keepers. What's the fascination? Well, beside the obvious fact that vampires always seem to be preternaturally attractive and often kinky, it's the notion of defeating death.

I started reading Anne Rice back in the 80s with my best friend Gregg, who was gay. I honestly don't know if the books would have fascinated us so much if we hadn't secretly wanted some sexy supernatural force to offer us an escape clause from the mortality that was bearing down on so many of our friends. (Alas, Lestat didn't appear to whisk Gregg away before AIDS did, but I've had the occasional dream in which he appears as an aimable, bookish vampire. He once told me that, gifted with eternal life, he'd spend a lot of it catching up on his reading.)

Oh, wait a minute, this was supposed to be cheerful and sexy, right? I'll throw in a vote for one of my favorite vampires being Jean-Claude from Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series. The flashy clothes and the "ma petite" get annoying, to be sure, but I love the fact that he's not, overall, filled with angst about being a vampire. He regrets things he's done in his long life, he's haunted by past experiences, but overall, he thinks being a vampire is pretty damn neat. Plus, he's a very incubus-like vampire; he gets more from the feeding if his "donor" is turned on, which sounds good to me.

Dayle Dermatis (aka 1/2 Sophie Mouette and Sarah Dale) checking in!

I don't go for angst. I don't go for brooding. But I do go for cheeky bad
boys, and that's why I love Spike:

Come Together

Alison Tyler

Fall has arrived, and just when trees are going gold, we’re going green. At least, we’re talking about green sex— or “eco-sex”—on Monday with Kristina Lloyd’s marvelous list of ways to fuck for humanity. (That doesn’t mean you have to fantasize about Al Gore when you jack- or jill-off.) We’re part of Blog Action Day, so grab the hunkiest Green Peacer you can find, and make love to him (or her). Um, in the dark.

Wednesday, Deanna Ashford’s back with an inventory of our whips. I mean, a compilation of our wips—work(s) in progress. Prepare to be turned-on.

Friday finds us grooving to the beat of Marvin Gaye. At least, that’s what I’ll be doing while Madelynne Ellis plays deejay and spins up some serious mood music.

Until then, continue to read, admire, stroke, add to, and fondle our first-ever Round Robin sex story. I’m sure we’ll have another go at this long before next spring.

XXX,
Alison

Got to be good-looking cos he's so hard to see
Come together right now over me
—The Beatles

P.S. The winner of the Hide & Seek compilation is Lisa. Please email your details to: msalisontyler at yahoo dot com.

Don't Look Now...

Alison Tyler



Oh, wait. I don’t mean that. What I mean is: Do look. Look at me. Right now. Oh, yes, I like when you look.

And then, stop. Wait. Turn around, and let me look at you. Why? Because I am both sides of a single fetish. Voyeur/Exhibitionist. Have been since before I knew the words to describe this slippery little turn-on. Maybe this is why my most treasured movies are Rear Window (all watching, right?) and Apartment Zero, which lets viewers into a host of different apartments, to see what other people are doing.

One of my favorite jobs was cleaning at a bed and breakfast, where I got to snoop through other people’s belongings (don’t think for a minute that maids don’t do this). I found porn, and sex toys, and Polaroids, found letters to ex-lovers, and journals nobody else was supposed to see. And I reveled in my finds like a treasure seeker on the beach who has uncovered a shiny gold coin.

I am fixated.
I want to know, see, hear everything.

Goes beyond simply being nosy, of course, because of the sexual thrill I get when I do spy a sexy bit of action, or when I honestly am put on display. But I think, truly, that everyone has a bit of this fetish inside of them. Who hasn’t stared at a couple kissing through a peripheral glance and paused, to see if something more would happen?

Yet, I understand my fetish has become a bit extreme. I take myself out to cafes in hopes of catching bits of sexy conversation. I watch all the time, everywhere I go. Hoping to spot some sight that will fill my needs. I read people's blogs, addicted to knowing what goes on in the lives of others. Luckily, my sneaky side has come in handy.

I’ve written about the fetish from both angles. Late Bloomer, in Caught Looking, featured a character who eavesdrops and watches for most of the story—who exposes herself only after the story actually ends.

Without a thought to what might happen if I got caught, I moved away from the wall, slid silently out of my bedroom, and padded quietly down the hall. As I’d expected, the door to Joe’s room was open. Only a sliver, but enough. I walked toward the open doorway as softly as I could, but I probably needn’t have bothered. They were busy, consumed by their own actions. They didn’t notice when I made my way right outside his bedroom door, positioning myself so that I could see Nina, ass upwards, and Joe, spanking her hard.

The fact that the door was ajar wasn’t too surprising. Nina was always a proud exhibitionist. At parties, she made sure to be seen kissing the cutest guy center stage, letting him put his hand up her top or down her skirt, closing her eyes as she became the pure definition of ecstasy. She didn’t think being on display made her look like a slut—she thought it made her look wanted. In demand.

Once, when we were on a double-date together at a drive-in, she actually made love in the back seat with her lucky man of the moment. I held my breath as I stared at the screen through the front window, not seeing the movie at all, captivated instead by the sultry noises coming from the back seat. First the wet sounds of Nina delivering a world-class blow job, slurping sounds punctuated by the moans of her man. Then the undeniable noises of her slipping on his lap and pumping her body until she reached her own personal Nirvana. My date stared straight forward, too, realizing from the start that he was going nowhere with me. Not that he would have wanted to. I was in head-to-toe black, hair in my face, as always. Nina was in a sunburst sundress, low in the back, low in the front.

There was nothing Nina ever found too revealing.

Good, I thought as I watched Joe’s hand make sweet contact with her sublime ass. Spank her harder. Spank her for me.

***

In Hide & Seek, my story Not a Voyeur features two people who are adamantly not voyeurs, or exhibitionists. Except, of course, when they are.

“I’m not a voyeur,” I told my boyfriend Courtney.

“I never said you were,” Courtney murmured from behind the Sports section of the newspaper. This was his favorite place to spend every Saturday morning.

“Really,” I insisted. “I’m not.”

“Why do you keep saying that, Lora?” he asked, sounding part bemused, part annoyed.

“Because of them,” I told him, my voice low.

“Them, who?”

“Those people out there. Fucking.”

Courtney set down his paper. He looked at me with his great green eyes as I pointed out the window, at the apartment across the street, and at the people in the apartment who were screwing each other silly. Without a word, Courtney stood and came to my side, so that we were both pressed against our own window, looking out.

I heard him suck in his breath as he took in the vision.

The girl was tall with blonde curls that fell past her shoulders and a tight, athletic physique. She looked like someone who never missed a workout. The man was well-built, with thick red hair cut short and several vibrant tattoos decorating his muscular arms. He had the girl in a tight embrace, and he was lifting her up and sliding her down on his cock, over and over and over.

“Oh, man,” Courtney murmured, gripping tightly onto my hand. “Just look at that.”

I felt myself getting wetter as I watched. Apparently, the vision was having a similar effect on Courtney. Not that he was getting wetter, of course, but that he was getting hard. He took my hand and placed it over the bulge in his drawstring pajamas, and I sighed when I felt the hidden treasure there that awaited me. Well, not quite so hidden. He’d completely tented the thin plaid fabric.

“How long have they been doing that?”

“I don’t know,” I told him. “I wasn’t watching. I’m not a voyeur, you know.” I managed to sound just the slightest bit indignant.

“That’s right,” he agreed, nodding. “Neither am I.”

I haven’t searched out the reason for my desire to see and be seen. I’ve left it simply as one of my (many) little fetishes. But I am not alone in embracing (or writing about) this turn-on. Check out Mathilde Madden’s Peep Show, or Hide & Seek and Caught Looking, which feature Lust Biters Shanna Germain, Gwen Masters, Dayle Dermatis, Teresa Noelle Roberts, and Portia DaCosta, as well as a host of other stellar erotic writers.

Now, fulfill my erotic fetish and confess your own sultry voyeur/exhibitionist fantasy to me. I’ll be right here, listening.

XXX,
Alison

P.S. Hide & Seek is the second collection I collaborated on with the divine Rachel Kramer Bussel. To satisfy any of your voyeuristic inclinations, watch her read from the book. And comment to win a smorgasbord of erotica: Hide & Seek, Caught Looking, & Exposed, all published by Cleis Press, as well as a copy of Peep Show by award-winning author Mathilde Madden.

I always feel like
Somebody’s watching me…
—Rockwell

Art in Motion: Chatting with Eliza Castle

Alison Tyler

Words are my friends. All I have to do is sit at a keyboard, and my fingers start tapping. Empty pages fill quickly, and (generally speaking) easily. But although I see images in my mind, the only way I can capture these visions is through words on a page.

Unless, I call Eliza.

You see, Eliza is my artist. Oh, sure, she’s her own person. Flesh, blood, bone. I don’t actually own her, or anything. But we’ve known each other since I was twelve, and she and I have a definite connection. I see a picture in my head, talk to Eliza on the phone, and presto… artwork begins to pour out of my fax machine or fill up my email box. Somehow, she knows exactly what I’m seeing.

But I got to thinking. Are pictures for Eliza what words are for me? I hear stories in my head, the words perfectly enunciated (unless I’m drunk, and then they’re slurred). Does Eliza see art in her mind? Or is her inner voice a paintbrush? Is her constant dialogue done in pictures rather than words?

I asked her, and this is what she said….

No, I see in motion. I have to feel the curve and I don’t know how to explain it, but let’s say that we’re talking about the curve of a woman’s back going to the small of her back. I see the motion. And I see the 3-D. And if I feel that, I actually feel the motion of what you’re saying in order to see the picture in your head.

Is that something you learned in art class, or is this just the way the world is for you?

In art class, you learn about the negative space. You learn to see what’s not in a picture. That’s as important as what actually is.

What about colors? Are there colors you are drawn to, or ones that you shy away from?

Red, purple, hot or warm colors are my favorites. I'm not drawn to baby blues. I don't like anti-freeze yellow.

Do you move around when you draw? Do you pace the way I do on those times when the words get stuck between my head and my hands?

I always have to feel the motion of the characters… Sometimes, I do move, like when you were telling me about your ideas for the "Lipstick on Her Collar" cover, I elongated my neck, imagined wearing a stiff white collar… I felt tall and sexy.

When I was doing the artwork for "Naked Erotica," with the curtain, I could feel the soft wave in it.

Are bodies just bodies to you, or do you like to draw men over women or women over men (stop snickering Kristina!)?

I prefer drawing the female form to the male form. The female form has more curves. I think it’s more exciting—not sexually, but exciting because of the dips, pinches, peaks, valleys. The man’s body really doesn’t have that. It does, but it’s not as pronounced. You’ve got your six-pack, but that’s just like a quiet, rippling ocean. Where as a woman’s body has got crashing waves. It goes up. It’s cool. It’s always in motion. Doesn’t matter which direction you look at, she’s got curves in the small of her back, her waist…The very first paintings I ever sold were of nudes. And they were the Botticelli nudes.

How do ideas come to you?

You hear someone’s voice talking about what they want.... As soon as I hear the words, I see the image. I can see the ruffle going down the side of a dress… I keep thinking about the covers that you and I talk about, where suddenly I just saw the image in my head. Like picking up a crystal and turning it over and over and over and over.

Together, Eliza and I have collaborated on all of the 15 covers for the Pretty Things Press books. She has illustrated several of the books, themselves: Juicy Erotica and Sex & Candy. Here is a snippet from the soon-to-be-released S&C.

From “Kneading” by Shanna Germain

At home, I don’t let her touch me. There is only this: my fingers tangled in her thin apron strings, cascade of cotton and flour against the floor, Macy’s dark arms iced with sugars and spice.

My recipe is simple: Macy and me, hands and skin, kneading and heat. “The best recipes just taste complicated.” This is something I plan to teach her.

Macy stands, her apron at her feet, still in her white baker’s clothes. Her arms at her sides.

I pull my own apron over my head, wrap the wide fabric around Macy’s waist, around her hands. Still not touching. The cloth wraps her twice, three times. Macy’s eyes, nutmegs in their spicy stare, watch me. The only thing on her that moves, her breath and those eyes. I lean down to tie the cloth around her. Her stomach smells of honey. I want to lick it clean.

Instead, I grab the cloth wrapping. I pull it toward me and Macy comes too, bringing her sugar scent. She thinks I might kiss her, maybe she expects me to kiss her, but I don’t. I trail my fingers up her arms, the crunch of sugar beneath my skin. At first, she just stands, one foot cocked to the side like a horse, waiting. I keep my fingers there, against the skin of her arms, smoothing and pressing.

This evening, there is nothing but this: soft chocolate breasts inside my strong hands, roll and pinch of skin, my fingers lathered in Macy’s dew and sweat and sweet cream. There is only her reaching, dark fingers, hungry mouth.

Inside my mouth she is the first spoonful of tapioca pudding. She is finding a fudgesicle in the freezer on a hot summer day. She is the sweet cinnamon bloom of apple pie up on the tongue. She is the perfect cake, hot from the oven.

xxx

Eliza is often the first person I talk to in the morning and the last person I talk to at night. Even though we’re separated by several thousand miles, we share coffee and cocktails on a daily basis.

Everyone should have an artist. I highly recommend it.

XXX,
Alison

P.S. Eliza Castle is here today to answer questions. Comment for a chance to win a complete set of the 14 books currently published by Pretty Things Press.

Got Spanking?

by Alison Tyler


Excuse me if I stumble on my words. Because today's theme tends to leave me speechless. I lower my eyes. I bite my bottom lip. I forget what I'm supposed to do or say. Which makes introducing our guest blogger that much more difficult. So I'll do my best to pull myself together here, and give a hearty welcome to Rachel Kramer Bussel: Spanking Queen.

*
I've tried to figure out why so many times, but all I can really tell you is that the mere prospect of being spanked makes me wet. Spanking is such a deliberate act; it doesn't "just happen." You have to figure out whether the person you're with would be into it; then someone has to bend over, get in position, get ready. When I'm about to be spanked, that's one of the hottest moments, knowing my spanker is watching me, staring at my ass, maybe touching it. And when, BOOM!, the blow comes slamming down against my skin, whether from a hand or paddle or belt, I just melt. I go limp, the pain and heat blazing through me and making me want more. More more more. More spanking…followed by sex. Because nothing's a bigger tease, if you ask me, than being spanked and spanked alone.

Pretty much every time I've been spanked, it's made me want to get fucked right afterward. Or during. I know that's not the case for everyone; there are spanking groups and clubs, and some people who simply want to spank and/or be spanked, without the sex. For me, they feed on each other; getting fucked makes me want to get spanked, which makes me want to…Spanking just sends my head spinning, and that's what I love about it. For people who love it as much as I do (and I know there are lots of you!), we just can't get enough, which is why I'm so thrilled that I've now edited two volumes of Naughty Spanking Stories from A to Z (and am editing Spanked right now for Cleis, so send me your spanking smut!) What impresses me so much about spanking erotica is that even though perhaps the mechanics of it may look the same, the motivations differ. The feelings differ. The physical sensations differ. The context, environment, tone, implements, all set the tone for a spanking. I write in the intro to Naughty Spanking Stories from A to Z, volume 2:

Spanking means countless things in this anthology–love, anger, sublimation, awakening, desire, fulfillment, foreplay, fun, prodding, patience, surrender, exhibitionism, demand, pride, want, lust, punishment, reward, humiliation, power, surprise, daring, learning, lessons, teasing, and goodbye. I'm thrilled by the heady mix of emotions I can feel when I take or deliver a firm spanking, and even more thrilled that these powerful, erotic stirrings, the kind that can bring tears to your eyes, a smile to your lips and a prolonged stirring to your nether parts, are so beautifully, touchingly and wonderfully represented here. These teasing troublemakers, vamps and vixens, horny housewives and husbands, mean bosses, powerful masters and mistresses, sassy spankers and adoring ass worshippers get what's coming to them and much, much more. The wilier and sneakier they are in concocting schemes to get spanked, the worse off (or, really, the better) it is when they actually get their much-needed and well-deserved smacks.

Here's a snippet from my story "Queuing Up" in Naughty Spanking Stories from A to Z, volume 2. I hope you like it, and you know where to go if you want more!

That first slap always takes me by surprise, even when I'm expecting it. There is such a vast difference between my ass laid bare, exposed to the air, but relatively intact, and the heat that brews along that most sensitive of parts after he has spanked me; from eager to seething in several brutal, beautiful seconds. Craig holds his hand tight against my skin, maintaining the warmth and the pain, making it last those few precious seconds longer. I'm lying naked across his lap, and beneath his tight jeans, his cock presses up against me, hinting, surging, wanting, but my spankings aren't about his cock, as much as I might want them to be, as hot and wet as they might get me. Sometimes I wonder if they're even about me at all; Craig comes to me with a glint in his eye, a severity of purpose and steely resolve to spank me until I flip over some immutable edge that I am in constant awe at how much our urges are in sync.

I squirm beneath him, my clit alive with the sensation of pleasure and heat as I wait for more. He raises his hand and brings it down equally as hard on my other cheek, and I smile to myself, even as my pussy clenches fiercely. His spankings are like a magic key that unlocks the secret of my desire, and even when I'm not totally in the mood, when my pussy seems to be on hiatus, when I want him to fuck me but don't really need it, a few smacks from his strong hand and I'm back on the edge, back to being willing to do absolutely anything for him to fuck me. He knows this too, can sense from the way I breathe, the way I squirm and then stay absolutely still, that I am torn between wanting more spankings and wanting his cock filling me all the way up, though that choice is up to him, as always. His hand rains down, smack after concentrated smack, so perfect in their placement that I almost forget that tonight, as we often do, we have an audience, an eager female face soaking up all that we are doing, so new to her and yet, I sense, already unfurling a special signal inside her, a need that now that she's discovered it must be attended to immediately.

*
To read more spanking-themed erotica, please check out Rachel's two awesome collections from Pretty Things Press. To buy "Got spanking?" paraphernalia, go here. Plus, one lucky commenter will win a copy of Naughty Spanking Stories from A to Z, volume 2!
XXX,
Alison

Spouse-Sharing, Knicker-Wetting, Flying Fucks, and Other Scenes of Amorous Tenderness

by Jeremy Edwards"How do I love you?" a composite character from my stories could hypothetically (and rhetorically) ask another composite character.

I love you letting me talk obsessively about your ass, though the subject bores you: "That's why it's my job, and not yours, to appreciate this ass we speak of." [Any Day of the Week at Oysters and Chocolate & Sex and Satisfaction]

I love you inviting me to masturbate with you, despite the fact that we can never be a couple: "Oh, but it is a compliment . . . . You obviously have no idea how much I love masturbating alone in my bedroom." [If We Were at Clean Sheets]

I love you dressing up as your three best friends, one after the other, because you know I fantasize about fucking each of them: “Last I knew, this was a monogamous relationship.” I looked around from left to right, as though expecting extraneous women to emerge from the pantry or laundry chute. [Any Friend of Hers at The Erotic Woman]

I love you deliberately, sensuously pissing your panties for me: Ah, to hold her hand across the table and watch her features relax as she gave in to her wetness. [Slightly Ajar in F is for Fetish]

Am I a "romantic"? I think I am – though Hallmark hasn't approached me just yet in re. of their Valentine's Day line. (Hmph. I thought "To my lover/Golly gee/It turns me on/To watch you pee" was rather inspired. But I guess "golly gee" is a bit outdated.)

During college, I was in a brief, ambiguous relationship with a woman who was sort of breaking up with her boyfriend – or maybe not so much. (You get the idea, probably a lot faster than I did.) One evening, I showed a lack of interest in something she said along the lines of long-stemmed roses. "Don't you have a romantic bone in your body?" she asked. Leaving aside the question of which bone, when properly stimulated, might be the romantic one, I protested that my university punk-rock ethos was romantic – by which I basically meant idealistic, with extra hormones. She seemed impressed by this (but, then again, the boyfriend was out of town).

Now I'm going to step back even further and, since you insist, tell you the details of my first wet dream. It simulated a chaste encounter with a sexy high school teacher, who was based loosely on a real-life sexy Latin teacher. (Yes, I had the good fortune to learn early on that the world was replete with counterexamples to debunk every unjust stereotype. As an adult, I would be cavorting with librarians long before it became fashionable.) In the dream, the teacher was giving us a tour of "ROMA ANTIQVA". (She wasn't shouting, she was merely conforming to ancient Roman typography.) Just before debuting my virginal seed, I noted that the above phrase sounded sort of like "romantic-a" – decades before Ellora's Cave had their own wet dream and trademarked the term. Other writers may boast of their masturbatory proclivities for wordplay, but I may be the only one who doesn't mean it metaphorically.

And if only I'd thought to mention this piece of personal history when my bones were accused of being 100% unromantic: "It just so happens you're looking at a guy who's had wet dreams over the word 'romantic.'"

I continue to invoke a broad personal definition of what's romantic. As a reader and writer, I find there's a special kind of erotic electricity to be enjoyed in romantic synergy that crystallizes around the mundane, the absurd, the incongruous, the funny, the awkward, the silly, the strangely compulsive, or (last but not least) the ass-in-your-face raunchy.

My enthusiasm for the offbeat romantic doesn't mean that I think modern or even postmodern life has rendered rose-giving and other traditionally "romantic" experiences obsolete (except, perhaps, those that depend on modes of transportation that are no longer extant; it really is hard these days to make love, in either the archaic or contemporary sense of the term, atop a penny-farthing bicycle, and don't think I haven't tried). Nor do I assume that the offbeat romantic is a modern invention. I don't know my Sappho or my Catullus, and it's been a long time since I dipped into your Flaubert or the neighbor's Stendhal . . . but, surely, the entire history of good literature must be full of unique, unpredictable, and surprising romantic images.

However, I'm not here to speculate about the classics; I'm here to excerpt some hot contemporary erotica. So let's all open our textbooks to a scene from Stan Kent's My Finest Hour, one that makes my toes curl with joy. At this point, the narrator has been watching his wife fuck another guy for page after luxurious page:

They're on the shower floor. He's eating Lizzie. With their splayed bodies blocking the drain the water builds up in the shower, but they don't mind. They're like some primeval amphibious creatures writhing in a stream, struggling for the land so they can multiply or die. He has his hands on Lizzie's hips, and he's working her on his face, and she's pressing down on his back with her legs and they're squirming around. Lizzie wedges herself in the corner and sits up facing me. This is the first real eye contact we've enjoyed since she began fucking the sharply-dressed man, and she smiles and blows me a kiss.

Sigh.

Our Kristina Lloyd's Nothing But This is a bizarre, mysterious, enchanted tale of refined sensuality and transcendent eroticism – and, dare I suggest it, of love. My favorite moment in the story is one in which the romantic connection between the characters reveals itself through mutual knowledge and understanding, cutting through the haze of unreality and disorientation that KL has masterfully created:

"Hey, brother," calls Uncle, addressing Tom, "does she like it in her ass? Huh? A big prick in her tiny little asshole?"

Tom's too zonked to reply immediately. He just sprawls there, half-dead, before his head rolls sideways, eyes still closed. When he finally speaks, it sounds as if it's costing him an enormous effort. "Probably," he croaks.

Like Kent, KL evokes an erotically convincing emotional connection between lovers at the very moment that one of them is physically rather connected to someone else.

Anyone for Alison Tyler? As if I need to ask! Other People's Panties, for instance, is a showroom showpiece of kinky romanticism. The structure of the brief story is such that to excerpt it might risk spoiling it – so I'll just link and insist that you scroll down and read it. Now.

Personally, I can't think of anything more romantic than what happens in the AT story you just read. And yet, I'm told, Hallmark still hasn't made an offer on this one.
In Christopher Hart's Drift, two jaded characters are whisked away from a glitteringly sordid reality by an impossible, inexplicable, externalized romantic force that is literally beyond their control:

Her feet too were dangling free in the air, and kicked lightly against mine. We were six inches off the grass, a foot, two feet and rising. We were also drifting dangerously towards the house.

"Um . . . " she said, cautious, English. "Is this . . . ?"

I was cool about it. "Gravity seems to have failed us." I didn't feel cool about it all. This was supposed to be a hollow seduction, nothing more.

Perhaps this externalization is an example of an antiromantic's romanticism that is quintessentially postmodern. Whatever it is, I find the description of the cynical couple's absurd ascent into a magical mingling to be – well – truly uplifting.

Now I look forward to hearing about your favorite offbeat romantic moments. And shameless plugs are encouraged!

***Kristina says: Add a comment and you could win this sexy little quartet of books featuring Jeremy's work and some of his hot picks: A is for Amour, F is for Fetish and Caught Looking, all from Alison and Cleis Press, plus Quickies 3 from Black Lace which includes my enchanted tale of – ahem – my story, Nothing But This, reprinted from Sex and Shopping.

Navel Gazing with Charles Hodgson

by Alison Tyler


I think my all-time favorite discussion of "naughty bits" was by our own Kristina Lloyd. (And, yes, I know, I should just marry her and get it over with.) But in her excellent post "Cunt or: how I learned to stop worrying and love the C-word" she said, "When I was a little girl, I didn’t have genitalia. I had a nebulous zone referred to as ‘between your legs’. I can’t blame my parents. They were simply part of a certain generation. But really. Between your legs? It’s like describing your face as ‘above your shoulders’."

If only her parents had access to this lovely new book by Charles Hodgson—CARNAL KNOWLEDGE: A NAVEL GAZER’S DICTIONARY OF ANATOMY, ETYMOLOGY, AND TRIVIA. Carnal Knowledge is a book about the words we use for all of our body parts. Although not specifically erotica, we did say “all of our body parts” and the imagination begins to click into gear. (At least, mine does!) Charles is here as our guest blogger so let’s see what little secrets the English language holds for us today.

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Hi there. In addition to writing my book CARNAL KNOWLEDGE, I host a blog and podcast called podictionary where every day I talk about the surprising history of a word you thought you already knew. I bill it as “the podcast for word lovers” and I sometimes wonder if that key-word “lovers” attracts an audience that perhaps I hadn’t intended.

The book has an intentionally provocative title and although you can’t judge a book by its cover, I think it looks pretty good, too. It’s a pretty attractive looking couple wouldn’t you say, especially when you consider that she’s 100 years old, and he’s 400. She is the Awakening of Psyche by Seignac, he’s Bacchus by Caravaggio.

Although the subtitle is supposed to tell you that this really isn’t about sex—do the words “dictionary” and “etymology” turn you on?—because I talk about every area of the body in the book, I necessarily cover the naughty bits. Or should that say “uncover”? Here are a few examples.

There are said to be as many as 650 euphemisms for a woman’s genitalia. While I don’t go that far, I do have quite a few examples. I point out that the word “cunt” has been in English since pretty well as long as there’s been English. These days you likely wouldn’t use the word in polite company but there was a time when the word was acceptable enough to fit naturally into the names of streets and people. One imagines that part of London called Gropecuntelane might have been the red light district of its day. At the time of Geoffrey Chaucer the word “cunt” was being used by physicians in medical descriptions. By about 200 years ago the word had descended into the realm of the taboo and people were being arrested for using it.

Another word most people don’t shout out in the library is “twat” but it turns out that Robert Browning, husband of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, writer of those famous lines “how do I love thee? let me count the ways” would have had no such qualms. He was under the mistaken impression that a twat was something that nuns wore on their heads. It kind of makes me rethink the counting of those ways.

A penis hasn’t always been the male flaccid or engorged counterpart to twats and cunts. The famous ancient Roman orator Cicero complained that the word he had always used to mean “tail” has suddenly become rude. So what was a euphemism back in classical Latin has become an anatomically correct term in our lexicon. “Penis” isn’t the only word this has happened to. There’s more to say on that score under the entry for “vagina.”

The reason we call a man’s cock a “cock” is a little unclear from the etymological record. Evidently, there is no written record of this use of the word in the years before the death of Shakespeare, although it was used to describe male birds from the time of King Alfred the Great more than 1100 years ago. Suspiciously, to “cock” something, meaning to make it “stick up” is documented as having taken on that meaning less than twenty years before cock the “penis” is documented. Still, that great authority the Oxford English Dictionary suggests a human cock is called a cock due to its role in dispensing fluids, since an old name for a faucet is a stop-cock.

The book CARNAL KNOWLEDGE also introduces you to words you might not know. Hundreds of years ago early archeologists were digging up ancient Greek statues. One of the more famous of these is the Venus de Milo whose bare breasts identify her as the goddess of love, despite her lack of arms. Her lesser known incarnation Aphrodite kallipygos was dug up around the same time. You know that Venus was the Roman counterpart to the Greek Aphrodite so that the goddesses are one and the same. Aphrodite kallipygos however does not have her breasts bared, but instead displays a tush so exquisite that the archeologists who named her used the Greek words for “beautiful” and “buttocks”; hence when you call someone “callipygian” you’re saying they have a great butt.

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Learn more about names for all parts of the body in CARNAL KNOWLEDGE, and ask Charles a question or two if you'd like. He'll be giving away a signed copy of his brand-new book to one of our commenters.

XXX,
Alison "callipygian" Tyler (first t-shirt slogan of the day!)

H is for Hooray!

Ah, yes, here I am again.
Begging you to lend an ear.
Clearly, I can’t get away from the alphabet.
Darling, you might even say that I am obsessed with learning my letters.
Ever since I started the Naughty Stories from A to Z series, which features 26 stories in alphabetical order, I’ve used the ABCs as a guide.
From Naughty Stories, I moved onto the challenge of editing 26 books, with each story beginning with the appropriate letter of the alphabet.
Good writers rise to any dare.
Hey, they tease me, How are you going to deal with Q?
I don’t know, I stammer, blushing while thinking of a book of stories dedicated to Quarterbacks, or Queen, or, um, Queues.
(Jeremy would have something clever to insert here, I’m sure.)
Kiki and Kristina, stop twittering in the back!
Let me say my piece and get on with it.
Most of the time, the ABCs are my friends.
Now, that I’ve gotten through H and have moved onto IJKL, I’m nearly halfway there.
Oh, but I know you’re wondering what each letter will be.
P is for panties, punishment, paddling, perverts?
Quiet down, there’s no rush.
Right now, we’re focusing on the four just released (E is for Exotic, F is for Fetish, G is for Games, and H is for Hardcore).
So sit back, sip your cider (or something stronger, Sommer) and get ready for a taste.
Tease—I meant a tease.
Unfortunately, as the books are so short, I can’t give you much more than a sliver from each.
Very short, but oh so hot.
What’s that, Mat?
X-rated?
You bet, how could they be anything else when peppered with stories by Lust Biters Dayle Dermatis, Gwen Masters, Kristina Lloyd, Madelynne Ellis, Mathilde Madden, Shanna Germain, and Teresa Noelle Roberts.
Zippers slide down, and hands reach in, and oh, hell… go on, read the next sexy tidbits—you know you want to.

E is for Exotic, Native Tongue by Shanna Germain:

I fold my body down until I can nestle my own tongue against Margret’s bikini bottom. She’s still working her tongue against my clit, but I try to focus. I slide her tiny bikini to the side to allow me access. I tuck my finger inside her. She is wet already, smelling of sea salt and musk.

I slide two fingers inside her, loving the wet clutch of her, the way she moans into me. My thumb rubbing across her clit, I slide a third finger in. I fuck her like that, pushing so hard her tongue slides back and forth across my clit with the movement of her body. Through the wet fabric of her suit, her hard nipples rub my belly with the movement.

Margret arches her back. Her tongue becomes frantic across my clit, and then she gives up and sucks me, hard into her mouth. We don’t come together; she goes first, moaning as I dive into her with my fingers. It is this sound, the meaningless vibrations of her throat as she sucks my clit, that lets me follow her.

The place we bring each other to, there are no words for that.

No words at all.

F is for Fetish, Boot Camp by Kristina Lloyd:

So here I am on my hands and knees, gazing at five pairs of army boots, all in need of some love and attention. I’m so horny I can barely kneel. The detention block’s at the far end of the lawn, and every Tom, Dick and Harry in there has probably got binoculars on my butt. The guys, my guys, sit with their feet planted wide, pants tucked in or hitched up so I can see everything there is to see; every last eyelet and lolling tongue; every stitch, scuff and scratch; every line of dust and each grain of Iraqi sand lodged in the creases that are etched in the leather.

G is for Games, No Limits by Madelynne Ellis:

Colored plastic stuck to our palms, and feet, which squeaked and sighed with our every move. We were the final pair in a Twister death match, and I for one was going for broke.

“No limits, to what exactly?” I asked. How much strain my calf muscles could take in order to make this a victory for the girls?

The naughty look in his shocking blue eyes suggested not. I suspected he had something far more risqué in mind. So, possibly what he meant was that there were no limits to how big a spectacle he was prepared to make of us. Not that I was worried on that score. You don’t play Twister in a short skirt and fishnets without weighing up the consequences first. I knew exactly how much I had on display, and he couldn’t strip me naked with his eyes.

“Left hand, red.”

His palm slithered down my inner thigh, wakening hungry nerve endings, on route to its destination, the colored circle by my foot.

H is for Hardcore, Me, When I’m With You by Mathilde Madden:

“How much longer?”

I don't answer. But I do stop teasing and tell you to stand up. Your cock is so hard and needy. It makes me wince to see you move around with it jutting out in front of you.

Big hard cock, big hard man. You, standing over me as I lie on the bed, would almost make me feel weak and small if I didn't have such an incredible hold over you. If I hadn’t taken you to the edge five times already today. If you didn’t need to come so much right now that it's pulsing off you.

You're naked. You're so pretty when you're naked that all I really need to do is look at you. Strip you and have you stand there while I masturbate to the sight of you. Use you as porn.

***

So there you have it. Four slippery little excerpts from four sexy little books. And guess what? In honour of our 200th post (which I believe is this weekend) Cleis Press has graciously donated two full sets of the A-H books. So comment today for a chance to win 8 of your own ABC anthologies. And then you can spell cool words on your bookshelf, too.
XXX,
Alison