Winner of Portia's Latest Comp!

The winner of my Love is a Battlefield & Return to Stoneworld... again Prize Draw is:

LOUISA!

Drop me a line at portiadacosta [at] gmail [dot] com with your snail mail deets and I'll send you your prize of a copy each of Entertaining Mr Stone and Suite Seventeen... maybe with an extra or two for good measure. If you've already got EMS and S17, just let me know what else you'd like from my backlist instead! :)

Many, many thanks to all who commented on the two posts!

(Fe)male Order Shopping-Harris' List of Covent Garden Ladies

Want to write a best-seller with plenty of sex? Well perhaps you might be lucky if you follow in the footsteps of Samuel Derrick.


Who was he, I hear you ask? Well, Mr Derrick was Irish and a bit of a con-man if history is to be believed. He used to pretend to be a member of the Irish aristocracy but in reality he was a draper's apprentice, a bad actor, and a failed poet. He was determined to better himself, so travelled to London in an attempt to join such luminaries as Smollet, Boswell and Johnson. These lofty gentlemen, however, didn't give him the time of day.

At some point, (probably, the scholars reckon, in Debtor's Prison), he must have met up with Jack Harris, (AKA as John Harrison), a waiter, and a notorious pimp - self-proclaimed "Pimp General of All England." It was Mr Harris who had a handwritten list of prostitutes, but it was Mr Derrick who - under Mr Harris's name - published the list as Harris' List of Covent Garden Ladies and made a fortune. The book was a barn-storming best-seller and sold 250,000 in its 38 years of being in print.
In a city with well over 3,000 prostitutes (for a population of 675,000) Harris' List of Covent Garden Ladies was a must have accessory for any Georgian man of leisure and pleasure Harris' list was more than just a list. It was a tour of the houses of negotiable affection, "the votaries of Venus" and the prostitutes more personal address.

It wasn't just a list though, nor was it limited to Convent Garden! - it also included anecdotes on the ladies' careers and conquests. It detailed not only their addresses, physical characteristics but also their “specialties”.

Such as: 'Miss Smith, of Duke's Court in Bow Street, "a well made lass, something under the middle size, with dark brown hair and a good complexion" ' Miss Kilpin, who offers her favours inside the privacy of hackney carriages, but who is in reality 'a married city lady, who takes this method of getting home deficiencies supplied abroad'

Mrs Grafton of Wapping was fond of sailors. Her 'best customers are sea officers, who she particularly likes, as they do not stay long at home, and always return fraught with love and presents'.



Miss C: who perfumed herself (particularly below the waist) and entertained a prince who "was so much of an Englishman to despise all fictitious aids in that quarter and, turning up his nose at the ... musk, which was quite offensive to him, he rang the bell and sent the servant for a red herring".

A gentleman in possession of the book would know where to go for the fat and the thin, the top-market whores, the cheapest of the cheap. He'd be informed on the state of their teeth and tits - and their former conquests - nice to know who'd been there before you!

Mr Derrick - on the merits and profits of the book - did manage to become respectable, in the end. He became Master of Ceremonies at Bath on a huge salary of £800 a year - around £100,000 a year in today's money - but despite this rise in fortune, he still died penniless. After his death, the book continued in print in the hands of a society-aspiring prostitute, Charlotte Hayes, although it was generally thought that Ms Hayes did not write with such wit as Mr Derrick. New versions continued to be printed annually until 1797 after which society was becoming a little more prudish.

Read more in: "The Covent Garden Ladies: Pimp General Jack and The Extraordinary Story of Harris’s List" by Hallie Rubenhold – Tempus Publishing, ISBN 0-7524-2850-0

And if you get hold of a copy of The List itself - let me borrow it, will ya?

Boring Average Men...and the ones you love despite yourself.

by Kate Pearce

So we've had Lust Bites about Bloody men, young men, old men, bad men, wet men etc etc, but have we ever ventured into the area of average or conventional men? The ones that some of us, well me, secretly love but might have been afraid to admit to?

I'll admit it-since the age of six I've had crushes on a lot of average guys and a lot of 'oh my god, I really shouldn't like this guy because everyone else does' ones. Each one of them meant something important to me at the time. For your entertainment I'm going to share them all. Some of them might not be too familiar to our American readers, but I'm sure you'll enjoy looking at them just the same.

So here goes a veritable time line of crushes...


1. Rolf Harris Artist, pop star, Australian, wacky game show host.
why: I was six, he looked just like my dad, and as I'd realized by then that I couldn't actually marry my dad- Rolf would have to do.






2. Scott Tracey from Thunderbirds. why And yes I know he's a puppet-but I still had a big crush on him.Look at those dimples!




3. Spock. why: He had pointy ears. I have pointy ears-a match made in heaven.






4. John Noakes-T.V. host of the Blue Peter show. why. Rugged, northern and blunt. He also sky-dived out of a plane and I swore I'd do it one day too. I did on my 40th birthday.





5. Donny Osmond. why: Donny had big teeth and lots of brothers who liked to sing. I have big front teeth and lots of sisters who like to sing (especially when drunk)





6. Starsky. why Excessive teenage lust. I had a whole scrapbook dedicated to pictures of him I cut out of magazines-that's true love-I even bought his knitted jacket and wore it constantly. I even wished he'd brought out a single instead of Hutch.




7. Pete Duel. The original half of Alias Smith and Jones. why More teenage unrequited lust and so much more interesting than Ben Curry.


And then there was a lull when I discovered REAL BOYS and I didn't really rediscover my need to crush until I was a young mother, bored out of my mind at home with the kids...and along came:


8. Jimmy Nail, actor, singer, real man. why I have absolutely no idea but I still love him.




9. Justin Timberlake. why Um...I like his music?



10. Take That boy band featuring Robbie Williams and other studly young men young enough to be my baby brothers, if not my sons. why I had 3 kids, I was at home alone, they were so...chirpy-I've run out of excuses...

So tell me-you know what I want to know-your youthful crushes and why they brought out the beast in you...

Diet for Writers

I celebrated my birthday recently. The fun included visits with not one but two of my very favourite BBWs. (Big, Beautiful Women.) Imagine, if you will, my shock at discovering that neither was big! Hey! This is not the kind of surprise one wants on one’s birthday. If any fat were to be melted off, by rights it should’ve been mine.

The ex-BBW #1 told me she’d quit red meat and carbs for two months and lost 30 pounds. 30 pounds? OMG. This might put me off my birthday cake.



The ex-BBW #2 had just returned from a movie shoot in the Maritimes – First Assistant Director on a German production that took place on a big boat. She was weather-beaten, brown and skinny. She’d brought (along with the cake) some of her good Big Woman clothes for me. I reciprocated with a size 10 de la Renta I was saving for the day when I might be a 10 again. It looked terrific on her, especially when cinched with a red, bejewelled belt I’d saved in the hope that someday I might be able to hitch it closed around my waist again.



Here are some diets that might have once worked for me but won’t these days:

The big D diet – Death (of others, not your own, which would put a different slant on the term 'wasting away') and Disease and Divorce. Excellent for people who tend to stop eating when sad, but not recommended for those poor souls who eat for comfort. Plus, now that I no longer seek misery in order to be a writer (having deduced that misery will find me) I can’t depend on the Big D.

Heart Break – My sister’s favourite. Now that she’s post menopausal, though, she reckons she’ll need another approach to getting thin. She’s thinking cancer + miraculous recover = weight loss. Maybe, although it might depend on how much your hair weighs.

Felix’s Can Do diet - Caffeine, Alcohol and Nicotine. He once used this diet, supplemented with grilled steaks slapped between two pieces of bread, to write a novel in 11 days. This diet would kill him now.

I have dieted. Successfully, too. Once, I attained my goal weight at Weight Watchers. As a full-time writer, however, I am not able to go to Weight Watchers because of the unfortunate way in which they italicize the word ‘each’ in their cookbooks. I can’t stand it.
Example: add one tsp oregano and one tsp cayenne each to the broth…
Don’t they get that we must emphasize the word in our minds when we see italics? 6 ounces turkey and six ounces beef each…I can’t stand it!

Also, Weight Watchers usually has one sad sack ferret-faced female who has turned it into her cult, and who must diss her husband at each meeting, and must speak at each meeting, no matter what, always relaying TMI! I hate her. I would like to take a buzz saw and an ice pick, each, and … well, let’s face it. I’m a writer. I don’t want to go out, line up with my fellow fatties and weigh in, chat about fat and then come home. I want to stay right here and get thin.

Yes, that’s it. Obviously I’m not about to be hired to AD a movie, so I can’t whittle away any poundage the way my filmmaker friend did. I need a Diet for Writers.

A quick perusal of the world wide web tells me that nothing much has changed in the land of dieting.
There are still miracle pills to kill fat cells, boost metabolism or suppress the appetite. These are the female versions of ‘grow your penis bigger overnight’, I’ve decided, so they amount to nothing but more money wasted in the pursuit of a waist.

Wait! Here’s something new: As far as regular, pill-free dieting goes, the most amazing thing I discovered was the Gandhi Diet. Do you think I jest? I do not. On a website devoid of sarcasm or humour, I read the following: One girl decided to fast until the colours in her apt. building were changed. At first she wasn’t believed but after one week the colours were changed. She reports ‘It was very effective. Now I am anorexic and I am fasting to improve the social acceptance of anorexic people in my community.”



Perhaps I should turn to the books in my personal library. It's been awhile since I've leafed through the never-to-be-equalled women’s book of humour, Titters, edited by Deanne Stillman and Anne Beatts.

Here are a couple of the least offensive of Gilda Radner’s diet tips:

Gilda’s diet

- Stub out your cigarette in your food before you've finished eating.
- Use rusty silverware.
- Have a picnic near a car accident.



Let’s forget about organized diets for a moment and look, instead, at the kind of food writers tend to imbibe. In my case, it needs to be easy. I do not have time, when I’m writing, to prepare food. I have been known to reject a microwave dinner because I have to ‘peel back the cellophane’ after 2 minutes of microwaving and microwave for another 2. This strikes me as too much work. My favourite writing food? Peanut butter on a spoon.

My characters, on the other hand, dine on a lot of terrific food. So far all three of the heroines in my two published books and my latest WIP have sipped champagne, only the best, if you please. Sirloin tips and lobster meat show up on their plates. They eat as much as they like and never get fat, because they’re fictional characters in escapist fantasies. Strawberries with whipped cream and chocolate sauce is usually dessert.

In real life, we must ban whipped cream and chocolate sauce from the kitchen and the bedroom.

In search of healthy recipes, I peek inside my Weight Watcher’s cookbooks. Am I exaggerating the irritation their italics cause? WW- Dash each salt and pepper...
Dash each chilli powder, ground cumin and oregano leaves...
How stupid do they think we are? I hate you, WW.

Next I consult the Sylvia Plath Cookbook, which, I confess, is also to be found within the pages of Titters. Again, I will give you a sample of it, leaving the most offensive stuff to those who want to read the whole hilarious book:

From The Sylvia Plath Cookbook

Apple Pies:

To make crust, cut 1 cup shortening into 3 cups flour. Add 1 tsp. salt and ¼ cup cold water, a little at a time. Stir until dough has achieved correct consistency. Chill. Roll out on floured board.

To make filling, peel and core 6 or 7 apples (about 3 cups) Slice into uncooked pie shell. Add ½ cup sugar, ¼ tsp. salt, ½ tsp. cinnamon, ¼ tsp nutmeg and ¼ cup lemon juice. Dot with 1 tbsp. butter. Top with piecrust. Set oven at 450. Do not light gas.


It’s been awhile since I’ve cracked the pages of the CanLit Foodbook: compiled and illustrated by Margaret Atwood in aid of P.E.N. international and The Writers’ Development Trust.

Here is a poem which reminds me why I no longer cook:

Kitchen Murder

Everything here’s a weapon:
I pick up a meat fork,
imagine
plunging it in,
a heavy male thrust

In two hands
I heft a stone-
ware plate, heavy
enough?

Rummage the cupboards:
red pepper, rape-
seed oil, Drano

I’ll wire myself
into a circuit:
the automatic perc,
the dishwasher, the
socket above the sink

I’ll smile an electric
eel smile:
whoever touches me is dead

Pat Lowther

Here is a poem that reminds me why I no longer eat out. It was written by a colleague of mine, who worked in the student cafeteria of the Banff Centre while I was attending the Creative Writing Workshop, back, as they say, in the day. Her name is Erin Moure and she's brilliant.

Songs of the Permafrost Waitress

These days every room I step into
becomes a restaurant: people arrive in clusters,
sit down, begin to eat
and converse seriously, not noticing
the jaded décor, coffee stains
on the linoleum, the waitress with her frayed collar
and bandaids, against health regulations,
looking beat or beaten, fumbling
the used plates.
sometimes it's too much to tolerate, i want
to wave my arms, tell people to leave, they are
not my customers, i didn't ask them here,
what they are eating costs too much
takes years to prepare;
instead i say

eat slowly; you
are only served once, it is
dangerous food.


From Robert Kroetsch’s ‘Sketches of a Lemon’ to recipes like Graeme Gibson’s 'Pot roast with Chocolate', to the chapter called ‘Eating People is Wrong’ (Cannibalism Canadian Style) and the piece called ‘Del’s Funeral Attack’ from Lives of Girls and Women by Alice Munro, this book is a feast of words.

Now I’m getting somewhere! I could spend the day, even the week, reading this book, full off anecdotes, recipes and excerpts by Canadian authors.
Of which I am one! Why resist? We of the Great White North love our bacon, our maple syrup, our flapjacks and beef!

The upshot?
Felix, (the cook in our household) and I are one month into the ‘no red meat, no carb’ diet ex-BBW #1 invented. Yes, it’s basically the Atkins revisited, but cutting out carbs can only do one good. Since we are so hermetic, we are rarely tempted by the many faces of carbohydrates out there in the wild world. We live, instead, on the world wide web, which can be as peanut-free, carb-free or sugar-free as desired.



It seems to be working. We certainly haven’t lost 15 pounds, more like 6 each, but perhaps my friend assumed an amount of exercise would naturally go along with the zero carbs. Time to walk to the library, I guess, and take out ten books, divide equally into two piles of five books each and walk home. I’ll give my new heroine, Sarah, a fancy five star meal and then, perhaps, I’ll eat my words.

Diet disasters? Ponderings on poundage? Favourite feasts from fiction? Do share!

xoxo Madeline Moore

Coming Attractions

This week here on Lust Bites... Hot naked man loving, sticky sex, and a glimpse at the pleasureable pursuits of the past. Are you tempted yet?

On Monday, Madeline Moore stops by to tell us all about the Writer's Diet. I don't think she's referring to coffee and chocolate!

Following her, on Wednesday, Kate Pearce offers up a confession: men she loves, despite herself. Hmmm, photographic evidence, please. More yummy pictures to lick.

Finally, on Friday, Erastes is here to take us on a pleasurable stroll through Harris's list of Covent Garden Ladies. Dark or fair, lithe or buxom and perhaps a dab hand with a hairbrush. There's something in there for everyone.

See you soon,

Madelynne Ellis

The Kama Sutra—now with extra naughty bits!

by Sophie Mouette

Ladies and gentlemen, for your consideration, may we present a new anthology: The Mammoth Book of the Kama Sutra: The Fullest Ever Illustrated Collection of the Kama Sutra and Its Variants, edited by the illustrious Maxim Jakubowski.

There have been many published versions of the Kama Sutra. Translations. Illustrated versions, with lush pictures or cartoon how-to’s. There’s even a Complete Idiots Guide to it. It has fascinated us for centuries. So why yet another version?

Well, this one’s different. No, really, it is. Yes, there’s some history and discussion, some lovely black-and-white illustrations, all the usual. This one, though, has stories.

Contributors were challenged to pick a position and spin a tale of how that position came to be named what it was. What fun! It’s like writing a history lesson combined with a fairy tale, only with sex!

Teresa

“The Tale of the Playing Elephant” was inspired by the “herd of cows,” a three-or-moresome involving one man several women. It’s more than a position, it’s a party—and I love a party! What truly intrigued me, though, was this snippet: “It is also interesting to imitate the elephants’ water games, the behavior of the he-goat, etc. One can amuse oneself with the women by imitating the water play of the elephant and cow-elephant, the bleatings of the he-goat with the nanny goat, or the behavior of a stag…The imitation of elephants’ water play is considered as being one of the amusements of the herd of cows.” (Quoted from The Complete Kama Sutra, translated by Alain Danielou, Park Street Press, 1994)

For me, great sex can involve laughter as well as intensity. (Okay, I admit it. We sometimes quote Loony Toons at each other in bed) What’s more intense than group sex? And what’s sillier than goofy animal imitations? How brilliant that the Kama Sutra recommends the combination! But what could have led those wise ancient Indians to this conclusion? It begged a story.

In my tale, three lonely, stressed-out women meet up with a playful younger man down by the river, and one sort of fun leads to another:

The fire of Jaimala’s lust cooled a bit in the face of the more immediate need for playful revenge. Older than Vikram or not, she was not so old that she’d forgotten the cardinal rule of water-fights: Keep them going until everyone involved is wet, laughing, and gasping for breath. “Ladies,” she said, “get him!”

And they did.

At first they were just splashing.

Then Vikram dunked Jaimala.

Adarna had resolved there would be no touching, but some things were not to be borne, so the three women ganged up and dunked him.

And it was all innocent and playful, and yet it wasn’t, because every time Vikram looked at the women, his eyes were full of desire as well as mischief, and every time the women looked at him—or at each other, for that matter—it was the same. And when they touched, even in jest, they all felt the heat.

Then, somehow, they fell into to doing elephant imitations—spraying each other and trumpeting and laughing like children. “If we’re all elephants,” Vikram said between bouts of laughter, “that makes me the bull elephant and you the cows. And you know what that means.”

“You protect us fiercely from hunters and tigers?” Adarna suggested, trying desperately to lead them back to safer territory. Vikram snorted.

“In any case,” Jaimala said, drawing closer, “You’re not a calf anymore, but I’m not sure you’re the lead bull yet. One of the young ones around the fringes of the herd, perhaps, waiting his turn with the females.”

“That’s not very kind.”

“Answer me honestly,” Jaimala asked. “Do you know what to do with one woman, let alone three?”

He sputtered. Looked away and then looked back again, meeting each women’s eyes before he answered. “One woman, yes, although I’m sure I still have much to learn from the right teacher—or teachers. Three women would be a challenge, but it would be a challenge I’m willing to die trying to meet.”

Dayle (writing as Andrea Dale)

When I saw the call for submission for this anthology, I knew immediately which position I wanted to write about: the Tigress (sometimes also called the Tiger). See, Teresa and I have been working on and off on an alternate-Victorian-England/India paranormal erotica project, and the heroine of the novel is an Indian demi-goddess, being the product of a union between Budhi Pallien, goddess of the northern forests, and a human man.

What led Budhi Pallien to lie with a human? Okay, maybe he was just too delectable to pass up—that’s perfectly understandable. But why would she go so far as to bear his child? It was a story that needed to be told.

Even a goddess can lose her heart.

But first, she’ll take her pleasure….

It is one thing to be brave—it is another to be overconfident.

She was the goddess of the forest, and thus she had dominion over it. At her unspoken commands, thick vines twined their way in beneath the archways and down along the columns. They reached into the air and wrapped around Duranjaya’s wrists, drawing his arms above his head.

Anchoring him in place. Leaving him stretched and vulnerable to the deity’s whims.

He had heard of such games before, but never played them, and indeed he had only briefly considered them with the thought that the woman would be at his mercy.

Now he was helpless, and to his surprise, it was not an unwelcome sensation at all, even as he knew Budhi Pallien would not be gentle and was unlikely to be truly merciful.

She stalked him still, sizing up her prey, and yet all he could think of was that even if he died in the end, his last moments would be in ecstasy.

Her hand cupped the fullness of his sac, measuring, considering. She trailed a single nail along the underside of his cock, from base to tip.
He bit back a moan, but the twitching of his member revealed all he felt. Budhi Pallien laughed, low and sultry, almost a tiger’s rumbling purr.

“I am glad my lingam pleases you,” Duranjaya said, although the throbbing of his blood in his veins and the need for relief made it hard for him to speak. “It is but yours to use as you see fit.”

He hoped that would be soon.

She laughed again. “Foolish man,” she said. “You are mine to use as I see fit—all of you….”

The Mammoth Book of the Kama Sutra also contains stories by Nikki Magennis (another beloved ex-Lustie), who spins for us The “Tale of the Thunderbolt”; friend-of-Lusties Michael Crawley, who enthralls us with “The Tale of Dvitala,” and 20 other fine and inventive writers.

Enjoy!

Scenes We Love ~ No 2

by Madelynne Ellis




I love Labyrinth, I mean what is there not to like. It has everything, Bowie, magic, goblins, Bowie, talking worms, mazes, trippyness more Bowie... You get the idea, right?

Jareth is a seriously cool bit of hot stuff. He's pretty. He's cruel, but you know, ultimately, he just wants to be loved :-) You've gotta appreciate that in a villain.

I will confess that this isn't actually my favourite scene from the film. That'd be the ballroom scene (adore that coat), but this one perhaps provokes a stronger reaction.

Of course in my version, she says: "Sod the baby, and could you please just repeat that bit about you being my slave again."

Anyone else a Jareth fan?

Madelynne Ellis xx