Lust Bites: 5 Dec 2006 ~ 5 Dec 2008

by Olivia Knight

Missing us?
Follow the links below or look on the right for our indexed posts.

Lust Bites has closed but the contributors who created it over the last two years continue to write, publish, muse, argue and discuss ~ so here's where to find the blogs and websites of all the Lusties. Never mind 'closing one door to open another', we're closing one door and opening 18:

Mathilde Madden: werewolves & dom		Kristina Lloyd: erotic degradation		Erastes: historical gays
Alison Tyler: sweet & saucy		Nikki Magennis: circus & rockstars		Portia da Costa: lovers & librarians
Olivia Knight: dragons & destiny		Janine Ashbless: exotic climes		Madeline Moore: sparkly & cheeky
Madelynne Ellis: gothic & menages		Teresa Noelle Roberts: oceans		Jamaica Layne: naughty nurses
Kate Pearce: cowboys & vikings		Dayle Dermatis: futuristic fancies		Deanna Ashford: mythical places
Shanna Germain: bi & bondage		Gwen Masters: contemporary & bright		Edie Bingham: jungles & mystery

And two sites where you'll find us collecting in clutches:

Erotica Cover Watch: intelligent rant		Black Lace Chat Board: open discussion

Over the last 2 years, 18 Lusties have written 533 posts, entertaining over 140 000 visitors. We've heaped the screens with gratuitous photos, lavished smut slots and hot excerpts, given away boxfuls of books, crushed on everyone from the Doctor to Leonard Cohen, Lust-Bitten dozens of healthy handsome men in our sidebar, and written articles ranging from armpit-porn to gender issues to sex-slang to writing-tips to the origins of fairytales to yaoi. We've interviewed, among others, Donna George Storey, Michelle Pillow, Rachel Kramer Bussel, Stephen Elliott, Susie Bright, and Violet Blue.

The blog is staying up and has all our past posts archived - so if you've never explored the sidebars before, here's a quick introduction:
• scroll down the right side and you'll find a list of all the smut slots, a link to all hot excerpts, a selection of our favourite posts, the Crush Wednesdays list, a list of guests and their sites, and the blog archive by month and year
• scroll down the left side and after the beautiful book covers, you'll find the labels list to help you locate the post you want.
Being probably the most anal of the Lusties (yep, I'm the one who fidgets with the widgets and hands out the code) I link to my article-posts from my website - any other Lusties that do likewise, shout out.

So Olivia Knight (that's me) is the one voted most likely to fidget with your widgets, when I'm not mucking out the dragons and quoting Barthes. Mathilde Madden's voted most likely to steal a cripple's wheel-chair and then sexually dominate him, but Kristina Lloyd would probably "confess" to the crime just so the policeman would get tough with her. And Shanna Germain might just join in. Erastes is voted most likely to have a sex change just so she can have sex with men - and not realise her mistake until afterwards. (Jamaica Layne would be having an affair with the doctor.) Kate Pearce, in contrast, (she's the one who pretended to walk on the fluffy side of romance but deep down was still as smutty as the rest of us) is the one most likely to be asked if she writes children's books. Janine Ashbless (the one who thinks minotaurs are hot) is most likely to come up with a story idea that actually makes the Black Lace editor feel queasy - and has already been responsible for the Human Head edict, plus managed to sneak past giant scorpions with human heads. If anyone's traumatised, I think that's Madeline Moore sweeping up in that fabulous black leather dress, with a nice cuppa tea & a giggle - most likely to make everyone feel better. It's good to have a natural peacemaker when Janine and I are pulling each other's hair out quarrelling over how we divvy up the ancient civilisations and who gets copyright over thoughts we have simultaneously. Meanwhile the other Madelynne (Ellis) will watch you caught in the rain and only laugh in a hollow gothic manner (or manor, even) because she's arranged for a cruel, lascivious aristocrat to live nearby and you must Suffer for her Plot. Alison Tyler's voted most likely to hand out sticky sweet cocktails with names even we would blush to pronounce, all the while smiling as though butter wouldn't melt in her mouth and surreptitously photographing your shoes. Portia da Costa will sip hers with that sly smile playing across her lips, while ten thousand male slaves haul her Complete Works. Edie Bingham is most likely to turn into a cat. Nikki Magennis, the one who created it all, is voted most likely to shag a rockstar, while Gwen Masters hops a plane in search of another new adventure in another exotic place. Dayle Dermatis is most likely to be arrested by a government suspicious of her many pseudonyms and Teresa Noelle Roberts is most likely to have an affair with a dolphin. But all of us will go weak at the knees for wet men, and no-one could end Lust Bites without a last piece of man candy. A few droplets still gleaming in the sun on his firm chest... looking at us regretfully... as if to say - do you have to go already...? Just when I'm about to... take... this... off?

Thank you to all our visitors, contributors, commenters, and supporters over the last two years.
It's time to kiss goodbye.

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

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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

No one's leaving until I get a few answers...

by Kate Pearce




Scene: The Lust Bites Dungeon
The players: various Lusties tied up, bright lights shining in their eyes.
Asking the questions: Kate (the quiet ones are always the worst) Pearce, and Grumpy David Beckham.






Cool I finally get to ask the questions, show off all my favorite pictures like this one and all my new book covers!!

Aren't you all excited? Oh, I forgot, you're all tied up...anyway, let's start with an easy one.

1. What has been your favorite thing about Lust Bites?

Olivia Knight:
Being part of a community of writers, not just one isolated writer with a sole point of contact (The Editor) and no idea what else is happening ~discovering other people's tastes, writing styles, and ideas about erotica ~being converted to man candy, wet men, and the joy of muscles ~ having a place to natter, witter, and argue ~ social contact, frankly: it's a rarity in a writing day."

Madeline Moore
My favorite thing about membership in Lust Bites has been getting to know so many of my peers. Writing is a solitary business and writing erotica in Canada is entirely solitary – no readings, no conventions to attend, no book signings. It means the world to me to have been a part of this blog and I hope we’ll keep in touch.

Janine Ashbless
Meeting other writers (some in the flesh, most online), some of whom I like very much. Getting my blogging wings. The regular readers (Huck L Berry, t'Sade, Jothemama etc etc) who, albeit fleetingly, seemed like friends it was always a pleasure to hear from. Having my eyes cranked open to other forms of pleasure. The chat behind the scenes as well as in front. Compliments about my posts. Jeremy Edwards' jokes.


Being first shown the link to www.provocateuse.com very early on. The mutual support in times of despair. The sexy pictures. The wit.

Nikki Magennis
The great sparkly whoooshy feeling that I'd found a place full of clever, witty, brave and creative women who were so much fun and so full of ideas and - no, look, I want to say spunk but I really can't in this context ...

Dayle Dermatis
The wide range of authors and ideas we had. We really proved that "erotica" can mean different things to different people, and is such a huge, varied genre. Some people wrote light-hearted, some wrote dark. Some had lush prose, others mastered the art of crafting a story with spare, sparse, yet evocative brush strokes. Some wrote paranormal, some wrote contemporary, some wrote historical, some write combinations thereof. We could disagree on who was hot and who was not, on what turned us on or off, and yet we all had a common thread: healthy, hearty, enjoyment of our genre.

Okay, all the discussions about sexy rock stars and science fiction hotties are at the top of the list, too!

Erastes
I love the enthusiasm from the Lusties for their wonderful smutty and beautifully written work. I love the gratuitous photo posts and the range of different subjects covered - there may be a lot of smut but there's so much interesting stuff too - travelogs and history and interviews and industry news.


Portia Da Costa
Choice excerpts of some great novels that I hadn't yet had chance to read, interesting guests, and also the sillier stuff that people posted just for the hell of it.

Kate Pearce
Getting in touch with my British roots and learning so much about what turned other people on. I especially loved all the pictures and the links to the gay porn sites.
Ooh look a new cover! This is for my next Kensington Aphrodisia book which comes out next April :)





2. What surprised you most?
>
OK: For myself - I discovered for the first time that I can write light and I can write funny. I'd never really let my sense of humour onto the page before and then, thanks to frantically cranking out a few last-minute articles, discovered I could just switch on the funny button. And promptly wrote a comic novel, with my newfound skill! More generally - that I was
not the Last Time Lord travelling through the vast stretches of space-time in noble isolation but that there were a whole lot more out there like me. It's like the Doctor suddenly landing on Gallafrey and saying, "Well, bugger me! Mum! Dad! Hi!"

MM: I was surprised by how many women write m/m erotica, and by the number of Lusties who enjoy gay porn. It never occurred to me to troll the gay porn sites for pictures but now I do and I have the virus alerts to prove it.

JA: The fact that even when you've got a basket of free sexy books to give away, barely any of the hundreds of blog lurkers (yes - we know you're there!) will stick their hands up and say "Yes Please!"

NM: How wildly (and sometimes violently) different everybody's backgrounds and opinions were, how there were so many things I'd never known or thought carefully about before, and how incredibly and endlessly rich and varied sexuality can be.

DD: I came into the fold expecting there would be more discussions about the writing process, about craft and a little about business and all that. Don't know why, though! :-) Also, as a former reporter, I was surprised at how hard it was to write nonfiction again!

E: Being invited! I wasn't a Black Lace writer and I write gay erotica and I nearly wet myself with excitement.

PDC: Nothing really. The world of blogging is crazy and I've learnt to expect anything.


KP: It surprised me how what turned some people on absolutely horrified others. It also surprised me because I discovered I liked a lot more than I'd been prepared to admit to in public, (cough cough gay porn anyone?)





3. What annoyed you most?

OK: Blogger's mad-as-a-bag- of-rats html variations, insane picture-insert function, and refusal to allow the align="center" attribute for the image tag. And what the hell are they doing with that backslash when a tag closes? Huh? HUH? Yes: this troubled me deeply.

MM: It annoyed me when a fine post received a paltry number of comments. Sometimes this happened because of a holiday in the UK or US, sometimes because of technical difficulties, and other times – who knows? So much work goes into a Lust Bites post, and it’s extremely discouraging when it hangs there with a humiliating dearth of posts. I always try to bump a post up to at least double digits, but sometimes even I run out of things to say.

JA: The fact that I'm not as intelligent, articulate or funny as Olivia Knight or Kristina Lloyd, lol!

NM: htmbloodyl, and all the fights! But mostly, the enormous amount of time and energy it took.

DD: Meh. Water under the bridge. Why bring it up again? I like that we're all parting as friends as well as business associates!

E: The gradual lack of response from the readers, and the way that it all the work seemed to end up being done by the same few people - although having done a couple of other blogs now, it seems this is fairly normal! It was gratifying to see the people saying "Oh No! - We love you, don't go!" but if they had supported us a little harder while we were open, we may not have taken the decision to close down. It's not something that annoyed me, but I
was often frustrated that I couldn't come up with as many blog ideas as I'd have liked - the muse just rarely visited me and I applaud those more frequent posters than I.

PDC: Better not answer that one. Suffice it to say there have been things that have annoyed me.

KP: It's hard when you've labored over a post and it seems that no one is interested. it's also hard when personalities clash, although with such a talented group of writers it seems that this is inevitable. I'm sure we'll all laugh about it one day LOL-Oh look, I'm laughing now...
>



4. What will you miss?

OK: Behind-the-scenes witter, displacement activity, a place to express my wit and wisdom / burble at random, and the beautiful, beautiful, beautiful men. I can't say "the people" because they're not dead, but the group.

MM: I’m pretty sure I’m a Lust Bites addict so it’s safe to say I’ll miss everything about it. But I’ve learned a lot about writing erotica and what turns women on and marketing and promotion, so I think the one thing I’ll miss the most is the information Lust Bites provided – in an entertaining and provocative manner.

JA: The individual people. A social life - How am I going to get my chat fix? Seriously, some of you had better come round my blog sometime or I'm going to devolve into a batshit old lady muttering to myself...


NM: I think the feeling that we were all discovering brand new things all the time. At least, I was! And for a writer, it was fabulous to feel part of a community, even though in real life it was scattered all over the world. Thanks all of yous! xxx

DD: Oh, the camaraderie, definitely. It's what was drawing me back, as I got past my months of travel and busy-ness, when I got the news that Lust Bites was coming to an end. I raise a glass (or maybe two. Possibly even three.) of champagne to the fabulosity that was Lust Bites!

E: I'll miss the chat behind the scenes, for certain - I've made some good online friends and I hope that some of them will keep in touch. And I'll sure miss those pictures - goodness knows people found them!!

PDC: Really nice people who posted and commented.

KP: I'll miss the chat, the anticipation of opening up the site and never quite knowing what I was going to find out and learn (well except on my own post days and even then it was a close run thing.)

Psst: And while they're all still tied up I'll take the opportunity to tell you that I sold 3 more books to Kensington last week-2 more 'Simply's" and a contemporary!!-What was that Grumpy David? You want to let them go now? Do we have to??

Our David

By Mathilde Madden and Kristina Lloyd of Erotica Cover Watch

This is the story of how we - Kristina Lloyd and Mathilde Madden - met. It might look like a whole bunch of hot pictures of David Beckham, but it really is an origin story.


Um, anyway...

Once upon a time, Lust Bites was in full swing and Mat was doing her regular Coming Attractions Sunday preview of the week's new articles. As usual, she posted a gratuitous hot man pic at the top of the post. She rifled through a favourite set – a set that just happened to be the favourite of her character, Imogen, from her first novel Peep Show - and chose this.

Kristina Lloyd was writing her novella, The Vampire's Heart, for the novella collection also called Lust Bites (confusing we know – pay attention) in which Mat was also appearing with her vampy story, Under Her Skin. Kristina took one look at the pic Mat had posted and realised it was the exact image she'd had in mind when she'd created her lead vampire, Billy.

Clearly the stars had aligned. We bonded over Beckham, discovered we lived round the corner from each other – and the rest is erotica-book-cover crusading history.

These days we write Erotica Cover Watch, a blog designed to highlight the lack of images of men on the covers of erotic books. Every week, we kick off with Man Candy Monday, offering a delicious pic of a sexy guy to illustrate the kind of thing we – as straight women - would like to see featured on smutty books rather than the ubiquitous image of a woman in her skimpies.

We are the two writers who once almost broke Lust Bites (the blog) by trying to post 200 men for the 200th post and today we've done a Massive Man Candy Monday for Lust Bites' last week. And because David Beckham introduced us right here on this very blog, we made him our official mascot on Erotica Cover Watch. And so for your delight (um, and ours), we bring you The Mega Becks Man Candy Monday.

Enjoy!

(Could somebody please mop up Kate Pearce? I think she melted.)

And the great thing about David – he has something for everyone. You want long blond hair? Skinhead? Dirty squaddie? Tweedy gent? Sweat and dirt-smeared boxer? Latter day Jesus Christ? But why am I still talking....?


In fact this set, brilliantly, contained a favourite for Kristina, where David looks like a mean-hearted pimp.


And one for Mat where he looks like an upmarket rent boy.


Apparently he also plays football or something ...

(Keep your eye on the ball.)

Check out more Beckham today on Erotica Cover Watch's Man Candy Monday. And don't forget to comment and tell us which pic is your favourite or even post one yourself - a last bite for Lust Bites.

Gonna miss this place!

Mat and Kristina