Erotica Authors Kiss and Tell

By Mathilde Madden

Have you done everything you've written about? It's a question erotica authors get asked so often. Others might shy away from answering it - but, damnit I hang out with these dirty girls and *I* want to know the score. (In fact, in secret, I want it all to be true.)

So I put this question to the Lust Biters and demanded they jolly well tell me. There were handcuffs, thumbscrews and bright lights in the face. I eventually threatened to withdraw access to my archive of hot naked men pics. That clinched it - they all 'fessed up.

First to spill, Janine Ashbless. Janine writes scary fantastical smut. In our last Friday slot she posted a story about a woman encountering a sexy, foul-mouthed fairy on a train that's had me lurking around railway stations ever since. Here's hoping she's going to tell us that really happened.

Janine: I write erotic fairy-stories, fantasy and paranormal. I've written about bloodstained warriors, werewolf orgies, battling magi, undead seducers and (notoriously) a dragon with an enormous ... sexual appetite. And my erotica is almost always about how in the midst of chaos, brutality and strife, passion and love bring meaning to our lives. Have I done everything I've written about? My characters are usually lucky to survive! I'd have no chance.

Well, fair enough. Janine boasts the most ever deaths in a Black Lace novel, so perhaps she does invent some of it.

Let's try Deanna Ashford. I wonder how much she knows about being a slave girl.

Deanna: I have taken my readers to Pompeii, a city of slavery, strange sects [honestly, that's how Deanna spells it] and gladiators. To the Holy Land to face the power of the Templar knights and the sensual confines of a Saracen harem. Yet, even in these diverse places, love blossoms and survives. Have I done all that? No, but we can all dream, can't we?

Hmm, you know, maybe I should stop asking these fantastical types. Perhaps Portia da Costa does some hands-on research for those saucy contemporaries of hers.

Portia:I mostly write contemporary romantic erotica full of kink, fun and what I hope is emotional truth. Have I done all the things I write about in my books? Well, I’ve had my share of romance ... But as for the rest? My dears, I simply couldn’t comment!

Portia, you tease! I'll draw my own conclusions. Meanwhile I wonder what Dayle A Dermatis from the Sophie Mouette writing tag team thinks.

Dayle: I've done some of what I've written about. I leave figuring out what as an exercise for the reader.

Figure it out! Phooey! I want details. Nitty gritty. Talking of which, Madelynne Ellis writes the hottest male/male nitty gritty on the block. I suppose we can’t expect her to have done that – unless there's something she isn’t telling us.

Madelynne: Yeah, everything. I regularly pick up gay men in parks, screw shapeshifting demons across the kitchen table and I have my very own Regency rake chained up in the stables out back just waiting for a good lashing (the variety of which I'll let you decide upon).

Ha ha. Hooray. I might pop round and visit that rake of hers sometime. And next up, pretty litty Shanna Germain.

Shanna: Yes, I have. Everything. I've fancied my bike repair guy. I've had orgasms that made me fall on my knees. I've been tied up and tied down. I've eaten food so sexy it can't be called food. I've given the world's best blow job. (Make that blow jobs.) I've drawn blood. I'm having wild hotel-room sex as I write this. I believe everything I read.

Hooray. Another for my 'yes' pile. And you know, that reminds me, I've always wondered what the difference between 'tied up' and 'tied down' is. I must do some internet research on that.

Olivia Knight is a new Black Lace author. She can do html, but don’t let that put you off. Her writing's delicious.

Olivia: Have I had sex? Yes.Have I had sex with my characters? No, I'm not a frigging lunatic. Have I had the same kind of sex as my characters? Mostly, because I don't really write such hardcore stuff, but not necessarily the exact same positions in the exact same order. I have also eaten many meals, but not necessarily the ones I include in my books.

Kristina 'Arthouse Slut' Lloyd gave us this wholly believable confession.

Kristina: I am a virgin. Everything I write about I get from google. Asking for Trouble is set in Brighton where I live. It's a psychological thriller about obsession and sleazy sex. It's one of Black Lace's bestselling books. I did none of the stuff in that book and I've never been sexually obsessed. M'lud.

Which is pretty much what I thought she'd say. Nikki Magennis on the other hand, well, does anyone on the blog get called a mucky little tart more often?

Nikki: Oh baby, you'd better believe it ... I've felt desire, longing, love and lust, pain and disappointment. The peripheral acrobatics may be imagined, but the emotions and sensations my characters feel are as real as I can make them. So I may never have turned kinky somersaults on a hill top, or fucked a Norwegian sailor, but in some way I've experienced what matters most ... the rising heartbeat, the dizziness, the hunger of body and heart.

Gwen Masters seems to write so much for so many different people she'd have to have amazing stamina to do it all. Let's see.

Gwen: For every thing I've written about that I've actually done, there is another story that is pure fiction. But I can tell you this ... I can't write about something that doesn't turn me on. So if I haven't done what I write about in the story, you can bet it's one of my naughty fantasies.

And then there's Madeline Moore. Apart from anything else Madeline lives with the erotica author Felix Baron and has won an award for her oral sex scenes (the ones in her book, that is).

Madeline: I have done almost everything I've written about, and the things I haven't done, that I've written about, are things I've thought a lot about doing, wished I could do, or hope someday to do.

I don't doubt she'll get there in the end. Teresa Noelle Roberts is the other half of the Sophie Mouette team along with Dayle A Dermatis.

Teresa: Hardly. I've never stolen jewels, or been a fire-spotter, or set foot on the continent of Asia. Oh, you mean the sexual 'everything'! The answer is still no. I enjoy an interesting and somewhat non-mainstream private life, but I've written about sexual activities I haven't tried and probably never will.

Like Madelynne Ellis, Alana Noel Voth writes wonderful guy/guy erotica – among other wonderful things – so maybe we'll accept that's fictional because she doesn't have a penis. But how about the rest.

Alana: This has driven me nuts for three days, and I finally understand why. It's a ridiculous question!

Meanwhile our cowboy queen Kate Pearce is here and I want to know all about the hot cowboy action she writes.

Kate: Well I've had sex, if that's what you mean. But I'm one of those quiet people who say little, believe in true love and have deep thoughts, most of them incredibly kinky. So that's what I write about.

Hmm, nearly at the end and we haven't had a really dirty confession for a while. But I'm sure we can bank on Alison 'Randy Little Bitch' Tyler for that.

Alison: Oooh, I love this question. [See, she loves it, the randy little bitch!] I only do 83% of what I write about. The trick is to guess which parts are the 17% that I make up. Have I really watched my lover slip into ladies’ panties? Have I really kissed a waiter at my man’s request? I won’t ever tell. But I will tell you this: Tiffany Twisted, in which a boyfriend and girlfriend change bodies for 30 days? Listen, that's absolutely 100% true.

Oh, Alison, with you we know it's more a question of 'Have you written about everything you've done?' So that's us. If you write erotica, why don’t you answer this annoying question too? And if you read erotica, tell us: Do you want the author to be a randy little bitch in real life? Or if a story feels true and you can believe in its characters, is that good enough to satisfy?

What? Oh, me? Come on, you don’t want to know that about me, do you? You do? Well okay then, I'll tell you this much: I have absolutely no imagination, whatsoever.

Tilly aka Mathilde Madden
Official Lust Bites Nosey Parker

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PS (from Kristina Lloyd): We're leading a double-life today. As well as being here, we're also guest blogging on Romance By the Blog. RbtB is a very special place for us. Back in December 2006, our editor was a guest blogger there, several of us joined in the fun, got highly excited, and Lust Bites was conceived that very night. Some of us may remember getting an email which began: The Blogger user Nikki Magennis has invited you to contribute to the private blog: Lust Bites.

I saved that email and it still gives me goosebumps. We had no idea what we were starting. We had no idea if we could sustain it. We had no idea if anybody would be interested in what we had to say. And look at us now! We're flying - and so much of it is thanks to you! Chatters, lurkers, passers-by or guest bloggers - whoever you are, wherever you are, you all add something to Lust Bites. Thank you - we salute you (whatever our sexual kink)! You rock!