The New Rakes

By Nikki Magennis



THE NEW RAKES – Out now!

Hi all! It’s lovely to be back here on Lust Bites, and I’m very excited to bring you a peek of my second novel, The New Rakes, which is out now in the UK. (Okay, nearly now. Tomorrow. If you order it now, they might even slip a sneaky one in the post this very afternoon.)

So, what’s it all about? Well, I wanted the strapline: ‘Sex and sex and rock n roll’, but the editor sensibly went with ‘She’s got a lust for life’.

Here’s the blurb:


The New Rakes are known for the hot, dirty electro music they play in basement gigs all over the city, but lead singer Kara has ambitions beyond underground success.

Fuelled by her sexy performances and the love/hate relationship with her guitarist Tam, the band is poised on the brink of stardom. And when Mike Greene, the charismatic head of a record company, offers The New Rakes a deal, it seems all their hopes are about to be realised.

But Kara and Mike have history - and this time he wants more than a professional relationship. Kara is seduced by his glamorous promises and despite the attempts of Lina, his manipulative ex-girlfriend, she becomes Mike's lover.

As she gets tangled in a web of sex, power and deceit, Kara learns the hard way what success really means. Will she have to choose between the limelight and true love?


What else can I say ... I think the book is very, very dirty. Hopefully dirtysweet. And hopefully intense.

*Sigh*

I’m patently no use at writing promotional copy. Which is why I made a short film instead. Are you sitting comfortably? Voila!




(No paper dolls were harmed during the making of this movie. Well, not much. I glued them back together afterwards.)

Lastly, here’s a wee snippet:

She shoved him up against the white-painted breezeblocks with a force that made him raise an eyebrow and smile at her, even as she was slipping a hand inside the waistband of his trousers and groping for his cock. The shaft sprung up to meet her fingers, plump and promising and already leaking a little drop of pre-come.

It was always a slight shock, feeling Tam’s prick in her hand – like discovering an old friend in an obscene pose. Which was exactly the situation, she decided, letting him grip her wrists and pull them up, swinging her round until she was the one with the hard scrape of the wall behind her.

‘My turn, I think,’ he said, sinking to his knees in front of her and burying his face in her lap. Through the thin fabric of her skirt, the heat of his breath scorched her pussy, turning her molten and making her thankful for the hard wall at her back.

Meanwhile she could feel the wiry strength of his fingers working their way up her legs, pawing at her skin like a cat working its claws. He pushed her clothes aside, shoving her skirt up and tugging her knickers down simultaneously to reveal the light fuzz of her pubic hair and the little deep pink bud of her clit, which he kissed, softly.

Read more at my blog.

And if you’d like a chance to win the book, I’ll be giving away two signed copies today – just say hi in the comment box and tell me which rock star you’d be a groupie for!

Nikki x


Amazon UK

Out on January 6th in the US and Canada – preorder now!

I think I'm in love...

Alison Tyler

That is, I'm in love with this...


I have my author copies in hand. The book is beautiful. The weight. The cover. The fonts. God, I love a good font.

And check out this all-star line-up:

Shanna Germain
Vida Bailey
Jen Cross
Teresa Lamai
Rachel Kramer Bussel
Nikki Magennis
Lisette Ashton
Ryan Field
Brooke Stern
Zaedryn Meade
James Walton Langolf
Kristina Lloyd
Xan West
Sommer Marsden
Donna George Storey
Stephen Elliott
And, um, me.

Here is an excerpt from the intro:

Love is a dangerous game.

No doubt about it.

From the moment your eyes meet, until that first touch, first kiss, first tryst on the living room floor, your emotions run ragged. Your heart races. Every look burns with intensity. Every statement is loaded, filled with double-meanings. You hear things differently. You speak in a brand-new language.

But love in a pain-pleasure relationship—well, that just ratchets things up another notch. His hand on the back of your neck is no longer the prelude to a sweet caress. It’s the move before he puts you in your place, drops you to your knees, shows you who’s in charge...

One from Kristina's delicious story:

He twisted the fabric tight, wringing it into a tail which he tucked behind me, leaving me exposed from the waist downwards. He stooped for more raspberries then, pulling the elastic, he slid his hand into those tight white panties and crushed soft red berries into my cunt. His leather fingers paddled and probed, mashing me and the fruit into one glorious pulpy crimson mess.

I groaned, wanting to slide down the tree in mindless, soporific lust. He took more berries, pushing them higher into me this time, his hard, leathered fingers stirring in my hole. I felt like I was part of a recipe: insert fruit and mix well. Around us, trees whispered in the breeze, a bee buzzed somewhere at ground level, and I could feel my face flushing with shame and arousal.

Brett watched me, his blue-grey eyes shy and fascinated. “Is it good?” he smiled, fingers still working.

I could barely speak. “Fuck, yes,” I breathed. “So good … it’s so good.”

And from the back cover:

Whether you dream of surrendering to a lover or of taking control, the dark fantasies and heart-pounding suspense of erotic bondage in Love at First Sting will have you begging for more...

XXX,
Alison

My cat is purring
And scratches my skin
So what is wrong
With another sin

The bitch is hungry
She needs to tell
So give her inches
And feed her well
—The Scorpions

P.S. I'll be giving away a copy of Love at First Sting - the book and the CD. (And, no, you can't get one without the other. I insist on sending you a copy of the Scorpions' CD along with the book. Deal with it.) How can you win? Post a comment. Extra points for clever ones. No pressure. I'll choose one randy (I mean "random") commenter. Winner will be posted in the Coming Attractions on Sunday. And Sommer, you can't win. Your contributor copies are on their way. I swear!

Sex with Strangers

By Nikki Magennis

To my mind, sex can be many things. It can be transcendental, angry, healing, tender, frightening, funny, or sad. Sex with someone you love has got to be one of the most wonderful experiences in the world.

But what about sex with someone you don’t give a damn about, beyond liking their cute smile or tightly-packed body (Or, and I do feel a little rueful about this one – their shoes)? What about sex with someone you don’t even know?

Is it reckless, dangerous, sexy, stupid or wild? Perhaps all of the above?

Can we get away with it these days without the usual labels peppering the air? Slut, slag, trollop, whore, easy. Dirty stop-out.

Ah, been there, done that. Made the T shirt.

I remember the walk of shame. Making your way home at dawn in last night’s clothes. Sleepless, bedraggled, sated. Torn tights and smudged eyeliner. So louche. So obviously recently fucked.

Sex with someone you don’t know is such an adventure – everything is possible. No ties, no promises, no safety net. No heartache, no responsibility, no jealousy. Just a brief taste of pleasure, and the comfort of strangers.

I always thought it was so simple and beautiful - two people catching each other's eye, smiling. Letting nature and the madness of summer nights take their course. With no artifice or pretence, just the song of the body and all the rich, foreign smells of a new lover. The sex tasted all the sweeter for being so inevitably brief.

I don’t go out on the hunt anymore. Once you’re happily shackled to one man there’s no need or opportunity. But in stories the writer (and reader) is free to pick up strangers, fuck them and move on to the next one with no hard feelings. Black Lace’s latest Wicked Words anthology: ‘Sex with Strangers’, released today in the US, is full of short, sweet never-to-be-repeated adventures that fuel those dangerous daydreams.

I have two stories in this book - both about women who find that fucking someone they don’t know broadens their horizons. As a little taste, here is the moment the artist in ‘Art of Fucking’ gets down and dirty with her life model.

(I think it’s fitting that they’re both nameless...)

*****

The distance reduced to zero and his mouth was on me, wet lips covering mine in a warm shock. All of a sudden the cold tension of the studio was flooded with sensation - the quiet Northern light was eclipsed by the movement of this man against me, his hot human aliveness crashing into my world, encircling me, gripping me in those naked, marble smooth arms. Everything was dark, but dark in the way of flesh, with a heartbeat and a pulse and the vivid animal sounds filling my ears.

I didn’t pull away, and I didn’t miss the smell of love in the air. Instead, I felt the delicious surprise of an unfamiliar man kissing me, and the want and the need to feel him closer yet.

Michelangelo always said the sculpture was already in the stone, and he just had to work out how to find it. When the model kissed me, it felt like he’d found a new image of me, of what I could be. Like he’d dug out the long-forgotten, reckless girl I used to be from where she was buried deep in the cold hard rock and brought me back to life.

His prick was stiffening, pressing against my leg, while he slid his tongue into my mouth and we tasted each other.

'A mouthful of fun,' Sandy had said.

I'd never been so hungry in my life. I knelt.

The wood planks of the studio floor were hard under my knees as I took hold of the guy's hips and pulled him towards me. I buried my face in his pubic hair, letting it scratch against my mouth. His cock bobbed against my cheek and I nuzzled at it, feeling the smoothness and the heat of what I'd been longing for for months. I'd spent a half hour looking at his body, trying to recreate it on paper, but drawing his beauty was nowhere near close enough to this. Touching him, taking him in my mouth, sucking on him. Tasting the bittersweet honey of his pre-cum as his cock swelled and grew rock hard.

Fuck drawing, I thought. It doesn’t get to the heart of the matter. I realised just how flat a picture can be as his hands tangled in my hair and I pulled at his ass, sticking a fingertip into his hole and feeling the corresponding spasm in his cock. This wasn't static, everything was in motion, stimulating all my senses at once and we were sinking inside each other, intertwining, pushing and pulling at each other. He was tumbling down to kneel in front of me and his hands were burrowing into my clothes, seeking out the pockets of heat, the dark and wet spots that connected straight to my brain.

His fingers ran into my knickers, slid quickly between my thighs and into my pussy. A slight resistance, before he found the groove and the moisture of my pussy and dove into it. Two fingers, three, jammed inside me, opening me up, wriggling in there with a funny little shock before I felt the rhythm of it, the to and fro rocking that made me feel like my body was caught in a tide. Waves ebbing and flowing, he was imitating the beat of sex that would sink into me and pull me under.

*****

Find ‘A Whole New City’ and ‘The Art of Fucking’, as well as stories by Mathilde Madden, Teresa Noelle Roberts, Olivia Knight, Sophie Mouette, Kristina Lloyd and ADR Forte in Sex With Strangers.

...Don't be a stranger! Say hello in the comments and I'll pick someone at random to win a copy of 'Sex with Strangers' signed by moi.

x Nikki

Write Sex Week: Day Five

by Kristina Lloyd and Nikki Magennis

Ain’t she a doll?

Yes, you’re looking at Lust Bites Monster Woman: pieces of us as patched together by Dr Nikki Frankenstein Magennis!

Heck – and you thought this week’s debates were scary. All we need is a bolt of lightning and this honey could be walking, talking and inviting you back to her place. LBMW hasn’t yet been named. Any ideas?

LBMW, you’ll notice, is a tad underdressed so Alison Tyler and Nikki Franki have been busy sewing T-shirts to clothe the poor lovely. And they have made a Lust Bites shop! Check it out in the sidebar on the right. Scroll down a bit. And a bit more. Mmm, yes, just a touch lower, yes, yes, there, ohhhh yes! Our shop. I'm so proud. And we are open for business. You can buy knickers with our name on! And T-shirts and mugs and you can hire hot men to come visit you and tattoo I heart Lust Bites across your buttocks!

Anyway, it’s been a fun week, hasn’t it? We must do it again sometime.

Thanks to all who played Guess the Gender. Alas, no one got all 7 excerpts correct, not even The Gender Genie. Nikki and Amy S got 5, so I think Amy S gets the prize. Amy S email us at, erm, oh bollocks ... at lustbitesladies AT yahoo DOT com (Hey, don’t look at me, ladies and gents. I didn’t choose the address.)

And here are the answers with some maths I did. The correct answers with the % who guessed right is highlighted in purple. For the full excerpts, check out Write Sex Week: Day One.

1/ She said, did I want her to show me what women like. I said yes.

You said: Female 46% Male 54% Gender Genie: Female Answer: FEMALE

From: Susanna Moore, In The Cut – a book loved by many Lusties, I suspect, and I am one of them.

2/ Hot-skinned and sticky about our thighs, the poet plucked me from the rock.

You said: Female 92% Male 8% Gender Genie: Female Answer: MALE

From: Lindsay Gordon, The Bond (Nexus), aka super-stylish, kink-packed vampire porn written by our very own editor, Adam Nevill of Black Lace Towers. Yes, vampires! Missy and Hank are on the run in the US of A. The whole book is female POV and I really don't know what it means that the male editor of a women-only imprint managed to fool nearly everyone into thinking he was a female author. He probably menstruates in synch with us.

3/ "Please," she repeated in a whisper as the cold stream of lubricant drizzled into her crack.

You said: Female 31% Male 69% Gender Genie: Female Answer: MALE

From: Carl Kennedy in Best Bondage Erotica (ed. Alison Tyler)

4/ How delightfully cruel he could be. And how part of her responded

You said: Female 62% Male 38% Gender Genie: Male Answer: FEMALE

From: Cleo Cordell, The Crimson Buccaneer (not DH Lawrence as was suggested). Cleo Cordell wrote for Black Lace in the 90s. The book seems to be out of print, otherwise I'd link to it.

5/ His cock slid between her lips effortlessly. She parted for him, taking him in

You said: Female 62% Male 38% Gender Genie: "The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is unknown." Answer: FEMALE

From: Sommer Marsden in Love at First Sting (ed. Alison Tyler) – ha, yes Sommer (aka Smut Girl), you managed to baffle the Gender Genie with a 50/50 split, you crafty little hermaphrodite, you.

6/ I was hungry to get my cunt stuffed with his dick again

You said: Female 69% Male 31% Gender Genie: Female Answer: FEMALE

From: a Lust Biter who ought to wash her mouth out with soap and water. 'Cynic', whoever you are, you were spot on: taken from a girlie mag, a reader’s letter as made up by the sub editor. Gawd, sub editing a porn mag. Some people will do anything for money.

7/ He has the most tender mouth, large and pink and powerful.

You said: Female 77% Male 15% Erastes (who clearly has her own gender) 8% Gender Genie: Male Answer: MALE

From: Joseph Olshan, Night Swimmer – I adore this book. It’s one of my favourites.

Anyway, that quiz was obviously just for fun but the results do raise some interesting questions about perceived notions of linguistic expression of gender identity within a heteronormative and patriarchal ...

SHUT UP! SHUT UP, I say! My ears are bleeding! The weekend starts tomorrow! I vote we all kick off our shoes (oooh, look - Jeremy already did) and play mass-footsie.

Many, many thanks to our brave/foolish manbloggers, Felix, Huck and Jeremy, and to all who've been with us this week. It's been emotional. Now please everyone, go buy a shameless Lust Bites T-shirt, and treat yourself to extra of whatever you fancy this weekend! I think we've earned it, man, woman and Erastes alike.

Cheers!
Kristina X

PS Next week, on the eve of the shortest night of the year in the North (ie Wed 20th June), Alison Tyler will be asking for your flash fiction - saucy snips of a 100 words or so. Alison will be picking her favourites and there will be prizes! Obviously, it's only open to women ... no, no! I'm joking! Anyone can enter, even the hedgehogs! Mark it in your diaries: Midsummer Quickies on Lust Bites, and get writing.

Write Sex Week: Day Four

A week full of boy blogs really wouldn't be complete without a visit from one of our favourite erotica writers,Jeremy Edwards, who has kindly offered us not only a post but a naked picture.

Really, what more could a girl ask for?

Take it away, Senor Edwards:


Being a male erotica author, there are places I'm automatically
ineligible for publication. How do I feel about that?

Pretty good, actually.

Isn't it discriminatory?

Technically, maybe. But not really, in my opinion.

Isn't it unfair?

I don't think so, all things considered.

Here's how I see it: We live in a world in which women have been
second-class citizens--or worse--through most of history, in almost
every human society. To this day, women as a group are, to one extent
or another, subordinated by patriarchal societies virtually
everywhere.

For example, in the U.S. (where I reside), this translates into a
continuing wage gap between men and women; persisting double standards
regarding sexual freedom; and governmental policies that willfully and
viciously restrict access to birth control and sex education (and we
all know which sex that affects most severely).

And that's the mild form of subordination. In other parts of the
world, a woman can still be sentenced to death for actual or alleged
sexual activity, by governments wedded to misogynistic ideologies.
Now, those societies are not the places where erotica is being
published, and so they are not directly related to this discussion;
but I mention the grim fact of their existence simply as part of the
big picture of women's lives in twenty-first-century human society.

Bearing all of this in mind, I think, in our world, that it's very
understandable that some women, seeking autonomy and independence and
fulfillment, will insist on certain cultural spaces to call their own.
Places where the content is not only "for women," but also by
women. Places where women, and women alone, articulate their own
needs, their own concerns, their own problems, and their own
fantasies.

Nikki butts in: Articulating our fantasies? This calls for more naked men!

(The other Jeremy Edwards.)

And I think it's no surprise that the broad area of sexuality--from
the erotic arts to sexual health to sexual self-discovery--is one
where it can be particularly important for women to have that room of
their own. Because we live in a world in which women's sexual needs,
in particular, have been ignored, denied, misunderstood, and even
demonized for century after century, by society after society.

On the one hand, consider the phenomenon of a dominant group shutting
out an oppressed group (e.g., White people barring African Americans
from their clubs, or heterosexual parade organizers prohibiting gay
groups from participating in their festivities). On the other hand,
picture a subordinated group restricting participation in its
activities to members of that group (e.g., a ballroom dance class for
lesbian couples only). The difference between these two types of
scenarios is, in my opinion, a critical one. The former type of
instance is an expression of bigotry, whereas the latter represents an
attempt to secure a little independence and autonomy. These two types
of "discrimination" are just not the same.

I'm not presuming to say that the strong, self-actualized women who
publish with a company like Black Lace are personally oppressed or
victimized by male-dominated society. Nor am I asserting that about
their readers. But I think there are good reasons for the fact that
some women want to read erotic books put out by an all-female team
(it's not just something created out of thin air by marketers), and
these reasons have to do with the historical and contemporary position
of women in a patriarchal world. In that context, I think that "by
and for women" enterprises represent a legitimate and healthy response
to the continuing struggle of women to claim their fulfillment and
dignity in a world that still has a long, long way to go.

If the day comes that women run the world and guys like me have no
place left to publish our smut, then I'll protest. Until then, I say
long live the cultural spaces that women have designated as their own.
May they blossom, thrive . . . and provide all of us with some damn
sexy reading.

Jeremy Edwards

Jeremy Edwards is a pseudonymous sort of fellow whose efforts at
spinning libido into literature have been published various places
online, as well as in print anthologies. His greatest goal in life is
to be sexy and witty at the same moment--ideally in lighting that
flatters his profile.

A huge thanks to Jeremy for baring his um, innermost thoughts...now it's your turn! Let us know what you think about feminism, literature and Jeremy's Big Fedora...

Write Sex Week: Day Three

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Coming Attractions

Sex, spies and videotape

Mathilde has gone to an international top secret werewolf convention, so today Special Agent Magennis is stepping in to her very kinky shoes to let you know how what the week brings.

Next week is looking rather racy. In fact, it’s rather like the XXX files…

On Monday Alison meets Barry Eisler in a secret location. We’re excited about this for several reasons: An ex CIA covert agent, Barry has travelled the world, mastered martial arts, written many thrillers, and has that whole rugged, stubbly, I-could-kill-you-but-instead-I’m-going-to-seduce-you thing going on. Lustbites donned our leather cat suits to ask him probing questions about his weapon (while giggling nervously from the other side of the Atlantic) and his bestselling ‘John Rain’ thrillers. Miss it at your peril.

If you’ve recovered from the excitement by Wednesday, join Madeline Moore as she interviews the lovely Sage Vivant, owner of Custom Erotica Source, editor of many lush erotica books, and author of ‘Your Erotic Personality.’

On Friday, gird your loins as the ever-generous Alison Tyler returns to offer a peek into her next anthology – ‘Got a minute’: a collection of super-short and super-sexy erotic tales that should set you up nicely for the weekend.

And finally, as a special treat, Murray Suid will be dropping by on Saturday to tell us about his book ‘Words of a Feather’ and the tangled history of language. If you’d like to know more about the connection between ‘bondage’ and ‘husband’, be sure to visit.

So your mission should you choose to accept it, is to join us as we go undercover with the hot spy, work out our erotic personality disorders and sample some sizzling etymologically correct erotica, all in less than sixty seconds. I think…

Giveaways are likely, but I can’t tell you any more or I’d have to kill you.

Agent Magennis
Working undercover for your reading pleasure

Girlcrush Wednesday

Uma The Great

To celebrate International Women’s Day tomorrow we’ve gone all womanly (well, even more than usual) and today is our first Girl Crush Wednesday.

And I got to pick the first girl for us to get all Sapphic over!

I toyed with Winona, flirted with Maggie, and even gave the entire cast of the Mediaeval Baebes a bit of an eye. But in the end, it had to be Uma.

She was deliciously wicked in Pulp Fiction. She even looks good in a yellow jumpsuit. She manages to make everything she touches look sexy, without ever looking like she’s even trying.

The crooked nose and the big sulky mouth. The way she’s kind of gangly and curvy at the same time. The lovely bosom and the big knuckles (why yes, I have a kind of a thing for big knuckles, since you ask!). The way she wields a motherfucking huge big sword….Hmm, yup, if I got to pick a girl to share my pillow with, it would have to be Uma.

Of course there's more to Women's Day than perving over hot girls. But, this being Lustbites, we're kind of focussed on the sexy side of things.

So, support IWD! Name your girl crush! Nominate the chick you'd like to lick!

(Uh, was that taking it too far?)

; )

Sexy v Beautiful

‘Just standing around looking beautiful is so boring…’
- Michelle Pfeiffer

Ah, Michelle. I feel your pain.

Actually, I don’t, because like most of the world, I don’t have a ticket to the Beautiful Club. They can be bought, of course, at huge expense and if you’re willing to spend a lot of time – a lot of time – primping and waxing and grooming and pouting. Air brush and botox and stand the right way and try not to smile too hard, and you might be allowed in to worship at the altar of Supermodel.

Like most young girls, I wanted to grow up and be beautiful. (Brush your hair a hundred times. Wash your face in the morning dew. Work on that blank expression.) Unfortunately I’ve failed so far - to either grow up or be beautiful.

Yet there was a moment, a few years ago, when I was looking in the mirror and despairing at my flaw-ridden reflection, and a light bulb went on.

I may never be beautiful, but fuck, I could be sexy. Sexy like Marilyn or Peaches or Debbie Harry or Macy Gray or Eartha Kitt or Patti Smith. (Feel free to add your own version of sexy to the list here).

Sexy is so much more various than beautiful. More powerful.

‘Hips, tits, lips, power.’
– Big Bad Baby Pigsqueal, by Silverfish

While the beautiful people are standing carefully on the red carpet, one hip arranged at the right angle and chin down, trying not to smile too hard, the sexy woman is out mud-wrestling in a ripped dress, screwing her hair up and not giving a flying fuck. A sexy woman has a sense of humour. A sexy woman doesn’t worry about her manicure when she’s raking her nails down a man’s back.



Really, all Beauty is fit for is preserving behind glass. It’s dazzling, sure, and we shrink before it. ‘It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness’ (– that’s Leo Tolstoy, and I’m not going to argue with him.)
But show me a beautiful character that has any hint of a pulse, and I’ll eat my eyelash curlers. There’s something cold about beauty, at least, beauty as we’re led to believe – cold perfection, symmetrical features, flawless skin. Aiming for size zero.


Yes, a woman knows she is beautiful when her dress size tells her she has ceased to exist. That’s the point. Beauty is a chimera. We’re being sold the Emperor’s New Clothes, because really there is no such thing as beautiful.

‘Even I don’t wake up looking like Cindy Crawford’
– Cindy Crawford

But, now, let’s have a look at sexy. You can smell sexy. It’s about how you move, the certain quality of your smile, an attitude that knows all about the body and its mysterious, pulsing, sweating, heart-racing, blood-pounding ways. It has body hair and breasts and balls and fluids. (Yes, I realise I’ve just created a monster. Bear with me).

The point is, Sexy is about revealing our real self, gloriously flawed. It’s not about struggling to erase all the signs that show one is human in the pursuit of a mathematically perfect ideal.

Only one person decides if you're sexy or not - that's you. It’s about heat, and the suggestion of softness. How your flesh would feel cupped in the palm of a hand. It’s about feeling skin against skin and tasting the mouth of your lover and feeling that beat start inside you that turns your knees weak and makes you hungry and knowing that your body is meant for more than just decoration.
It’s about dancing like no-one is watching, the taste of chocolate ice cream, how your body jiggles when you move. Most of all, of course, it’s about fucking.

No one can stay beautiful and make love. I mean, have you ever seen yourself in the act? Face screwed up and sweating and mouth hanging open and hanging upside down off the edge of the bed is not a flattering pose.

Most of all, being sexy is about being a real, live, fuckable human being.

And that’s why when I’m writing, I look for the things that are ‘wrong’ about a character. All the ugliness that makes a character (or a person) unique and fascinating and memorable, also makes them real enough to fall in love with.

‘Give me a ruined complexion and a lost figure and sixteen chins on a farmyard of Crow’s feet and an obvious wig. Then you shall see me coming out strong.’
- George Bernard Shaw, to Mrs Patrick Campbell.

I say keep your Beauty. Give me ugly, give me crooked teeth and a soft belly and funny feet and a squint, and I shall show you sexy.



How about you?

The Erotic Circus

‘…Even as she convulsed with the orgasm, she knew somewhere within herself that this abandon was what drove her, what she had always been chasing, as she danced and flirted and listened for the roar of the crowd out beyond the stage. The sensation of being fucked beyond reason was the same as that of dancing herself to a frenzy, surrendering to the desires of the audience, of her lovers, her own body.’

I wrote Circus Excite over the course of one intense and feverish summer. I was in love with everything – my new boyfriend, my first book contract, the circus that I was creating inside my head.

I was terrified too, of course. Along with My First Contract came My First Deadline. White knuckle typing.

I’d been working for this for years. Only, I hadn’t considered what writing erotica would mean to me. A smut writer? How sexy, frightening, outrageous and strange.

Circus Excite is Julia’s story – how she falls in love with the life and idea of the circus: brazen, fantastic, louche and romantic. But as I wrote the book, I found it was as much of an adventure for me as it was for my heroine.

Writing such private, secret, intimate thoughts down on paper scared me. It was something like the dreams you have as a kid about turning up at school naked. Because I found I could only write the scenes if they turned me on – there’s a fierce honesty in writing erotica that meant I had to lay bare my darkest inner self.

In the book the ringmaster (ah! the ringmaster!) leads Julia through her sexual awakening, manipulates her actions and dares her to shock him. He teaches Julia to love the ethos of the circus - a place where nothing is as it appears. From the darkness of the tent come dazzling spectacles, freaks and clowns, glitter and smoke and mirrors…

I had a ball researching. I spent the summer visiting circuses and burlesque shows. I saw the beautiful Speigeltent, and interviewed the lovely Foxy Rouge. I have a box full of ticket stubs and articles on Blackpool Pleasure Beach, stills from Moulin Rouge and notes from the Chinese State Circus. Circus is a visual feast.
Eroticism blends beautifully with the whole idea of circus. Both are a celebration of fantasy, and both are unashamedly hedonistic. Both are also often a guilty pleasure, seen as separate from other more ‘serious’ arts. But as my character learnt to love the circus, so I learned to love writing erotica. It became a playground for my fantasies, somewhere I could let my imagination run wild.

Under the ringmaster’s influence, Julia finds the courage to explore her kinks. The other performers were fabulous opportunities to try out different scenarios – the earthy, fuckable Joe and the enigmatic Sylvie are two of my favourites. Their encounters with Julia are usually woven into their acts, so they become part of the whole circus. Contortion, illusion, and acrobatics become sex scenes. The difference between the highly charged performances and life backstage blurs.

As the circus tours, Julia grows stronger. She discovers more about her sexuality and her love of performance, until at the climax she has the confidence to …

But I can’t give away all the secrets here, now can I? If you want to know the full story, you’ll have to buy a ticket to CIRCUS EXCITE…




amazon.co.uk
::
amazon.com


Visit Nikki's blog for a taste of Circus Excite

Emergency lustbites alert! A near-naked man needs our help! My brand new crush Romain Duris, from the beat that my heart skipped seems to be having a style crisis.
Look, he's lying there all clueless. Poor boy. First of all, let's remove those horrendous underpants, shall we? The less said about the bed linen the better...