This is the place where my heart is buried. Today, the building has been demolished along with the dirty park beside it, both replaced by patio seating for an upscale sports bar, but on that spot of earth I fucked and loved and cried and shouted along with dozens of bands and was shamed and saw my lovers in the arms of others and performed my poetry to acclaim or to mockery and was praised and shouted at and became someone.
“Whoa, do we really need that many spatulas on our wedding registry? We don’t cook that much. I don’t even know what half those things are called.” Sarah rested a hand on my shoulder and peered at the items I’d checked off on the department store’s list of suggestions.
“I wasn’t thinking of cooking,” I confessed. Her eyes lit up, and I knew what she’d remembered.
One day, after she’d put me on the adductor machine and had me squeeze my thighs together against heavy resistance, I gave in to the urge that had been building. I rushed home, ripped off my sweats, and jumped into the bathtub with my vibrator in hand. I held myself in a half crunch (careful to pretend I had an orange under my chin for proper neck position), and stayed that way until my pulse pounded like a jackhammer and it felt like every drop of blood in my body had gathered just below my tightened abs. I shoved the vibrator deep inside my cunt, switched it to maximum intensity, then clenched every muscle in my body until I came. As I gasped and shuddered, hot water splashing around my shaking thighs, I could have sworn I heard Shira’s voice, counting off the spasms.
In all my confusion, when I ask myself what I honestly want, or what my identity actually is, it doesn't hurt to think back to how I acted then, when I didn't yet know better than to be myself.
When Evelyn gets ready, it takes an army. Saturday night, the first time I was included in her entourage, she left instructions for me with Beau, her "concierge" and date for the evening. Dressed in a pinstripe suit, Beau met me at the front door of Evelyn's modest but lavishly decorated two-story home. "The safeword tonight is 'red.' She wants you to be the makeup table."
"A table?" I echoed, blinking. I'd been ready for "foot servicer" or even "mirror holder," but being an inanimate object hadn't really been on my personal menu.
I glanced down at my own suit, thinking about how carefully I'd gotten ready, slicking down my hair, packing something special for Evelyn. The table idea made me feel a little affronted. Beau was handsome, sure, with sweet, baby-blue eyes that promised plenty of favors, but I couldn't help sizing her up. I clocked more hours at the gym, had a couple inches on her, and felt a lot of confidence in my ability to handle a cock. I managed not to ask why she got to be the date while I got stuck being the table, but just barely.
Beau clapped me on the arm. "You're a strapping young butch with a broad back, Al. She wants to see how strong you are." I didn't miss the way Beau said she—the word carried the full force of Evelyn's fearsome femininity, but was also laced with enough proprietary intimacy to rub in the fact that Beau, not I, would play the part of Boi Charming that evening.
I ducked my head and nodded. I may not have known how exactly I could be a makeup table, but I wasn't about to lose my shot at being part of Evelyn's preparation. The club night we were supposedly getting her ready for was only a victory lap for her—everyone knew the real party was right here, right now.
"Rita will take care of setting you up," Beau told me before leaving the foyer, straightening her cravat as she went.
Rita showed up seconds later, an elegant, curvaceous brunette who would have made my mouth water if not for the thought of Evelyn. She led me to a room with no furnishings aside from a floor lamp, a thick, soft carpet, velvet wall hangings, for God's sake, and gold and crystal chandeliers. I hadn't thought real people actually liked stuff like that.
Catching my glance toward the lamp, Rita grinned, giving me a glimpse of the white teeth and delicately pointed tongue behind her full, pinup-red lips. "Be glad she didn't cast you as the lamp tonight." Her appraising stare caressed up and down each of my arms. I succumbed to ego and flexed under her scrutiny. "You might have the muscle to hold your arms out straight for her for three or so hours, but as a table, you'll be closer to the action."
Rita stepped toward me, and her perfume flooded my senses with the burnt-sugar bite of my favorite liqueur-laced dessert. She landed one impossibly soft hand on my arm. The more she looked at me with her big, brown eyes, which were passionate and warm despite the metallic colors that glittered on her face around them, the more I started to think that maybe Evelyn wasn't the main event after all. Rita was getting me achingly hard, making me constantly aware of my favorite cock lying against my thigh.
As if sensing the turn my thoughts had taken, Rita rewarded me with another slow, sly smile. Her fingers tightened on my arm. "As the table, you'll have to be good for me, because I'm the makeup girl."
MakerSex: Erotic Stories of Geeks, Hackers, and DIY Projects
Edited by Annabeth Leong
Deadline: September 30, 2014
Maker culture mashes together technological enthusiasm and a DIY punk ethos. It is about learning and doing, shaping the world, getting around the system, and making strange new things because you can. Skill is powerful, subversive—and sexy. Send me stories infused with the scent of hot solder, the flash of fabric sewn with conductive thread, the thrill of ingenuity, and the hotness of all things becoming possible. Your DIY stories could be near-future science fiction or cyberpunk, but they could also take place in far-flung galaxies, in the garage of a ham-radio enthusiast, or in the shadowy workshops of hacker mages. I want to believe in the plausibility of your DIY world, but that doesn’t require a technical manual. Give me a story that’s as much driven by hot sex and changing characters as it is by compelling projects and technical acumen.
All sexualities and gender expressions are welcome. Kink is welcome. I would particularly love to see worlds that recognize people of color and people of all genders as participating in Maker culture.
This e-book anthology is being edited by Annabeth Leong for Circlet Press. Annabeth has written stories for many anthologies including Circlet’s Like A Trip Through the Mirror, Like a Chill Down Your Spine, and What Lies Beneath.
For submission details, read on.
Length: Preferred length for this book is approximately 3000 to 6000 words, but we will consider the range from 2000 to 8,000 words. Query if you have something outside those ranges that seems otherwise fitting.
How to Submit: All submissions must be made via email to Annabeth Leong, editor, at the following email address: Annabeth.Circlet@outlook.com
Submissions sent to other addresses/other editors at Circlet Press will not be considered. Standard manuscript formatting rules apply even though sending as an attachment (MS Word .doc or .rtf preferred). Please note that this means your name, address, and email contact must appear on the manuscript itself and not simply in your email message. (If you’re not sure what a standard short story submission format should look like, Google is your friend.)
No simultaneous submissions (that is, don’t also send your story elsewhere at the same time, and don’t send it to multiple Circlet editors, either), and no multiple submissions to the same book. One story per author per anthology, thanks.
All stories must include explicit sexuality and erotic focus. Romantic content is welcome, but in a short story remember to keep the details on the action and its effects on the main character’s internal point of view. We favor a strong, singular narrative voice (no ‘head hopping’ or swapping between different character’s points of view within a scene). For more details on our editorial preferences, see the general submission guidelines on circlet.com. We highly recommend reading the guidelines, especially the “do not send” list, to increase your chances of sending us something we’ll love. Try to avoid cliches. Fresh and direct language is preferred to overly euphemistic. Sex-positive, please, no rape/nonconsensuality/necrophilia or other purposefully gross topics. We do not publish horror.
Originals only, no reprints. We purchase first rights for inclusion in the ebook anthology for $25, with the additional rights to a print edition later which would also be paid $25 if a print edition happens. Authors retain the rights to the individual stories; Circlet exercises rights to the anthology as a whole.
Desire can move the poorest man to take wing.
Curiosity can entice the smallest fairy to greatness.
Passion can drive the purest angel to fall.
And then there's the devils...
Flight has captured the human imagination for centuries, inspiring poets and lovers alike to greater heights. Is the exhilaration of soaring better even than sex? Is the ecstasy of a lover's touch worth more than all the feathers in heaven? Is one moment of passion on the wind worth the risk of a lifetime?
Here are seven erotic flights of fantasy, from gritty dystopian futures and surreal urban discoveries to mythic romances and fleeting moments of enchantment.
Includes:
Wingman by Catherine King
Valkyrie's Child by Ann Gimpel
Underneath It All by Kailin Morgan
Devilish Trick by L.D. Durham
Falling Into Her Arms by Laylah Hunter
Icarus Bleeds by Annabeth Leong
Elf Esteem by Nobilis Reed
Icarus, a man on the run, dreams of wings, and of taking flight like the surgically modified rich and famous of Central City. The hacker who harbors him will do anything to keep him, including paying for the dangerous operation in a back alley chop shop. Neither can imagine how much the wings will truly cost. (M/M)
“Are you scared?”
“No.”
“Open up for me.”
I pressed one finger in, and his body went stiff in my grip. He drew a shaking breath and writhed to get away, suddenly fighting me where before there had been only acquiescence. My hand froze, then eased out of him. He lay gasping in my arms.
“OK, maybe I am scared.”
I managed some compassion for the first time in a while. “Do you want to stop?”
He stayed silent for so long that I was tempted to take the lack of words as tacit permission and start playing with his ass again. I forced myself to wait, clenching my fingers to keep them still.
“No,” he said finally, though I had to strain to hear him. “I want you.”
“You do?” I could not keep the shock out of my voice. In response, he only nodded, keeping his face turned away. “Why?”
He shrugged, pulled my hand back toward his ass. I wanted to roll him onto his belly and just fuck him. Hard, triumphant victory filled my chest. But his expression of desire had destroyed my appetite for cruelty. I rubbed his back as my finger resumed teasing his hole, as gently and sweetly as I could. “Tell me about a beautiful thing,” I said. “Something that you think about that might help you relax.”
“Wings.” I felt his smile where his face pressed against my chest, but also in the sigh that passed over his body along with the word, leaving Icarus transformed in its wake.
“The wings of birds? Airplanes?” His ass had changed so much that it was almost sucking my finger in. I wanted to keep him talking.
“The wings of men,” Icarus sighed. “In the Central City, within the walls, you see them flying all hours of day and night. You know they’re not angels, but they look like they are. That’s not even the point, though. They go so high. It looks like almost to the sun. And it’s got to all look so different up there. You’ve got to feel free.”
I’d gotten two fingers into his ass by then, and had my other hand stroking his cock and balls. He shuddered with pleasure now as I worked my fingers in and out of him and dropped kisses along his neck and shoulder blade. I got a little distracted trying to place his accent. He had the flat, universal sound most of us have picked up from the Internet, but something changed when he mentioned Central City. I didn’t think there were any black people in the upper echelon. As a courtesy, I never looked into my clients’ histories while I obscured them, but now I wondered who he was.
A little whimper brought me back to more pressing concerns, and the need to help him stay inside his fantasy. “You ever seen one of those angel-men on the ground?”
A nod. “I used to climb up to the top of the Skywalk. They like to land up there. The view is nice, and there’s a good restaurant. That restaurant has towels for them, to wipe off the condensation they pick up from flying through the clouds.”
I grunted. “To wipe off sweat, more likely.”
“No!” The innocent wonder in his voice made me feel old. “Their faces have little frost crystals on them. Their wings are pale because the blood shrinks back in the skin under the feathers when it gets cold. When they warm up again, the wings get a rosy glow from the blood returning."
“You know a lot about this.” I slid a third finger into him. At this rate, he’d be ready for my cock sooner than I could have hoped.
“The operation is too expensive.”
“It doesn’t have to be.” I shouldn’t have said that, but my pulsing cock had destroyed my thinking by then. I needed inside him, and those words seemed like my golden key. I twisted my fingers, stroking the inner walls of his ass, while I pumped his cock with my other hand. Icarus moaned and pressed back toward me.
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing is impossible, kid. Outside of Central City, we learn to take what we want.”
“You really think so?”
“Hell, yes, I think so.”
He closed his eyes, obviously caught in his dream of flight. His whole body softened, except for his cock, which had gotten so hard it was quivering. I put on the rubber, lubed up my cock, and took a chance, lining up the head and holding my breath as I eased my way in.
Icarus made a little sound in the back of his throat. “You think I could—”
“Get wings yourself. Yeah.” I spoke between gritted teeth, probing ever deeper with my cock. “I can just see how pretty those wings would look on you, spread out to either side of your hot little body, feathers brushing this round ass of yours, your muscles rippling while you pump those wings up and down.”
I was fully fucking him by then, gaining confidence in the power of these magical words I had discovered. His ass welcomed my every stroke. Beneath me, he whimpered and arched his back, taking me in to the hilt. “Yes,” he whispered. I wasn’t sure if he approved of my cock or my words, but I didn’t really care.
I grabbed his shoulders. “You could fly up past the buildings. Up even higher than the clouds.” I fucked him so hard my words came out as gasps. “Big, wide wings. Tall wings. Whatever color feathers you want.”
His ass, for all of its compliance, massaged my cock with such a tight and persistent grip that every inch I sank into Icarus sent nerves tingling down to my feet and up to my head. I was seconds from orgasm, babbling incoherently by then, spewing out whatever wing-related words I could think of. A man will say some stupid things when his cock is happy, especially when it hasn’t been for a long time.
“You find somewhere to get wings,” I panted. “I’ll take you there and help you check them out. Hell, I could even pay for it.”
