The Mark and the Caul: Origin Story

Hi!

I'm participating in the blog tour for Sacchi Green's Witches, Princess, and Women at Arms, which includes my story, "The Mark and the Caul."

The idea of the book was to tell lesbian fairy tales, either original or adapted from classic stories. I sometimes enjoy going through my volume of Grimm classics and coming up with something fascinating and obscure, and that's what I did here.

"The Mark and the Caul" is loosely based on "The Devil With the Three Golden Hairs." If you read the synopsis, you'll see some of the themes I picked up: a child born with a caul, and an associated prophecy; and a king determined to thwart that prophecy. My character, Sam, overlaps with this character. She's good at being in the right place at the right time, just like the character in the original.

My other main character, Lucinda, emerged as the flip side to this process. I mostly invented her in response to the questions the story seemed to ask.

I think that's a wild thing when it happens. For one thing, "The Devil With the Three Golden Hairs" is extremely dense. I covered only the beginning of the story in my rather long entry to Sacchi Green's book. On the other hand, it leaves so much mysterious and unexplained.

The character of the princess, who appears in the original, is barely fleshed out, and that left me plenty of room to find Lucinda, and to make her a perfect match for Sam.

I really enjoy the process of filling in gaps, and writing stories based on fairy tales is one of my favorite ways to do it. I find that those unexplained mysteries leave plenty of room for eroticism, queerness, and other elements of human nature.

If you'd like to see an excerpt, I posted one here.

And if you'd like to buy the book, you can find it here!

THE GIVEAWAY and LINKS

Anyone who comments on any of these blog posts will be entered in a drawing for a paperback copy (in North America) or an ebook (elsewhere) of Witches, Princesses, and Women at Arms. Each blog you comment on gives you one more entry.

Here’s the lineup of blog posts—the links may be adjusted as we go along, so check back here every now and then.

June 14th: Sacchi Green-“Trollwise” (plus the Introduction)
www.sacchi-green.blogspot.com

June 15th: Cara Patterson-“Steel”
www.sacchi-green.blogspot.com

June 16th: Michael M. Jones-“The Miller’s Daughter”
michaelmjones.com

June 19th: H.N. Janzen-“The Prize of the Willow”
www.sacchi-green.blogspot.com

June 20th: Annabeth Leong-“The Mark and the Caul”
annabethleong.blogspot.com

June 21st: Brey Willows-“Penthouse 31”
breywillows.com

June 22nd: Salome Wilde-“The Princess’s Princess”
sacchi-green.blogspot.com

June 23nd: Emily L. Byrne-“Toads, Diamonds and the Occasional Pearl”
writeremilylbyrne.blogspot.com

June 26th: A.D.R. Forte-“Warrior’s Choice”
sacchi-green.blogspot.com

June 27th: M. Birds-“Woodwitch”
mbirds.tumblr.com

June 28th: Madeleine Shade-“Robber Girl”
https://www.facebook.com/carina.bissett.5

June 29th: Lea Daley-“The Sorceress of Solisterre”
sacchi-green.blogspot.com

June 30th: Allison Wonderland-“SWF Seeks FGM”
aisforallison.blogspot.com

Sneak Peek: Bête Noire

A bit ago, I told you about "Bête Noire," the story I have coming out in Jen Blackmore's Beastly Affair anthology from Circlet Press.

You can read some background on how I came up with the story in the post I linked above. Today, I thought I'd share a quick taste of the story. So here, for your reading enjoyment, are the opening paragraphs!

I. Beautiful, Beastly Revenge

Before we shoot out a window and start killing all the guards in sight, Beauty leans in to kiss me.

I stop her. “You’re making me feel pretty, darling.” I hold up one matted, woolly hand, protract the obsidian claws still dripping blood from what we had to do to get this close to Orlagh’s fancy house. “We can’t risk breaking the curse here.”

“I just thought… This might be our last chance, Bête. If she kills us…”

“She won’t.”

Neither of us is sure of that, but there’s no choice besides pretending. True love and its urges aside, Beauty knows there couldn’t be a worse time for me to return to my former, softer self. She pulls back her face and reaches for my hand instead. Even the brush of her fingers—oily from her gun—makes my heart shiver with sweet visions of who I could become for her. I take my hand away and shove it into my pocket, ignoring her quiet, hurt sigh. We’ll have time to talk this over after we deal with Orlagh.

I force myself to stop contemplating the subtle scent of roses that manages to linger around Beauty even after three saddlesore days of bloodshed, dust, and magic so cut-rate and ragged it could give a person tetanus.

The sound of a footstep makes me press myself flat against the stucco wall in front of us, though we’re well hidden for the moment. Orlagh is the sort of rich asshole who grows a lush formal garden around her desert mansion—whether she has the water shipped or conjured, it’s disgustingly ostentatious—but I do admit some gratitude for the thick blue-and-pink endless-summer hydrangeas currently concealing our position. Still, assuming we got an accurate map of the grounds from the former servant we bribed back in town, we’re kneeling right outside Orlagh’s bedroom window. Her habit of tossing around curses when she’s drunk and horny have made her a lot of enemies, and by all accounts she compensates by hiring vigilant guards.

Beauty and I exchange a glance. Her chest doesn’t move until the footsteps fade away. Then she offers a tentative smile. “I guess we should…” She nods upward.

“No point killing time when we could be killing the enemy,” I agree.

I don't have a release date yet, but I'll give you more information when I've got it!

Coming Soon: A Beastly Affair

Hey friends! I don't think I remembered to tell you that I signed a contract for a story in Jen Blackmore's Beastly Affair, a Beauty and the Beast-themed erotic anthology coming soon from Circlet Press.

I had a really great time writing my story, "Bête Noire." It's set in the Weird West, with a beast who's a former debutante, and a gun-toting, revenge-seeking Beauty.

When I finished the story and looked it over, I saw it had... drifted quite a bit from the fairy tale as told by Disney. That's what you want when writing, of course, because you need to make a story your own. I'm always fascinated by the process, though. To me, each step feels clear and logical, as if I'm just making minor adjustments. Then I hear myself describing the story to someone, and I realize it's radically different, and radical.

Like, why the Weird West? I'm not sure, but it made perfect sense to me at the time. I think I was looking for a time and place in which I thought a curse-giver could be passing through, and I didn't want to do the vague medieval England setting that one falls into so easily.

The key to my version of the story, though, came from research I did into the origins of the fairy tale. One old version of the story holds that the witch curses the Beast in a fit of rage after being sexually denied. It seemed to me like a person who would do that wouldn't only do it once, so I immediately envisioned a wandering sexual harasser, leaving behind a trail of Beast-cursed people. From there, it wasn't hard to imagine Beauty and a Beast teaming up to pursue the curse-giver.

I wanted the story to address the trauma the Beast has gone through. I put into it a lot of the feelings I've had myself in the wake of harassment—in particular, an urge to embrace the idea of ugliness because sometimes I see that as an antidote to vulnerability. I've also often observed that in the wake of trauma, my friends want revenge, and the things I want are much murkier and more complex.

Along with all that psychological and mythological stuff, though, Beauty and the Beast are into blood play, and the scenes I wrote for that are HOT—if I judge by my own reaction to them, anyway. ;)

I'm really looking forward to this book. I love Jen Blackmore's anthologies, both because her concepts are awesome and because she attracts great writers (I'm always honored to be in their company).

If you want to be in her next book, she has a call out right now for Golden Age Erotica (there's a link from here).

And if you want to see what I'm talking about, may I recommend Whispers in Darkness, her excellent anthology of Lovecraftian erotica?

The Mark and the Caul: A Sexy Part

There's a cool thing that happens when it takes a story a very long time to get published. By the time it's out, I get to read it fresh, as surprised as the reader might be. So I checked out my story "The Mark and the Caul," which recently came out in Sacchi Green's Witches, Princesses, and Women at Arms: Erotic Lesbian Fairy Tales, and I got to remember some of the things I enjoyed about writing this story.

The princess, Lucinda, has been told all her life that she's disfigured, and it takes her a while to trust her lover, Sam, with her body. I always find tentative explorations hot, and I also really enjoyed writing about how Lucinda and Sam navigate Lucinda's insecurities. Here's one of their early sex scenes:

"May I touch you?" Lucinda asked.

"You may do with me as you please."

Lucinda stepped close. At first, despite her question, she touched only with eyes, her fingers too timid to bridge the gap between them. When she lifted a hand at last, she flitted it around Sam's body like a butterfly too skittish to alight. Feeling ridiculous, she brought a fingertip to rest on the blunt tip of Sam's broad nose.

They both froze, and then Sam laughed, and the sound freed Lucinda to gather her wife into her arms more boldly. She learned the shapes of Sam's shoulder blades, the curve of her spine, and the solidity of her hips. She tucked Sam's muscular buttocks into the palms of her hands, but the powerful response in her body alarmed her and she retreated to Sam's elbows. Lucinda, however, could not resist stroking upward from there, outlining her wife's upper arms, which were strong and thick from helping the miller.

This supposedly less intimate territory still made Lucinda's stomach flutter. She rested the side of her face between Sam's breasts, barely trusting her legs to hold her up. Wrapping one arm around Sam's back, Lucinda allowed her other hand to wander to the hollow of Sam's throat, over the point of one taut breast, along the side of her rib cage, and finally, between her legs.

"Moon above and river below," Sam cursed.

Lucinda smiled at the reaction and petted the damp hair that grew over Sam's pubis. She knew the pleasure her own body yielded when she explored this place. "There is a river below indeed. I feel the signs of its presence, though I have not found it yet."

Sam widened her stance. "You seem clever enough to track it."

"You will not be able to remain standing under the force of its waters once I make them flow," Lucinda said. She led her wife to her bed and helped her in. Then she rubbed the top of one of Sam's thighs, as if she were a great mill horse in need of steadying. Slowly, Lucinda parted her wife's lower lips, revealing the extent of her wetness.

"Ah," Sam sighed. "You've found it."

"I've found the path that leads there." Lucinda began a thorough examination of the territory, at first simply stroking and discovering, then later responding to the hiss of Sam's breath and the catches in her throat. She trapped sensitive flesh between her first two fingers, squeezing lightly, tugging, and rolling.

Sam gave a full-throated cry, and her firm body became rigid and hard beneath Lucinda's touch. Pleasure shattered off her and pounded through the room, rolling from Sam's body in waves that Lucinda could feel at her temples. Sam gasped, and finally caught her breath. "My mother told me the pleasures of the marriage bed were not for women," she said at last. "I've never known her to be wrong before, and yet I can imagine nothing sweeter than what you have done to me."

Lucinda stretched out beside Sam, still in her clothes. She slipped her hand beneath her veil so she could inhale Sam's scent, and shivered all over at the spice of it. "It heartens me to hear this from you. I was always told that it would hurt."

Sam clutched Lucinda fiercely. "I swear I'll never hurt you."

"I know you won't."

"Will you let me please you, too?"

Lucinda drew a deep breath. "Soon," she promised. "But not yet."

Sam nodded and held her, and the two women whispered secrets to each other.

If you'd like to read the rest, you can pick up the book here.

Out Now: Witches, Princesses, and Women at Arms: Erotic Lesbian Fairy Tales

Hey friends, guess what? This book is out!

Here's the description:

In this sexy, erotic anthology of twisted fairy tales, the damsels are the ones doing the rescuing! Full of ancient, adapted tales that were changed to include female/female pairings and also some brand new stories of feminine heroics and sexual dominance, this collection of stories will leave readers under a spell of lesbian love!

It includes my story, "The Mark and the Caul."

Also, check out this great review! (Thanks, Ameliah Faith!) The reviewer calls attention to my story by name, and also gives shout outs to writers I love, including Emily Byrne, Michael M. Jones, Salome Wilde, and Sacchi Green herself.

You can get Witches, Princesses, and Women at Arms at Amazon, your favorite indie bookstore, or wherever else it pleases you to do so!

The return of "The Mark and the Caul"

Once upon a time, I wrote a story for a lesbian fairy tale anthology. It was called "The Mark and the Caul," and after I wrote it, it spent a long time in the darkness and confusion of the labyrinthine halls of publishing. In fact, it was lost for so long that I wasn't sure it would ever see the light of day again, for so long that even I, the person who wrote it, couldn't really remember its contours or shapes or faces or names. Still, though the story wandered, it knew deep down that it was still loved, and still worth reading. And so it continued to trudge, led by the brave editor Sacchi Green.

Then one day, rumors of its reemergence began to spread. A brilliant cover was spotted, for a book called Witches, Princesses and Women at Arms, the pages of which were said to contain the long-lost mark and the rarely seen caul.



What's more, this image was accompanied by whispers of fellow travelers for my little story, including works by Salome Wilde, Emily Byrne, Michael M. Jones, and Allison Wonderland.

A date was set for its rebirth: May 9th, according to the oracles at Amazon. If you would know the story of "The Mark and the Caul," you can preorder it here and now.

Wicked Fairy Tales Month

August is Wicked Fairy Tales Month at Forbidden Fiction, and there's still time to get involved. Head over to the home page and tell the editors which fairy tale you'd most like to see redone as erotica -- you'll be entered in a drawing to win a free e-book at the end of the month.

You can also check out interviews with authors whose stories are featured in the Wicked Fairy Tales collection, including yours truly:

The unknown is erotic, and fairy tales are all about the unknown. What's in the cave? What's beyond the edge of the forest? What happens if you break the rules? What happens if people aren't who they seem to be? What would you be if you could be something else, or if you were forced to be? These questions become very sexual very easily. Beyond that sense of magical roleplay, however, fairy tales in their original form have a deep sense of eroticism. Many of them are about marriage, which means they're about sex. They're about risk. People do strange things, and some of those are sexual. In the original version of The Six Swans, for example, the mute princess for some reason climbs a tree and throws her clothes down to the king's servant a garment at a time. I've never understood quite what she was up to, but it's an undeniably erotic action, and it's there in the original version.

You can read the full interview here.

Be sure to check out other interviews while you're over there, and enter the drawing (the main post is here).

The Wicked Fairy Tales anthology is available here. Enjoy!

Wicked Fairy Tales releases today!

Today, Forbidden Fiction releases its Wicked Fairy Tales collection. If I know the Forbidden Fiction authors, this will be an amazingly twisted dark carnival of fresh perspectives on classic tales.

If you missed my story, The Three Wives of Bluebeard, you can pick it up now as part of this collection. In addition to my story, you'll see stories by the likes of Nobilis Reed, Elizabeth Schechter, and Kailin Morgan. Take a look here!

My Question About the Six Swans

I recently blogged at Forbidden Fiction about how my fairy tale retellings usually start with a question--a point of dissatisfaction in the original story. This is true of The Six Swans, too.

In the classic version of the story, the main character must spend seven years silent, sewing shirts for her brothers, in order to break the curse that has turned them into swans. A king's servant discovers her in a tree one day. For some reason, she throws her clothing down to him one article at a time (in the story, this is presented as an attempt at discouragement, but that really doesn't make sense to me). He is stunned by her beauty and takes her to the king, who promptly marries her. The king's mother is evil, for some reason, and takes away the babies the new queen bears, telling the king that his silent wife is responsible for murdering them. The king refuses to believe this for quite some time. Eventually, his mother convinces him that his wife is killing the children, and he agrees to have her burned at the stake. Luckily, this happens to coincide with the end of the seven years, and the girl is able to restore her brothers and explain herself just before she dies by fire.

Now, that is a weird, weird story. What particularly interested me was the king's trust in the main character. She can't speak to him. Her behavior must appear insane. What could he have known or felt about her that would give him the sort of confidence in her that he displays, in the face of damning evidence that she's a murderer.

Trying to answer that question drove my entire writing of the novella. In my version of The Six Swans, the sexual connection between the king and his bride is so strong that his body trusts her even when his mind does not. Trust is visceral and physical.

As is common for me, that hypothesis then spread through the story, affecting how I portrayed both of the main characters.

If you'd like to see how this worked out, you can pick up the book here.