Guest Post: Celebrity in a Time of Geeks by Avery Vanderlyle

There's a new book out today from Dreamspinner Press called Starstruck, full of m/m stories about (fictional) celebrities. I noticed that my friend Avery Vanderlyle has a story in the book ("The Ruby"), and I thought it would be interesting to have her post about some of the philosophy behind her story. In the Internet era, "celebrity" is one of the most relevant and fascinating things to consider. With no further ado, I'll turn this over to Avery.

Celebrity in a Time of Geeks
by Avery Vanderlyle

My first crush was Chekov on the original series of Star Trek (played by Walter Koenig). So you see, I'm a geek from way back. Full disclosure: this was while watching re-runs of the show with my parents in the 70's, so not as far back as you might be thinking. But the point stands.

So when I heard about the theme for the Starstruck anthology, I thought about celebrity through a geeky lens. I've grown up through the era when "nerds" were ridiculed and looked down upon to a time when some of them were lauded as the pioneers of the computer and internet era. These are celebrities who are intellectual, creative, sometimes awkward. Many are not that good-looking.

The dark side of promoting these geeky celebrities is they are almost all men, almost all white, almost all straight. Lauding them, establishing a certain geeky "type" in popular culture, has contributed to the feeling among women and people of color that they don't belong in that world. (GLBTQ people have always been there, though it wasn't always safe to come out.) I hope our ideals of what geeks look like is changing and will expand to allow more people to identify with them.

Part of the internet era has been the rise of video games as a force in the entertainment industry and in the popular culture. My time is too limited to play, but I try to keep up with the trends. Everyone earlier this year was discussing the new virtual reality systems coming out. Would v.r. stop being a niche toy and break out into popular consciousness? What would that look like?

My story began to take shape. The person who creates the first break-out virtual reality program will become another of the pantheon of geek celebrities. Okay, he'll be the celebrity half of my protagonists. What kind of program will it be? How about a fantasy version of the wild west, a variation on a mythos that many people are already familiar with? Parts of the story can take place in this virtual world; there can be adventures. Quests. The hero has to win a gem to meet his idol, the game creator. And "The Ruby" was born.

It ended up being a sweet, fun story about two geeks who share a love of the internet age. Erza has to fulfill his quests to connect with Toby; Toby has to be open to the interest of a fan. "Virtual reality" is just one more mechanism for us to connect with others and fulfill our dreams.

This is the publisher's description of Starstruck:

Lights, camera, action!

To the average person, celebrities seem to have it all—money, fame, and droves of adoring fans lining up to fawn over them. But a life in the public eye can make romance challenging, and deep down, these guys are looking for the same thing as any other man: someone to share a steamy tryst with between acts or to ride off into the sunset with after the curtain has gone down. Luckily there are those willing to love the men behind the billboards and on-air personalities, and they’re looking for a private performance from their favorite drag queens, musicians, reality TV stars, actors, rodeo champions, and video game designers. Even superheroes and legendary defenders. Money and fame might not always equal happiness, but these celebrities will leave stars in their lovers’ eyes.

Love, Stage Left—L.A. Merrill

Rodeo Champion—Jay Starre

Marked by the Queen—George Loveland

The Ruby—Avery Vanderlyle

Pride and Panoramas—Asta Idonea

Such Beautiful Music—M.T. Aspen

Out on Stage—Elizabeth Coldwell

Shooting Star—Rob Rosen

Drastic Measures—Sydney Blackburn

Garden Variety—Bell Ellis

Defying Gravity—Charles Payseur

The Defender of Ruldan—Jessica Payseur

You can find more information here.

Fan of a Friend: Cecilia Tan's Prince's Boy Cover Reveal

I may have written about this before, but I've been reading Cecilia Tan's work since my very first encounters with erotica (I know, lucky me—I found some great stuff right away). And there are few writers I admire more. I'm picky about my BDSM these days, and I trust Cecilia's to the point that I'll read it without worrying about the pairing, the perspective, the specific actions, whatever. I know that if her name's on the work, it'll be hot, emotional, insightful, and often magical.

So I'm honored to help her spread the word about her upcoming collection, The Prince's Boy. Here's some early info about what's on the way:

The Prince's Boy: Collection

by Cecilia Tan

$9.99 ebook bundle

ISBN 978-1-61390-015-4

Dark erotic magic ensnares a prince and his whipping boy in a world of castle intrigue. THE PRINCE'S BOY tells the story of Kenet, prince of Maldevar, and his whipping boy Jorin, as they fight to save their country—and their love—from evil.

The much-lauded tale of men, lust, and dark magic, now collected into one complete tale! Includes the full text of volumes one and two and two bonus stories.

Honorable mention in the Rainbow Awards (for gay fantasy fiction)

Honorable mention in the NLA Writing Awards (for BDSM-positive fiction)

In a fantasy world where the lust of male for male fuels Night Magic, Prince Kenet lives a sheltered life. Isolated from the war that threatens the kingdom, he and his whipping boy Jorin are of age, but still sneak forbidden pleasures in their bed at night. When a dark mage tries to bespell Kenet into sexual submission, the prince and his boy are thrust into the world of intrigue, sex, and war.

Drawing on complex themes of dominance and submission, the need for secrecy in a world where homosexuality is not accepted, and the intertwining of sex with magic, Tan weaves a complex, sex-filled adventure that is part "Three Musketeers" and part "Claiming of Sleeping Beauty."

Cecilia Tan is “simply one of the most important writers, editors, and innovators in contemporary American erotic literature,” according to Susie Bright. She is the author of many novels and short stories, editor of dozens of erotic short story anthologies, and the founder of Circlet Press. She was inducted into the Saints and Sinners Hall of Fame for GLBT writers in 2010.

Praise for THE PRINCE'S BOY:

"Brilliant from start to finish, but whew! What a marathon! You'd better train up for this one, or be prepared to read it in small bite sized pieces (if you can put it down, and yes, it is that good). It is not for the faint of heart. There is graphic torture, rape, slavery, every form of questionable behavior one could think of. And with all that? A story not to be missed. By turns gritty and lyrical. It is the chiming of tiny crystal hand bells and the inescapable, thundering peal of the bells of Notre Dame. A powerhouse, a tour de force. Not to be missed. But buckle up baby. It's one hell of a ride." —Elisa Rolle, The Rainbow Awards

"The story is a good one, the characters are well developed. I went looking for the next installment more for the story than the sex, though I will also say that there are areas that the sex carries the story." —BDSM Book Reviews

***

Do you want to see the pictures all huge and gorgeous on Cecilia's own website? You can, here! Do you want to preorder the book now? Also possible, at Amazon. Cecilia tells me the ebook bundle is set to go live on November 15th. :)

Icarus Takes Flight

Today, Forbidden Fiction released Taking Flight, an anthology of erotic stories focused on creatures with wings. Here's the blurb:

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

You'll see that Taking Flight includes my novella, Icarus Bleeds, which I still think is one of the best things I've written. Here's the blurb:

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)

And here's an excerpt:

“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.”

You can pick up the Taking Flight anthology at Forbidden Fiction's catalog site, All Romance E-books, and more! There's also a print edition on the way!

Devout

I've signed a new contract with the fabulous Storm Moon Press, this time for a story that will come out in Devout, an anthology they're putting out centered on m/m priest stories. My story, "Never Not a Priest," explores what happens in a diocese grappling with new marriage-equality laws. Fr. Paul Lyman, a gay Anglican priest who has maintained a secret five-year relationship with a local adjunct professor, finds himself prompted by his conscience to give up his shadow existence and bring his lover into his real life in the parish. Many more details to come.

Odd side note: I seem to be developing a personal "religious erotica" subgenre. I've got several stories now where I include sincerely religious characters who are also sexual beings (and, as is my own experience of being a religious and sexual person, they're not very good at abstinence and have various feelings about whether they should try to be). If this interests you, Run for Your Love and One Flesh are out already. "Never Not a Priest" and "The Miracles of Dorothea of Andrine" are on the way.

New Release: Life in the Land by Rebecca Cohen

Blurb

The magic of the Sawyer family’s extremely green thumbs comes straight from the land. But Bobby Sawyer’s expected superpowers don’t become a reality until he kisses his best friend, Mike Flint. That kiss moves the earth—literally.

When Bobby moves to the city, leaving Mike behind, Bobby keeps his green thumb nimble by working in a garden center and uses his superpowers to help fight crime. He’s on a mission when a bomb explodes, leaving him seriously injured, forcing him to return to the family farm—the source of his strength—to recuperate.

While attempting to recover, Bobby realizes Mike is still the love of his life. But Mike is leery: Bobby left him once before. What if all Bobby needs is one more magical kiss?

Short Excerpt from Life in the Land

The distant hum of a tractor’s engine and a few notes of birdsong were the only noises, and once again Bobby’s chest filled with heart-clenching disappointment. His eyes prickled, and he tried to hold back the tears, but he couldn’t. Large, wet tracks raced down his cheeks, and he leaned forward and rested his head and arms on his knees as he sobbed, pent-up disappointment and salty worries splashing into the soil.

“Please don’t cry, Bobby.”

Mike’s eyes were large and imploring, and Bobby was so miserable at his lack of progress that he just wanted something to hold on to. He leaned forward and tentatively brushed his lips to Mike’s in the gentlest of kisses. With a soft sigh, Mike kissed back in the same chaste way.

There was a tremor beneath him, a mild shake that made his whole body vibrate. They sprang apart, both staring wide-eyed at the dirt as they tried to work out what could be causing the disturbance.

Bobby’s jaw dropped. Before his eyes two of the large roots pulled themselves free of the ground, clods of soil falling from the delicate rootlets as they reached out to him.

With an undignified yelp, Bobby fell backward and scrambled away, but a soft rumble from the oak made him stop. It was reassurance, a call for calm, and he knew then everything was okay.

Buy links:

Dreamspinner Press
Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk
All Romance

Author Bio

Rebecca Cohen is a Brit abroad. Having swapped the Thames for the Rhine, she has left London behind and now lives with her husband and baby son in Basel, Switzerland. She can often be found with a pen in one hand and a cup of Darjeeling in the other.

Blog
Twitter
Facebook

Icarus Bleeds Out Today!

I've been waiting a long time to announce this one--Icarus Bleeds is that rare story that seemed to spring out fully formed, a gift from the muse in exchange for my long hours of grinding devotion. The novella is out today from Forbidden Fiction, and the story page here will include links to various sites where it can be purchased.

Here's the blurb:

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)

And the opening:

I will call him Icarus, because he worked so hard to erase his birth name that I will not commit the sin of returning it to him now. The things I said and did when I knew him will only make sense if you understand how beautiful he was, so I will try to force the words of mortals to describe a man who never seemed to belong to earth at all.

Icarus first came to me in the dark, in the rain, passing out of the shadows falling over the street, slipping smoothly into the shadows I made for myself. His eyes glowed from the corner where he took a seat, huddled under shelves loaded with discarded computer equipment. Even then I wondered how a shadow could be so luminous within a shadow, how black could shimmer from within black.

I wasn’t in the habit of looking at my clients. They came because they wanted to be forgotten, and they generally did not want to be seen either. I could not help myself with Icarus. He reminded me of flesh I liked to pretend I didn’t have. Eyes, lips, fingertips, inner thighs, the sides of my stomach, the soles of my feet. And, yes. Tongue. Cock. Thoughts both crude and poetic competed to distract me from the mechanical process of obscuring someone from all the files and IP addresses that affirmed that person’s existence.

I avoided looking at his skin, a lighter shade of what is called black than my own purple-tinged pigment. Icarus’s brand of black flowed with honey, shone with sunlight, glittered with the gold that may once have be- longed to Pharaoh. Long, thin fingers, delicate as a girl’s. Red-gold palms, and the beginnings of a scar, a telltale revelation of a story that started in the hands and parted the flesh of the forearm nearly to the elbow.

He saw me looking, and pulled the sleeves of his sweater down low, clutching bunches of the material in clenched fists. “Can you really make me disappear?”

I snorted. “Of course not. Not these days, not with the backups they keep and the triple cross checks they have to avoid failure conditions. Best I can do is make them forget to look for you.”

He nodded, the gesture emphasizing the length of his neck, the quality of his silence. “How much?”

“How much you got?”

He shrank back from me, receding into the forest of parts and cords. “I’m not looking for favors.”

“I don’t do favors. I do a sliding scale. You pay what you can afford to pay. What you think is fair. I trust you.”

“Why?”

I sighed. No one ever understood this when I bothered to explain. “Because I’m not one of them. I don’t want to act like one.”

He swallowed, his Adam’s apple moving gracefully up and down in that impossibly lean neck. “I was going to see what you would take.” He bit his lip and didn’t explicate, but I got an idea of what he’d had in mind by the way his hands crept toward his fly, the gesture so subtle that I wasn’t sure it had been a conscious invitation.

On any other night, with any other man, I wouldn’t have. I would have kissed that smooth, wide forehead, done my work for free, and sent him back into the street uttering the vague promise that someday, when he could, he would take care of me. With Icarus, I could not resist the offer. I had to keep him a little longer. Though I hated myself for it, the sentence passed my lips as if it made up part of my daily stock in trade. “After I finish, you’ll come upstairs with me.”

His bowed head telegraphed his acquiescence well before his soft words. “Thank you.”

***

I should warn you that this is a dark story, but it's also one of the best I've written. You'll find the rest here.

Icarus Bleeds Cover Reveal

Blurb:
Icarus, a man on the run, dreams of wings, and of taking flight like the surgicaly 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)

Every now and then, a writer gets a "bonus story," something that just flows as if it's coming straight out of the collective unconscious. I don't think it's a great idea to wait around for those--I try to show up at the page and do my work whether I feel inspired or not. However, it's nice to be inspired, nice to have the sensation of words burning and flowing and somehow sanctified. It's a rare occurrence for me, and happens maybe once a year.

Icarus Bleeds was that story for me last year. When I read it over now, I'm not even sure how I wrote it. It's a little scary to have a story like this, because I want everyone to read it and like it but it's also a fair bit different from what I normally write (it's only my second m/m piece ever).

In any case, it will be coming out soon. Watch for more information on its story page, here.

The Last Dream

Circlet's Erotic Shakespeare collection, Like A Midsummer Night, released recently, and it contains my first published m/m story, "The Last Dream," which pairs Mercutio with Tybalt.

I had a lot of fun writing this. I used many bits of dialogue from the original play, and, when I had to write my own, I tried to maintain Shakespeare's blank verse. It felt supremely arrogant at times -- the first thing I do in the story is finish Mercutio's interrupted Queen Mab speech -- but I love pastiche and how imitating another's style ultimately sets me free.

Here's a short excerpt:

That hag Mab, spinning her dreams of passion and punishment, has tricked him well. Long has Mercutio avoided the entanglements of sentiment. Physical love holds no charms worth boasting of. His trysts to date have all the splendor of sending laundry to the washerwoman. Needs sated, a body cleaned and restored, and a thanks and farewell to all involved.

And now Mercutio makes a fine picture, as part of a little group largely unknown to each other. Romeo, beanpole lover of all that lies between a woman’s thighs—so long as he neither sees nor touches the treasure—skulks about sighing first for Rosaline, then for any maid young and foolish and possessed of duel-seeking relations. Skulking after Romeo comes Tybalt, drunk on his own rage, his deadly grace too pleasing to Mercutio’s eye. Mercutio—himself now a skulker in turn, all thanks be to his new lord Cupid—gazes upon Tybalt with desire and trepidation, and mocks himself for looking at all.

This strange attraction, this proof of cocky foolishness and his body’s brazen disregard of self, promises danger as heady as it is certain. The trouble lies not merely in the brash carriage of his eye’s new fixation, but rather in the strength of the pull. Never before has Mercutio failed to control the object and timing of his affections. Never before has Mercutio skulked.

Besotted Romeo, far beyond considering the consequences of being seen, makes love to Tybalt’s cousin with his eyes, and shoves through the crowd to bump his hand against her hand. Mercutio sneers and Tybalt explodes, breaking out of the shadows to hiss at the elder Capulet. The old man waves him off, and Tybalt returns to the domain of the skulkers, the sun-darkened flesh above his brilliant eyes gathered like a fist about to strike. He talks to himself, the words soaked up by Mercutio’s eager ears: “I will withdraw, but this intrusion shall, now seeming sweet, convert to bitt’rest gall.”

No good for Romeo in that, but does Wandercock care? He is busy, pressing swelling lips to the yet-unspoiled hand of Tybalt’s young cousin. And there, if nothing else, lies an illustration of which Mercutio should take heed. A man so locked in love’s pursuit that he neglects the half-drawn sword at his back, a weapon which will surely swing ere break of day. Mercutio cannot help glancing over his own shoulder. But there is no one there, and Tybalt has gone, taking with him all the evening’s threat and thrill.

If you'd like to read more, or check out the other authors' stories, you can pick the book up here on Circlet's site or here at Amazon.

The Aim of Porn

I recently realized something that might explain why it took me a long time to learn to appreciate male/male erotica. Though I read erotica much more than I watch porn, my first experiences of explicit portrayal of sex were through porn -- men introduced me to that, and erotica was something I found on my own. And most porn is produced with a male audience in mind.

A lot of men like watching lesbian porn, but it's pretty clear that the "lesbians" you typically see in such a production are chosen with straight men in mind. They usually look the way a man might want them to, and the things they do together are often designed to arouse men. (I'm not talking here about porn produced by and for actual lesbians).

However, gay male porn is again mostly produced with men in mind, so here again you'll see actors who look like and do things intended to appeal to a male audience.

I've seen a lot of arguments about male/female porn and the effects of its similar targeting toward a male audience, but that's a complicated issue that I don't want to get into here.

The point is that, in typical mainstream porn, whether you're watching straight, lesbian, or gay porn, you're probably watching something intended for male consumption. Recently, I realized that the male/male scenes I enjoy need a different angle. Basically, I want a female version of what's done for men in lesbian porn. I want the men I see together to have a look that would appeal to a female, and to do things to each other that a female wants to see. I've never encountered this in film porn, so I thought for a long time that I just didn't like male/male scenes.

The experience that changed my mind turned out to be a video game. I played Dragon Age 2 as a male character, and carried out a romance with another male character, pretty much on a whim. I was stunned by how hot that turned out to be for me. But when I thought about it more, it made more sense.

In lesbian porn aimed at males, you basically have straight-appearing females who happen to want to make out with each other. I think this helps men imagine those females would be open to them, say, joining in, which I think is a typical part of the fantasy. I had the same experience with the Dragon Age 2 characters. Both of the men read straight to me visually, which made it possible for me to fantasize about them without my sense of reality intruding. I bought their romance with each other a whole lot more than I buy most events in lesbian porn aimed at males but, hey, mainstream porn's never been known for its plot.

It's hard for me to fantasize about people I'm sure would not be interested in me, and when I watch gay porn and read the characters as really gay, I feel sort of shut out, or like I wouldn't have a chance, and my arousal doesn't really activate.

I've been experimenting with reading male/male erotica recently, and have found the principle to hold true. I appreciate reading about gay men in terms of story, but I only find it arousing if they seem bi or heteroflexible. This may not be the way it works for everyone, but for me male/male erotica arouses when it follows this pattern. (As an aside, I've long appreciated male/male erotica that doesn't arouse me, because it allows me to read for story and really appreciate the romance, rather than frantically flipping forward to find the next "good part.")

Words and Wings

I've signed a contract with Forbidden Fiction for a new m/m science fiction novelette, called Icarus:

A man on the run dreams of wings, like the surgical modifications given to the rich and famous of Central City. The hacker who harbors him will do anything to keep him, and undertakes risky missions to pay for the dangerous operation in a back alley chop shop. The wings bring agony as much as freedom, but they allow the two lovers to share a brief moment of bliss in the upper reaches of the atmosphere before tragedy strikes.

The mythological Icarus flies too close to the sun and melts his wings of wax, and my Icarus does much the same -- with dreams, with wings, with boldness, and with love.

The story will be part of Forbidden Fiction's special collection, Taking Flight. I'll post more information when it becomes available.

In the meantime, check out the other work in the Forbidden Fiction catalog.

Tybalt and Mercutio

My first m/m piece will soon come out from Circlet, as part of an erotic Shakespeare anthology. Titled, "The Last Dream," it tells the behind-the-scenes story of Tybalt and Mercutio, up until just before the fatal battle in which Romeo's interference causes Mercutio to die by Tybalt's sword.

I've never written m/m before -- that old "write what you know" adage had me a little nervous. I loved writing this story, since I was busting down that fear and also making bold with some of the most formidable source material ever. In the very beginning of the story, I write some additional lines for Mercutio's famous "Queen Mab" speech. Sometimes, writing makes you feel audacious, and this was one of those times!

I also got to refer to Romeo as "Wandercock" several times, and I wrote all the dialogue in blank verse. So, yeah, I'm proud of this one. I'll post more news and excerpts as I have them.

Stories I've Enjoyed: "At the Crossroads" by Monique Poirier

Monique Poirier's "At the Crossroads" appeared in Like Heaven and Hell: Erotic Tales of Angels and Demons, which Circlet published in early 2011.

A half-blood angel infected with incubus venom plucks a demon from the gutters of the Gray City to satisfy his infernal craving. Neither of the two is able to treat this as just another encounter:

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry... next time, I promise... next time I'll make it so good for you..." he panted into my ear in counterpoint to thrusting hips. I closed my eyes and arched my head until the tips of my horns touched the firmness of hay behind me, my breath coming in quick gasps as I was filled again and again. He'd slicked the way with something, and the sensation was... novel. Nothing like the pain I was used to, and that spot inside me that turned my insides to liquid fire was touched intermittently. He was promising to make it good? This was as good as I'd ever known.

I really wanted these two to end up together, somehow, which is one of the best signs that a story is working. Also, I was reading it over breakfast, and it almost made me late. I loved the concept of the Gray City, where the two characters meet--a sort of no-fire zone between heaven and hell. I also liked that the story didn't shy away from the ethical questions it raised. This is a really strong story, and closed out the anthology on a great note.

I've previously posted about two other stories in this anthology, "Switch," and "Give and Take."

For full disclosure, I've published with Circlet before, but I bought and read this book entirely on my own.

Stories I've Enjoyed: "Give and Take" by Karen Cobb

Karen Cobb's "Give and Take" appeared in Like Heaven and Hell: Erotic Tales of Angels and Demons, which Circlet published in early 2011.

A demon and angel (who, in this world, aren't really different from each other) find in each other an outlet to deal with the ways that mortals' expections twist them:

I hold my breath, waiting. It feels as though every nerve ending in my body is protruding an inch from the skin and waving around like a little sea anemone. But the cry that explodes from me at the first strike is more due to astonishment than pain. I was expecting a whip, the whip, the one that cuts through skin and flesh. The whip which scourges away my shame and self-loathing, healing my essence while it flays this beautiful, ephemeral frame. Instead, the stripes being laid across my skin are from a strap. Painful, yes--but only a strap. Devious Othello is playing with me, teasing me with my own fears.

This story is well-titled--it clearly portrays how both parties in a bdsm encounter are giving to each other, and how both are receiving from each other. The emotion between the two main characters was palpable.

Last week, I blogged about "Switch," another story in this anthology, and I'll post about my favorite from the book next week.

For full disclosure, I've published with Circlet before, but I bought and read this book entirely on my own.