New Story Coming Soon: Fast Pitcher

I signed another contract with Sexy Little Pages, this time for my story "Fast Pitcher," which will be out soon in Harley Easton's anthology For Love of the Game. (Want to get to know Harley Easton sooner? Her work appears alongside mine in another SLP anthology, Inked.)

I went through a period of major obsession with baseball, and this story comes straight out of that. I wanted the tone I hear when I listen to baseball on the radio, and I wanted a healthy dose of feminism, and I wanted a threesome on the pitcher's mound late at night after the crowd's gone home. Let me show you how that all comes together:

"You said we wouldn't score off you unless you want us to. I guess the question is, do you?"

"Do I what?"

"Do you want us to?"

Margie ignored the question, winding up, knowing her speed alone could stop him. Muñoz swung on the heels of the pitch, but still a fraction of a second too slow. She glanced at Phillips and saw the lust in his eyes, but this night had become about more than an individual's desire. There was raw hunger between the three of them. Together, they could have eaten the world. Margie thought about what it would be like to step deeper into that mood, to tear into the two men with all her need.

Phillips tossed the ball back to her. Instead of winding up again, she let her glove fall off her hand and onto the mound. The ball fell beside it.

"Yeah," she said. "I want you to."

Muñoz waved his bat.

"Then pitch to me. Let me take you deep."

Margie grinned and shook her head.

"Nah. You can't touch the ball. I'm not giving you that satisfaction." She reached up for her hat and swept it off her head. "Satisfying myself, though... That's another story."

The page isn't up yet for the book, but if you'd like to keep an eye on what I've got coming from SLP, you can look at my author page here.

More on Street Harassment

I've written a fair bit about street harassment, and right now I've got a pretty heavy piece about it up at the Grip (CN: self-harm). I talked about something that I think sometimes gets lost in discussions of street harassment: what it's like to run into it on a day when you're really not okay, the way the mind games a harasser plays (such as quick pivots from "compliments" to insults) can exacerbate existing feelings of depression and worthlessness.

It felt like something I really needed to write, but I also feel sort of weird about "inflicting" that heaviness on readers. Which gets back to the point, I think. I definitely didn't feel up for being harassed on the day I'm writing about (not that I ever do, but this particular day I just really didn't have the mental fortitude to absorb the blow of it). And yet it happens. All the time. That's one of the reasons I need to keep writing about it.

The reason it hurt so badly, I think, was entitlement. Right then, I didn’t feel entitled to live, to breathe, to be in the world without being hurt. I needed a little entitlement. I needed it to be okay that I couldn’t satisfy the person I was fighting with, to see that I still deserved to exist and be loved even if I wasn’t what someone else wanted me to be.

If I had been walking around like I was God’s gift, that would have been a huge victory for me.

That insult, though… What that guy said to me was an effort to take down someone he saw as entitled. “You can’t just walk around like you’re God’s gift, cuz you ain’t.” What was I doing that seemed so entitled to him? Walking down the sidewalk? Breathing? Having breasts? Not responding to his demand for my attention?

You can read the rest here.

More Than Nothing

I signed the contract today for Lola Sparkles' forthcoming anthology Goodbye Moderation: Lust. Something about the way this call was worded really unglued me when I read it. I could hear the narrator's voice in my head immediately, insistently. The story I wrote, "More Than Nothing," was that very special, drop-everything-and-write-this type of story.

I can't wait to share more details once I've got them. I mean, have you seen the covers that Sexy Little Pages puts out? I'm so looking forward to posting one for you.

The story itself—there's masturbation and dirty talk and desire and queer women.

"More Than Nothing" had this breathless feeling when I wrote it. My need to write it matched the narrator's need to be in it. Reading it later, I still feel that. I'll give you a little taste before I sign off, with more to come.

On my way up the narrow, broken stairs that lead to her apartment, I clear away the junk mail her neighbors drop all over the place, because I can’t handle the thought of her putting her cane down on a glossy piece of paper and slipping on it.

“What do you want?” she asks when I let myself in, her voice absolutely casual.

“Um, you invited me over.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

I stare at her. She’s sitting in her customary chair at the rickety kitchen table. I want to press my lips to every inch of her, from the scars on her legs to the tattoos on the insides of her wrists. I can’t actually tell if she’s pretty. You don’t evaluate the shape of a goddess’s nose or chin. You try to survive her presence, and you come away with impressions of brown skin and full cheeks and curving lips that might be mocking or might be inviting.

Her gesture toward the tea kettle on the stove tells me I’m allowed to stay, so I busy myself with serving us both.

I’m not sure what she wants me to say. She makes me fantasize about her over the phone from the bus in the morning, from my cubicle at work, from whatever bed I’m in at night. In text messages, I search for praise for blurry pictures of her jaw, the side of her knee—any body part she deigns to show me while hinting she might one day send me a shot of her bared breasts or spread-open cunt.

Or maybe she’s planning to order takeout.

***

Suffice it to say, the goddess in question is not planning to order takeout.

Jane's Fantasy, Your Fantasy

Today is the official release date for Begging for It: Erotic Fantasies for Women, which includes my story, “Jane’s Fantasy, Your Fantasy.”

Here's a piece of it:

"Are you ready for your purification, initiate?"

You've forgotten your line. Instead, with an inarticulate sound, you step into her arms.

She envelops you. Her palms are damp from the bath water. Pressing against you, her nipples are warm and tight, and the clamps cold and hard. She touches you methodically, fingertips brushing your forehead, lips, throat, navel, and inner thighs. You agreed to these ritualistic touches because you wanted to make her happy, but they have begun to take on significance even if you don't know exactly what they mean. The beginnings of arousal take root in the depths of your pelvis.

"Tonight, in this place, you will claim the pleasures of the body. You will do so on your own terms, but know that I will be beside you." Jane intones the words with the dramatic voice of a movie villain. You cough to cover an involuntary nervous laugh. She frowns, but goes on. "The first step is to leave behind all that is old so that your body may become new. We will wash away the past."

She says this with a type of gentleness you've never been comfortable with because it makes you wish that you could cry. You've been open with Jane and Rob as you have with no other lovers, and for a moment you regret how much you told them about the things that have happened in your life and the ways that your body and desires have made you feel afraid and ashamed. That, after all, is how you got into this situation. Jane told you both about her fantasy of being taken as if for the first time, and when you reacted to it, she and Rob decided it would be better to design the scene for you.

You look away from her, searching for something bland to focus on, but she has transformed the bathroom too thoroughly and you can't escape her intentions.

The story is constructed in a somewhat experimental way. I wrote about some of the choices I made here.

Here’s the official blurb for the collection:

What would you give — or give up — to fulfill your most cherished sex fantasy? In this Cleis Press collection, erotica editor Rachel Kramer Bussel brings us femme fatales and shy women, women on a mission and women opening up to new worlds of discovery: women who know what they want and are not afraid to beg for it! Let yourself go with these 21 tantalizing tales of tortuous longing and release.

You can order the book here. I hope you do!

When Stigma Stops Writing

I recently wrote a post for Delilah Night about the challenges presented by the book I'm currently taking submissions for, the charity anthology Coming Together: Postively Sexy.

What I didn’t realize was that this book is demanding a different kind of editing skill: convincing and encouraging nervous writers to try their hands at stories that feel risky to them. I have had many conversations with writers who say they don’t know anything about STIs and can’t write about them, only to tell me in the next breath that they’ve had or currently have an STI. I’ve had conversations with writers who say they can’t picture how a story could include mention of an STI and still be sexy. I’ve had conversations with writers who say they are far too worried about the possibility of getting something wrong. I’ve talked to writers who say they mostly submit stories they’ve already written, and they’ve never written a story that includes a character with an STI.

To me, this all speaks to the stigma around STIs, the very stigma that I’m hoping this book can question. I want to make a book that opens up a little space inside a dominant culture that often seems intent on shaming people, a book that offers up a vision that an STI doesn’t have to be the end of a person’s sex life, that it doesn’t have to be a big deal at all. I’m hoping to get some stories from writers who already know that because they’ve lived that experience, and I’m also hoping to get some stories from writers who are learning it through the writing they’re doing now.

You can read the rest of the post here, at Delilah's blog.

You can read the full call for submissions, with all the details, here.

Also, check out Delilah's post about the anthology she's editing, Coming Together: Under the Mistletoe.

And, writers, let's do some good by being bad. :) (An old tagline for the charity erotica publisher, Coming Together).

(Also, the deadline for Positively Sexy has been extended to Oct 1st!)

What I've Been Reading

I'm way overdue for an appearance on Goodreads, but in the meantime, if you'd like some book recommendations from me, head on over to my most recent post at Oh Get a Grip. There, I go into some recent picks in erotica, social science, and weird literary fiction.

And you'll find out which book prompted me to write this sentence:

This is the sort of book that makes me want to buy extra copies and carry them around in my purse so that the next time I run into someone who wants to talk to me about how evolutionary psychology explains why women prefer to be “traditionally feminine” and do all the housework, I can just shove the book into their hands and make a quick escape.

You can read the whole thing here.

Deadline Extended: Coming Together: Positively Sexy

I've extended the deadline for Coming Together: Positively Sexy until October 1st! If you were thinking of writing a story for this, I hope this gives you the time you need.

Here's the full information about the call.

As always, please feel free to get in touch with questions.