We love it when well-known folks come out, so when WWE superstar Darren Young did just that in an interview with TMZ, in a totally spontaneous way, GDP got out its hanky and dabbed an emotional tear. The interview is well-worth a watch, and the interviewer totally embraced the moment. Wonderful.
Of course, there are many ways of coming out, and this is just one of them. For many, I’m sure, there are different phases to “coming out.” For myself, I came out as gay long before I slept with a woman, and that, in itself, was a powerful experience of coming out to myself, of coming out to my body, my soul.
“Queer” is most definitely the right word to describe the characters in this collection. This is not a gay male anthology—at least that’s not the way it reads to me. In fact, there are few, if any, instances where any of them announce their sexuality. In Huddle, there is fluidity and discovery.There is resistance and denial, and there is dominance and extremely willing submission. There are no admissions, declarations, or late-night confessions. These are stories about boys and men who love and lust. No labels required.
Do these characters come out to themselves in this anthology? Do they need to come out at all? Do you think some of them are first-timers in terms of M/M sex? We’d love to hear your opinions when you’ve read the collection, which, by the way, you can buy here for just 99 cents, or on Amazon or B&N.
And congratulations to Darren Young! Yes, oh yes, oh yes.
Yes, it’s true. I dig con artists. Why? Perhaps because they’re all about control.
Now let me tell you–and I swear it really is relevant–that my father was a magician. Not one of those guys who tricks the world into thinking he can levitate, but rather a man who entertained kids at birthday parties. That sort of thing. And what Dad taught me when I learned sleight of hand, was actually rather like grifting. People don’t want to discover that you wangled the coin into the crease in the palm of your hand. No, they want to believe that the coin has disappeared–that you have made it go poof! They want you have that control.
So many of us long to believe.
Get “Con” for free at GoDeeperPress.com
Well, in the fantasy world of grifters, their control is the thing that thrills me. And the way their marks walk so willingly into the honey trap. Fictional con artists are clever, they use their power. They’re skilled, they have guts, and sometimes, as in Hustle, they’ll face jail boldly if it means they maintain their honor. Yet when it’s your job to spread illusions, life surely isn’t an easy ride.
But what happens when a grifter lets reality slip and wants, in some way, to live the illusion? In fiction, that’s often when the greatest challenges come to the fore. And when the con is a trap that touches on the sexual, well, the sparks can really fly. That’s one reason why, in my free e-book, Con: You Can Play It Safe When You’re Dead (the first in a series of erotic novelettes), the con artists are twins who secretly want one another. So when the mark gets out a gun and says Go on, have sex or I’ll kill you, though the grifter twins are no longer in control, they get to live in fantasy land for as long as they wish, without having to be responsible for their actions.
Naturally they’re grifters, so they’ll trick their way out of the trap.
I’ve always enjoyed a good heist. And since I’m writing an erotic heist series right now, entitled Con, (the first in the series will be You Can Play It Safe When You’re Dead) I’m all the more keen. So I thought I’d share a few heist/con movie moments that I find particularly erotic. The first of these is from the remake of the Thomas Crowne Affair, directed by John McTiernan, and my god, it’s worth viewing. Piers Brosnan and Rene Russo spark with sexy stormheat (and Rene Russo makes Elizabeth Hurley’s famous dress — yes, that dress — look positively tame.) Enjoy!
Also, my erotic piece, Smart Folks Won’t Screw Witless Girls (from Femme Fatale: Erotic Tales of Dangerous Women) is a thief story. If you’re interested, take a look at the opening pages:
Smart Folks Won’t Screw Witless Girls
There’s one thing you should know about me: I don’t choose my victims. I just stand at a bar and wait for the mark to come to me. He’s usually a businessman or sometimes a businesswoman, and while they try to reel me in, I let them think they’re winning. They buy me drinks, flatter and flirt, brush their hands against my thigh, tell me I look hot in black. Then they offer me a ride.
So I go home with them, have better-than-average sex (which, I might add, is due to my own efforts), then when they’re asleep, I steal their stuff. Say what you like, I’m thieving from a thief. Just because I thieve for money and they thieve for sex doesn’t mean this isn’t a damn fair game—a game I usually win.
But last night, things were different. Last night, I met Elle Clearey.
“Elle,” she said, sliding onto the stool next to mine.
“As in the letter?”
She gave me a sideways smile that crinkled her powdered face. “What do you think, Sweetheart? D’you have me down as a one-letter trick?”
I smiled. “You’re good.”
“I’m also rich and thirsty.”
“Mine’s a gin and tonic,” I said.
She ordered Tanqueray with lemon, not lime, even though I’d given no preference. When I asked why, she raised a delicate eyebrow. “If I’m going to kiss you, my dear, you might as well taste of the good stuff.”
_____
It was a strange kind of seduction—different to the others. Not least because it wasn’t clear who was seducing who. In her red silk blouse and knee-length skirt, she was classier than my usual marks and seven times as bold. Her deep red lipstick had been flawlessly fixed, and her powdered face was mask-like with perfection. She had the most adorable snub nose that gave a constant air of irony, and she wore her brown hair in a delicate chignon, which she patted softly now and then.
She was also good at avoiding questions. Twenty minutes into our conversation, I only knew a handful of facts: She worked in the art world, hated the Dido track that was playing, and her husband had run off with a so-called friend—one she bitterly referred to as “Pussy Galore.” (When I laughed at that, she glared). “He wants the house,” she said, draining her final sip of wine. “The house that we bought with my inheritance money.” She raised her left eyebrow the tiniest amount and said, “He won’t succeed.”
I admit I began to like her.
After I’d told her I had a job as a secretary in an accountancy firm—a useful lie, because who’d ask about that?—I said, “Why do you still wear your wedding ring?”
“I thought you’d like the challenge,” she purred. I laughed at her obvious smokescreen. Before I could respond, she added, “And seeing as you’re all about the personal questions, who the hell are you, and why are you here alone?”
“I’m Tiff,” I told her. “And I’m here ’cos I’m filling a void.”
“A void?” she said. “How sexual.”
“Doesn’t have to be.”
“But it is.”
She held my gaze unflinchingly as she rubbed her knee against mine. Through my jeans, I felt the warmth of her and the friction of her stocking against my denim-clad knee. I also noticed that, beneath the layers of blouse and bra, her nipples had grown hard. I felt my sex burning as she leaned toward me, running a fingertip down my arm before covering my hand with hers. “You might have a void,” she said, breath warm against my cheek, “but with me, it’s something quite different.”
“You’re not like the others?” I said. “Behold the cliché.”
A half-smile. “Oh, kitten,” she said, “if only you knew.”
Now, as you can guess from the title of my erotic novel, Confessions of a Kinky Divorcee (also available on NOOK), I’m more than a little interested in kink. In Kinky Divorcee, it all starts with shoes, but there are also some kinky dynamics at play. For instance, Debs believes she can’t have a much younger lover partly because of the age taboo. Our society can say, time and again, that love has nothing to do with age, but at heart they often don’t mean it. Well, Debs has to let go of the age myth, as well as the notion that consenting sex can’t occur even though you’re adults if you’re old enough to be someone’s parent.
Also, we can shout “it’s fantasy!” until we’re blue in the face, yet people still get upset about age play.
Anyhoo, this brings me to the House of Cards Trilogy, which we’ve been watching recently. (I’ve seen it many times before, but for Angela, this is a first.) I couldn’t wait to get to the point where Francis Urquhart (a politician who secretly thirsts to be Brit Prime Minister) makes a pass at Mattie Storin, a passionate young journalist. In the early scenes below, Mattie has no idea that she is saying the very things Urquhart is already thinking. In truth, he seduces her when she believes that she is seducing him.
That said, she’s the one that says what she wants to “call” him in the bedroom. And it’s kinky indeed. Part of why I find Mattie so attractive is because she owns her sexuality, owns her kink. In fact, Mattie clearly has a hold over Urquhart, and seeing as nobody else really does, that’s perhaps a mesmeric attraction for him, especially seeing as he’s always wanted to be “a father of daughters.”
Oh Daddy.
WARNING: If you watch these snippets right to the end, there are a few small spoilers.
Adele DeWitt (aka Olivia Williams) from Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse
Today, I was buying face cream in CVS. Angela, in fact, was with me. We went our separate ways for a few moments, gathering bits and pieces, and when we returned she produced some tubs of face cream for me to choose from — she couldn’t quite remember the type that I buy. “I don’t get the anti-aging one,” I said. “Just the moisturizing cream.” And just as I was taking it from her hands, I suddenly remembered why:
I’m not going to live my life afraid of a few facial lines. And I hope I’ll never assume that age has anything to do with “sexy.”
Well, last Thursday, as some of you already know, my novel, “Confessions of a Kinky Divorcee,” (from Harper Collins’ Mischief) hit the stores. It’s the story of Debs, who, in her late thirties, sets off on a journey of sexual self-discovery. She is not a “young” woman, but she doesn’t let this stop her. In a way, Confessions is a book about being yourself, in kinky heels, in taxi cabs, and even when you get home to find your tenant tied to the bedposts. It’s a story of a woman who falls for a younger woman and discovers that age has nothing to do with love.
So! I’m all in praise of sexy mature women today. Which brings me to…Adele DeWitt! If you haven’t seen Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse, please consider doing so. It’s an amazing exploration of human trafficking…and what could potentially happen if we discover how to control one another’s personalities. What’s more, it also contains Olivia Williams playing Adele DeWitt. I’d love to show you a scene, but the Whedon team keep an understandably tight hold of their material. However, here’s a music vid by rmorrisme that shows Williams playing DeWitt, followed by a interview with Williams (about her role in Dollhouse) on Fox.
No really! It’s brilliant. And it’s activism. Here…
Thanks for supporting Go Deeper press by reading our blog. If you’d like to browse our erotic, sex-positive e-books for brain and brawn, you can find our website here.
Being an ardent fan of Joss Whedon, I’m always saddened to come across the notion that he is corrupting audiences. Here, in this video, for example, Whedon says that Dollhouse was thought by some to glorify human trafficking. While Dollhouse does portray a kind of sci-fi human trafficking, anyone who thinks that this counts as “glorification” is, in my book, sorely mistaken.
But this idea of “glorifying abuse” is one that we, as erotic writers and readers, often come up against. Where sex is involved, particularly dark sex, there’s usually someone announcing that we’re modeling or glorifying sexual violence. That said, such attitudes are often rooted in genre snobbery. When, for instance, was the last time someone told you that Shakespeare glorifies jealousy and abuse in Othello? Or that Mary Shelley is encouraging murder in Frankenstein? I’ll bet there are those who say that Fifty Shades glorifies abuse, then go home and listen to “Madame Butterfly”—an opera that has often been criticized as intensely racist.
Anyhoo, here’s Joss speaking about Dollhouse. I love it. Hope you do, too.
We’re back from England and ready for 2013! In fact, we’re excited about what’s coming. For instance, I’ll be reading erotica from Femme Fatale: Erotic Tales of Dangerous Women at Sexy Scribes Speaking this February 2nd. It’s going to be an exciting evening! You can find details here.
Also, we at Go Deeper Press are looking forward to fabulous new releases that include Alison Tyler’s “Those Girls” and a new anthology, “As the Bishop Said to the Actress,” which is edited by Angela Tavares and myself. The latter will contain original, enticing erotic stories by fabulous writers. Stay tuned for the cast list! It’s going to be a stunner, folks — a collection that certainly isn’t afraid of the taboo. Do join our mailing list and/or like us on Facebook to keep up to date with the latest releases, offers, freebies and more.
Of course, we’re not the only ones with exciting new projects! Thanks to Charlie Glickman on Twitter, I recently discovered Tomboy Tailors, a new genderqueer store in San Francisco that caters to butch/boi lesbians, trans masculine individuals and, indeed, women of any identity. Bravo, bravo. What’s more, in celebration, here’s a pic of one of my favorite genderqueer characters, the gorgeous Rachel Stirling playing Nan King (on the right) in the BBC version of Sarah Waters’ “Tipping the Velvet” with Keeley Hawes (on the left) as Kitty Butler. A treat indeed.
Don’t forget to join us on Twitter and Facebook for news, offers, and updates! We look forward to it.
Violet Blue, famed sex/tech writer and activist, did a great deal for the Lana Fox of yore. When I first moved to the USA, Violet’s TinyNibbles blog helped me to embrace my sexual self. Violet speaks proudly and loudly about sexuality, and her porn writing and activism are nothing short of inspiring. Here’s a talk that won her a standing ovation at Gnomedex, where she discussed sex and the net. As you’ll see, Violet is sharply intelligent and proudly humane. Get ready to warm the cockles of your sex-positive heart…
Well, with the Go Deeper launch coming tomorrow (along with the delivery of a free erotic e-book to you lovely people), we feel like it’s about time that we flung off our brassiere. I mean, this whole thing has been rather a striptease. You know…we flash you a thigh and a smile, toss you a feather boa, and cry, “You’ll see it all on the 20th, hotlips.” That kind of thing.
Of course, we’re all about the star quality at Go Deeper, so, in celebration of our pre-launch crescendo, here’s a little Blaze Starr striptease to warm your cockles.
And naturally, if we’re talking about sexy women stripping, we have to mention our friends at Rogue Burlesque. So here’s Dixie Douya from Rogue, with her homage to the most delectable pig in the world. This is must-watch material, folks!
Rogue, and Dixie, we’re forever yours.
So see you tomorrow, dear sex-positive souls, when we launch our online store, go bananas on our blog, get flirty on Facebook and Twitter, give stuff away, and generally act appallingly.
Go Deeper Press 