Heroes

The TV series Heroes has finished airing on terrestrial here in the UK, so for the record I thought I'd build a little shrine to the two characters I thought the most beautiful.

Isaac Mendez (played by Santiago Cabrera)

Dr Mohinder Suresh (played by Sendhil Ramamurthy).

My First Tattoo

Lower back, done on Saturday 24th November 2007.
Tattoo artist was Theresa Gordon-Wade, who is really nice as well as being a great tattooist.

And they called it Puppet Love

Yes, this (the one on the right, I should point out) was my first crush - aged about 6 I should think. A hairy blue monster. Sweet natured, innocent and a bit exasperated by life.

Sesame Street is an awesome programme: educational, witty, humane and fun. I grew up on it because most English-language TV in Hong Kong was imported from America at the time I lived there . And I still love Grover.

Funny-Shaped Balls

This is Augustin Pichot, rugby player and captain of Argentina's national side. He converted me to watching rugby.

Veraine

This is actually a photo of Gerard Butler playing Attila in the eponymous TV mini-series. Bad series. But it came out sometime after "Divine Torment" was published and when I saw the cover of the DVD I went "Bloody hell! - that's Veraine!"

Which is the whole reason I have this enormous crush on a relatively obscure Scottish actor. Well, he's not so obscure now.

To be 100% Veraine he'd have to have greying hair of course, and black eyes not grey (Veraine's north-Indian-ish). Still, he's 90% right: my ultimate sexual hero.

There's a clip on the extras of the Dracula 2001 DVD showing GB reading for the title role while still wearing the Attila long hair and eyeliner. It's probably the sexiest thing I've ever seen. Secondary brain (the one in my knickers) kicks in and overrides primary one. I have no interest in vampires, but I'd let that one kill me stone dead.

Pat Rafter, Wet.

Lust Bites T-Shirt

Divine Torment back in print this week

Divine Torment is back in print from 8th August (UK - it's October for US readers I think). Hooray!

It has a snazzy new cover (left). Okay, so it's a bit cheesy... Like brie. And neither cover model looks anything like my heroes. But at least it says "This is a fantasy novel, dudes!" - unlike the godawful 1st edition cover (below). Oh man is the new one an improvement!

My favourite is still the Japanese cover (bottom), which has actually been drawn to order by someone who's read the book. They've got the reddish hair and the armour (although they've exaggerated how kinky the latter is).

Still, the main thing is it's back on sale. And it's mine. And I love it!

Read an excerpt on Lust Bites, on the last Friday of this month - and maybe win a free copy.

Horny Boyz!

Extract: 'The Dragon's Bride'

'The Dragon's Bride' appears in Cruel Enchantment, my short story collection.


‘Tell me,’ said Oromon; 'are you considered attractive by the standards of your people?'

Sheldi looked down at herself, at the firm curves so generous that they were almost a joke. Noblewomen of the city aspired to be tiny and fragile. She remembered the barbed ‘She has the physique of a dancing girl, not of a lady!’ hissed deliberately just within her hearing, a lifetime away. ‘Actually, I’m thought to be too tall,’ she told the dragon.

‘Not now,’ said Oromon, bringing his head in close to her. His hot breath whistled around her feet. Suddenly his tongue – forked like a snake’s and pale blue – slid from between the mesh of his teeth and flickered up the line of her stomach. Sheldi gasped and put out her hand without thinking onto the scaled ridge between his nostrils. It was warm.

‘What are you doing?’ she whispered.

‘Smelling you,’ he replied. ‘Kneel down: you will be more stable. It’s necessary,’ he added as she obeyed helplessly: ‘My people have excellent hearing and vision, but a poor sense of smell. And the scent of your kind is not very like that of my own. But close enough. Ahh.’

His tongue brushed across her breasts, moving in and out of his mouth, tracing a path across her shivering skin from throat to belly, exploring under her arms and across her lips. Sheldi shut her eyes and submitted, yielding to the dry, delicate touch. When it slid between her parted thighs she made no sound, though her eyes flew open. She felt the tip of the tongue questing in the moist folds of her flesh and realised with silent shock how adroit a forked tongue could be at parting and spreading that flesh.

‘Open your legs,’ breathed Oromon, withdrawing for a moment, and when she complied her returned to probe deeper. And she was wet, she suddenly knew: soaking wet. His tongue was drawing slick trails of moisture down from her vagina across her thighs and she could smell herself. She flushed with shame. The dragon-tongue slipped into the hot passage of her sex, flexed there and withdrew – and Sheldi bit down on a tiny moan.

‘Not entirely unpleasant, then,’ Oromon chuckled; then when she refused to reply he stabbed again with a teasing caress that jerked a cry from her lips and left her shaking.

‘Oh please,’ she whispered.

Lust Man Standing

I love this picture. I could smile at it for hours.

The TV programme it comes from is Last Man Standing and the contestant is Rajko Radovic.

I wrote some stuff about my sad warrior obsession in my sparkly new Myspace Blog, if you're interested.

Brendan Fraser

Saving my lovely Brendan Fraser sidebar picture for future generations....

I got it from http://www.provocateuse.com/ by the way. One of my favourite sites on the Web. Visit it today!

How long do you think he can hold his breath for?

Grrrrl Power

Blogger was playing me about when we did a GirlCrush Wednesday over at Lust Bites, so I couldn't post any pictures. So very belatedly, here's a selection of the women I fancy. You may just spot a theme.


Claudia Black in Pitch Black - but I loved her best as Aeryn Sun in Farscape.

Michelle Rodriguez in Resident Evil.

Milla Jovovich, also in Resident Evil. What a hardchick-fest that film is!

And Angelina Jolie, of course. If there is a God, that's what She looks like.

"Wildwood" excerpt

‘Taste it,’ he ordered, showing his teeth. ‘Taste it and tell me you’re not ready for me.’ He touched my lips. I licked my own sharp juices from his fingers, reluctantly at first, then thoroughly. My cheeks were aflame with shame. ‘I think that’s the answer I’ve been waiting for.’ Still watching me with that appraising glint, Michael removed his jacket and hung it over the back of a chair. Then he sat down on the sofa, at the far end from Jenny, and patted his thigh. ‘Come on,’ he said softly.

Eyes downcast I came to him and sat in his lap. Every step was a surrender. I knew he could feel my trembling, the last vestiges of my inner struggle. He traced his fingers across the silk on my back and bum. His legs were hard slabs of muscle beneath mine. He kissed my cheek but when I turned my mouth to his, my lips already parted and yearning, he withheld his kiss, his smile lazily triumphant.

My dressing gown wouldn’t stay together over my bare legs.

Without fuss and without force he took my wrists round to the small of my back and held them there, crossed over. He only used one of his hands to pin me, and I could have broken the grip easily, but the very fact that he had to put so little physical effort into mastering me was a glaring demonstration of my submission. The posture thrust my breasts out a little. With his free hand Michael played with the open edge of my garment, the line where silk and skin met. Then he glanced over at Jenny. Uncoiling from her perch on the far arm, she came down the sofa toward us. I could see know that her slick, plastic-looking dress was made of pond-weed, the kind that lies in sheets under the surface. With her nails she slit it down the front and discarded it, revealing a palely green body beneath, slight except for the swell of her rounded breasts. Her nipples were large and, like her nails, black; they seem to stare at me. I looked away, unable to meet their unblinking gaze.

‘You’re mine,’ said Michael in my ear. ‘I’m going to let her play with you, because that’s my pleasure, but you belong to me. Your body knows that already, doesn’t it?’

I whimpered under my breath. I had no idea whether he was staking his claim or simply enjoying the game, but he was right about my body; it was wholehearted in its treacherous collaboration. As Michael drew back one side of my gown to expose my right breast my nipple stood proud to meet him, not so large or dark as Jenny’s but hard anyway, a sweet brown nut.
‘Well. Somebody’s feeling … perky.’ He took it between thumb and finger, twisting it gently, enough to make me quiver. ‘I get so carried away in admiring your arse, Avril, that I forget how much you love having your juicy little tits touched. You’d do almost anything to have me do this.’ He pinched me softly and I cried out in pleasure and humiliation, causing him to smile. ‘Oh, that’s good, is it?’

‘Yes,’ I said in the smallest of voices.

‘You want more?’ He used his nails on my skin and I heaved against him. He kept playing as Jenny crawled up over me, and he traced the whorls of my ear with his tongue, his breath hot. His touch was nearly enough to distract me from her green, inhuman eyes. She made a low, musical, almost birdlike sound in her throat as she leaned in to kiss me. Then Michael withdrew the tip of his tongue from my ear and turned to her. ‘No,’ he said in a voice like lead.

A sneer flickered over Jenny’s face, but she lowered her head obediently to my breasts. She stroked one hand down my breastbone, easing the other panel of silk aside, tugging the knot of the belt loose so that I was bared all the way down to my pubic triangle. Then she returned her attention to my breasts, stroking the sensitive inner surfaces until I shut my eyes, my skin singing. Her fingers were cold. Her mouth was too, inside and out, as it closed around my left nipple. I gasped out loud.

‘Oh yes,’ said Michael. ‘You are particularly sensitive there, aren’t you?’ His own excitement was more than evident, pushing up against me through his trousers. ‘Isn’t she good?’

She was incredible. Her tongue was cold, and she used it to stir my nerve-endings to tingling frenzy. She licked and she lapped and she suckled and she nibbled. I looked down at her only once and saw that there was sand in her hair, a fine drift of golden mica glittering in the natural parting lines. Then I had to shut my eyes gain as the tide of sensation dragged me under and I gave way to the tormenting pleasure of her lips, arching my back to push more of my breasts into her delicious mouth. Michael abandoned that territory to his ally and slipped his hand between my thighs instead. I writhed and let my legs part, unresisting as he explored me thoroughly.

‘Oh Avril, your pot is quite full, isn’t it? Full of your warm fuck honey. You are a wicked girl, getting so turned on. You know I’m a bad, bad man but you’re sat in my lap wriggling like a whore and you’re letting a strange girl suck your beautiful tits. You’re in slut heaven, you wicked girl.’

From the other side Jenny’s slim hand joined his between my thighs, slipping inside me. His hand was warm, hers was not; the contrast of sensations nearly turned me inside out. His imprisoned erection ground up against me. His other hand tightened on my wrists until the fingers bit into my flesh.

‘You’re so turned on you’re about to come,’ he whispered. ‘I haven’t even got my cock in you, and you’re coming already.’

And I was.

‘Yes,’ he murmured as I writhed upon him: ‘that’s it. That’s it.’

© Janine Ashbless 2007

Not A Dry Seat in The House

Gerard Butler! With no clothes on!



Yes, it's "300" the movie - Proof that there is a god. A god of gay military porn possibly, but certainly a deity of some description.



There are twenty things wrong with this film. It's borderline racist. It's quasi-fascist (but not in a Nazi way). It equates physical beauty with moral perfection. David Wenham does a really weird Long John Silver accent. It's not violent enough (Seriously!). The Leonidas/Gorgo sex scene should have been ooh, about ten minutes longer. Worst of all, unlike "Gates of Fire" the novel, which is deeply moving in its depiction of men facing certain death with the utmost courage - and it's only moving and only courage because they like all people do fear death - in 300 the Spartans are having such a good time getting themselves killed that it doesn't seem tragic or even much like sacrifice.



But it's beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.



Favourite sequence

Burning Bright Reviews

This one is from Forum, (Vol. 41 no.2) and I’ll quote it in full:

"Veraine was a commander in the Imperial army and Myrna was the high priestess her stole away from her temple. As they attempt to make a new life together they are attacked by reivers: Myrna is taken to be a slave of the evil Tiger Lords, while Veraine is beaten and left for dead. Piecing together fragments of memory, Veraine begins to search for his lost love, but there are many erotic temptations on his way, while life with the Tiger Lords is so brutal and short he may not arrive in time…

Black Lace is branching out heavily into paranormal erotica this year, attempting to emulate the success of authors such as Laurell K. Hamilton and Sherrilyn Kenyon (but with better writing standards…), so expect lots of novels involving vampires, shape-shifters and general spookiness. If they’re all up to the standard of Burning Bright then it’s a gamble which should pay off. There’s an art to making you believe in characters who are part-human, part-animal and Ashbless clearly possesses it. Personally I don’t particularly like lots of death and dollops of gore with my erotica, but the fight scenes are carried off well, and the Eastern tinges of mysticism which are woven into the plot and the characters’ belief systems hold everything together nicely. And the sex never takes second place to the plot twists, which is always the danger with this type of erotica genre.

Careful, this one burns…"

However, my real favourite is from the journal of the Erotic Trade Organisation:
"Practically snuff"

I laughed till I fell off my chair…

xxx
Janine Ashbless

For the brave, I’ve put a couple of pages of new notes on Burning Bright at www.janineashbless.com. Read the book first.

Chinese New Year

I was brought up in Hong Kong as a little girl and saw a lot of Chinese historical dramas on TV before it became common over here. Men with long hair and swords were imprinted on my brain very young!

Greek Cheeks

"Go tell the Spartans, thou who passest by,

That here obedient to their laws we lie."

(Simonides, C5th BCE)

This statue is located at Thermoplyae and commemerates the defence of Greece by 300 Spartans who stood against the invading Persian army in a narrow pass and held them off long enough for the rest of the Greek states to raise a proper resistance. It was suicide mission and they knew it. They all died.

Spartan society was an exercise in social engineering that makes the Taliban look like a bunch of fluffy liberals (though just for once women did relatively well out of it). On the other hand they were unbelievably brave. And had nice bums, as you can see.

I find them fascinating (see Divine Torment for my fantasy version).

I may be wibbling on about Spartans some more in the near future...

That Harpist...

I don't drink whiskey (with or without the 'e') but the Jameson Irish Whiskey advert is, as Portia Da Costa said,
"Phwoar".

His name is Conny Bloom, he's Swedish and he doesn't really play the harp - though he does play guitar, for Hanoi Rocks

Burning Bright: an excerpt

This excerpt is from the unedited version of Chapter One

When the smoke cleared he realised dimly that some time must have passed. The light had changed. He looked again for the girl, but the face he discovered was not hers. It was much older; still female, but this time extravagantly filthy, the skin grey where hers had been golden-brown and the eyes black stars gleaming from deep pits. This one truly looked like a demon, if you believed in such things.

‘The fever is down,’ said the woman, jabbing him on the brow with one finger. ‘But it has not broken. It will return.’

She had rubbed herself over with ash, he realised, and darkened the hollows of her eyes with charcoal dust. Black ropes of hair framed her ghostly face, where the only touch of colour was the red of her lips where the ash had been licked away.

‘He has lost a part of his soul,’ the woman continued, ‘and a fever spirit has taken its place. I will ask my spirits how it is to be called out.’

Either because the heat in his blood had abated somewhat or else because the room was much less dark, he now managed to watch her even when she stood and walked away from him. He could make out the walls of the room too, the close-set bamboo poles outlined in light. The younger woman was squatting a little way off, red dress pulled tight over her thighs, her gaze fixed on her filthy elder. He was even aware that he was covered to the waist by a cotton sheet that was plastered to his skin. But he saw it all as from far way, down the length of a tunnel, as if he had somehow fallen into a pit below the room.

I am still in hell, he thought, but I can look through a chink in the wall, back into the living world.

The woman stood back, shrugged her dress from her shoulders and let it hang from her waist as she reached for a deep-bodied drum. He saw that she had rubbed ash down her breasts too, so that they seemed luminous against the darker skin of her torso and her broad nipples were only outlines against each orb. He tried to swallow, unable to take his eyes off those breasts. Big enough to overflow his hands, he thought. Big enough to slap together and form a tight cleft for a hard prick. The younger girl took out a drum too and laid it in her lap. She was watching the older woman as if waiting for a sign.

The ash-witch struck her drum with the heel of her hand and the sound went through his skull like a spearpoint. She struck it again and cried out in a harsh voice, her head thrown back, as if calling across a great abyss. Then her hand descended in a rain of blows, picking up an insistent driving rhythm that thudded in his breastbone and made him twitch with discomfort. He could feel the skin on his belly jumping to the drumbeat. The noise was horrible; it felt like an assault. He realised the younger woman was drumming along too. But the girl kept her seat by the wall, while the older woman began to dance, her body twisting to the heartbeat of the drum, her matted locks swinging about her head, her breasts bouncing and swaying as her feet stamped.

No, he groaned silently. What's happening?

Then the panther walked into the room. It came through the wall, passing through the bamboo poles as if they were smoke, and for a moment he could not believe that it was real. But then he saw the gleam of moisture on its nose and tongue and teeth, saw the silky darkness of its black fur and smelled the carrion stink of its breath, for it came straight to his bed and stared down at him, its golden eyes more beautiful and more terrible than any nightmare could ever be. He stared helplessly into the black mask of his death. Then the cat turned away with feline contempt. It went over to the witch and she flung her arms about its neck, her bare breasts leaving ash-streaks upon its jet pelt. It rubbed it face ecstatically against hers.

Sweat ran into his eyes. He had to shut his eyes against the salt sting. The drumbeat pounded in his head, the darkness spun in a circle around him - but when he opened his eyes again there was silence. He and the women were alone in the room.

The witch came over and knelt by his pallet, breasts till heaving from the exertion of her dance and little streaks of moisture tracked through the ash like fingerprints. He could see her nipples were hard under their grey dusting. She smiled to herself and patted her thigh, signalling to the girl who laid aside her drum and joined her. Both women stared down at him.

‘My spirits tell me,’ said the witch, ‘that the fever spirit is a red centipede. It must be sucked out of him. With his seed.’ She looked slyly sideways at her companion. ‘They said that you should do it.’

The girl made an 'o' with her mouth and shook her head, her eyes suddenly unable to fix upon the supine body before her.

‘Tch,’ clicked the witch with her tongue; ‘you're too old to be afraid of men, Mehetchi. If you weren't my apprentice you'd have been married by now.’

‘I'm not afraid - I just don't want to,’ the girl said, wriggling. ‘He's a foreigner.’

‘A man is a man. There's no difference to speak of. Anyway; his hands are tied: what are you worried about?’

He then realised that the pressure he'd felt across his back was a length of cord attached to either wrist. A cold stab of fear ran up his belly.

The girl hissed between her teeth. ‘I don't … I’m not ready for this,’ she muttered.

The witch made an ugly noise in her throat. ‘Don't give me that, girl. You are training to be a spirit-talker, so don't tell me you're squeamish. You do what the spirits instruct.’

The girl stuck out her lower lip but didn't reply. Her colour was high. He was not capable of imagining what she was feeling, but he knew he didn't want this at all. He was too weak to protest, but his muscles clenched in painful cramp. This was not how he wanted it; not tied down and helpless, nor picked over by two witches like a couple of vultures on a corpse. He tried to protest, but came out as a bestial groan.

The witch poked his right nipple sharply. ‘Don't be impatient, you,’ she admonished. ‘Now Mehetchi, pull that down. Take a look. It won't bite; this is a serpent without teeth.’

He felt a cooler flutter of air as the girl reluctantly turned down the sheet over his thighs. Thin trickles of sweat crawled over his hips and down to the small of his back.

‘Hey, girl. It's not so bad, is it?’

The younger witch made a face. ‘It's lumpy and ugly. Not sweet and smooth like a woman's.’

This drew a bark of laughter from her elder. ‘It's sweet enough, girl! And soft and smooth most of the time, the tenderest part of a man until he starts to imagine somewhere even more tender to put it. Now this one though, he's already thinking on your plump lips, Mehetchi.’ She flicked his cock with one long nail; he couldn't see his own reaction but he could certainly feel it. ‘Hee! Look at it jump! The fish are biting tonight!’

Mehetchi's eyes widened.

‘This is stuff you have to learn, to be a spirit-talker,’ the other told her. ‘I’ll tell you. Now go on; put your hand on it.’

Mehetchi obeyed slowly, her cool fingers circling his cock. He squeezed his eyes shut.

‘How is it?’

‘Hot. Every bit of him is fevered.’

‘Not so soft now?’

Her hand hefted his flesh uncertainly. ‘It's getting heavier. It moves in my hand like an animal,’ she observed.

‘Ah; you must pet it like an animal then. Stroke it. Rub it gently. Yes; like that.’

Her apprentice was wary. ‘What will it do?’

‘It will get harder still.’

‘I don't like it hard. It was nicer before. Look: it's too big and ugly already.’

‘But it must get as hard as it can before it will spill its seed. Harder than a length of mahogany. See how much bigger it is now?’

Mehetchi sucked in breath; he could see her teeth gleaming pale in the shadows. ‘Where does the length come from?’ she complained. ‘It kicks so strong in my hand!’

The witch nodded. ‘Ah; he may be weak with fever, but his flesh is still charged with life.’ She raised a finger. ‘Listen, child; you must understand that a man feels desire just as a woman does, but there is more than one spirit at work in his flesh. The prick of a man has a spirit of its own that moves it without his intention or his knowledge. It brings flesh into being from the spirit-world. It makes him rise even when he has no thought of lust in his heart. When he sleeps, the prick-spirit stirs. When he wants to piss, it won't let him. It can be very strong, very cunning. More cunning than the man's own spirit. Look at that serpent - has it any eyes?’

‘No. Only a mouth.’

‘There, you see; a prick-spirit is blind. To it all women are the same. Old and young, pretty and ugly. A prick is as happy with the arse of a goat as with that of a girl. Heh! - a man will fuck mud when his prick is in charge. He will do anything to obey it. That's why they are dangerous.’

Mehetchi made a face of disgust and squeezed him savagely until his spine arched.

‘This spirit is treacherous, child. It can trick a man into believing he desires a woman, when really he finds her repulsive. He will say anything to win her when he is under its command - you know what the young men in the village are like. Only when the prick-spirit has had its way will he realise that he never wanted this woman.’

Her pupil nodded.

‘And then, when he approaches the girl he lusts after the most, the prick-spirit may abandon him, and for all his desire he then will be unable to stiffen for her. When you are a full spirit-talker, you will find that many men, or their wives, will come to you to complain that their prick-spirit has fled. It will be your job to search out the spirit wherever it has hidden and bring it back to his body.’

‘Where do they go?’

‘Into the Underworld. I will show you the place later. I will teach you a song to call them, and another to send them back, if you ever should need such a thing.’

‘And what about those below?’

‘Go on; touch them. They're nothing to fear. They are soft like ripe fruits.’

Mehetchi knelt forward to apply both hands to the task. ‘They're wrinkled like they've hung on the stem too long then! Ugh!’ She giggled, her eyes flashing with alarm. ‘Are all men as hairy in those parts?’

‘No - he's a foreigner.’

He felt the humiliation writhe in his belly.

‘Those are the source of all his seed. The spirits of all his descendants wait there, anxious to see the light of life. Often they are too eager and they pour out when there is no womb to receive them. That is your task now. You must draw his seed out and hold it in your mouth; the fever will come with it.’

The girl licked her lips nervously, and even that sight sent a spasm through his helpless flesh.

‘The serpent's mouth is wet! Is that his seed?’

‘Hah!’ the older woman snorted. ‘No - he is just eager for you, child. His prick drools like a toothless old man before his dinner. Suck it.’

‘No,’ he said, but his voice went unheard.


Copyright Janine Ashbless 2007

Gerard Butler Pictures