Violet is my favourite colour

Squeeee!!
Check out what Violet Blue has to say about me on her blog today!  With a great big picture!

Me? I'm nearly speechless. I just keep making squeaky noises.

Eyecandy Monday - Balls special

This World Cup thingy trundles on so I thought I'd bring you another footballer. Sorry, soccer-player, for you Americans.

And then I thought - Hold on, Wimbledon Fortnight has started. Why not a tennis player too?
(Okay, so he got knocked out in the first round.)

In fact, let's face it, it's not the size or shape of the balls that matters, so much as the man they're attached to, heh heh heh.

So I've dredged my Eyecandy files for some sporting pretties. Hope you like them!

Look! He has two different shaped balls!

Help! Send porn!

Shh! Am snatching five minutes from a weekend spent with multiple friends. While we are by no means what the rest of the world would describe as "normal" non-geek people, several of them have at least faked normality long enough to breed.

Am suffering from an overpowering urge to lock myself in the toilet until the whole children thing goes away. Like, say, fifteen years.

Sale! - The Ingénue

They're coming thick and fast - just the way I like 'em! Short story sales, that is  ;-)

I've just signed the contract for my short story The Ingénue, which is to appear in Best Bondage Erotica 2011, edited by cupcake goddess Rachel Kramer Bussel and out in December this year. Yip yip yipeee!!

I don't write huge amounts of bondage erotica, as I've confessed before - it's not that I don't like it, it's just I find the vocabulary difficult. But I saw this panel in an Oglaf strip:

And I was, um .... inspired.

I know Emerald is also between the covers with me in this anthology, but I don't know the rest of the lineup yet. Anyone?

The Ecstasy of St Theresa

Worthy of a post all to itself is another Bernini statue we saw in Rome: The Ecstasy of St Theresa. It's in the baroque church of Santa Maria Della Vittoria and I insisted on going because it's - on one level - a fantastically beautiful depiction of psycho-sexual spirituality, and - on another - so fecking ridiculous that it's impossible to look at with a straight face.

The statue depicts 16th-century nun (and masochistic self-harmer) Theresa (motto: "Lord, either let me suffer or let me die") in the midst of her most famous "vision" of the "divine love". Here's how she describes it:

"Beside me, on the left, appeared an angel in bodily form.... He was not tall but short, and very beautiful; and his face was so aflame that he appeared to be one of the highest rank of angels, who seem to be all on fire.... In his hands I saw a great golden spear, and at the iron tip there appeared to be a point of fire. This he plunged into my heart several times so that it penetrated to my entrails. When he pulled it out I felt that he took them with it, and left me utterly consumed by the great love of God. The pain was so severe that it made me utter several moans. The sweetness caused by this intense pain is so extreme that one cannot possibly wish it to cease, nor is one's soul content with anything but God. This is not a physical but a spiritual pain, though the body has some share in it—even a considerable share."

Um ... darling ... it's called Orgasm. We all have them!

Theresa's ferocious mental training, though, seems to have enabled her to bypass the need for physical masturbation. Apparently she was subject to these ecstatic rushes in public, in a way she found rather embarrassing:

"This has not happened to me often: once, however, it took place when we were all together in choir, and I, on my knees, on the point of communicating. It was a very sore distress to me; for I thought it a most extraordinary thing, and was afraid it would occasion much talk; so I commanded the nuns—for it happened after I was made Prioress—never to speak of it. But at other times, the moment I felt that our Lord was about to repeat the act, and once, in particular, during a sermon,—it was the feast of our house, some great ladies being present,—I threw myself on the ground; then the nuns came around me to hold me; but still the rapture was observed."

How inconsiderate of God!
Bear in mind that the statue is presented in a literally theatrical way - as if it were on stage...

... with a gawping audience on either side:

How pervy is that?

Eyecandy Monday

It's my enormous pleasure to announce that my M/F/M short story Abigail's Ice Cream has been chosen for inclusion in Best Women's Erotica 2011, edited by Violet Blue and due out in December this year. Wheee! It's been a great week for gelato and me, hasn't it?

It's even more amazing considering that my story is so very British: all about summer fairs and class anxieties. Plus it apparently had to beat off half-a-dozen other ice-cream themed stories that were also submitted (That's writers' telepathy for you: sometimes we just all home in on a single subject).Thank you Violet!

Mine's a pear sorbet!

Pre-order at Amazon US

Schmalz

Colosseum art! (And thus, more sex and death.)

Herbert Gustave Schmalz (1856-1935) painted this spectacularly pervy picture: Faithful Unto Death (1888) - also known as Christians and Lions. Who would have guessed that those early Christians would all be beautiful young women, eh?

Rome: sex and death

Waah! Running late - my server has been down. So grab yourself a gelato from this luscious selection and settle down for a whistle-stop Sex-'n'-Death-themed slideshow of my holiday in Rome.

"What have the Romans ever done for us?"

Well, they invented the wet T-shirt competition, it seems. This wonderful torso is in the reconstructed Senate building in the Forum.

And this is how pet food is advertised on street billboards!
But it's not all tits...

Yes, there are bums too! A very ancient (and strange) variation on depicting the human figure, in the Palatine museum. The butt-cheeks just jut out of the square pillar.

On the death side of the equation, there's the Colosseum of course. Slaughter of humans and animals as public entertainment, on an unimaginable scale. Whole species made extinct. You'll be glad to know that with the advent of Christianity, they stopped throwing criminals to the wild animals and just burnt them alive instead.

Here's the most amazing statue I've seen in my whole life (though it's not my picture as photography was forbidden): it's Apollo and Daphne by Bernini (I'd never heard of him before last week), and you can find it in the Galleria Borghese. She's transforming into a tree to escape being raped. Life-sized, her flying hair and the individual leaves are minutely carved in marble: it's an incredible technical achievement.

The very famous and moving Dying Gaul statue in the Capitoline Museum has the best scrotum I've seen though: you can count the wrinkles.

One last piece of misery in marble: this huge statue is in San Giovanni in Laterano. It's St Bartholomew, who was martyred by being skinned alive and thus carries his own skin around with him for all eternity. As you would.

More Death:  this is the crypt of Santa Maria della Concezione, where they have been doing creative and tasteless things with the bones of the faithful for centuries. (Again, not my photo. It would be disrespectful to allow photography - although you can buy postcards... )

5 days: 5 ice-creams, 4 museums, 1 catacomb, 1 crypt, 4 churches, 1 fort, and more temples, piazzas, bridges, fountains and classical ruins than you could shake a stick at.  Rome is amazing - so much to see that it was just dizzying. But also WAY TOO HOT: up to 35C. As I stood waiting to cross a road I could actually feel the soles of my feet burning as the heat struck up through my sandals. Mind you, as this was just outside the Vatican, it's just possible that it was something to do with Holy Ground...
;-)

And something nice to finish off:

Given the long hair, it's probably Dionysus. Time for a drink!

Fairy Tale blogs

While I was away, two new book blogs kicked off for anthologies I'm included in:

 Alison's Wonderland blog - already has a mini-interview with me up, and if you comment you might win a packet of seeds. Yes, seeds! Dwarf Bedding Mix, to be precise, which is more appropriate for my Snow White story Gold, on Snow than I can explain in mixed company. You can also find the interview over at Alison Tyler's blog, where it is accompanied by some speculation as to the contents of my attic.

Fairy Tale Lust blog - just kicked off with an interview with the wonderful Charlotte Stein. And the book has already garnered a 4.5 star review ("Fantastic - it's a keeper") from RT Book Reviews

Yes, they are both fairy tale collections, and they're both out on 1st July. What a feast!
(Both available for pre-order on Amazon.)

Eyecandy Monday

I'm back from Rome, only to find there's this football thingy going on, all over the TV schedules. So here's a footballer for your eyecandy. At least, I think he's a footballer - I'm taking the Internet's word for it. And he's Italian! (Probably). Seriously, I know nothing about the World Cup and have already seen way too much of it. Am slightly mollified by the Argentinian players' propensity for Hero Hair and slapping each other on the butt.

Here's some more Italian footballers:

(Or possibly Lithuanian tiddly-winks champions ... Like, what do I know? They're purty though!)


Rome, btw, was TOO HOT but full of lovely things to see and eat. Photos of Janine's Sex and Death Tour to follow this week!

We who are about to holiday salute you

I'm away off to Rome, to look for more gladiators! Yes, I know ... I know. I didn't even intend to go abroad this year: we're supposed to be saving up money. But people kept springing irresistible holidays on me...


I'll be back a week on Monday, with photos no doubt. Meanwhile, image above is from the new series Spartacus: Blood and Sand, which I am going to have to buy - even though it looks dumber than a bag of squirrels. But Shanna Germain recommends it. And Eloise tells me "there's a story in there that is occasionally allowed to glimmer through the almost childish glee in blood and nookie."


Gladiators? Lucy Lawless naked? Nookie? I'm there!

Surprise anthology out now!

Surprise! There's a new erotica anthology out this week - new anthology, new imprint (Racy Pages) and new editor Tinder James (who's a joy to work for, btw). Surprise is themed around, well, um: surprises. Sometimes nice ones, sometimes shocking ones, sometimes humorous ones. There's a refreshing variety of range in the stories too: cowboys and science fiction, nice and nasty, short stories and 100-word flashes.

I've contributed both a flash, Cherry, and a longer story: In Real Life, which is about Ellie and Bryn who have been friends and lovers for months in the virtual world of Second Life, and are meeting for the first time in the flesh. Ellie's understandably nervous: is Bryn what he appeared to be in their online encounters? Why has he always insisted that they only communicate using the written word, never voicechat?

When they do meet face to face she's in for a series of surprises. Bryn is Deaf. And he's brought a friend along on their date to interpret. By the end of the night the three of them are getting on really well together...

---

That's when Bryn's hand makes its irrevocable move to the front, under my rucked-up skirt, his fingers delicate on the fabric; tickling my pussy, teasing the barely-concealed nub of my clit, tugging the silky gusset aside. Hugh has forgotten to inhale and his cigarette trembles in his fngers. I'm past resistance now, if I ever was capable of it. I don't care that we're on a public footbridge and that there are people walking past every few minutes. I don't care what a slut I must look. I just want Bryn to touch me more. I just want to welcome his fingers into my wet, and I'm so grateful for their slick caress on my swollen clit that when it finally happens I whimper out loud.

Bryn lifts his head from my throat and looks at me searchingly. Withdrawing his hands, he lifts them to sign. I grab his hips in frustration and pull his pelvis harder to me, grinding my bereft pussy against him.

"He wants to know if you mind me watching," Hugh asks, his voice all woolly and hoarse.

I kiss Bryn, softly, eagerly, and shake my head. "Not in the least."

Hands dance again. I want them to dance on my breasts and in my wet slot.

"He wants to know if you'd like me to touch you too."

I swallow, my throat suddenly dry, my heart pounding. "I'd like that very much," I whisper.

---

Buy Surprise at  Amazon US : Kindle

(Not yet available in the UK. Argh!)

HUBba Hubba!

I certainly do love my geek! Issue 122 of online science fiction magazine Hub (10,000+ readers weekly!) has the most fantastic review of Magic and Desire, the three-novella collection from Olivia Knight, Portia da Costa and myself.

This is what Hub had to say about my novella The House of Dust:


"A collection of three novellas, Magic and Desire showcases not only three of the best female authors working in erotica but also the best the genre has to offer.‘The House of Dust’, the opening novella by Janine Ashbless, demonstrates this perfectly, following the events surrounding the death of King Tamuz of Uruk in Sumer and the lengths that his chief Priestess, Shari, goes to not only avenge his death but reverse it. Ashbless has a deft, precise hand for world building and the city, and Shari’s role within it, are deftly drawn within the first five pages. This description takes on an increasingly intense, at times nightmarish tone, as Shari descends through the multiple gates of the underworld to retrieve Tamuz’s soul. These sequences, and the ordeals Shari endures, not only counterpoint but accentuate the loving, passionate relationship she enjoys with Tamuz. Sex becomes a means of communication, of negotiation, of protection and finally of the love between a King wrongfully murdered and a Priestess who will do anything to get him back."

Read the whole hubtastic review here - Click on "PDF" for a download. Back issues are also available for reading - fiction, reviews, interviews and articles: because it's British there's a fair amount of Dr Who  :-)

I'm especially delighted by such a generous and open-minded review coming from outside the erotica genre. I'm so used to erotica being sneered at on principle, even by those who should be fellow-travellers, that this has totally bowled me over. THANK YOU HUB!!

"Magic and Desire is an immensely strong trio of stories, all of which not only refuse to shy away from sex but use it as a means of illuminating character, furthering plot and changing the reader’s approach. These are explicit stories, make no mistake, but anything less would do the writer and reader a real disservice. By turns smart, grim, funny, romantic and sexy these are deep, rich stories that demand your attention and know exactly how to get it. Both magic and desire abound here and if you’re even a little interested in either, you need to make room on your shelves for this."

Buy Magic and Desire at Amazon US : Amazon UK : Kindle