Who Thrilled Cock Robin?

I did!
Well, we did! And I'm delighted to be in such company :-)

The brand new anthology Who Thrilled Cock Robin is out now from House of Erotica, and my male-sub story More Meat is one of eight stories therein based on traditional folk songs.

Folk ballads are awesome triggers for stories, because - as I discovered in my teens - they are basically all about sex and death. Often both at the same time.

Here's the full lineup:

•  Widicombe Woods - Vanessa De Sade
•  My True Love’s Ring - Zak Jane Keir
•  More Meat - Janine Ashbless
•  Lord Bateman - Slave Nano
•  Clementine - Aishling Morgan
•  Halewijn’s Song - Elizabeth Coldwell
•  Broadstairs Bloke Week -  Helen J Perry
•  The Wyrm - JM Kaye

It's also on sale as an e-book from All Romance
and as both a Kindle download and a POD paperback from Amazon US : Amazon UK

Would you like your appetite whetted? Here's Sallyanne Rogers' introduction:

"Defining what folk music actually is, is nearly as difficult as deciding what actually makes a story erotica rather than romance, horror, sci-fi or literary fiction. Is it the subject matter? The instruments it’s played on? The language used? While folk music tends to consist of songs which have been passed down orally for so many generations that their original composers are unknown (but bands like the Levellers are often described as ‘modern folk’), and erotica tends to have quite a lot of explicitly described sexual activity, the boundaries still blur. People tend to fall back on claiming that they’ll know it when they come across it.

"The eight stories that make up this collection are all, broadly speaking, erotica and the songs they relate to are all, broadly speaking, folk songs. Some are light-hearted bawdy romps; one is a gentle, almost traditional romance; a couple are dark, twisted and just a little scary. Authors were given free reign to choose a song that they reckoned fell into the folk category, and then to see what kind of story they came up with. So there’s a gloriously eclectic mix on offer: present-day realism, paranormal, historical, LGBT, heterosexual, kinky or vanilla.

Vanessa de Sade picked the most contemporary piece of music: her story Widicombe Woods was inspired by "Widicombe Fair," a modern take on the traditional ballad by Max Scratchmann and Michael Dyer, where a maiden has good reason to take drastic action rather than be married off to an unsuitable man.
 
My True Love’s Ring, by Zak Jane Keir, gives a BDSM-style makeover to a song variously known as "Sovai," "Sovay," "Cecilia" or "The Female Highwayman," in which a woman who doubts her lover’s commitment decides to put him to the test with a spot of cross-dressing.

An unsettling and memorable reworking of "King Henry," one of the Child Ballads, pits Henry I against the terrifying dark goddess Erecura in Janine Ashbless’s More Meat, while Lord Bateman, a tale of an imprisoned crusader and the woman who sets him free, was sparked off by Jim Moray’s version of the old song with the same name according to Slave Nano.

Probably the best-known song drawn on for this anthology is Clementine, whose unfortunate heroine was chosen by Aishling Morgan for some 21st century full-tilt filthy fun. Elizabeth Coldwell offers a story based on "Heer Halewijn," one of the earliest folk songs in existence. The original is in Dutch, and there is an English song on an identical theme known as "Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight." In Halewijn’s Song, a resourceful heroine outwits a murderous elf-lord but only after she’s had her fun with him.

Broadstairs Bloke Week, by Helen J Perry, not only has its roots in "The House Carpenter," sometimes called "The Daemon Lover" but also makes affectionate mention of the thoroughly real Broadstairs Folk Week. Finally, J M Kaye picks another Child Ballad, "Alison Gross," as the starting point for The Wyrm, featuring an overly arrogant young man who gets more than he bargained for when he wanders into the path of a witch with evil intentions.

Child Ballads, it’s perhaps worth mentioning, are not specifically for or about children, but are a hugely comprehensive collection of folk songs amassed and published by one Francis James Child over a century ago. I must also mention that the original idea of doing an anthology based on folk songs came from Slave Nano and to him and all my other authors I extend my thanks.
To you, dear readers, I extend an invitation to slip between these pages with a song in your heart, as soon enough you should have your hand in your pants as well."

Blue Monday

Every Monday I post a filthy excerpt for your entertainment!

This week's post is sort of inevitable, after my spotlight on poor old Saint George. The Scent of Hawthorn, which appears in my second collection of shorts, Dark Enchantment, is set in Italy during the Dark Ages. Herrick is a disillusioned heretic knight who fights monsters in order to save people, but has lost his own way in life - until a vicious battle with a dryad in the mountains finds him thrown down and bound with thorns.

The dryad jumped up onto the rocks and straddled his hips. He couldn’t even raise his head to look down at those naked thighs.

‘So - Does the guest-bed suit you?’

He groaned.

‘A little hard on the back? What a pity.’ She bent and licked the blood streaks on his chest; he was surprised to learn that her mouth was warm. ‘Still, you did arrive at very short notice, without invitation. You must make allowances.’

His heart was racing; she must be able to feel its thud against her lips as she sipped from him. ‘Don’t blame yourself,’ he said through gritted teeth, as the world spun around him.

She chuckled, surprised. ‘Do you enjoy this, man of iron?’

‘Herrick.’

‘What?’

‘That’s my name.’ It seemed important to him that she should know it. He did not want to go nameless to death.

She mouthed the foreign word with distaste. ‘Is this how you expected it all to end, Herrick?’

‘One day.’ And he was horrified to find that his strongest emotion was relief.

‘You’ve fought my kind before?’

‘No. No dryad.’

She circled his nipple with the tip of her tongue, making it harden. ‘Monsters…’

‘Yes.’

‘The last children of Rhea. So that the children of the stones may inherit the earth.’ Her teeth closed cruelly over his left nipple and he groaned from deep in his chest. Then she released the crushed nubbin of flesh and crept forward up his chest, breathing the smell of his sweat and his fear until her lips were against his ear. ‘Do you wish to hear the good news?’

He managed to swallow, and she took that for assent.

‘This isn’t the end, Herrick. Not yet. You are not going to die until I tire of hurting you. And in this place I can take to the brink of death and bring you back again, over and over, for my pleasure. Until your pain has brought me ease.’

Fresh damp sprang from every pore. His insides seemed to turn liquid. She raked claws down his chest and stomach, testing every patch of skin between the criss-crossed bonds. He rolled his eyes back and tried to call upon the mercy of God, but it came out sounding completely wrong somehow.

‘What’s this?’ Her voice was low with surprise. He strained to look down at her and found she’d reached his lower garments, had been sliding about on his crotch, had found something that should not have been there at all: his massive, stony erection, pushing up against the cloth, the swollen head seeping with such eagerness that it was making a damp patch. Herrick was washed by a crimson tide of shame.

Dear God give me strength to resist her, he begged.

She ripped his clothing to shreds. His cock thrust out blasphemously through the rent fabric, and jerked with eagerness as she traced the veins with the tips of her deadly claws - Like a dog rising to greet its mistress, he thought, sick with humiliation.

‘Oh Herrick. Now I know.’

‘No,’ he groaned.

‘This is a gift, isn’t it? A phallus like this, and a man like you, in my power?’

‘You’re wrong…’

‘Wrong? No. Men may lie, but this does not. It makes plain what it wants, Herrick.’ She slapped his prick with first one hand then the other, like a cat playing with a mouse. He burned with shame. ‘Slattern,’ she mocked.

He twisted in his bonds uselessly, driving each pin-point of pain deeper.

‘Lick me, ’ she ordered, looming right over him, lowering her breasts to his mouth. He put out his tongue to her nipple but she snatched it away, giggling, before he could touch her. He groaned, scoured by her glee and his weakness. Then she wriggled back down and crouched over his prick, laying her lips to the underside of the shaft and nipping her way delicately right down to the root, never quite hurting him but threatening all the way. She took his balls one after the other into her mouth, rolling them between her teeth until sweat ran down his temples. Spitting out his slippery ball-sac she then found the silken skin stretched between his soaring cock and his scrotum, and took a fold delicately between two eyeteeth. She held it for a moment, letting him realise what she was going to do.

Herrick quivered, choking out incoherent prayers.

She bit down. Two sharp teeth met through a thin fold of skin and he opened his mouth in a soundless roar. His cock jerked twice - and clear fluid bulged at the slit and, welling out under its own volume, ran down his hard length, testament to his need.

‘Herrick,’ she chided. ‘Look at you.’

‘Oh God – No!’

‘Shh. Stop pretending.’

With her tongue she traced the path of his overspill back up from his balls to the head of his cock, where she lapped his ooze. He groaned again and shook like a man with the ague. His world was in flames. Could there be any defeat more shameful than this – to be beaten in combat then abused as a whore, his body a treacherous accomplice? And her mouth was exquisite comfort now after the hurt she’d inflicted, as tender as a mother hugging her child after smacking it. The pleasure was overwhelming; he knew he needed more. More hurt. More solace.

Her lips, wet from painting his glans, left it bereft and straining. ‘Pain,’ she whispered, straightening and kneeling up astride him again. ‘Your pain is my pleasure, I thought. But your pleasure
too. Don’t worry, Herrick; I will give you what you need.’ She guided his erect cock between her thighs, into her tight slick grip, her eyes rolling back with the effort of taking his girth. Then she refocused on his face. For the first time she sounded a little breathless.

‘You will not spend, Herrick. You will hold it back. Because if you let spill before me I will walk away and leave you here and never return. You understand that?’

‘Yes.’ Oh my God yes.

‘But if you give me my heart’s desire, I will give you yours.’ She reached behind her, down between his thighs, and sank her nails into his scrotum. He gasped and nodded, water running from the corners of his eyes. ‘I’m going to hurt you.’ Her voice was cold, her eyes green fire. ‘I’m going to hurt you badly and there is nothing you can do about it. You are mine to play with. Your strength will not save you. Your God will not save you. Your life is mine now, and it is over.’

---

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I can't wait for a good day...

Dork Tower gets it right as usual :-)

The voices in my head - an experiment

So you might actually think I'm mad after this.

The thing is, I really do hear voices. Sometimes. It happens when I'm very tired - literally falling asleep where I sit. It's not an auditory thing (I don't "hear them in my ears") but a mental one. Like a radio dream, in which I'm surrounded by a lot of voices mumbling away over each other, and if I pay attention I can occasionally catch a louder sentence.

The individual voices often have very strong accents or patterns of speech (Shakespearian, say). They tend to be gendered neutral or masculine.  They aren't addressing me directly, they're just talking.

So I decided to write them down as they occurred for a few days and actually see what they were saying. Am I tuning in to cellphone frequencies? Do I have a multiple personality disorder? Are my inner Jungian Archetypes getting uppity? Am I a medium? Is this a key to unlocking writing creativity?

[NB: Until writing this post I hadn't looked back over my notes, so this is as new to me as it is to you, gentle reader]

---

"One particular phonecall, and her body will be found."

[American drawl:] "How ya feelin'? Y'alright, kid?"

[Northern English, rough male:] "You'll find yer flying to work, like."

"Maybe your recurring symbol is an EXCLAMATION MARK."

"We might ask Clarinson - I'll leave it up to you."

"End of't stick, Daisy."

[Posh, female:] "He hasn't much, if I only give him £400 a month."

"So, Hornsley ... the Queen will never hear our messages."

"Have you seen it?" "No, I don't think I have."

"Apparently it is synonymous in Lancashire."

"What, you don't really remember me? What are you doing here?"

"With weird hooks on their hands"

"He does that thing with his toes..."

"My son-in-law's is a very assured tactic."

"Well, I thought you might not be my thing."

[1950's BBC newsreader:] "The group has now taken control of Glasgow, as the working classes..."

---

\
Oh dear! Given the near-total lack of content, I'm inclined to assume that my brain subvocalises nonsense on a grand scale. My speech centres must be in gear, churning out grammatically-structured but meaningless sentences like froth ... and sometimes I can listen in, that's all.

Damn it guys, I so wanted to be psychic!
;-)

St George - the "Ewwwwww" version

It's St George's Day tomorrow and I'm sure that we're all familiar with the story of him killing a dragon and saving a princess:

Sensibly, she has hidden up a tree

What, you might wonder, happened to him after that?  It's a hard act to top, after all. Did he do anything else spectacular?

"Who needs skin?"

Oh yes. He DIED AND THEN WAS RESURRECTED THREE TIMES, in a marathon of torture at the hands of the Emperor Diocletian (or possibly Dacian, King of the Persians ... accounts differ.) We might have forgotten here in the West, but the Ethiopian Orthodox Church keeps the original story alive in all its totally mental snuff-movie glory.

Death One:

Stretched out and skin flayed off:
Harnessed to a rack that draws him apart:
Beaten, after which salt is poured into his wounds, which are rubbed with a haircloth:
Pressed in a box pierced with nails:
Impaled on sharp stakes:
Boiled alive in water:
Head crushed in by a hammer.
NONE OF THIS WORKS! God comforts George in prison and informs him that he will die three deaths before entering Paradise*.
Swallows two doses of poison with no ill-effects:
Lacerated on a wheel of swords:
Cut into ten pieces, and thrown into a well that is sealed with a stone. 

Death Two:

God appears with the archangel Michael to resurrect the saint. Dacian - who is seriously hard to persuade - tries again:
George is tied to a red hot iron bed:
Molten lead is poured into his mouth and eyes:
Sixty nails are driven into his skull:
He's hung upside down over a fire with a stone tied around his neck:
And shut into the revolving belly of a metal ox tombola, filled with swords and nails:
Finally he's sawed in two and boiled to bits, but five days later, before he is buried, God raises him.

Deaths Three and Four:

A glowing iron helmet is fastened to George's head
He's resurrected again and walks to the temple of Apollo, whose statue promptly leaves the temple and confesses his fraudulence. The saint stamps his foot, and the ground swallows up the false god.
Having survived seven years of torture he is finally decapitated and ascends to Heaven."

Probably with a sense of profound relief that it's all over at last.

Decapitation always works, you notice.  My theory is that the early martyrs were all vampires.

There have to be easier ways to get famous.

* An unusual use of the word "comfort". With friends like that...

Blue Monday - Ashton Peal guests

Every Monday I post a naughty excerpt for your entertainment!

This week's guest post is from the story The Sound of the Chime by Ashton Peal.  It's the opener to the new anthology Spy Games, edited by Jill Boyd.

From the sunny streets of South Florida, to the bars of Paris, to the backstreets of Rome where a secret club for old spies lies hidden, Spy Games is a collection of nine tantalizing tales in which spies and detectives seduce and deduce in all corners of the world.

Edited by Jillian Boyd and featuring stories from the likes of Zak Jane Keir, Slave Nano, Emily L. Byrne and F. Leonora Solomon, Spy Games is filled with danger, desire and the thrill of sex and spying. Unleash your inner Mata Hari and devour this collection… should you choose to accept this mission, of course.

---

The rapid shifts are disorienting, making her eyes roll and her teeth clench.

Chime closes her eyes. Without thinking, she brushes her fingers across her lips.

The old familiar caress, the motion that was her way of imaging Operator’s distant touch, sets off a series of chain reactions. Suddenly every part of Chime’s body cries out for attention. A trail of itching desire runs down her chin, over the soft bones of her neck, between her breasts. Lower. The hair on her head stands at attention as her scalp pinches tight, the repercussions traveling in waves through her bones and into her pelvis. It’s been over a year, she realizes, since she felt this alert.

The heavy breathing, the soft half-moans of pleasure from the couple outside Chime’s door are a cloud of sound. Eyes closed, no longer distracted by the broken beams of erotic imagery, she can hear it and feel it all. The world opens up to Chime and the waves and echoes paint the world for her from every angle.

“You’re a spy,” the woman says, her words drawn around a smile. “Then I can make you talk.”

Chime hears the shift of the woman’s weight as she kneels on the carpet and The Drake’s surprised gasp with the first smooth sound of her tongue sliding along the shaft. Maybe, Chime thinks, she can hear it as he grows beneath the wet sounds. More unaffected gasps in between the furrowed rasps of long fingernails dragging down his thighs. Unrelenting suction, rocking back and forth, the woman’s sharp exhale through her nose.

Chime remembers the night that Operator called. She remembers the sensations and her longing, the way she wanted to call out. But she was too scared then to embrace it all. And when she tried, Control put her in her place. Chime’s moment of weakness opened her up to The Company’s ears for ears for ears and stripped her bare, broke her down.

But that was then, in the safe prison of her hotel rooms and offices. This room is the black box. There are no eyes for eyes for eyes. Just Chime and The Drake and the woman. And now that Chime has closed her eyes, it’s just her.

She can do whatever she wants with her hands.

Chime runs her fingers across her neck, drawing the glisten of sweat together into a single bead that runs down between her breasts. The woman outside the closet moans, mouth still full, as Chime unbuttons her blouse just enough to slip her hand in and begin to massage herself.

Feet move, weights shift, as someone stands up, and then the wet, hungry sounds of mouth on mouth. Chime’s fingers slip between the edge of her bra, the tips pressed tight against her skin as she circles her areola and feels the nipple swell. It’s aching to be touched, to be pulled. So when the bedsprings groan at the couple’s vigorous and unexpected entrance, Chime obliges and under the cover of the noise allows herself her own little moan. The sheets rustle as the couple jockeys for position, making Chime’s own movements.

“Are you a spy, too?” The Drake’s play-acting brogue makes every part of Chime damp. “Say it for me, lass. I have ways of making you talk.”

The woman gasps and thrashes, then shrieks.

“No please. Please!  I’m too ticklish.”

The writhing stops, replaced by the dripping sounds of something thick and firm rubbing against something softer and wetter, more accommodating.

“Well then, lass,” The Drake draws out his words, the pressure building between Chime’s legs, swelling with each syllable. Her free hand moves down to the hem of her skirt, but hesitates there. “I guess it’s time to use drastic measures.”

The slick sound of his entrance and the woman’s gasp push Chime over the edge and her skirt up over her hips. As the bedsprings beyond the door begin to creak beneath the rhythmic percussion of skin on skin, Chime rubs herself furiously. The couple moans while Chime pants in her warm darkness, working at her own frustrations. The friction and the rocking both inside and out sculpt mirrored worlds in echolocation. Chime can hear the shape of them fucking and the shape of her now fucking herself.

“Say it for me,” The Drake says as the woman beneath him wails in ecstasy.

Chime hears the echoes of the past and Operator, but without the specter of Control, there is nothing to hold Chime back.

“Say it for me.”

Chime is pushing it harder and harder, a finger inside herself, now two. The couple outside are locked in an epic battle, but it’s nothing compared to the one raging in Chime’s hands and in her body. She feels herself becoming less and less here and more and more everywhere. Chime is ringing in new vibrations and about to sing.

“Say it for me.”

“I’m a spy!” The woman screams, The Drake groans, and Chime finally bursts. The sound of her pleasure is muffled, hidden to the others by their own cries, but to Chime it is this new crystalline sound of her own release that resonates in her ears.

The rocking stops as The Drake falls into the bed beside the woman. Their breathing is deep and rhythmic, uniformly spent. They whisper to each other, but Chime is uninterested. Instead, all the different echoes of liberation in the eaves and belfries of her body enthrall her.

The Drake and the woman are drifting off to sleep, but Chime hasn’t felt this awake in ages.

When the couple drifts off, Chime slides the closet open. The couple is spooning and, if she wanted to, Chime could just glance at The Drake’s face. She could finally see him.

But she neither needs nor wants to. Not now. Probably not ever.

Instead, Chime slips out quickly and silently, easing the door shut behind her. In the hallway, she adjusts her skirt, buttons her blouse and walks to the elevator.

---

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Geronimo

This week's earworm :-)
Bombs away!

The Hellfire Caves

Just to round off a thoroughly magical Easter weekend, I also paid a visit to the Hellfire Caves!

Drink! Sex! Fancy dress! Wheeeee!

These were built  between 1748 and 1752 under the orders of Sir Francis Dashwood, Chancellor of the Exchequer and early cosplayer, who wanted to provide employment for local men during a recession.
Dashwood was a notorious libertine with a notable private library of pornography. It was said of him: "he has the staying power of a stallion and the impetuosity of a bull".

The aim of the excavations was to provide chalk for road-building, supposedly...

Sure, this definitely looks like the layout of an ordinary chalk mine....

Once he had his caves, Sir Francis used them for meetings of his infamous and extremely exclusive  drinking club "The Brotherhood of St Francis of Wycombe" - later dubbed the Hellfire Club. With an inner circle of 13, an outer circle who dressed like monks, and a penchant for debauchery and faux-pagan rituals at their secret meetings ... well, you can guess what they got up to. Women involved in the gatherings wore masks and had to be "of a cheerful lively disposition to improve the general hilarity".

Also, not claustrophobic

Americans who may be inclined to scoff at British aristocrats with a fetish for dressing up  and getting wasted in silly costume might be shocked to know that Benjamin Franklin was a very close friend of Sir Francis and often visited the caves...

That's his ghost, right there

Of course, from this distance it's impossible to say whether they were nasty Satanists or genuine Pagans or just hardcore party-animals. Dashwood and Franklin, btw, produced an abridged Book of Common Prayer, professing a need to make services shorter and so less boring for young people, and more survivable for the elderly!

Dashwood's mausoleum on top of the hill (caves lie directly below). The man was, quite literally, a monumental show-off.

The caves are reputed to be haunted, for what that's worth, and here are some of the spooky faces carved into the chalk walls...

The best-attested story of the Club was the famous BABOON INCIDENT ... in which a baboon was secretly hidden in a box, and jumped out upon an unfortunate club member who totally wigged out and lost it - screaming

“Spare me gracious Devil, spare a wretch who never was sincerely your servant.  I sinned only from vanity of being in the fashion, thou knowest I never have been half so wicked as I pretended, never have been able to commit the thousandth part of the vices which I have boasted of, leave me therefore and go to those who are more truly devoted to your service.  I am but half a sinner.”

Which is quite an impressive speech for someone busy wetting his pants.
:-) 

More Meat

Yay!!! I can announce, somewhat belatedly, that my story More Meat has been accepted for the anthology Who Thrilled Cock Robin, edited by that notorious morris dancer Sallyanne Rogers! 

Folk songs have always been a source of inspiration for me - see in my very first collection the story White as Any Milk: Black as Any Silk (Child Ballad 44); and in Fierce Enchantments At Usher's Well (Child Ballad 79). And of course the whole novel Red Grow the Roses is built chapter by chapter around Green Grow the Rushes Oh

So I was delighted to sub a story to this new anthology. I'm still however trying to work out why the hell I picked a song in which a greyhound gets killed...



Child Ballad 32

Blue Monday

Every Monday I post a naughty excerpt for your entertainment!

This week's post is inspired by this long and fascinating article on The Eeriness of the English Countryside which appeared in The Guardian. It cites several of my favourite and most deeply influential authors - MR James, Susan Cooper, Alan Garner. Thanks to them I have ALL MY LIFE found the countryside "eerie", and that's one of things I love about it: that subtle sense of creeping unease, of there being something unseen lurking behind the scenes - as the article writer says, it's about "the English landscape – as constituted by uncanny forces, part-buried sufferings and contested ownerships".

I've tried several times in my own books to evoke that feeling. Here's an excerpt from my most blatant attempt to write erotic Garner (!) - Wildwood

Avril Shearing is a landscape gardener brought in to reclaim an overgrown woodland for the handsome and manipulative Michael Deverick. But among the trees lurks a tribe of environmental activists determined to stop anyone getting in, led by the enigmatic Ash who regards Michael as his mortal enemy. Avril soon discovers that on the Kester Estate nothing is as it seems. Creatures that belong in dreams or in nightmares emerge after dark to prowl the grounds, and hidden in the heart of the wood is something so important that people will kill, or die, for it. Ash and Michael become locked in a deadly battle for the Wildwood - and for Avril herself.

---

By the time I got right into the high crown of the tree I admit I wasn’t just flushed from the exertion, I was feeling wickedly horny too, adding the thrill of vertigo to the dizzy surge of sexual arousal. Adding to the scents of the night was the perfume of my own body. I found a place where I could plant my feet wide apart on two radiating limbs and hook one arm over a branch near my head. My back was to the trunk and my legs were spread wide, beneath them nothing but a drop of fifty foot to the ground and the cool air that licked at the inside of my thighs. It was as if I were inviting the whole of the night into my open sex.

    Go on, touch me.
 
  From here I could see through a broad gap between the leaves, down onto the grassy wasteland that had once been a lawn. The moon had turned the long weeds and the lacy heads of the cow parsley to silver froth, but the shadows beneath the shrubby elders and the far tree line were jet black. When someone came into sight wading through the grass he was clearly visible, and left a dark furrow of bent grasses in his wake.

    I held my breath. Then I recognised my army-surplus tree-hugger from Grange Wood. His dreadlocks were unmistakable. He was shirtless, and under that moonlight so pale that he seemed to glimmer.

‘What are you up to?’ I muttered under my breath, leaning forward to get a better look. His hands trailed through the flower-heads caressingly. Then my eyes widened as I realised that he wasn’t just shirtless; the waist-high foliage had been hiding the fact that he was naked. At this distance I couldn’t make out any details, but a momentary glimpse of the unbroken line of flank and hip made me certain.

   Bloody hippie, I thought with tolerant disdain. Of course: it was Midsummer’s Eve, wasn’t it? No doubt he was indulging in a bit of pagan nudity for the occasion. If I kept him in sight then I might spy on a bit of sky-clad Morris dancing or whatever it was these people did.    He’d wrecked my quiet moment on my own though.

    Of course the fact that I was butt-naked myself made it difficult to feel really superior. Then I caught sight of his companions, and I forgot to feel superior at all. My spine crawled.
 
 They came through the grass as he did, many of them, on either side, but they left no tracks behind them. Some danced, some skulked, and some slithered along barely cresting the grass. They were the same colour as the moonlight on the dappled foliage and it was hard to make them out; my peripheral vision caught the flicker of their movements easily enough but the poor light made them difficult to focus on if I looked directly. They were absolutely silent, not even the grass whispering as they passed.
 
 I’m dreaming this, I told myself.
  
As they reached the edge of the long weeds and slipped out onto the shorter grass I lost sight of most of them behind the banks of beech leaves, though I was certain that one was a bear with a ruff of grizzled fur. It lifted its blunt muzzle to the air and sniffed and grunted before lumbering onward, out of sight.

    There’ve been no bears in England for centuries.
  
The man with the red ’locks seemed in less of a rush than his companions, or perhaps it was only his own crude materiality than caused him to lag behind. One shadowy form dawdled to stay with him, dancing around him in circles that left no trail of bruised grass. She was easier to see as she came close to him, as if he loaned her some focus; a naked girl, whip-thin, with wild hair down to her shoulders and something twiggy protruding from that hair over her temples. I thought it might be a tiara until I realised it was branched horns she wore on her head, like the horns of a roebuck. He laughed and brushed her face with his fingertips. She twirled for him, head thrown back, blocking his progress with her slim body, twining her arms about his neck then turning her back to bump her arse against his groin. The invitation was unmistakable and he put his hands about her waist. She wriggled up against him, arching her back and grinding her bum into his crotch, writhing her head back against his shoulder. What man could resist that sort of offer?
  
I felt warmth flicker into renewed life in my own sex. They were up to their hips in grass and I couldn’t see any detail, but from the set of their bodies it was clear enough what was going on. He braced his thighs and took what was being offered to him, hoisting her hips so that he could sheathe himself in her from behind. I squirmed on my branch. She arched forward and he had to lean back to balance her, his hands gripping hard on her hips, his thighs working with deliberation. She made a noise like the yawn of a cat and writhed her bum in ecstatic circles. I drank in the sight with furtive, guilty fascination: the shimmy of her tiny breasts, the gape of her lips, the smooth hollow between his hip and thigh, the hunch of his strong shoulders as he pumped into her.
  
Bereft of those baggy clothes he was a lot more toned than I’d given him credit for. Good, strong arms, I thought. He was almost beautiful.

She was bent right forward now, nearly double, her arse thrust high under the moon. I’d never hope to be so lithe myself. It gave me a good view of his naked torso though, and the sheen on his taut belly as he thrust. He shifted one hand from her hip to clap it against her bum-cheek, clearly relishing the sound of skin on skin.

Dirty boy, I breathed. My pubic mound was pressed against the unyielding branch and leaking onto the bark. This voyeurism was entirely new to me, and the fact that spying on them was making me hot filled me with delicious shame. I could actually hear both of them panting. I watched each thrust and imagined what it might feel like as he quickened toward his goal, his movements jagged and frantic until he groaned and lurched, grabbing her tight, his muscles locked.

He was one of those blokes who really show it when they come. I like that so much in a man.

Then she changed. I didn’t see the moment of transformation; I only know that when she lifted her head next there was nothing human about it. It was the head of a hind on the long neck of a deer, her fur as white as her skin had seemed only a moment before. Her velvet-tipped antlers tossed skittishly. For a moment he froze – as shocked, I assumed, as me. I forgot how to breathe. She kicked and bucked and danced out of his grasp so that he staggered and nearly keeled over, skipping around him in ever-widening circles, and from one spring to another I couldn’t tell if it was a deer or a woman tossing her antlered head and laughing at him in great silvery peals.

I shut my eyes and pressed my forehead to the tree, clinging to its solidity.

---

Amazon US : Amazon UK

Janine Ashbless and the Chamber of Secrets

Heh heh  - Guess where I went for Easter weekend?

It had to be booked two months in advance, but BOY was it worth it! The Harry Potter Studio Tour is an awesome three hours for fans of the books and movies, gadget geeks, costume freaks, and anyone creative. For once they saved pretty much everything they used to create the films, so you can see it for real. This tour takes you right onto the sets and lets you peer into dusty corners for the intricate detail.

No, it wasn't CGI. The snakes were all mechanically operated.

Gryffindor common room

Defense Against the Dark Arts

Slightly scary ...

Really goddamn scary!

For you American types ... all of London looks like this, honest :-)

The level of detail bordered on the bonkers ...

Every portrait in the school was painted by ... someone

Every jar filled with a different weirdness

Each character's wand individually crafted

Do you remember this? It was probably on-screen for about a second.

There were some pretty big props too...

Oh, the creatures!!

You can't see anything, can you?

Boo!

Even the concept art was glorious:

And when we got to the large-scale filming model of Hogwarts ... well I wasn't the only one who teared-up, let's just say.

I find it incredibly moving when people create together. When they pour their hearts into art, and especially into fictional worlds that others can inhabit. I almost feel like I like the human race, hrooom hrooom.


Of course, there's always the danger of fans getting TOO excited...

SQUEEEEE - Snape's actual hair!

So this is a wise rule for all:

(And a final word of advice ... try a sip of the Butterbeer, but don't drink the whole glass. Seriously.)

The Sexy Librarian's world tour

This may be the most well-travelled book in the erotica genre!

It's been ALL OVER:

Because it's been signed by sixteen contributing authors!

And now you can win this fabulous vandalised copy, just by entering the easy-peasy draw that editor Rose Caraway is running.

All you have to do is contact her by any means and ask to be entered (Oor-er!)

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/rose.caraway.7

Twitter:  @RoseCaraway

 Instagram:  http://instagram.com/rosecaraway

Pinterest:  http://pinterest.com/rosecaraway7/boards/

Tumblr:  http://rosecaraway.tumblr.com/

More details here

The draw is on Friday May 1st

Blue Tuesday - the late Charlie Forrest guests

Every - ahem - Monday I post a naughty excerpt for your entertainment!

This week's guest post is from the story Special Training by Charlie Forrest

(And no, he's not dead. He just sent his excerpt in late, lol!)

Parker loves her job. Nestled deep in the bowels of a Challenger tank what's not to love?
But when her commanding officer decides she needs a bout of 'special training' she's taken out of the secure safety of her tank and thrust into the wilds of the Scottish wilderness to be tracked, hunted, captured, stripped and interrogated in the most intimate fashion.

But, as her CO is about to find out, it's not as simple as taking the girl out of the tank.

---

 "Name, rank, serial number?"

I say nothing. He tucks a finger under my bra strap, and a million miles away there's a part of me that's outraged that I'm going to have to buy a replacement. He cuts the other shoulder strap and, if he wanted he could just unfasten it like any reasonable person. He doesn't have to jam his fingers under it, pulling it and my body uncomfortably forwards so that I feel the touch of his knife against my bare chest as he rips it in two before pulling it away like all the rest. I shiver, futilely trying to squeeze my arms over my exposed breasts and fighting back the teeth chattering tremor that runs through me.

"Name, rank, serial number?"

What's left? I glance down, when he took away my trousers he left my knickers; the pale band around my waist is just about visible in the firelight.

Oh he's good.

I say nothing. This time when he moves for me, I try to relax, letting my clenched body sag. His hand caresses my thigh. I want to move but not yet, not yet.

Just like before he's methodical, clinical in what he does, pulling the cloth away, letting the metal bite through it, dropping the ends to fall back limp, my last tiny covering of cloth held in place by the dampness between my legs and sheer inertia. He cuts the other side. His fingers trace down my belly and I shuffle a little, spreading my knees and looking into the dark place where his eyes should be.

He goes slowly now, fingertips easing beneath the cloth, the back of his hand brushing down between my legs, running through my hair, the cloth falling away forgotten. A knuckle slips against my lips, and for a moment I forget about where I am, lost and naked in the woods. I can't see his smile, but something in the look on my face makes him chuckle and it's all I can do to remember the plan.

To the bit where your limbs start moving.

I move.

I use my legs like a coiled spring. Dropping my shoulder and launching myself into him. Even though I'm expecting the impact it still manages to knock the wind from me. It does the same to him and we lurch together onto the ground. Me on top of him, wriggling my body to get my still booted feet under me, and then away, into the darkness again.

The sensation of plunging into nothingness is worse this time. What little I can see is already upon me, scraping against my exposed skin, and each panic stride is a leap into the darkness, without his hand to guide me. Twigs and branches slap against my breasts, belly, arms. Nettles and brambles whip savage lines of fire over my shins. In the darkness behind me I can hear pounding feet.

Is this the plan?

What is the plan?

Where do I want to be?

A tree smacks into my shoulder, sending me turning, staggering, but not quite falling. The pounding behind me draws closer, and I keep moving.

Where do I want to be?

I can hear his breath, controlled staccato exhalations, practiced and sure, like a hunter.

Where do I want to be?

Fingertips brush against mine in my uneasy run, I can feel how close he is.

Where do I want to be?

I slow, only a little, enough for his hands to reach mine, a fist clenching on my forearm, pulling me back, and down. I lurch into darkness one more time, and he comes with me. He twists us as we fall, he hits the ground first, arms shooting around me, one on my belly, one crammed against my sore breasts. But it's only for a moment, then he moves, and the cold earth and scattered leaves hit me again, cool and hard against my face, knees, breasts.

Where do I want to be?

His hands are on my hips, lifting me up. I manage to get my knees under me. His grip softens a touch, stroking over the small of my back to where my bound hands are. For a moment his fingers interlace with mine.

Right here!

I clench my fingers into his. He doesn't pull away, doesn't let go. I hear him fumbling with his free hand, and then he's there, nestling against me, the heat from his stiff cock singing to my own want.

He pulls me onto him, in a slow, steady movement I feel myself sinking around him, and the conflict and the fear and the night full of darkness all fades a little. His hand in mine pushes me forward, my cheek rubs against the ground as he pulls all the way out of me. A whimper of frustration and emptiness escapes my lips.

When he returns it's with a long, slow stroke, filling me, like a hand in a gauntlet. I squeeze his hand with my fingers and he stops, holding himself inside me for just a few moments, letting me relish the sensation, the closeness, letting go, letting me know he's there, that this is real.

When he moves again it's with gentle, slow, movements, keeping himself deep inside me. He leans forward, pressing his body against mine, warm against the night. His free hand slides around my waist, fingers slipping between my legs to match his thrusts with teasing touches from his fingertips, circling and stroking.

It twists in my mind, intermingling with the cold hard feel of the ground, the soreness and bruises, the scrape of earth against my cheek and the warm gentle touch of his fingers as he strokes and teases my clit, his thrusts building up speed and force. It teases me to a precipice, and I feel as if just one solid touch, one grab, one solid stroke against my clit will be enough. I try to say something but the words just fade together into a whimper; all I want is to tell him how much I want him, and  all I can manage is to grasp his fingers in mine. I try to stroke the back of his hand with my free fingers, clumsy, desperate, to signal to him to please, please let me go, let me fall over the edge.

---

Buy Special Training at Amazon US : Amazon UK

Charlie is a London-based writer of erotica and erotic romance. He specialises in writing stories about BDSM, bondage, humiliation, submission and public sex.

He tries to bring a flavour of the British countryside into everything he writes, although any description of sunny weather or functioning public transport are pure works of fiction.

In his free time he pursues the twin impossible goals of the perfect cup of tea and trying to get the cat to stop sitting on his laptop and do something about the mice.

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