Blue Monday: isolation special

Keeping my finger on the pulse, LOL

Who says my erotica isn't contemporary and relevant for today's world?  😁 I've been fingering my way through my files, ahem, to find the stories that speak to this international pandemic.

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The obvious one is Quarantine, which you can find in full and for free if you hop over to my Website and click on FREE READS in the top bar. It's set in an Ebola research facility and it's about two people going stir-crazy under lockdown:

'This bloody sucks!' Lee moaned.

'Well whose fault is that?' she yelled, surprising even herself with her vehemence.

'Not mine!'

'Really? Who are you blaming?'

'You're the one who bent -' Lee stopped mid-sentence.

'What?' Tessa sat up and dropped her voice to a hiss. 'What did I do?' She saw Lee's face work as conflicting impulses fought for control.

'You were bent over.' The words seemed to come from a constricted throat. 'Your ... arse...' He made a generously curved shape in the air with his hands to make up for his incoherence. 'I walked into the bench.'

She was gobsmacked. 'You dropped solvent everywhere because you were looking at my butt? In a HAZMAT suit?'

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Bolt Hole,  which appears in my collection Fierce Enchantments, is also about two uneasy companions hiding away in a confined space, only this time it's during a zombie outbreak:

“What’re you doing out here on your own?” he asks.

“I wasn’t alone,” she rasps.

The water down her cleavage just feels like more sweat now. She can’t bear it. She’s got to lean back against the metal just to stay upright. Discarding the spade against the wall beside her, she wrenches off her other glove, then pulls down the zipper of her suit from collar to navel. The vest-top beneath is absolutely sodden with sweat, and plastered to her torso. She sees the pale flash of the man’s widening eyes, and she knows her chest is heaving as she pants for breath, but it doesn’t seem important. All she wants is to get out of these leathers.

She wriggles out of her bags and belts, frantic to shed the weight. The front zipper of her biker all-in-one goes all the way down to her crotch, making it easier to peel off the arms and shoulders and drop the top half of the suit to hang from her hips. That helps. She sets her shoulders back against the corrugated metal, praying for cool, but it’s warmer than she is. She can see the man staring. His torso is completely bare, and she envies that. She can feel the moisture flooding between her burning thighs. Her mind is a churning whirl.

She wants to be naked. She wants to be cold. She wants water and a breeze.

He’s gone very still. Outside, the living dead moan with frustration.


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Lust in the Dust is of course full of apocalyptic crisis sex. My own story, The Basque of the Red Death, is a pastiche of Poe's famous plague tale:

On Midsummer Eve, six months after we'd sealed ourselves within the castellated walls, Prince Prospero threw his wildest party yet; a masquerade ball themed upon pagan Arcadia. A suite of seven chambers in the heights of the abbey was opened and prepared; a cloister in coloured glass wherein the old abbot had been inclined to contemplate the Seven Ages of Man, or the Seven Deadly Sins, or perhaps the Seven Sorrows of Our Lady, but now turned to more worldly and hedonistic use.

The Easternmost room, lit in blue, was dedicated to the pleasures of the tongue; Amuse-bouche, the nobles called such things. The centrepiece was a plump and naked maiden, lying supine amid platters of tiny pastries and sweetmeats, covered from head to rosy toes with creamed vegetables piped into intricate patterns, and bejewelled with pomegranate pips and sugared almonds — like a living, breathing, reliquary. Officially she represented Gaia, Mother Earth. I happened to know that Helga had volunteered for this role because she preferred it to running up and down the abbey's stairs.

The Purple Room centred upon a veiled trio of Fates who stood with arms linked, facing outward to the walls of the chamber. They were veiled and draped in prodigious swathes of plum-hued silk, so that not only their features but their very forms were impossible to make out — all but their breasts, which were uncovered and glistened with oil, the nipples stained dark with blackberry juice; somehow more naked for the being the only body-parts visible. The unspoken invitation to touch those orbs, to grope and stroke and play, was all but irresistible.

In the Green Room an ivy-wigged and leaf-painted dryad sat in a sling at head-height, her thighs spread by two loops. On a table beneath was a bowl heaped with brandy-soaked fruit, which the wanton would receive with a giggle into the slippery clench of her sex before squeezing it back out of that cornucopia, now subtly flavored.

The Orange Room was staffed by Cynocephali; naked girls masked with the heads of dogs and leashed like animals too. They served strictly on their knees.

The White Room took this theme further; the seven Pleiades here were bound firmly to racks and upended over tables, thighs spread by bars and wrists hoisted over their heads; their virginal silk dresses artfully inadequate to the task of shielding their maidenly modesty.

In the Violet Room flagellation was on offer; the three mistresses there were dressed as avenging Furies and strutted about with horse-whips in hand, taking full advantage of their license to inflict punishment.

But the Red Chamber, the one at the end — the one with that terrible black-draped clock — stood empty and unused. Whatever debauchery it was intended to host, no one had yet plucked up the courage.

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Oh - and if you are up for a horror (not erotica) tale of necrophilia, dark gods and mental collapse set during the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1919, you can always try my story Nine Portraits of Empress Danrin, found in Dark Voices:

 

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Blue Monday

Every Monday I post a sexy excerpt for your entertainment!

Today's is from my Arthurian story Knight Takes Queen, which appears in my collection Fierce Enchantments. In this scene Guinevere recalls the first time she went astray with Sir Lancelot:

So Guinevere dug her fingernails into the sheet and remembered the first time she and Lancelot had sinned together—the single memory that was sure to inflame her more than any other. She had been several years into her lukewarm marriage when Lancelot joined the Round Table, journeying to Camelot from his domain over the sea. That fateful day, she had been sitting with him in the rose garden, in a small pavilion among the blooms, and they’d been playing chess—a game he’d taught the Court and which had swept the nobility, just as this handsome foreign knight had overwhelmed the ladies of Camelot. A ferocious downpour had sent her ladies-in-waiting running for cover, terrified for their silken dresses, but the two of them had remained in their precarious shelter, cut off from the castle by a curtain of pouring rain.

Guinevere had already been aware of her strong attraction to the man who had claimed the honour of being Queen’s Champion, having bested every other Knight of the Table at the jousting lists. She’d been both absorbed by the chess game and giddy with pleasure. It hadn’t mattered to her that he’d been much the stronger player. In fact she liked that. They’d played three games, wagering small sums of gold to sharpen the interest, and she’d only won the first time because he let her. His fingertips had brushed hers on a number of occasions and she had been hard-put not to giggle.

Then he’d announced, ‘Knight takes Queen. Mate.’ He’d looked her in the face, and at that moment they had both known. Heat had flashed through her body like a lightning strike. She’d reached out to lay her king over in surrender, but her hand had shaken so wildly she did not dare touch the board. He’d seen that too. Suddenly, without a word, she was aware of the danger she was in.

She’d sprung to her feet and backed off, knocking over her stool like a child in a panic. He’d followed, instantly, closing on her as she backed up against a wooden pillar. Rain struck the back of her neck but she’d barely felt it. He’d loomed over her, his eyes holding hers, his intention implacable. But his voice had been pitched soft.

‘I win again,’ he’d said. ‘You owe me a forfeit, my queen.’

She’d nodded, running the tip of her tongue across her lip in a frantic effort to wet it so she might speak. She could feel her voice all bundled up into a croaky snarl in her breast.
‘
Lift your skirts. Show me.’

Maybe he’d meant only as far as the knees—that would have been shameful enough, but it hadn’t occurred to Guinevere until later that there might have been some escape. She’d bunched up the floor-length front of her dress, hand over hand, revealing the secret path of her thighs, all the way to her sex. He’d glanced down briefly, no change of expression visible on his face, then pinned her gaze again.

‘Open them.’

She’d obeyed. She hadn’t questioned the necessity. His face was so close to hers that she’d been sure he was going to kiss her. But he’d put his hand down between her slightly parted thighs, and cupped the dark gold nest of her sex in his palm, running his fingertips into her cleft. He’d found her as wet as if she’d been caught in the cloudburst.

She’d nearly died of the pleasure and the terror of that touch.

All he’d done was stroke her. Stroke her soft and needy sex, caress her clit with one moistened, expert fingertip, back and forth, utterly patient, while his face hovered over hers watching every nuance of expression. She’d arched her shoulders against the wet post and gasped and quivered and shaken, completely in his power, until she spent with a gush and a helpless cry and a sudden rush of tears. It was the first time a man had ever brought her to climax.

And he hadn’t kissed her. Not that time.

But from that moment on, she’d known she was his to do with whatever he desired.

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Blue Monday

Every Monday I post a sexy excerpt for your entertainment!

We've had the most amazing, record-breaking heatwave here in the UK over the last month - over 30 degrees Celsius for day after day after day. I literally can't remember weather like this since 1976. So here's an excerpt from my sweatiest story ever, Bolt Hole, which appears in Fierce Enchantments.

(It's the zombie apocalypse. Zita is trapped by the ravenous undead in an over-heated shipping container with a strange man)

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“Water?” he asks, then holds the bottle out toward her and scoots it right down the length of the chamber, almost to her toes.

She would do anything for water—not to drink, but to pour over herself. Clean, cool, running water. She’s cooking inside her leathers, like one of those old fish-in-a-bag dinners. But she doesn’t answer him. Words seem too heavy to raise to her lips. Panic is rising in her breast, like steam, as she tries to breathe deeper but finds she can only pant. There doesn’t seem to be any oxygen in the metallic air. The room in front of her swells and billows and shrinks again. She catches her glove in her teeth and rips it off, then fumbles at the zip of her headgear. I’m going to faint, she thinks. If I don’t get this off I’ll suffocate.

The mask comes off with a foul wet dragging. She shaved her own head, weeks ago, but the hair has grown back somewhat. She can feel the air licking at that wet fur—an overwhelming relief. But still not enough. She tugs the zip that bares her throat then, bending, she snatches up the canteen from the floor. That motion almost undoes her. She can feel the blood running the wrong way in her veins, and she almost loses her balance. It’s only her desire for the water that keeps her from pitching forward dizzily.

Yanking the stopper out with her teeth, she tips the liquid over her forehead and catches it with open lips as it sluices over her face. It’s tepid and metallic and it feels wonderful. Running down her chin and throat, some finds its way under her clothes into the secret valley between her breasts. Blinking stinging, sweat-tainted drops from her eyes, she glares at the man, daring him to have moved while she wasn’t looking.

Maybe he has, just a little. She sucks defiantly from the neck of the bottle.

“What’re you doing out here on your own?” he asks.

“I wasn’t alone,” she rasps.

“Huh.” He grimaces. “Nor was I.”

The water down her cleavage just feels like more sweat now. She can’t bear it. She’s got to lean back against the metal just to stay upright. Discarding the spade against the wall beside her, she wrenches off her other glove, then pulls down the zipper of her suit from collar to navel. The vest-top beneath is absolutely sodden with sweat, and plastered to her torso. She sees the pale flash of the man’s widening eyes, and she knows her chest is heaving as she pants for breath, but it doesn’t seem important. All she wants is to get out of these leathers.

She wriggles out of her bags and belts, frantic to shed the weight. The front zipper of her biker all-in-one goes all the way down to her crotch, making it easier to peel off the arms and shoulders and drop the top half of the suit to hang from her hips. That helps. She sets her shoulders back against the corrugated metal, praying for cool, but it’s warmer than she is. She can see the man staring. His torso is completely bare, and she envies that. She can feel the moisture flooding between her burning thighs. Her mind is a churning whirl.

She wants to be naked. She wants to be cold. She wants water and a breeze.

He’s gone very still. Outside, the living dead moan with frustration.

The trousers of her suit have zips up the outside of the shins, allowing them to be put on and taken off over boots. One leg at a time, she lifts her feet and looses the vents. Then she pushes the leathers down over her thighs and kicks them away.

She’s not wearing anything but panties beneath. Panties and boots, and above that the tight, clinging vest. Even those last pieces of clothing disgust her. She wants to weep with frustration. Her singlet is like a second skin, and stained with wear. She pulls it away from her stomach, desperate for the tiniest breeze on her flesh, stretching her throat as she tilts her head back.

When she glances down again, he’s definitely moved. He’s still on hands and knees, but he’s that tiny bit closer to her. She tries to focus her eyes, and registers the lift of one hand: a placating gesture, an apology for his entirely involuntary shift in her direction. His eyes are wide and his lips a little parted.

“S’okay,” he mutters, not blinking. “Don’t be scared. Nothing to be scared of.”

She wants to laugh, but she’s forgotten how. For the last two years there has never once been nothing to be scared of. Periods of calm or stultifying boredom, yes—many of those. But never freedom from fear. Not a single waking hour when the dread and the loss weren’t there like a choking lump under her breastbone. Fear is the omnipresent guest at the feast, the mother of every decision she makes. It’s the air she breathes. In a world where corpses move and speak and eat, fear is the one thing left that distinguishes the living from the dead.

She looks into the deep darkness of his eyes, searching for the fear. And it’s there, that sharp and bitter edge. But it’s only a glint. It’s been almost driven out by something else, just as primal. He can’t stop looking at her. At her tight and filthy clothing. At what’s hidden beneath. Each heave of her chest seems to draw him in.

She blinks hard, like a drunk trying to sober up, wanting to make sense of his questions and his haggard soldier’s face and his muscled body. He looks strong. Bleakly handsome, perhaps—it’s so hard to tell these days. She wants to know how she feels about him, but she’s no longer capable of judgement.

He’s shifting toward her, on toes and fingertips. Keeping slow and down on the floor, so as not to spook her. “It’s a bit warm, isn’t it? This box.” The inanity of his words is not as important as the low, husky tone. He’s got a voice that reminds her of some movie star’s, though she can’t think whose—she can’t remember anything that far back right now—but it’s oddly familiar because of that, and not unpleasant.

He licks his parched lips.

She wants more water. She wants the aching to stop—the ache that that seems to lie not in her muscles but under every inch of her skin, in her belly, right down between her legs. All she wants … is to stop feeling awful.

“Yes.” Looking into his eyes, she takes the sodden vest and lifts it to bare her breasts.

Oh God, that feels good.

“Ah,” he says. Just that one syllable, a low vibration his chest. But it’s a noise that sounds like profound relief. And for a long moment he just looks. She can feel the tickle of sweat-droplets running down her breastbone. They’re beading around her dark nipples and slipping in arcs down the overhang of her breasts. Her whole body weeps salt tears. Like him, she’s bruised and scarred and underweight.

Like him, she’s alive.

Still on his knees, he closes the gap between them. She flinches at the last moment, afraid that his skin will be hot to the touch and only add to her torment—but in fact his hands on her hips feel cool. That’s all he touches her with. Fingertips, and mouth. He brushes his lips to her belly and his tongue sweeps the skin, tasting her salt.

She utters a keening sob. It is the noise of the end of the world. It’s been two weeks since she last saw a living being. Two weeks without human contact, without the press of Ben’s body against hers, without comfort or pleasure or release.

“Ohhh,” he groans into her stomach. She can smell the scent of his sweat, mingling with her own.

Then he hooks his thumbs in her panties and pulls them down over her thighs. She squirms—she doesn’t want him to go there, she isn’t clean, she can smell her own musk—but he doesn’t care if she’s been weeks in her leathers. He stoops to plunge his face to the juncture of her thighs, inhaling her greedily, lifting one of her legs to grant him access to her split and pushing her up on tiptoes in his eagerness. Then, almost perversely procrastinating, he laps the inside of her upper thighs with long teasing strokes, first one then the other. It makes her whimper more. Finally his mouth, hot and wet, closes over her clit and she bangs her head back against the metal, seeing stars.

He eats her.

He’s like a zombie, she thinks, half-terrified by the analogy and grabbing for purchase on the corrugated wall, on his head, anywhere that will help. There’s the same inexorable appetite, the same obsession. Hunger is everything, and he eats without fear. She can hear her own gasping cries and the rising moans of the dead massed outside, on the other side of the wall. He lifts her up on his hands and wraps her legs over his shoulders, burrowing into her sex. His tongue lashes her clit and slithers into her deep wet furrow. Each motion of his tongue burns across her nerves. He’s eating me. He’s eating me, she cries in her head.

She always knew she was going to die like this: being devoured.

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Blue Monday

Every Monday I post a wicked excerpt for your entertainment!

My third collection of short stories, Fierce Enchantments, was re-released by Sinful Press right at the end of last year, so here's an excerpt from my story The Military Mind, which is a torrid alien bug-hunt/gangbang with psionics.

Peyton has been assigned to Lammergeier Squad as their Pslider - a mix of psychic communications operative and sex mascot.

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“So. You’re pretty,” Sergeant Jomoa announced. “Looks like we got lucky, boys.”

“I’m ready to get lucky!” laughed one of the men, swaggering in from the side with his hand already rummaging vigorously down his shorts. Peyton glanced sideways at him just as he popped his cock out. The tip looked ruddy and glistening. She shied away, her cheeks filling with blood.

“Stow that, Hayes,” the sergeant grunted.

“Sarge!” he complained.

“You’ll get some, don’t worry. All in good time.” His gaze flicked back to Peyton, weighing her up. “You never seen a man’s dick, Corporal?”

“Yes, of course,” she said huskily.

“Of course?” His eyebrows shot up. “Lots of them, then?”

“Well… pictures. Vids.”

He grinned, and there was laughter all round. It wasn’t very kind laughter. She wavered, heavy-limbed with dread. She’d been brought up by women, among women. Men were all in the military. There was precious little opportunity to meet any man who wasn’t crippled, aged or an officer, even if she had been allowed to socialise freely; even if potential Psliders weren’t kept confined in their training schools, their lives regulated around the clock. These men felt almost as alien to her as the Spiders. Their bulkiness, their rowdiness, their loud voices… even the smell of them was unfamiliar. It made her hair prickle and her palms sweat.

“Vids, huh?” The sergeant patted his thigh and she stepped in closer. “You like watching them?”

Watching them was a compulsory part of her training. Why then, did she squirm inwardly as she answered him? “Yes, Sergeant.”

“Well, that’s something. Let me see those tits, Corporal.”

So, this is it.

She pulled up her grey cotton top, so that her breasts jutted out from beneath. Her aching nipples were hard as bullets now, and aimed right at his head. She saw him lick his lips, and for a moment he seemed lost for words.

“Fuckin’ A,” said one of the others happily. They were all on their feet, all watching. She felt the flush steal down from her cheeks over her breastbone. Her tits quivered with every breath.

“I want me some of that!”

“Fuck yeah. It’s been… way too long.”

“Come on, Sarge!”

“Shush.” Sergeant Jomoa put his warm and callused hand between her knees and drew it up the inside of her thigh, all the way to her cotton panties. Gently, he pressed the edge of that hand up against the cloth. “So you never been fucked?”

“I… uh.” The gentle rubbing of his fingers along her shielded pussy seemed to rob her of words. The cloth was moist with sweat and lube and anticipation, and clung to her as he pressed it in. “I’ve trained on the machines… Sergeant.”

“Oh?”

She cleared her throat. “You know.”

“Yeah, I know. We’ve got our own machines.” His fingers slid under the fabric of her panties and found her wetness as he added, with a hint of bitterness, “We’re not permitted any real women other than our squad Pslider.”

“Uh,” she whimpered, his slick touch on her clit making her squirm. “I excelled on the machines, Sergeant. Extra credit.”

“That’s good.” He withdrew his hand, an appraising glint in his dark eyes, and sat back in the chair, spreading his thighs. The fabric of his shorts was stretched tight, the fly already gaping to reveal a great curved mass of flesh rising beneath. “So show me. Show me how you earned that extra credit, Corporal.”

Pleasing him was her only way forward. She dropped to her knees and, fumbling a little with the unfamiliar clothes, freed his cock from its constraints. But all her hours of diligent study hadn’t prepared her for this, though she’d worked her way through every colour and size of dildo presented as an option. The real thing wasn’t just big; it was hairy—nested in thick curls, hairy around the balls, hairs even growing up the shaft from the root, like outriders for an army. And it was hot, and a little sticky, and it had a taste totally unlike the plastic and disinfectant she was used to, and it moved—responding to her touch like a live thing, which she supposed it was, in a way—twitching and swelling and stiffening. It seemed immensely thick. Making her mouth wet, she engulfed it, and the sergeant put both hands on her head and pushed deep into her. She felt his bulk nudge the back of her mouth and she heard the rumbling sigh of his satisfaction.

“Not bad, Corporal,” he said, as her head rose and fell in his lap, and she licked and sucked with each stroke. His deep voice had dropped to a huskier note. Then his fingers tightened in her hair. “But if you want to graduate with honours, you need to do this…” he added, pushing her down hard on his erect cock, shoving right into her throat.

She opened up to him. That was something she had practised. She let him do the work and slide her up and down, fucking her throat. His cock was so thick that she knew her jaw would be aching before he was done, but that was a pain she could cope with. Her head whirled with the scent and the taste and the heat of him—so much so that she hardly noticed her panties being pulled down to half-mast behind her or the stiff dick slapping against her splayed bottom. The voices above her were made indistinct by the sergeant’s palms over her ears. Not until her ass-cheeks were parted by rough hands and that dick bounced into the cleft between, rubbing up eagerly against her, did she whimper anxiously.

But the sergeant noticed. He stopped her mid-stroke, allowing her to draw breath through her nose. “You ruining my fine view, Hayes?” he asked.

“I couldn’t help it, Sarge. She was winking at me—look!”

Hayes demonstrated by poking the whorl of her butt-hole with his fingertip. Her ass was well-lubed and exceptionally well-trained, and that digit sank into her without resistance. The sensation—that electric ripple of invasion—was in no way diminished though, and Peyton uttered a muffled squeal around the thick length of NCO rod in her mouth.

“I think she likes it, Sarge,” said Hayes, circling his finger in her anus and making her wriggle.

“You’re no gentleman, soldier,” the sergeant growled. “You haven’t even been introduced and you’re up her ass.” He sat up, pushing Peyton off his cock. She gasped for breath. “Line up, you dirty horndogs, and stand to attention.”

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Things of beauty

Look what arrived in the post - my author copies of Named and Shamed and Fierce Enchantments!

These are beautiful beautiful books in the flesh - I'm so grateful to Sinful Press not just for taking these two on for re-release but for Lisa's efforts in finding me the loveliest covers 💖

The new Named and Shamed is now fully available from all distributors:

Amazon US

Amazon UK

Kobo

Google Play

iTunes

Barnes and Noble

And so  is Fierce Enchantments:

Amazon US

Amazon UK

Kobo

Google Play

iTunes

Barnes and Noble

INCOMING!!! Cover reveals!

WAAAAH! I thought it would take months, but things are moving fast on the re-release front all of a sudden! The old Sweetmeats versions of Named and Shamed and Fierce Enchantments are coming down, which means the new, revamped Sinful Press versions can go up on sale VERY soon - in fact probably next week 😲💖💕💝

So here's the new cover for Named and Shamed, my no-holes-barred romp through fairy lore:

"A chili pepper rating of 10. I’m tempted to add a kink rating just for this book and would put this at 6 out of 5 (and no that wasn’t a typo)" - Books, Books and More Books

And this is the new cover for Fierce Enchantments, my third short-story collection:

"There’s something for everyone in this wondrously abundant, cerebrally and erotically stimulating, perpetually entertaining collection.” – Erotica for the Big Brain

Aren't they beautiful? I'm so grateful to Sinful Press and the talented Emmy at Studioenp!😊

Publication news

It's never over...

Hurray! Some news!

First, my short story Nine Portraits of the Empress Danrin has been chosen for inclusion in horror anthology Her Dark Voice vol. 2, edited by Theresa Derwin. Set in 1919 in an influenza hospital, this story is about sex ... a lot of sex ... but it's not erotica, it's horror, so be warned (or intrigued) 😈😈😈

You can read my post about the legend of the Empress Danrin HERE -  it's relevant but tangential to the story plot.

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The second wonderful bit of news is that I have just signed contracts with Sinful Press (publishers of my angelic Book of the Watchers trilogy) to re-release two reverted titles from Sweetmeats Press - to whit Named and Shamed - my outrageous XXX fairy-tale wherein I let loose the filthiest things in my imagination - and Fierce Enchantments, my third short-story collection.💖💖💖

They'll have spanking new covers and hopefully should be out in 2018. Things are looking up again!

Big reveal - and a new cover

cover by JH

I'm going for it. I'm going to do the self-publishing thing!

I've had THREE publishers kick the bucket on me this year and I'm fed up. So I'm going to take my reverted works and publish them directly, starting with The King's Viper above, so that they are easily available to readers at low low prices.

I know what you're all thinking - "Janine, that's not a proper genre cover!" Well, I don't care. I never liked romance covers much, and I don't want to get lost in the crowd, and it's not as if I've ever made huge sales in Romance anyway. So I'm going to build myself a brand. Blue covers for Romance, red covers for Erotica.

If all goes well with this first one my plans - after some very careful checking of my contracts - are:

Romance:
The King's Viper (ex-Ellora's Cave, Game of Thrones stylee political fantasy)
Heart of Flame (ex-Samhain, Arabian Nights fantasy)
Bound in Skin (ex-Cat Scratch Books, Victorian werewolf novella)
The Grief of the Bond-Maid (ex-Storm Moon Press, Viking magic novella)

Erotica:
In Appreciation of Their Cox (ex-Ellora's Cave rowing short)
Melusine (ex-Sweetmeats Press, fantasy short)
A Wicked Muse (collection of short story reprints, mostly from Cleis)

Horror:
That Ought to Crawl (short stories)
The Collected Gillian Troth Stories (2 vols, paranormal satire)

That should keep me busy for some time! We'll see how it goes...

"What about Named and Shamed?" you might ask. "What about the Fierce Enchantments collection? Haven't they reverted too?"

Heheheh - I've slightly different plans on that front. Watch this space!
😈

Interesting Times

Oskar Zwintscher: Grief (1898)

Well, 2017 is turning out to be The Year My Erotica Publishers Folded. First Ellora's Cave, at the very start of the year, then Samhain in March - and now Sweetmeats.

I am pretty depressed about this one. I loved the covers and production values at Sweetmeats, and I loved Named and Shamed - hands down the most wildly filthy novel I have ever written and made even more shocking by its interior illustrations by John LaChatte. It got 5/5 for story and 5/5 at BDSM Book Reviews!

It's still on sale at Amazon US and Amazon UK, though I don't know for how much longer.

Amazon US :: Amazon UK

Hopefully I'll get my rights back - no official word yet 😔

Movie muses

Recently on Facebook I joined in posting a list of my twelve favourite movies of all time - specifically, the ones I can happily watch again and again and again.

Here's my list, in release order - along with instances where these movies have influenced my writing.

Jason and the Argonauts (1963)
I could watch the scene where the bronze giant Talos comes to life and chases everyone every day for the rest of my life and never get bored!
Okay, so I've written loads of swords-n-sandals Greek-inspired stories - but in particular The Red Thread in Dark Enchantment is just steeped in the Jason / Medea bad romance.

Time Bandits (1981)
That Agamemnon sequence with Sean Connery? Take a look at my novel Divine Torment. Scorching sun, nasty court politics, guys in short tunics, and a cynic's view of the gods.

The saddest minotaur ever :-(

Aliens (1986)
Directly inspired my SF-gangbang story The Military Mind, in Fierce Enchantments
 

Labyrinth (1986)
There are shades of Jareth the Goblin King in my creepy Dom fey The Brennnan, in Named and Shamed.

The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)
 
Falling Down (1993)
A masterclass in dramatic escalation, mixed motives and messing with the viewer's empathy.

Jurassic Park (1993)

The Prophecy (1995)
No escaping it, a HUGE influence on Cover Him With Darkness, and its sequels yet to come. I have to stop Uriel channeling Christopher Walken every time he appears! :-D 

Also, Satan

Evita (1996)
The scene with Antionio Banderas dancing joyously in the fountain is 45 seconds of pure sexuality for me - and an interesting contrast with Che's normal surly and angry demeanor that actually taught me something about writing alphas.

Deep Rising (1998)

The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

Aragorn. All that repressed anger. SAY NO MORE.

300 (2006)

Oh good grief ... Gerard Butler,  Lena Hedey, balletic ultra-violence, heartbreaking sacrifice, ripped and sweaty warriors in tiny leather pants.... This movie was made for Ashbless the writer ;-)

This poster is on my kitchen wall

BTW, here's a list of twelve seminal movies I've NEVER ACTUALLY SEEN, and which have therefore no influence on my romantic or erotic imagination:

Grease
Dirty Dancing
Sleepless in Seattle
Gone with the Wind
When Harry met Sally
Casablanca
Love Story
The Notebook
Annie Hall 
The Fault in Our Stars
Amelie
Pretty Woman

It might explain some things.

Blue Monday

Every Monday I post a filthy episode for your entertainment!

Remember my review of Emmanuelle de Maupassant's 'Cautionary Tales' a couple of weeks ago? One of the things that made me smile was that when I wrote my own faux-Russian fairy tale, Too Much of Water, for Fierce Enchantments, I found a very similar caustic, judgmental, bitter-old-lady narrative voice. It must be a Slavic thing :-D

Too Much of Water is a retelling of The Frog Prince. Zorya has made a bargain with a Vodyanoi - a water-spirit - and now has to pay him back for retrieving her golden ball...

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What she did then not even the whores of Kiev will do: such a thing is reserved for a husband alone, for the intimacy of the marriage bond. She took his pale bestial length, already oozing at the slitted tip with eager moisture, into her hot mouth. The Vodyanoi groaned at that just like a real man. She used tongue and lips to explore his girth and his strange contours and then worked him deep into her throat, sucking warmth into that chill staff. It gave her satisfaction in unexpected places to suck him like this, and she felt her own sex flutter as her fingertips weighed the heavy pouch of his stones, finding water still dripping from the black ringlets of hair at his groin.

Shifting his weight forward, he leaned into her. His legs were tense, almost as hard as the iron of his pike. His hips jerked as her head rose and fell in supplication, and he pressed his cock so far to the back of her throat that she gagged and tears welled in her eyes.

I could choke here, she thought, snatching her breath in the backstroke. It wasn’t a new idea though: her husband had similarly used her. The Tsar was an older man and would sometimes take so long that she’d weep for the ache in her jaw—but that wasn’t to be the case this time. She felt the
Vodyanoi’s rhythm grow fiercer, then become a stutter, and suddenly her mouth was awash with his slippery flood. Instantly—so copious was the flow—her fear of choking became a fear of drowning, and she jerked her head back with a gasp. His cock shuddered upon her tongue as the liquid, as cold and clear as mill water, overflowed her mouth and ran down over her chin.

He tasted of nothing at all: just like water.

The Vodyanoi withdrew from her open lips, glaring at her. Swallowing hard and struggle to get her breath back, Zorya nevertheless felt a strange bereavement now it was over, and a dread as to what would come next. Would he grow contemptuously indifferent now—or irritable—as her husband often did?

But her paramour was a Vodyanoi, and unlike a mortal man a single spasm of sin was not enough to sate him. Even as he stood back, his spend still drizzled down the underside of his rigid shaft, as if his balls were too full and now boiling over. He tilted his head, clearly weighing the options, as his gaze raked her kneeling body. ‘You have certain uses, alive,’ he admitted.

Then stooping, he lifted her, his muscles moving like waves under his skin. He turned her from him and thrust her toward the side of the royal bed—a piece of furniture so high that there was a padded bench to facilitate climbing into it. Zorya was pushed down to kneel upon that bench, her elbows on the bed itself. Then the Vodyanoi crouched behind her, lifted up the golden net that was her only garment, and spread her rump cheeks with his hands to reveal her most private parts.

Such shame! What man would do that to a woman? What man would thrust his face into that cleft and lick her, his tongue slithering over her pearl and into her well and then up between the orbs of her bottom to lap at the tight pucker between? It was as if the water spirit were trying to devour her earthiness. Zorya buried her face in the coverlet of the bed, rubbing her cheek upon the silver fox-fur as the Vodyanoi’s tongue—longer and stronger than any human man’s—danced and probed in her most private places, forcing entry into those treasure chambers that only her husband ought to access, and making her cry out.

Let us be charitable and say that it was shame that caused her to whimper and gasp and call upon God as the Vodyanoi’s tongue slid in and out of her—for no woman is entirely devoid of shame, not even a headstrong wanton such as she. Let us assume that it was an attempt to dull the pain that caused her to thrust her fingers down between the smooth fur of the coverlet and her own rougher fur, as he rose up behind her and breached the portal of her sex with his ram. His hand was heavy between her shoulder blades, pinning her to the bed. His hard thighs slapped against the backs of hers and his scrotum bounced on the cushioning lips of her sex, so deep did he delve with each thrust. Zorya heaved her hips against his invasion, but if she regretted her witch’s bargain it was too late now. He rutted inside her just as he had done in her mouth: swift and ruthless, taking his pleasure without regard for her delicacy of feeling. There was a minor difference, in that this time her throat was not stuffed with his meat and he could clearly hear her moans rising in pitch as he stretched her wide. But the result was the same: a great and sudden outpouring, flooding her to such an extent that when he pulled out it ran from her furrow and splashed upon the padded stool. Yet still his prick stood erect, quivering with eagerness, and he had one further use for it. Smearing his own issue up her split with brazen-bold fingers, he redirected that slick and narrow tip to the juicy clench of her anus and pressed home his advantage, forging deep into forbidden territory.

Zorya felt every inch. His inhuman member was as slippery and muscular as an eel and it surged inside her as if swimming upstream. Under his touch she was becoming a river: everything fluid, everything falling. She could hear the rain drumming on the wooden shingles overhead and it was like it was falling into her soul. Her body gave up all resistance and yielded, unable to withstand the waves of sensation rippling up her spine and out along every limb to the tips of her spread fingers. She pawed the coverlet beneath her and sobbed into it, her heat soaking the fur.

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The Sorcerer's Apprentice

Behold! - the artwork by Dayv Caraway for my very own story in the forthcoming Libidinous Zombie anthology. Isn't it cool? :-D

The Sorcerer's Apprentice starts with this line:

"Mr Deverick kept a woman in the penthouse suite. In a cage."

It's a story that's just a bit too mean and nasty for any normal collection. I should know; I wrote the earlier version for Fierce Enchantments and then had panicky second thoughts and held it back. But it is perfect for an erotic horror anthology. It's found its true home!

And I'm so looking forward to hearing it read aloud. Mwahahahahah!

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

Danger! - Fierce paperbacks at large!

My author copies of Fierce Enchantments have arrived!

In case you don't remember, this is my third collection of erotic short stories. It's published by the lovely Sweetmeats Press and, yes - there are review copes available if you get in contact with me...

Here's the Introduction wot I wrote:

"I love writing short stories. Don’t get me wrong – I love writing novels too, and penning Named and Shamed (published previously by Sweetmeats) was a whirlwind ride of filthy delight for me. But there’s a special pleasure in writing a collection of short stories, perhaps because of the technical challenge. I have to think about crafting variety across the whole book, not just in erotic action and plot, but setting and vocabulary and viewpoint. Each story is a different facet of the whole, and I want that jewel to shine. Male and female points-of-view? Emotion and outrageous filth? First and third person narration? Fantasy and SF and historical and fairy-tale? Check, check, check and check.

I love a challenge, me.

And I love my erotica to be challenging in and of itself. I delight in skating close to the thin ice, and I want to make worlds that are as convincing as they are surprising. I hope you find these tales immersive and enchanting in their fierce way, but take my advice – don’t trust the narrators, at least until they have earned that trust. Don’t ever just swallow whole what they have to say.

Too Much of Water is based on Ivan the Terrible, Russian folklore and the fairy-story The Frog Prince, told in the coldest voice I could muster. Bolt Hole in contrast is burning hot - a post-apocalyptic zombie story drenched in sweat and despair and need, with just the faintest glimmer of hope. The King in the Wood is based on a the central myth in Sir James Frazer’s vast speculative anthropology text The Golden Bough (1915), which I read decades ago in the college library when I should have been writing essays; Frazer’s work is mostly discredited now but it was a rich source for my fervid imagination. The Last Thing She Needs is a story of traumatized vampire hunters and BDSM. I think there are far too few tales out there told from the point-of-view of the DS bit of that acronym, and I wanted to explore the paradox of the conscientious sadist. Sycorax, a re-telling of course of Shakespeare’s Tempest, employs one of my favourite devices: the tale written from the eye-level of the monster, where horror lurks between the lines. Knight Takes Queen is an Arthurian story, set in a chivalric world where modern notions of BDSM have never been articulated and sex is never simply innocent fun. At Usher’s Well is based on a ghostly Scottish ballad that I first heard sung by Steeleye Span. I’m not usually a huge fan of melancholic or downbeat erotica but it does have its moments, and I worked quite hard to keep the grisly details implied rather than explicit! The Military Mind is a riotous space-opera gang-bang, and all I’m saying here is that I adored the movie Aliens from the moment I saw it, my first adult-rated film. And after that brutal pounding, we switch to a gentler gear for the last two stories. A Man’s Best Friend was inspired by the very old TV series The Water Margin, but my version of ancient pseudo-China is fantasy without any historical basis. And The Merry Maid is pure playful fun, a riff on the fairy-tale formula of three brothers seeking their fortune.

 This is my third collection of erotica tales (following Wild Enchantment and Dark Enchantment) and I’d like to thank Sweetmeats Press for believing my vision and giving me my storytellers’ voice again. Pull a seat up to the fire and let’s begin. Just remember, you don’t have to believe a word I say…"

xxx
Janine Ashbless

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“These ten deliciously diverse stories reveal a vivid, wide-ranging imagination—one is struck by the sheer breadth of Ashbless’ inventiveness, her natural gift for story-telling honed to acute sharpness with rigorous intellectual focus and well-practiced craftswomanship. Covering all the archetypal bases from folk ballads, myth, legend, and fairytale to futuristic sci-fi, well-researched historical fiction, contemporary horror, paranormal thriller, and post-apocalyptic action-adventure, there’s something for everyone in this wondrously abundant, cerebrally and erotically stimulating, perpetually entertaining collection.” – Erotica for the Big Brain

Amazon US : Amazon UK : Barnes and Noble

9 out of 10 dragons recommend it!

I've seen it in the flesh - the paperback version of Fierce Enchantments is out at last and available for sale RIGHT NOW!

AND it comes in a strangely satiny feel-good cover designed to appeal to dragons of all kinds! I have caressed it with mine own fair hands :-)

Amazon US : Amazon UK

Shady frogs

More classic Frog Prince art coming at'cha...

Yeah, that frog is a bit creepy

Why? Because Madeleine Shade is hosting a guest excerpt from my story Too Much of Water over on her blog today :-)

Charles Robinson, 1911

Madeleine is an erotica author specialising in twists on fairy stories - as you might surmise from the blog title "Shady Lady Fairy Tales". So we have a lot in common!

Arthur Rackham

You can read the whole of Madeleine's Frosted: an erotic twist on Hansel and Gretel right here

Where does my title Too Much of Water come from?

Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia,
And therefore I forbid my tears
–Hamlet, Act 4

Which might clue you in to the ending...

Read an excerpt NOW  

Fierce Enchantments (which includes Too Much of Water) at  Amazon UK : Amazon US 

Warwick Goble

Fierce interrogations

Last week, thanks to a prize draw at Writer Marketing Services, and the divine Lucy Felthouse, I had a mini-blogtour for Fierce Enchantments. I'm slightly worried that it sounds more like an intensive therapy session than a promo exercise!

Mad? You call me mad, when I have the very power of life and death at my fingertips? I AM A GOD!

On Monday, for example, I was over at K D Grace's, talking about the voices in my head.

On Tuesday I was at Adriana Kraft's, talking about a time I sooooo desperately needed the comfort blanket of fairy tales. Yes, even the kind where the hero cuts off his horse's head...

On Wednesday I was confessing to Charlotte Howard how horrified I was to look back over my New Year's resolutions.

By Thursday I was strapped to the therapy couch while Jan Graham asked whether I really wanted to stay alive.

And Pinky Pollock took a shift at the mental thumbscrews on Friday. Yes, I said I wanted to be someone evil. 

Writers aren't all crazy, I assure you.
Well, I think not, anyway.
Well, I hope not...!

Mostly we put it into our twisted, wicked, scary erotica stories :-)

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Blue Monday

Every Monday I post a naughty excerpt for your entertainment. Between October (when it came out as an e-book) and today, the last Monday of 2014, those excerpts have all been from the stories in my new collection Fierce Enchantments.

Story 10: The Merry Maid

The final story! My previous two collections have finished with a romance, but since I already wrote one ("A Man's best Friend") for the #9 slot, this book finishes with humorous fairytale that features three brothers who set off together to seek their fortune  (and a magic porridge spoon) ...

 
“Do we taste the same?” the Eldest Brother asked, as the Merry Maid wiped at her chin. The Middle Brother was in no state to ask anything: he was still gasping and groaning.

“No,” she giggled. Then she turned to the Youngest Brother.

He handed her his cup of ale that had languished, forgotten, during the performance, and she drank from it gratefully. “Before we begin,” he said, “I would like to give you the kiss I promised.”

“Very well.”

“Sit you upon the end of this bench, Merry Maid.” But when she did so, looking at him a little askance, he went down on his own knees before her and threw up her skirts over her thighs.

“Oh! I see!” said she, as he parted her legs. Then “Oh!” again as he pushed her back upon the cushion and went nuzzling up under her skirt, pressing his lips to her virgin puss. And “Oh!”—far longer and more drawn out—as his kiss struck home. To the bemusement of his brothers, their youngest sibling did not cease in his kissing, and the Merry Maid did not resist his blandishments. Her bare breasts heaving, she lay back upon the bench’s length, wriggling her hips with joy. Slowly it dawned upon them that her secret treasure, that thing that must remain inviolate until her wedding day, was more than capable of being pleasured without being entered by any cock. This sight was no hardship for their eyes either, nor for their nether parts, which despite being so recently drained were a-twitch with interest. The two brothers watched, grinning, as their youngest sibling gamahuched away.

At length the Merry Maid gave a great cry and arched her spine and then collapsed, babbling and giggling. The Youngest Brother looked up from under her skirts with a big grin and a slick of juice plastered across his face, appearing for all the world as if he had been eating a basket of ripe plums.

“Oh!” she said. “Oh, you have earned your pleasure with that kiss! Come here, my sweet, that I may repay you!”

“But—No,” he said. “Not yet. I would rather do this …” And with those words he plunged back into the fray, and set to once more upon her virgin treasure with his lips. At first the Merry Maid shrieked and made as if to wriggle from his grasp, but as he persisted she surrendered in very short order, with many sighs and yelps of pleasure. This time, too, she caught her own breasts in her hands and pinched her own nipples.

That was too much for the Middle Brother. Rising from his seat, he found the pot of butter that had been on the dinner table, and scooped out a big blob upon his fingertips. He used this to baste the maiden’s bosom, slathering her all over until her breasts were two slippery orbs that he could mould and press and squeeze together. She seemed most grateful for this attention, willingly giving up to the task to him. In fact she smeared butter from her skin onto her hand and used it to grease up his tool, working it with a firm grip.

That was enough to bring the Eldest Brother back into action. Coming round the other side of the bench, he took his turn tugging upon a slippery nipple. Eagerly she grabbed his cock too. They arranged themselves either side of her head, and as the Youngest Brother ate her puss, they plied their trade upon her breasts as if milking a fine cow.

“Yes!” the maiden groaned, pulling upon their cocks—lengths that were showing surprising solidity and girth, considering what they had already been through. She rolled her face to one side, urging the Eldest Brother’s length toward her open, hungry mouth. With one knee on the bench edge, he discovered her could crouch at the right angle to feed his bell-end to her lips. Her tongue darted out, lapping him. For a moment he rediscovered paradise—and then she rolled away, to the other side, searching out the Middle Brother’s cock in turn.

That was how they brought her off for a second time, between them—slippery tits, slippery cocks, a kiss upon a wet and slippery puss. Turn and turn about, two stiff members to suck, back and forth between them, tasting butter and sweat and salt, until she opened up once more and, with a squeal, came. By that time she had worked their limbs so hard and so surely that it was not difficult for both the elder brothers to take themselves in hand and squeeze out their seed in slopping spasms into her open mouth.

As they staggered back, the Youngest Brother rose at last to claim his own.

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