kayseerenee

So, I've been having nightmares, and it likely has something to do with the latest story I've been working on. Though my regular readers might not suspect it, I have a secret lurve for the scary stuff--though certainly not all of it.

In fact, the first story I wrote that was accepted for publication was a vampire-ish piece about a destructive fling that starts with (consenting!) rough sex and ends with a little murder. It was hot yet challenging reading. My writing group was divided over it--the ladies loved it but the guys loathed it. Success, I thought! An anthology's editor (who was actually looking for disturbing, erotic vampire stories) also loved it, but trouble came to paradise when the publishers thought it was too much. Apparently, my idea of disturbing was too disturbing for them. They asked the editor to yank it (one of the nicest, most apologetic emails I've ever received). I was sad but happy, at the time. That story has yet to find a home (alas!), though I admit I'm hesitant to send it elsewhere.

Well, after a mess of whimsical stories (which have found homes) and some sad crime-type yarns (which have also found homes), I have delved once more into the dark place. Trying not to disturb, however.

I wanted to see if I could write a sex positive, erotic, scary story. I thought it would be simple. The story turned out to be a lioness, and this poor writer was an blissfully unaware antelope.

Really effective scary stories seem to rely heavily upon consequences. Sure, there are otherworldly intrusions into reality or crimes so horrible they cease to be "normal" and assume an almost otherworldly quality, but left to their own devices, these two descriptors could just as easily suggest fantasy stories. What sets scary stories (what some call horror) and fantasy apart for me, is not violence or nastiness (both of which appear in every other storytelling mode) but this notion of consequence or impact.

Now, a pair of examples--can you name the school of scary? Example 1: Long dormant supernatural eeevil has awakened, and the effect it has is a breaking down of the civilized mores/code of conduct (often in small towns). Example 2: Humanity builds a happy illusion about the way the universe runs, but when the Truth is revealed, humanity realizes its own insignificance and goes mad.

Now the relationship between sex and scares is pretty Puritanical. Slasher flicks and similar scare films make that abundantly clear, which is why so many of them are short sighted and kinda well boring. Even an otherwise enjoyable movie like Stir of Echoes cannot escape viewing sex as a pejorative term. However, that branch of horror fiction dubbed erotic horror also takes a page from this assumption. How many Hot Blood stories or hardcore horror novels can essentially be dropped into the "You had sex? Then die, Horny McHornykins!" chum bucket? A disproportionately large number. There are some writers who push past these limitations, but the sex-is-wrong/sinful/depraved trope is difficult to elude. If it's not up front in the cheap seats, it glares from the subtext. Ugh, I say. Ugh.

I wanted to make sex an integral part of my scary story, but I didn't want to fall into any sex-is-wrongwrongWRONG traps. I wanted to stay sex positive. Did I succeed? Hard to say. We'll see what the editor and publisher (and hopefully readers!) say.

However, I've been having nightmares about enclosed spaces and thunderstorms and running away from things no one was meant to know/see...as well as erotic dreams about mysterious lovers. Maybe that's a good sign?


So, how about it readers: what are your thoughts on dark fiction and sexy, scary stories? Any recommendations for sex positive spooky stories?

To get the ball rolling: Poppy Brite's Drawing Blood comes to mind--a sometimes sweet, sometimes terrifying m/m horror-romance. Joyce Carol Oates' modern gothic Beasts reveals a weird relationship between "sex as destroyer of innocence" and "sex as instrument of empowerment"....

I'm sure the list goes on. Help me out?

Coming Soon from Clasp (Circlet Press's new erotic romance imprint)!



Want a little Jane Austen-style erotic fantasy fiction? You should check this one out! It includes my own story "The Lamia's Proposal", wherein a certain prideful bastard from one of Austen's most popular novels finds his supernatural equal.

To get an inside scoop on the other contributors, check out editor J. Blackmore's blog!

Release date is currently set to be July 26th!

I've posted an excerpt from my story "Adrift" over at the Circlet Press Livejournal community. Each of the other authors in the book have done likewise. It's a great time!

There's a fun author chat over at the Circlet Press community! Stop on by and share some book recommendations for a chance to win the new anthology, Women on the Edge of Space!


The book is a celebration of lesbian space exploration stories!



Table of Contents

Introduction by Danielle Bodnar
The Many Little Deaths of Cicilia Long by Shanna Germain
Fair as the Moon, Clear as the Sun by Laurel Waterford
Adrift by Kaysee Renee Robichaud
Unfolding Her Wings by Elizabeth Black

It's been a while, and some new fiction has arrived... Time to play catch up!

The most recent can be found Only In the City: Erotic Tales of City Life.

Here's what publisher Circlet Press has to say about the book:



Also available at the Kindle Store, Fictionwise, Barnes&Noble.com, Smashwords, Scribd, Rainbow Ebooks, All Romance Ebooks, Trapezium, the iBookstore, Diesel, and elsewhere.

Six erotic short stories from Eric Del Carlo, Elizabeth Coldwell, Shanna Germain, Renatto Garcia, Elizabeth Hyder, and Kaysee Renee Robichaud.

City life is cluttered and high-density but anonymous. The characters in Only in the City are surrounded by strangers, anxious about making a connection with another person, physically crowded but emotionally isolated, even from themselves.

And so, when they find that connection–emotional, romantic, sexual–it’s explosive. Add a dose of the fantastic–sometimes even the supernatural–and you get the stories in this anthology: powerful and electric in the way of desperate connections, but also unique to their settings. Some of these cities are ancient and magical, others are gritty and futuristic, while still others are familiar to us in the here and now. Each city pulses with life, but it is that constant beat that wears down our protagonists. These characters have been hardened, cracked, and sometimes broken, and it’s often not until they’re presented with something they’ve never dreamed of that they realize what they’ve been missing.

In “As Far as I Can See,” a New Orleans man has discovered exactly how easy it is to slide into anonymity and loneliness in the city. He passes through his surroundings solitary and unseen, but what happens when he meets someone who is, literally, unseen?
In “Camille/Leon,” a prostitute has a unique talent: she can shift genders at will. This has allowed her to make a terrific living, but it’s forced her to split herself in two. Can she ever realize the whole of herself in a society that tears people apart?

Drug cartels, sentient forests, dueling mages, and earthbound angels: each of these stories reaches for the fantastic, even as it stays grounded in the familiar feel of urban life.

All the protagonists of these stories have lost something of themselves in the erosion of city life, but each of them will find something unexpected or precious through the erotic connections they make, whether fleeting or forever, that could only happen in the city.

Here in southern Texas, I've discovered that summers can be a little oppressive. A little high on the temperature scale, a little low on the "wow, I wanna go to the beach" scale. Thank you Ravenous Romance for giving us a little taste of vacation boy love right in my lap! Well, on my ebook reader anyway, which I sort of hold on my lap.

Ahem.

Is it getting a little hot in here?

Beach Boys: An Anthology of Erotic Encounters with the Gay Boys of Summer offers 14 sexy stories, including my own tale of a Kinky Cruise!

How's this for a cover?



It's an e-book! It's affordable! And it is jam packed stuffed with some lovely boy-on-boy joy! Yum!

Two brand spanking (ooooooh, it hurts so good!) erotica pieces available!


First up, my story "Gretel's Dilemma," a sexy take on the Hansel and Gretel faerie tale is one of five stories to be found in Like a Queen: Lesbian Erotic Faerie Tales from Circlet Press! How's this for a cover?




What's the story about? Weeeeell, what if an eighteen year old Gretel (from "Hansel and Gretel") fell in love with the Witch. And what if Gretel's family just did? not? understand? Well, that's quite the dilemma. At its heart, this story is about how we tend to build mountains from ant mounds, about the challenges around coming out, and about the pursuit if true happiness. With a little hot sexuns, of course. ;-P

Like a Queen is available for Kindle, as well as several other e-book formats through sites like All Romance, Smashword, and Scribd.



Second fiction appearance!
Cecilia Tan (at Circlet Press) tells me my story "Plug In" (no lesbians, alas, but sexy nevertheless) is today's free smut offering at Circlet Press! At only 1000 words, think of this as a little love nibble... Inspirations here take a page from both the "Old Skool" cyberpunks (eg. Pat Cadigan, William Gibson, and Wilhelmina Baird) and some erotic interplay that's totally Lauren Bacall/Humphrey Bogart. It'll be up and free, so give it a try!



What's more, it look like my story "Firsts: On the Kink Cruise" (a little story of boy love) will be appearing in Sephera Giron's anthology Beach Boys due out soon from Ravenous Romance! No cover yet (that I know of), but when I get one I'll pass it on!





Ravenous Romance has some pretty sizzling stories (and some truly luscious covers).

Well, we watched Ken Russel's "erotic thriller" Crimes of Passion last night. Besides laughing at the fashion choices (boy howdy were they funny; the white wig Kathleen Turner wore was bad enough, but add to that the pastel blue dress from hell and pancake makeup and you have hooker clown-o-vision) and rooting for Anthony Perkins' sinister preacher character to win, we yawned through much of the thing (in fact my Lovey Dovey skipped out to play WoW, citing fishing and feeding her pet to be "more fun than watching this"; she was so totally right). The "hero" was cute, but an ur-James Vanderbeek (complete with monster eyebrows) and pretty clueless/ineffective. And an all around bad actor, I guess. Even Kathleen Turner was pretty unenjoyable (What? Joan Wilder is unlikeable? Noooo!). The images were sometimes sexy, but overall the lack of real feeling stole much of the "purr-la-LA" that I like with my erotic thrillers (erotic anything, actually).

However, it was so totally the 80s! Excess and glam with zero soul and negative heart. *pout*

Readers of e-books will find Women of the Bite from Ravenous Romance to be a sexy vampire romp. Specifically, it's an anthology of eleven lesbian, erotic-romance vampire stories (isn't that a mouthful?). This one includes my short story "Keeping Score," 4100 words of lesbians, vampirism, bank robberies, and sexy romance gone wrong (but oh so right!) . . .

The cover makes me squee with joy:




And the book is also slated for a real live print edition, later this year (October, naturally! What better time for v-v-va-a-a-ampi-i-ires-s-s-s) from Alyson Books. This cover makes me squee with a different sort of delight:





I totally want her hair. And her arms.

And presumably her abs.



K. Mental note: Lots of exercise (yuck). And no more sugar-sweets. Ever.

Case in point: Crank: High Voltage. Oh my. Definitely one of the year's best comedies. Come on, I mean with a tagline like: "He was dead . . . but he got better" how can this be anything BUT a comedy????

It begins with an 8-bit animation recreation of the final scene from Crank part 1 (well, I presume so, since I never actually saw that one). A computer generated Chelios then crashes onto a car, and a live action one bounces onto the street, where he is then scraped off the asphalt with a snow shovel (handy how a passing van of organ leggers are around for just such an occasion). The plot then becomes the search for his stolen heart (Not as in "Awwww, isn't that sweet?" I mean LITERALLY missing. Remember those organ leggers I was talking about?). Add in gratuitious self-inflicted electro-stimulation, some sexy stranger rubbing, an unrepentantly goofy-outRAGEous plotline, a wizened David Carradine yucking it up as a bbw-loving mob boss guy, an out of nowhere Godzilla scene (with giant rubber mask Statham fighting another rubber masked guy) and you have a . . . well, a movie.

And then there is the somewhat incomprehensible Ling Bai(her dialogue is even subtitled!), delivering oddball insults with verve and panache. Jason Statham is his typically growly and chiseled-sexy self, but as the final outtakes reveal: even he could not keep a straight face through this one! So over the top it's amazing.

A perfect wine and popcorn movie! Now if only the DVD will come out . . .




Pardon me while I shake head and blush.