Picture of panties around red shoes

Elust #68: The Hottest Sex on the Net!

MollyHeader
Photo courtesy of Molly’s Daily Kiss

Welcome to Elust #68

The only place where the smartest and hottest sex bloggers are featured under one roof every month. Whether you’re looking for sex journalism, erotic writing, relationship advice or kinky discussions it’ll be here at Elust. Want to be included in Elust #69? Start with the rules, come back April 1st to submit something and subscribe to the RSS feed for updates!

For our UK readers, we would like to make a special request that you take a moment and fill out this petition to repeal the new censorship laws.

~ This Month’s Top Three Posts ~

A Misunderstanding With My Clitoris
BDSM Doesn’t Magically Fix Your Life
Discussing Consent, Culture, and What We Do

~ Featured Post (Molly’s Picks) ~

Other people run. I fuck.
Frame by Frame

~ Readers Choice from Sexbytes ~

*You really should consider adding your popular posts here too*
Bad Men and Why Perfectly Intelligent, Independent, Sane Women Fantasize About Them

All blogs that have a submission in this edition must re-post this digest from tip-to-toe on their blogs within 7 days. Re-posting the photo is optional and the use of the “read more…” tag is allowable after this point. Thank you, and enjoy!

 

Sex News, Opinion, Interviews, Politics & Humor

Erotica Challenge: The Euph-Off
Squirting: A Feminist Issue?
The Waaaambulance Race

Thoughts & Advice on Sex & Relationships

Sex and Depression – An Update
The Dating Game
Pussy Whispering
“Fuck You” Is the Best Revenge
Interviews & flirting

Erotic Non-Fiction

Doing As I’m Told
Possibilities to ponder
Sign Language
Today I’m Going to Share a Sad Story
Whispering To Him
Humiliation of an ex-Nazi submissive 37

Thoughts & Advice on Kink & Fetish

One Sadist’s Consent
Home Improvements
NSKQ 48: Cumming Kills the Party
The Fun, The Serious & the In Between in BDSM
Starting to feel human and kinky again
Do what you say you will do
Flux

Poetry

Flattery – A Lusty Limerick

Erotic Fiction

happy birthday
The Red Shoes
The Fuck Feast Fantasy
Unexpected
“Not Paid to Love You”
Unexpected
The belt

Writing About Writing

Resist the Erotic Euphemism
Lessons From Writing A Threesome
The Semantics of Sex
Sardax Breathes Life Into Venus in Furs

 

 

 

ELust Site Badge

#EuphOff: For the Love of a Stable Boy

A few weeks ago, the charming Jane Gilbert shared a hilarious post on erotic euphemisms. We’ve all read them—and I’m sure we can all agree they’re positively terrible. They tend to do a fine job of turning the reader off while simultaneously detracting from the story, because things such as coffee beans, spongy stems, and turgid manhoods are probably best left for comedy.

Which is why, I suspect, dear Jane came up with a fabulous new meme—it’s called the #EuphOff, and it’s been circulating for a little bit now. I’ve been slow to join in due to all the stuff, but with the challenge of writing a 500-word story using as many euphemisms for sex and body parts as possible, how could I pass this up?

(You’ve been warned.)

Purple prose is definitely not my thing, so a giant thank you to Jane for the challenge as I actually found this really fucking hard (and not in a good way). 😉

But, after you’ve read through to the end—if you can make it to the end—please be sure to jam your clicker on the coffee bean to enjoy more trembling oysters and vibrating sabers from other writers! Believe me, there were some fantastic entries.

Now, without further ado:

For the Love of a Stable Boy

Princess Abigail jumped when Donnie emerged from the shadows, her lush orbs rising and falling as his bare feet crunched across the woodsy floor. Under the cascade of light blessing them from the moon above, she made out the hunger in his eyes. His was unrestrained lust, the natural state of a man come to implant her with his seed.

“Abigail,” he said, his voice a throttled cry slicing through the chilly night, “I’ve been waiting for you.”

Abigail’s cherry-tips hardened, and a thick syrup brimmed in the marshmallow cavern between her thighs. They’d spent years playing at the river’s edge when they were young, despite her father’s repeated warnings that he was just a lowly stable boy—but having spied him bathing at the edge of the pond, caressing the dagger between his legs so that it grew into a swollen beast desperate to plunge into her darkest cave, she knew he was nothing the term boy could properly fit. Now, the steel-cut landscape of his chest glittered in the moonlight with a fine layer of velvet moss, and beneath his abs there jutted the one-eyed snake that dwells between a man’s hips, a fleshy sword ready to spear her inner path to take from her the maidenhead she could only give but once.

Before Abigail moved, Donnie pressed his tumescent rod against her. She gasped, but he swept her in his arms as her head fell back in a whinny.

Princess Abigail in the Woods

Anton Maltsev ©123RF.com

Could he read her impure thoughts? Did he know her marital hopes?

Could he smell in the air the ripe scent of nectar that circled in her lady passage like the love that swarmed her heaving bosom?

“Donnie,” she whispered, “do you mean it?” She gnashed her teeth despite her hands swift to roam the ridges of his chest, then grazing the hollow of a belly meant to flatten against hers when he would impale her with his love stick.

“Oh Abigail,” he said. “You are the maiden pure as the driven snow, sweet as the taste of honey, and curved like a cello I’ve longed to play.”

He smothered her in a tender kiss, then, his hands gripping the sweet round of her bottom and raising up the folds of her skirt. What could she possibly do? A tide of desire surged her love haven, and as his heat-seeking protuberance snuck against the bare, ivory skin of her quivering thigh, she muttered, “But I’m a princess. My sacred pearl can only be given once—”

“Then let your maidenhead be mine, my darling,” he said. “I am the one for you. I promise.”

Abigail did not protest as Donnie laid her down and lifted her skirt above her head, burying his puckered lips between the rippling wings of her butterfly. She bleated in longing as his tongue drilled into her seeping cavern, and when she began to seize, Donnie rose up on his knees, grasping his baton. “Let me pollinate you with love fluid to show my honor for you, Princess.”

At this, Abigail surrendered. Donnie pierced her with his stem, stinging her with the repeated seesaw of his hips. Pleasure permeated her once-sealed tunnel, and as Donnie bucked like a wild stallion and exploded with cannon fire deep within her silk canal, she knew.

He was the one.

*

Special bonus narration by Exhibit A!

Wow. My eyes and ears are bleeding. Yours?

Flick the bean for more!

XX,
Jade

EuphOff

On Elephants and Landmines, and the People Who Help You Through

I’ve been in a really funny headspace lately. It’s one that did more damage than good, but I think one we all go through from time to time, to one degree or another (or maybe I’m only saying that so I don’t feel crazy). But in truth, life happens—it’s just that sometimes, it’s full of giant elephants blocking your way between the landmines that can blow your path to smithereens.

Move it, Bertha.

So let’s see. Where do I start?

I’ve been working on this book. It’s an exciting one for me, a standalone story that I started as what I’d intended to be a quick detour before I sat down to draft the sequel of the book my agent is currently shopping around. This baby’s got a lot of elements going for it that have my engines revved…first, there’s a bunch of exhibitionism (as I’ve said before, I am a bit of an exhibitionist). Then, there are a few relationships happening for my darling lead female—not in a poly way, but in a super complicated way I’m enjoying navigating. And then, there’s said lead character—a woman who definitely doesn’t fit the current mold of female protagonists (read: naïve virgins), and who is instead a highly educated divorcée ready to break free of her troubled old life. Score!

But here’s the thing: this poor book has been taking a beating from day one.

It took seven weeks to draft my last book, but this one has had a perilous path, interrupted in more ways than I can count. There was the one-month break. Then the two-month break. Then that other break. Then the rewriting that had to happen since I kept trying to write while I wasn’t sleeping much, or while I was sick. Or…well, you get the picture. It’s just that, for some reason, I can’t seem to get my time and focus into the game on this one.

Okay, truth be told, I laughed as I typed “for some reason”—because my life has been a hot mess for a few months now. For the last five I’ve been contending with an oil-leaking car (finally fixed…I think) and the HOA waiving threats of fines about for the spot I “took too long to clean” (too long was a week, guys, a week) and now the manner in which I’ve cleaned it (because “soap is bad for the environment”). I’ve still been running Jade’s Cat Hospice, which strangely sucks up a lot of time when you consider chasing cats down and medicating them multiple times a day, with one of them using the litter box as her hiding spot when she’s on to me (oh my god STOP that, kitty, stop!), and twice weekly email correspondence with the vet tech. Then there was the cold from hell that completely knocked me out, ironically, for the few days I took off from work to get some editing in on the damn book. I can’t seem to solve my plantar fasciitis problem, and spend a surprisingly large amount of time working on that (stretching, icing, ordering new shoes, returning crappy shoes, wondering if I’ll ever run again, stretching, icing…). My sleep is fortunately not as bad as it was during my 6-week chronic insomnia run last year, but my trick of moving to the couch if I can’t fall asleep and waking up there with a messed up back in the morning is getting kind of old. Then there’s family drama happening that’s kind of boggling my mind, and on top of that, some shit went down at my day job that was serious enough I might need to consider legal help, but I’m not sure if—with my tendency towards insane stress levels—this is the route to go yet.

But all this is neither here nor there. There are children starving in Africa, right? This is what I learned growing up: my problems are not real problems because there are children starving in Africa. It’s a mantra I repeated to myself for decades, one that left me unable to acknowledge until way later that witnessing my parents’ terribly messy divorce when I was a child actually did have an impact. It was a mantra that prevented me from realizing that raising my sister for two years while I was 11 and my parent worked graveyard did force me to play the grown-up when what I needed was to be a little girl and cry. It was the same mantra that had me putting on my game face after a series of emotional and physical traumas in my teens and twenties, because it was easier to just smile, laugh it all away, and keep it quiet than handle it for what would be about a decade. And later, it would be this very same mantra that, when I was performing aerial circus stunts as I mentioned in my interview with Molly Moore, would lead me to break myself in the middle of a performance because I didn’t believe pain could stop me—or should stop me. Ps-shaw. Hell no. I didn’t do pain. I was a superhero and had no time for pain, relaxation, feeling hurt, any of that.

There were children starving in Africa, for fuck’s sake.

Well, the good news is now that I’m 35 and oh-so-wise (did you hear me chuckle just now?), I am less inclined to resort to the children starving in Africa mantra when I’m hurting. I totally feel pain, and I cry; heck, I even have meltdowns that could, I suppose, be hormonal, but holy shit. They happen. It’s rather bizarre, having been the levelheaded one in the family for so many years [decades], that now I actually cry and have to lay boundaries and stuff.

But that relaxation thing? That part where, when I see a big brick wall—or, say, a field full of elephants and landmines blocking every clear route—I know that I need to slow down and accept that this might be trickier than expected and that’s okay, because sometimes tricky things take time?

Yeah, that part I’m still working on.

So I think you might be wondering where the fuck I’m going with all this. Let’s cut back to the cold/chasing cats/work thing/family drama/limping on my foot on the way out to scrub more oil off the goddamn pavement moment: I finally had a whole day free to write and I simply couldn’t. I froze. I cried. I got myself caught in this loop over the fact that I was wasting my productive time to mull over all this bullshit that shouldn’t be stalling me. It was Meltdown City, and I kept wondering if I was PMSing, or worse, bipolar—because hell, that runs in the family—and before you know it, I’m on the internet taking a quiz to determine if maybe I am (who fucking does that?).

I suddenly felt like I did once upon a time, even without the Africa mantra, but damn—was I being hard on myself!

Then three magical things happened.

First, I put a call in to the wonderful and lovely Malin James. Many of you know I adore this woman—she’s like my long lost twin separated at birth—so she felt like the right person to call. She needed a few minutes to call me back, and that was okay. While I waited, I texted my other friend—a non-writer with whom I share other similarities (including some astrological traits, if you’re into that). As she texted me back, I randomly found this article by James Clear about not striving so fucking hard for goals and instead reaching for the process and savoring that. Because that’s attainable. That you can’t fuck up, or bemoan not reaching. Because it’s all about the journey, remember?

So about the time I’d gotten the gist of Mr. Clear’s very clear point, my phone went off with a text and a phone call all at once. My two dearies had come to the rescue. The texter hit me with some sweet words telling me I was going to do just fine with the book, and then some encouragement to go on a long walk and drink more (she’s an exercise fiend and a wine connoisseur) and remember we’re Geminis (and thus naturally a tad bipolar). Meanwhile, the fabulous Malin chimed in with her extraordinarily calming and logical approach to tackling huge missions while circumventing bitchy elephants and dangerous landmines in a way that made sense to me (the twin thing again).

Bring It, Journey.

Bring it, Journey. Konrad Bak ©123RF.com

And I’ve got to say—between these three events, I was suddenly okay with putting my story down for the day. I took a deep breath. I closed the browser telling me I was potentially bipolar. I calmly enjoyed the rest of my afternoon. I even went karaoking with another great friend (my version of the walk and drinking…instead I danced and drank) until something like 2 in the morning.

Because you know what? There are children starving in Africa. And elephants are awfully big to walk around. Also, landmines can be treacherous.

So sometimes you’ve just got to slow down and go with it.

Things are still stupidly chaotic in my life, but I’m not panicking on the book anymore. It will happen. And writing this post reminded me of a passage I scribbled from a phenomenal book I read last summer, Hillary Jordan’s When She Woke:

“I don’t have far to go.”

“That may be…or it may be that you have a greater distance than you think. But either way, you’ll get there eventually.”

You know what?

I will.

XX,
Jade

The Pillow Talk...Erotica Writers Talking Dirty logo: black and white image of a cartoon woman with bright red lips on a pillow

Pillow Talk Secrets: All About the Dirty Scenes!

The Pillow Talk...Erotica Writers Talking Dirty logo: black and white image of a cartoon woman with bright red lips on a pillowIt’s time for another Pillow Talk Secrets, everyone!

Today I’m quite excited as Malin James, Tamsin Flowers and I—your host for the day, Jade A. Waters—have a spicy new topic for you. We’ve been wanting to get back to the dirty, seeing as we are Erotica Writers Talking Dirty, so today I’m delighted to be leading our discussion on the best erotic scenes and acts to write. That’s right—you’ll be hearing all our favorite pairings, naughty deeds, and explicit (literary) moments, and we hope you’ll enjoy the ride. (Eh-hm. Pun intended.)

So without further ado, welcome back to…

Pillow Talk Secrets

Jade: Hello, ladies! How are you both today?

Malin: I’m doing really well, thanks! How are you, Jade? Tamsin?

Tamsin: Very well, thank you.

J: I’m so glad to hear you’re both well. I’m very excited for our session today, and I suspect there’s some real dirtiness ahead. 😉 Shall we get to it?

M: Absolutely!

T: Fire away, Jade.

J: All right then. Today, we’re talking about favorite pairings and acts to write in erotica. Hot! Let’s kick off with pairings: one-on-one, threesomes, different gender combos, etc…any particular preferences?

M: Well, I’ve always loved writing m/m/f threesomes—my WIP is about how one develops longer term, (among other things). That said, I just wrote my first m/m last fall and kind of loved that too.

T: Yeah, I enjoy the old m/m/f—my novel Her Boss & His Client was about one—and that was so much fun to write. Double penetration and the rest! 😉

J: Right! You know, I haven’t written a ton of threesomes myself, but I did love penning the few I tried. So far I’ve only run with m/m/f. Have either of you given f/f/m a whirl, and if so, what do you feel are the differences in actually writing them (besides the obvious, of course)?

M: I wrote an f/f/m very early on—the story is awful, though the pairing was fun. I think the biggest difference, (for me), is that with m/m/f I feel free to just go to town, whereas with f/f/m, I’m very conscious of the fact that the f/f portion can accidentally come off as a bit performative, (as in “bi for his benefit”). While there’s nothing wrong with that in print or in life, there are other aspects of that dynamic I want to explore more.

J: That’s a really good point, Malin. That performative piece is so ingrained as a societal fantasy, it’s something to be mindful of.

M: It’s true…that said, I’ve read a lot of stories that dig into powerful, sexy stuff with f/f/m’s. There are a lot of different power dynamics to play with—same with m/m/f.

T: One thing about writing anything with three people involved is the need to be a little more specific about whose body part is whose—you can’t just say “his cock” if it could be Tom’s cock or Dick’s cock. And you need to be really clear for the reader on the logistics—it can certainly get confusing when there are six hands, six arms and legs, and multiple genitalia!

The kissJ: And that’s the same for more than three, too—I wrote a fourway orgy (in space, no less). It was three men and a woman. Mind your pronouns was the name of the game!

M: Absolutely—pronouns and body parts get really interesting when there are more than two people to manage. Same with action—it’s easy to accidentally focus on two of the characters and leave the third (or fourth) in some sort of sexy holding pattern. It’s like juggling balls (ha). You’ve got to keep all of them in the air.

T: Smart analogy!

J: Yes. Body part circus! 🙂 It’s something we have to pay attention to no matter what, but it’s certainly heightened in the three-four-five-(whoa wouldn’t that be fun?)-ways. So, while all the pairings are lovely, it’s clear we tend to gravitate to one-on-one for the majority of our writing. Let’s focus on specific acts in couple erotica then, no matter what the gender pairing. Shall we start at the beginning? They meet, they make eyes, and then…there’s the kiss! What are your thoughts on writing the kiss?

Click here to read more at Pillow Talk!

Part of Toby's Poem

Today I’m Going to Share a Sad Story

Twenty-one years ago today, I lost my virginity.

That experience itself is not a sad one, but it’s important; I was 14-years-old, and having already had my first sexual awakening a few months before, I’d known when I started dating Toby that he would be the one. He was three years older, an incredibly tall and thin brunet with long hair, graceful fingers, and the most prominent, lovely nose. We’d started phoning one another after he stopped me on the sidewalk outside my Taekwondo studio, where he’d told me he loved my smile and eyes.

What he didn’t know then was that I already had a crush on him. We’d both auditioned for Tevye and His Daughters a couple months before, and while I’d had to drop out of my miniscule role because I had too much homework that I took very seriously, he’d gone on to perform as Tevye in a manner that didn’t fit his 17-year-old frame. It was on that stage Toby struck me as different from all the other boys, as if hosting wisdom beyond his years, but also a presence that couldn’t be explained in any terms I understood then. It wasn’t that he was confident, or dominant, or anything we might imagine when we think of onstage presence; instead it was an aura of listlessness, of discomfort. He was a young man who struck like the gentle beat of the carotid through translucent skin—rich with life blood, and yet so faint you might miss the ghostly tick of who he was.

I discovered I was right about this feeling when Toby and I started dating. There was something about the way he gazed wistfully out the window, and the unusual things he chose to discuss and dwell on. Then there was poetry; long before we’d ever kissed, I’d read him one of my early poems when we sat together in the park. I’d stopped mid-line, suddenly embarrassed and thinking there was no way anyone would really want to hear this blubber I was writing in which I poured out my soul, my ache, and all my love—but Toby did. After, he begged me to write more, to read to him over the phone so he could savor the words and ask me all about what I was thinking when I wrote them. Occasionally—after much encouragement from me—he shared one of his own, and in time, this became our habit. Poems and letters formed our connection, the secret we’d found to express ourselves beyond the physical moments we spent cuddled in the dark, talking of dreams and the futures we imagined for ourselves. Mine were tangible and real, fantasies I could make happen if I set my mind to them. But in Toby’s written words I learned something with which I’d never been familiar: the idea that someone could truly find himself not fitting in this world, that his very existence, for him, was in question at every moment of every day.

By the time we decided to have sex, Toby had shown me more of him. There was a youthful playfulness that distorted his face when he tried to fit in, as if underneath something lingered, a quiet unease that only spilled out on paper when he spoke serious fantasies of living in different eras and places. He made it sound romantic, this obsession with running away from here and now—and this was part of the reason I asked him to be my first. It happened in the middle of the night after he snuck his long, lanky body through my window, kissed me while he slowly peeled off my clothes, and then laid me down on the carpet of my bedroom floor as the moonlight streamed in through the open window and over our skin. Toby kept his lips on mine the entire time, as we both tried, desperately, to stay silent lest we get caught.

In truth, the experience was not what I’d expected. I wondered why people made such a big deal out of this thing. All the other physical acts we’d shared had struck me as more pleasurable, more intimate—and what I wanted in that moment was something more meaningful, to light a candle by which we could whisper our poetry aloud, like we did all the other times we’d been together. I’d been trying to make sense of Toby for so long, and now, this close, this forcibly connected, I needed to understand him, to peer into his soul and see why—despite all his love, his caresses, and the way he claimed he felt happier with me—he still struck me as so lost inside his head.

Part of a poem once written for Toby

Toby’s Poem

Our lovemaking continued for only a month after that, each time better and attempting to draw us closer. It was a physical act to meet my ache for understanding, and perhaps one that represented his need for a world he couldn’t find in his family, friends, or the comings and goings of high school life. And when we broke up, it wasn’t because he was acting as the lost young man I’d come to know and treasure, but instead the laughing, joking boy he thought he was supposed to be.

*

It was almost four years later we ran into one another, and everything, while different, had stayed the same. Toby complimented my eyes; I told him I still loved his nose. He was thinner, lankier, and his eyes had grown darker somehow, like he’d taken on more of the world’s weight and it had sunk the skin around them as a mark of all he had to carry. But when he asked if I still wrote poetry and I flashed a reminiscent grin, he brightened up. He told me he missed my smile and that we should catch up over poetry and wine.

I honestly can’t remember much of the dinner we shared when we met a week later. The trials that had happened in our lives—rumors that had spread around town about me, and the rumblings I’d heard about him through friends of friends—were all irrelevant as we sat across from each other. We both pulled out the notebooks we’d written in over the years, eager to share everything we’d thought and felt about life, other lovers, and what the future would bring. After our meal, Toby bought a bottle of red while I stood outside the liquor store in the cold night air, wondering if the love we’d make would feel the same to an experienced 18-year-old as it did to the virgin he’d soothed and welcomed into his mystery all those years before.

When we arrived at my house, we uncorked the wine and sat facing each other, poetry in hand as we read, back and forth, for the next couple hours. There were many toasts, many utterances of encouragement, many awed shakes of heads at what each of us had expressed over these few years that felt like a lifetime of change. He stopped me, at one point, telling me he was so glad I’d never stopped writing. I’d dropped my notebook to my lap, beaming and blushing—no one but Toby had read so many of my words, and certainly no one but him had encouraged me to keep writing them. In the same way, I loved what he’d done with his own, and I told him so.

It was somewhere after our second glass we started to kiss.

The memory is ancient and tainted with the fuzzy haze of wine, but what I do recall is this: two naked bodies curling under the sheets, fingertips grazing each other’s sides, tracing memories and yet learning something new, something changed. There was more wine, then more poetry. We whispered it as we made love again, this time a little older, more sure, knowing it was the magic of the lines we read that fueled our fire, that maybe seemed to others strange—two people reading as they arched and bowed, breaths wavering between the words—but that for us remained the secret to our true selves, and what we sought to understand in one another. Our rapture was in poetry, and when we woke in the morning and he kissed me goodbye, I remember thinking it was the real way we were supposed to end: the writers who’d loved, not just the lovers who’d written.

I lost Toby after that night. I heard he moved away, somewhere strange, some other country he’d always wanted to visit. As close as we’d been that night, I’d read in him that comfort in his skin remained a diaphanous, tenuous thing—that despite his beautiful words and loving touch, he still wasn’t all that sure of the world or his place in it.

Wherever he was, I hoped he’d soon find the solace he’d been looking for.

*

It was over four years later I got the news.

My life was a vastly different one then. I was nearing the end of a five-year relationship that lasted five years too long, one that, without saying too much, broke me in ways women should never be broken. And it was while this boyfriend visited my apartment that my best friend called to tell me what she’d heard about Toby through some mutual friends. She’d dated him too, for a short while before I’d ever met her—but through the years, she knew who and what he was to me.

She spilled it all in a moment, her low tone signaling the gravity of what she had to say: Toby had been living in Europe with a pregnant girlfriend. No one had seen him in a while, but everyone thought he might finally be happy.

And then he killed himself.

My reaction had been stifled by the look I got from my boyfriend. I didn’t know how to act, how to feel. I’d never lost anyone before, but I found myself remembering Toby in that instant as I’d first known him—a lost young man, living in the wrong world, the wrong time, searching for something that fit and never quite finding it, writing letters and poetry that forever tried to make sense of it all.

“So he killed himself and he was your first. Big fucking deal,” was what my boyfriend said to me. “You dated that guy? He was your first? What a loser.”

And because my reaction would determine what came next between us, I didn’t say anything more.

*

They say you always remember your first, and I believe, for many, this is true. There is something to be learned in your first time—awakening, desire, love, pain, change. And yet, when I think back to my “first,” I hardly remember that moment with Toby on my bedroom floor. What I remember instead are those moments sharing ourselves in the poetic way only we understood, and, deeper than that, the lost man I tried so hard to understand but never fully could. With it all usually comes a sense of grief and loss, a feeling that rose and fell so fast then, never expressed in a way that suited the connection we shared every time we read our words.

Most of all, there comes the acceptance that sometimes, you can never truly understand what’s going on inside a person’s soul. You can encourage them, and you can empathize, but there’s always so much more beyond what they will let you see.

And the only thing you can do is treasure them anyway.

XX,
Jade

For Toby.

Picture of man about to kiss woman

A Poem for Wicked Wednesday: The Wait

Today feels like a poetry kind of day…

I hope you enjoy it.

XX,
Jade

Picture of man about to kiss woman

Konrad Bak ©123RF.com

THE WAIT

by

Jade A. Waters

He cups the side of my face
Thumb rubbing gently, mindlessly
Across the surface of ruddy skin
That waits for more—waits for him.
“Spread your legs,” he says, and I do,
The rush of air kissing my thighs
Grazing the naked heat of my cunt.
“Just like that,” he says,
His fingertips traveling down
Faintly tracing the slope of my neck
The curve of my breast,
And teasing my nipple
In quick, playful tugs.

“Touch me, please.”
My words are a growl
Coming out so deep, so hungrily
I’m sure they emanate from where I ache
Where I need him more than anything,
But still he makes me wait.
I am open
While he strips off his shirt
Unzips the fly on those trousers
And eases himself out.
He is beautiful, hard,
And he circles his length
In sync with the strokes of a finger
That he winds round my nipple
Before he stands in front of me.

“How badly do you need me?” he asks,
And my answer is an eager lean, an easy moan,
The wrap of my lips
Around the head of his cock,
My eyes on him as I suck him deep
Clutching his hips, drawing him further.
A gasp stumbles from his mouth
When he tilts back his head.
“Yes, just like that,” he moans,
“You must really need me.”
He cups both sides of my face now
His palms electric on my cheeks
His fingers twining in my hair
Before he jerks me back, abruptly
Stealing his gorgeous cock from me.

There is a moment between us
No movement
No sound
Eyes locked as we acknowledge
This wait he puts me through.
Then he pounces—
Pushing me back,
Spreading my thighs ever wider
Before thrusting inside,
Filling me, hard and deep
And bringing cries to my lips
Shudders to my body,
As he makes me wait no longer.

Wicked Wednesday

The Pillow Talk...Erotica Writers Talking Dirty logo: black and white image of a cartoon woman with bright red lips on a pillow

Pillow Talk Secrets: Blowing Kisses to 2014 and Celebrating 2015!

Happy New Year, everyone!

Well, we’re on the second day of 2015, and to celebrate, Pillow Talk has a special New Year’s Secrets for you! Today, Malin James, Tamsin Flowers and I recap the year that was and usher in the excitement of the next one. Tamsin is our host this time around, and she’s thrown us some fun questions about our experiences as erotica writers, memorable writing moments, and other sexiness we’ve found in the industry. As usual, I’ve posted a bit of the session here with a link to continue, or you can hop on over to our site to read Secrets in its entirety.

Thanks so much for joining us—2014 was a great year, and we can’t wait to share more secrets with you in 2015!

XX,
Jade

The Pillow Talk...Erotica Writers Talking Dirty logo: black and white image of a cartoon woman with bright red lips on a pillow

Pillow Talk Secrets

Tamsin: Hello ladies. How are you both doing today?

Malin: So good! How are you Tamsin? Jade?

Jade: Great! So nice to be here with you both.

2015T: It certainly is good to meet for the first time in 2015 – Happy New Year to you both and to all our readers!

J: Yes, Happy New Year! *Blows party whistles* *Throws confetti*

M: I love the New Year – it always feels good to start fresh. *removes confetti from hair* 😉

T: It is great to have a fresh start. Now, let’s get going on today’s business – our look back over 2014 and our look forward over 2015. I’ve got a few questions to put to you two – starting with what was the most surprising thing writing erotica taught you about yourselves last year?

M: Oh boy.. Well, I think the  biggest thing it taught me was that I’m far more comfortable with myself sexually now than I’ve ever been. I don’t seem to have the hang-ups that plagued me as a younger, non-erotica writing woman.

J: It certainly does have that effect, doesn’t it? Something about writing erotic things adds to one’s erotic nature, I think.

T: I agree. And on a similar note, the more erotica I write the more comfortable I am with the fact that I’m an erotica writer. At first I didn’t want anyone to know – but now I take the opportunity to tell more people and most of them receive it very well.

J: I just love that feeling! I find the reception being positive is true, too.

M: Yes! It’s kind of funny to realize how much apprehension you can have about writing erotica when you first start playing with it. It’s nice to let that go as you develop as a writer.

J: I wrote about that acceptance of myself as an erotica writer back at the end of 2013 – and this year, having been one with it and really truly loving it, I would say the most surprising thing I learned is what a damn work horse I can be. I mean, I know I go at it sometimes, but I’ve had to pull back from working myself to exhaustion a few times. That was a shocker. I’m sure you both can relate to that, too.

T: Absolutely – that was one of my answers – I’ve surprised myself with my sheer doggedness when it comes to getting stuff done!

M: I never would have called myself a workaholic until this past year, but I’ve been surprised, like both of you, by how much it’s actually true. I guess loving your work brings that out!

J: Yes. But one of the things that’s helped is that you both have been around to “talk me down” when I’m taxing myself. I think that’s one of the greatest things we’ve done for one another (besides all the “talking up,” of course).

M: Yeah – that support really has been critical. It’s easy to push too hard, or get too low. Having two partners/friends who can offer that bit of perspective is just invaluable.

T: It is a wonderful thing, and I wouldn’t be without you two! Now, what’s the most interesting or surprising thing you’ve learned about the industry over the course of 2014?

M: For me it was a fairly general realization. I was surprised by how unstable the market has gotten recently, and yet, within that, how many other options writers have. That and how unfailingly supportive other writers are.

T: That was totally going to be my answer – just how fantastic the erotica community is. We might supposedly be competing against each other but every writer I come across is generous with their support.

J: Yes. It’s a tight-knit group – probably the most lovable and delightful group of all the writer groups I’ve worked with. Considering how much flak the genre can get, it’s wonderful to have that support.

T: If we don’t help each other, who will?

J: Right!

T: Now, turning to what we’ve all been writing, tell me each of you, what was your hottest sex scene of the year?

Click here to read more!

Picture of firework spark

At the Year’s End

Picture of firework spark

Happy New Year’s!

I wasn’t going to write this post.

I’d settled in my head last week that I would not do the end-of-year recap, especially since my lovely Pillow Talk cohorts and I have a New Year’s edition coming to you in just a couple days (and we do so hope you enjoy it).

But here’s the thing—writing is not optional. It’s not an act we choose; more often than not, it’s a thing we must do. It’s in our heads, in our hearts, and in our veins. It fuels us, guides us, makes us. Sometimes, it takes us in a sweet embrace, stroking the sides of our faces as it whispers, “It’s time to write, love.”

So here I am.

A year ago, I had only recently launched this site with the release of The Big Book of Orgasms and the reading that followed. I had no idea what the year would bring, but I was excited to find out. And you know what? It’s been a seriously fantastic year. Sure, there were some major real-life hurdles for me—I went through a break-up, threatened to quit my job, experienced the worst bout of insomnia in my life, had a couple car breakdowns and multiple rounds of very sick kitties. I also got so overworked I had to force myself to learn to relax (still working on that).

Despite all this, one thing held true: I was thrilled to be writing erotica and thriving in the world that comes with it. The list of experiences that brought smiles to my face goes on forever, but there were some definite highlights. I finished writing a book. I wrote a bounty of short stories. I signed with an agent. I furthered my love of live readings while helping out on an awesome book tour. I swapped my site over to a self-hosted one and started a poetry page, then tried some audio, too. I almost finished writing another book. I met and got to know amazing people, through Twitter, Facebook, real-life readings, events, and experiences. I discovered tons of new writers that blew my mind, and cherished old ones that kept me reading well past my bed time (and others, before I crawled out of bed in the morning). I found brilliant and wonderful sisters and colleagues in my Pillow Talk pals. And—over and over again—I found myself incredibly content when I was writing.

So I guess I’d say I’m in the same place as last year, but now it’s better. I’m still excited, but this time around I’m even more certain—yes, this thing is in me. It’s the very thump of a beating heart that keeps me happy, dreaming, and continuing on.

As for 2015 goals? I’m keeping it simple: WRITE. (Okay, and maybe take a day off here and there.) 🙂

Wherever you are now, and whatever your goals, I wish you all the best in 2015.

Thanks for joining me!

XX,
Jade

B/W image of woman cuddling close in man's lap

Because of the Way He Held Me

Many of you know I write poetry, and usually, it’s quite erotic—whether it be romantic and erotic or downright dirty and erotic.

Today, I’ve got a new poem for you—but it’s not as erotic as I normally write. It’s getting back to my poetry roots, somewhat: a little darker, a little deeper, and in many ways, a little more raw. There was a time all the poetry I wrote was based on something that happened to me, or a relationship I had; this piece definitely flows in the same vein.

I hope you enjoy it.

B/W image of woman cuddling close in man's lap

BECAUSE OF THE WAY HE HELD ME

by

Jade A. Waters

Two silhouettes in a room
Filled with smoke, voices loud
He came to me, cornered me
Whispered, “Won’t you come with me?”
His arm twining round my waist, pulling me close
And I did, knowing for certain
It would be because of the way he held me.

Our dance began—magnificent, tremendous,
Two rushing rivers of lust,
Two colliding powers of desperate force.
When he stared into my eyes, I saw everything—
The world, the stars, the secrets to our souls.
It was all wrong
It was so right
But it was because of the way he held me.

Together, we moved
Hips joined, breaths one
A fire so deep the earth trembled, rolled, split open
A tsunami of sensation crashing over him, over me
Over us.
We were the tide, controlling rivers, lakes, and oceans,
We were the universe
All because of the way he held me.

In the dark of the night, we lingered close
His words more whispers, his fingers tracing swirls
Over the tender spread of my hips—
“Because you’re mine,” he’d say.
And I would cave, succumb
And feel
Making wrong a broken word I didn’t understand
Because this was right
And all because of the way he held me.

Now, the wash of memory sweeps across a distant shore
But his hands are still on me, his lips still near
The brand of a lifetime
So deep in these pores.
And I know it will be this way,
A long, long while
Because of the way he held me.

*

Thank you for joining me for this one.

XX,
Jade

Pillow Talk Secrets: It’s All About the Details!

Hi everyone!

Welcome to the next round of Pillow Talk Secrets! Today, Malin James, Tamsin Flowers and I—your host for the day, Jade A. Waters—have some major details to discuss…physical details, that is. The question is, how much physical description is “ideal” in erotica, and is it the same for readers as it is for writers?

We are so delighted you’ve joined us—so without further ado, let’s talk about those dirty details…

Pillow Talk Secrets

Jade: Hello, ladies! So nice to be back together again! How are the both of you?

Malin: Hiya! I’m doing good—got my first cup of tea right here, so I’m feeling fine (though I’ll feel better after the third!).

Tamsin: Hello girls—hope you’re both well!

J: Good to see you both. I’m very excited for today’s session! Shall we dive right in?

T: Absolutely!

J: All right—today is all about the dirty deets. As in, how much specific physical detail do we like to read and write in our erotica? It’s a pretty broad topic. Any initial thoughts?

T: Just to explain how this topic came up—I was having a chat with Malin as she’d been beta reading something for me, and I pointed out that I’d never mentioned what colour hair the protagonist had. So I asked her if that mattered.

Eye Color Detail

Her eyes were the most amazing shade of…

M: And my response was that, for me, it definitely didn’t. I actually preferred it. I’m a “less-is-more” kind of girl whether I’m writing or reading. I like selective amounts of specific detail, and then I like to let my brain, (or the reader’s), fill in the rest.

J: I get the sense this is a common feeling for the three of us—and maybe a lot of other erotica authors as well. Sometimes, too much detail can throw things off. For example, if a character is described as having enormous breasts, or a certain color hair, or a freckle on the forearm… that paints a very specific image.

T: I find there’s nothing worse when I’m reading a story if the action breaks off for a whole paragraph of physical description, like the writer’s going down a checklist of hair, eyes, height and so on…

M: Absolutely. It feels manufactured. You basically want your reader to identify with the characters—if you lay in a ton of generic detail (large breasts, curly hair, etc), it can make it more challenging for the reader to put herself or himself in the story.

J: I don’t want to discount some detail—I think some detail orients the reader. The key is just enough, without becoming overkill.

T: Drip feeding it is the preferred way, I think. A small, specific detail here, another there, to build up a gradual picture—not all at once.

M: It’s also important to drip feed those details (I love that, by the way) in as they become relevant. Don’t give us a dossier the moment the character walks into the room…

Click here to read more!