Mancandy Monday: Black Lace

The first thing I ever read that had some serious bonking in it was The Fog, by James Herbert. Even more astonishing than that first foray into frankly quite odd sex (seeing as how the people are kind of mental when they're doing it, turned insane by THE FOG!), was my first exposure to erotica: The Splits, by Ray Gordon.

Which wasn't quite all I could have hoped for, I have to say. Although I boggled at some of the detail he went into (and still does go into), the female protagonist seemed a little...over the top. She breathed every word she said and loved loads of stuff really suddenly, including some things that sounded as painful as the activities in Anne Rice's Beauty books. I suspected that secretly, the main character wasn't loving things as much as Ray Gordon claimed she did.

In fact, I suspected that she secretly hated having ten bananas shoved up her bum*. And I didn’t want women who secretly hated very painful sounding things. I wanted women who were dirty and naughty and loved and were loved and did all of these things while making me believe in them, absolutely. They spoke with my voice. Even when they had crazy things to say.

Which is when I read Path of the Tiger, by Cleo Cordell, Gemini Heat by Portia Da Costa, Crash Course by Juliet Hastings, Conquered by Fleur Reynolds, Dreamers In Time by Sarah Copeland, The Houseshare by Pat O’Brien, The Stranger, by Portia Da Costa, Menage by Emma Holly.

I’d never read anything like them. I still haven’t. I’ve read far and wide in the world of erotica, I’ve read erotic romances and paranormal erotic romances and books in which the hero and heroine travel through space and VR machines and lands populated by werewolves, while bonking. I’ve read about alpha males that look like Fabio, big girls and small girls and silly girls and clever girls.

But I’ve never read books like Black Lace books. When I was choosing my pseudonym, I almost called myself Claudia Winthrop. You know why? Because Claudia is the name of the central character in The Stranger, and Winthrop is the surname of the central character in Menage.

You meant a lot to me, Black Lace. I will always be grateful to you, for representing me. For showing me that it's okay to think men look hot and to talk about it, to write about women that can be tough and not tough and all things in between without seeming weak or stupid. And for not insisting that women like ten bananas shoved up their bums.

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Or at least not in a way that I couldn't buy into.

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I am glad I got to write for you, even if it was just for a little while. I shall miss you very much, in all ways that it's possible to miss something. Once, I was a young woman in her boyfriend’s little blue bedroom, marveling at the things you told me I could do, if I wanted to.

And I’m not just talking about the uses for garden vegetables.

All my love now and forever,

Claudia Winthrop

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*May not have actually happened in book.

Mancandy Monday: Lord Bramhope

There is no Lord Bramhope, as I'm sure you know. He lives inside my head, in the file marked "cold and inaccessible yet filled with repressed Other-y passions posh bloke from them days".

Though I imagine he looks a bit like this:

And maybe some of this:

Occasionally he looks like this:

But mostly it's just this:

Probably without the mobile phone I like to imagine he's using there and all the laughing.

Lord Bramhope never laughs. He strides around the halls of some Gothic-y mansion, telling me lies about the strange moaning sounds coming from the attic. I catch him lurking in the darkness, and strike a match that illuminates his groin weakeningly blue eyes. But not in a Wayne taunting Garth with a torch and the movie Leprechaun sort of way.

More of the sort of way where he then takes me roughly on something that sounds like it's from them days, like a credenza or a doily. It's possible that he could also be doing filthy things with the maids, but sometimes I like my historicals to have everyone as repressed and oblivious to sex things as possible, and then WHAM! Sex hits them like a doily to the face.

Plz 2 b writing more of these, authors. I can't write it myself. I keep shoving televisions and can openers and the wrong sorts of shoes in there. They had flushing indoor toilets in them days, right?

Well, That's It, Then.

So much for Black Lace, the one erotica publisher I thought would be safe to send to because dear God, it will never close! No, never! Not Black Lace, sixteen years and four million books strong!

What an idiot I am. I probably cursed it with my sureity. Whenever I'm sure about anything it always blows up in my face.

Ah, well. At least I got a few stories and an entire collection in, before the implosion. Though I swear, God, I am not sure about my collection. I promise, there's no sureity going on. The head of Virgin books has assured me that my collection will go ahead, that 2009 is safe, but I'm not banking on it.

Please let it go ahead.

Anyhoo, where was I. Ah yes, the disaster area of my career, now just a meteorite crater where once there was a strong possibility that I'd have two more novels published. Though I say strong, when really I have no idea what the editor thought about them, and now never will.

I'll now never do anything, most likely. Black Sheep and Fantasyland can sit inside my laptop for another three years, too afraid to crawl out and see the light of day. I keep telling myself that tomorrow, I'm going to send everything out to every publisher and agent ever, but secretly inside I'm sure that no other editor will ever like my stuff.

It was a miracle that one did.

But even so. Even so, I think I might. If Random House/Virgin/Black Lace don't want Black Sheep and Fantasyland...well. They're all ready to go. I could send them somewhere else right now, right this second. They don't even need changing- my worry with them was that there wasn't enough sex. Now there's plenty for just about any other publisher.

So what say you, publishing world? Would you like my novels? I guess we'll see.

Jesus Christ Thursday

I didn't have a Mancandy Monday due to other things getting in the way. So instead I'll have a Jesus H Christ on a pogo stick Thursday:

I mean, what the hell, Alex O'Loughlin. I'm here trying to write about spaceships and Nathan Fillion's ass, and you have to stomp in with your big hairy sex leaking out of your pores self, and strong arm me into writing about vampires?

Plus I think I'm going to have to rewrite most of the whole damned thing, because it should be sticky New York neon. Not LA gloss. Goddammit.

But I'll forgive you, for this:

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And not just because you've got a big thing in your mouth and look like you're not wearing any pants just under the line of the picture. Know what that tattoo on his arm is? A HR Giger design. That's right folks. He has something drawn by HR Giger on his arm. The only thing I could imagine being more of a thrill on his bicep, is a drawing of my fanny.

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Though I swear, my fanny doesn't have teeth.

Erotica Revealed Review!

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Excerpt From The Things That Make Me Give In

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Mancandy Monday: Simon Tam

My blog is henceforth going to refuse to descend into a pity party. No. Instead, it's going to focus, fiercely, on the pretty.

And oh, Simon Tam is very pretty indeed.

You might not know who he is. In the late great show Firefly, he was third most handsome. After Nathan Fillion, and a gigantic meatheaded moron. Who also happens to play a gigantic meatheaded moron on the show- Jayne Cobb aka Adam Baldwin.

But I digress. Let's get back to what I can only imagine must be the weird pretty of Simon Tam (aka Sean Maher):

See? That's nice, right? Or maybe it's just nice for me, considering my penchant for uptight, black haired, blue eyed, probably-a-virgin men. I mean check out this picture:

He totally looks like he's just stepped out of one of those sci-fi erotic romances where the hero and heroine live on a world without sex. And then have to discover it, together, by bonking loads (which I LOVE, BTW. If you have any recommendations for books based around this scenario, please feel free to tell them to me immediatly. Because I'm a weird-virgin-sex pervert).

So where was I again? Oh yeah. Simon Tam. He's just that type, you know. The type I always end up crushing on while everyone else crushes on Chris Pine. I like the background guy, the guy who lures you in stealthily, the guy who's hardly in something and has a CV with about four films on it so you have to scour the internet, looking for a fix of his giant man-nipples like a crazed junkie.

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But really. Who wouldn't get crazed over this?