Some 18th-century bondage in the Seattle Erotic Art Festival Literary Art Anthology

I’m psyched to announce that for the second time I’ll be in the annual Literary Art Anthology from SEAF, the Seattle Erotic Art Festival.

If you’re able to get to Seattle, you can get the anthology – and see the art! – at 301 Mercer Street, April 21 – 23. There’s a whole schedule of performances and readings.

In the Festival Store, you can also check out Erato and Cunning Linguists, both for sale there – along with my late beloved John Theriac’s short collection Kinky, Queer Love and my flash omnibus Soft, Sharp, and Tender.

As for the ’23 festival anthology itself, it includes over 30 writers and poets, including not only yours truly but Erato alumnus Micah BlackLight (full disclosure – I invited him to submit to Erato because the story of his I read in the 2018 SEAF anthology, “Surface, Locked, or Buried” is probably the best BDSM science fiction I’ve ever read), poets like Lyssandra Norton, Bill Wolak, and ZenKOAL, and others I’m sure I’m going to become a fan of once I read my contributor’s copy!

My story, “Le Nouvel Abelard,” is a kinky historical piece inspired by two philosophers: first, Peter Abelard, most famous for his castration, really did write about monk bondage and oral fingering in Eden as examples in his ethical ponderings. Then the title and setting evolved as a tribute to Rosseau, who was pretty kinky in his own right. Here’s a sample of what that philosophical inspiration looks like in practice:

Her hands trailed farther, over his breeches, up to the join where they felt so especially, excruciatingly, blissfully tight. She followed the shape and size, appearing thoughtful once again. This expression was one Julien had become used to seeing, but never in a thousand years could he have dared think of her wearing it while regarding his cock.

“I’m afraid,” she said then, “I can’t make all the use of this that I might desire.”

His unbound tongue bounded on—“I recall much Peter Abelard had to say about consent that fails to be rational, desires so far from reality as to—”

He hadn’t been entirely sure how he would complete the sentence, so it relieved him when her hand sealed across his mouth.

“Thank you,” she said with impish politeness. “But I fear I have no mind for such learning now. Your words and wisdom would be wasted on me.”

As her fingers trailed away, stroking his cheek, he asked, “What more would you learn today?”

“I think I have a way to silence you.”

Her hand returned, and his lips parted for it. She stroked with her fingers the way she had with her tongue. If Julien recalled correctly, one of Abelard’s philosophical predecessors, disdaining pleasure, had argued that in Eden, before the Fall, erotic congress had been no more exciting than the putting of a finger into a mouth.

And now Julien agreed, but not in the way that no-doubt celibate man of learning intended.

It was difficult to imagine anything else their bodies might do together could be sweeter than this.

To be soft, to be yielding, to be filled with her—to see the delight in her eyes, hear her breathing roughen—to taste the salt on her skin.

Her other hand went to his shoulder and pressed down. He yielded to this, too, until she had him lying on his back, tied hands resting over his head. She straddled him and pulled at what seemed like endless lengths of silk, baring her legs. Not as pale as her powdered face, nor as silken as her stockings—there was even a bruise midway up one thigh suggesting she had stumbled, inattentive, against some piece of furniture. So scholarship in his schoolroom had not completely tamed the impulses that sent her galloping in high spirits about the estate.

As if Julien needed further proof of it.