I’m thrilled to at last share the list of authors and stories I’ve been editing for the New Smut Project’s fourth anthology, Cunning Linguists.
Language. Literature. Lechery.
Thirty authors, including Rachel Kramer Bussel, Sonni de Soto, Kristan X, and Good Sex Award honorees D. Fostalove and jem zero, share clever, sensual stories of the many ways we communicate about and around our desires. From erotic epistolary tales to queer retellings of classics, this collection bursts with memorable and hot new reading material.
One Tongue – A.C. Quill
Dido Burns – Taylor Verdon
Blue Rising – Max Turner
Head to Toe – Camille Devine
I Ought to Be Thy Adam – Seb Palumbus
Barako – Rachel Woe
Draft – T.C. Mill
Astronautical Intimacy – Tiana Talaria
Sky-High at Aquarius – jem zero
The Meaning of Anything – Kristan X
Muse – Sprocket J. Rydyr
On the Line – Sonni de Soto
Noi Leggiavamo Per Diletto – Alex Freeman
We’re Not Tentacle Porn – Koji A. Dae
Spark to the Tinder – Cathy Bryant
Written – Ollie Fox
Frontiers – Moxie Marcus
Cave Suckers – Elizabeth A. Allen
Under the Table – Rachel Kramer Bussel
Planet Rolling Over – Peach Berman
Moonlight and Madness – A. Zimmerman
First Time – Alex Yan
Inkmanship – Melissa Snowdon
Welcome to EvolWorld – Louise Kane
Spell Ling B – D. Fostalove
Unsexed, Sexy – Danny McLaren
The Feeling’s Mutual – D.J. Hodge
The Training of the Tongue – Evadare Volney
More Than Words – Lillian James
Phantom Centre – T.J. Cooke
Heated banter simmers until the sexual tension boils over. An academic aches with curiosity about the mysterious woman behind the letters she translates–and the mysterious woman working alongside her. Lovers seek a common language after the fall of Babel. Without a physical body, a spaceship’s AI makes love to her captain with words. A domme and her sub negotiate kink titles that reflect all they are to each other. After saving his nonbinary partner, Victor Frankenstein celebrates both erotically and electrically.
Diverse characters find pleasure in body writing, music, virtual realities, fanfiction, first-time phone sex, the queer truth behind local folklore, and reading aloud despite a boyfriend’s best attempts at distraction. Stories ranging from the lighthearted to the bittersweet explore what happens when someone finds just the right thing to say in bed—or says the wrong one—or speaks eloquently without using any words at all.
Preorder links:
Gumroad (use coupon code CUNNING for 25% off preorders)
(Update: Gumroad, our platform for direct sales, is phasing out the pre-order option. The ebook version just squeaked in while it was still supported. A paperback order page is up, but with the caveat it’s not an ‘official’ pre-order in the system. This means, unlike when you order the ebook, for paperback your card will be charged when you place the order rather than on the release date in May. I’m also looking into options for more official pre-orders, though Gumroad is still one of the best I’ve seen for coupon codes — and both paperback and ebook pre-orders on Gumroad include a coupon code in their product descriptions, so be sure to take advantage of those!)
So it probably won’t take long to spot what I needed to change first after opening the Soft, Sharp, and Tender proof. Before even opening it, actually.
But! It’s now available (with updated spine text) and looking pretty good if I say so myself.
I’m so excited in part because this short story collection omnibus is officially my longest paperback ever. Not to slight my chapbook or novella-length stories like A Spell of Passion or Fear, By the Green Road, and The Complete Lady Crayl, but this is over 200 pages of collected femdom, F/F, and other delights. Including some of my Shakespeare fanfiction.
It’s now available on Amazon and (at a bit of a discount, plus with options to get it signed and dedicated) Gumroad.
For those of you blinking in startlement at another 12 months come and gone, solidarity. I don’t know if it’ll help any of us make peace with the passage of time, but this roundup of my works published over the past year might at least give you something sexy and warming to read as we adjust to putting 2 instead of 1 at the end of every date field.
He looks up at her, his eyes bright. Something breaking through his composure. But not the strength that lies under it. Not necessarily physical strength — although his hands are anything but weak — more mental, or emotional. Even spiritual. Her handsome, healthy human.
She is his beautiful beast.
And strong too. With a messy wet sound she releases his hand, while her own hands rake down from his shoulders, leaving the tracks of her nails. The second time she does it, as pink marks cross pink marks, he moans.
Worth noting, this is not the only story featuring Tricia and Jacob that I have planned — though the next 3 have waited in outline. Parts were heavily inspired by conversations with my late partner, and knowing he won’t be there to read them has made it difficult to write. I don’t want to say something cliche like “2021 has been a year of healing from the losses of 2020” for various reasons, one of which is that I don’t think grieving is healing. I wasn’t unhealthy, I was bereaved. I still am. But grief does change with time, and I expect in the future, as I carry grief differently, part of carrying it will involve writing more of the hot stories I’d dreamed up with my late partner. Partially as a tribute to them and also as a treat for me. A kinky couple finding more gorgeous kinksters to hook up with is too delightful a concept to leave aside forever.
And after all, I’ve always found grief and hauntings interesting subjects to explore erotically. So at worst I’ll be doing more of what I’ve always done from a different angle (by which I mean, the grief and haunting will be mine, not necessarily coming through in the story — and writing Tricia and Jacob as happy and thriving will be, in its own way, healing. Or whatever the word is that I want which isn’t “healing”.)
Relatedly, one of my publications for 2021 is a collection of my partner’s short erotic stories. Kinky, Queer Love is available as a pay-what-you-want collection on Smashwords and in my Gumroad store. All royalties earned will be donated to Trans Lifeline.
Everyone is a committee, a stir of voices and half-remembered sound bytes. We have our intentions and opinions, but those voices still speak, sometimes drowning out what we know or believe. It doesn’t matter if we give credence to them, if they’re even reasonable; these persistent ghosts linger within us, repeating their slogans like clockwork automata.
I have neither love nor respect for the people I encountered in high school. Being raised male, I spent more than my fair share of time around, for want of a better word, guys. This, I hasten to add, in an era that viewed itself as enlightened – don’t they all? – compared to its predecessors. To be gay would have been no big deal, or so they said. But the idea that someone, some ‘guy’, would enjoy being penetrated by ‘his’ girlfriend. That was just, like, weird, man.
Why do we give these voices such power?
Growing up, the internet was no help. Femdom scenes portrayed pegging as a punishment, something degrading and humiliating.
Degrading. Humiliating.
These words have power.
I tell you this, my love, not to indulge in some kind of pity-party for my own self-consciousness, but to explain. A sheltered, bookish, gender-uncertain young person like myself would log on to the internet, search for something, anything, in the realm of femdom that seemed loving, and enjoyable, and meaningful, and find the most tasteless garbage imaginable.
I knew, back then, that I must really be a submissive, if that wasn’t enough to put me off.
But oh, the voices it left in my head. Look too long at something, and it will imprint itself on your mind like an exposed Polaroid. You can paint over those grim images, those sketches of pain or uncertainty, but it takes time. It takes work.
It takes someone like you, my love.
“Out on the Inside,” in Queer, Kinky Love
Along with his collection, I also put together three of my own –
A baker’s dozen of stories featuring everything from frottage to bondage to pegging to teasing to intense roleplay.
Sometimes a compliment is just a compliment. She likes to give them and her boyfriend deserves them. But he looks so good in those jeans. He wore them as a show for her, yes, but not just that. He’d be disappointed if she let him go now.
My non-femdom sensual stories, including F/F, M/M, F/M, and several pieces featuring characters of undefined gender (or gender they’re working on defining).
Made slippery, my fingers and my hips swirl counterclockwise. Widdershins. It’s not a sexy word, but it means sex to me. Not when I think of sex but when I do it. Always this motion.
Six bites of haunting paranormal erotic fiction — all puns intended. Take that “bite” as a warning/recommendation as well as a pun; some more detail on the content in this collection is available in this blog post.
It wasn’t a transformation, nothing so neat and clean-cut.
You know.
“Don’t. D-don’t.”
You know what’s needed. Know what has to happen.
“I don’t know anything,” Eva said.
Your cunt does.
Her thighs spasmed tight at the thought. It was right. Yes, she knew it in her cunt and clit, hungry mouth and thirsty tongue. They felt puffy, swollen. A rush of wetness between her legs quickly dried, as if evaporating in a furnace.
Her nostrils flared, trying to scent something on the night air besides the metallic, heavy saltiness of her sweat.
Something wanted, needed.
Her teeth ground until they locked on each other. A beat sounded in her heart, stomach, cunt, pounding with the knowledge before knowledge that is hunger.
which comes out in — checking my calendar and howling about the passage of time — about two weeks!
The ebook is available for presale on Smashwords (with a $1 discount if you sign up for my newsletter).
The paperback proof is being shipped to me as we speak and I. cannot. wait.
My other brag for 2021 is that I came within 5,000 words of winning NaNo WriMo, and 45,000 words written in 30 days is nothing to sneeze at. A few thousand of those words were my fanfiction “These Delights,” which features William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, and shotgunning (the smoking-and-almost-kissing thing, not anachronistic weaponry).
It’s fun to write our bisexual bard and dear queer Kit – so much fun, in fact, that another story featuring these two will appear as my contribution to the fourth New Smut Project anthology, Cunning Linguists.
Cunning Linguists will also contain another 29 stories, all somehow tying into the themes of language, literature, and lechery – whether sexy takes on public domain classics, explorations of sexting, heated banter, or moving accounts of what happens when someone says the wrong thing during sex … or exactly the right thing. The anthology is currently up for preorder at Smashwords and Gumroad (where discount code CUNNING gives you 25% off your preorder). It will be on Amazon soon, probably once I finish copyedits. Most of the copyediting plus all the reading and deciding among submissions took place over 2021 — if you’ve ever wanted to put together an anthology, I think you should go for it, it’s an amazing experience. At the same time, take care not to underestimate the time or work involved.
My other piece of New Smut Project news from 2021: two stories in Erato were recognized with the Good Sex Awards, jem zero’s “A Study in Circuits and Charcoal” for Best Feminist Sex and D. Fostalove’s “Touch” for Best Sexy Talk! Both authors will also, I’m pleased to say, be part of Cunning Linguists. On top of copyediting, finalizing the cover, and putting up pre-orders on Amazon, I should also formally announce the Table of Contents. When it comes to deciding the TOC in terms of the order of stories in the book — well, let’s just say I have 30 strips of paper sitting on my office floor and it feels a bit like putting together a jigsaw puzzle.
NaNo: To my chagrin, I realize momentum is a real thing–once I started writing, I wrote! Easily! Copiously! But I only wrote for about half the days in November, because of various other demands on my time, brain energy, etc.
Still, I wrote over 1,000 words on almost every day I did write, and on 1 or 2 days as much as 4,000 or 5,000 words–so my total for November was 45,368 words, now that I add it up.
And now that I add it up, I’m feeling a new kind of chagrin, the realization that if I’d just put in a day or two more, I could have won!
Oh, well. I will do more writing on these projects in the near-ish future.
I just wish we didn’t have two such holiday-crowded months right in a row (for those of us whose families celebrate these holidays. Also, does “end of year for tax purposes” count as a holiday, because I’m staring down the barrel of that too).
NSP: The Table of Contents for Cunning Linguists has been finalized, and we’re now in the contracts and revisions stage. Once all contracts have been signed I can make a formal announcement of the 29 stories included in the anthology!
I’ve also got 29 strips of paper laid out on my dining room floor, being shuffled into configurations, as I try to figure out what order to put the stories in the book.
My goal is to get a galley together for reviewers by Feburary 5, though I realize how dangerous it is to speak of dates and goals aloud.
Other writing: If You Were My Lover, my collection of F/F, F/M, M/M, and less specifically gendered literary erotica, was successfully released yesterday! So now I’ll be finalizing my omnibus short story collection paperback, Soft, Sharp, Tender. I have some more short ebooks coming out at the beginning of 2022, but hopefully nothing as demanding as the collections these past few months–they were fun, but also sucked me in!
NaNo: I’m trying a milder version where instead of trying to write 1,667 words per day for 30 days, I aim to write 500 words per day throughout November and maybe December. I’ve picked up the 2 different novels I worked on that time back in–gosh, was it 2018?–when I won NaNo; maybe I’ll finish one or both this time around.
So far I’ve written more than 500 words each day; ironically, often more than 1,667 words. These characters, I just wind ’em up and let ’em talk. Or, uh, do other things than talk…
I actually might need to start limiting myself to 1,000 words per day so I don’t get so sucked into writing that I fail to get my other work done.
The New Smut Project:
We celebrated the 1-year anniversary of Erato on October 24th. In its first year, it received a number of glowing reviews and 2 stories were recognized by the Good Sex Awards!
We’re reading through submissions for Cunning Linguists and penning both rejection and acceptance letters. This is taking longer than anticipated for a variety of reasons (health, life demands, unexpected philosophical rabbit holes about the nature of our “language and literature” theme and how some very good submissions might or might not fit it), and I know we keep saying we’re close, but–we’re close. I’m looking at, and sweating over, a shortlist of about 30 stories for an anthology where we have room for 25-28.
If You Were My Lover, my collection of F/F, F/M, M/M, and less specifically gendered literary erotica, is being copyedited and formatted in preparation for its early December release. Once it’s complete, I can format the interior of my omnibus paperback, Soft, Sharp, Tender.
Tender Things is on presale at Smashwords for the next two weeks, until November 3, 2021. Part of the presale is an “incentive price” of 30%+ off the ebook if you sign up for my newsletter.
To whet your appetite, here’s an excerpt from the second story in the collection, “Breakfast Time”:
She looks up from scrolling the news on her tablet in time to see him come in, alerted by his footsteps down the hall—firm, confident, promising a show.
Breath leaves her in a whistle. “Nice.”
He’s wearing new jeans. They’re not skinny jeans, but the fit is tight. Pale denim hugs the curves of his calves and thighs, ’too thick for actual skinny jeans, but just the way she likes.
And his ass. She likes the round swell of his ass best of all.
He notices the direction of her eyes and grins. She returns to the news while he opens cupboards and pours milk. When she isn’t able to resist any longer, she looks up again and says, “Your butt looks great in those jeans.”
“Thanks, ma’am. I’m glad you like them.”
They both know what it means when he calls her ma’am. He blushes as she shifts in her seat, her eyes still roving his displayed body. Behind his smile she sees a touch of…not quite uncertainty. And not quite expectation. Both of them at once, polluting each other in a heady concoction, sweetness and spice…
Sometimes a compliment is just a compliment. She likes to give them and her boyfriend deserves them. But he looks so good in those jeans. He wore them as a show for her, yes, but not just that. He’d be disappointed if she let him go now.
“Tell you the truth? About what?” “Not the truth. A truth. Tell me something true about yourself. Something I don’t know.” “Truth?” “Truth.” “I hated you in high school.” That got her attention. We lay together atop the bedspread, not really doing anything, our fingers intwined. I had been looking up at the popcorn ceiling and thinking of nothing in particular, simply enjoying the animal warmth of her hand, her shoulder pressing into mine. Then this question. She had a habit of doing things like this. When we met again – or, depending on how you look at it, for the first time – in college, she didn’t say, “I remember you from Hendricks High.” She didn’t say, “You look familiar, did we go to school together?” She didn’t say, “Why are you wearing that dress, weirdo?” She said: “I was just reading about sky burials. They sound badass. I’d like to be eaten when I die, how about you?” I’d like to be eaten when I die. By you, my love. She sat up halfway, taken aback. “You hated me?” I thought about it. “Not with an adult hate. Not like I hate abuse or discrimination or people who kick puppies. The way you hate things when you’re young because you’re scared and insecure and things are going on in your downstairs that make you want to dance, or scream, or cover yourself in gasoline and set yourself on fire. Or maybe all of them at once.” “You have a way with words,” she said, not sarcastically. “With you I do.” She snuggled in closer. “Do I bring that out in you?” “You brought a lot out in me.” “Yep.” She squeezed my hand. “So why did you hate me?” I tried to order my thoughts. “Do you remember what I looked like in high school?” She thought for a moment. “Sullen. Quiet. Bookish.” “How I looked, love.” “You were a little heavy.” “That’s very diplomatic, thank you. I was the fat kid with the babyface reading Stephen King books in the back row. That, and glancing furtively at the beautiful girl with the spiky blue hair who sat a few rows ahead of me. The confident girl who wore leather jackets with Blade Runner and Buckaroo Banzai patches sewn into the shoulders. The girl who was openly, proudly bisexual. The girl who took no shit from anybody, and kissed anyone she damn well pleased.” “As long as they said ‘yes’,” she said. “I like to kiss.” I know a cue when I hear one. We kissed. We parted. “I’d have kissed you back then,” she said. “If you’d asked.”
-That’s the beginning of “Truth,” the first story in my late partner’s collection of kinky and nonbinary love.
It’s now as a pay-what-you-want ebook from Smashwords and Gumroad, or 99 cents on Amazon. All royalties earned will be donated to Trans Lifeline. But please feel FREE to read for free – the goal is to get these stories into the world, and money shouldn’t be a barrier to that.
There’s also a paperback version from Gumroad or Amazon for $5 to cover printing and shipping, with anything left over becoming a donation.
Queer lovers explore gender, bondage gear, arousal, penetration, and more in these short but powerful pieces.
Yes, I did dress up to proofread my partner’s book. It was a special occasion.
And my girlfriend always loved this skirt. Especially with the knee-high boots, but those are…somewaht excessive to read in.
I didn’t pause to take a picture of all the sticky notes I added with formatting suggestions to myself. But here’s the initial version of the back cover:
I’ve rewritten the back cover text to cover more of the stories. And I’m very fond of that author photo.
And some typos aside, the inside looks pretty good, if I say so myself!
For a short paperback, I channeled inspiration from some of the poetry books I’ve loved–including enough space on the page to let the stories breathe.
The interior font is Bell MT. The cover fonts are Montserrat and Alegreya Sans.
And the cover photo is…yes, of the author, taken by the editor (who is wearing the pervertible sash). That nail polish and the cozy blankets and the cozy binding captured the mood of these stories too well to pass up.
Even though it was short, this was an intense proofing project, emotionally. And the passion project to end all passion projects. I’m frustrated he isn’t around so I can ask him about clarifying a line or two. I’m devastated he’s not with us to write more. I’m sorry the anthology one of the stories was accepted to got canceled, and I’m nervous about launching this book on my own. But we do what we can.
I was also glad to reread his stories, hear his voice again. And I’m proud, too.
Kinky, Queer Love is now available as a pay-what-you-want ebook from Smashwords and Gumroad, or for 99 cents on Amazon. All royalties earned will be donated to Trans Lifeline. But please feel free to read for free – the goal is to get these stories into the world, and money shouldn’t be a barrier to that.
The paperback version I just proofed is available from Gumroad or Amazon for $5 to cover printing and shipping, with anything left over becoming a donation.
The official release date is October 15, 2021, but you can read it today via Smashwords presale.
For some reason, my romantic honeymoon first-time pegging story To Have and To Hold has sold multiple copies on Amazon this month after having a relatively quiet year.
I wish I knew what’s gone right, because I don’t think it’s anything I’m responsible for. I can’t find evidence of someone else reviewing or linking to the story recently, either.
Anyway, since every copy sold is $1 to the Center for Pleasure and Sexual Health, I can write them a check soon. This is good news (the sales part; pegging’s cultural moment is rather mixed), just somewhat baffling good news. Arguably the best kind?
Downloads of my free pegging story distributed through Smashwords have also shot up 400% over the last reporting period, so maybe it is a cultural moment.
And this makes me happy those two stories are very clear on pegging not being painful or a way to take “revenge” on a man or patriarchy in general. I mean, if you enjoy that fantasy or wish to do it safely and with mutual consent in real life, more power to you. Or less power to you, depending on which role you prefer to take. But it’s not the preference of myself or my current pegging-erotica audience. No, my stories are about pegging as a super hot way to have sex.
(Pain & punishment is also not the message sex educator Luna Matatas means to promote with her–trademarked, and worn at the Gala without her endorsement or permission–phrase. Though she does describe her view of pegging, a metaphor that goes beyond the sex act, as “subversion” and even that is…well, I respect Matatas’ work and deplore the plagiarism of her trademark, but her view is not my own view. Of course, different people can view the same act/concept/term differently–and people can take different perspectives at different times. But I don’t recall ever pegging someone with the thought “Yes, I am subverting something.” I’m just having good sex. So I’ve always been wary of subversion-style phrasing, and wary of linking pegging with patriarchy in any capacity — but I’m even more concerned and dismayed at the popular idea of pegging as a violent or vengeful act, which the slogan’s uncredited and low-context appearance at the Met Gala promotes more than challenges, completely against Matatas’ intentions. The article linked at the beginning of this parenthetical offers more important context and information about Matatas and her work as a queer, POC sex educator–and any article that opens with someone “teaching her Intro to Cock and Ball Torture class” is a cultural moment in and of itself.)
Meanwhile, in case my efforts do sell books ;D, or if you’re just curious, here’s an excerpt from To Have and To Hold:
“Maybe you should stop trying to make sense of my kinks,” he says, smiling.
“Yeah, maybe I should.”
With some reluctance, she takes her hand from his ass and leans over the side of the bed for her suitcase. He takes the items as she hands them up. The lube, the packets of gloves and condoms, and then the double-headed dildo. It’s in a marbled blue pattern that reminds her of the ocean. The “flesh” color didn’t match either of their skin tones, too pale for hers and too dark for his, and actually, she likes that this one doesn’t look at all realistic. What about any of this is realistic?
She’s married, to James, they’re on their honeymoon, the view outside her window looks like a postcard, and she’s about to fuck him just as he wants her to.
Claire leans over him as he spreads his legs, opening a space for her, exposing himself to her. She lifts his balls, already high and tight with his erection, and looks at him. He shivers, a tremble working its way up his thighs and turning into a wiggle along his hips and spine, as if her examination is overwhelming.
“You look good,” she says. “You’re so turned on.” One gloved finger runs along his cock, tracing a vein. “You don’t need to be shy.”
She actually can’t see a lot, his modesty protected by shadows and a little dark, curling hair. In itself that’s sexy to her. Claire has never thought of herself as the kind of person to be turned on by despoiling virgins, but there it is.
She brushes his hole with a lubed fingertip. “Okay?”
He pushes himself a little wider, another visible tremor moving along his legs. “Yes. Please.”
She feels him flex against her fingertip, not resisting but uncertain, so obviously self-conscious that it makes her smile coyly herself. As she pushes into him, his reaction is like stuttering, stammering, a shy flutter of muscles around her that makes her heart skip beats with utter adoration. He’s adorable.
“Oh my god,” she whispers as she slips further inside, eased by the slick lubricant and by the way he relaxes with a deep, slow breath. In a way it’s simpler than she feared but it’s also astonishing, this intimate opening of his body for her.
I also want to say, the view from the other side of the strap is beautifully given in my late partner’s short story collection, available as a free or pay-what-you-will ebook this October. My girlfriend’s writing, not incidentally, goes against the assumption that pegging is something only done by cishet couples.
I’ve also written some stories exploring the power dynamics that can be present in pegging–including dynamics that are rather opposite the mainstream’s expectations–now collected in Tender Things.
As it happens, I do have some strong opinions and feelings on pegging (one of the foremost being, “It’s fun!”). And for all I’ve rambled in this blog post, I think I express those feelings more clearly and strongly–and, not coincidentally, less self-consciously–in fiction.
I never thought of myself as a Halloween girl, not like some Halloween folks I know, but I have always been into ghost stories and uncanny magic. Now six of my stories on those topics are collected in The Season, which comes out October 1.
(But if you’re already in a Halloween mood, you can read it now via Smashwords presale. There’s a special discount offer available with the presale, too.)
This post serves as a brief content recap/warning/recommendation of what it includes.
My fascination with ghosts, literal or more figurative, has always been a fascination with grief and loss (and it’s taken me all the way to Best Women’s Erotica of the Year). And then I’m, well–you may have noticed–kind of damn kinky. Danger and sex, pain and sex, these are hot to explore, especially in written fantasies. Fierce desperation and passion, stories that can be cathartic as well as arousing. Power that’s barely under control or completely out of control. Eros and Thanatos go hand in hand, or maybe it’s that in the face of death, eroticism is life-affirming defiance. Sometimes both are true at once.
So the stories in The Season contain all of that.
By now you’re probably wondering what this post title is about! It’s because, if “kinky is using a feather, perverted is using the whole chicken,” I would say this collection contains some downy tufts of cannibalism, and a rotisserie of knifeplay.
It also has bondage for a magical reason and willing power exchanges.
Pairings are M/M, F/M (the majority), and F/F/M. (If you’re interested in gothic F/F, my Poe retelling, “The Passion of Her Sleep,” is currently available in the Mystique anthology from Aurelia Leo and will be collected in the Urchronia omnibus out January 2022.)
Not all the stories in The Seasonhave happy endings, though I’d describe most as bittersweet: something lost, something salvaged. That’s my favorite ending to a horror story, and some of these pieces definitely count as horror, not just dark or kinky fantasy. There is no onscreen death but several deaths happen before or after the story (not a spoiler: there are ghost stories after all!). There are established relationships and new ones. There’s romance, though not the kind you’d find on the Hallmark Channel, unless it’s changed a lot since I last flipped past it.
Also I just typed “kind” in the previous sentence as “kink,” which is the perfect Freudian slip.
