Archives: hauntings

Music for making love to ghosts

A Walt Whitman poem says, “And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.”

I’ve always misheard that as “To die is luckier than any of us know, and stranger.”

Because how could it not be?

I don’t pretend to have any insight into what an actual afterlife might be like, but when I’m writing ghosts, I try to keep its potential strangeness in mind. Not in a bad way, necessarily; it could be a lucky and fortunate strangeness. But I’m pretty sure sex with ghosts would be something very different from sex with human beings. A matter of odd geometries and invisible contours, the texture and taste of a non-biological intimacy. It would have to be at least a little scary, and probably wistful too.

A song that perfectly captures this mixture of whimsy and weirdness–incidentally, the perfect soundtrack to Bodies of Ghosts, even though it wasn’t released until after I had completed and submitted the story to Mofo–is Seeming’s “Phantom Limb”:

Incidentally, Seeming also has a song called “Stranger” that makes the process of becoming different sound pretty lucky (though it’s much more about life than death). And at times weirdly, wonderfully erotic.

And if you’re looking for inspiration for Mofo’s current call, Apocalypse (how would you fuck if the world was ending?), you might want to check out “Goodnight London.”

Read Bodies of Ghosts free:

Mofo Website

Amazon

iBooks

Kobo

Nook

Get Haunted:

Mofo Website

Amazon

iBooks

Kobo

Weekend Reads

Lots of exciting things happening this past week. To summarize: 

Getting It, SinCyr’s Publishing’s feminist femdom anthology, is on sale for just 99 cents until Monday, October 9.

My Goodreads Giveaway of The Complete Lady Crayl also ends and randomly selects a winner on Monday, October 9.

And “The Bodies of Ghosts” is FREE on all major ebook platforms. No deadline on this one, but if you like it, check out the anthology it’s a part of, Mofo Publishing’s Haunted, which is up for preorder before its October 26 release date.

Lastly, sci fi erotica fans: Circlet Press’s crowdfunding campaign has reached the goal for their 25th Anniversary “Best Erotic SciFi” Anthology, but they’re still funding for stretch goals including their 2018 slate of books. You can check out their forthcoming titles, and prizes including everything from ebooks, book bags, story critique, and book dedications, at Kickstarter.

Haunted: Free Fiction

Mofo Publishing’s fourth anthology is Haunted—a literary erotica anthology exploring the erotic charge of that which is persistently there. Tales of ghosts, memory, obsession.

A young man feels a peculiar hunger to be loved, one he can’t survive without sating in a series of vivid homoerotic dreams that blur the boundaries of fantasy and fact, desire and love.

A hesitant dominant struggling with a recent breakup and the loss of her grandmother, finds a mysterious man in her living room with her grandmother’s rosary and an appetite for submission.

Years after a summer romance with a young male model, a woman finds herself driven to search through online porn for photos and videos that might feature him.

A man is tormented by the erotic demands of his soulmate—with whom he shares an intimacy so deep they can literally hear one another’s thoughts.

A British soldier is haunted by memories of his lost lover and comrade in arms.

A grieving woman moves into a basement apartment, which she discovers already has a resident.

That last story is mine–and it’s available to read free, right now, as a MoFo erotic short.

Read Bodies of Ghosts free:

Mofo Website

Amazon

iBooks

Kobo

Nook

Become Haunted:

Mofo Website

Amazon

iBooks

Kobo

Nook

New Release: “My Body is a Haunted House” in MoFo Pub’s HOTEL

Click “Continue Reading” for an excerpt from the opening scene of “My Body is a Haunted House”

The stories in this anthology explore what happens in those most impersonal of private spaces—hotels.

Hotel. The very word conjures a sense of transience. Hotel takes you into a world without permanence. Between these pages, lovers meet and lovers part. Elegant, sensual prose takes you from grand ballrooms with lavish appointments to shabby heaps where you pay by the hour.

Sneak a titillating glimpse behind closed doors, where whatever can happen just might.

Transience, transgression, and transformation seem to be the order of the day–or night–in this anthology. My story, “My Body is a Haunted House,” links two women together at an occasion of transformation: their (ex-)husband’s funeral.

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Embodied Hauntings–“The Bitterness of Flesh”

Continuing on my themes from the last week’s posts–hauntings, and also recent releases that didn’t get proper blog posts because my website was down at the time they came out.

“Would you like to see Cleo?”

This time the blush flamed to the surface of her skin, and the chill dove deeper, towards her heart. “I… Can I?”

Robert Fitzwilliam held out his hand. “There’s a statue of her down the hall.”

A statue. Of course. Had she been expecting a ghost? She pressed her palm to his again, felt long fingers close around it, followed the draw of his arm. The thick carpet drank in their footsteps.

“The Bitterness of Flesh” came out in Ever Dream of Me, an anthology from Fantasia Divinity Magazine. It was inspired by two things: the Year’s Best Food Writing anthologies from Holly Hughes, and Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca. Of course, I was reading those at the same time, which is one of the best ways to cross wires for creative sparks.

Plot-wise, the story is not about a chef: I’m more interested in eating scrumptious delicacies than preparing them, so the Food Writing inspired me to notice and incorporate sensual details–and also an heirloom apple orchard. Honestly, I’m surprised there isn’t more writing out there combining culinary and erotic appetites, although Gael Green’s Insatiable and Ashley Warlick’s The Arrangement are both on my bookshelves (I hadn’t realized M.F.K. Fisher had a love triangle under her belt along with all those European meals!).

The core of the story is about a second wife, and also, of course, about the first one. I adore Gothic novels, but the atmosphere of “Bitterness” is a little lighter than most Gothics–more bittersweet than venomous. Its partial inspiration, Rebecca, is a book about jealousy and fear, love and obsession. And when the heroine gets that obsessed with Rebecca (aided not least by the tour Mrs. Danvers gives of the shrine made from Rebecca’s bedroom), it becomes almost–with more or less “almost” about it–sexual.

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Best Women’s Erotica of the Year Author Interviews

I just realized how much I have to catch up on, posting-wise, from those long and dreary months I spent without a website. And there’s a whole sob story about what else was going on that getting the new website up wasn’t a priority for me, but who needs to hear that? Sob stories aren’t that sexy.

Well, they can be.

Eroticism and grief, loss, and tragedy are kind of a thing for me. Hauntings–supernatural or psychological–appear again and again. I’m struck by the kind of intimacy you can or can’t have with the past, what forever eludes your touch. There’s also the intensity, the whole-body experience of each emotion, idea, and sensation. It’s why Shakespeare’s tragedies are so beautiful. It’s also why grieving people may suddenly find themselves powerful. The grief story that resonates most strongly with me is: “I just went and stood there, sort of trying out my anger against theirs, I guess. And mine won.”

Or as the narrator of “Phone Call, 3 a.m.” puts it:

Grief and fear are rare aphrodisiacs. Deep mourning isn’t, and depression certainly isn’t. Anxiety makes you clammy and numb inside or makes you let loose recklessly. In my experience merely anxious sex has always felt somehow cheap. But grief unlocks something. Maybe it strikes so deep that it gives us permission to feel. It excuses us. Or makes us so desperate that we’ll have anything in place of the loss.

Anyway, what I was getting to when I started this post is that I forgot to share here when my author interview went up on Best Women’s Erotica of the Year’s Tumblr page. On the other hand, waiting until now to post about it means I can share the complete set of author interviews from all 21 contributors; you’ll find them under the tag for Best Women’s Erotica of the Year, Volume 2. They’re all fascinating, and I think you’ll love the chance to hear about the inspirations for these stories, read each author’s favorite lines, and find out what’s coming next!

If you’re interested in being part of the series yourself, the call for Volume 4 is up, seeking themes of “outsiders and risk.”