Tanya Chris's Blog, page 2

New free story: Buddy Lift

Travis is in the process of relocating from New York City to Atlanta, and it’s going to take more than one muscular man in a sweaty t-shirt to thoroughly move him. Read the whole story free on my site.

Happy Birthday to Omega Redeemed

I have neither an attraction to stories about sex workers, nor an aversion to them. I read them when I come across them but don’t seek them out and hadn’t particularly imagined writing one. But one thing I’d noticed about them was that they usually ended with the sex worker no longer being a sex worker. The M/M fandom is generally sex-worker positive, but if a sex worker has to stop being a sex worker to get a happy ending, then is it really?

Not everyone’s idea of a happy ending is monogamous. And I question whether sex work necessarily breaks monogamy anyway. Relationship partners might choose to define sex-for-work as falling outside of the monogamous relationship boundary. I’m thinking about The Mating of Michael by Eli Easton, for instance. Michael is a sex surrogate. He works with people who are struggling sexually one way or another, which includes having sexual contact with them. At the end of the book, he and his partner agree he can continue his work, which is meaningful and beneficial.

We know there’s a kink called cuckolding, where a person becomes aroused by the idea of their partner having sex with other people. This can take two forms. One is humiliation based, which I wrote about recently in The Wide(r) World of Kink, but the other is something that in M/F is called “hot wife.” In the hot wife version of cuckolding, there’s no humiliation—only pride. The man is proud his partner is so desirable and enjoys watching or hearing about his partner having sex with other people as proof of their desirability.

So, given all of the options above—polyamory, defining sex work as work rather than sex, cuckolding kink—there are multiple ways for sex workers to have a happy ending without giving up on sex work. Omega Redeemed, which features Daisy, a sex worker omega, and Quoitrel, a law enforcement alpha, leans heavily on hot wife kink but also gives a nod to the fact that this is Daisy’s job. He’s good at it, and it fills a need their society has.

Not so surprisingly, Omega Redeemed was the least popular installment in the Omega Reimagined series. Which is a shame because it’s hot and sweet and also the series finale, wrapping up the entire Angel/Devin arc at last. But I’m going to stand staunchly by the idea that my characters get to define their own happy endings. And Daisy and Quoitrel are very happy, indeed.

Coming Soon: Chicken Soup Dom

Chicken Soup Dom, book 2 in the Hell’s Bedroom series is available for pre-order for $3.99. It releases on April 20th and will be eligible for Kindle Unlimited for a limited time.

When Arlo boarded a bus to Philadelphia to turn himself over to a master he’d never met, he thought he was on his way home, that he would finally have both the sex he craved and an authority figure to care for him in a way his parents never had. But what he got was worse. Much, much worse. Now he’s been rescued, but where does that leave him?

Officer Cade Brixby immediately bonded with the young sub they rescued—a curly-haired, blue-eyed cherub who needs to be taught the right way to engage in power exchange. But not by him, and not until Arlo has had a chance to process his traumatic past. Brixby’s only taking care of Arlo for now, keeping him safe and making sure he eats. He has no business playing with the boy. Even if Arlo asks. A lot.

Professionally, Brixby is off the case. Or so he’s been told by his captain. But he and his band of vigilante kinksters won’t rest until every kidnapped sub has been found and the kidnappers brought to justice. Arlo might be able to provide them with some valuable information.

Or he might be bait.

Content warning for disordered eating. The opening chapter details an abusive situation that may be disturbing to some readers.

And You Are…?

I’m a sucker for an amnesia story. I know they’re not realistic. Retrograde amnesia is really rare and not at all romantic. But I don’t care. I’m going to read my amnesia stories. And it’s probably not a coincidence that Total Recall (the original Schwarzenegger version) is one of my all-time favorite movies.

Similarly, Addison Albright’s To Love and To Cherish is a favorite comfort read. In fact, I’ve recommended it enough that it has its own dedicated post on my site, which you can read here.

Unlike many amnesia stories, To Love and To Cherish isn’t a second chance romance. When Nash wakes up, he learns that he and Emmett—a doctor he’d known professionally but not romantically—have recently become engaged and assumes they must have been in love. But really, it was going to be a marriage of convenience. So this has both the marriage of convenience and amnesia tropes working for it. Mostly, I just love watching Nash and Emmett fall in love.

The book features two medical professionals, so Addison has been unusually accurate with the medical details, including showing Nash going into opioid withdrawal when it’s time to come off his pain meds.

In The River Leith by Leta Blake, the medical aspect is downplayed, but Leith, the injured character, has multiple revelations to work through. The last he knew, he was straight, so his doctor decides not to shock him with the truth all at once. His boyfriend, Zach, gets introduced as a roommate. That means The River Leith is a bi-awakening story and a second-chance romance in addition to being an amnesia romance.

Because of everything Leith doesn’t know, the situation is especially poignant for Zach. He has truly lost his boyfriend because he doesn’t even know if Leith will re-discover his sexuality, never mind come to love him again.

Leta, as always, paints vivid pictures with genuine characters. Some reviewers felt like there was too much emphasis on how the situation affected Zach (content warning for cheating), but I like characters who are human. A situation like this would be tremendously difficult for the partner left behind, even as they recognize that the injured partner has things worse.

If Zach in The River Leith is a little too human, Dallas in Missing Pieces by N. R. Walker is your perfect book boyfriend, unendingly patient, loving, and kind.

Unlike in many amnesia stories, there’s no big secret here. Justin doesn’t remember Dallas, but he knows he’s gay, and he learns who Dallas is as soon as he learns about the amnesia. So the three-book series focuses not on sudden reveals or dramatic situations but on slow growth.

Justin’s recovery is carefully described and very realistic. He has a long road full of challenges ahead of him. He isn’t having sex in his hospital bed, which, uh, might happen in the next book on the list. He and Dallas rebuild their relationship as slowly as Justin rebuilds his body. Justin does eventually remember some parts of their past, but the focus is on him falling in love with Dallas all over again, and Dallas is so worthy of being loved.

Home Again by Cardeno C definitely plays a little fast and loose with the medical details. If you’ve been injured enough to get amnesia and are literally still in the hospital, you’re probably not up for sex yet. But let’s wave that away and enjoy the trope.

As in To Love and To Cherish, there’s a secret hiding behind the amnesia. Noah remembers Clark—remembers loving him and having sex with him and living with him. What he doesn’t remember is that they broke up.

Clark is a cinnamon roll if there ever was one. A sweet, wonderful man who dives right into taking care of Noah even though he hasn’t seen him in years. The book includes chapters from both the current time period and their past , so we see them fall in love the first time as we watch them work through the reason they broke up so they can be together again.

My own amnesia story, Forget I Told You, doesn’t have a medical component. Jay is perfectly healthy at the start of the book, living what appears to be a happy and normal life with a wife and a job. It’s only as the story goes on that we learn he’s not who he thinks he is.

Does that sound like the plot for Total Recall? Yeah, okay, I started with the same premise. Forget I Told You is set in the present with no aliens or Sci-Fi elements of any kind, but similarly to how Schwarzenegger’s character recognizes his soul mate when he sees her again, Jay recognizes Deron. And in another parallel, when he learns he has amnesia, he also learns he did it to himself. On purpose.

The question is why. Is it possible he was actually hiding from Deron? Jay doesn’t need to learn to love Deron again, but he does need to learn to trust him again.

Now available: Kitchen Sink Dom

This is book one in Hell’s Bedroom, a new series that pairs BDSM with a human trafficking investigation, making for excitement in and out of the sheets! Each book features a different take on D/s dynamics. In Kitchen Sink Dom, a service top is paired with a non-submissive masochist.

Private Investigator Harrison Fisher’s new case isn’t going the way he’d hoped. Wearing a collar, pretending he’s submissive, searching for a Dom who can get him into Hell’s Bedroom, the elite BDSM club where a seventeen-year-old boy has gone missing—his first time working undercover is really stretching his boundaries. He’s always wondered if BDSM might be for him, but how can he be honest about what he wants sexually when he can’t be honest about anything else?

When Cash meets the handsome man brimming with nervous energy, he feels like he’s struck gold. Cash isn’t the most dominant of tops, but he’s got a wide repertoire of skills, and he’d be happy to practice every single one of them on Harry, the sub who’s so new to the scene he doesn’t even know his own kinks. But the closer he gets to Harry, the more obvious it becomes that Harry isn’t who he claims to be.

As Harrison flirts with both BDSM and Cash, one missing person turns into two. Someone at Hell’s Bedroom is abducting vulnerable subs, and it’s going to take more than just Harrison to bring them home. It’s going to take a whole kinky village.

Kitchen Sink Dom is $3.99 to buy and will be eligible for Kindle Unlimited for 90 days.

New free story: Fanfare & Frills

Note: This is an F/F epilogue to Manners & Mannerisms. It will be most of interest to those who’ve read Manners & Mannerisms but is readable as F/F historical erotica.

It’s Catherine and Susan’s wedding night. Thanks to a ruse in which Catherine has married Susan’s brother and Susan has married Catherine’s, the two Regency-era women are free to marry in the eyes of the people who really matter to them and enjoy their first night together as wives and lovers.

Read Fanfare & Frills for free.

The Wide(r) World of Kink

Vicarphilia

Kitchen Sink Dom features a kink I personally relate to but that I’ve never seen in print before: vicarphilia. Basically, it’s getting off on other people getting off, being aroused by their arousal.

Vicarphilia is what has me both reading and writing erotica, and it shapes what I look for in a sex scene—that the people involved are really enjoying it. It doesn’t even matter if I personally would enjoy the sex act being described. I just need them to enjoy it. So in Kitchen Sink Dom, I wrote about a Dom who’s more into his partner’s enjoyment than his own.

And that got me thinking of other obscure kinks. Want a really big list that ranges from mainstream to inconceivable? Check this out: https://badgirlsbible.com/list-of-kinks-and-fetishes Or try some of the recs below for M/M rep of less commonly written kinks.

Cuckholding

Cuckolding is a kink where someone gets off on their partner cheating on them. It often includes a humiliation aspect, in which it’s stated or implied that their partner has to cheat because they’re inadequate.

You don’t see a lot of cuckolding in M/M, but Cole Got Cucked Hard was recommended to me, and it has a great vibe. I’ve also got a free story called Watch Me Watch You you can read if you’re interested in this kink.

Autoplushophilia

Autoplushophilia is what we informally call furries, though furries aren’t always sexual. But as a kink, it’s where a person is aroused by imagining themselves as a stuffed animal. I’m told that Kyell Gold‘s furry books are the M/M “gold standard.” There’s a wealth of titles, including this compilation of shorter stories that’s available free: Gold Standard

Lactation

Lactation is a not-uncommon kink in M/F, where it’s often tied to forced-breeding, but R. Phoenix has finally brought it to M/M. Henry the HuCow is described as “15k words of ‘udderly’ filthy smut.” LOL. By the way, HuCow stands for human cow, in case you didn’t get that.

Klismaphilia

Klismaphilia (where do they get these names?) is the erotic use of enemas. In M/M, you’ll sometimes see a bottom douching in stories that aim for more accuracy, but enemas are a more humiliating and painful way to get the ass clean, which means they’re perfect for kinky play, especially as a subset of BDSM.

In the first book of Matchstick Men, Cam insists on giving Hunter an enema as both preparation and punishment/domination. It makes for a hot scene, if you like that sort of thing.

Dacryphilia

Also known as crying kink. This is where someone becomes aroused or gets sexual satisfaction from either crying themselves or seeing someone else cry. The third book in the Hell’s Bedrooms series, Upsy-Daisy Dom has some of this, in that Sebastian is an emotional sadist (or, as he likes to call it, a mindfuck Dom) but since Upsy-Daisy Dom isn’t out yet, let me recommended Crybaby by Marina Vivancos, in which Jason makes “tall, beefy, Russian Sasha” cry. Sounds like fun!

Also, if you join Kate Hawthorne’s Patreon, she has a short there featuring dacryphilia.

Technophilia

As you might guess from the name, technophilia is a kink relating to technology—robots or AI to be more precise. Here are a few that fit this bill:

Man vs Machine by Lydia Sebastian – BDSM with an AI DomMy Android Alpha by DJ Heart – an android with a knotEvolved by NR Walker – an android lover who’s becoming conscious

So why limit yourself to the same-old Daddy Doms and bondage scenes when there’s a whole, very wide, world of kink? I haven’t written most of these yet, but there’s always a yet to come.

Coming Soon: Kitchen Sink Dom

This is book one in Hell’s Bedroom, a new series that pairs BDSM with a human trafficking investigation, making for excitement in and out of the sheets! Each book features a different take on D/s dynamics. In Kitchen Sink Dom, a service top is paired with a non-submissive masochist.

Private Investigator Harrison Fisher’s new case isn’t going the way he’d hoped. Wearing a collar, pretending he’s submissive, searching for a Dom who can get him into Hell’s Bedroom, the elite BDSM club where a seventeen-year-old boy has gone missing—his first time working undercover is really stretching his boundaries. He’s always wondered if BDSM might be for him, but how can he be honest about what he wants sexually when he can’t be honest about anything else?

When Cash meets the handsome man brimming with nervous energy, he feels like he’s struck gold. Cash isn’t the most dominant of tops, but he’s got a wide repertoire of skills, and he’d be happy to practice every single one of them on Harry, the sub who’s so new to the scene he doesn’t even know his own kinks. But the closer he gets to Harry, the more obvious it becomes that Harry isn’t who he claims to be.

As Harrison flirts with both BDSM and Cash, one missing person turns into two. Someone at Hell’s Bedroom is abducting vulnerable subs, and it’s going to take more than just Harrison to bring them home. It’s going to take a whole kinky village.

Kitchen Sink Dom is $3.99 to buy and will be eligible for Kindle Unlimited for 90 days. Available for pre-order now. Release date: March 23, 2021.

Happy Birthday to Omega Replaced

Strictly speaking, I was cheating with this one since neither of the main characters in Omega Replaced is an omega. Donovan is submissive and a bit of a pain slut, but that doesn’t make him an omega. He’s a big, tough alpha, and part of his character journey is understanding that he can be submissive and still be an alpha. That he can be attracted to other alphas and still be an alpha.

So the omega in this book has been replaced by a second alpha, but really, I just wanted to write some hot alpha on alpha sex with a bit of enemies to lovers thrown in to increase the heat. Which means that although there isn’t any omega heat in this book, it’s probably the hottest of the six. At least in my opinion. I do like my male submissives tough.

I wrote Omega Replaced the same November I wrote Omega Returned (book 4) and Omega Redeemed (book 6)—all three of them, one after the other, for Nanowrimo that year. The total word count was supposed to be 120,000, but Omega Returned went a bit over and the three books came in at 126,000 altogether. I finished the last 6K of Omega Redeemed in December, so depending on how you look at it, I either met the challenge (120K in November) or didn’t meet it (all 3 books in November). Either way, a lot of words got written.

The fun thing is how different the three books are. Aside from the different pairings, Omega Returned has three POV characters and Omega Redeemed and Omega Replaced only have one each. Omega Replaced was written in 1st person, and the other two were written in 3rd. So as I moved from book to book, I had to make a major mental shift.

If you’re wondering why I didn’t keep the POV more consistent, it’s because when I started this series, I didn’t know I was writing a series. The first three books ended up being all different, so I intentionally made the last three different as well. Consistently inconsistent, that’s me. But for all the differences, and for all that I came out of that November a little burned out, I love these three books. This one perhaps most of all. Just because it’s hot.

When Ever-After Isn’t Forever

Here in the Romance genre, we believe in our happy-ever-afters. If a book doesn’t end happily, we want our money back. And I don’t know about you, but I always feel a little cheated if a couple gets a happy ending in one book only to have it removed in a sequel.

That’s why writing Before was a risk. When Aftercare, the first book in my Ever After series, opens, Syed is on trial for the murder of his boyfriend and sub, Jamie. Of course he didn’t do it, and his lawyer (who’s the MC of the book) gets him acquitted. But that’s not the last we hear of Jamie. In Aftershock, Syed is trying to overcome his grief and go on with his life. He starts to fall in love with Dashiell, the other lawyer who helped get him acquitted, but he wrestles with his ongoing feelings for Jamie.

I don’t want to give anything away in case you haven’t read Aftershock yet, but Jamie makes a sort of emotional appearance, and ultimately Syed understands that it’s okay to love Dashiell without completely letting go of Jamie.

Often in Romance, the ex is awful, and even when they’re not awful, they’re supplanted. As in “yeah, I thought I loved him, but now I see how much more I love this new guy.” But does love always die just because it ends?

I’ve never been married. I guess I’m sort of commitment-phobic, but I like to joke that I don’t want to get involved in a situation where the best possible outcome is for someone to die. Because when you think about it, every marriage ends. And unless both people manage to die at the same time, someone is left grieving.

A sad ending and the grieving that comes after it shouldn’t negate all the happy that came before. Jamie dies, but Syed never forgets him, and Dashiell allows Syed to honor his memory. As Syed says, the man he is now loves Dashiell, but if Jamie hadn’t died, he would still be the man who loves Jamie. And to me, that’s romantic.

So I took a risk on Before, which is the story of how Jamie and Syed met and their first play session together. It ends with the promise of a happy life together, and we know they had that happy life. We also know it ended. Maybe, knowing that, you won’t want to read Before, but maybe, like me and Syed, you can honor what they had even though it didn’t last forever. Because despite being dead at the start of the series, Jamie is an integral part of all three books—basically their centerpiece. And this is his story.