Cheyenne Blue's Blog, page 19

Ageless Erotica

 

 

Here’s a fantastic review by the wonderful Rachel Kramer Bussel of Joan Price’s “Ageless Erotica”. Rachel quotes many of the writers (including moi) and has nailed the theme and the spirit of this collection.

Here, have a penis. (see in a shop window in Old Montreal recently).

Wimbledon

Amelie Mauresmo. Still the best.

I’ve rather fallen off the radar this last week. Wimbledon is on! The pinnacle of the tennis lover’s calendar, and for this tennis lover at least, the cause of my daytime tiredness as Wimbledon happens in the middle of the night if you’re in Oz.

I’ve let a lot slide these past 10 days: I’ve missed a deadline , I’ve hardly read anything, I haven’t returned phonecalls or emails and Eagle Boys Pizza  has been doing well from this little black duck.

Really though, this blogpost is just an excuse to repost Amelie. Again.Enjoy.

Wild Girls, Wild Nights

Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for Sacchi Green’s “Wild Girls, Wild Nights: True Lesbian Sex Stories“.

I’m honored to once again be part of one of Sacchi’s anthologies. Did you know I’ve had a story in every single anthology she’s edited? No, neither did I until she pointed it out. Let’s see how long I can keep my lucky streak alive.

What is it about nurses? Lesbian nurses.

I haven’t got the statistics to back this up, but I believe there is a higher percentage of lesbians working in hospitals than you’d find in other professions. I’m not entirely sure why this is. To generalize wildly, nurses are comfortable with physicality, broad minded, good with their hands, and swear like dockworkers, which is a fucking lot.  They don’t take shit, they give as good as they get, and they seldom say “I can’t do that” or “That’s not my job!”.  They have a great sense of humor (usually dirty), they wear sensible shoes and play netball or hockey. They’ll cover for a colleague, bail out a junior doctor (but woe betide that same doctor if they then play the superiority card), bring food for the entire night shift, and spend their meal break holding the hand of a terrified patient who won’t let go.

My ideal woman.

Many of my true stories come from my nursing days. The good old, bad old days, before Workplace Health and Safety, when you could behave badly and get away with it, when the Christmas party included enternox gas from the labor ward as well as red wine. A lot of red wine.  The days before you had to witness and sign everything in triplicate, before in service training on conflict resolution. Certainly before team bonding exercises.

My story, “Nurse Joan”, in “Wild Girls, Wild Nights: True Lesbian Sex Stories” goes back to those days.

Here’s an excerpt:

 The pressure from her fingers was fierce, but not painful enough to stop me reacting to her closeness. She stood close enough that her belly brushed my hip, and her free hand rested familiarly on my shoulder. Nurses are tactile people, usually in an unconscious way. We’re always touching: holding patients’ hands, dealing with their intimate body functions, staring at their unclothed bodies with our professional eyes. And we touch each other with friendly familiarity. It’s as if our body zones expand to include each other. But this night, Joan’s touch went beyond that.

I lay on my back, staring at the ceiling, where the recessed lighting shone as dim points in the clinical roof. Joan touched my shoulder. “Tell me how else I could secure a patient’s arms?”

“Using their gown,” I replied.

Joan picked up my arms and folded them high over my chest. Tugging at the loose scrubs top, she succeeded in working it up, enough that my belly was bared to the cool air. A particularly hard tug and I heard the thin cotton tear at the back.

“Whoops,” she said, no trace of remorse in her voice. “But that makes it easier.”

In an instant, my arms were tightly bound to my body with my cotton top. The cool air lapped at my skin. I shivered, not only from the temperature, but also from the knowledge that Joan was staring down at me, at the underside of my breasts, at my exposed abdomen. I struggled slightly, the vulnerability of the position making me uncomfortable.

“You better release me now,” I said. “Before-”

“Before what?” Joan’s lilting voice replied. “Before someone comes? Before you come? You’ve wanted to get like this with me for weeks now, girlie. Why d’you now want out?”

You can follow along with the blog tour for Wild Girls, Wild Nights: True Lesbian Sex Stories” over at Sacchi’s blog. Next up is Catherine Paulssen talking about her story “Delinquents’”.

You can comment here, or on any of the posts of the blog tour, to be entered into a drawing to win one of three free copies of this great anthology. Well? Well? What are you waiting for?

The.Powerbook

I was back in one of my favorite bookshops recently: The Tattered Cover in Denver, Colorado.  Since I was last there, they’ve started selling second-hand books as well as new, and they mix them in on the shelves with the new – a great idea. So you can come across a new and a used copy of the same book, cozied up together on the shelf.

I was looking for Daniel Woodrell’s “The Outlaw Album” (found it, bought it, read it, loved it). Close by was a second-hand copy of Jeanette Winterson’s “The.Powerbook”.  Winterson is one of my favorite writers, and I hadn’t read “The.Powerbook” so I snapped it up and carried it home to Australia.

There’s a love letter written inside the front cover of this copy, from the giver of the book to the receiver. Two women. And it’s poignant and beautiful and tender and heartfelt, and it makes me rather sad as I wonder why the receiver gave this book away (or otherwise had it taken from her possession) with such a paean of love inside the front cover. I’m not going to reproduce it here, as it would be like breaking a trust.

I was reading “The.Powerbook” in bed last night, and I came to one particular passage. I read it, stopped, put the book down, thought for a bit, picked the book up and read it again. And then a third time. It was still in my head this morning, so I’m posting it here.

It’s by no means a new thought, but it encapsulates an attitude I consciously work at, that of not taking the easy road.

“There is always the danger of automatic writing. The danger of writing yourself towards an ending that need never be told. At a certain point the story gathers momentum. It convinces itself, and does its best to convince you, that the end in sight is the only possible outcome. There is a fatefulness and a loss of control that are somehow comforting. This was your script, but now it writes itself.

Stop.

Break the narrative. Refuse all the stories that have been told so far (because that is what the momentum really is), and try to tell the story differently – in a different style, with different weights – and allow some air to those elements choked with centuries of use, and give some substance to the floating world.

In quantum reality there are millions of possible worlds, unactualised, potential, perhaps bearing in on us, but only reachable by wormholes we can never find. If we do find one, we don’t come back.

In those other worlds events may track our own, but the ending will be different. Sometimes we need a different ending.

I can’t take my body through space and time, but I can send my mind, and use the stories, written and unwritten, to tumble me out in a place not yet existing – my future.”

Jeanette Winterson “The.Powerbook”

 

Everything a Teenage Boy Should Know

She’s wearing rags and feathers from Salvation Army counters - “Suzanne” by Leonard Cohen

Everything a Teenage Boy Should Know

I love op shops (or thrift stores or charity shops, depending on where I am). So much tat and treasure and things that were once loved. I can browse for ages finding preloved flannel shirts and jeans that will fit if I lose 3 kilos. And books. Lots of books.

We were in a rural Queensland town on the weekend, and the op shop had a book sale. Five for $1.00. And I found this:

“Everything a Teenage Boy Should Know” by Dr John F. Knight, first published in 1973 and the edition I found was revised in 1983.  Written in a chatty Q&S style, this book has given me endless whooping amusement, interspersed with the somber thought that 1983 wasn’t that long ago, and how bloody wonderful it is that most of the world has moved on from this.

There are 17 chapters, with titles such as “Strange Facts About Boys”and “Social Diseases Are on the Rampage”. “All About Girls” is 15 pages while “Passing Examinations and Developing Talent” is 20 pages.

Here’s a few jawdroppers. They’re practically picked at random.

Is there any way of ascertaining a woman’s virginity?

Every male, it seems, desires to marry a virgin. I am asked this question many times.

…

In this manner you’ll finally link up with a person whose outlook on life equates with yours. … After all, there is probably a young lady seeking a young man of high moral calibre too.

 This subheading labelled “Hygiene” interests me. Tell me more.

… These days some students seem intent on remaining as dirty and grubby as possible… Bathe regularly. Wash the skin well with hot water and use plenty of soap. Do this often.

Of course what many people cannot imagine is how two women could possibly indulge in “sex” as we understand it

The answer is that they cannot. Their actions usually involve physical stimulation of each other’s external genital organs. In brief, one female will take the initiative and make up to her partner. With simple manipulation, she will physical stimulate (or masturbate) the other’s clitoris to the point of maximum excitation. In this way her partner will achieve an orgasm. Then it’s a reversal of the situation. The appeased partner will then similarly caress and physically arouse the other until she too achieves a climax.

Marijuana Use

… It is interesting to note that most drug takers are not interested in religion and have seldom been church attenders. Many come from homes where parental unity was lacking…

How do you feel about current male hair fashions?

Right now short back and sides seems to have made a comeback and long, greasy hair is not so fashionable

What then, is the advice [on heavy petting]?

No doubt you hope ultimately to marry. Will you be looking for a virgin? Or would you be contented with second-hand goods that have been the subject of heavy petting sessions by an unknown number of young blades before you?

There is little doubt you’ll be seeking out the former…

What about inner psychological reactions [to sex out of marriage]?

There’s little doubt that sex out of marriage can be mentally damaging. The person most likely to suffer is the girl.

Generally the male is the aggressor and the female is the more passive partner…

Is this a time consuming activity [on sex within marriage]?

It varies with the individual. Some women react instinctively and immediately. Others take longer. It may vary from five minutes to half an hour or even longer.

 

I was telling someone about this book today, and she reminded me that it was used on Spicks and Specks, which is an Australian pop quiz. In one of the rounds, contestants have to sing a  well-known tune substituting the words from an alternate text. Famously, on one occasion Everything a Teenage Boy Should Know was used, which is probably the best use for it.

I can’t find a clip of that, but I did find this:

 

Sudden Sex: 69 Sultry Stories

“Sudden Sex: 69 Sultry Stories” the explosive new anthology edited by Alison Tyler lives up to the promise of its title. 69 short short stories from a variety of writers, familiar and new.

The collection includes two of my stories: “Night Visitor” and “Consequences”.

Alison is whipping together a blog tour full of mini reviews. Oh the indecision. Which one(s) did I want to review? All of them, was the short answer. Particularly stories with titles such as “Rubber Chicken”, “Sugar Upsets My Vagina” and “Queen of Parking Lot Blowjobs”. However, I settled for reviewing two of my favorite stories in the book (it was so hard to pick; at last count I had a dozen that were my “absolute favorite”).

Short reviews for short stories. Don’t stop here though. Get the book and keep reading.

One story that jumped out at me was “Come to the Light” by Maria See.

A butch with DDD breasts.  I loved this subtle little story, and how it throws aside stereotypes. Butches shouldn’t have big breasts – they should be small and barely there on muscled chests or bound into submission.  Sade, the butch in Maria See’s gem of a story, doesn’t want her lover to see her breasts.  But to her lover, they’re beautiful, something to be made love to and worshiped.

Insecurities are turned around in this story, along with stereotypes. I love the tenderness and trust that the new lovers display. I got the impression that these two would be going forward into their lives together.

The second story I picked was “Tripartite” by Georgia E Jones.

Two men. One woman. A day at the beach and a walk back through the trees to the truck. This atmospheric story is about that most delicious of scenarios: friends into lovers.

This story is the complete package. The warmth between friends grows so naturally, builds on the simmering attraction until it explodes with sensual passion before leaving us with the promise of more.  There’s beautiful writing too:

“He said something—the dark voice of a cautionary tale—and held my hips in broad-palmed hands and did it for me.”

I got to the end of this and went straight back to the beginning to read it a second time.

 

More busyness and slow food

I’ve got my backside back in the chair after a bit of a break (okay, quite a break) and am writing and submitting.  I think I needed that break, but it felt strange not to have stories percolating away, and to watch submission deadlines slide by.  It helps that I’ve replaced my poor old Jornada with a Asus Eee PC netbook (I call it my Squee PC) which I love.  It doesn’t have the instant on button of my Jornada, but it’s fast enough, and as long as I don’t load it up with a million programs it will hopefully continue so.

While I wasn’t writing, there was a lot of reading, a lot of cooking, and a lot of sitting outside on the deck with a bucket of wine looking at the stars.

Time to pummel the sourdough.

I do most of my writing on a very old (like 10 years) HP ...

I do most of my writing on a very old (like 10 years) HP Jornada 720. I love it. Instant on and off, touchscreen, runs word, full keyboard, downloads to the lappie. And tiny. A 7″ diagonal screen. Here it is – scroll down to the 720. I adore it. It comes everywhere with me, and I can pull it out in an instant to jot notes or write a paragraph without any long boot time. For years I’ve been buying them from Ebay (and a couple of lovely people have given me their old unwanted ones). But my current one has once again died, and they’re getting so old, I’m thinking it’s time to update.

Can anyone recommend me a replacement? Obsolete is fine if it’s only a couple of years old. In order of importance, it must have/be:

- A good QWERTY keyboard. Small is fine (and preferred), but the keys must be of sufficient quality for fast touch typing. Some small cheap QWERTY keyboards are difficult to impossible to use because of poor build quality.

- Small. Ideally no more than a 7″ screen.

- Run Office or similar that will download to office (eg Wordpad) although ideally would allow me to edit (ie track changes, red font), not just type.

- good battery life.

- Instant on and off or fast boot.

- Fairly robust, as it will be carted around in a backpack.

- Wifi

- Touch screen.

I’ve been looking at the Sony Vaio P series (ooooh, ORANGE!), the ASUS EEE PC.

Thoughts/opinions/suggestions welcome – what portable device do you use for writing?

Coming Together: In Vein

There’s a new anthology out, one I’m very proud to be a part of. Let’s face it. Vampires are sexy. Something about the undead stirs up our juices. Perhaps it’s their irresistible power. Even when we know the danger, we’re so very tempted to surrender to their all-consuming lust. Maybe we want to comfort them, to save them a lonely, bloody eternity. Maybe we secretly crave immortality ourselves.

Vampires are frequently portrayed as evil or at least amoral, viewing humanity from the jaded perspective of centuries. Now, though, vampires are doing their part to save the world.

Coming Together: In Vein is a brand new collection of vampire-themed erotica and erotic romance edited by Lisabet Sarai. All sales of this novel-length volume support Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières). MSF works in nearly 70 countries providing medical aid to those most in need regardless of their race, religion, or political affiliation. Right now, despite being barred from the country, MSF doctors and nurses are in Syria, working with patients from both sides of the civil war. They’re performing surgery in caves and sneaking into refugee camps to distribute desperately needed medications.

You can help MSF in its life-saving mission, simply by indulging your passion for vampires. Buy a copy of Coming Together: In Vein in ebook, Kindle format, or print. Enjoy! Then help spread the word! Every copy we sell has the potential to save someone’s life.

The list of contributors includes many names you’ll recognize. Every one of these authors has provided his or her work free of charge, to support the charitable aims of the project. Furthermore, the editor is giving away a free copy of her short story collection Body Electric to everyone who buys a copy of Coming Together: In Vein. (For details of this offer, click here.)

Here’s an excerpt from my story “The Taste of B Negative”:

I saw a shadow melding with the pooled darkness in the corners, where the dim nighttime lighting didn’t reach. I saw a dark more opaque and complete than the shifting patterns of gray. I knew enough to look away, to fix my gaze on the blip of the ECG, and on the patient’s chart in my hand.

There are some things it’s better not to acknowledge.

I leave Constance in bed in the morning, the drapes pulled tight against the day. Her russet hair spreads over the pillow, her skin albescent in the dim light. There’s a translucence about her today, and she seems to fade into the sheets, each soft exhalation pulling her down, spreading her thinly over the world.

I have to see my mother and buy my groceries–a gourmet selection of TV dinners for one. The car needs gas, and is overdue for its emissions test. I seldom go out in the mornings anymore, and these things get pushed aside. Instead, I spend my time on the bed, curled around Constance, listening to her breathe.

“You’re looking pale, Amelia,” says my mother, her bony fingers caressing her morning martini. “Are you eating properly?”

The lettuce on her plate seems to wilt under my gaze. Lettuce, cherry tomatoes, celery sticks and low-fat Ranch–my mother’s daily diet.

“Better than you.” I take a bite of my rare-cooked burger for emphasis. It nearly chokes me, even as the hot coppery taste of scant-cooked beef makes me salivate.

Do cows have blood groups? O negative tastes stale; the universal donor has all the individuality sucked out of it. AB positive bursts with life and freshness. B negative is tangy, like gin and tonic with a slice of lime. It’s her favorite.

These are the things that Constance tells me when the nights are long.

Intensive Care is never still. It pulsates quietly with a muted throb. Life forces draining, some with a sigh, passing quietly, some with the cacophony of the cardiac arrest team. Crash call on ICU. They occur more frequently than average here, and questions are being asked. The hospital board taps its silver pen and wonders why.

I’m a qualified anesthetic nurse. It means I can intubate patients, passing the plastic tube down their trachea, inflating their lungs with a steady rhythm. The muscles on my hands between thumb and first finger bulge like golf balls from the repetition. And I’m the one who sets up the intravenous, a central venous line whether they need it or not. It never hurts to be safe. And it’s second nature for me to slide the cannula into the vein and cover the puncture marks with tape.

Constance tells me tales of her childhood. She’s old; it was long ago in the weave of time. In the telling, her eyes shift away from mine. I wonder if she’s lying. The tiny inconsistencies niggle in my mind, and I open my mouth to clarify a point.

She sees, and covers my lips with a kiss. It’s slow, and her tongue slides over mine, hot, wet, and wicked. She tastes of the night and all things dark. My question is lost in the curtained room.

Feel the heat

Not just heat between book covers this time, although Alison Tyler’s “Morning, Noon and Night” arrived in my mailbox this week to heat things up. Not that it needs it – Queensland has been baking in 37 degree heat this week (ummm…98.6 in the old scale) which is plenty hot enough for me thank you very much. Hot enough to flounce around the house in a sarong and take an afternoon nap.

One of the highlights of this week has been watching the First Tuesday Bookclub’s presentation of “Ten Aussie Novels to Read Before You Die”. The list of the top 50 novels is here. I am happy to say I predicted what would come out on top months ago when this list was first announced – not that it was hard – Tim Winton and “Cloudstreet” is hands-down one of the best written, most beloved and most Australian of novels. As for the rest of the list — well, it’s not the ten BEST Aussie novels, so there’s a lot of old chestnuts and sentimental favorites in there.