Cecilia Tan's Blog, page 36

Worldcon Day One! (Thursday) Chicon 2012

Worldcon Day One! (Thursday)

We actually arrived here Wednesday, but fairly late at night, so didn’t do anything but go up to the room and not emerge until this morning.

Today, however was non-stop action! (As cons like this often are.) Included in this post: recommendations of GLBT-inclusive sf/f books & media. But it’s at the end.

First order of business was move into our party suite. We got up early so we could move over there and register before my 12 noon panel. Managed to accomplish both those things and then get to the panel only a mere five minutes late after trying to figure out the odd arrangement of towers, elevators, and escalators in this hotel.

First panel was one I suggested myself, so therefore I got to moderate it: “We’re here, we’re queer…. are we used to it?” I suggested the panel when upon looking at the initial panel suggestions list back when it was first circulated to program participants, it felt to me like there was a serious dearth of gay or GLBT topics. And this was most likely that none of us bothered to make a panel suggestion because we’ve gotten complacent and jaded. I wondered… is the reason we are so complacent because now there are so many sf/f tv shows (Torchwood, Lost Girl, etc), movies, video games (Dragon Age), and books where queer characters are visible and so now we are no longer fighting for visibility? How about a panel on whether visibility still matters to GLBT fen, both in the media we consume and in con space in fandom.

So, I thought it’s the very first program slot at a Worldcon, no one will be here yet, who will show up? Well, the room was packed to capacity, every seat taken, with people standing in the back. The basic message of that is YES VISIBILITY STILL MATTERS.

On the panel with me were the always engaging and fun Catherine Lundoff and Kevin Roche. (Gene Armstrong was also supposed to join us but never made it–hope he’s OK and was merely delayed or time-challenged.)

At the start of the panel I asked how many people there was it their first Worldcon. I was amazed that more than half the hands went up. Later in the panel I asked everyone to do the goofy thing of turn to your neighbor or someone you don’t know and introduce yourself. Because these are the queer folk you’re now going to run into over and over at the con! Make friends. Everyone indulged me and did it.

Also as part of the panel, we made a recommendations list. Here are what was recommended for queer and alt-sex characters in sf/f these days:

Jacqueline Carey has a newish YA series Santa Olivia. “A lesbian character who doesn’t end up either killed or married to a man at the end!”

Laura Anne Gilman’s Vine Art series, in which winemaking is the magic, but becoming a wine mage sort of turns one asexual. (Asexuality being an alternative form of sexuality.)

Alyx Dellamonica, Indigo Springs, Blue Magic

Dean James “To Death” series, including Baked to Death, Posted to Death, etc…

mystery series, probably sold in the dealer’s room at the Cargo Cult table

Warehouse 13 — Jinx is a gay character who comes out after the cute girl character has a crush on him.

Foil’s War, WWII historical fiction, has a subplot I won’t describe in case anyone wants to read it and not be spoiled by it.

Doctor Who — “gay people exist in this universe.”

Ginn Hale “The Wicked Gentleman” — steampunk, won the Spectrum Award a few years back

Naomi Clark “Silver Kiss” — lesbian werewolves, woman discovers she’s a werewolf the first full moon of menopause

Melissa Scott “Point of Hope” now re-released by Lethe Press, and a new novella in the series is available

Pantomime — forthcoming book, not out yet

Batwoman, esp. the Elegy trade paperback graphic novel by Gary Rucka

Welcome to Bordertown, the new Bordertown book edited by Holly Black and Ellen Kushner

Gemma Files, Hexslinger series, (A Rope of Thorns, etc…) — a gay couple are the focal point characters

More recommendations can be found by listening to the Outer Alliance podcast and reading the Outer Alliance newsletters, and also looking back at the past winners of the Gaylactic Spectrum Awards.

After that it was all party prep, putting up signs in all the designated party sign places, grocery shopping with the help of two of my assistant editors, Joy and Jensen, setting up the room, and then corwin and I went for a late lunch/early dinner at 5pm at a local sushi bar (Oysy–pronounced Oishi) and then hopped on the shuttle bus to the Adler Planetarium party.

The planetarium was great fun. We saw the movie “The Searcher” which featured all kinds of animated simulations of galaxy collisions, supernova formation, et cetera, strung together on a sort of story of an alien searching for his lost civilization. A LOT of math went into those animations! And I must say, ours is a very good-looking galaxy. Not that I’m biased or anything.

Afterward we looked at some of the info displays, and it turned out a bunch of the really psychedelic imagery at the beginning and the end of the film was created by Scott Draves and his “Flame” software. Scott was known as Spot back when I knew him at Brown University in the 1980s. Such a small world!

We then looked at the other exhibits at the planetarium and topped it off with looking through real telescopes at the planet Saturn. The planet wasn’t yet visible in the evening sky, through haze and the remnants of sunset, but through a telescope was perfectly visible.

Then we hopped the shuttle bus back to the Hyatt to open up the doors on our Circlet Press 20th Anniversary Party. The party was rocking and busy right until 1am when everyone mysteriously evaporated…. (that was our announced ending time). We shut the door and ordered chicken soup from room service for a late dinner, and now it’s time for some sleep.

Can’t sleep in though. Going to Wrigley Field for the first time tomorrow! Finally! After years or trying!

A whole bunch of thoughts on grief and Brian.

So here’s one more post about Brian, the lover of mine who died over the weekend in a motorcycle accident. I actually am not sure I want people to read this, but I felt compelled to write it. I don’t want people to read it because I don’t actually want people to experience the heartbreak and loss I’m going through right now. And that’s likely what this post will communicate.

So, you’ve been warned. This pain is mine and you are under no obligation to share it.



When someone you love dies, the most trivial things become significant. Brian was fond of the brand of coffee they put in hotel rooms in Starwood hotels, in particular the Starbucks Africa Kitamu blend. You can’t buy it in stores. You can only get it off maid carts in Sheratons and Westins. I was at a Westin in January and I took all the packets of Kitamu from my room, to save for him.

I never got a chance to give them to him.

It was just a few months before that we had our latest round of the “what should we call each other?” conversation. At that point we had been lovers for more than five years by my count and at various times we would try on different words. We were in the hot tub at the hotel in Houston where we’d just run a fetish fleamarket, in the dark of night, outside the hotel, just the two of us. “Boyfriend”/”girlfriend” made us both giggle, definitely not a good fit. “Significant other” always sounds like a variable in a scientific study to me. Lover always seemed the best fit, and we stuck with it. After all, its meaning seemed to change, as we moved from some kind of maybe sometimes sex partners to loving each other unreservedly. Instead of changing words, we just changed what the word meant to us.

Brian had a huge amount of love to give. He came into my life like a friendly stray tomcat and over the course of the years became an important part of my life. I don’t make friends easily–becoming lovers is even harder. I’m just so thankful I had the chance to love him, and to tell him how much he meant to me.

I’m glad I already made the decision, for my own health, to stop running the satellite fleamarkets. Because now I don’t think I could survive trying to do it without him.

Some who knew him or know me from the BDSM scene might be really surprised to know that Brian and I were vanilla with each other. All the rope and the leather and the role playing… was for other partners. With us, it was always just us. Just two bodies and two hearts. I don’t know why. We were both switches, both experienced in so many kinds of BDSM, but the longer we were together the gentler and gentler our lovemaking got. That’s just how it was.

Fuck, I’m going to miss him.

I was just so so so blessed to have had him in my life, even just for a few years. It’s hard to explain how giving he was without sounding like I’m going overboard with exaggeration just because now he’s gone. But he was off the scale when it came to being a giving and a loving person. That was true in public ways, like with his volunteerism for various leather and BDSM community events, and in personal and private ways, as well. He was never selfish. He always checked on boundaries and respected them. He was always there if I needed him for anything, even if we were 450 miles apart.

He used to tell me he wasn’t perfect, and I would say “prove it.”

He hadn’t always been perfect–it took work, hard work that he’d done. He’d grown up not acknowledging or understanding the kinkier parts of his soul. We don’t live in a society that encourages acknowledging or understanding that, and each person in the BDSM community comes to that at a different stage of life. In Brian’s case there was a failed vanilla marriage in his past and other “learning experiences.” But he’d found his way to his tribe–or rather, his many tribes–through the kink and science fiction communities. Rope, furry fandom, event staffing (it really is a kink of its own…)

He went to New Zealand one year, before he was laid off from his job. He brought me back tea. The last time we did an event together I brought the last of the “New Zealand Breakfast” he’d given me and we shared it.

I taught him to like major league baseball. I’m going to be so angry if the Orioles make the postseason and he isn’t here to see it. (We went to Camden Yards together once. We’d talked about meeting at Yankee Stadium some day. It’ll never happen now.)

I’m angry that a future has been stolen from me.

One of the first things I said when I got the news was “I am so bad at this.” Grieving, I think I meant? One of the friends who was with me at the time is trained as a chaplain and counselor. She said, “Everyone’s bad at this.”

Brian’s the first person close to me to die who I cried for right away. Everyone else it’s taken me a day or a week or more for it to sink in enough to actually feel it. My grandfather died when I was in high school and I didn’t feel it for a whole day. My grandmother outlived him by a lot. When she passed, it took me a week to feel it–I didn’t start crying until I wrote something to be read at a memorial service for her. Maybe it’s just different when it’s a lover. Or maybe I’m actually better at having feelings than I used to be.

The physical pain of grief is hard. My chest aches. My shoulders hurt. My stomach hurts. Humans are such strange organisms. Why do we react this way to loss? There’s no real scientific or evolutionary reason I can figure, but much of the experience seems near universal. Makes one think there’s some kind of meaning of life statement waiting to be made there, but my head hurts too much to figure it out.

One of the other things I said in that initial crying burst was that it probably meant I’m going to kill someone off in my next book. Because what goes in must come out. This grief is going to express itself in my fiction and I won’t always know how or when.

I was in the train station today trying to remember what the seven stages of grief according to Elisabeth Kubler Ross were. Turns out there are only five, and I was misremembering them anyway, though I was close. Denial (numbness), Anger, Bargaining (i.e. with god), Depression, and Acceptance. Not everyone gets them all and they don’t come in any particular order. And actually acceptance–defined by Kubler Ross as the realization that this is the new reality, not necessarily EVER being “ok” with that new reality–comes first for me. Maybe this is the INTJ way of grieving, to put it in Myers Briggs terms. That makes my five stages more like Dislocation (acceptance), Shock (numbness), Anger, WIthdrawal, Compartmentalization.

I can’t speak for all introverts, but I’d really prefer to be alone with my grief. Offers from various friends for “support” are highly appreciated but I should note that the best support I can have is for everyone to respect my need for solitude.

I spoke to the most significant of his significant others today for the first time. He’d been telling me a lot about her, the last few times we spoke, about how serious it was getting, how serious it WAS, and making sure I was okay with that. The last time I saw him we talked about the idea of him bringing her up to my house for Thanksgiving, which is our big “chosen family” holiday. We were sort of leaving it up to her to figure out her comfort level, but I was hoping they would decide to come.

She asked me today if there was anything of his I wanted. The thought hadn’t even occurred to me. I’ve thought about it some since then and I can’t think of anything.

What I want is Brian. But I can’t have that.

I realize I have a hat of his. The very first time he stayed at my house, back when we were still just friends and not yet lovers, he had bought a military uniform from someone. He had flown that trip and only had a carry-on bag with him, and had nowhere to pack the hat. He left it here intending to get it on some future trip. Then he forgot about it. I reminded him of it last year, and he planned to try to retrieve it on a trip this year.

Now the hat is with the coffee I’ll never give him. I don’t know what to do with either.

A story I wrote for my lover who has died. RIP Brian.

Brian and Tai Gau

I have no idea what to write here, but I feel I must do something, say something. I learned a short while ago that my long-distance lover and significant other, Brian Wolfe (aka Ayem Willing), was killed in a motorcycle accident. Some of you knew him through the Fetish Fair Fleamarkets where he was the man who kept me upright when I was so ill I could barely function to run the show in Houston and who volunteered tirelessly for NELA and other BDSM organizations. He was an unrelentingly good person, who gave and gave and gave of himself. No, really.

I don’t know any details about the accident. What I can tell you is that the lest time I saw him, at the end of June, was that the motorcycle was his only transportation. He got laid off from his job a while back when the economy tanked, and in the economic difficulties that followed, he told me he could not keep up his car payments. Despite trying to cut a deal with them to repay (once he got another job), the repo men kept showing up, so he finally gave in and told them to “just take the damn car.” That left him only on two wheels.

I don’t know any details about the accident. I don’t know if there was a collision or if it was a solo accident, or not. All I can fixate on is that this was pretty much the last conversation I had with him.

As you can imagine, I’m pretty devastated by the news. I’m also pretty tender, so although I appreciate condolences, I don’t think I can actually handle them right now. So please don’t call me. Please do celebrate the life of a man who had strong passions and who wasn’t afraid to pursue them.

To that end, I have an erotic story to share, that I wrote for Brian a few years ago. (Story under the cut if you are interested in reading it.) Brian won a fundraising eBay auction back in 2007 for an original story written by me. So this has never been posted anywhere before. His request was for a sequel to The Velderet, my BDSM space opera novel, asking about what happened to two of the characters who end up together at the end of the novel.

I share the story with you all now, in his memory.

* * *

Kobi’s Tale

by Cecilia Tan

Written For Ayem Willing

Copyright © 2010 by Cecilia Tan

This story was written for the winner of an eBay auction for an original Cecilia Tan story, run as a fundraiser for Circlet Press. It took longer to complete than expected, but it is done.

* * *

The ship was terrifying.

You would think that leaving behind all the people I knew and entering an alien culture where I would be completely at the mercy of a man who had been described to me as “cruel” would be frightening. But it wasn’t. What frightened me, as the shuttle ship neared the big one, was the larger one itself.

The ship had been imposing enough when it had blotted out most of the sky, as it had hung over the capital city of Marianna, but to be flying to it? Into it? I found myself unable to look away from the sight through the window, even as my hands trembled on the railing.

“Kobi.” The man next to me spoke. I would have described him as my master, except for the fact that although I was an initiate in his order of discipline, I wasn’t, in Kylaran terms, his slave. The difference, as far as I could tell, was a purely semantic one. I felt slave-like and would figure out the rest as I went along. His voice was little more than a whisper. “Kneel.”

Oh. A command. Yes. I concentrated on doing what he said, though it meant letting go the railing. I sank to my knees, trying to do it as gracefully as the slaves I had seen on Kylaran entertainment programs. I failed, but at least now I was below the level of the window, my head bowed to look at my hands on my knees.

His hand touched my hair, stroking it back from my face. “Look up at me.”

“Is that allowed?” I asked.

“If it were not, do you think I would ask it?” Girman chuckled.

“Well, maybe,” I said, though I looked up into his eyes. “I thought slaves weren’t supposed to look up?”

“You’ve been watching too many entertainments,” he said, but his voice was soft rather than severe. “Try to forget all that nonsense and concentrate on what I tell you. If you’re going to train with me under the Disciplines, you’ll find it quite different from the passion plays anyway.” He brushed his thumb over my cheek, and then over my lips. “I want you to meet my eyes so I can see the depths of your soul. You will hide nothing from me.”

“Oh.” His eyes were blue and at that moment it was easy to believe he meant what he said truly and not as a piece of romantic fluff. “I… just tell me what I should do. And shouldn’t do.”

“That is my plan,” he said with one eyebrow raised in amusement. “Most important is that you do as I say rather than worry about whether what you do is correct. I will correct you if needed.”

He pushed his thumb into my mouth then and I reflexively sucked it.

“You are a sensual creature, Kobi of Bellonia,” he said. “A new pleasure in my life and a new puzzle to solve. When I say I will correct you, I do not yet know what measure of punishment and what measure of reward you will respond to best. Or are you one of those for whom pain can be a reward? I am quite sure, actually, that you are. It is one of your most attractive qualities.”

For some reason I was totally unprepared for him to kiss me then. But his mouth took mine, his finger slipping away as his tongue replaced it, thrusting into me and overwhelming me with the suddenness and force of his desire. I was surprised to feel such lust from a man whose discipline required that he not come in the presence of his subordinates, and that his subordinates not come in his presence. Clearly I had much to learn about him and his people’s ways.

I had forgotten the ship entirely. Girman was the entirety of my sky.

* * * *

We would be en route to Chidras for three weeks, he said, where the crew would be given furlough once we arrived, their due after the long time they had spent on the Bellonian mission. Three weeks when he would train me, he said.

He began that first morning. I woke with his hand on my cheek. “Master,” I said, in my own language, before I was fully awake.

That made him smile. “Keep calling me that,” he said. “There is such lovely mist in your eyes whenever you say it.”

Then his hand strayed down to my cock, which was morning hard. He stroked me with light touches, as if learning the pattern of veins with his fingertips. I moaned and tried my best to hold still, though my hips jerked some.

“If you feel the need to come, I will leave you to gratify yourself,” he said after a while. “Then you may join me for a light meal.”

I bit my lip. As he spoke, his fingers never ceased stimulating me. “And if I d-don’t feel the need to come?”

“One of your directives is to be honest with me, Kobi.”

“Just speaking theoretically, I mean.”

“Ha. If you don’t, then you may follow me directly to the meal and I will leave you in the state you are in. You have a choice whether you wear a thin robe like mine, or whether you wear nothing. Which will you choose?” His grip firmed, but slowed, drawing another moan out of me as I considered the choice.

“Nothing,” I finally said.

He nodded, accepting the choice, but he asked, “And why?”

“I want to hide nothing from you,” I said, my hips thrusting my cock suddenly into his fist.

“You mean you want to entice me to touch you by showing me your body,” he said.

I blushed. “Well… that, too.”

“Are you worried you will not receive enough attention as my initiate?”

“No, Master. I… I really don’t know what to expect.”

He nodded again. “Very well, no robe for you, beautiful one. But you still have not told me if you would like to be left alone to finish.”

I shook my head. Much as I wanted to come, what I wanted more was his attention. Perhaps he knew that. “I would rather stay at your side.”

With that he lifted his hand from my cock, and I nearly changed my mind and begged him to let me finish anyway. But he stood then, and offered me a hand to lift me out of the nest of pillows where I had slept. I felt dizzy, as if all the blood stayed pooled in my groin, but I followed him. We ate breakfast together, Bellonian fruit and a Kylaran style bread, sitting at a low table in a sparsely furnished room.

He told me I should ask questions, and that he would always answer them to the best of his knowledge, and that I should not try to measure my success or failure. “Only I can determine whether I am pleased or not. Do not assume you know what I want. Take my instructions for what they are but do not judge yourself.”

“Yes, Master.”

“Also, do not let the judgements of others affect you. You will be seen as an exotic plaything by some of my peers, little more than a curiosity, like a talking bird. Sometimes I will encourage them in that view, if it suits my aims. But do not ever think that I think less of you than I do.”

But what do you think of me? I didn’t dare ask that. Instead I asked a more basic question, one that had been nagging me since our first meeting. “Why is it that you don’t come in front of your subordinates?”

He chuckled and peeled open a fruit with his fingers. “The answer is not that simple, but I will give you the outlines of the discipline’s philosophy. First, as I’ve taught you, orgasm brings about an ending. The Delorr philosophy teaches that it is the process we should learn to love and enjoy, not the ending. The journey, not the destination. Second, consider the difference between your bodily needs and your desires. You need to eat to survive, but you do not necessarily need the flavor of bread or the sweetness of fruit. With the Delorr disciplines, one learns to savor the ‘flavor’ of sex without consuming it.”

“But don’t people need to come sometimes? For their health?” I had been taught in school that was the case, and the average need on Bellonia had been studied in order to determine each citizen’s allotment of sexual services.

“Sometimes, yes. As I told you, I would have left you to seek release this morning if you had wished.” He reached across the corner of the table and stroked my half-hard cock until I was fully erect again. “The idea is to separate that from the process. To purify, in a way, the interactions between master and slave, husband and wife, and so on.”

Oh. “But what about procreation? Wouldn’t the husband kind of need to have his wife there?”

He laughed. “Breeding is a special circumstance. But you and I will not have such concerns, and I probably need not tell you that those who follow the Delorr disciplines are few and far between. You will find very few among my people who will deny themselves anything. All too often, they are ruled by their appetites instead of their rational minds.”

I could not keep silent at that. “But isn’t that what your people were accusing us of? Weren’t you going to enslave the whole planet because we were too ruled by our animal passions?”

“Just so,” Girman said, with a grave nod. “You see why I believe adherence to the Delorr disciplines is noble.”

He stood then and I could see he was erect himself. “Not that I am without my appetites,” he said. “Come, there are a few preparations we must make.”

He led me to another room and indicated I should lie down on a low bed, then sat on a pillow beside me. He held up something round and smooth in his fingers, about the size of an eyeball but milky translucent like glass. “This is to go inside you,” he said.

I didn’t know what to make of that so I just lay still, looking at him, though I felt a deep thrill in my center as I thought of him inserting it. He coated his fingers with some sort of ointment and then teased at my anus. My cock twitched as he slid one finger inside me, and precome began to leak as he pumped it in and out, adding a second finger soon after. I groaned, wanting more. Then he slid the ball into me and I gasped as for a few seconds I felt it, cold, until it warmed to my body.

He mounted me with his cock then, slicking it with the grease and just taking me by climbing between my legs and pushing in. “Must make sure the ball sets in deep,” he said, as he fucked me with long, slow strokes. I didn’t care why he was fucking me, only that he was. After all the cybersex I’d had this year, there was still no substitute for flesh on flesh, sweat, and musk, and feeling his pulse in his cock inside me.

We fucked for a long time, until it became like breathing, just in and out, a part of me, something I needed, something I needed to keep doing. And continuing to do it meant not coming. He held one of my legs at an angle and his belly just brushed my cock on each thrust. I became aware of my cock aching, feeling as if it were swollen to bursting.

He pulled out suddenly, gasping as he held himself above me on all fours, and I could not help but look down to see his cock, glistening and red, twitching, a few droplets of precome being forced out with each twitch.

That was how close to breaking his own discipline he came.

When he spoke, it was with a ragged voice. “Tomorrow there will be a reception. I will begin teaching you the art of knots.”

I whimpered, which troubled me only because I was trying to say ‘yes.’ But now I was both on the edge of orgasm and empty, wanting to be filled, and my voice came out an animal sound.

His mouth met my mouth in a kiss like none I’d felt before. And this time when his tongue breached my lips, I came. My body spasmed and I saw blinding white light and the hot evidence streaked my stomach.

He pulled back to look at me, but there was no disappointment in his eyes. He streaked his finger through my come and tasted it.

“I… I couldn’t help myself,” I said, wondering if I should be ashamed of breaking his rules.

“I know.” He kissed me again, more gently this time. “You are new to this. You must wait three days until your next one, now. I will send someone to help you clean up.” He didn’t seem at all dismayed. In fact, if I had to guess, I would say he was deeply pleased. Before I could say anything more, he was gone.

“But…” But I wanted so very much to take that straining organ of his into my mouth, to taste that eager salt and then the bitter rush of his come. I had never wanted it so much in my life. But I knew he was leaving me now, to either finish himself off or to meditate the erection away.

A different door opened and in came a man with his hair in a top knot, wearing one of those thin robes open at the front. A slave? He didn’t look much older than me. He sighed and spoke in perfect Bellonian. “So, you’re the new initiate? Come on.”

I got to my feet. “Are you an initiate, too?”

“Yes. Hyl’n is my name. And you’re a welcome sight.” Hyl’n gestured at me to follow him.

“I am?”

“Yes.” He ushered me into a washing stall, took off his own robe and got in with me, and then jets of warm, scented water began to hit us from all sides. He had a cloth from somewhere and scrubbed my back. “There’s only you and me. And him. It’s… it’s much easier when there’s another initiate around.”

“It is?”

“Yes. Because it means I can do this.” He slipped his fingers over my tailbone and into my hole and I gasped. It felt good. “Will you let me fuck you?”

I nodded, bracing my hands against one wall of the stall while he lined himself up behind me. I was still slick and loose from Girman and Hyl’n wasted no time in setting up a pounding rhythm, coming just a few minutes later. I watched the whiteness swirl down the drain between my feet as he rested against my back. Then he straightened.

“Thank you,” he said, still a little breathless. “I needed that.”

“You’re welcome. Does doing it by hand get difficult after a while?”

“Oh. Just boring. It never feels as good as fucking someone.” He changed the shower control from wet to dry. “And there’s no prohibition on us coming with each other. Just with him.”

“That doesn’t make much sense to me,” I said, as I ran my hands through my still-damp hair, though the dryers were making quick work of it.

“It doesn’t make much sense to most people, as far as I can tell,” Hyl’n said.

“Then why are you his initiate?” I asked, still trying hard to understand.

Hyl’n shrugged and stepped out of the stall, slipping his robe over his shoulders again. “Because it’s as close to being his slave as I’ll get.”

“You’re not?”

“No. He has none. He could, if he wanted, but…” Hyl’n shrugged. “He’s eccentric to say the least. And although the others will treat us like his slaves such, they know we’re not. As far the Kylar are concerned, you’re not a slave unless you’re claimed.” He opened a panel in the wall and took out a comb, beckoning me to come over to him.

“Claimed? But aren’t we ‘his’?”

“We are his. By ‘claimed’ I mean… well, consummated.” He frowned and I wondered if maybe he didn’t know the words in Bellonian for what he meant.

“Consummated? But he fucked me just this morning.”

He fixed me with an appraising look then. “But he didn’t come inside you.”

“No, of course not,” I said quickly, wondering if Hyl’n saw me as a rival. I decided not to tell him I had come, myself when he seemed relieved at my answer.

He beckoned me to sit so he could comb my hair. He combed it through and put it up in a top knot. “I’m still figuring out all the nuances.”

“You are?” I turned to look at him in surprise.

“I’m from Chidras originally.” He shrugged again. “I’ve been with him for three years. The Kylar have a lot of unspoken rules, though. I’ve seen some things…” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”

But I figured it did matter, or he wouldn’t have said anything. I turned and kissed him. “Feel free to teach me what you want,” I said. I didn’t want him to see me as a rival or a threat. “If you need me, I’m here.”

I felt his fingers tighten against my skin as he pulled me closer. “Be careful what you say,” he whispered into my ear. “Every word you speak is a promise to the Kylar.”

“I mean it,” I insisted. “So long as he isn’t against it, I’m open to whatever you want, Hyl’n.”

He pushed me to the floor with a growl and rutted against me. “I just fucked you not even an hour ago,” he said, as if he didn’t believe it himself.

“You said it’s been a long time since you had someone,” I pointed out. “Perhaps you’re making up for lost time.”

“Perhaps.” That was the last word spoken for quite a while then, as he set to fucking me more thoroughly than before. He never questioned when I didn’t ask to come, though, and I went before Girman some hours later scrubbed clean once again, with my ass sore and my cock half-filled with blind optimism.

* * * *

The way of the knot, as it turned out, was a way of making ropes into art. That is, a way of making ropes and living bodies into art. I needn’t have worried about what I was going to wear to the reception that night, nor what I would say, since he turned me into a living sculpture. I was led into a large room, dimly lit except for the pool of light where he bade me kneel. He was in a finer robe than before, but no better covered by it, and I could see his pendulous cock stirring at the sight of me.

There were others there already, guests and spectators, murmuring in the background, but all my attention was for him.

And his for me. It began simply enough, with him winding cords around me, knotting them here and there, more decorative than a true form of bondage, I thought. He had ropes of different colors and thicknesses and I wondered if they were woven of the fibers from many different planets or if they were native to his home world. I wondered if we would go there at some point and if we did, how it would feel to walk the streets there with him.

Then he used a shimmering rope to make a kind of cuff for my wrist and I found my hand floating. The ropes connected with the artificial gravity somehow.

He hummed softly to himself as he worked, and I felt lulled into a kind of daydream as the cords were laid over my skin and his hands caressed me inch by inch. He changed my posture, moving me this way and that, bending my limbs and binding them to stay bent sometimes. This time when he brought me to full hardness with the fluting of his fingers it felt familiar. And with each knot added, each touch and kiss, I felt more and more like he was making love to me, not just dressing me up or even tying me up. There were some cords that tethered me below, some above, as he adjusted which parts of me could move and which could not, which parts of me could float and which didn’t.

When he finally pulled the cord that sent me flying into the air, I cried out as if I were coming, but I wasn’t. I felt a release of some kind, though, something flying free. Now I could feel some of the pull, as I swung gradually back and forth, eventually settling into a slow rotation like a piece of ceiling art in the Marianna Museum.

I was not that high up, though. I was in easy reach of the guests. I am not sure if some signal was given or if there was just a proscribed amount of time that was considered polite to let a slave (or whatever I was) hang untouched. I felt the glassy caress of long fingernails along my ribs, moving along the ropes rather than catching on them. Another rope was pulled—I heard it creak—and my position shifted, my head down, my hair hanging.

More hands were touching me now, and although they were teasing at first, it wasn’t long before someone was pulling on my cock earnestly, as if polishing the imaginary bone inside with the foreskin. I could not tell which hands belonged to men, which to women. One male voice complained that my anus was inaccessible to him. Even if I hadn’t learned the language, his tone was unmistakeable. “Look at these two great knots, blocking the way. Girman doesn’t want anyone else fucking this one, I think.”

“Or perhaps,” came the answer, from my master himself, “you merely do not understand the puzzle before you.”

There were murmurs of excitement. I swung suddenly, as someone pulled me toward them, someone male, I knew, when I felt the red hot head of his cock against my thigh. There was tugging, this way and that. And rutting against my leg. But I could feel the hard knots did not budge.

The tugging stopped after a while, and then I felt his hand, so familiar, my own master’s hand stroking the back of my neck. He adjusted the ropes somehow so that I was lifted, still facing the floor, but with my arms half spread like wings and my knees crooked.

He said a word I didn’t know, but I took to mean, “Behold” or “Look!” and I heard the ropes creak once more as he pulled something. My head bucked and I gasped with sudden desire as I felt those two knots separate and pull my asscheeks in opposite directions, opening me wide.

I opened my mouth then, to beg him to fill me, but before I could get the first word out, I felt the head of his cock, cold and slick with lubricant, slide soothingly over my asshole. Not in me yet, but almost.

When he took me, the penetration was slow this time, and I’m not sure for whose benefit the agonizing pace was, mine, his, or the watchful audience. I remembered I could open my eyes and see them, and what I saw on their faces was hunger. Every one of them wanted to be next, though whether that meant next to fuck me or next in the ropes, I didn’t know. Every cock I could see was erect. Some of them were larger than any I’d ever seen, even in entertainments, and some of those were studded with metal and I shivered, wondering what that kind of jewelry could do inside me. Surely they wouldn’t unless it was safe…?

The fuck went from so slow I wanted to scream, to gradually faster, to a pounding that made the one Hyl’n had given me in the shower seem lazy and gentle. My eyes had closed again and I had forgotten the party, forgotten the spectators, until I felt salty flesh pushing at my lips. I opened my eyes expecting to see Hyl’n, but there was a Kylar I didn’t know feeding his cock into my mouth. No jewelry or studs on this one, thankfully, and I took him in as best I could while being jarred from behind by each thrust.

I had to really concentrate to follow what they were saying. “This one is far too good for you to keep him bottled up, Girman,” the man said. “Why do you pluck such wanton flowers from their gardens, only to see them wither?”

“You know not what you speak of, Shijjan,” my master answered, slowing his pace then. “This one will not wither. This one will bloom.”

I groaned. Something about the slower pace he set and the angle of his penetration was pushing me dangerously close. Didn’t he say I shouldn’t come for three days? He hadn’t told me what to say if I had to warn him I was drawing so close. Not that I could say anything with a cock in my mouth.

“Was it worth it, then?” the man went on. “All the ones whose cocks shriveled up after a while? It’s perfectly natural to control your slaves’ releases, but to deny them?”

“They are not my slaves,” Girman said, and I could feel his thumbs widening my hole still further, pushing into me with his cock, now that there was this other man holding me in place. “And they are allowed to come. They just should not see me as the source for such purely animal gratification, as a slave does his master. We seek… higher forms of release. Higher forms of gratification.”

I made a more desperate noise then, around the flesh in my mouth. The man there patted me on the cheek. “I do believe he is trying to say something.”

“He is nearly ready to come,” Girman said with great calm, and then pulled free of me. He then swung me back, my lips coming free of the other man with a pop, and the next thing I knew I was face up, my legs extended to either side of me, the ropes pulling me disappearing out of my view.

Girman rubbed his slick cock against mine but his face bore a bemused look. He pushed his cock into me then, and walked forward, swinging me until I was chest to chest with him, his arms around my back.

His voice was quiet in my ear. “What do you think? Should I leave you here for the others to use? A willing hole?”

I stiffened and he felt it, as desire and confusion fought within me. “I… If you would like to see the others use me, I…”

“Hush, Kobi. I thought you would enjoy being fucked by many.”

“I… Normally I would, but…”

“But I told you not to come for three days? Is that it? What if I gave you permission to come so long as it was while someone was penetrating you, while you are in ropes tonight?”

“I…” It was a tempting thought. Very tempting.

“You might have to beg for what other stimulation you need, of course, if any. I cannot guarantee, of course, that any of our guests will give that to you. They may, in fact, do their utmost to take their own enjoyment from your body while taking care not to let you come.”

I moaned. I had fantasized just such a scenario many times. My cock twitched madly and my hole spasmed around him. But the fantasy had come before the reality of Girman.

I wished my arms were free so I could hold tight to him. They were not, so I had to speak. “If… if it would please you to see me played with so, I would gladly do it,” I said. “But… but I would be imagining that each one is you, master. That each one who comes inside me, is you… you… claiming me.”

I didn’t expect the sudden slap across my cheek, nor the sudden kiss that took away its sting and invaded my mouth once more with fervent desire. I didn’t understand either. When he pulled back, his eyes were hazy but hooded, and then he hastily sent me swinging away from him, empty and suddenly cold.

“He is yours to toy with, my honored guests,” he said. “As I understand it, even among his own people he had a reputation as a slut.”

Something of a cheer went up from all assembled and the first man to catch me where I was swinging pushed the already quite slick head of his cock into my mouth. Seconds before someone else had been sucking him—his own slave, perhaps? But he wanted to finish with me. I could see he had metal studs in two neat row down his shaft so it was just as well I could not get more than the head into my mouth. I wondered what planet he was from. It was mere moments before his come was pumping, thick and bitter, onto my tongue.

There were many more of them after that. Most wanted my ass. I was like an acrobat, tumbling and turning on the ever-winding ropes into whatever position they chose, sometimes two at a time, one at each end, sometimes aiding each other, as when one large man held me still and open for his partner to fuck as if I were up against a wall. There were women, too, with wicked phalluses of varying kinds, some clearly high tech, others more ceremonial-looking.

I began to wonder how many had been invited to this party, and if each one were to have a turn, how many hours would it take? At one point Hyl’n made me drink some water. “Here,” he whispered.

“Thank you,” I whispered back. For the moment they left us alone and it was like we were in an isolation bubble. “Do you want a turn, too?”

“No. Only want to fuck you if I can come,” he said brushing my hair back from my face. “He’s watching, you know. Hasn’t taken his eyes off you for a moment.”

That made me shiver and blush. He had given me permission to come, even. Did he want to see me come, though? If I did, would that end this? Was that what it would take? Did he want to see me beg for release from tormentor after tormentor?

“Thank you,” I said to Hyl’n once more. I knew now what I wanted to do. I just didn’t know if I could actually manage to do it.

I wanted to NOT come. I wanted to pledge myself to ONLY come from his touch, with his permission. His permission, which he would never give, but which I would seek endlessly.

That is true devotion, I thought to myself. And was that not what all spiritual seekers are seeking?

I said none of that to Hyl’n, though. I hung limp in the ropes and waited for the next one to use me.

Cock after cock. Some of them stroked mine as they fucked me, bringing me to the edge, but they all thought I wanted to come. So none of them really wanted to give me what I wanted.

Not until a familiar voice, the man who had argued with Girman earlier, spoke above me. Shijjan. “Initiate,” he said, like it was a foul word. “If you’re the slut he describes, you probably can come ten times a day, am I right? Let’s see how fast I can make you spurt.”

He brought me to the edge right away, as if he knew just what angle to fuck me at, and just what speed and how much pressure to use on my own cock. But I bit it back, clamping down hard on my stomach.

Shijjan laughed. “Oh, the little plaything wants to fight? How lovely. I love you untamed aliens.”

I hissed through my teeth. The whole point was I didn’t want to be an untamed wild thing that would come at any chance I got. Been there, done that.

He couldn’t make me come. Could he? If I really didn’t want to? I was making a very distressed sound and I was afraid to find out.

He got bored before my will gave out, though. He smacked my cock hard with his open palm and then pulled free. “Maybe you need a little pain to push you over the edge,” he said. “Jhu-jhu, you must surely be recovered now.”

He was speaking to another man. I shook my hair out of my eyes. The big man with the studded cock, who was erect and trailing a silver thread of precome from his slit. He was as wide around as my forearm and the studs gleamed as he stepped into the light with me. Were they sharp enough to tear me inside? Merin had told me the Kylar could heal almost anything, even extreme injuries like dismemberment and flaying.

That didn’t mean I wanted to be torn apart though. I tried to find Girman in the crowd, but the faces were all in shadow and I could not tell if he was there. Hyl’n had said he was, though. Surely he wouldn’t have turned away just now?

The big man pushed two fingers into me and swore in a language I didn’t recognize. “You’ve been fucked by how many tonight? Twenty? And you’re nowhere near loose enough to take me. If anything you tightened right back up when Shijjan was trying to make you come.” He dug around inside me, making me squirm and fight as he poked at already tender places. “That or maybe everyone on your planet has asses this tight. If that’s the case, won’t be long before you’re all made into whores anyway.”

Inside my head I was arguing with him, but I knew he was trying to get a rise out of me. He was trying to make it harder for me. It was so obvious. His words still made me angry, but not angry enough to say anything.

Then he was slicking himself up with lube and I could hear the studs clicking against a ring on one of his fingers as he stroked up and down. “Hold him down, Shijjan.”

The ropes let loose and Shijjan caught me under the armpits, maneuvering me until I was bent forward over a low, padded bench, my ass now a firm target for that massive cock. I felt the head smear back and forth over my hole and knew there was no way I was taking it without damage.

“Master, please…” I barely recognized my own voice.

But I recognized his hand on my hair, his touch. “I’m here,” he said.

“Do you… do you want me to be hurt?”

I felt the stutter of surprise in his touch.

“I’ll… I’ll do as you wish. But I don’t want him.”

The man behind me pushed at my hole again, but didn’t come close to penetrating. I clenched as tight as I could. “Girman. You can’t possibly think to stop me from taking my due at this point, can you? Everyone else here has had him. It would be an affront to stop me.”

His touch was very soft on my hair, but I could hear the steel in his voice. “You speak true, Jhulan.” he said.

The man didn’t hear the warning in his tone. Or he ignored it. “Then let me get on with it,” he said, now trying harder to push into me.

Girman’s mouth found my ear. “You will not be torn inside,” he said so only I could hear. “The thing I put inside you today will protect you. As my slave. Let him in. And I will protect you as your master.”

It was a command. And if I were not dreaming, he had just said something I had never thought he would say. I did as I was told, I stopped resisting, and a moment later I cried out as Jhulan entered me with a vicious shove. I might not have been torn, but the pain was sharp, a burning and an ache together and I just wanted him out.

Then a moment later, he WAS out, as Girman leaped over me to tackle the unsuspecting man. I didn’t see what happened, exactly, but I heard the gasps of those around me. I tried to look over my shoulder, but my hair was in my eyes.

And then Girman was back, pressing his chest to my back and kissing the base of my neck, under my hair.

“You can’t do that!” Shijjan was sputtering indignantly. “He’s just an initiate. He’s not a slave!”

“He will be in a few moments,” Girman said. “Kobi of Bellonia, it is my intent to claim you as my own. Do you accept this claim of ownership that only I can rescind?”

“Yes!” I cried, as he slid his cock into me. “Yes, and when you make me come, you’ll know I spoke true.”

“Indeed,” he said. He patted me on the butt and somehow I knew to get up on all fours then.

Perhaps he intended to reach around. I will never know. He didn’t need to. When he came, I came, in a gorgeous white spatter that could have been a map of the stars we were speeding past.

* * * *

I woke once during the night that night, to find myself in the circle of his arms, in a soft bed that smelled of him, and then I drifted back into a blissful sleep.

In the morning I woke to find him gone from the bed, but not far away. The door was open and in the next room, he and Hyl’n were already deep in a discussion.

“Don’t lie to me, Girman. You had already put the monitor in him!”

“Did I not just say I intended to test him fully? I just did not expect him to take to it so quickly.”

“Testing him is one thing, preparing him for claiming is another! You intended to bond with him as master and slave all along.”

“Perhaps I did. It is not your place to question if I have changed my mind or my methods.”

“You speak true, damn you.”

“Hyl’n, you have done your best. You have served the disciplines well…”

“I wanted to be serving you!”

“I know. But you were not the one.”

“And he is.”

“Yes.”

“Then there really isn’t anything else I can say, is there?”

“Not to change my mind, no. But you are welcome to say quite a bit. You think I am unaware of your jealousy? Your hurt? I will do anything you require of me to see you settled in a good situation, you know. I owe you that. But I cannot be for you what you want of me.”

“Fine. Then here’s what I want. When we get to Chidras, you’re going to destabilize the current Kylaran governor, and put Shijjan in his place. And you’ll give your blessing to Shijjan putting me in collar for two years.”

“Only two years?”

“He’ll help me find someone right for me. If, that is, he doesn’t turn out to be the one.”

Girman chuckled. “I’d say you two are compatible after all the times he’s fucked you.”

“Wh-what are you talking about?”

“Hyl’n. Please. Do you really think I don’t know about each and every time you’ve been with him? I know better than you think. Bend over.”

“What? Don’t be…”

Then there was the sound, not of a struggle exactly, but some kind of shuffling and moving, their bodies on the floor, cloth, Hyl’n's breath… were they having sex? No. Next came a sad sound of dismay from Hyl’n and I heard Girman get to his feet.

Hyl’n's voice was shaky. “How… how long did you have that monitor in me?”

“Since your very first day.”

Then there was silence. I tried to think about all I had heard and learned in the past day. Hyl’n could have gotten his wish at any time… if only he’d truly applied himself? Girman was going to undermine a whole planet’s government… to make it up to him for replacing him with me? But I was asleep again before I could really think very much about anything.

When I woke again, my master was fucking me gently from behind, his arms around me and his cock inside me, holding me fast. There was much more going on here than I understood, but I understood the most important things, the most basic things. I was his now—in every way his—and that was all that mattered.

*The End*

Rest in peace, Brian. I’m going to miss you terribly.

Concert Review- Amanda Palmer & Grand Theft Orchestra at the Middle East 7-31-12

Hey, Generation X, I’ve got news for you. We’re forty-something, guys.

This fact was carried home to me tonight upon leaving the fantastic live show of Amanda Fucking Palmer and the Grand Theft Orchestra at the Middle East Downstairs. You see, to leave the place, you have to climb a flight of stairs. Apparently, my 45-year-old knees can stand up (and pogo) for four straight hours just like they could when I was 25. But boy do you feel the difference when it comes time to climb.

Ow.

Anyway, my other thought about the audience was rock on Amanda for getting all these people away from the Internet for a night. There was a wonderfully high nerd quotient in the crowd tonight, as well as a wonderfully high female-to-male ratio, which probably meant more female nerds than are usually gathered in one place outside of a Harry Potter convention (yes, I spend my vacations at Harry Potter conventions, what of it?). Like an HP con, there was quite an age spread, too, from the teenagers to those my age and those even older. No one seemed particularly dismayed by this. The common thread among us wasn’t “type” (punk, hipster, nerd, hippie, jock, all of the above, none of the above) or generation, but AMANDA FUCKING PALMER.

Speaking as someone who has spent a good bit of her life trying to get people out of their boxes and crossing the lines, I state for the record, this is awesome. We live in the post-modern age. In the arts, screwing around with the boundaries of genre, making mash-ups and subverting tropes, collage and juxtaposition as commentary, these are all the tools in the post-modern arts toolbox. Applying the post-tools is an art form itself. Music, fiction, visual art, dance, the tools apply to all. So isn’t it about time we started applying those tools to the categories of identity? Gender, class, “type,” etc? Society will still try to tell you who to be, but it’s more imperative than ever that we don’t allow others to define us or our worth, isn’t it?

Wait, sorry, this isn’t the time for a rant about how LGBT youth are still committing suicide or how women who aren’t empowered sexually aren’t empowered at all or any of my other soap boxes. Or is it? Well, let me tell you about the show, which as you might have guessed from my assessment of the audience–but which carried through the acts on the stage–was as affirming and category-busting as it gets. Details, photos, links, embedded songs, and much opining, under the cut:

The first of the opening acts was Jherek Bischoff with four “hot” strings from Boston in a quartet put together just for the show. (He’s putting together a different quartet in each city. The mind boggles. These are musicians who like challenging themselves.) Jherek played the electric bass while conducting the four strings. I can’t really describe what the music is like, but to me it sounded like Jherek listened to a lot of Adrian Belew and King Crimson on his way to and from violin lessons. In other words, I quite liked it!

Here, try this:

Kule Kule (Orchestral Version) by Jherek Bischoff

The quarter arrangements for this show were much gentler and lyrical, however. One comment he made to the audience was, “These songs were actually meant to be played in rock clubs but somehow they keep ending up in fancy schmancy places. So thank you for listening and for being so quiet and respectful.”

Next up came another member of GTO in another incarnation, the dance music group Simple Pleasure fronted by Chad Raines, doing his level best as the love child of Richard Simmons and Johnny Rotten. It was as if as a child Chad’s only two videotapes were an 80s workout video and The Decline of Western Civilization, Pt 1. With maybe a touch of Velvet Goldmine thrown in and The Pixies. Thoroughly entertaining in an over-the-top way, it was as if the trio made great dance music that at the same time made fun of being dance music. Chad plays guitar, and sometimes slide whistle (!), while his two compatriots rocked the electronics, keyboard and computer/sequencer. “We play dance music,” Chad said after their first song, “so, you know, fee free to act accordingly.” He also announced that the second song in the set, Copacetic, was about Providence, RI, which prompted cheers from many in the crowd. They also did a gay pride song, “LGBT,” which had the crowd chanting and singing along with a chorus that went something like “the W with the W and the M with the M” complete with hand gestures for W and M. It’s like YMCA reincarnated in a way that even jaded hipsters can appreciate.

I can’t embed it here, but swing over to CD Baby and listen to the sample of the track called The Tunnels, which they played, and you will see why I thought of David Bowie during the Simple Pleasure set, too: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/simplepleasure

Finally, there was one more small act before AFP&GTO took the stage, a solo piano piece by Tristan Allen. Tristan is a winsome, fey, and earnest young thing, Amanda produced an album of his previously, and well, you may as well just listen to this:

I-V by Tristan Allen

The audience at one point began to lose their focus, but he reeled them in, until moments of his playing prompted spontaneous cheers. It was like watching a great solo dance performance… except it was listening and it was piano and it was good.

Then came the main event, Amanda Palmer and the Grand Theft Orchestra. I was a backer of their Kickstarter (I think I was like #50, an early adopter…) so I’ve been hearing a few tracks from the album as they’ve been slipped out to us. They kicked off the show with the first song that was released back when (May), “Do It With a Rock Star.” It’s a powerful, turn-your-speakers-to-eleven kind of song anyway, but live it really thumps. (I believe you can still hear the song and download it if you wish, from Soundcloud? http://soundcloud.com/amandapalmer/do-it-with-a-rockstar-surprise) I remember the Twitter-splosion when it was released to Kickstarter backers and so many people were like “It so eighties!” Yes, and yet it’s so far BEYOND what it invokes. It is both of the genre and transcends it, like the best post-modern art. And a perfect way to launch an energetic, raucous set, which turned even more raucous when the second song they went into was an old Dresden Dolls favorite, Missed Me… which they promptly proceeded to deconstruct by switching instruments every other verse. Ah, it was brilliant. It was one way to take a highly dramatic song and camp it up, setting the stage for entirely different emotional notes to be hit than in the DD days, and still show off both the virtuosity and fun side of the band.

I can’t and won’t go through the whole set song by song. I also did not take much in the way of photos. These shows are meant to be experienced LIVE as performance art should be, not “captured” for later. You’ll never really capture the moment, except as a memory, as a feeling, as what it meant to you. That said, here’s one image I did take:

The references and threads and connections continue. I don’t know why they chose the name “Grand Theft Orchestra” but I see it as a nod to the incorporations of influences. Hiding one’s influences doesn’t add entertainment value: revealing them, and reveling in them, does. It was around the time I took the photo I realized there’s a way in which Amanda’s stage persona is the reincarnation of Tim Curry’s Dr. Frankenfurter from the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Reincarnations are never exactly the same, of course, but are a new embodiment of an ineffable spirit. You may have heard that the Harvard Square movie theater, where the Rocky Horror Picture Show has played at midnight since time immemorial (well, actually, only for the past 28 years…), had closed. But no art ever dies, it just gets incorporated into what comes next. (Although, by the way, I see the cast of Rocky is doing a show at the AMC Boston Common on August 4th at midnight, details at http://www.fullbodycast.org/).

Let’s see, what else. The strings came back for two songs. Amanda billed the first one as “the saddest song ever.” (Trout Heart Replica) But then before the second one (Bed Song), she said “I lied. THIS is the saddest song ever.” To which Michael McQuilken, the drummer, said, “Because Strings Equals Sad.” We were promised horns later, however, because horns=fun. And in fact later, there were horns! Some of the horn players had only just arrived and they had never rehearsed with the band. “What comes after DIY when you have stuff just happening like this?” Amanda asked. Someone shouted in response, “Last minute shit! LMS!” To which the crowd began chanting “LMS! LMS!” which turned into a kind of Paul Schaeffer “Late Night” moment in which the band spontaneously broke into death metal. This prompted a Neil Gaiman reference, which caused the band to spontaneously break into “Enter Sandman” by Metallica. No, I’m not kidding.

There was also talk of zombie mermaids, and taking everyone in Boston on a cruise to Nairobi. It was a chatty show. Which was very fitting for a kind of “hometown” gig and an audience full of eclectic nerds. There were many more songs from the new album, including Want it Back, The Killing Type, and Massachusetts Avenue (which evoked Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers), and also a few more choice faves from the Dresden Doll days. “Girl Anachronism” touched off the closest thing to an old style pre-mosh pogo/slam pit I’ve seen. (Moshing is prohibited at the Middle East.)

Okay, I should stop writing now and post this and go to bed. I have a chiropractor appointment in the morning and boy am I going to need it. I will note that if you want to catch them on tour, tickets are on sale now for the fall dates. In Boston they’ll be playing the Paradise Rock Club November 15-16-17, and I’ve been trying to buy tickets ever since getting home and Ticketbastard keeps telling me they’re undergoing maintenance. I will be grabbing them as soon as I can!



UPDATE: Got ‘em! I’ll be at the show on November 16th!

Hogwarts Alumni Party: Wiscon Rendition

Wow, that was fun, and very different from the last one of these parties I threw (at Arisia in January). This time I am at Wiscon, the Feminist Science Fiction Convention in Madison, WI. Here’s how the party went!

I decorated with some fun fabrics I had at home, one which is very ravenclaw (and added my scarf):

This time I gave out Ascendio tote bags only to those in costume or carrying wands. I am happy to report there were some lovely costumes (and wands) and I took a few photos of two of our best costume winners:



(You can see an “invisibility cloak” inactive hanging in the background below, too…)



One won the Magical Flowering Tea (Earl Grey flavor!) and one a Remembrall.

I also put some of my calligraphy art onto the walls. Not the originals but I printed out some of the photos of the art. I meant to give some away at the end of the night but forgot to. Oops.

In the food category I bought only the “good” flavors of jelly bean, and we also had edible wands (Pocky and Piroulines), and crackers with monster cheese (muenster), as well as some Muggle foods like iced animal crackers, chips, etc.

In the drink category, as you can see from the schedule, I perfected a new Butterbeer recipe.

This one has a secret ingredient that I purchased here in Madison, at Riley’s liquors not far from the hotel. I started with A&W Root Beer, added a dash of butterscotch Schnapps (aka Buttershots), and a few drops of MacGillucuddy’s Vanilla Schnapps as well. Topped with the secret ingredient, which is alcoholic, caramel-flavored canned Whipped Cream! (it apparently comes in vanilla, chocolate, and cherry flavors, too, but caramel was definitely the right thing for this recipe!) Finish with two waves of the wand and the incantation: “Vita dulce, vita sana.” (“A sweet life is a healthy life.”)

Worked like a charm. The bathroom was the “Potions Room.” I posted the recipe on the wall so people could make their own, but mostly I made them for people.

Another fun thing I did was a turned the full length mirror in the room into the Mirror of Erised, with a sign and some ribbons. I taped some paper alongside it and asked people to write down what they saw was their hearts desire. Here’s what they wrote:

-I see myself younger, but with the knowledge I have now.

-Happy snuggly smoochie times.

-I see me on a private island, with my family, having fun.

-Me, next year, with my novel completed and ready to sell.

-I see a me who has set goals and achieved them.

-More giant monsters fighting tanks with legs!!!

-I see myself as happy as now when I’m home.

-Full time freelance work on a livable salary! (OMG!)

-I see more people with butch haircuts.

-I see myself confident in myself, able to attract love, complete projects, and exude joy.

-I see a world with more butter beer

-I see a world where individuals are more important than “sorting” or categories or labels.

-I see myself with Cecilia Tan! :D

Then we had Divination. I did about 8 Tarot Card readings, which was amazingly fun. I always love that. At the party in January I never even had time to.

I expanded the slashy fanart slideshow on the wall some, to include more pairings I didn’t have before, including Snape/Lupin, and Sirius/Lupin.

There was one lovely person in a Gryffindor tie who had made their own wand (it had runes on the side and everything) but I never got to talk to her directly. I had saved an Ascendio tote bag for her. Perhaps I’ll recognize her tomorrow…

And a balloon artist came! And made us versions of FLuffy (three headed dog! every balloon artist can make a dog, right?) and a Norbert, breathing fire!

And with that, I must sleep! Good night and dream sweetly!

Teaser clip from The FanFiction Documentary (with me!)

Hansi Oppenheimer posted a teaser clip of the interview she did with me this past weekend for her documentary film on fanfic. Here it is from Youtube!

She’s trying to raise $1,800 to get to Ascendio in July to film interviews there, too, so if you want more info about the film, there’s lots of details at her IndieGogo page. (You don’t have to make a donation or order the DVD to see all the info…) Here: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/104624

Would you like a 5,000 word erotic short story for one dollar?

Only 24 hours or so left on my first-ever Kickstarter. Having made goal, my main purpose in still posting about it is to remind readers that now they’re running out of time to get the perks, like an exclusive 5,000 word erotic short story, “Daron’s Night Out,” which can be had for even a mere one-dollar chip in!

(The only other way people *might* get to read this story is if an anthology I submitted it to–Bad Boys–accepts it… in which case it’d be a year or so before it sees print. But no telling whether it will be right for the editor.)

Click to chip in! It closes tomorrow (May 22) a little after noon!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1458565937/darons-guitar-chronicles-omnibus-book

Guuuuys guys LOOKIT! My Kickstarter is Funded!!

We did ti! We did it! You did it. MY KICKSTARTER IS FULLY FUNDED. I went off to work at my taekwondo school tonight at 5:30 only $63 short of the goal. By the time I got home at 7:30, one magical backer (number 101!) splurged to top it up! Wooooooo! THANK YOUUUUU!!!

There are seven days left in the campaign, so you have only a week to get your autographed printed copy of the Daron’s Guitar Chronicles omnibus book or other time-limited swag. (Deets as usual here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1458565937/darons-guitar-chronicles-omnibus-book)

NLA Writing Award Winners! (The Prince’s Boy got honorable mention!)

Seriously, this one was just an honor to be nominated. I was up against some very good writers and some very fine books for this year’s NLA-I Writing Awards. I was concerned that perhaps the way The Prince’s Boy skirts non-consensuality and dubious consent might be a problem for some judges. But they saw fit to give it honorable mention. (And congrats to Jeff for winning!)

Laura Antoniou won a short story award, Mollena for essay, and tireless anthologist Rachel Kramer Bussel bagged both the win and the honorable mention in the anthology category. Gayle Rubin won the non-fiction book award.

Circlet Press is running a congratulations special for 50% off the ebooks of The Prince’s Boy to celebrate, both volumes 1 & 2 (catalog: http://www.circlet.com/?page_id=3), and of course the whole serial is still free to read on circlet.com.

In other news, the Kickstarter for Daron’s Guitar Chronicles is only about $550 from the goal with 10 days left! I’ll post more about that separately, but full deets here: http://kck.st/IlE7Bi

Here’s the full NLA-I press release:

WINNERS ANNOUNCED FOR NLA-I WRITING AWARDS

(Columbus, OH) — National Leather Association: International, a leading organization for activists in the pansexual SM/leather community, announced the winners, for works published in 2011, of its annual awards for excellence in SM/leather/fetish writing at its Annual General Meeting at Tribal Fire in Oklahoma City, OK on May 6, 2012. The judges received a record number of nominations this year, and voting in most categories was quite close.

The winner of the John Preston Short Fiction Award is Laura Antoniou for “The Man with the Phoenix Tattoo,” which appeared in Tristan Taormino (ed.), Take Me There. The honorable mention for short story went to Jeff Mann for “Jeff and Sam: After the Concert,” which appeared in Shane Allison (ed.), Brief Encounters: 69 Hot Gay Shorts.

The winner of the Samois Anthology Award is Rachel Kramer Bussel, Surrender: Erotic Tales of Female Pleasure and Submission (Cleis). The honorable mention also went to Rachel Kramer Bussel for Best Bondage Erotic2012 (Cleis), which reprinted a number of great bondage stories.

The winner of the Pauline Reage Novel Award is Jeff Mann for his first novel, Fog: A Novel of Desire and Reprisal (Bear Bones Books). The honorable mention went to Cecilia Tan for The Prince’s Boy: Volumes 1 & 2 (Circlet).

The winner of the Cynthia Slater Non-fiction Article Award is Mollena Williams for “Tables Briefly Turned, ” which appeared in her blog at: http://www.mollena.com/. The honorable mention went to Jack Fritscher for “Leather’s Burning Man: The History of the Folsom Street Fair, which appeared in the Bay Area Reporter.

The winner of the Geoff Mains Non-fiction Book Award is Gayle Rubin for Deviations: A Gayle Rubin Reader (Duke University Press). The honorable mention went to Jim Stewart for Folsom Street Blues: A Memoir of 1970s SoMa and Leatherfolk in Gay San Francisco (Palm Drive).

Nominations for the works published in 2012 will open later this year.

Stormtrooper Shuffle video

Basically, I just enjoyed this too much not to share it. I know there are other Star Wars parody music vids out there, but I just really liked this one…!