Liz Everly's Blog, page 48

Servant of the Undead, erotic zombie horror free read

Isabelle Drake’s Servant of the Undead

If you’re new to this serial, you can start with Part 1, “Do it.”

Part 18: “We’re done when I say we’re done.”

She interrupted him with bye now and clicked off. He slipped his phone into his pocket. Overheard, the sun slid behind a cloud and the street dimmed. Off to the west, a new bank of clouds hung in the sky, the edges an ashy gray, the centers dark. More snow. A lot more. A blue pickup passed, its tires making a hushed rumble as it turned away and headed toward the river. A yellow Brookline Cab Company van sat at the corner, its light on, a stream of exhaust chugging out the back. The thin trail of the cabbie’s cigarette dangling out the open driver’s side window spiraled up toward the darkening sky. The cabbie turned, catching Hayden’s gaze as he took a long draw. The man didn’t look away as he flicked the butt out onto the street. The window went up and the van rumbled off.

Hayden pushed away from the wall. When he reached his place, he scanned the rooftops and checked under the eaves. Empty. He jogged up the steps, swung open the door. Nothing. He wasn’t dumb enough to think she wasn’t around. He could sense her, feel her deep inside his body, thrumming in his blood. She would show up and there was nothing he could do to stop it. The best he could hope for was to be ready, brace himself for her effect on him and, most of all, keep Rachelle away.

Once he reached the top landing, he paused to slide his feet out of his snow-covered boots and set them by the wall. He dug out his keys and reached forward to put the key in the lock, but the door swung open slightly, enough for him to see the outline of Rachelle’s body. No fur coat this time. She was wearing a ratty Boston College sweatshirt, jeans and red wool socks.

She swung the door open, grabbed his arm and pulled him in. He stumbled, his stocking feet sliding on the wood floors. “Surprise, your friend from work was looking for you.”

“Hey there, Hayden.”

Mattie. On his couch, smug as ever. Everything about her was the same, except for the addition of a black leather jacket, zipped up high, completely covering her breasts.

“Wipe that look off your face.” She leaned back, arching her back as she crossed her bare legs. “I didn’t break in or anything. Your girlfriend found me sitting on the steps. She’s a sweetie, so she let me in. If it weren’t for her, I might be hiding under an eave, you know, just trying to keep warm.” She slid a smile over at Rachelle. “Your girl and I have been getting acquainted and I’ve been filling her in on everything.”

Hayden pulled in a breath and the scent—icy, metallic, unavoidable—rippled through him, nearly knocking him off balance.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were going to keep working on the zombie stuff?” Rachelle swept around the room to stand next to the couch, two feet from Mattie. “It sounds awesome.”

“I—I—”

Mattie cocked her head and ran her palm down her leg. “Did Bob tell you to keep it a secret?”

Hayden turned away from them, using the time it took to set down his book bag and take off his coat to get himself together.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell Rachelle anything at all about our research,” Mattie said.

“Our research?”

Rachelle came around to Hayden’s side. “Mattie told me some about it, it’s, it’s—”

“Sexy,” Mattie cut in, stretching out the word with a low husky growl.

Rachelle pulled on the hem of her sweatshirt as she glanced at Mattie. “That too, for sure. I was going to say, kind of creepy.” She glanced at Mattie. “But in a fun way.”

Hayden dropped into the chair across from the couch. “Creepy but fun?”

Mattie pointed a pale finger at Hayden. “I found one of those zombie tribes you were telling me about. Well, actually, I didn’t find it, so I haven’t seen it yet, but someone I know—and trust—told me about it. He saw it.” She dug into her coat pocket and pulled out a wadded-up sheet of brown paper that looked like a piece of a brown grocery bag. She flattened it against her knees. “A guy named Matthew gave this to me. We should go check it out.”

Hayden’s stomach clenched as Mattie pushed the map into Rachelle’s hand. Rachelle lifted the brown paper, her eyebrows twisting as she looked over the scribbled lines drawn with black and blue marker. She flattened it across her legs and leaned closer. “How far away is it?”

“About forty minutes,” Mattie replied.

“Rachelle? Do you actually think there’s a tribe of zombies camped out near here?” Hayden inflected his voice with disbelief. “That’s ridiculous.”

“It sounds fun, Hayden. Let’s go check it out.” She ran her fingertips along the paper’s edge. “What else do we have to do?”

“You want to go look for zombies? Seriously?”

Mattie unzipped her jacket, exposing the highest of the red wool straps binding her breasts. “If you don’t want to go, Hayden, the three of us could stay here. I’m sure we could find something to do.”

A wave of feral lust so intense it made him nauseous rolled through him.

Rachelle’s attention stayed riveted to the paper in her hands. “I know there’s no such thing as zombies, but the map looks amazing.” She waved it at Hayden. “Maybe it’s a bunch of people pretending to be zombies, that’d be great for you. You could take more pictures. Ask them questions. Bob would love that, right?”

Yes, he would.

But Hayden did not want Rachelle pulled in any deeper. This was his problem. Not hers. “The roads are too bad to drive.”

“They’re fine. I got here, didn’t I?” Mattie unzipped her jacket another inch. The swells of her breasts showed above the zipper.  “Or would you rather stay in?”

Rachelle flopped back into the cushions. “I don’t want to stay here. I want to see it. Whatever it is.” She rolled off the couch, stood. “We’ll take your car, Hayden. That’s why you have four-wheel drive, to do this sort of investigative journalism. Right?” Her phone started to buzz, so she dug into her purse and pulled it out. “It’s Daddy,” she said, turning away to answer it.

Hayden stood. “I need a drink.”

“Put a kettle on,” Mattie called after him. “We can take some tea on the drive.”

Hayden walked to the kitchen, heading straight for his bourbon. He didn’t bother with a glass. Three swallows later, Mattie came up beside him, surrounding him with her ice-cold scent. “You know we’re going.” She slipped over to the stove, picked up the kettle, shook it, then moved to the sink to fill it.

Hayden took another swig then put the bottle away.

She set the kettle on to boil then leaned on the counter, staring at him, green glimmer fogging her eyes. She unzipped her coat the rest of the way, pushed it open. She ran her fingertips across her nipples, making them peak beneath the red wool. When Hayden looked up from her breasts, her gaze was on his crotch.

“Like I said before,” she murmured, “we’re done when I say we’re done.”

***

Want more? The next part will be here next Sunday. Or, you can come over to the Servant of the Undead Wattpad page and read more for free right now. Unfamiliar with Wattpad? It’s an online community for readers and writers. Its filled with free fiction of all kinds. It’s easy to log in and get started; you can use your Facebook account.

Until next time, follow Lady Smut, we’re always here to inform, entertain, and keep you up to date.

***

Isabelle Drake writes erotica, erotic romance, urban fantasy, and young adult thrillers. Best Friends Never, her newest release is the first in the Cherry Grove dark YA series.

Sexy Saturday Round Up

Okay Fall — anytime you want to wrap us up in your pretty colored leaves and let the temperatures dip, we’re completely ready! Waiting to bust our your sweaters and scarves? While you’re waiting, we’ve got some fun for you. Expand your mind this week with groovy news about all the smexy.  Enjoy….

From Madeline:

Wanna go to Kink Camp? Here’s a audio story about a guy who went….and here’s the rest of his story.

Want the dress, the cake, the limo–but not the guy/gal? Alas, marrying oneself is now actually a thing.

Why do we do stupid things? And why do we do most of them in Vegas?

World War II pilot Elaine Harmon breaks one last barrier at Arlington National Cemetery. (Sniff!)

How one cop tracked down her former abuser and got him to confess on tape.

Tim Gunn cries disgrace! Calls designers out for not making clothes that fit American women.

From Elizabeth Shore:

Want to participate in a sex study? Researchers are looking for you.

WikiHow really does teach you anything, including the best way to do your Kegel exerises.

Guy, are you jonesing for some awesome Skype sex? BroBible offers you tips for how to do it.

And let’s not forget the ladies! Cosmo offers its own set of tips for the gals to try.

Here it is, guys, your new favorite sex toy. Hint, it involves cashmere.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Goodnight innocence

Isabelle Drake’s Fetish 101

Who doesn’t love the sweet fairytale Sleeping Beauty? A beautiful woman, frozen in time, awaiting her true love’s, awakening tender kiss. Ahhh.

Recently, I stumbled upon a very different version of Sleeping Beauty. In this one, from 2011, the main character is a university student who needs cash. She replies to an ad and starts working as a series of erotic freelance jobs.

I started to wonder, did a little research, and sure enough this sleeping beauty thing is a fetish: somnophilia. In its simplest form, the somnophiliac seeks to awaken a sleeping person with erotic caresses, gentle non-violent touches. Some scholars speculate that this particular interest is related to the much less romantic necrophilia, the desire to have sex with dead bodies. Obviously in this case the goal is not to awaken the sleeping but rather to take advantage of their incapacitated state.

It was difficult finding scholarly work on this topic but I did find an article from Psychology Today that offers some analysis. “Although somnophilia appears to have some characteristics in common with necrophilia, the two syndromes do not necessarily reflect the same underlying pathology. Using Freudian theory, Calef and Weinshel speculated that underlying somnophilia was the desire to return to the maternal womb, and that somnophiliacs had unresolved Oedipal complex issues, fixations on pre-genital stages of psychosexual development, and castration anxiety. However, as with almost all psychoanalytic theory, it is hard to design any research to either confirm or deny such speculations.”

Carolyn Fay’s of the University of Virginia, explores the sinister side of this fetish. “Contemporary sleep fetish culture is driven by the idea that the sleeping person is an absent person…To the fetishist, sleep is that perfect moment when consciousness is evacuated, leaving a living, breathing fragment, worthy of love.” [Those who seek to actualize their desire to have intercourse with a sleeping person may use drugs to maintain the unconscious state] “for if the person wakes up, the fantasy and the fetish object become lost.” (2002).

That’s all very dark. Whatever happened to the sweet, delicate princess trapped under the glass? Is that innocence gone forever?

After some looking, I found House of the Sleeping Beauties (2006). Plot info from IMDb: Edmond, a man in his sixties whose wife has recently passed away, is told about a secret establishment where men can spend an entire night in bed alongside beautiful, sleeping young women, who stretch, roll over and dream, but never awaken. Bedazzled by their seductive yet innocent tenderness, but distressed about the reason for their deep sleep, he delves into the mystery of the house of sleeping beauties.

The film is German and the only trailer I could find is without subtitles, but I don’t think you need to understand the words to understand the story or main character.

What have we learned? The Sleeping Beauty fetish is out there and until some of the other fetishes we’ve explored here on Lady Smut this one comes in extremes. From sweetly romantic to darkly dangerous.

Keeping you up-to-date and informed is what we do here at Lady Smut. So follow us. We know what you like.

~~~~

Isabelle Drake writes erotica, erotic romance, urban fantasy, and young adult thrillers. Best Friends Never, her newest release is the first in the Cherry Grove dark YA series. You can follow her serial SERVANT OF THE UNDEAD here, every Sunday on Lady Smut.

My Girl Crush on Gong Li & Why Miami Vice Is The Crime Film of the Future

by Madeline Iva

I was thinking the other day, i.e. doing the dishes, and watching Miami Vice - Unrated Director's Cut[image error]MIAMI VICE (the movie, not TV show) staring Gong-Li, Colin Farrell, and Jamie Foxx.  [SPOILERS abound below—you’ve been warned.]

FIRST LET US DISCUSS THE OUTRAGEOUS HOTNESS FACTOR OF THIS MOVIE: I mean really. Jamie Foxx. Damn. Colin Farrell–mullet, mustache and all, with those big brown eyes—damn. And Gong-Li. I’m a little gay for Gong-Li. If I had to sleep with one of them, I think Gong-Li would be my first pick, but I wouldn’t say no to a foursome.

The love story in the center of Miami Vice - Unrated Director's Cut[image error]MIAMI VICE is like the rich gooey filling at the center of a chocolate bon-bon.  So good, and then it’s gone.  Whenever I finish watching the movie on DVD, I walk around afterwards a little dazed, still living in the movie, still clinging to that mood of desperate longing.

The film has many wonderful aspects, yet MOSTLY I’M OBSESSED OVER GONG LI’S CHARACTER. Which is not to say it’s a perfect movie. Do I believe she’s Cuban-Chinese? Nah. Do I care? Not really, because while her accent isn’t so great, she is helping to eradicate the role of “the girl” in crime film movies.  Her role transcends decades of stereotypes.

SHE’S PART OF THE GANG – NOT JUST A TOY  So many of the small female roles in crime films are accessories—these women characters are there to lounge about on couches looking bored, sexy and rich. I cannot stand these women roles.  They are trophies, an equivalent to a car or designer piece of furniture and with about as much personality.

No, in this film, Gong Li is the number two in command. When the undercover cops meet face to face with the representative of the cartel, Jose Yero, and his instincts start to pick up on Colin Farrell—that something’s not quite right about him—It’s Gong Li’s character, lurking in the shadows who tells Jose to the cut the shit, stop wasting their time. She’s an integral part of the plot—the cartel’s white collar money manager, and she helps call the shots in collaboration with the king pin.

HER RELATIONSHIP WITH THE BAD GUY: It’s got some murky corners, admittedly. Michael Mann doesn’t take the time to spell things out from A-Z. She’s with the bad guy, yes as his business partner/employee, but not just that.   They’re involved.

Montoya, the drug king pin, has brown bedroom eyes, and there are little flourishes to this small role that are compelling.

However, she points out to Colin Farrell that they’re not married. She says doesn’t need a husband to support herself or to own a house. And we’re left to fill in the blanks however we want. Open relationship? It’s okay if it’s just physical? Later, she strait up tells king pin that she’s slept with Colin Farrell. Not to hurt the bad guy—she tells him to clarify her actions, and to avoid secrets as they discuss their path forward in doing business with the team.  Yet neither does she explain her reasons why to him.  He’s free to interpret it however he wants.

Me? I’m just thrilled to death that our bad-girl-good-girl is not drawn along that false dichotomy of worthy monogamous partner/slut.  And her actions are pivotal to the plot. Towards the end, it’s her emotional betrayal that determines everyone’s fate.

WILD CARD!  Jamie Foxx’s character Ricardo Tubbs, warns Colin Farrell’s character, Crockett at one point that “she’s may be many things…but in the end, she’s with them.”

And she is with them – until she and Colin have such hot chemistry that she’s with him too.

They meet in a business setting. They trade just one long look that no one sees the second time they meet, and when the time comes he goes for it. He offers to talk to her about business, one on one. Instead of answering, she says she wants a ride on his boat. Then she asks him what he likes to drink. He’s a fiend for mojitos so off they to Havana Cuba (her home ground, not his) where they dance and dive deeply into one another until Sonny is not sure which way is up.

But in their short time together, whether it’s business or personal–and they go back and forth between the two with extreme fluidity—they are peers. They are collaborative. It’s written into the script with a bit of clunky-ness, but they play it out better that it’s written—and I LOVE IT!   Their doomed relationship—the hotness—the there’s-no-way-this-can-end-well desperation: I just wiffle that sh** up.

I am also left with another kind of longing. I want to write stuff as diverse as this movie. I want to show a couple (though perhaps a pair that’s a little less doomed) who lose nothing of their smexy twisty factor from the characters being on an even plane. Sigh.

OTHER REASONS WHY I LOVE THIS FILM: the characters—the multi-dimensional, multi-cultural, hot, and mostly very rational characters are what I totally fall for. Yes, visuals are lush and grand—Miami at it’s stormy, dramatic best. The soundtrack is full of moody feels that adds to it all. But it’s the characters—always the characters that I come back to.

CRIME FILMS OF THE FUTURE: Michael Mann provided a diverse cast in a setting that calls out for diversity: Miami. He made a crime film that’s a convincing mixed stew of race and gender. In painting his cast with a melting pot brush, he doled out a heaping portion of the power, the action, the leadership, and the romance to the POC’s and the women.

The result is that all of the characters have agency—not just the leads, not just the white people, not just the men.

Jamie Foxx may be a supporting role, (i.e. he gets a bit less screen time than Colin Farrell), but he’s not a side kick. He has a relationship as well—and if you think they’re all set from the beginning, you’d be wrong. His girlfriend plays a major role in the plot—and yes, her life is at stake at one point, but she is not in any way a victim. She’s part of the team, she has a job, and she is the one who determines the way forward in the face of threats they face.

“That’s not what happens. What will happen is… what will happen is I will put a round at twenty-seven hundred feet per second into the medulla at the base of your brain. And you will be dead from the neck down before your body knows it. Your finger won’t even twitch. Only you get dead. So tell me, sport, do you believe that?”

THEN THERE’S THAT ONE SCENE — MY FAVORITE SCENE: It coulda been a guy doing the scene. It could have been Ricardo or Crockett rolling under the building, drilling a hole, inserting a camera, and going into the bad guy’s lair first. Instead Michael Mann gave this role to a woman on their team. The next moment is a tense stand off as Gina goes up against a guy with a bomb trigger ready to blow them all up. It’s such a bad-ass scene. It’s definitely on the level of the best Dirty Harry moment—but it’s underplayed, explosive and elegant all at once. In other words–it’s the BEST EVER!!!! My favorite moment in the movie, truly.

THE BAD GUYS HAVE DEPTH AND COMPLEXITY:

The bad guys are Hispanic, Chinese, and White supremacists. They work together as bad guys do when they’re focused on making mega amounts of cash. And while the white bad guys are completely repugnant, the POC bad guys are almost as hot and interestingly complex as the main characters are.

EVERY SINGLE MINOR ACTOR WAS SO CRAZY GOOD:

I feel like I could hold an Oscars award just for the category of best supporting actor in this one film. There are so many contenders: Gina, the team member whom I described above. The police commander, Martin Castillo, who gets some great lines. (My sweetie and I will occasionally quote his lines to each other from time to time.) There is no one in the entire cast who is not brilliant.

John Ortiz — the most unsung brilliant actor in Hollywood today.

However, the standout performance for me is John Ortiz who plays Jose Yero. This guy is a tremendous character actor with an enormous range. He is sadly unsung in Hollywood. You’ve probably seen him in the Silver Lining Playbook, and if you have, you’d have a hard time recognizing him in this movie. He takes a repugnant role and makes it so compelling, interesting, and charismatic. He brought a depth of emotion to a psychopathic pig. And!!! He did it with no words, just looks–just in the way he interacts with people.

So check out Miami Vice - Unrated Director's Cut[image error]MIAMI VICE if you haven’t already.  It’s a movie you can revel in over and over again.

Meanwhile, if you want some desperate hotness in your life, follow us at Lady Smut.

Six-Figure Book Contract – A Horror Story

By Elizabeth Shore

Although writers say, and it’s true, that their pursuit of writing is primarily for the satisfaction they get from a creative outlet, who among us hasn’t indulged in the dream of landing a big book contract? A nice hefty one, enough so we can quit our day jobs and do nothing but churn out book after fabulous book, generating still more big hefty deals! From the outside looking in, it’s an enviable dream, one to which we can all aspire. We’d land on the New York Times bestseller list, have tons of marketing muscle promoting our work, even get our faces on daytime TV! Getting a big book contract would be just awesome. Right?

Meet Dan Blum. Dan’s a writer, a poet, and a blogger. I first came across his hilarious blog, The Rotting Post, (“The Finest in Literate Snark”) when I saw a piece he’d published about badly written sex scenes. As it turns out, however, Dan is also a novel writer. His new book, The Feet Say Run is due out in December. But several years ago, Dan wrote what he describes as a “post-modern sex comedy” novel entitled lisa33. For his effort, Dad snagged a well-known agent who handed him a dream: a book contract with major New York publisher Viking and a six-figure advance. Dan was on his way to author nirvana! But not so fast…

LadySmut: Hi Dan! Thanks for agreeing to tell your story to our Lady Smut readers. Let’s start, as all good yarns do, at the beginning. Before being offered the deal for lisa33, you’d been trying to get a “serious” novel published but without success at that point. Was lisa33 born out of frustration with the publishing process?

Dan Blum: Not exactly.  I have to be genuinely inspired by an idea to put the time into writing it.  I had always enjoyed both humor and serious fiction.  With the dawn of the internet, the world of the chatroom and instant messaging and all of the anonymous flirtation and sex that it led to, I felt like there was this new world that was fascinating and comic and sexy and worth exploring.

LS: You’d put massive time into writing a serious novel and couldn’t get a publisher, yet you dash off a sex comedy in three months and get offered a six-figure advance. You must have been surprised that it was picked up so quickly, but were you also angered that this lighter novel got so much attention over your other fiction?

DB: It was very frustrating – particularly because I wanted to shout out, “This isn’t me,” or rather, “This is just one small side of me.” But there was no way to explain it. lisa33 was what got published and so it was all I was known for. It was me.

LS: The new agent you signed with for lisa33 was bursting with confidence and enthusiasm – did you have any hesitation at all in having him represent you? One of those “if it’s too good to be true” moments?

DB: I definitely wondered if he was for real. It happened incredibly quickly once he picked it up, all a bit dizzying. And I hadn’t really focused on what it would feel like to have that book actually published. I had a young family, was living in suburbia. After it came out, I remember waiting to meet my son at the elementary school bus stop, and wondering what all these mothers who were waiting with me thought of me. If I was the neighborhood creep.

LS: You wrote that Molly Stern, Viking’s Editor at that time, was a big fan of the book but wanted a couple of changes – like making it even funnier! Can you talk about those conversations? Did you feel like it was a collaborative process with her?

DB: Molly was a great supporter and if the rest of Viking had been behind the book in the way Molly had been, it would have been an entirely different outcome. At the same time, for anyone who writes humor, hearing, “Make it even funnier,” is a bit like a personal trainer hearing, “I want to be taller.”  There is only so much one can do. I have only good things to say about Molly, but I never really felt secure at Viking. I was always trying to please, trying to prove how accommodating I was, never quite there.

LS: When things started turning sour with Viking, where was your agent in all of this? Was he going AWOL on you at the same time?

DB: Yes. As it later turned out, he was off on a cocaine bender.  A good agent will not only represent the book through its sale to a publisher, but also make sure the publisher is doing the right things and assist some in promotion.  Just when I really needed that, my agent flat went missing. I never really knew what had happened until he published his own memoir about it.

LS: (And for which he himself received a giant advance. Ach! But I digress). So, OK. You’ve got an agent you can’t reach and a pub date that keeps getting pushed back. Did you at any time think about pulling your book from Viking?

DB: The short answer is no. I just didn’t know enough at the time to know what my options were. And I continued to get reassurances from Viking. “It will all work out in the end.” “We’re still behind it.” Etc.

LS: I’m curious about the contract you were offered. Since your agent had gotten a bidding war going for the book, it seems like Viking, the eventual winner, would have offered you a multi-book deal. Was that not the case? And if not, what did your agent have to say about that?

DB: This was something that in retrospect I should have insisted on. I’m confident we could have gotten it. But my agent was focused on getting top dollar, not on the other aspects of the contract, and it never came up.

LS: So your pub date gets later and later, your agent disappears…did you ever consider quitting writing altogether after this happened? It seems like the emotional toll would have been monumental. How did you get through it?

DB: For years I not only stopped writing, I even stopped reading – or at least stopped reading fiction. I just wanted nothing that reminded me of the publishing world. But at the same time, you need perspective. There are worse tragedies, worse misfortunes in the world than a writer getting screwed over by the publishing world. It’s been over a decade now, I have a new novel coming out, a humor blog I’m having a great time with, and it is a distant memory – like a bad break-up might be after a decade.

LS: I have to ask the “lessons learned” question. When you look back on the experience, what were those lessons for you, if any? Were there things you would have done differently?

DB: That’s a tough one. You finally get your dream, and it is not what you expect at all. In fact…nothing changes. You have the same friends. Enjoy the same things. Are frustrated by the same things. Maybe the dream is an illusion. There is no amazing, joyous, completely fulfilling other life out there. There is just this one. So make the most of it.

LS: Lastly, congrats on the upcoming book! The Feet Say Run is due out from Gabriel’s Horn Press in December (read the blurb here). Are you at all concerned that history will repeat itself with the new book?

DB: Thanks. But no, I don’t really worry about history repeating because I did not get a huge advance, and have not been told I would be famous. So I am much more grounded. If it’s a big success, that would be wonderful. If not, then so be it.

LS: Anything else to share with our Lady Smut writers and readers?

DB: Well, first of all, to the writers:  best of luck to all of you. As the site is all about erotica, I would add that I often feel we’re in an era of disappointingly prudish serious fiction. Shouldn’t sex be a topic to be explored like any other? In lisa33 I tried to mix erotic, comic and serious elements in a story about real people. I would leave it to others to decide whether or not it works for them. But I will say this:  I wish more writers today were willing to try it.

Amen to that! Thanks so much for joining us today, Dan. Great having you here.

For Dan’s own account of what happened, dash on over to his blog. You can access the harrowing tale here.

Elizabeth Shore writes both contemporary and historical erotic romance. Her newest book is an erotic historical novella, Desire Rising, from The Wild Rose Press. Other releases include Hot Bayou Nights and The Lady Smut Book of Dark Desires. 

 

 

Playing Our Own Game … and Keeping Our Headphones On

Ovid actually wrote about game many, many years ago. He’d have mentioned headphones if he could have.

By Alexa Day

Long ago, I would have been able to tell you the number to the pay phone in the center of the local mall, in the town where I grew up. This was back when there was such a thing as a group of pay phones in the center of the mall. In fact, I think the mall itself is gone now. But at one point, I had that number memorized.

Why?

At that point in time, long ago, I had a lot of people rolling up to me to ask for my phone number. It’s hard for me to say that; it sounds kind of immodest. I don’t think I was getting any more attention than any other woman moving unattended through the world. I do have a fairly high opinion of myself, but I don’t think I’m so hot that dudes are running across the street for my number.

At any rate, men were at that time coming up to me to ask for my number and then not leaving me alone until they got a number. So I gave them the number to that pay phone. They wrote it down — this was in the Dark Ages, so everyone had papyrus but not a cell phone — and then they’d go about their merry way. Most of these guys wouldn’t ask for a name, just the number. Sometimes, just to screw around with them, I would give them the number and then ask who they planned to ask for when they called. But most of the time, they would take that phone number and go, and I’d be free to go to the bookstore or wherever I was headed.

A few things have changed since then. I’m older, so I’m not getting as much attention. (Don’t feel bad. It’s nice to go to the bookstore uninterrupted.) Guys are using their cellphones to validate your number, so if you give them the mall phone, they’ll find out before calling. (I do still have a throwaway number, though. I wish I could say more, but for now, it’s enough to say it exists.) And a few women have paid with their lives for refusing male attention, which is a sad commentary on our modern society.

On top of that, the pick-up artist has become more visible.

I was introduced to the cult of the PUA, thankfully, by a male friend, with whom I had an arrangement. He knew I was dating, so he loaned me his copy of The Game, a book that looked like the Bible and which he treated with similar reverence, and told me to read it. “I just want you to know this is out there,” he said.

The world of the PUA has changed a little since The Game, but its essence is simple. The PUA appeals to the man who has so little confidence in his ability to attract the women he’s after that he needs to rely on tricks (called “game”) in order to fool women into sleeping with him. The success of the PUA stems from a few factors, one of which is that there is no shortage of men lacking in confidence. I do think the PUA community is overlooking a couple of important things, though.

1. Women can — and often do — read.

2. Women tell other women about the bizarre, pitiful, and downright abhorrent behavior they observe in men. We love doing this. We name names. We assign nicknames. We build a rich oral tradition. This has always been true of women. Somewhere out there, an archaeologist is about to discover an ancient text entitled The Song of Julia and the Nameless Dipshit Who Said He Would Give Her a Chocolate Every Time She Pleased Him, as if She Were a Dog and Not a Woman.

I’m grateful to my friend for telling me about the world of the PUA, especially because he had to know I would be angry when I read The Game. He put himself at risk to make sure I knew the PUA existed, and he didn’t have to do that. Because of his generosity, I know enough to keep the PUAs on my radar. That isn’t hard to do because, as I’ve suggested, they don’t seem to think that we are capable of reading about Game, silly creatures. They don’t even lock their forums down, so if a girl wanted, she could absolutely Google the stupid little chocolate game I mentioned above and find out exactly how it’s supposed to work.

Game doesn’t make me angry anymore, though. For one thing, it helps that I can see Game coming from miles away. But ultimately, the real problem is not Game itself.

It’s Wack Game. Wack Game is a problem for women and the men who employ it.

The Chocolate Stupidness is a prime example of Wack Game. In it, a dude is supposed to show up on a date with a bag of chocolates. When you ask the predictable question, “Why the hell did you bring a bag of chocolates with you?” the response is that he’s going to give you a chocolate every time you please him.

That used to make me really angry. Because seriously, what the hell is that? Does that ever work on anyone? And what’s to stop me from really making a scene over how ridiculous this is?

Now I see that it’s not my fault this person’s game is pitiful. It would only be my fault if I lowered myself to that level.

Into this environment rises The Modern Man, Dan Bacon, with his advice about how to get a woman to remove her headphones and subject herself to game.

I personally am unfazed by this, but then I’ve seen some incredibly wack game in my time. Still, I’m not surprised by the backlash to Bacon’s advice. I’m a little saddened that he’s edited the article under the negative pressure, but I understand negative pressure.

I’m not here to yell at Bacon, though. Because honestly, his advice is the same advice I would give to both men and women in this situation.

Let’s be objective about this for just a second.

Yes, the article does suggest that these men walk up to us and make a little gesture indicating that they want us to take our headphones off. Bacon recognizes that the presence of those things in our ears sends a message: I do not wish to interact with you. I myself have worn headphones connected to nothing at all just to send that message.

But you know what? If I’m wearing my earbuds connected to the inside of my jeans and some dude comes up to me with wack game, I just make get-away-from-me gestures and keep it moving. No problem. It works just as well as the number to the pay phone in the middle of the mall.

Indeed, Bacon himself advises men that we might decide to leave those headphones in. “If you notice that she doesn’t want to take off her headphones and doesn’t seem interested in talking to you at all,” he writes, “just respect that and leave the interaction without trying to talk to her any further. While it’s perfectly normal for a man and a woman to talk to each other, it’s not appropriate or fair for a guy to annoy a woman who doesn’t want to talk to him at all” (emphasis mine).

By the time we reach that place in the article, Bacon has made this point three times, and that was before he edited it.

Bacon makes another important point: if I actually take those headphones off, DO NOT BRING WACK GAME INTO THE SILENCE. Your continued presence is now an imposition on my free time. You have to be ready to add value to this interruption. The man who cannot do that, Bacon writes, shouldn’t even start.

Hallelujah. I can’t count the number of times I’ve advised male friends about not wasting our time. We have other things going on with our lives. Just don’t even start if your game is pitiful.

Let us be clear. I am not endorsing the use of PUA game to fool one’s way into another’s pants. I merely recognize that I cannot stop it. Because I can’t stop it, I’ve chosen to focus on avoiding or deflecting it. In other words, I can’t stop the fledgling PUAs of the world from waving their hands and making their headphones-off gestures. But I can absolutely make the decision to keep my headphones in and keep it moving.

Women moving through the world by themselves have always had to defend their spaces from unwanted male attention. I shouldn’t have to prepare myself to deal with annoyance (or physical danger) just to get from my couch to the bookstore. But sadly, that’s been a constant in our society for a pretty long time. I wonder if we’d get better results if we focused more on our own boundaries than on the erratic behavior of others. After all, I can’t control what other people are doing to and around me, but I have absolute control over my response to it.

Are you following Lady Smut?

Servant of the Undead, erotic zombie horror free read

Isabelle Drake’s Servant of the Undead

If you’re new to this serial, you can start with Part 1, “Do it.”

Part 17: “You’ve had enough when I say you’ve had enough.”

Hayden grabbed a towel from the rack and set it in the sink. Hot water splashed across it, soaking it quickly. Once it was completely wet, he turned off the water, wrung it out, then wrapped it into another towel and carried them both to the bedroom. Rachelle was under the covers, only her face visible above the quilt. The sexual haze was gone from her eyes, and she was smiling.

Weighed down by the guilt over what he’d gotten her in to, Hayden climbed onto the bed and pulled the covers from her body. She was still naked, and the shadowy light coming in through the now vacant window outlined her body.

“See something you like?” she asked.

Hayden took the hot, wet towel from inside the dry one. “I like it so much I want to take good care of it.”

“I thought you already did.”

Hayden turned away and pressed the corner of the steaming, damp towel to the top arch of her foot. “Is it too warm?”

She stretched her legs and placed her feet side by side. “You may proceed.”

He took his time, working gradually up the insides of her thighs, then circling around her pelvis. By the time he wiped the moisture off with the dry towel, she’d fallen asleep. He tossed both towels across his laundry basket and climbed in beside her. Outside, the wind-filled snow continued and the wind howled. Icy flakes brushed the windowpane.

Hayden rolled over and tried to concentrate on the curves of Rachelle’s shoulders and the sexy slope of her neck. He set his hand on her throat and felt the light, steady beat of her pulse.

He couldn’t do that again. He had to get rid of Mattie.

He rolled over, trying not to think about what she’d done to him in the bathroom—lifting him up, setting him on the edge of the sink. Owning him with her emotionless caress. His cock responding to her touch—even when he didn’t want it to. A shiver worked up from the soles of his feet, the rousing tremor, a mixture of fear and sexual need. It wasn’t right to feel this way. It wasn’t human and there wasn’t anyone alive who could help him.

Unless someone else had been where he’d been and knew what he needed to know.

He wasn’t Mattie’s first. He did his best to quell the roll in his stomach as he accepted what he’d become. A toy. A necessary pet. A sexual servant.

What had become of the others who filled the role before him?

Killed? Did they become like her, a creature that preyed on others?

If she hadn’t come in through the library window when she had, interrupting the research he’d been doing for the newspaper, maybe he’d have the answers. He’d know what to do to protect himself or at least how to keep Rachelle safe. Hayden tossed again, turning away from the storm and the thing that lurked in it.

No, not thing.

Things.

***

“It’s fantastic stuff. You’re going to get more of it, kid.”

Hayden cringed at the word kid. Holding the phone to his ear, he hopped off the curb and leapt over a snow bank, offering his reply as he stomped across the nearly empty street. “This whole zombie thing is going to blow over. The snow will melt, the comic convention will end, and everyone will get back to their life and forget about zombie tribes and life-or-death sex.”

“Life-or-death sex. I love it! Write that down, use it for the next headline.”

Hayden reached the corner and jumped over another pile of snow. “There doesn’t have to be another headline.”

“What’s your problem, college boy? You too good for zombies?”

Not by a long shot, apparently.

“This is the best angle we’ve had in months and you know it. Get your ass back over to the library right now, or wherever you dug that stuff up, and write me something about that life-or-death sex. And more pictures. I want more of those.”

Images of the previous night slashed through Hayden’s mind as Bob continued. “You do this for me, I’ll do something for you.”

Hayden halted in the middle of the sidewalk. He’d never heard that, or anything close to it, come out of Keeler’s mouth. “I’ll look into it tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Yeah, I’m all the way over in Cambridge,” he lied then continued with the truth.  “I spent hours talking to that widow you set me up with. I got some useable stuff. Papers that prove she’s the long-lost daughter of Punchy McLaughlin.”

“All right. Fine. That does sound choice. But I want you back on the zombie sex stuff first thing in the morning. Don’t even come in to the office. Just get your ass out of bed then get me something hot. And fresh. You know I want it fresh.”

“Yeah. I know.” After Bob grunted a goodbye, Hayden ended the call but didn’t slide his phone into his pocket.

He started walking again, making a list of things he wanted from Keeler. Money. A better desk. Most of all, he wanted access to the man’s connections. Even though he ran a tabloid, Keeler knew people at the Globe and a few at The Times–people who could offer him a better job. A real job. An introduction to a couple of them, that’s what he wanted most.

The streets were amazingly clear and the snow had stopped that morning, but the going was still slow and his legs ached from stepping over uneven heaps all day. Once he was on Commonwealth, a block from his apartment, he stopped, leaned on a low wall sheltering some steps and hit Rachelle’s number.

She answered on the first ring. Her greeting was the usual, but the tone in her voice made the hair on the back of his neck rise.

“You okay?” he asked. “Something going on?”

“Going on?” She laughed, then added, “What would be going on?”

He scanned the nearby rooftops and checked under the eaves. “You sound…different.”

Her laugh lowered, the sound making a shiver roll down his back. “I have you to thank for that.”

More images from the night before tumbled through his mind. Some good. Most not. “So everything’s okay?”

“Stop with that already. When will you be home?”

“Soon.” He watched a van from Cindy’s Market drive past, another lie forming as he started to speak. “Hey, I’m expecting a package. You didn’t happen to see a delivery person hanging around out front, or anyone looking for me, or knocking on the door, anything like that, did you?”

“No. Hurry up and get home.”

Hayden kicked a clump of snow. It rolled a few inches then hit another. There was so much snow. It was everywhere, piled high and stacked in corners. And the wind, constant and biting. There was no escaping. “I am on the way, but I have to write up an interview and do…some other stuff when I get there.”

“Other stuff, huh?” She laughed tightly, the sound rolled through him, making his muscles twitch.

Rachelle ignored both his comment and the silence. “Come over to my place as soon as you get home.”

“I—”

***

Want more? The next part will be here next Sunday. Or, you can come over to the Servant of the Undead Wattpad page and read more for free right now. Unfamiliar with Wattpad? It’s an online community for readers and writers. Its filled with free fiction of all kinds. It’s easy to log in and get started; you can use your Facebook account.

Until next time, follow Lady Smut, we’re always here to inform, entertain, and keep you up to date.

***

Isabelle Drake writes erotica, erotic romance, urban fantasy, and young adult thrillers. Best Friends Never, her newest release is the first in the Cherry Grove dark YA series.

Sexy Saturday Round Up

Stop slogging right now–and celebrate your glorious Labor Day Weekend with Sexy Saturday Round Up!

From Madeline:

The tyranny of hugging.

China’s Kick Ass Female Emperor – a secret history

New Millennial True Confessions: She wanted her boyfriend to sleep with someone else, cause it turned her on.

Handsome weeping boys are a new thing in Japan.

From the Ass-Hattery files: Don’t wear that ginormic engagement ring if you want the job.

 

Cocks not glocks:

Nope! Actor bows out of playing super-hero after seeing Chris Hemsworth at screen test:

From Heroes & Heartbreakers: Snape Lust–10 reasons Snape is the hottest Harry Potter character of all.

Woman spends time with her new crystal dildo

Who sexts and what it’s sez about you and your relationship.

 

Madame X & My Book Hangover: Guest Post by Thien-Kim Lam

Madame X: A Madame X Novel[image error]

Click to buy.

Hello Dear Readers! Madeline here.   I am exceptionally excited to have Thien-Kim Lam guest post on our blog today.

Got Body Issues? Try Being NAKED AND AFRAID

How much do they pay these women?

by Madeline Iva

It’s been around three years, but I only recently discovered NAKED AND AFRAID through an article about ‘The Women of Naked & Afraid’. My first thought was: Women naked and afraid? WTF?

HOW THE SHOW WORKS:

Then I found out that it’s not just a woman who has to strip down and be alone in the hostile wilderness, she also has to have some stranger dude along with her so they can be naked and afraid *together*.

We’re experiencing a whole new world of gender equality—a show in which BOTH men and women get to reveal their butt cracks on national television.

For a moment I thought that being paired with a complete strange naked man was what made the women contestants afraid. But no, it’s not nearly so f***ed up as that. Or…is it?

YEAH, YOUR MOM WAS NAKED BEFORE MILLIONS OF TV VIEWERS

So what type of woman does this?

The women from the show Naked & Afraid were interviewed in People Magazine. Do they get to use tampons? Hell yeah.

“How do your kids feel about you being naked on national television?” One women talked about her tweener son’s response. Let me interpret his comment: “Yeah, mom, you’re gonna do what you’re gonna do and *sigh*, I’m just a kid, I don’t get any say, so–whatever. Can I go now?”

I get the feeling that a fair amount of the women on this show need some fast cash.

Yes, a vegetarian on Naked & Afraid. Note her very high PSR score.

SURVIVAL SCORES/COMMON GENDER TROPES:  Contestants get an initial Primitive Survival Rating (PSR).  It’s based on what they bring to the situation–like camping experience and a love of skittles. It gets reevaluated at the end–almost always upwards a notch or two.

I’d say about half the women come from the army, police, or are marathoners, hikers, while a few grew up in semi-wilderness places like Alaska.  The ones with the lowest PSRs inevitably state in some chewy twang that they are in it out of pure cussedness.  The people in their lives think they can’t hack it. (Read grandfather, father, or whatever patriarchal sexist male is down on them.) Alas, gran-pappy may have some insight. These women start out full of sass and then crumple almost immediately.  One tapped out after four days because, as she so eloquently put it, “Bugs are crawling up my va-jay-jay.”

And the dudes? Survivalists – not all of them, but a fair heaping.  Hunters, etc.  Men who just don’t feel right if they haven’t killed something lately.  (And these women aren’t afraid? Gah. One guy shows his partner how the snake’s heart still beats after it has been decapitated and flayed.  Another guy talks about eating the bird’s guts–cause that’s where all the nutrients are.  A third guy twists off a bird’s head and then sucks hot blood from the neck.  Then he says “I didn’t know I was going to do that.” Finally, there is the guy who rejoices in smashing rats and talking in little rat voices to their carcasses. Creeeeeeepy!)

The common issue with a lot of these men are that they’re ‘cocky’, or ‘arrogant’ and express some pretty serious hang-ups like “I learned early on that the only one I can depend on is me.” Most of these women wouldn’t have lasted through a blind date with these guys, but they’re willing to be with them naked and hungry for 21 days.  How much are they paying these women?

You couldn’t pay me.

9 out of 10 of these creepy survivalist guys make it to the end and admittedly, make it fairly easy for his partner to get to the end as well.  These guys are not the spooners in the shelter at night.  But when things get tough, the tough do not like to go it alone.  The more troubles they encounter with their ‘useless’ partner–a flooding river say, or freezing temperatures–the more tightly bonded they seem to be by the end of the show.  In the end, they may be able to kill and eat things all by themselves, but that won’t stop them from breaking down and crying like little babies without a woman there to say “Nut up, dude,” and keep them sane.

Here are some common gendered tropes we see on Naked and Afraid:

–Man hacking at something with the ubiquitous machete –

–Woman lying about looking limpid.  Woman crying.

–Man shouting into the dark to the f***ing wild cat/alligator/boar/unknown beast to stay the f**k away.

–Woman off vomiting—usually because she’s the first to succumb to dehydration.

–Woman covered in blisters from whatever f***ing poisonous thing is about two feet away from their camp.

–Man failing as a hunter (often).

Usually you see a woman having suggestions and the man regarding these ideas as utterly useless. In these situations, the woman often hides her irritation.  Sometimes she’s right, and sometimes she’s wrong, but I’ve yet to see a show where the guy suddenly says “Oh my god! What was I thinking? That’s a brilliant idea!” Or a show where the guy suggests something and the woman says “Yeah, no, that’s dumb. We’re not doing that.”

Not spooning. Not *yet*.

HOW THIS SHOW PUTS THE ‘REALITY’ IN REALITY TV:

There are just some things you cannot fake.

It’s not called Naked and Alone.  Many a show includes the call for Medic! Frankly, I’m surprised that no one has died yet.

Meanwhile, the contestants tap out and the voice-over is like: “Can his partner survive sixteen days naked and alone?” She’s not naked and alone–there’s a camera crew following her all day long.

However, I don’t care if four or five people are following me during the day–it’s at the night that the real fun starts.  Howler monkeys are the serial stalkers in the wild–hooting through the long hours of total darkness, promising death, terror, and blood. Yi!

A camera crew somewhere off in the dark isn’t going to prevent that curious hippo from stampeding your shelter and killing the squishy folk inside.  Not only did the hungry hippo visit contestants in the dark, it ate one of the show’s cameras as a midnight snack.  I know, sounds funny, until four tons of hangry is aiming at your frail little dehydrated body.  Then it’s not.

But aside from that—people are naked on TV—ya can’t fake that. It’s so interesting that they added a little jewelry to the experience. Like the contestant is saying: I’m not a naked perv—I’m a hippie! (Though maybe it contains some kind of tracking device?) And how interesting/bizarre that Discovery Channel is doing this.  Do they need a spike in their ratings or what?

ULTIMATELY, WHAT IS THIS SHOW ABOUT? Man vs. Nature? Nah.

The average person will die without food after 21 days–the length of the contestant’s stay in the wilderness.  However, they won’t last a week without water. So, inevitably contestants are placed near water and given a machete–though not always a fire starter.  If you’ve watched Bear Grylls at all, you know the three main things you need to do in the wilderness: STAY WARM, STAY DRY, STAY HYDRATED – This show is not really about that so much. Half the people don’t know what they’re doing.

For instance, because they couldn’t get a fire going, this one guy said “f**k it,” and drank from a waterfall.  The next day, since he seemed okay, his partner drank from the waterfall too.  It’s only then that a voiceover tells us, “Cholera bacteria can take five days to make you ill.” There’s a perverse sense of dark humor at work here.  We’re meant to watch people be idiots and suffer–no doubt about it.

Most contestants seem to understand the need for water, but they often don’t work hard enough on their shelter to stay warm and dry the whole time.  Rain creeps in, the fire goes out, and ruh-roh! without a fire, the animals draw near, mosquitos bombard them, and it’s freezing cold.  All three are an invitation to sleepless nights and misery.

So is this show about Narcissist Nudists vs. America’s Blatant Appetite for Voyeurism? Yes indeed!

Or is it about stupid people? Maybe. Or maybe it’s all about expecting the unexpected–like the guy who brings forth his one survival tool: duct tape.

I don’t think contestants do this show to see if their Primitive Survival Rating improves.  They do it to have done it – or to get bizarre marriage proposals.

SO WHY IS THIS SHOW SO ADDICTIVE? In the same way that watching HOARDERS motivated me to clean my house and be thankful I wasn’t as bad as that guy, this show makes me thankful every day that I don’t have bugs crawling up my va-jay-jay.

Not to mention the extreme gratitude I now have for chairs, houses, clean running water, a fridge, clothing, safety, fruit, all the snacks, air conditioning and ALL THAT OUR PUBIC HAIR DOES FOR US.

Michael is naked and irritated–cause of all the bugs.

Mostly though, this show inspires the would-be survivalist in me.  I want to learn how to make a bow fire, i.e. learn to start fire by rubbing two sticks together.  Like, I’m seriously thinking about going out into my yard and trying it.  I don’t want to eat critters or cover myself in mud, but I’d love to build a raft, or an above ground shelter, and learn some orienteering.

WHAT I’VE LEARNED FROM WATCHING:

HOW BEAUTIFUL THAT ISLAND PARADISE LOOKS: HOW ROTTEN IT IS TO LIVE IN.  After watching the show I have a real appreciation for the unappreciated sh** photographers must go through.  It’s not just venomous snakes, scorpions, and alligators everywhere, it’s the various giant beasts who view you as their reality entertainment for the night. But wait–there’s more! The trees and vines, bark and sap can sting you, melt your skin, scar you, cause you hideous rashes and pain.  Add to that the crazy weather swings where the temperature is sweat box hot in the day, but swinging down to below hypothermia levels at night.
THE BUGS ARE REAL. VERY REAL. A lot of the time in Africa you see N & A’s starving contestants standing around instead of sitting. Why are they standing, you ask? Because the ticks will swarm them if they lie down. After watching this show, I feel like the glorious African Savannah is just one tick carpet. This one extremely cute guy named Michael said there was a day time set of bugs to deal with and then a whole other set of bugs came out at night. Ugh, ugh, ugh!

And finally, I learned that out in the wilderness 3. CUTE CRITTERS ARE ALWAYS THE FIRST TO DIE. :<

You may be naked, but don’t be afraid of following us at Lady Smut!

Madeline Iva writes fantasy, paranormal, and contemporary romance.  Her novella ‘Sexsomnia’ is available in our LadySmut anthology HERE, Her fantasy romance, WICKED APPRENTICE, will be out November, 2016.