M. Christian's Blog, page 74
October 17, 2011
Know The 1%
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October 13, 2011
Authors Promoting Authors And Me
Very cool!
Check out this interview I did for the great Authors Promoting Authors site ... and thanks, Sascha, for the opportunity!
I took a few minutes to speak to a cohort in crime, M. Christian to pick his brain about erotica, writing and the business in general. Hopefully the answers he provided will add value to your writing and push you into erotica if you've leaned that way but were uncertain.
He took a few minutes to answer some questions.
1. You've been around erotica for a long while. What has changed from your perspective?
Has it really been THAT long ... sheesh, I guess it has: my first story was in FutureSex (1993), which was then picked up for Best American Erotica 1994 ... and it all just sort of took off from there. As for what's changed ... well, the biggest thing, naturally, has to be the ebook revolution. Back in the bad old days it used to take pornographers far too long to haul sexually explicit materials up four and flights of stairs – but now everything is internet this and digital that. But, I tell ya, it really is for the better: ebooks are simply better for everyone, everywhere. For readers they are cheaper and don't take any room (and no shipping costs); for publishers that are easier and (again) cheaper; and for writers they mean we all can work without having to constantly worry about needing to sell, sell, to make up our advances – AND we can do all kinds of new books because publishers can take risks they couldn't before because doing so was just too expensive.
2. How does one achieve the title Acknowledged Master of Erotica?
To be honest you make it up. Alas, the headache of the new world of publishing is that it has become harder to get yourself noticed, what with all these new publishing venues. So sometimes a writer has to do whatever it takes to get them to rise above the rest. That's not to say that writers should ever lie to get themselves heard – that's never a good idea – or become an arrogant so-and-so – which is a worse idea – but that just staying and writing in your garret doesn't work anymore (sigh).
[MORE]
I took a few minutes to speak to a cohort in crime, M. Christian to pick his brain about erotica, writing and the business in general. Hopefully the answers he provided will add value to your writing and push you into erotica if you've leaned that way but were uncertain.
He took a few minutes to answer some questions.
1. You've been around erotica for a long while. What has changed from your perspective?
Has it really been THAT long ... sheesh, I guess it has: my first story was in FutureSex (1993), which was then picked up for Best American Erotica 1994 ... and it all just sort of took off from there. As for what's changed ... well, the biggest thing, naturally, has to be the ebook revolution. Back in the bad old days it used to take pornographers far too long to haul sexually explicit materials up four and flights of stairs – but now everything is internet this and digital that. But, I tell ya, it really is for the better: ebooks are simply better for everyone, everywhere. For readers they are cheaper and don't take any room (and no shipping costs); for publishers that are easier and (again) cheaper; and for writers they mean we all can work without having to constantly worry about needing to sell, sell, to make up our advances – AND we can do all kinds of new books because publishers can take risks they couldn't before because doing so was just too expensive.
2. How does one achieve the title Acknowledged Master of Erotica?
To be honest you make it up. Alas, the headache of the new world of publishing is that it has become harder to get yourself noticed, what with all these new publishing venues. So sometimes a writer has to do whatever it takes to get them to rise above the rest. That's not to say that writers should ever lie to get themselves heard – that's never a good idea – or become an arrogant so-and-so – which is a worse idea – but that just staying and writing in your garret doesn't work anymore (sigh).
[MORE]
October 11, 2011
"Technophile" From The Bachelor Machine
Continuing my excerpt-fest, here's a juicy little queer cyberpunk number from my collection,
The Bachelor Machine
(out now in a new edition by Circlet Books).
Technophile
I almostlost my virginity at fifteen, but his batteries ran low. He'dshowed me the unit, zipped open tight jeans and flashed out the Long Thrust.State, top-of-the-line, implant augmentation. He'd had himself castrated forthe best science had to offer. I wanted it. The instant I saw it, the polished,burnishing, gleam of it. I wanted it bad. Now. Hard. Fast.My squatwas old-wired 220 so its juice-pack couldn't take the flow. In playback,wet-memory, I see him – planes of his face dead in the cheap florescents, as hehunts in his bag for the adapter he didn't bring. In theend, we lit expensive candles and he put his mouth on my cock. Hismouth was shocking wet, not like my dry hand or the spit sometimes to make iteasier. It was too slippery, and too hot. I was blazing with shame and selfpity, eyes fake closed and instead watching his head dip down. First a quickspray of over-the-counter anti-viral fog, then it was a wet test embrace on my cock, gentle kisses, then awet socket over my cock. Brent,friend of my dealer. I'd been taking longer to slip the black market yen, andtaking the tiny plastic bags, just to watch him stand and pose: first timespotting was like that first time there in my squat. Thick leathers hiding oldcop impact vest, skin-jeans slit to show off log legs, too-tight tee ("YANKEEIMPERIALIST VICTIM") paint on a stone-mason chest, face cragged andstreet-scarred but with museum planes. Eyes then on the street as they were inmy recall of the squat – hidden and refrigerator cool behind convex mirrors ofmandatory shades. He may have been handsome, might have made girls wet, boyshard – but I'd heard, and then he'd heard that I'd heard and there in thatalley he zipped and flipped it out. Fuck, I wanted it in me right there.I wassmiling when he lifted from my hardening cock. Smiling back at his smilingface, at my smiling face reflected in his shades. We smiled at each otherreflected over and over as he gently stroked my cock, kissing it, and sucking amouthful of the ridged head (Momma thought cutting sanitary).Thesquat was cold and my futon too fucking hard on my back. My jeans were bunchedaround my legs and my back was crooked funny against my pack. So I put my handon his head and pushed myself down. So mature for that first time, socontrolled from the burning pity and disappointment of that unit, dead andpowerless between his legs.Slopeddown onto the futon, I let him suck my cock. The kisses got harder, his tonguebegan to play with the tip, that little hot hold in the end that sometimes feltlike prickles and sometimes like warm steel. I was hard from his mouth there,from his hand gently holding and stroking, from his breath stirring the coolskin from my shaved balls and belly. I was deep inside, eyes really closed,letting his hands and mouth work me up and higher and harder. My ballsbegin to swell and heat. Something in me wanted, and because, I guess, I letmyself put a hand on the crotch of his hot jeans. He closed them on my fingers,trapping them in a denim vice as he made negative moans around my hard cock. I lethim suck more, letting myself burn deep and pissed and disappointed. I felt histeeth slide every inch across the skin of my shaft. I couldn't decide if it wason purpose or accident. And when I thought about it, anticipating it, or tryingto block the hardness of his teeth it just added something to it. I was harderand harder.I wantedsomething again, I could have what I really wanted but this would do – and fromthe heat of him on my cock I pushed a sweet little virginal "please"out. I opened my eyes and saw that I had slid myself down to his jeans. I couldsmell it, that sweet sting-smell of brand-new plastic and his sweat through thethin denim of his jeans. No negative this time. No refusal for the poor virginboy. The sucking never stopped the teeth didn't glide (so I guessed he must bepretty fucking good at this), but the hands came out and slipped the jeansdown.Made inthe best labs in Shadow Tokyo. Fucking pure lines – a curving, shining downwardturning tusk of high-impact plastic nested into a shield of gleaming blackchrome. I traced the inert row of decorative indicators that ran along the sideof the shaft (as he sucked the head of my cock, just the head, stoking me wetand thumbing like a metronome beating against my balls and stomach), feelingtheir dimples, and wanting them to light. I kissed the dead head of his unit,tasting a lingering of lube from the last time he'd fucked with it (boy, girl,fist, unknown). He wassucking so hard now – the coolness was gone, and all I could feel was his hotmouth sucking and licking and sometimes (there, there) the hard glide of thosespecial teeth in that trained mouth. His fist was still pumping, and my stomachached the good hurt of a rough jerk-off. The headof his unit was a different plastic, something so close to skin I could seewith half an eye the unit just a steep pole, an extension of his cock. The headwas anatomically correct and lifelike. I stokedit, wishing so hard that it was juiced up and likewise. I wanted it so bad.Wanted it in my own mouth, wanted to really taste that old lube down deep in mythroat. Didn't know how to do it, natch – but knew I could I wanted it so bad.Laying there on the hard futon, smelling of years of mildew, I wanted my virginass to take this sweet machine. Iwanted it. I could feel it – so hard and buzzing softly with all thosemarvelous features. Closing my eyes, I could feel it, a great background to hissucking sucking of me. Yeah, I felt it, laying there. Could imagine so perfect,crisp and clear as I raised my ass up to meet it. I closed my eyes and dreamedit – that first great touch of it against my asshole as I opened for it,swallowed it and felt the spasmic vibrators, the asymmetric rhythms, the neuralstims all start to work on the inside of my asshole. I imagined him taking medeep and hard, only letting the Long Thrust (the Extension Delux Model with theDynamic Action Features, coupled with the hottest Joy Buzzer software) do someof the fucking. My ass, I thought, would go all jelly, my cock would be, andwas, steel. I could feel him slide it into me and out and in and somethingpowerful would start in my ass and it would travel up my spine and out throughmy cock via my brain – just like they said in their ads on the net – Fuck,fuck, fuck ... I wanted it in my ass and I wanted it in my mouth – but theshaft stayed down, the head stayed slightly cold – like a hot-dog from a brokenand cold vending machine. Too latefor the reality, I was lost in my fondling, his sucking, the beautiful cocknessof the Long Thrust. I felt myself start, felt the rocket start to climb fromballs to tip. I could feel the come start to shake and close my eyes. But Ikept them open and stared: a Long Thrust Delux there, in the crotch of hishairy thighs. This was one – right in front of me. This was one. Come jettedfrom the head of my cock, into his sprayed, disinfected mouth. The come was ashard and hurt as much as my fucking cock. My legs danced. He put his hand on mycold chest as he pumped, sucked and jumped his fist along my shaft. I came andcoated his mouth with my stickiness.I came,all wet and sticky, and all I could think of was Long Thrust between his legs –dead, cold and inert.
TechnophileI almostlost my virginity at fifteen, but his batteries ran low. He'dshowed me the unit, zipped open tight jeans and flashed out the Long Thrust.State, top-of-the-line, implant augmentation. He'd had himself castrated forthe best science had to offer. I wanted it. The instant I saw it, the polished,burnishing, gleam of it. I wanted it bad. Now. Hard. Fast.My squatwas old-wired 220 so its juice-pack couldn't take the flow. In playback,wet-memory, I see him – planes of his face dead in the cheap florescents, as hehunts in his bag for the adapter he didn't bring. In theend, we lit expensive candles and he put his mouth on my cock. Hismouth was shocking wet, not like my dry hand or the spit sometimes to make iteasier. It was too slippery, and too hot. I was blazing with shame and selfpity, eyes fake closed and instead watching his head dip down. First a quickspray of over-the-counter anti-viral fog, then it was a wet test embrace on my cock, gentle kisses, then awet socket over my cock. Brent,friend of my dealer. I'd been taking longer to slip the black market yen, andtaking the tiny plastic bags, just to watch him stand and pose: first timespotting was like that first time there in my squat. Thick leathers hiding oldcop impact vest, skin-jeans slit to show off log legs, too-tight tee ("YANKEEIMPERIALIST VICTIM") paint on a stone-mason chest, face cragged andstreet-scarred but with museum planes. Eyes then on the street as they were inmy recall of the squat – hidden and refrigerator cool behind convex mirrors ofmandatory shades. He may have been handsome, might have made girls wet, boyshard – but I'd heard, and then he'd heard that I'd heard and there in thatalley he zipped and flipped it out. Fuck, I wanted it in me right there.I wassmiling when he lifted from my hardening cock. Smiling back at his smilingface, at my smiling face reflected in his shades. We smiled at each otherreflected over and over as he gently stroked my cock, kissing it, and sucking amouthful of the ridged head (Momma thought cutting sanitary).Thesquat was cold and my futon too fucking hard on my back. My jeans were bunchedaround my legs and my back was crooked funny against my pack. So I put my handon his head and pushed myself down. So mature for that first time, socontrolled from the burning pity and disappointment of that unit, dead andpowerless between his legs.Slopeddown onto the futon, I let him suck my cock. The kisses got harder, his tonguebegan to play with the tip, that little hot hold in the end that sometimes feltlike prickles and sometimes like warm steel. I was hard from his mouth there,from his hand gently holding and stroking, from his breath stirring the coolskin from my shaved balls and belly. I was deep inside, eyes really closed,letting his hands and mouth work me up and higher and harder. My ballsbegin to swell and heat. Something in me wanted, and because, I guess, I letmyself put a hand on the crotch of his hot jeans. He closed them on my fingers,trapping them in a denim vice as he made negative moans around my hard cock. I lethim suck more, letting myself burn deep and pissed and disappointed. I felt histeeth slide every inch across the skin of my shaft. I couldn't decide if it wason purpose or accident. And when I thought about it, anticipating it, or tryingto block the hardness of his teeth it just added something to it. I was harderand harder.I wantedsomething again, I could have what I really wanted but this would do – and fromthe heat of him on my cock I pushed a sweet little virginal "please"out. I opened my eyes and saw that I had slid myself down to his jeans. I couldsmell it, that sweet sting-smell of brand-new plastic and his sweat through thethin denim of his jeans. No negative this time. No refusal for the poor virginboy. The sucking never stopped the teeth didn't glide (so I guessed he must bepretty fucking good at this), but the hands came out and slipped the jeansdown.Made inthe best labs in Shadow Tokyo. Fucking pure lines – a curving, shining downwardturning tusk of high-impact plastic nested into a shield of gleaming blackchrome. I traced the inert row of decorative indicators that ran along the sideof the shaft (as he sucked the head of my cock, just the head, stoking me wetand thumbing like a metronome beating against my balls and stomach), feelingtheir dimples, and wanting them to light. I kissed the dead head of his unit,tasting a lingering of lube from the last time he'd fucked with it (boy, girl,fist, unknown). He wassucking so hard now – the coolness was gone, and all I could feel was his hotmouth sucking and licking and sometimes (there, there) the hard glide of thosespecial teeth in that trained mouth. His fist was still pumping, and my stomachached the good hurt of a rough jerk-off. The headof his unit was a different plastic, something so close to skin I could seewith half an eye the unit just a steep pole, an extension of his cock. The headwas anatomically correct and lifelike. I stokedit, wishing so hard that it was juiced up and likewise. I wanted it so bad.Wanted it in my own mouth, wanted to really taste that old lube down deep in mythroat. Didn't know how to do it, natch – but knew I could I wanted it so bad.Laying there on the hard futon, smelling of years of mildew, I wanted my virginass to take this sweet machine. Iwanted it. I could feel it – so hard and buzzing softly with all thosemarvelous features. Closing my eyes, I could feel it, a great background to hissucking sucking of me. Yeah, I felt it, laying there. Could imagine so perfect,crisp and clear as I raised my ass up to meet it. I closed my eyes and dreamedit – that first great touch of it against my asshole as I opened for it,swallowed it and felt the spasmic vibrators, the asymmetric rhythms, the neuralstims all start to work on the inside of my asshole. I imagined him taking medeep and hard, only letting the Long Thrust (the Extension Delux Model with theDynamic Action Features, coupled with the hottest Joy Buzzer software) do someof the fucking. My ass, I thought, would go all jelly, my cock would be, andwas, steel. I could feel him slide it into me and out and in and somethingpowerful would start in my ass and it would travel up my spine and out throughmy cock via my brain – just like they said in their ads on the net – Fuck,fuck, fuck ... I wanted it in my ass and I wanted it in my mouth – but theshaft stayed down, the head stayed slightly cold – like a hot-dog from a brokenand cold vending machine. Too latefor the reality, I was lost in my fondling, his sucking, the beautiful cocknessof the Long Thrust. I felt myself start, felt the rocket start to climb fromballs to tip. I could feel the come start to shake and close my eyes. But Ikept them open and stared: a Long Thrust Delux there, in the crotch of hishairy thighs. This was one – right in front of me. This was one. Come jettedfrom the head of my cock, into his sprayed, disinfected mouth. The come was ashard and hurt as much as my fucking cock. My legs danced. He put his hand on mycold chest as he pumped, sucked and jumped his fist along my shaft. I came andcoated his mouth with my stickiness.I came,all wet and sticky, and all I could think of was Long Thrust between his legs –dead, cold and inert.
October 4, 2011
"Love" From Filthy Boys
Just '
cause
, here's a story from my recently-released queer collection, Filthy Boys. I have a certain fondness for this story as it was written as a kind of thanks to all the gay men I've known - and who've changed my life for the better.
LOVE
"You could havestayed with me," he'd said the first time I went to Seattle to see him, butstayed in a motel. I hadn't even thoughtof it, and so the disappointment in his eyes.I never went back. After he got promoted there wasn't any point.You could have stayed with me evolves into a fantasy in whichthose four days play out differently: an invitation made earlier, my discomfortof staying in someone else's house miraculously absent. Fresh off the plane, strap digging intomy shoulder (I always over-pack), out of the cab and up a quick twist of marblesteps to his front door. A knock, ora buzz, and it opens.A quick dance ofmutual embarrassment as I maneuver in with my luggage, both of us saying the stupidthings we all say when we arrive somewhere we've never been before. Him: "How was your flight?" Me:"What a great place."Son of a decorator,I always furnish and accessorize my fantasies: I imagine his to be a simple one-bedroom. Messy, but a good mess. A mind's room, full of toppling books, squaresof bright white paper. Over the fireplace(cold, never lit) a print, something classical like a Greek torso, the fine linetopography of Michelangelo's David. A few pieces of plaster, three-dimensionalanatomical bric-a-brac on the mantel. A cheap wooden table in the window, bistro candle, and Don't Fuck With The Queen in ornate scripton a chipped coffee cup.Dinner? No, my flight arrived late. Coffee? More comfortable and gets to the point quicker. We chat. I ask him about his life: is everything okay? He replies that he's busy, but otherwisefine. We chat some more. I say that it's a pleasure to work withhim. He replies with the same.I compliment him,amplifying what I've already said, and he blushes. He returns it, and then some, making me smile. My eyes start to burn, my vision blurs,tears threatening. I sniffle and standup.He does as well,and we hug. Hold there. Hold there. Hold there. Then,break – but still close together. Lipsclose together. The kiss happens. Light, just a grazing of lips. I can tell he wants more, but I'm uncomfortableand break it but not so uncomfortable that I can't kiss his cheeks. Right, then left, then right again.But his head turnsand we're kissing, lips to lips again. Does he open his first or do I? Sometimes I imagine his, sometimes mine. But they are open and we are kissing, lips and tongue, together. Hot, wet, hard.But not on my part. Wet, definitely – in my mind it's a goodkiss. A generous and loving kiss. Hot, absolutely, but only in a matter ofdegrees as his temperature rises and mine does in basic body response.Not hard on my part,but I am aware of his. Between us,like a finger shoved through a hole in his pocket, something solid and muscularbelow his waist.Does he say something? "I want you," "Please touchme," "I'm sorry," are candidates. I've tried them all out, one time or another, to add differentflavors, essences, spices to that evening. "I want you," for basic primal sex. "Please touch me," for politerequest, respect and sympathy. "I'msorry," for wanting something he knows I don't."It's okay,"I say to all of them, and it is. Notjust words. Understanding, sympathy,generosity. All of them, glowing inmy mind. It really is okay.I'm a pornographer,dammit. I should be able to go on withthe next part of this story without feeling like ... I'm laughing right now, notthat you can tell. An ironic chuckle:a pornographer unable to write about sex. Not that I can't write about myself, that making who I am – really – thecenter of the action is uncomfortable, because I've certainly done that before. I've exposed myself on the page so manyother times, what makes this one so different?Just do it. Put the words down and debate them later. After all, that's what we're here for, aren'twe? You want to hear what I dream heand I do together. You want to lookover my mental shoulder at two men in that tiny apartment in Seattle.I'm a writer; it'swhat I do, and more importantly, what I am. So we sit on the couch, he in the corner me in the middle. His hand is on my leg. My back is tight, my thighs are corded. Doubt shades his face so I put my own handon his own, equally tight, thigh. Irepeat what I said before, meaning it: "It's okay."We kiss again. A friend's kiss, a two people who like eachother kiss. His hands touch my chest,feeling me through the thin cloth of turtleneck. I pull the fabric out of my pants with a few quick tugs, allowingbare hands to touch bare chest. Helikes it, grinning up at me. I sendmy own grin, trying to relax.His hand strokesme though my jeans, and eventually I do get hard. His smile becomes deeper, more sincere, lit by his excitement. It's one thing to say it, quite anotherfor your body to say it. Flesh doesn'tlie, and I might have when I gave permission. My cock getting hard, though, is obvious tissue and blood sincerity."That's nice,""Can I take it out?" "I hope you're all right with this." Basicprimal sex, a polite request including respect and sympathy, and the words for wantingsomething he knows I don't – any one of them, more added depth to this dream.My cock is out andbecause he's excited or simply doesn't want the moment and my body to possibly getaway, he is sucking me. Was that sohard to say? It's just sex. Just the mechanics of arousal, the engineeringof erotica. Cock A in mouth B. I've written it hundreds of times. But there's that difference again, likeby writing it, putting it down on paper (or a computer screen) has turned diamondinto glass, mahogany into plywood.Cheapened. That's the word. But to repeat: I am a writer. It's what I do. All the time. Even about love – especially about this kind of love.He sucks my cock. Not like that, not that, not the way you'rethinking: not porno sucking, not erotica sucking. This is connection, he to I. The speech of sex, blowjob as vocabulary.I stay hard. What does this mean? It puzzles me, even in the fantasy. I have no doubts about my sexuality. I am straight. I write everything else, but I am a straightboy. I like girls. Men do not turn me on.Yet, in my mind andin that little apartment, I am hard. Not "like a rock," not "as steel," not as a "telephonepole," but hard enough as his mouth, lips, and tongue – an echoing hard, wetand hard – work on me.The answer is clearand sharp, because if I couldn't get hard and stay hard then he'd be hurt and thescene would shadow, chill, and things would be weighted between us. That's not the point of this dream, whyI think about it.So, onto sex. Nothing great or grand, nothing from everysection of the menu. A simple actionbetween two men who care about each other: he sucks my cock. He enjoys it and I love him enough to lethim. That's all we do, because it'senough.He sucks me for longminutes, making sweet sounds and I feel like crying. He puts his hand down his own pants, puts a hand around his owncock. For a moment I think about askinghim if he wants help, for me to put my hand around him, help him jerk off. But I don't. Not because I don't want to, or because I'm disgusted, but becausehe seems to be enjoying himself so much, so delighted in the act of sucking me,that I don't want to break the spell, turn that couch back into a pumpkin.He comes, a deepgroan around my cock, humming me into near-giggles. He stops sucking as he gasps and sighs with release, lookingup at me with wet-painted lips, eyes out of focus. I bend down and kiss him, not tasting anything but warm water.I love him. I wanted to thank him. I hope, within this dream, I have. The night that didn't happen but could have.For me, writing isjust about everything: the joy of right word following right word all the way tothe end. The ecstasy of elegant plot,the pleasure of flowing dialogue, the loveliness of perfect description. Sex is good, sex is wonderful, but storyis fireworks in my brain. The reasonI live. The greatest pleasure in mylife.And he has givenme that, with nearly flowing letters on an agreement between his company and I,between his faith in my ability and myself. He looked at me, exposed on the page of a book, in the chapterof a novel, in the lines of a short story, and didn't laugh, didn't dismiss or reject. He read, nodded, smiled, and agreed to publish.Sex cannot measureup to that. Bodies are bodies, buthe has given me a pleasure beyond anything I'd felt: applause, and a chance to domuch, much more with words, with stories.He doesn't have aname, this man in my fantasy. Therehave been a lot of them over the years, and a lot more in the future, no doubt. Gay men who have touched me in ways no onehas ever touched me before, by making love with my soul through their support ofmy writing. Each time they have, thisfantasy has emerged from the back of my mind, a need to give them the gift theyhave given me: passion and kindness, support and caring, and pure affection.I worry about this. I worry that they won't understand, takethis secret dream of mine as being patronizing, diminishing them to nothing buta being with a cock who craved more cock. I've confessed a few times, telling a select few how I feel about them, howI wish I could do for them what they have done for me, to be able to put aside myheterosexuality for just an evening, an afternoon, and share total affection together.Luckily, or maybethere really isn't anything to worry about, the ones I've told, they smile, holdmy hand, kiss my cheek, say the right thing and to this day, even right now, makeme cry: "I wish we could too, but I understand. I love you too."Am I bi? I know I'm physically not – I simply don'tget aroused by men – but that doesn't mean I don't adore men, or for the ones Icare about, the men who have touched my soul through their support and affectionfor my stories and writing, I wish I couldn't change. More than anything I wish I could give them what they have givenme.With a cock or apen, with a story or hours of wonderful sex, it all comes down to one thing: love.
LOVE
"You could havestayed with me," he'd said the first time I went to Seattle to see him, butstayed in a motel. I hadn't even thoughtof it, and so the disappointment in his eyes.I never went back. After he got promoted there wasn't any point.You could have stayed with me evolves into a fantasy in whichthose four days play out differently: an invitation made earlier, my discomfortof staying in someone else's house miraculously absent. Fresh off the plane, strap digging intomy shoulder (I always over-pack), out of the cab and up a quick twist of marblesteps to his front door. A knock, ora buzz, and it opens.A quick dance ofmutual embarrassment as I maneuver in with my luggage, both of us saying the stupidthings we all say when we arrive somewhere we've never been before. Him: "How was your flight?" Me:"What a great place."Son of a decorator,I always furnish and accessorize my fantasies: I imagine his to be a simple one-bedroom. Messy, but a good mess. A mind's room, full of toppling books, squaresof bright white paper. Over the fireplace(cold, never lit) a print, something classical like a Greek torso, the fine linetopography of Michelangelo's David. A few pieces of plaster, three-dimensionalanatomical bric-a-brac on the mantel. A cheap wooden table in the window, bistro candle, and Don't Fuck With The Queen in ornate scripton a chipped coffee cup.Dinner? No, my flight arrived late. Coffee? More comfortable and gets to the point quicker. We chat. I ask him about his life: is everything okay? He replies that he's busy, but otherwisefine. We chat some more. I say that it's a pleasure to work withhim. He replies with the same.I compliment him,amplifying what I've already said, and he blushes. He returns it, and then some, making me smile. My eyes start to burn, my vision blurs,tears threatening. I sniffle and standup.He does as well,and we hug. Hold there. Hold there. Hold there. Then,break – but still close together. Lipsclose together. The kiss happens. Light, just a grazing of lips. I can tell he wants more, but I'm uncomfortableand break it but not so uncomfortable that I can't kiss his cheeks. Right, then left, then right again.But his head turnsand we're kissing, lips to lips again. Does he open his first or do I? Sometimes I imagine his, sometimes mine. But they are open and we are kissing, lips and tongue, together. Hot, wet, hard.But not on my part. Wet, definitely – in my mind it's a goodkiss. A generous and loving kiss. Hot, absolutely, but only in a matter ofdegrees as his temperature rises and mine does in basic body response.Not hard on my part,but I am aware of his. Between us,like a finger shoved through a hole in his pocket, something solid and muscularbelow his waist.Does he say something? "I want you," "Please touchme," "I'm sorry," are candidates. I've tried them all out, one time or another, to add differentflavors, essences, spices to that evening. "I want you," for basic primal sex. "Please touch me," for politerequest, respect and sympathy. "I'msorry," for wanting something he knows I don't."It's okay,"I say to all of them, and it is. Notjust words. Understanding, sympathy,generosity. All of them, glowing inmy mind. It really is okay.I'm a pornographer,dammit. I should be able to go on withthe next part of this story without feeling like ... I'm laughing right now, notthat you can tell. An ironic chuckle:a pornographer unable to write about sex. Not that I can't write about myself, that making who I am – really – thecenter of the action is uncomfortable, because I've certainly done that before. I've exposed myself on the page so manyother times, what makes this one so different?Just do it. Put the words down and debate them later. After all, that's what we're here for, aren'twe? You want to hear what I dream heand I do together. You want to lookover my mental shoulder at two men in that tiny apartment in Seattle.I'm a writer; it'swhat I do, and more importantly, what I am. So we sit on the couch, he in the corner me in the middle. His hand is on my leg. My back is tight, my thighs are corded. Doubt shades his face so I put my own handon his own, equally tight, thigh. Irepeat what I said before, meaning it: "It's okay."We kiss again. A friend's kiss, a two people who like eachother kiss. His hands touch my chest,feeling me through the thin cloth of turtleneck. I pull the fabric out of my pants with a few quick tugs, allowingbare hands to touch bare chest. Helikes it, grinning up at me. I sendmy own grin, trying to relax.His hand strokesme though my jeans, and eventually I do get hard. His smile becomes deeper, more sincere, lit by his excitement. It's one thing to say it, quite anotherfor your body to say it. Flesh doesn'tlie, and I might have when I gave permission. My cock getting hard, though, is obvious tissue and blood sincerity."That's nice,""Can I take it out?" "I hope you're all right with this." Basicprimal sex, a polite request including respect and sympathy, and the words for wantingsomething he knows I don't – any one of them, more added depth to this dream.My cock is out andbecause he's excited or simply doesn't want the moment and my body to possibly getaway, he is sucking me. Was that sohard to say? It's just sex. Just the mechanics of arousal, the engineeringof erotica. Cock A in mouth B. I've written it hundreds of times. But there's that difference again, likeby writing it, putting it down on paper (or a computer screen) has turned diamondinto glass, mahogany into plywood.Cheapened. That's the word. But to repeat: I am a writer. It's what I do. All the time. Even about love – especially about this kind of love.He sucks my cock. Not like that, not that, not the way you'rethinking: not porno sucking, not erotica sucking. This is connection, he to I. The speech of sex, blowjob as vocabulary.I stay hard. What does this mean? It puzzles me, even in the fantasy. I have no doubts about my sexuality. I am straight. I write everything else, but I am a straightboy. I like girls. Men do not turn me on.Yet, in my mind andin that little apartment, I am hard. Not "like a rock," not "as steel," not as a "telephonepole," but hard enough as his mouth, lips, and tongue – an echoing hard, wetand hard – work on me.The answer is clearand sharp, because if I couldn't get hard and stay hard then he'd be hurt and thescene would shadow, chill, and things would be weighted between us. That's not the point of this dream, whyI think about it.So, onto sex. Nothing great or grand, nothing from everysection of the menu. A simple actionbetween two men who care about each other: he sucks my cock. He enjoys it and I love him enough to lethim. That's all we do, because it'senough.He sucks me for longminutes, making sweet sounds and I feel like crying. He puts his hand down his own pants, puts a hand around his owncock. For a moment I think about askinghim if he wants help, for me to put my hand around him, help him jerk off. But I don't. Not because I don't want to, or because I'm disgusted, but becausehe seems to be enjoying himself so much, so delighted in the act of sucking me,that I don't want to break the spell, turn that couch back into a pumpkin.He comes, a deepgroan around my cock, humming me into near-giggles. He stops sucking as he gasps and sighs with release, lookingup at me with wet-painted lips, eyes out of focus. I bend down and kiss him, not tasting anything but warm water.I love him. I wanted to thank him. I hope, within this dream, I have. The night that didn't happen but could have.For me, writing isjust about everything: the joy of right word following right word all the way tothe end. The ecstasy of elegant plot,the pleasure of flowing dialogue, the loveliness of perfect description. Sex is good, sex is wonderful, but storyis fireworks in my brain. The reasonI live. The greatest pleasure in mylife.And he has givenme that, with nearly flowing letters on an agreement between his company and I,between his faith in my ability and myself. He looked at me, exposed on the page of a book, in the chapterof a novel, in the lines of a short story, and didn't laugh, didn't dismiss or reject. He read, nodded, smiled, and agreed to publish.Sex cannot measureup to that. Bodies are bodies, buthe has given me a pleasure beyond anything I'd felt: applause, and a chance to domuch, much more with words, with stories.He doesn't have aname, this man in my fantasy. Therehave been a lot of them over the years, and a lot more in the future, no doubt. Gay men who have touched me in ways no onehas ever touched me before, by making love with my soul through their support ofmy writing. Each time they have, thisfantasy has emerged from the back of my mind, a need to give them the gift theyhave given me: passion and kindness, support and caring, and pure affection.I worry about this. I worry that they won't understand, takethis secret dream of mine as being patronizing, diminishing them to nothing buta being with a cock who craved more cock. I've confessed a few times, telling a select few how I feel about them, howI wish I could do for them what they have done for me, to be able to put aside myheterosexuality for just an evening, an afternoon, and share total affection together.Luckily, or maybethere really isn't anything to worry about, the ones I've told, they smile, holdmy hand, kiss my cheek, say the right thing and to this day, even right now, makeme cry: "I wish we could too, but I understand. I love you too."Am I bi? I know I'm physically not – I simply don'tget aroused by men – but that doesn't mean I don't adore men, or for the ones Icare about, the men who have touched my soul through their support and affectionfor my stories and writing, I wish I couldn't change. More than anything I wish I could give them what they have givenme.With a cock or apen, with a story or hours of wonderful sex, it all comes down to one thing: love.
October 3, 2011
More From The Erotic Authors Association Conference
Check this out: a little piece I wrote about the recent Erotic Authors Association Conference in Vegas - reprinted from the Sizzler Publishing Blog
#
Associate Sizzler Editions publisher M. Christian describes what happened when some members of the Sizzler Editions editorial staff attented the Erotic Authors Association's first-ever conference:
(M. Christian)
While Las Vegas is called "Sin City," over the weekend of September 9th it more like heaven for writers – and readers – of erotic fiction as the location for the first ever Erotic Authors Association's Conference.
Organized by Kathleen Bradean, Jolie du Pré, and D.L. King (also a Sizzler author: The Art Of Melinoe), the event featured classes like: But is it a Story? By Remittance Girl; Sexy, Sexy Grammar By Jean Roberta & Sharazade; Writing Killer Blurbs By Lorna Hinson; and much more -- plus panels on Erotic Romance, Your Sex Life as Story Fodder, Social Media & Promotion, plus many others.
(Sascha Illyvich)
Erotica authors, and fans, from all over the world attended the inaugural event, including many Sizzler Editions' authors like Margie Church (author of The 18th Floor), Laura Antoniou (Musclebound and Shop Stud), Blake C. Aarens (Wetting The Appetite), Charlotte Gatto, and many others.
(Wade Heaton)
The Sizzler Editions staff was then and then some! Wade Heaton, Senior Editor of our own PageTurner and Futurespart Imprint and author of The Sexy Syrixians; Sascha Illyvich, own Senior Editor of Erotic Romances and author of Siddella's Surrender (plus many others); artist Sami Hursey, the Morgaine Series, and M. Christian, Associate Publisher and author of How To Write And Sell Erotica, were there to talk to fans and share their own experiences as erotica writers and editors. Only our beloved (hated) Publisher Jean Marie Stine was in absentia (off at her son Mark Demian's wedding,
(Margie Church.)
Sizzler Editions also made a sexy-splash with readers and writers alike with an open-mic reading for authors to read from their Sizzler-published works: Wade, Sascha, Blake C. Aarens, Margie Church, and Sharazade wowing the crowd with their scintillating work. M. Christian, as well, was on quite a few panels and even taught his famous (or is that infamous?) class on erotica writing.
(Sami Hursey sketching
idea for new cover.)
Sizzler's own media wizard, Bill Mills, was also in attendance and recorded the reading in audio and video so that – very soon – fans of these Sizzler authors can get a rare treat to see them read their work.
We at Sizzler hope that everyone else had a great a time as we all did at the The Erotic Authors Association's Inaugural Conference and we all look forward to having an even great time next year!
(Photos and image capture: Bill Mills)
#
Associate Sizzler Editions publisher M. Christian describes what happened when some members of the Sizzler Editions editorial staff attented the Erotic Authors Association's first-ever conference:
(M. Christian)
While Las Vegas is called "Sin City," over the weekend of September 9th it more like heaven for writers – and readers – of erotic fiction as the location for the first ever Erotic Authors Association's Conference. Organized by Kathleen Bradean, Jolie du Pré, and D.L. King (also a Sizzler author: The Art Of Melinoe), the event featured classes like: But is it a Story? By Remittance Girl; Sexy, Sexy Grammar By Jean Roberta & Sharazade; Writing Killer Blurbs By Lorna Hinson; and much more -- plus panels on Erotic Romance, Your Sex Life as Story Fodder, Social Media & Promotion, plus many others.
(Sascha Illyvich)
Erotica authors, and fans, from all over the world attended the inaugural event, including many Sizzler Editions' authors like Margie Church (author of The 18th Floor), Laura Antoniou (Musclebound and Shop Stud), Blake C. Aarens (Wetting The Appetite), Charlotte Gatto, and many others.(Wade Heaton)
The Sizzler Editions staff was then and then some! Wade Heaton, Senior Editor of our own PageTurner and Futurespart Imprint and author of The Sexy Syrixians; Sascha Illyvich, own Senior Editor of Erotic Romances and author of Siddella's Surrender (plus many others); artist Sami Hursey, the Morgaine Series, and M. Christian, Associate Publisher and author of How To Write And Sell Erotica, were there to talk to fans and share their own experiences as erotica writers and editors. Only our beloved (hated) Publisher Jean Marie Stine was in absentia (off at her son Mark Demian's wedding,(Margie Church.)
Sizzler Editions also made a sexy-splash with readers and writers alike with an open-mic reading for authors to read from their Sizzler-published works: Wade, Sascha, Blake C. Aarens, Margie Church, and Sharazade wowing the crowd with their scintillating work. M. Christian, as well, was on quite a few panels and even taught his famous (or is that infamous?) class on erotica writing. (Sami Hursey sketching
idea for new cover.)
Sizzler's own media wizard, Bill Mills, was also in attendance and recorded the reading in audio and video so that – very soon – fans of these Sizzler authors can get a rare treat to see them read their work. We at Sizzler hope that everyone else had a great a time as we all did at the The Erotic Authors Association's Inaugural Conference and we all look forward to having an even great time next year!
(Photos and image capture: Bill Mills)
September 30, 2011
How To Wonderfully WriteSex (13)
Check it out: my new post at the fantastic WriteSex site just went up. Here's a tease (for the rest you'll have to go to the site):
"The assassin readied himself, beginning first by picking up his trusty revolver and carefully threading a silencer onto the barrel."
That reads right enough, doesn't it? You look at it and it sings true. But it's not. Not because the assassin is a product of my imagination but because, except for one very rare instance, silencers cannot be fitted onto revolvers. So every time you see Mannix or Barnaby Jones facing off against some crook with a little tube on the end of their revolver, keep in mind that it has no bearing on reality.
What does this have to go with smut writing? Well, sometimes erotica writers—both old hands and new blood—make the same kind of mistakes: not so much a revolver with a silencer, but definitely the anatomical or psychological equivalent.
People ask me sometimes what kind of research I do to write erotica. The broad answer is that I seriously don't do that much true research, but I do observe and try and understand human behavior— no matter the interest or orientation—and add that to what I write. But that doesn't mean that there isn't some (ahem) fieldwork involved.
[MORE]
September 29, 2011
I Am The 99%
I just wish I could be there to add by body, as well as my voice, to this movement!
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September 22, 2011
Excerpt: Fingers Breadth
I'm pleased to announce that the very-cool Gay/Lesbian Fiction Excerpts blog has just posted the first chapter from my new gay thriller/erotic novel, Fingers Breadth. Here's a taste - for the rest just click here.
Looking from the window of the coffee shop. Watching from the windshield of a parked car. Staring from the glass of a very rare unbroken bus kiosk. Glaring from the side of a passing bus.
A brief summer rain had painted the city that night in reflections. Fanning saw himself everywhere, and everywhere he saw himself his expression said the same thing—Why haven't you caught him yet?
In his ear, a Bluetooth bud whispered the Officer Wertz inquiry's soundtrack; in his pocket, the video was playing on his phone. He didn't need to hear or see it. No one would, but if asked he could probably rattle off every verb, every noun, every linguistic bit from when Knorr started it to when he stopped it. Knorr was good at what he did, just like the lab mice who studied crime scenes and picked up tiny bits of DNA with their finely honed tweezers.
Welcome to the decentralized world of the new San Francisco Police Department, where your specialty was all you did and generality was extinct.
Fanning was a freelancer but was supposed to be good at what he did, too. Sneering at himself reflected in the coffee shop window, he gripped the phone in his pocket. If he'd been stronger, or the plastic less durable, it would have cracked.
Glowering for an instant at his reflection in the windshield of the parked car, he pulled the phone out and flipped through a few key digital pages. As with the inquiry, he didn't need to look at it again, but he did anyway. Better than sharing the street with his scowling mirror images.
It hadn't changed—Wertz's home address and where he worked were still the same. The first was across town, in the Mission. The second was just down the street, at a Gap Store.
Ten a.m. to six p.m. His shift hadn't changed, either. But it was 6:17, and there was no sign of Wertz.
Fanning paced the wet sidewalk, searching up and down the street but mostly the blue-and-white bright- ness of the Gap store. In his ears, Wertz's voice clicked into silence; then, as it was set on "loop," it began again.
Just like the others. Same MO, same kind of pick-up place, same amount of Eurodin in Wertz's system, the lab mice doing their usual fine and precise work, and the same mutilation—right hand little finger amputated at the first joint.
Again, his phone threatened to break in his hand, but again, he wasn't strong or determined enough to do it. The beat cops who'd found Wertz sound asleep on the J Church train; the lab mice who'd analyzed the drug in his system; Knorr, who'd asked his carefully prepared and expert questions...
But then there was Fanning, who was supposed to assemble piece after piece after piece after piece until they made a picture of someone's face.
Cutter's face.
Looking up from where he'd been looking down, he saw a silhouette come between the blue-and-white of the Gap store. A dark shape that was about the right height, about the right build, about the right age, to be whom he was looking for. Fanning carefully released his tight grip on his phone and stepped back into a nearby alley, one carefully chosen for its heavy solitude.
Heavy solitude was just what Fanning wanted.
[MORE]
September 20, 2011
Excerpt: Better Than the Real Thing
Now here's a treat: the great folks at 4-Letter Words not just feature a lot of my books but also just posted a sweet excerpt from my new collection, Better Than the Real Thing . Check out the story, "A Light Minute" over there ... but in the meantime here's a tease:
How are you today? was all the message said. It was their ritual, a tight tradition between them. Sasha was an night timer, a sunset-to-dawn kind of girl. Before she crawled into her "warm flannel cave and drew sleep up over her eyes" (she'd written) she always left that message for Alyx to find in her own preferred morning.
Happy, Alyx sent back with a flutter of keystrokes, love you. Another ritual, much more recent. Alyx felt it, though, with a tug of hesitation, a grip in her chest of uncertainty. It might well have been totally true, that Sasha was the love of her life – but they'd never met.
So much was known – despite all that was unknown (the sound of her voice, the way she smiled) – that Alyx was very certain about the feelings she had for the tiny, dark-haired girl with the sweet little bulb of a nose, deeply tanned cheeks and vibrant brown eyes (I'm a Mediterranean princess who likes the night): a color print of her framed neat over her machine's monitor. Even without hearing her voice or really seeing her face (beyond the picture she'd transmitted) she knew that Sasha somehow fitted perfectly into her life. Their conversations, though time-delayed, hummed and clicked with a familiarity that belied their three month relationship.
At first Alyx was hesitant about venturing into the electronic unknown. The world was still much too loud, hard, and brilliant for her back then to learn the unfathomable language of baud, server, gateway, and the like. Jo had left her – taken her pictures, blankets, clothes, books, and herself and left Alyx nothing but her little Santa Cruz bungalow. That, and a series of pains when Alyx did anything – anything at all. Till, that is, her brother smashed open her front door, emitting a torrent of painful light and crashing street noise and slammed down a small box next to her antique computer. In a sympathetic whisper that sounded like a torrent of dishware pouring down a tin-shod mountainside, he had said, "If you won't go out, maybe at least you'll meet someone else."
[MORE]
September 15, 2011
Out Now: Finger's Breadth By M.Christian
Zumaya Books and M.Christian are pleased to announce the publication of a brand new gay erotic horror/thriller by M.Christian:
Look at your hand: four fingers and a thumb, right? But what if you woke one morning and rather than four fingers and a thumb you are ... short? How would you feel? What would you do? What would you become?
The city is terrified: a mysterious figure is haunting the streets of near-future San Francisco, drugging and amputating the fingertips of queer men. But what's worse … this terror or that it can, so easily, turn any of us into something even more horrific?
Erotic. Nightmarish. Fascinating. Disturbing. Intriguing. Haunting. You have never read a book like Finger's Breadth.
You will never look your fingers - or the people all around you - the same way again.
Here's what some people are saying about Finger's Breadth:
Finger's Breadth may well rank as one of the most psychologically astute erotic novels since Leopold von Sacher-Masoch's Venus in Furs, and it deserves to be just as widely read.- JKB, from the Circlet Press site
Finger's Breadth is a real wild ride, the sort of novel you turn to when the apocalyptic mayhem out your window gets dull, and you lust for something to remind you of what it's like to live life at full-throttle. M.Christian sends the reader hurtling like a hockey puck through a world of crime, out-of-control passions, mutilation, and madness. Terms like noir and hardboiled don't quite fit - this is more like ultraviolet, the invisible light that makes the scorpions glow in the dark.- Ernest Hogan, author of Cortez On Jupiter and High Aztech
It is not that hard to come up with an idea that can be turned into a horror story and that is why horror has been part of the folklore of America and why these stories are so popular on camp-outs as we sit around a campfire. To successfully do this, we need a combination of characters and plot but more important than all else is a novel way to relate the story. For me that is the definition of M.Christian. This book is unlike anything I have read before and I suspect that it will stay with me for quite a while.- Amos Lassen, reviewer
Finger's Breadth creates a vivid portrait of a community torn apart by suspicion, where the thrills of hot, anonymous sex go hand in mutilated hand with the chill of fear, and no one is entirely what they seem. M.Christian skilfully mixes a dark, potent cocktail of lust, longing, paranoia and an overwhelming need for acceptance...- Liz Coldwell, author of Take Your Slave To Work
To be effective, the act of literary intercourse between horror and erotica should be deeply unsettling. It should leave the reader feeling uncomfortable, overwhelmed by equal parts dread and anticipation. M.Christian understands this better than most, weaving a tale that permits the reader but a finger's breadth of space between fear and arousal. His deft control of the story makes us feel the blade, but it's his subtle manipulation of our emotions that makes us want the cut.- Sally Sapphire, Bellasbookslut
M.Christian has seen the future -- and it is hardboiled! If you love crime stories -- gay or otherwise -- and you love science fiction, you will love Finger's Breadth. No other storyteller nails it quite like M.Christian does. This is a real page turner.-- Marilyn Jaye Lewis, author of Freak Parade
M.Christian is a force to be reckoned with. Just when you think you understand the path that his narrative and characters are taking, Christian throws a monkey wrench, or a limb, or a head into the works and you have to get your bearings and start all over again. No matter which book of his you pick up, prepare for an intoxicatedly weird ride.-Ily Goyanes, author and filmmaker
Strange and sexy, Finger's Breadth is a seductively suspenseful read.- Paula Guran, Darkecho
Finger's Breadth is as dark and rich and well-blended as good bourbon. Sexy, suspenseful, and believable in the details and elements of its world. Great stuff!- Angela Caperton, author of Darkness And Delight
Finger's Breadth is mesmeric storytelling, riveting in execution and appalling in implication. M.Christian's tale of erotic terror in a near-future San Francisco is imagined so skillfully that it grabs the reader with its easy familiarity, then refuses to let go as it careens to its shocking yet completely believable conclusion. Evoking such Grand Masters as Armistead Maupin, Thomas Harris and Rod Serling while remaining strikingly original, Finger's Breadth is Christian at the height of his considerable powers. Like Charon the ferryman, the author takes the reader down the dark rivers of human sexuality and shows us things that would normally never see the light of day. Ultimately the most compelling aspect of this fiction is how fascinatingly and terrifyingly plausible it is. Finger's Breadth should come with a warning label: Read this before clubbing.- Christopher Pierce, author of Rogue Slave, Rogue Hunted, and Kidnapped By A Sex Maniac
Zumaya BooksPaperback: $15.99ebook: $6.99ISBN-10: 1934841463ISBN-13: 978-1934841464
About M.Christian:
M.Christian is - among many things - an acknowledged master of erotica with more than 400 stories in such anthologies as Best American Erotica, Best Gay Erotica, Best Lesbian Erotica, Best Bisexual Erotica, Best Fetish Erotica, and many, many other anthologies, magazines, and Web sites.
He is the editor of 25 anthologies including the Best S/M Erotica series, The Burning Pen, Guilty Pleasures, The Mammoth Book of Future Cops and The Mammoth Book of Tales of the Road (with Maxim Jakubowksi) and Confessions, Garden of Perverse, and Amazons (with Sage Vivant) as well as many others.
He is the author of the collections Dirty Words, Speaking Parts, The Bachelor Machine, Licks & Promises, Filthy, Love Without Gun Control, Rude Mechanicals, Coming Together Presents M.Christian, Pornotopia, and How To Write And Sell Erotica; and the novels Running Dry, The Very Bloody Marys, Me2, Brushes, and Painted Doll. His Web site is www.mchristian.com.
Interested in reviewing Finger's Breadth? Write M.Christian at zobop@aol.com for a copy
Look at your hand: four fingers and a thumb, right? But what if you woke one morning and rather than four fingers and a thumb you are ... short? How would you feel? What would you do? What would you become?
The city is terrified: a mysterious figure is haunting the streets of near-future San Francisco, drugging and amputating the fingertips of queer men. But what's worse … this terror or that it can, so easily, turn any of us into something even more horrific?
Erotic. Nightmarish. Fascinating. Disturbing. Intriguing. Haunting. You have never read a book like Finger's Breadth.
You will never look your fingers - or the people all around you - the same way again.
Here's what some people are saying about Finger's Breadth:
Finger's Breadth may well rank as one of the most psychologically astute erotic novels since Leopold von Sacher-Masoch's Venus in Furs, and it deserves to be just as widely read.- JKB, from the Circlet Press site
Finger's Breadth is a real wild ride, the sort of novel you turn to when the apocalyptic mayhem out your window gets dull, and you lust for something to remind you of what it's like to live life at full-throttle. M.Christian sends the reader hurtling like a hockey puck through a world of crime, out-of-control passions, mutilation, and madness. Terms like noir and hardboiled don't quite fit - this is more like ultraviolet, the invisible light that makes the scorpions glow in the dark.- Ernest Hogan, author of Cortez On Jupiter and High Aztech
It is not that hard to come up with an idea that can be turned into a horror story and that is why horror has been part of the folklore of America and why these stories are so popular on camp-outs as we sit around a campfire. To successfully do this, we need a combination of characters and plot but more important than all else is a novel way to relate the story. For me that is the definition of M.Christian. This book is unlike anything I have read before and I suspect that it will stay with me for quite a while.- Amos Lassen, reviewer
Finger's Breadth creates a vivid portrait of a community torn apart by suspicion, where the thrills of hot, anonymous sex go hand in mutilated hand with the chill of fear, and no one is entirely what they seem. M.Christian skilfully mixes a dark, potent cocktail of lust, longing, paranoia and an overwhelming need for acceptance...- Liz Coldwell, author of Take Your Slave To Work
To be effective, the act of literary intercourse between horror and erotica should be deeply unsettling. It should leave the reader feeling uncomfortable, overwhelmed by equal parts dread and anticipation. M.Christian understands this better than most, weaving a tale that permits the reader but a finger's breadth of space between fear and arousal. His deft control of the story makes us feel the blade, but it's his subtle manipulation of our emotions that makes us want the cut.- Sally Sapphire, Bellasbookslut
M.Christian has seen the future -- and it is hardboiled! If you love crime stories -- gay or otherwise -- and you love science fiction, you will love Finger's Breadth. No other storyteller nails it quite like M.Christian does. This is a real page turner.-- Marilyn Jaye Lewis, author of Freak Parade
M.Christian is a force to be reckoned with. Just when you think you understand the path that his narrative and characters are taking, Christian throws a monkey wrench, or a limb, or a head into the works and you have to get your bearings and start all over again. No matter which book of his you pick up, prepare for an intoxicatedly weird ride.-Ily Goyanes, author and filmmaker
Strange and sexy, Finger's Breadth is a seductively suspenseful read.- Paula Guran, Darkecho
Finger's Breadth is as dark and rich and well-blended as good bourbon. Sexy, suspenseful, and believable in the details and elements of its world. Great stuff!- Angela Caperton, author of Darkness And Delight
Finger's Breadth is mesmeric storytelling, riveting in execution and appalling in implication. M.Christian's tale of erotic terror in a near-future San Francisco is imagined so skillfully that it grabs the reader with its easy familiarity, then refuses to let go as it careens to its shocking yet completely believable conclusion. Evoking such Grand Masters as Armistead Maupin, Thomas Harris and Rod Serling while remaining strikingly original, Finger's Breadth is Christian at the height of his considerable powers. Like Charon the ferryman, the author takes the reader down the dark rivers of human sexuality and shows us things that would normally never see the light of day. Ultimately the most compelling aspect of this fiction is how fascinatingly and terrifyingly plausible it is. Finger's Breadth should come with a warning label: Read this before clubbing.- Christopher Pierce, author of Rogue Slave, Rogue Hunted, and Kidnapped By A Sex Maniac
Zumaya BooksPaperback: $15.99ebook: $6.99ISBN-10: 1934841463ISBN-13: 978-1934841464
About M.Christian:
M.Christian is - among many things - an acknowledged master of erotica with more than 400 stories in such anthologies as Best American Erotica, Best Gay Erotica, Best Lesbian Erotica, Best Bisexual Erotica, Best Fetish Erotica, and many, many other anthologies, magazines, and Web sites.
He is the editor of 25 anthologies including the Best S/M Erotica series, The Burning Pen, Guilty Pleasures, The Mammoth Book of Future Cops and The Mammoth Book of Tales of the Road (with Maxim Jakubowksi) and Confessions, Garden of Perverse, and Amazons (with Sage Vivant) as well as many others.
He is the author of the collections Dirty Words, Speaking Parts, The Bachelor Machine, Licks & Promises, Filthy, Love Without Gun Control, Rude Mechanicals, Coming Together Presents M.Christian, Pornotopia, and How To Write And Sell Erotica; and the novels Running Dry, The Very Bloody Marys, Me2, Brushes, and Painted Doll. His Web site is www.mchristian.com.
Interested in reviewing Finger's Breadth? Write M.Christian at zobop@aol.com for a copy
