Tag Archives: Sh! Women’s Store

‘The Pet Shop’ Hot and Steamy Early Debut!

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One thing you have to learn about Pets is that they are unpredictable and sometimes in the very nicest ways. If you leave them alone too long, they might get into trouble. In this case, I sent them off to Xcite, and before I know it, they show up on Amazon Kindle!

There’s a lot of excitement at Pet Shop HQ today because my fabulously unpredictable Pets got launched early! The Pet Shop is now available on eBook, pdf and Kindle! The link is great, and the excerpt on Xcite is scorching hot!

Unpredictability aside, the timing couldn’t be more perfect, since I’ll be giving the first ever readings from The Pet Shop tomorrow evening at the Hoxton Sh! Women’s Erotic Emporium.  A bit nervous, actually, as Pets can be so unpredictable in public. You never really know what they might do, and Tino is especially mischievous when he thinks he can get away with it. Fortunately there are plenty of spankers and riding crops available at Sh! if discipline is needed. And I’ll be there with the BDSM Queen Extraordinaire, Kay Jaybee, who definitely knows a bit about discipline.

The fun is just beginning, actually. There’ll be more celebrating when The Pet Shop comes out in paperback in October. I’ll keep you posted.

To help celebrate, here’s just a little teaser from The Pet Shop.

‘You are Tino, aren’t you?’

He picked up the pace. ‘Tino’s not here.’ With his arm around her waist, he guided her away from her car to a waiting limo.’

She didn’t protest as he opened the door and helped her inside, sliding in next to her. Then he knocked on the privacy window and the driver took off.

‘Seems a strange vehicle to bring to a nature reserve,’ she said.

‘You really think so? My dad made the big bucks in shipping, you know, and the Port of Portland has a reputation for murder and all kinds of intrigue so rich men can have what they want. So of course I have a limo.’ He leaned close and nipped her ear. ‘And you just hopped right in with me, didn’t you? You know what they say about accepting rides from strangers. Are you scared?’

She held his gaze. ‘You’re not a stranger.’

He chuckled softly and returned her gaze as though he were the king of stare-downs, then he released his breath slowly. ‘Anyway, I didn’t bring the limo, but you can’t go back in what I came in dressed like that.’

‘Then you have to be Tino, or you wouldn’t have –’

He covered her mouth in an insistent kiss. ‘What?’ He spoke against her lips ‘You think I wouldn’t notice the sexy English bird distracting me from the all the other birds.’ He teased her lips apart, sparring with her tongue, making her insides feel like warm toffee. She was relieved to hear no anger in his voice.

She came up for breath. ‘But how else would you — ’

He nipped and tugged on her lip. ‘Tino’s not here,’ he whispered against her mouth, slurring his words with the flick of his tongue. ‘There’s just Vincent.’

‘What are you, schizo then?’ she let out a little gasp as he nibbled her earlobe then the hollow of her throat.

‘Didn’t you take psychology 101? We all have more than one person living inside us, Stella.’

‘Where are we going?’ She asked, feeling suddenly disoriented as the driver turned onto the main road and picked up speed.

‘Portland.’

‘But my car. It’s a hire, and my bags –’

He kissed her again, and his hand moved up the inside of her thigh. ‘Don’t worry. My people will take care of everything.’

‘But I thought –’ With a sharp little gasp, she suddenly forgot how to speak, as his fingers slid aside her thong.

‘Did you wear these for Tino, hoping he’d take them off with his teeth? … Because I won’t bother. I’m not here for your entertainment.’

‘I never thought that you were,’ she said, giving him an ineffective shove with the flat of her hand. But he took her mouth again, and the way his tongue invaded and withdrew and invaded again, the way his fingers teased and retreated and teased again made her stop thinking about… well everything, really.

He pulled away at last and held her gaze. ‘We have until we get to Portland, Stella. You can waste time trying to find out about Tino or you can spend that time with Vincent. It can be such a pleasant drive to Portland.’

Masturbation and Creativity

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May is National Masturbation Month, and as one who is proud to be a frequent masturbator, I wanted to honour the occasion on my site. At first, I was just going to put together a list of fun facts and interesting ideas, of which there are many where masturbation is concerned, but then I came across a fabulous article by Eric Francis over on Betty Dodson and Carlin Ross’s Sex Information Online site. And it got me thinking.

 In his post, ‘What Exactly is Masturbation Month,’ Eric Francis wonders why most sites by and for singles, to promote and validate the single lifestyle don’t discuss masturbation. The surprising answer seems to be that masturbation is a subject even happily single people just aren’t comfortable discussing. But what intrigued me most was Eric’s speculation as to why that might be:

 ‘I would propose that masturbation is about a lot more than masturbation — and that’s the reason it’s still considered so taboo by many people, and in many places. First, I would say that masturbation holds the key to all sexuality. It’s a kind of proto-sexuality, the core of the matter of what it means to be sexual. I mean this in an existential sense. Masturbation is the most elemental form of sexuality, requiring only awareness and a body. Whatever we experience when we go there is what we bring into our sexual encounters with others — whether we recognize it or not. Many factors contribute to obscuring this simple fact.’

I read this through several times, savored it, and read it again. The ancient Egyptians believed masturbation was a creative act in its own right. In the Heliopolis creation myth, the god Amen rises from the primeval ocean, Nun, and masturbates the divine son and daughter into existence, and they populate the world. Even if I look at the Judeo/Christian myth in the first two chapters of Genesis, where God speaks the world into existence, I am still looking at a solo act.

I love Eric’s line, ‘Masturbation is the most elemental form of sexuality, requiring only awareness and a body.

Awareness and Body. What a fabulous combination! Eric even goes on to say that whatever we bring from that proto experience of masturbation, we bring into our other relationships as well. In other words, it’s formative, that solo act, that original creative force. It brings awareness and body together. Isn’t that what it’s all about? The discovery of who we are in relation to ourselves is key if we are to be able to properly enter into discovery of ‘The Other.’ Doesn’t the act of creation, metaphorical or otherwise, begin with taking an inventory of what we’ve got to work with and learning how best to work with what we have to bring forth what we hope to create?

Every February, my husband and I get out the vegetable seed we’ve stored over the winter to see what we need for the veg patch in the spring. We spread everything out on the floor in front of us, and I get out my cunning plan, the mock-up drawing of what I want in our beds and where I want it. Then, we take inventory. It’s not just that we have three packets of peas and a packet of beefsteak tomatoes, but it’s reminiscing about how yummy those tomatoes were last year and how we didn’t have nearly as many peas as we’d have liked. It’s planning and scheming how we can have more, and discussing which is the best kind of sweet corn to plant, and making sure we have enough yellow courgette seed. Though it’s usually done with lots of wine or coffee for refreshment, depending on the time of day, the whole exercise is really all about how we’ll create this lovely veg garden we see in our minds’ eye now that we’ve inventoried what we have to work with.

Awareness and a body. Masturbating the world into existence. It happens all the time. At the risk of offering too much information, my understanding of sex, my deepest understanding of my own sexuality, comes from awareness and my own body. That’s what I have to work with. My understanding of writing, my deepest understanding of the creative forces in me also comes from awareness and my own self.

I’m astounded that in a world where solitude and the meditative tradition is a part of almost every religious discipline, we shy away from the very concept that could have well given birth to it, awareness and Body. Can there really even BE awareness without a body? And how can we possibly understand the boundaries and the limits of either without the two rubbing up against each other. Our act of one-ness, our proto-sexuality, as Eric Francis calls to it, I suggest is by its boundary-exploring nature, also our proto-creativity.

National Masturbation Month honours awareness and body and the discovering of our own boundaries, that which separates us from everything else. And beautifully, amazingly, astoundingly, it is discovery and exploration of our own boundaries that eases and enhances our journey into connectedness.

NEWS UPDATES

I just found out today that The Pet Shop will be released on May 12 on PDF and eBook through Xcite Books! Excited, who? Moi? I’ve just been over to the Xcite cite to check it out, and there it is complete with a really steamy excerpt. Go on, tak a peek… As soon as I know more I’ll be crowing all over the place about it, so stay tuned. The release date for the paperback and the launch party at Sh!, which may very well spill out into the streets in a froth of happy pink fizz bubbles will be in October.  Oh yes! The fun is just beginning!

Coffee Time Romance started out the month of May with a Book Brew With Coffee Crew event entitled ‘love conquers all.’ Along with a group of other romance writers, I was interviewed by the fabulous crew and given the chance to talk about The Initiation of Ms Holly and what obstacles my characters had to overcome in order for love to conquer all. It was a fabulous start to the month, and I’d like to thank everyone at CTR who made it such a fun event.

Friday night, all the fun will be at Sh! Hoxton while I get to read just a few of the juicy bits of The Pet Shop as a sneak-view, and the totally yummy Kay Jaybee wil be reading from her hard-hitting, temperatur raising novel, The Perfect Submissive, as well as her new story collection, Yes Ma’am. We’ll be joined by the very talented Mayo, who will be exhibiting her gorgeous erotic art. Pink fizz, cupcakes and fun all around.

Then it’s home for two days and off, once again, for some fun, fell walking, and more research for Lakeland Heatwave in the gorgeous Lake District. Sigh. How I suffer for my art.

Still to come… poetry, music, more on the proper care and keeping of Pets, fabulous guests and lots more.  Here’s wishing you a fabulous May!

Spring Heat Wave at Sh! Hoxton May 6th

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Everyone is talking about the hot spring we’re having here in the UK,  and I’m happy to announce that it’s about to get a whole lot hotter. Friday night, 6th May Sh! Women’s Store Hoxton will be the hottest place in town.

 After a fabulous debut at Sh! Portobello, the sexy art of Mayo will now be on display at the Hoxton Sh! Store, and the artist herself will be joining the fun to tell us all about her steamy creations.

 The very delicious Kay Jaybee will be reading from her sizzling new novel, The Perfect Submissive, and I hear there may also be more fab BDSM excerpts from her hot collection, Yes Ma’am,

 And yours truly will be giving a sneak-preview from my new novel, The Pet Shop. Even as I write this, I’m giving the proofs one final read-through before Xcite Books gets Pets ready for the big debut. Oh yes, I’m excited!

 If you’re on this side of the pond, come join us for pink fizz, cupcakes, fabulously sexy art and steamy reading that will leave you needing a fan, or some serious personal air conditioning – or more fizz:)

 RSVP at Sh! Hoxton. And gents, be sure to have an escort of the female persuasion.

OTHER NEWS

The Initiation of Ms Holly just had another five-star review from Miz Love Loves Books. It came at a time when I was feeling a little under the weather, and was just the pick-me-up I needed. 

“A thoroughly enjoyable erotic read which ticks all the boxes and leaves the reader feeling satisfied with their choice of fiction… I can’t wait to see what this talented author comes up with next.” Miz Love Love Books

The Hopeful Romantic Site is opening up to guest bloggers very soon. Keep watching for more information on new and exciting guests and topics that will always be sizzling whether the summer is or not.

 Since it’s the time of year to get out and enjoy the bluebells and walk in the lovely British countryside, I shared my experience of walking the story with the amazing Rebecca J Clark over at her fabulous Once Written Twice Shy site, along with some great photos of walking the beginning of The Initiation of Ms Holly. Thanks, Rebecca, I had a blast!

 Most of you know, I now have the final proofs back from The Pet Shop for one last look-see before I give custody over completely to Xcite. It’s lovely to have a little more time with Tino and all his rough and tumble friends.

 And, the nest never stays empty for long. Lakeland Heat Wave is well under way and promising to be challenging is more ways that I could have anticipated. The fun is just beginning. I’ll be off to the Lakes as of May 8th  for some heavy-duty fell walking. I’m looking forward to soaking up more ambiance and finding out a bit more about Mountain Rescue and raising sheep. Oh, get your mind out of the gutter! One of my characters is a farmer. :^)

 

In the Company of Women

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I’ve gone through long swaths of my life with men among my closest friends. And I’m a lucky woman in that my very best friend is my husband. But one of the fantastic fringe benefits that has come with writing erotica is the fabulous company of women. Whether online or up close and personal, time spent with Real Women, sexy, lusty, smart, empathetic, lovely women is NEVER time wasted.

I get lots of chances to think about my vibrant relationships with women these days. Saturday night’s fabulous smut fest at Sh! Portobello was a perfect example. I love reading my stories in front of an audience, but I love listening to other women read theirs just as much. And the warm fuzzy feeling is only enhanced by a little pink fizz in a place as sex positive and pro-chick as the Sh! Stores are.

Saturday night was a triple celebration of Women Together. The fabulous artist Mayo’s lovely work graced the walls of the Sh! Portobello gallery/event room. All of those lovely charcoals and pastels illustrated some of my dear friend and great erotica writer, Kay Jaybee’s stories. The art work most definitely set the mood. Kay Jaybee read from her hard-pounding, sexy novel, The Perfect Submissive, which I’d already read and loved. But I have to admit, hearing Kay read from it out loud, sat there on the posh pink throne all booted and swathed in black and red, was a much more visceral experience… in the hottest sort of way. Kay also gave us a teaser from her new e-anthology, Yes Ma’am, with hot and sweaty squaddies in the midst of delicious nastiness in ‘lying in Wait’. Kay and Mayo would have enough to send me back home on the train to Surrey totally blissed out. But too much of a good thing is even better!

To add to the lovely girlie naughtiness of the evening, the luscious Lucy Felthouse was there, reading about a steamy champagne-soaked encounter with a hot waiter in ‘Just Couldn’t Wait.’ The remarkable Rebecca Bond, in her lovely mauve heels, delved into crime and punishment in her gritty hot story, ‘Sin City.’ And the yummy Victoria Blisse cleaned up with her story of a very naughty, very hot cleaning lady caught in the act in ‘Dirty Deeds.’ These three lovelies were at Sh! for the aural debut of the critically acclaimed anthology, Uniform Behaviour, edited by Lucy. Uniform Behaviour is a great anthology by any standards, but even more remarkable as Lucy’s first effort, though most thankfully it won’t be her last.

If the setting provided by the lovely Sh! Ladiez wasn’t enough, with wonderful art work, colourful displays of tempting sex toys and hot readings, the audience itself was awash in a bevy of sultry writer chix. I had the pleasure of sitting next to the fabulous Lily Harlam, whose sizzling fairy tale novella, The Mother of All Hen Nights, still heats me up when I think about it. Lexie Bay was there. Lexie is another one of the fabulous Uniform Behaviour chix, who opted not to read…this time, though her fabulous story, ‘In Love and War,’ like all the other stories in the anthology, shines.  Also there was the lovely Lavinia Lewis, whose novel, Luke’s Surprise, has things boiling over at Total-E Bound.

The evening was stirred to perfection by the  Sh! Ladiez, Always on hand to make sure the pink fizz flowed and no one suffered from want of a cupcake. And even more important, they were always ready to tell everyone about all the great toys and books and corsets and other sexy items in the store. Ladiez, you’re the best!

I certainly wouldn’t want to short-change the men behind the pink throne. Where ever sex-positive, imaginative, steamy women go, the blokes won’t be far behind. And it’s no surprise at all to find the highest calibre of men in attendance – sometimes a little shell-shocked by the sea of pink and the tables of sex toys, but quietly, charmingly taking it all in, and often playing the very important role of photographer.

Yes, I’m often in the company of women these days, whether it’s just a quick text to one of my close erotica friends or whether it’s plotting and scheming as we mooch around the London Book Fair, as I was lucky enough to do yesterday with Lucy Felthouse and Rebecca Bond. I’ve always enjoyed my male friends, and still do very much. And I would be the first to admit there are some fabulous men writing erotica now, but I appreciate the company of women because we all know what the journey is like for a woman to embrace her wild side, embrace her vibrant, gritty, dangerous, tender sexy self and step forth with enough confidence to write it down as something to be valued and shared and celebrated… often with pink fizz and cupcakes.

The Education of K D: Erotica’s Steep Learning Curve

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I just spent a good chunk of last evening on line trying to find a decent definition of kink. Never did find one I thought was satisfactory. But what I did find was a very good online BDSM dictionary to save to my stash of smutting tools. When I was writing The Initiation of Ms Holly, I made multiple trips into London to question the wonderful chicks at Sh! Women’s Store about strap-ons and spanking and blindfolding.  I spent an afternoon online learning amazing things about chastity belts. And that’s just the physical stuff. I find myself learning why semen is good for women, why porn is healthy, and what happens in the human brain during sex.  And the list goes on.

One of the best things about writing erotica, one of the things I would have never thought about before I penned my first smut, was the steep learning curve. I’ll be the first to admit, I usually try sneaking in the back door first, no pun intended. One of the best ways of educating myself to what is out there is to read what other erotica writers have written. I guess in some ways it’s voyeurism for smutters.

Writing is learning; I’ve always known that. There are stories that can be written without much effort or research, but the act of choosing the right words and getting just the right nuances, or analyzing why what some other writer has done works so well, is a learning process in itself. So I learn as I write.

But writing erotica is different in its learning curve because of the average person’s shocking lack of sexual education  – myself included. And because sadly sex is one of those things people don’t talk about in ‘proper company.’ Though it may be true that there are no stupid questions, people are still embarrassed to ask and embarrassed to seek out answers where sex is concerned. M niece has taught university classes on women’s sexuality, and she says what shocked her most was how little women actually know about their own sexuality.  I have no trouble believing that. Though I’ve always considered myself fairly well informed about sex and extremely aware of my own sexuality, as I began to write erotica I was surprised by my own ignorance.

The frightening thing about ignorance is that it can breed resistance to things that aren’t in our own sexual context. I’ve tried very hard not to be prejudiced about facets of human sexuality of which I don’t know enough to judge. But the battle against resistance is on-going. And interestingly enough, I find that my resistance is directly proportionate to my ignorance.  Not too surprising, really. That’s usually the case with ignorance. We tend to fear and villainize what we don’t understand.

Which leads me back to the high learning curve for erotica writers. True, we write about what we imagine, but our imaginations work better with a basic understanding of as many facets of human sexuality as possible. Not only do our imaginations work better, but our hearts work better as well. Our minds are more open and accepting. The old saying  ‘knowledge is power’ is never more true than where human sexuality is concerned. And one of the fringe benefits to writing erotica is that all that scrambling to do research, to understand why people find certain things arousing, to understand what actually happens on a physiological level when we have sex, to understand the sociology and psychology and science and history of human sexuality, is empowerment.

Empowerment means I can better understand aspects of sexuality in their proper context. It means less reason for resistance; that means less fear. It means more compassion, more asking enlightened questions and more desire to share what I know.

If knowledge is power, then the real power we erotic writers have is the power to share all aspects of human sexuality, the power to portray its many facets openly and honestly and approachably through story. True enough — we don’t set out to educate. We’re mostly all about entertainment, all about fun, but inadvertently we do educate. Inadvertently we open up the windows and doors and let light shine into the part of our humanity that has been kept in the dark far too long.

Yes, I know, I’ve just made all smutters sound like campaigners for the cause, dressed in corsets of righteousness. But the education, the empowerment, the coming to grips with all the many facets of human sexuality, well all that’s a long-winded way of saying —  I write erotica because it’s fun, and the education of K D is just a lovely fringe benefit, one more reason to feel really good about what I do.