Grand & Pitt... by Damon Suede

Worldbuilding my way to Horn Gate...

On one level, my new paranormal novella Horn Gate exists as a racy comic book written by a character in another one of my books.

The thing is, I'm nearly finished with a new comedic contemporary romance called Bad Idea about a comic book artist and a creature FX designer. As the book came together, I realized that my main character was channeling his anxiety and frustration into a racy comic that would upend his life. This comic ended up becoming a turning point for him emotionally and professionally and at the urging of one of my betas I decided that I would write the comic-within-the-book as a separate novella.

At the time, I had no idea that Scratch #1 would become Horn Gate. My reclusive comic book artist from Bad Idea has issues about his appearance and sexuality…not closeted exactly, but he lives a cautious life completely under the gaydar. It made sense then that the "very graphic novel" he writes would need to be provocative and weird and slightly deranged. My comic book artist needed to take stupid risks and unleash his inner demons, so I opted to just let him play with his own ideas about beauty, obsession, and possession.

Going in from the contemporary novel and my comic book artist character, I only knew that:

•    The superhero named Scratch was an incubus … traditionally a sex demon who      seduces and corrupts the innocent, but in this case he was an ambiguous antihero.
•   The protagonist/sidekick character was human and had intense body shame and anxiety.
•   The villain was a puritanical figure called the Judge who wielded a gavel the size of a sledgehammer.
•   The setting was urban, likely New York and involved some kind of supernatural mystery.

I wanted my incubus to be driven by something other than "wanna date?" attraction, I figured my main character Isaac needed to be as unlikely an object of desire as possible and that the story would be about him falling for Scratch and becoming his mortal sidekick and lover. Because this was a "comic book" narrative, I wanted a sexy origin story that introduced our magical superhero and his nemesis, as well as a larger mystery to be solved. Because Horn Gate was a novella, I had to get a lot of worldbuilding covered quickly; I made Isaac a librarian in a rare book room who'd have facts about demonology at his fingertips.

Since I was writing about an incubus I figured it would get super-kinky and juicy pronto…most demon romances waste no time getting kink-tastic. Nope. It felt more interesting to look at how a creature who feeds on desire could connect with a human. The book is definitely erotic and obsessive, but not really about horns and humping. To help me cut to the chase, the novella opened with Isaac finding Scratch imprisoned at an exclusive sex lounge; some kind of biff-pow comic-bookish rescue seemed likely to ensue and maybe an infernal gangbang. Not even close. Writing as my Bad Idea hero I found out he was more Neil Gaiman than Zalman King so the Horn Gate characters inhabited this intense, obsessive, gothic world of magic and skullduggery. What had begun a goofy lark started feeling like an entire ominous world of its own.

Scratch became a gorgeous predator who lives on touch. To maximize the contrast between the lovers, Isaac turned into a chunky librarian with terrible skin, contact phobia, and hideous self-esteem. His fictional creator in Bad Idea wrestles with body image and social pressure, so these details mirrored a lot of anxieties in that book as well. Likewise, because Bad Idea's protagonist feels conflicted about being Jewish, I decided that my demonology would be rooted in Kabbalah. One of the oldest synagogues in the country is on the Lower East Side on Eldridge Street…so I decided to situate my imaginary rare library nearby.

This is when things got spooky. To emphasize the cultural imprint, I gave the "sex lounge" an old Hebrew name for hell (Gehenna) which translates as the "Great Pit" and when I went looking for a likely location in the tenements of old Manhattan, I discovered Pitt Street. At the intersection of Pitt and Grand is an odd dogleg alley where a speakeasy had been hidden in the 1920s. Even weirder, as I wrote the story I realized I was pouring in all this authentic material I know about medieval demonology and Gematria from university so that Horn Gate really would be a kind of spooky, seductive mystery (or as my boyfriend says, "Scooby Doo with Boners"). 

Writing in the persona of my conflicted Bad Idea hero, I embedded odd esoteric puzzles that invoked real investigation in the service of Isaac's infatuation. Isaac was too bookish to be a punch-and-grapple sidekick so his adventure became a kind of "DaVinci Code" codebreaking that channeled his obsession with Scratch into the pages of an occult labyrinth only he could solve. I'm a stickler for details, so I traced Isaac's path backward from sex club to library: Pitt to Grand to Orchard to Division. The corner of Grand and Pitt was perfect for a hellish nightspot called Gehenna. The corner where Division met Orchard called to mind the angel standing at the gates of Eden so it became the location of the library where Isaac leaves his innocence behind. :P The streets of New York conspired to help me!

With Scratch, I didn't want to just plop in a dumb horns-and-pointy-tail demon so I also reinvented the idea of an incubus; this beast didn't just squirt or drain jizz from the unwary, but rather that he devours  touch and attention….and his powers transform his lovers in beautiful, scary ways. As he feeds, he ingests fear, pain, and grief in ways that wreak spectacular havoc on the victim's body to reveal their true natures. All kinds of cool discoveries about physical phobias and desire appeared and resonated deeply with the characters in Bad Idea as well. Incubi are often identified as personified wet dreams (yes, really!) corrupting humans with lust. Another name for an incubus is a "nightmare" because they carry the sleeper away and can't be reined in.

As for the Horn Gate itself, the object (and thence the title) came from in Homer's Odyssey. In book 19, Penelope explains to her (unrecognized) husband that dreams pass through one of two gates:  a Gate of Ivory which allows false hope and delusions into the mortal world and a Gate of Horn which releases all prophecy and inspiration. These two opposed dream gates recur as symbols used by a whole passel of writers: Plato, Virgil, Spenser, Pope, Eliot, Auden, etc. And oddly enough, Kabbalistic tradition describes the "mouth of the great abyss" as a portal through which spirits pass when they have no power. Scratch's intentions were so cryptic that he needed to seem both like a true savior or a complete fraud. I really loved the idea that Isaac had to make an impossible choice based on instinct rather than logic (which mirrored a plot-line in Bad Idea as well).

The question is Horn or Ivory: how do you know when your true destiny shows up?

Since Scratch was my comic's superhero and an incubus exists as a kind of seductive dream, I felt that what Isaac offered him was a way to reopen the Horn Gate into a magical realm that had been walled off. Likewise, since the villain was this puritanical Judge who clamped down on tenderness, eroticism, and fantasy, he wielded a massive ivory hammer in an attempt to stop true dreams from sneaking into the world. From there, my book essentially plotted itself…and several other novellas besides. By the time I'd finished, it felt as if the Gehenna sex lounge really existed under Pitt Street and that the Division Street Library housed a forbidden tomes with unholy powers.

Summoning Scratch has been a wonderful kick in the ass, adding unbelievable depth to the contemporary novels about his fictitious creators. When the time came for my brilliant friend Rey Arzeno to paint the cover art for Horn Gate, he was so taken by the world it inhabited that he immediately proposed drawing the comic AS a comic once we had some time. I'd love to make that happen, and he seems pretty adamant. Who knows what we'll conjure up? :)

More significantly, building the world of Horn Gate unearthed a host of themes in Bad Idea; hidden strands I'd never noticed suddenly floated to the surface. Essentially, I wrote this novella in character AS the comic-book protagonist of Bad Idea, which has opened up an entire world that I can't wait to explore further in the further adventures of Scratch.

GIVEAWAY

Damon has graciously offered up along a copy of Horn Gate to give away to one of our fabulous readers. To enter just leave a comment and let us know whether you believe in destiny and fate... or not :-)

We'll choose the lucky winner on Friday, May 10th, at 11:59 EST.

Blurb:

HORN GATE: Open at your own risk.

Librarian Isaac Stein spends his lumpy, lonely days restoring forgotten books, until the night he steals an invitation to a scandalous club steeped in sin. Descending into its bowels, he accidentally discovers Scratch, a wounded demon who feeds on lust.

Consorting with a mortal is a bad idea, but Scratch can't resist the man who knows how to open the portal that will free him and his kind. After centuries of possessing mortals, he finds himself longing to surrender.

To be together, Isaac and Scratch must flirt with damnation and escape an inhuman trafficking ring—and they have to open their hearts or they will never unlock the Horn Gate.

Available from Dreamspinner, ARe, Amazon, and other retailers

Subgenre: gay paranormal romance

ISBN: 978-1-62380-881-5

Length: 100 pages

Bio:

Damon Suede grew up out-n-proud deep in the anus of right-wing America, and escaped as soon as it was legal. Though new to romance fiction, Damon has been writing for print, stage, and screen for two decades. He’s won some awards, but counts his blessings more often: his amazing friends, his demented family, his beautiful husband, his loyal fans, and his silly, stern, seductive Muse who keeps whispering in his ear, year after year. Get in touch with him at DamonSuede.com.

So We've Been Quiet...

Hello everyone!

As I'm pretty sure you all have noticed, we haven't kept up with the site for quite some time. 2013 has been an extremely busy, complicated year for the Chicks and Dicks, and it's only April, but I'm going to take it upon myself to run this joint solo *for the time being* and bring you back the interesting articles, posts, etc. that you all became accustomed to in the past year. Might not be as often, but I'm hoping to get there given time :-)

Thank you all for the support and sticking around, and make sure to leave comments once we're back on!

Zombies = Festival of F-U-N by Kari Gregg

Be the story slapstick/campy zombies or the most gruesome of undead apocalypses, zombies are just plain FUN. Think about it. No more mortgage, no more credit card debt. Say farewell to PTA meetings and rush hour gridlock on the way to the day job (which you hate, anyway). Annoying neighbors? Pfft! Gone. Every ill of civilization and your life is wiped clean by the zombie horde.

The best part?

Survival doesn’t belong to the richest, the most beautiful, or the strongest. Living through the apocalypse and in its aftermath narrows down to how clever you are. Sure, being in shape doesn’t hurt. You do have to be physically fit to run from zombies and repeatedly crunching skulls under your weapon of choice won’t be easy, either. Quite the workout. But you need to be smart, too. You have to be clever enough to predict and avoid dangers like concentrated groups of people fighting each other for supplies or an avenue of escape. You also need the wits to acquire necessary resources as well as learning basic survival skills like how to find and purify water. Strength will carry you only so far. Then, if the undead haven’t munched your brains, you’re sure going to stretch the limits of your resourcefulness and adaptability.

Zombie fiction puts you smack in the center of that. The draw of zombie fic is as much about imagining what you would do if the undead were shambling to your door as it is reading about how the heroes survive. How would you find food? Where would you take shelter? What would you do to defend that shelter?

In Half a Million Dead Cannibals, Riley stumbles into the outer perimeter of a rival survivor group. He is sorely tempted to linger and explore. He has seen a small part of the defenses these other survivors have erected to herd zombies away and he wants to learn more because every tip and technique could help he and Graham survive longer.

What would you do? Take the risk of sticking close to hostile survivors to discover their fortifications secrets? Or flee while you still can?

Leave a comment below with your email address and which you think is most important during the zombie apocalypse – strength or smarts? Why do you think so? You will get a shot at a random drawing for a Zombie Outbreak Response Team car decal like so:

Commenters will also receive an entry into my Half a Million Dead Cannibals Zombie Survival Kit Contest (details about the prize and moar chances to win it here: http://www.karigregg.com/?p=1652).

Zombies are coming, guys. Comment, comment, comment! While you still can...

***

Blurb:

All that’s keeping Riley from the man he’s falling in love with are the ruins of a city filled with half a million dead cannibals.

Strangers, Riley and Graham sheltered together in a basement storage unit when the zombie outbreak slammed into the world three months ago. They lived through the first blast of the plague, but they may not last much longer among survivors scrambling for dwindling resources. They agree to hike from the city and to the safety of the mountains. They didn’t count on the storm they hoped would cover their exit developing into a Nor’easter, though, and they sure didn’t think their visibility would shrink so badly that they’d hike into the leading edge of a zombie swarm, either. In the chaos of escaping the ravenous horde, they are separated, with Graham racing toward feral dog packs to the east and Riley sprinting to hostile survivors hunting them to the west.
Nobody said finding and keeping a quality guy (alive) during the apocalypse would be easy

Author bio & links:

Kari Gregg lives in the mountains of Wild and Wonderful West Virginia with her Wonderful husband and three very Wild children. When Kari’s not writing, she enjoys reading, coffee, zombie flicks, coffee, naked mud-wrestling (not really), and . . . coffee!

Website: http://www.KariGregg.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Kari.M.Gregg

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4366316.Kari_Gregg

Twitter: https://twitter.com/karigregg

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Unwise Things by Amelia C. Gormley

I recently finished writing a book that I feel was the most amazing thing I’ve ever written.

From the very first moment I began typing, this story drove itself. In fifteen days, I wrote over 92,000 words. I’ve never done that in my life. Usually I’m lucky to write more than 1500 in a day. But the character had such a strong voice that the words just flowed and he knew exactly where he wanted to go.

The working title is Saugatuck Summer, though I don’t know if that will stick.

The thing is, it’s not a romance. Or it barely is. Yeah, a relationship builds and yeah, there’s some really hot sex, but it’s more a coming of age story. It’s about a young man who is just turning twenty-one, who is trying to process and overcome a very traumatic past so that it doesn’t dictate or limit the man he is to become. It’s about a young man who makes mistakes and hurts people, who learns both how to put blame where it properly belongs and also to forgive, who discovers that love and hate aren’t so very far apart and that it’s fully possible to feel both for the same person at the same time.

The thing is, up until the present action in the story, the young man in question is a person I know. His entire history is real. It happened to someone very close to me (and yes, I did get permission to make a story out of it.) Almost every detail of his past happened verbatim as it’s described in the story, so it’s really quite biographical. Only the “present day” events of the story are fictionalized.

February’s theme here at Chicks & Dicks is “When Hearts Attack” and while I was writing this story, frequently the heart that attacked was my own. It hurt. It’s painful. It’s real. I cried nearly every day those two weeks I was writing, because Topher (the main character) was such a wounded young man and because those wounds were, of course, very close to my heart due to the biographical nature of the character. I’d always known the person after whom he was modeled had had a terrible upbringing, but until I collated all the anecdotes and events into a single narrative, I didn’t realize just how bad it truly was, or if I did, I hadn’t really internalized it.

There were plenty of hearts attacking in the story as well, and they lead Topher and the people he’s involved with to do some very unwise things. Readers who adhere to certain genre “rules” will probably find themselves quite upset by the way the story progresses. People find themselves falling and acting on feelings they know are wrong or unwise, but are powerless to stop. One character falls in love despite being committed elsewhere. Another character falls in love despite the fact that the object of his love might not be stable enough to ever be a viable partner. Topher falls into an ill-advised affair that is going to hurt the person he’s closest to and struggles to figure out if he can trust enough to love after the way he’s been betrayed over and over.

Writing this story was an absolutely amazing experience, the kind that changes your life and leaves you looking at the world in a different way. I can’t wait until I can share it with everyone.

Then there’s the other story I have in the pipeline, a post-apocalyptic piece called Strain. It, too, features characters whose hearts become engaged despite terrible circumstances and the fact that things may end tragically. It’s about trying to hold onto innocence in a often brutal world where innocents are devoured whole. And it’s about finding the chink in what appears to be impenetrable armor, that tiny, compelling soft spot in people who think there’s no softness left in them, and to whom softness could be absolutely devastating. I’m very excited about this one, too, though for other reasons.

Hopefully both of these stories about unruly and incautious hearts run amok will see the light of day this year. In the meantime, my own heart aches because this coming week, I release the final chapter about Derrick and Gavin out into the world. Yes, my Impulse trilogy is complete and the third book will be released on March 2. It’s been a wonderful journey as Derrick and Gavin have confronted their own demons and ceded to the wisdom of their hearts. *sniff*

REACHING OPTIMUM SPEED
For Detroit handyman Derrick Chance and his lover, Gavin Hayes, the holiday season is filled with the promise of new beginnings. Gavin’s officially moving in, and after the New Year, they’ll begin house hunting. But they both know all the talk of gift exchange, whose holiday ornaments go where, and what repairs and remodels will be needed to put Derrick’s house on the market is only a smoke screen.
Before the month is over, Gavin will have the final verdict on whether or not his dangerously delusional ex, Lukas, infected him with HIV. No matter how good Gavin’s chances appear with the three-month hurdle already passed, neither he nor Derrick knows what the future holds for them.
The holidays have always been a time of loss and mourning for Derrick, but now he has to stay strong as Gavin’s own fears and doubts assail him relentlessly. And when Lukas returns, unexpectedly penitent amid troubling revelations, Gavin has to ask himself whether he can offer Derrick the future he deserves, or whether these first few months of happiness are the best they will ever get.

Scope for Authors Attending GRL 2013

We apologize for any confusion we may have inadvertently caused with our newsletter update. We’re hoping the full details will clear up any open questions. Finally, please note that invites have not gone out to ANY of the courtesy registration authors yet. In order to give clarity to our interested authors and readers, we’re releasing the new author sign-up structure ahead of the website launch.

GayRomLit is:

• capping author registration at 100 (as compared to 130 last year).
• inviting a small group of fan-chosen genre “names” to increase energy and interest at the event and make the registration process less stressful with a courtesy registration period.
• offering all available Featured Author spots the moment public registration opens to all registering authors on a first-come basis. We anticipate there will 50+ spaces available at that time.
• protecting a block of spaces for 30 rising stars who will register on a first-come basis the moment public registration opens .
• creating a second dedicated signing event to encourage fans to discover newer authors.
• encouraging supporting authors to purchase spotlights based on availability.
• raising the cost of author registration by $75-100 to meet increased venue costs and keep reader registration cost low

The following is the actual GRL Retreat author policy.

For GayRomLit 2013, the organizers have revised the way author registration occurs in order to cut down on retreat stress and improve the reader-to-author ratio. In the interests of serving our readers and not pulling them in too many directions, registration will be strictly limited to 100 author registrations: 70 Featured Authors with established careers and 30 Supporting Authors who are building their fanbase. These authors need only prove publication of a minimum of titles. (3 for Featured / 1 for Supporting)

Because last year's registration sold-out so quickly, and MANY authors informed us they were unable to register for the event, we have decided to extend an early courtesy invitation to a small group of fan-designated bestsellers in the genre. Their pre-invited status will not be advertised. They must register and pay within a two-week window, and after that time period their invitation would expire, returning their slot to the general pool at open registration. The only courtesy they are receiving is a chance to register for the event before the general registration date. There are no special privileges tied to the invitation other than less stress to secure their registration.

For $350, all Featured Authors (pre-invited and generally registered) will receive:

• Listing as an attending author on the GRL website
• Recognition as an author at the retreat with an official “GRL author” lanyard and the right to promo your work during the weekend
• One reserved spot in the GRL booksigning event
• Reserved space in the swag room
• An author spotlight (reading, Q&A, or panel) (*added value for 2013*)
• The exclusive option to purchase additional author spotlights, space permitting, at the cost of $125 each, based on availability
• The exclusive opportunity to bid on any existing special event time outside of our planned daytime spotlights
• The option to purchase promotional extras such as banner space, streaming videos, and other advertising material to feature yourself (while suppies last)

Every Featured Author will receive a spotlight with their registration: a reading, a Q&A, or a panel. We will make every reasonable effort to ensure your spotlight accomplishes what you want it to. As those 70 spots are filled, we will coordinate with each author to find out their preferred format, groupings, or branding focus. A limited number of additional spotlights are available and any Featured Author may purchase one extra spotlight.

We believe that GayRomLit needs to encourage new voices and we don't want anyone to get lost in the shuffle. Registering as a Supporting Author indicates an author is at a different point in their LGBT romance career. Again, in keeping with our commitment to putting readers first, we are limiting the number of Supporting Authors to a maximum of thirty in total - to round out our lineup to an even hundred. This allows us to give readers what they have requested and an opportunity to showcase relatively new authors as they grow their fanbase in the genre.

Authors who register as Supporting Authors should be at the beginning of their careers in LGBT romance or still attempting to build a backlist and fanbase. They must have at least one but not more than five published works available for sale with the major online vendors (Amazon, B&N, ARe) at the time of registration.

For $225, Supporting Authors will:

• Pay a lower registration fee than featured authors at the time of registration.
• Be listed as an attending author on the GRL website .
• Be recognized as an author at the event with an official “GRL author” lanyard and the right to promote their work during the weekend.
• Headline a separate "Supporting Authors" booksigning event on Thursday morning.
• Have the possibility of buying into the main book signing for a $50 fee, space permitting.
• Have the option to purchase an author spotlight, (space permitting) at the cost of $125 each.
• Reserve the option to purchase promotional extras like banner space, streaming videos, and other advertising material to feature their brands.

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We’re here to answer your questions about GRL and will happily do so. We encourage readers and authors with concerns to bring them to us directly rather than spread misinformation.

As a community and an event grows, change must happen. The organizers are caretakers of the event; we must do our best to adjust and nurture the retreat in a responsible, careful manner. We cannot have an unlimited number of authors at the retreat. We cannot draw readers effectively by leaving a limited number of slots entirely to chance. GRL will hold those few preinvitation spaces for only two weeks and then they return to general availability. For example, we’re sending a courtesy invite to JR Ward because of her upcoming release, Lover At Last. We’re fairly sure she won’t accept, but should she decide to come, we don’t doubt for a minute her fans would be pleased and the other authors would benefit.

We ask you to trust us that, as we have delivered two positive, inclusive, supportive events, we will be able to do it again. We ask that you trust that the policies we have taken months to formulate based on hundreds of responses from readers, authors and publishers are sound and just. We ask you to come to us with your concerns and we welcome your inquiries for clarification should any of these points not be clear.

GRL is an opportunity for readers and readers to connect. Because we do not have unlimited resources, space, and time, the number of authors must be limited. This was not an easy decision and one the organizers battled with for months trying to find alternatives considering the resources we have available. Making that limitation requires us to either leave that entirely to chance or establish criteria for author registration. We’ve chosen to use as even-handed a rubric as we could to make the choices on which authors we will pre-invite: Publishers, Amazon & ARe lists, fan requests--this is what made up that list.

These people should be able to attend GRL, and including them benefits everyone because of the energy and attention their presences confer. Not everyone is able to wait for registration day to immediately jump to reserve their spot. We are simply trying to alleviate this type of stress for those authors specifically mentioned by our attendees who responded to the survey. There are many readers who are drawn to an event by one author's name and discover others while there. We help the entire author list by allowing high-profile writers time to commit to GRL without anxiety or pressure.

Again, we would like to emphasize: this new policy represent slight changes. We want to keep GRL healthy and every one of these decisions arose only from that need:

• Based on nearly universal request to improve reader/author ratio, last year's 130 authors is now capped at an even 100.
• Based on financial realities, we have changed the way professional registration happens so that we can include authors and publishers at all levels and share the financial load equitably. The change to author registration cost is less than $100.
• Based on our concern that less well-known authors would be left out, we have earmarked a third of those spaces for people at an earlier stage in their careers to maintain a balance.
• Based on strenuous complaint by those same authors feeling lost and readers feeling confused, we have created a completely separate signing event to feature the folks who told us they got "lost in the cracks" last year.
• Based on objections to over-scheduling and competing tracks we have streamlined panels to let authors spend more quality time with the readers who've come to see them.
• Based on all authors’ desire to have more control over their spotlights we have implemented a system of customization and mindful planning so fans and authors can find each other more easily.

Because we know you will still have questions, and because we would like to answer them personally, an organizer will be available via a UStream broadcast at 3:30PM CST (URL:http://www.ustream.tv/channel/gayromlit) to answer your questions live. You may also email us directly at info@gayromlit.com with any questions or concerns you might have.

A sidenote: we want this event to survive and it will have to evolve to do so. GRL Retreat operates as a non-profit entity, and the six GRL organizers run this event on a volunteer basis at serious personal and professional cost. We encourage anyone who would like to have a hand in protecting the health of the event and our continued commitment to inclusion and tolerance to volunteer to help make it happen.

Little has changed, and a great event is coming in October. We hope to see you in Atlanta.

Falling in Love is so Hard on the Knees by JP Barnaby

I spent my nineteenth birthday at a hospital in Ill., next to the bedside of my ten-day-old daughter as she fought for her life amidst tubes and machines the likes of which I’d never seen. By then, she’d already had surgery to bypass the malformations in her heart while they rushed her name to the top of the transplant list. The severity of her condition coupled with her otherwise excellent health made her the perfect candidate for a transplant. Just five months later, after they’d ripped out her tiny little heart and replaced it with one from an infant car accident victim, she was gone. I wasn’t even old enough to drink.

At the time, I had no idea my life had begun to spiral out of control. I enrolled in college to try and make something of my broken life, but it was one of the few good decisions I made for myself. A lot of that time in my life is fuzzy, blocked out by the unbearable pain, but I remember guys, I remember wanting to give up, I remember my best friend trying to put me back together before he took an internship half-way across the country. My parents were at a loss, grieving themselves after the loss of their first grandchild. While I would never again take the chance on children, my sister eventually gave them two beautiful girls.

My tunnel had no light at the end.

Then, I met a girl. Well, a woman, really. I was barely into my twenties and she was in her early thirties. At Purdue, we had a chat system called bitnet relay (raise your hand if you’re old enough to remember the original IRC) where kids could talk to each other and collaborate through a command prompt-style interface. That is where I met Lisa. While she was no longer a student at IU Bloomington, she still had an account through an administrative friend. We talked for hours about everything and nothing. She emailed me pictures of herself, and I reciprocated. God, she was beautiful and brilliant and sweet. One weekend, she invited me down to her apartment in Bloomington. I scraped up enough from my minimum wage job for gas and the barest essentials of food, climbed into my beater, and jumped onto I-65 South.

While I’d understood for a while that I was bisexual, at least in the abstract, we proved it over and over that weekend. We loved each other in ways I don’t think I’d ever even heard of at that point in my life. During our time together, she introduced me to her Dom, Master Andrew. He and I talked over the phone and clicked almost instantly. We talked about BDSM and how it could help me to channel the horrible hopelessness in my chest into something else. I could get out of my head, at least for a little while, and let someone else be in control. It was Lisa’s way of helping me to heal. She had her own issues that she dealt with through submission and thought maybe it would help me too.

For a couple of months, I saved and scrimped, and fought to buy my very first airline ticket. After all of the hot, whispered late night phone calls where I got into him having me bind my hands or spank myself (thought I felt completely ridiculous afterward), I would be meeting my Dom. We spent that weekend essentially closeted in his tiny campus apartment where he introduced me to bondage, pain, discipline, and submission. We were kids, and it’s nothing like what I do now, but it helped. While I didn’t graduate college, I got a great job in IT during the tech boom of the 90s and learned as I went. Eventually, I became a programmer and I’ve enjoyed my career.

Andrew and I saw each other probably half a dozen times in total. At that time, I couldn’t separate sex from love, I didn’t know how. I thought because he dominated me, because we had amazing intimate sex, that we were in love. He was gentle in his explanations, probably more than I deserved, but I ended up walking away from him and that relationship because I wasn’t getting what I wanted. But I still think of Master Andrew often, when I try and when I win because he taught me that I was a source of pride for him. I was his.

Since then, I’ve had other lovers and other Doms—each has taught me a different lesson through their patience and their control. With a successful career in software development and over a dozen published books, I think I turned out okay under their hands. They took a broken girl and used a flogger to make her strong. So, while falling in love with Master Andrew probably wasn’t my best idea, it started in motion a chain of events to make me J. P. Barnaby and I’ll always be grateful for his guidance.

Purchase Aaron here

Award winning romance novelist, J. P. Barnaby has penned over a dozen books. As a bisexual woman, J.P. is a proud member of the GLBT community both online and in her small town on the outskirts of Chicago. A member of Mensa, she is described as brilliant but troubled, sweet but introverted, and talented but deviant. She spends her days writing software and her nights writing erotica, which is, of course, far more interesting. The spare time that she carves out between her career and her novels is spent reading about the concept of love, which, like some of her characters, she has never quite figured out for herself.

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What Exactly Is Romance? by Lily Grace

Yup. You read that right. I’m supposedly an author of M/M romance, and I just asked for a definition. I can almost see you arching an eyebrow, but bear with me.

When someone picks up a book that falls into the romance genre, they expect to read some manner of a love story. That’s fairy clear. What I don’t find so obvious is what specifically constitutes romance. Hearts and flowers and skywritten professions of undying love and passionate kisses in the rain often come to mind when we think of romance. We envision people undertaking perilous journeys to return to one another, or lovers giving up everything just to be together. We picture big grand gestures—proposals on the top of the Eiffel Tower, serenades outside bedroom windows, or other scenes that could be ripped from a picture-perfect movie script.

I’m not saying these things aren’t romantic. They absolutely can be. But I do think that it would be a mistake to limit our idea of what constitutes romance to the above examples. Let me tell you why.

When I was little, all I wanted was to be was a princess. And if I were a princess, then obviously Prince Charming would come riding up on his handsome steed and sweep me off my feet and it would be totally romantic. I also thought, in my more formative years, that my parents were totally unromantic. My dad never gave my mom flowers. (Mom and Dad: “They just die in a few days.”) They never bought each other lavish gifts. (Mom and Dad: *shrugs* “We have everything we need.”) They didn’t even have a good proposal story. (Mom and Dad: “It was a long time ago. We don’t really remember exactly how it happened. We just knew we wanted to be together.”)

Now that I’m older, I tend to look at things a bit differently. My parents have been married for just over 42 years, and not only are they still together, but they’re still ridiculously happy. Whenever I visit them I find myself reminded each time that displays of love and affection do not have to be demonstrative or wrapped up in fanfare in order to be unbelievably romantic.

My parents might be doing something as simple and ordinary and boring as cleaning up in the kitchen after dinner. But somewhere in the midst of tidying up my dad’s arms will go around my mom’s waist. He might even given her ass a little pat. He’ll nuzzle into her neck and whisper some sort of sweet nothing in her ear. She’s blush like a school girl and look pleased as punch all at the same time, and my dad will give her a goofy besotted grin as if he knows he’s absolutely the luckiest man on the planet.

When I witness these little moments, I often think who the hell needs flowers and big grand gestures when two people can still look at each other like that after 42 years?

I guess my point is, it’s easy to pass over, or not even take notice, of the quiet, steady, enduring romances because there are other types of romance that seem grander and shinier and sexier.

Big grand gestures and unrestrained actions and ardent displays of affection can be wonderfully pulse quickening and exciting to read about. But my parents have given each other over 40 years, and I have no doubt they will give each other the rest of their lives. So it may not be grand, and their story may never get made into a movie, but honestly, I can’t really think of anything more romantic.

As a writer I try to remember this, because I’ve found that it is often the simplest displays that can take your breath away and truly show the depth of love between two people.

*****

When a family friend offers him the job of resident psychologist at Chicago’s GLBT Center, Kyle Michelson jumps at the chance to reinvigorate his career, move on from his recent breakup, and get his life back on track. Kyle hopes returning to the familiar territory of his hometown will do him good, but meeting Emory Brenner at a club changes everything.

Anything but familiar, Emory leaves Kyle breathless from the start. There’s just one problem: Kyle wants more than a one-night stand, Emory doesn’t do relationships, and neither man can resist the other. Luckily for Emory, he never has to see Kyle again. Or so Emory thinks until he runs into him while volunteering at the GLBT Center.

Kyle makes Emory want things he never thought he could have and chips away at secrets Emory has kept locked away for years. On the surface, Emory’s recovered from his past: he has a job at a record store and a roof over his head. But putting his trust in another person, having a relationship, means opening himself to more pain—and that is a risk he can’t take.

Available from Dreamspinner Press

                                                                            *****

Lily Grace hails from the Midwest but currently resides in the DC metro area. Her background is in public health and the life sciences and she spends her days working as a health care consultant. When she’s not busy being a nerdy scientist she curls up with her laptop and dreams up romantic stories about beautiful men.

She's a fan of loud rock concerts, cooking, shoe shopping, and strawberry ice cream. She loves love, hates cleaning, and is still amazed that when she decided on a whim to try writing a story a few years back that it would lead to having her works published.

You can find her on her blog, Twitter and Facebook.