Stumbled Across This

-too true, too true...

Writers are forgetful,
but they remember everything.
They forget appointments and anniversaries,
but remember what you wore,
how you smelled,
on your first date…
They remember every story you’ve ever told them -
like ever,
but forget what you’ve just said.
They don’t remember to water the plants
or take out the trash,
but they don’t forget how
to make you laugh.

Writers are forgetful
because
they’re busy
remembering
the important things.

The Very Bloody Marys - The NEW Edition

I'm thrilled to be able to announce the imminent re-release of my queer vampire thriller/humor novel, The Very Bloody Marys - coming very, very soon from Renaissance E Books.

Here's a tease of the new cover:

And here's a wonderful review of the book by the also-wonderful Kit O'Connell:

It’s no secret that M. Christian and I are friends. I’ve introduced one of his books and we’ve guest blogged for each other too. So even if I’m not the most unbiased critic, I still like to highlight interesting books I read from time to time even if they are by friends of mine.

One of Chris’ many recurring themes are alternate visions of the police. One of the characters in his wonderfully weird novel near-future novel Finger’s Breadth is a freelance officer who receives his orders and files reports via a distributed police ap on his smartphone. “Bluebelle” in The Bachelor Machine explores a future cop’s intimate relationship with his police vehicle, and Christian even co-edited the anthology Future Cops.

The most recent book I read by him is The Very Bloody Marys. Like Finger’s Breadth, it takes place in an alternate San Francisco but  creatures of the night. Our hero is Valentino, a young gay vampire so uncertain of his place in the world that he can’t even decide how to start telling his story at the beginning of the book, so he begins again 2 or 3 times. Somehow, despite his Lestat-like confidence or prowess, he’s been selected to join an undead police force charged with maintaining the secrecy of the undead and the weird. Here, Valentino laments his own impending doom after his superior officer disappears:

Two hundred years. It’d been a good run. Lots of … well, there’d been blood of course. Moons. Stars. Rain. Fog. Hiding, too: all-night movie theaters, bars, discos, stables, warehouses, churches, a few synagogues (even a mosque or two) [...] Lots of … I was going to say friends but, to be honest, the nightlife might be advantageous to boogying but doesn’t make for long-term relationships. Some back-alley assignations, sticky stuff in my mouth or pants; not blood, or at least not up until a few years ago. 

Two hundred sure sounds like a lot, but … the time just seemed to have hopped, skipped and jumped by. Never skied, never sailed, never surfed, never had two guys at once [...] What surprised me the most, though, was what I wanted more: orchids, bow ties, potato salad, string, oil or watercolor, hooks and line, two of everything.

The book has a breezy, playful noir style which would make it perfect summer reading. Though it doesn’t have the usual romance (though it has a handful of interesting unrequited ones), I found it especially interesting as a queer take on the torrid vampires-and-werewolves subgenre of urban fantasy.

I'm Going To NYC!

Be afraid - very afraid - all you New Yawkers: I'm planning a trip to the Big Apple (probably around the end of September).

If you know of any possible venues for readings, classes, or just want to hang out, drop me a line and I'll make it happen while I'm there.

Way to Go, Ralph!

Here's a hearty congratulations to my dear, sweetie, and very-wonderful friend Ralph Greco, Jr - who is having one of his plays produced as part of the Chatman Playhouse's 18th Annual Jersey Voices Festival. Way to go, Ralph!

In The Kid
By Ralph Greco, Jr. of Clifton
A young aspiring writer interviews with a famous playwright to be a research assistant. But the playwright may not be exactly who they seem to be; or maybe they don't really want a research assistant after all. This production features Cooper Sacks of Summit, Jean Kuras of Glen Ridge and Terri Sturtevant of Hillsborough.

Confessions Of A Literary Streetwalker: Bond, James Bond ... Or Do I Really Need An Agent?

Check this out: I just wrote a brand new "Confessions Of A Literary Streetwalker" piece for the always-great Erotica Readers & Writers site - all my previous columns, of course, have been collected in How To Write And Sell Erotica by Renaissance Books.  Here's a tease:

The world of professional writing can be ... no, that's not right: the world of professional writing is - without a doubt - a very frightening, confusing place.

Not only are there only a few diehard rules – to either slavishly follow or studiously avoid - but even basic trust can be a very, very rare: should I put my work on my site, or will it be stolen?  Should I even send my work out to other writers, for the very same reason? 

What about editors or - especially - publishers?  Does my editor really have my best interests in mind?  Should I make the changes he or she suggests or should I stand my ground and refuse to change even one word?  Is my publisher doing all they can for my book?  Are they being honest about royalties? 

Back in the days of print - before the revolution – a lot of these questions would have been answered by an agent: a person who not only knew the business but would actually hold a writer's hand and lead them from that doubt and fear and, hopefully, towards success ... however you want to define that word.

Agents spoke the cryptic language of rights and royalties: they could actually read – and even more amazingly - understand a book contract.  They'd be able, with their experience and foresight, to say when a writer should say yes or no to edits.

[MORE]

Out Now: The Mammoth Book of Erotica presents The Best of M. Christian

I am extremely pleased and proud to be able to announce the publication of The Mammoth Book of Erotica presents The Best of M. Christian

What makes this book so special is that it is made up of stories that have previously appeared in Maxim Jakubowski's excellent Mammoth Book of New Erotica series - an honor that still makes me giggle like a schoolgirl.

What's also cool about this new collection is that it has a little bit of everything ... for everyone: erotic science fiction, queer erotic stories, and more! It's quite literally a book for just about everyone.

The Color of Lust - A shark, seedy poolhall, and a wager ... Daisy knew the hustle but what she didn't count on was being played herself. But in the best possible way.... Everything But The Smell Of Lilies - In the near future, Justine is a sex worker with a unique twist: for a fee her clients can do whatever they want - including kill her. Everything is going well for her ... until, that is, she comes across an ambulance attendant with his own unique fetish.  Betty Came - A sweet, and extra-hot, tale of longing and lesbian desire: what do you do when you know what you is so very wrong ... but feels so very right?  Regrets - Sitting on a chair, arms on the desk, fingers on the keyboard, words on the screen-" the letter is a final goodbye from a fellow to the world he's wronged ... or is it? And if he didn't write it then who did?  The New Motor - A steampunky tale of outrageous turn-of-the-century inventiveness: John Murray Spear created The New Motor, The Mechanical Savior, but it was a special woman who gave it a sexy spark of life ... and then some.  NY by Way of Taos - In a trailer baking in the hot desert sun, two women lose themselves to desire and fantasy: going to new and, for them, unexplored sexual worlds ... like New York City

M.Christian's Technorotica: I See Into The Future!

Reprinted from M.Christian's Technorotica

... or, at least, I wrote about what I saw as the next logical step in personal computers.  In Painted Doll, which I did a few years back - and is now available from Sizzler Editions - I wrote about an alternative culture in New Zealand that used an elegant head-mounted display:


(here's a bit about that, from a letter Flower wrote to her lover about this group - called the Noos - and their tech):

After dinner – did I mention the glasses?  Shit, forgot about them.  Easy to do, I guess.  They're a huge part of the world here, so big you don't even notice them.  Gave me my pair after the first week.  They called them iglasses, a joke they say no one under forty understands.  Which I'm not, so I didn't.  Anyway, they're mnemonic plastic.  They look cheap but they aren't.  Big guy named Star, like a golden bear with a huge bristly beard, told me they'd cost something like 5 million new yen if they sold them, which they don't.  He also told me they are a "mesh networked, micro thermopile powered, molecular computer system with a virtual retinal display" which I don't understand.  But they work, I know that.  You put them on and you can see and hear all this stuff that is and isn't there.  Like you can look at the ground and see where the irrigation pipes are, and then reach out and touch a little icon and then see instructions on how to fix them.  Or look at someone and see their name, what they are good at, what they don't like – stuff like that.  Sometimes it's like cartoons, little symbols and stuff floating around, other times it's like a ghost world that you can but then can't see.  I'm writing with them, too.  They showed me how to get them to show me a keyboard, and then I just touch where the letters are.  Kinda cool, but also kinda creepy.

They use the glasses to talk to one another.  They shoot videos with them, make cartoons, write poems, do all kinds of things, and send them to each other.  They may look like primitive, but they're really wizards with this kind of stuff.  It makes me sad to think how I know that, but I do.  

And now - guess what? - we not only have Project Glass from Google but now rumors that Apple may be getting into the game.

Welcome to the world of tomorrow, people: we're not writing it - we're living it

Creepy Uncle Sam

(via greggorysshocktheater)

What's Going On Today

Check out Technorotica for news, reviews, and other fun stuff about my cybersex stuff

Take a look at Meine Kleine Fabrik for articles, essays and - you guessed it - more fun stuff of a non-fictional nature

And over at Queer Imaginings there's going to be other kinds of cool stuff ... with a queer twist

"I put my whole self into everything I do"

It's so easy to think Andy Griffith was just Sheriff Andy Taylor on The Andy Griffith Show. But you have to - and I mean have to - watch A Face In The Crowd to see just how brilliant an actor he man could be.

Changes!

You may have noticed quite a few differences here on my blog. In a nutshell, quite a a few people have pointed out that my writing is (to be polite) rather scattered: gay fiction and erotica here, science fiction and cyber-erotica there, and - somewhere in the middle - my non-fiction (like my newly released Welcome To Weirdsville).

So what I've done is set up two brand new blogs and tweaked my prime blog here and at meine kleine fabrik to focus a bit more specifically on what I do - in the future my plans are to still post pretty much everything here on M.Christian but then put the appropriate content (plus new and surprising stuff) on the new blogs.

Here are the new blogs and (very) brief descriptions of what's on them:

Click here for M.Christian's Technorotica: A Blog Dedicated To My Technology-Inspired Erotica

Click here for M.Christian's Queer Imaginings: A Blog Dedicated To My Queer Erotica

Click here for M.Christian's Meine Kleine Fabrik: A Blog Dedicated To My Non-Fiction ... and Other Fun Things

... and, of course, Frequently Felt is still around: my - a lobcock of erotic trivialities, oddities, and miscellanea transcribed with jaundiced talent for naught but a boxing Jesuit indulgence by a disreputable posse mobilitatis

Stay tuned for even more changes - but in the meantime please feel free to write me with yours comments or (sigh) look up me on Facebook

Painted Doll, An Excerpt

In celebration of the re-release of my cyberpunk BDSM erotica novel, Painted Doll, here's an except...

Chapter 2

... Qui Dan Road to the High Street, a stumble of crisp British in a city of fish sauce and MSG. The change didn’t alter her steps, modify her movements.

Beautiful? Oh, yes: without doubt, without a question. The splendor of a rose, the loveliness of an orchid. The kimono is flawless, as is the china white of her immaculately applied artificial complexion. As she walks, hearts stop then race. As she walks, heads twist, eyes widen. As she walks, breaths are hissed in, sighed out.

Beautiful? Oh, yes: without doubt, without a question. But she is a knife-edged rose, a razor sharp orchid. Her stride is mechanically perfect, as is her perfectly vertical posture. Their hearts might race, their heads may twist, their eyes certainly widen, their breaths absolutely hiss in and hiss out, but as she steps nearer they instead step back. As she walks, they avert their eyes. As she walks, they pull themselves in.

The woman walking down the High Street feels them watching her, their glances furtive tickles, their quick stares barely felt hooks out of the corners of her always forward facing eyes. Passing a bookseller – tight fans of rough tan paper with lurid Cantonese chops on their glistening plastic covers hung in sagging arcs of cord – a reflection was revealed to her, a caught sight of what they were seeing.

But not what they were thinking. But she knew, nevertheless: each of them lost in illusions and fantasies as carefully crafted as her rouge, as flawlessly presented as the mae migoro and ushiro migoro of her kimono, as immaculately assembled as her performance:

She’s a dragon, some might think: the cruelty of a reptile, the flawlessness of a myth. You may approach her, with bravery beyond that of any battlefield, speaking with a stammer and a twitch, and if you were fortunate beyond your worth she’d slow, pause, turn with prudently measured grace, deeming your presence not completely disgusting. With that look, at that glance, would be a flickering forked tongue of cruel invitation, a scintillating promise of peaked breasts topped with fist-tight nipples, a belly steel plate flat and firm, a behind curving out in twin clenches of muscular intensity, thighs sculpted by rigid posture, and between them a scented valley of ruby silk.

But first, a miniscule task. But first, an all but insignificant request: to firmly stand guard for her honor and dignity; to fetch a inestimable gem, an incalculable jewel, or just a unexceptional sticky-sweet pastry; to perform for her a melody of praise, or a stammering litany of desperate worth; or a quick athletic demonstration of physical merit; or become for her an avenging knight, a battle to defend her honor against some heinous offense.

A minuscule task. An insignificant request. Accepted without doubt or hesitation, the reward a slow curl at the corner of her cold stone face, a bow of gratitude, and a bright flash of serpentine green eyes. Totally entranced by her, completely captured by her, the dragon would then reveal the metaphorical points of venomous teeth, sinking the illusion of her love deep into the shaft of your encouraged penis by showing you the true face of her cruelty.

The prize was yours but the tasks were actually anything but miniscule, not at all insignificant: firmly stand guard for her honor and dignity – for a year; fetch a inestimable gem, an incalculable jewel, or just a unexceptional sticky-sweet pastry – from a thousand miles away; perform for her a melody of praise, or a stammering litany of desperate worth – perfectly, without the tiniest flaw; a quick athletic demonstration of physical merit – unattainable by even the greatest athlete; or become for her an avenging knight, a battle to defend her honor against some heinous offense – in combat against a killing machine.

And so the dragon passes by, a smile on her cold-blooded face. No one approaches her, no one is willing to come near. And so they live, by letting her just walk by.

She’s a doll, some might think: a porcelain figure, an ivory representation. Beneath the silks and satins would be a body as perfect as only a master artisan could create. Breasts both delicate and womanly, nipples as delicate as rosebuds, a belly with an ideal swell, hands with the grace of ten Noh performers, calves a perfect taper, thighs an entrancing form, back a clean surface of alabaster, neck a musical curve, feet delicate and precious, a behind highlighted with sacral dimples, and a female cleft that was a pale oyster and a tiny pink pearl.

Like a doll, she would belong to whoever buys her. Cash, credit, merchandise – the right amount and the woman would instead walk behind, following her owner towards palace or hovel, both with the same unmoving mask of her face.

Palace or hovel, she would walk in the door, standing still and quiet with an item’s posture. Maybe she’d look better in the living room window, where the afternoon would bathe her in golden light? Or perhaps she’d be better exhibited in the bedroom, where her kimono could be removed like one from a real woman.

Yes, the bedroom. That was where she would be best displayed. Moving past, it was clear in their eyes, the allure of her perfect submission. A thing. An object. A piece of feminine sculpture. Unable to disagree, unable to refuse, bendable in all kinds of imaginative ways. From behind, cock sliding between her cool ivory cheeks. Face to face, marble breasts for unimpeded kiss, licks, and sucks. On top, her tight thighs spread apart and welcoming upward thrusts. Anything you wanted, anytime you wanted.

Desire was a rippling wave behind her, a heat distortion in the warm city air. It was obvious in their eyes that there, in her, was a world without ‘no,’ a land without complaint, a woman without a soul.

Then they stopped, that wave of erections and licked dry lips chilled with a slap of frigid revelation. Stepping back with the rest of the crowd, these men retreated from the precise rhythm of her steps, with whimpering fear in their wide eyes, their shaking heads.

Ivory arms, marble legs, alabaster body: inflexible, unfeeling, stiff, unbending, unyielding, and -- worst of all -- cold. With her you’d never hear ‘no,’ never be refused, never be denied, but you’d also never hear the beat of her heart, the music of her voice, the chimes of her laughter, the moans and screams of her pleasure. You’d perform with her your deepest, darkest, most subterranean – and all she would do would be to look at you with inscrutably glass eyes.

She’s a tiger, some might think: a beast with the stripes of a traditional Japanese dress. Hidden beneath her Asian camouflage was a woman’s body, exercised into an extension of her erotic drive. Where other women had euphemisms and poetic alliterations, she had simple, direct, and powerful words to describe herself. Where other women had bosoms, she had tits of ideal jiggle and sway, covered in thrilling smooth skin. Where other women had nipples, she had a pair of dark brown direct connections to her clit. Where other women had posteriors, she had two plush muscular globes that clenched and released with the beating heat of her clit. Where other women had sexes, she had a demanding, insistent cunt.

To see and handle these differences would be more fortune than seduction. You did not take the tiger to dinner and slip hot words between dessert and coffee. You did not lay flowers at the feet of this hot blooded woman within the cool disguise of a geisha. You did not whisper poetry into the shell-like ear of this elegantly robed bitch.

There was no way to make her do anything, no way to slyly allure or simply trick her into a private room, no way to seduce her. The only thing anyone could do was to stand within the range of that sweeping predatory glance and hope that her eyes would positively estimate your worth as a device for her pleasure. Then, and only then, would her red-painted lips open ever-so, more than a whisper but less than full voice, and speak the one word you’d prayed to hear: “Come.”

Behind her, pulled along by her insatiable need, you would follow. It wouldn’t be a long journey, for her cunt has a very short attention span. Cheap hotel on the next street, expensive one even closer by, or just the nearest fetid and slimy alley – whatever was within range.

Patience was for ladies. Hesitation was for women. Tigers – even ones hidden within silks and satins – had no need for foreplay, patience, or hesitation. They wanted, so they took.

And if you were lucky, she would take you. Hands down to your cock, a squeezing judgment for size and firmness. Lips to yours, a tongue penetrating your mouth, am attacking kiss wanting nothing of you but to be kindling to her roaring heat.

On her knees, she would take you. But only because that was what she wanted. Your come was not expected or important. A flesh device to penetrate an orifice, you would be used until she was bored and ready to move onto other penetrations of other orifices.

Or perhaps she’d require something else. Falling back, satin fabric pulled roughly aside, she might bare an insistent slickness, the gleaming lips and fast-beating clit, and demand your service. Failure to accept or in performance too terrible to contemplate.

At the end, your cock would be needed: hard, strong, and fast -- nothing else important to her. Burning hot, insanely wet, you’d enter and execute the task she’d ordered, working until her screams tore at your ears and her nails scratched along your back.

Then that would be it. Humiliating? Being reduced to only a device for someone’s pleasure usually is. But the blistering heat of her, the ferocious need of her cunt would put – and keep – a smile on your sweaty face.

But – and again men standing step back, retreat in shivering dread when she walks back – one does not ever tame a tiger, even after it is fed. Who knows what she might hunger for after? Meat, blood, flesh, dignity, any number of horrible violations – any of them within her grasp, and you too exhausted to resist.

Tigers are wild things, after all: enjoyable to watch in zoos, penned behind restraining bars, but far too bloodthirsty in bed.

She’s a machine, some might think: isn’t it wonderful what they’re doing with shape memory alloys, mnemetic plastics, optical fibers, and conductive polymers? Absolutely wonderful things coming out of Japan, India, the Wilding, and the young turks of the École Polytechnique, these days. Look up and there are dragonfliers pausing for location fixes before darting off at near-invisible speeds, packages clutched under their iridescent fuselages. Look down and there are myriad scurrying mechanisms trailing polished tracks of perfumed cleanliness through the city’s persistent grime. Look around and there are cinematics lazily scrolling across a lady’s fluttering fan, posters for the newest Malasian blockbuster cycling through tantalizing glimpses of furious martial arts and stiffly chaste duets, the hushed commuting fuel-cell and ethanol traffic, and the softly creaking carbon fibers of a prosthetic hand on a crumble-faced veteran of the Chinese genocide as he lays down a mah-jongg tile.

Look at her and you might see a device as carefully machined as a German car, a Swiss watch, a Japanese entertainment center, Indian software, or an African running shoe: breasts as ideal and resilient as silicone, skin of perfectly cured plastic, muscles as precise and strong as actuators, a genital-pleasuring interface between her thighs, a mouth with the same technology.

It was a safe bet that without her protective kimono covering, the pseudo-body of hers was as superlative as a supermodel, as sensuous as a Playmate of whatever month, as adept as an amalgamation of every courtesan who’d ever lived, as refined and machined as her manufacturers could make her.

Movement like the architecture in fine software, presence as authoritative as graceful as a jet fighter, skin as smooth as the polish on a fresh-from-the-factory-floor Ferrari, she passed by – and with her passing the tracking of lust and greed in the eyes of the male crowd, and sour envy on the faces of everyone else.

Here was the best of both of a man’s world: the twin allures of a clever device together with a well-articulated woman – or, to be more specific, as those men revealed so obviously, ‘coupled’ together, a mating between flesh and sex and advanced technology and power. Purchasing this – or simply leasing with an option to do the same – and putting it in the garage or the bedroom, would mean not just a product but also a woman of every dream, not just a sex partner but also a sophisticated piece of fine engineering.

But that wasn’t all. Look at them watching her move by. Lust was there, both for machine as well as woman, but there was also the dawning realization that there could be even more there: things that squeezed, buzzed, vibrated, hummed, heated, cooled, swirled, oscillated, tingled, and more, more, more so much more.

But then they pulled away, out of her way, out of her traffic, their fantasies dropping behind to be passed by the rushing acceleration of a nightmare, the barreling truck of a terrifying understanding.

Engineering, went their minds as they retreated, is fine and good, stimulating and thrilling. Sex, they thought as they ran away from her, is fantastic and wonderful. But to fuck a machine, to be intimate with gears and cogs, synthetics and electricity, hydraulics and radiators, could be good, but also could be like thrusting into a meshing, tearing, burning, shocking, scalding, blistering industrial accident.