Sheer Lust
People are rightly excited about the lovely cover of this book. I am so pleased to have a solo guy on the cover as you will know if you read my complaints elsewhere. Not that I find wet men as exciting as certain people. I like a bit of glisten more than a soaking. But I’m happy with this cover.
I’m less happy about the copy edits made to my story in this book. For some reason the authors never got galley proofs of Lust At First Bite. During the galley stage authors get to have a say (although not the final say) in any editorial changes. But this time the galley stage got missed, for some reason, which means it wasn’t until I got the book in my hands that I saw that every instance of the word ‘cunt’ had been changed to the cringey bad-erotica no-one-says-in-real-life ’sex’. Eurgh. And totally OOC for my viewpoint character.
I think not using the word cunt in stories about explicit sex is a bit lame – but I would have changed the word for something else if I had known it was a problem for Black Lace (this month). I really dislike the word ’sex’ used for genitalia. Mainly because people just don’t say that. (Maybe it is okay in a historical.) But even if they did, Blake, who is the viewpoint character in this story would never say anything as clumsy and non-direct. It might seem like a small thing, but it is really quite gutting to see your character’s dialogue and internal monologue trashed by lazy editing and the type of word choices I associate with the crasser end of erotica.
God, I’ve probably really offended anyone reading this who does use the word ’sex’ like that. Sorry. It is a blend of it being OOC and a personal dislike too, but I do have issues with the word just because it is used a lot in erotica and pretty much never IRL. I think too many erotica writers use it as crutch – and I don’t like seemingly like I am one of them.
So, to make me feel better, when you get your hands on a copy of Lust At First Bite (what is with that title – two puns?), which was out on Thursday, in UK and just in time for your Xmas gift vouchers in the US, please print out this page and stick the following cunty extracts into my story Left Hand Man – just so as I feel less like a crappy writer.
1. I knew I couldn’t give her the due pounding she would’ve enjoyed with a busted arm. But I still show her something, holding her legs apart with my body and using my mouth on her hot witch’s cunt until she’s writhing, pulling against the cuffs on her wrists. When I think she’s on the brink, I stop.
2. Oh god, you know, I love my faithless wife. Always will. And I do tell her I’ve never cheated except with a witch – and it doesn’t count with a witch – but, oh, no one, no one feels like Lilith. Nothing feels like a witch’s cunt desperate for your cock inside it.
I draw back. I just leave the tip of my dick inside her. Her cunt pulses begs like the hungry maw of a baby bird. ‘Say “please”. Say “please, Blake, fuck me”.’
‘I could rip your fucking arms off.’
‘You could say “please, Blake, fuck me”.’ I slide my cock up the ravine of her cunt and swirl the head on her swollen clit.
She meets my eye. ‘Please, Blake, fuck me.’
Down I go. Down and in.
‘Please, Blake, harder. Hard.’
I do as she asks. It feels amazing. I don’t know if it is the ecstasy of my painless working right arm, the way it feels baring my weight. But god. God!
‘Please, Blake. More, harder. Fuck me harder, please. Please!’
I fuck her and fuck her and each thrusts seems to make her yell out for more and make me harder inside her.
When I crest, she’s there too. She brings it. Crying out in chains and stockings. Her cunt pulses, slick, clenching around me.
3. Less than an hour in a vampire castle and I’m fucking an undead bitch. What the hell is wrong with me? Sure I’m missing my faithless vow-breaking wife, but it’s not like this is going to help. Course I shouldn’t be here. I don’t do vamps. But I’m full of drugs, right? It’s the drugs made me do this. I’m panting. She puts her hands on my chest, sliding under my sling and stroking my nipples hard. Her cunt works my cock like nothing I’ve ever felt and it’s then that I get an unexpected flash of clarity. She is way, way too good at this. Vampires don’t fuck like human’s do. Don’t fuck like this. She said so herself. They bite each other. So how did this one learn to fuck human men this well. I think of her mouth – the way I’d felt like she must have sucked a million cocks…
There used to be a thing of vamps biting whores way back in the day. They were out alone at night. Easier. Weaker. Friendlier. People care less about them. Makes sense. Same reason serial killers often pick on them as victim of choice. So now a lot of the female vamps you meet these days were whores when they were human. (So they have mouths for sucking twice over.) But even so, if I was ever getting fucked by a woman who was once a rich man’s favourite whore, a woman whose cunt he’d pay witches to protect…
‘Oh god,’ I say, ‘it’s you.’ She clenches around me hard enough to stop me thinking anything for a second.
Shit. Shit. I can’t fight the way she’s making my cock feel and the pills and her drug – whatever the fuck that actually was, god, why do I have this strange weakness to take unknown substances when I’m in pain?
She’s the fertile vamp. I can’t, won’t, mustn’t go over edge. But the wind is so strong…
‘I know who you are.’
She laughs and her cunt tightens again, drawing me still closer to doom.
One other rankle (I hope all that smut has cheered you through this posts general whinginess) is that I didn’t have Blake smoking in this story. And if you’ve read any of the other werewolf books you’ll know Blake smoking is very much part of any Blake scene. So if you could just pencil in a bit about that when you’ve finished pasting I’d be completely happy.
Wonderful extracts! I shall go and amend my copy at once. Blake is such an incorrigibly twisted, straight-talking, no nonsense kind of guy that his use of ’sex’ really jars. I don’t mind the word in the right context – I find it quite bland and that can be useful. I’m not so keen when it’s promoted in a sentence as if it has heat and resonance, as if it’s a sexy word.
But all that is beside the point. It’s outrageous BL are exercising this sort of editorial control. Because this isn’t the ordinary sort if editorial interference which merely annoys. This is political. It’s about women’s bodies and female sexuality, and the meanings ascribed to that. I know BL have been nervous about cunt in the past but with this anthology they’ve effectively banned the word. And with that, they’re capping expressions of female sexuality. They are saying here’s an all-women imprint, a space dedicated to authentic expression of female desire, and there you go, it’s yours. Just don’t go expressing yourselves *too* authentically, don’t get too hard and dirty on us because we want you to keep it pretty for mass-market consumption. And actually, sorry, this space is ours.
I think it’s time to read my LB post again: Cunt or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the C-word
*rolls a cigarette for Blake*
Aw man, that totally blows. You must be absolutely livid (I know I would be).
Not to worry though, when I manage to get my hands on the book, I’ll definitely be sticking all the cunty bits back in. It’s my most favourite word ever!
They are saying here’s an all-women imprint, a space dedicated to authentic expression of female desire, and there you go, it’s yours. Just don’t go expressing yourselves *too* authentically, don’t get too hard and dirty on us because we want you to keep it pretty for mass-market consumption. And actually, sorry, this space is ours.
Sad, but absolutely true. I learned that one a couple of years back. Black Lace is NOT a feminist imprint.
But they let me use fica. Obscenity in foreign languages doesn’t count!
[...] deeply sexy. If you want a taste of the book’s insides, check out the excerpts on my blog and on Mathilde’s. And if you’re still hungry, try the sexy snippets on Lust [...]
“Sex” – dear god. NO-ONE says that. Just reading it makes me embarrassed. “She pressed her sex closer to him” -EWW! Why not go the whole hog and replace all references to “cunt” with “down there”? Try this:
holding her legs apart with my body and using my mouth on her hot witch’s down-there until she’s writhing, pulling against the cuffs on her wrists.
…
Nothing feels like a witch’s down-there desperate for your cock inside it.
Somehow the word has the same effect as the plastic moulding on a Barbie – smooths it all over so it’s nice and neat and invisible. IN EROTICA! The boys at HQ are taking the wrong drugs, I tell you.
I shall amend my copy forthwith. And hopefully all readers will know that either a) your personality was abducted by aliens and replaced with a substitute Stepford-Mathilde, or b) “sex” was the editor’s choice of words, not yours.
Weird! They left the “cunts” in my story. They still managed to muck up the first paragraph though by inserting random words.
I figured Blake wasn’t smoking, cause he hadn’t figured out how to roll ‘em one handed.
Don’t know where you got your research from for your witch character, but it’s absolutely spot on (I was just about to write ‘bang on’, but this is no place for puns!) I speak from experience, having been fucked by a witch.It’s now over twenty years, and there’s been a lot more women in my life since then, but I’ve never forgotten the experience, and never will.She was awesome,and completely drained me – it was absolutely wonderful, and I can still feel her demanding cunt now after all those years when I just think about it.To use ANY other word than cunt demeans it – there’s really no other word that absolutely describes it. In another blog I’ve suggested ‘twat’ – but although that’s also good it just ain’t got that demanding urgency about it. Anyway, if you’re reading this ‘Idonia’ -you were right when you told me you’d give me the fuck I’d never forget! Now I must purchase your book to find out ‘what happened next’!