Thank you for visiting this stop on the 1RomanceEbooks.com one year anniversary blog tour! This is stop # 14. Your last stop should have been http://www.lexvalentine.com/2010/07/an-anniversary/ #13. If this is wholly new to you, hop over to http://1romanceebooks.com/ and check out the blog tour for a chance to win all sorts of nifty prizes. You do need to sign up to participate in the big 1romance contest, and in the contest on this blog.

At loveyoudivine we’re taking this opportunity to announce our new ‘Focus on Fetish’ line. We already have books organised by pairings, but if you are more interested in kink, this may make it easier to track down the right stories for your needs.

 Fetish stories do not simply feature a kink though. Plenty of our other stories have a little deviant foreplay, but that’s not what fetish is about. Fetish goes beyond that, making the focus of obsession central to the story, just as the focus is central to a true fetishist. This is also distinctly different from BDSM lifestyle fiction, where all kinds of activities may go on as part of that way of life. A fetish is an obsession, a lust object, a focal point as important, if not more important than the more conventional sex.

 Interested in reading a fetish story? We have ebooks to give away for a few lucky winners. All you have to do is register at http://1romanceebooks.com/ if you haven’t already, and then leave a comment leave a comment on this blog post telling us which specific loveyoudivine fetish story you’d like to win. You’ll need to hop over to www.loveyoudivine.com and have a look round first. While you’re there, you can pick up some free reads as well so be sure to check those out too.

If you’re doing the whole blog tour thing, do note that the more comments you leave on the tour, the better your chances of winning the grand prize—a Sony E-reader!

 The next stop on the anniversary tour is #15 http://michelenjeff-reviews.blogspot.com/2010/07/happy-anniversary-to-1romancecom.html
Have fun!

In some circles, the term ‘BDSM’ is synonymous with the term ‘Kink.’ At loveyoudivine Alterotica, these two concepts amount to apples and oranges. Sure, the trees upon which they grow might both bear fruit, but one is to maintain a way of life; the other is just for fun.

BDSM is a Lifestyle, a relationship paradigm. Kink is an activity.

As a retired Pro and current Lifestyle Dominatrix, I maintain a household of slaves and submissives. How we interact is not a lot different from you and your lover, perhaps, except I have the final say in all things. That also places me a position of utmost responsibility for all of them. I gratify their needs, their desires, that unholy yearning for Dominance, and for that they offer their most devout submission.

What does submission look like? To me, simply exquisite. How could I deny any one of them when they approach me with such devotion? When they crawl into a room and swirl into a quivering puddle around my feet? When they clutch my ankle to convey such longing as if that close connection is still universes distant? When that broken sob sears through my flesh like a firestorm? What do they need?

They would deceive themselves into believing that they need nothing more than Mistress. But Mistress knows better. What they need is communion with Mistress. A creature they perceive as all-knowing and all-powerful. Someone who opens them physically, mentally and spiritually to be free of the material world, and to join with me in a place only the two of us, and no one else, can create. A place we inhabit together for relatively short spans of time. Like a drug, the energy exchanged sustains us.

How do we create that place? I lead; they follow.

Of course, we begin with that which is easiest to conquer – the flesh. When he feels the rope laid across the back of his neck, my reward is that first gasp of the evening. As I twist the rope around the torso, weaving in steel rings as attachment points, I feel him contract inside, even as his skin swells and colors with sexual arousal. Drawing that rope between the legs elicits a shudder and a moan. I might lay him on the massage table and finish that harness with the ends woven tightly around the genitalia. The sound of the chain clipped to the rings closes the eyes. The feel of the chain yanked hard under the tabletop to attach to the opposite ring at the hips, at the chest, across the throat causes the lungs to empty in complete relaxation.

Mistress has him by the balls – exactly what he needs. Should he thrash beyond the limits of my bonds, he will be reminded…vividly.

Still, we’ve only just begun.

He knows what’s next; he’s experienced it hundreds of times through the years, yet he’s never quite prepared. The black satin gloves covering my hands caress the surface so I can watch the muscles ripple under the skin like the concentric circles of waves created by a pebble tossed into a pond. The hips jerk, the shoulders shudder. And then comes the whip.

 I use a variety of tools to create the sensations he needs to rend his mind null. When he ceases to think, he becomes. Transformed into my slave, my slut, my choir of angels, by my own design, by my own desperate need.

Hours later, he’s exhausted, yet energized. Boiling with my determination, alive, renewed, reborn. The sexual arousal with which he began was merely the fuel to launch him beyond the material world, beyond orgasm or any gross sensation, to commune with me in a place of our own creation.

Sound kinky to you?

What we do is normal for us – it’s how we convey to each other our emotions, our individual requirements, and our collective goals. When I lash him with a whip, that intensity conveys something, most usually enduring love. When he writhes, when he cries, when he reaches out merely to connect, though he may be unconscious of it, he conveys to me the same.

He responds to me…and only me within our little universe.

BDSM is a Lifestyle paradigm. Most certainly, this paradigm can’t be compared to relationships within Vanillaville, otherwise known as ‘normal’ romantic relationships. For us, there’s nothing ‘kinky’ in what we do or how we interact. It’s not naughty on any level, not deviant nor disgusting. It’s who we are; it’s what we do and how we communicate with each other.

Kink is a concept that relates only to Vanillaville. If you’ve spent 10 years in the missionary position, getting flipped over and spanked could be kinky, naughty, or even downright sinful. It might reach a little deeper for a total turn-on. The sash of your satin robe restraining your hands behind your back may offer a sense of helplessness, danger or even submissiveness. A little wax dripped over your body might cause it to shudder, as might the flat of his hand on your derriere. Playful, sensual, and exciting, kink is foreplay. A Master/slave relationship, and the means we use to communicate with each other, are not.

 At loveyoudivine Alterotica, we offer both. Lifestyle literature written by those who live within a BDSM paradigm, both Dominant and submissive, can be found at the Erotic Power Xchange. A little kink can be found on any page of our catalogue.

We’re thrilled to announce yet another category at lyd – Focus on Fetish. While much of our work might contain scenes of fetishes, Focus on Fetish will relate to that particular turn-on. Secondary to the turn-on, there may be a relationship involved, maybe not. We’re blessed with some of the most talented authors in the industry, authors who understand the human psyche and what drives us to do what we humans will do. Authors who will lead you through a fantasy world (fiction), or invite you to glimpse fictionalized accounts of their own lives (Scene Lit).

Whatever we publish, we’re focused on You.

 ~Lady Midnight~

This time it’s all about you – if you dare to share! What’s your fetish? What kinds of kinky stories are you interested in reading? Does bondage light your candle? Or is it the smell of leather? Or what about something a bit more obscure? Many of us have unusual longings and desires, things we might fantasise about without necessarily wanting to try them.

For me, the attraction is always novelty – if a story (or experience) can take me somewhere I’d never have thought of, then that works. I like to be surprised. I’ve spent a fair bit of time in the last few months watching pony people videos on youtube. Now, I’ve no personal desire to spend my time playing horsey, and I’m not usually fetish about footwear. But pony boots! The sight and sound of them leaves me sighing and full of longing. I want to own a pair, to tap about making those distinctive clopping sounds. I want to know how you stay balanced when tey look so precarious. I may be a little bit obsessed. So, how about you? (Did I mention that I love hearing other people’s confessions?)

While at first glance risk taking may seem a milder kink than voyeurism or exhibitionism, it’s also a more complicated one. The voyeur consciously enjoys looking. The exhibitionist takes a knowing delight in showing off. The risk taker gets kicks from uncertainty, possibility and getting away with it.

 Risk takers have sex in situations where they might get caught and get a kick out of doing so. That is, I think, the difference between people who are kinky about possibly being caught, and people who are horny and get it on despite the risk.

Dalia Craig’s Weathering The Storm offers a perfect example of the latter – two women who are so into each other they can’t wait, but who are very nearly caught by some passersby. The scene mixes excitement with a fear of humiliation and there’s a mixed emotional response – relief in having got away with it, and self consciousness because it could have gone very wrong.

 My tale Tight, Dark Places includes two guys having sex on a balcony – one of whom is a deliberate risk taker, getting a kick out of possibly being caught. They are visible, but it’s not obvious that they’re fucking. Remaining in control enough not to let on what’s happening can be part of the thrill and the danger of such a scene.

 Cheri Crystal has a number of stories about risk takers. Risky Pursuit offers a scenario where two women go climbing in order to have sex in a rather public and hazardous place. Here the risk of discovery blends with the physical danger to create an adrenaline high. Mile High Dare, as the title suggests, involves the possibility of sex on a plane – a fantasy for many people. The risk is deliberately sought, but the audience is not. It’s an interesting blend of wanting, and not wanting to be seen.

So what is risk taking about? It’s clearly not about showing off and being seen. Risk takers often make efforts not to be caught. Is it the sense of getting away with it? The thrill of doing something a bit taboo without getting caught? For people who get a kick out of being humiliated, the risk/possibility of humiliation adds spice to an encounter. Imagined shame that does not actually occur, has its own peculiar allure.

 Risk taking comes in many shapes and forms. How risky an activity seems depends on how private you are. I’ve encountered guys who claim they can’t get it up at all with someone aside from their partner in the house. You might risk being overheard and disturbed, or having the neighbours know what you are doing (approximately). Some people get a kick out of suspecting that others can hear them.

 It might be about finding a secret place where you hope not to be interrupted. As someone who likes to play outside, I’ve a fair amount of experience of that. There, the pleasure lies entirely in getting away with it. Then there are those who court risk, barely hidden – like a rather startled couple I encountered in a Birmingham park one day who clearly hadn’t expected a whole grove of druids to come ambling out of the trees… but who carried on regardless! Some people get more thrills for being closer to getting caught. It’s all about what happens inside your head – the fantasy of a sexy voyeur, or a public humiliation without the reality of dealing with any real complications. It puts an edge on things, an urgency that gets the blood pumping, and for some people that’s a real turn on.

When the kink is all about watching, it doesn’t always matter if the people having sex know they are being watched. For some, the fun lies in the transgression of watching people who haven’t volunteered for it. With exhibitionism, the kink belongs to the one on display, and accidental or intentional watchers are going to know exactly what’s going on.

 For some characters, like Lilith and Will in Heaven and Hell, sex is very much about being watched, and the pair actively seek and invite audiences. Melisand (same series) has just one person she likes to have watch her, and that’s because she can’t get him to do much else. The only sexual contact she has with the bloke she longs for, is him watching her with others.

 Exhibitionism can be about showing off, the thrill of an audience, the kick of having power over others through expressions of sexual confidence. It can also be an act of submission, relinquishing privacy and self control by making your pleasure public. Requiring another to exhibit themselves can be a way of humiliating a slave. Voyeurism puts control in the hands of the watcher, but exhibitionism can change that, making the performer in charge, or giving the power to the one who directs the performer. Where exactly the lines get drawn between displaying a submissive as an expression of the Dom’s control, or as a consequence of the sub’s desire for attention, is hard to say.

 Alex Morgan’s Breathless takes place around a fetish event, which gives characters every opportunity to show off. Laszlow in M. Kings Devil & the Deep Blue Sea is an absolute exhibitionist, taking joy in showing off his body and sexual prowess, while my Eliot’s Hero features another guy in the adult entertainment industry who isn’t averse to being looked at either.

 Exhibitionism can easily be a part of ménage scenarios, when two end up performing for the third. Here the lines between watching and participating frequently blur. Dalia Craig’s Hold Me Tight and my Living Dangerously tread into that territory. Moving into group activities and sharing, Sarah Masters’ Secret Society features a scoeity gathering in the wood, who watch each other and get a kick out of being watched.

 There’s a case for saying that there’s a voyeuristic streak in anyone who reads erotica. If that’s so, it’s probably also the case that there’s an exhibitionist streak in most erotic authors. Oh, we don’t necessarily want you watching us in person (that’s an individual thing, some might…) but part of what we do is show off – what we know, what we can imagine. Readers of erotic stories will sometimes ask how much of the content comes from firsthand experience. Some authors will smile and leave you to guess, others may let on, but either way, we get a kick out of making you wonder if our sex lives really are that good.

Following on with the theme of voyerism and exhibitionism, here’s a forray into a book about someone who spends a lot of time having sex in front of a camera.

The article below is by M. King

In Devil & the Deep Blue Sea, average—albeit slightly shy and geeky—guy Jacob meets and falls for the stunning, confident Laszlo. There’s only one problem: Laszlo works in adult films and, though he’s honest about it from the very first, Jacob finds the idea, and the reality, of dating a porn star deeply uncomfortable.

He tries to rationalize it; after all, he watches porn, and intellectually he knows there’s a thriving industry behind it, but he still struggles to overcome his prejudices…and his jealousy.

In contrast, Laszlo, both emotionally and sexually, is expansive and uninhibited. He’s a total exhibitionist, in the sense that he unreservedly enjoys both giving and receiving pleasure. Laszlo takes pride in the power his sexuality gives him, but he keeps his working persona, ‘Maxim Winter’, distinct from his personal life.

Though the book is written from Jacob’s point of view, we learn Laszlo is nervous about how revealing his line of work will affect things between them. Most of his past relationships have been ruined by the same pattern of jealousy and recrimination that now threaten his and Jacob’s romance, yet Laszlo refuses to feel a shred of guilt about what he does.

On one level, he treats it as any other career—he promotes himself on the internet, and shares anecdotes and gossip from the sets with Jacob, almost failing to realize that telling his boyfriend about something funny that happened while he was having sex on camera with another man is going to cause tension.

To Laszlo, personal and professional, or emotional and sexual, are totally different things. When Jacob challenges him, he is mocking and sarcastic, angered by hearing the same questions and complaints he has heard so often before.

Abruptly, Laszlo pushed away from the window, voice sharp and raw.

“Because the money’s good, it feels good, and I look fuckin’ awesome doing it! Okay? That what you want to hear?”[…] “Come on, next one.” He threw his hands up in spiteful encouragement. “Quick! Aw, come on. There’s always a next one. ‘Why aren’t I enough?’ How about that?”

For Laszlo, being Maxim Winter is about freedom. Exhibiting his body and sharing his most intimate physical moments with an unseen audience—potentially of several thousand people—is an empowering, liberating thing.

However Jacob, almost by default, finds himself cast as a voyeur, and he doesn’t enjoy it. For him, there is a clear and finite line “between fantasizing about a hot scene, and thinking about the reality of fucking for money in some anonymous hotel room or semi-public studio.”

Early in their relationship, Jacob forces himself to watch one of Maxim Winter’s movies. He’s turned on by what he sees, but at the same time hates the reality of watching Laszlo:

 Jacob couldn’t sit through any of those scenes to their completion. He hated seeing Lasz—Maxim—vulnerable in front of the camera, when his chest flushed and his breathing tautened and his body bucked against someone else’s. Stupid, Jacob told himself, because it was fucking hot and—in any other movie—he’d have loved it. Any other actor. But, knowing him, it just seemed wrong. 

 The problem for Jacob is that his voyeurism is automatically transformed into hypocrisy. He knows that, by being honest with him, Laszlo has nothing to be ashamed of, and no reason to apologize. But, next to his effortless, feral sexuality, Jacob feels inferior, and that enrages him.

As Jacob descends deeper into circuitous, self-absorbed jealousy, he is torn between his growing love for Laszlo, and the loss of control with which that emotion threatens him.

Ultimately, that—the question of how much we truly share ourselves with others, and how we deal with the act of doing so—is the central theme with which Devil & the Deep Blue Sea engages.

And there are no quick, easy answers.

We all like to look, to some degree. How far do you go? Anyone who is sighted probably spends some time eyeing up potential partners. No shortage of people appreciate barely clad models on book covers. The internet is full of erotic images, easily found at no cost. There are plenty of films out there, catering to all the kinks you can think of (and probably a few that most of us would never imagine). Do you like to watch your partner doing sexy things? How about professional striptease or lapdancing? If you stumbled on a couple having sex, would you be embarrassed, or turned on? Would you actively seek scenarios in which you could watch other people expressing themselves erotically?

Somewhere, there is a line to cross that moves a person out of the realms of ‘normal’ visual interest and into the world of voyeurism. I once read that the definition of a perversion is something that you do instead of having sex. For some, watching can indeed be a viable substitute. In many ways it seems safer, being outside of the action, not being asked to perform, respond, or feel. You don’t have to engage. You don’t even have to come. Those on display do not even, necessarily, need to know you are there. And at that point I think it gets a little bit sinister, and has the potential to become more like stalking than sex. Voyeurism as part of an active sex life can be a lot of fun. For people uncomfortable with relationship, it can offer alternative ways to find satisfaction. As with many kinks, taken to unhealthy extremes, it can get messy.

 The darker aspects of voyeurism are something I’ve explored a bit in Heaven and Hell, where the possibilities of cameras and short circuit television for illicit watching come into play. It’s also a theme Jon Michaelsen took up in his short story Voyeur, where watching has dangerous consequences. The story explores obsession, and has some great twists. Talking about this subject, Jon told me, “The idea for the story actually came to me when I used to travel a lot for business, and while in New York one evening and staying in a high-rise hotel, I happened upon a couple having wild, passionate sex while looking out my window and seeing their shadowy images in the highrise across the street.” Accidental seeing can so easily lead into intentional watching. We can impose our needs, desires, fantasies on the people we watch.

 New lyd author Barry Lowe also has a voyeuristic tale coming out soon – he told me, “My next story in the queue (I think) is Four on the Floor which is a voyeurism story (as well as cuckold and gangbang). Concerns a couple whose relationship has gone stale to the extent that one partner, Steve, spends more time jerking off while watching a neighbour through binoculars than he does he does with his lover, Billy.” Like Jon, Barry has considered the more troubling possibilities around voyeurism. He describes this tale as ‘taking an ominous turn’ in a direction that moves his character out of the relative safety of just looking.

 I think there’s an escapist element to voyeurism, getting away from yourself, and your own limitations. Friends who are actively into porn tell me that part of the kick is imagining yourself in the scenario. It allows a person to explore things they might be unwilling, or unable to do in person. It’s also a scenario on which the watcher can feel that they are totally in control of themselves. A feeling that proves illusionary in some of our stories. Consequently, voyeuristic kicks may seem a lot safer than they really are – both physically and emotionally. But, if things were always smooth, easy and happy, we wouldn’t have any stories to tell!

Australian author Barry Lowe is a red hot new addition to loveyoudivine. I thought it would be good to find out more about him, so I pounced on him for a blog interview.

 Bryn: How would you describe your writing style?

 Barry: Horny humorous smut.

 Bryn: That’s some attention grabber! Have you always written that combination, or did you slide into it?

 Barry: I started out as a journalist and got into sex writing in the early 1980s when a local free gay paper, The Sydney Star, asked me to write a column which became Lowe-Life, about the wonderfully diverse sex/love life of me and my lover, Wally. From there I went on to write sex comedies for theatre, an independent romantic film called Violet’s Visit, and later short erotica for print anthologies. I’m back to writing about my sex life again for another gay bar rag in Sydney. So I’ve come full circle.

Bryn: Which form of writing do you enjoy most out of those?

Barry: It’s a real cliché but I love the immediacy of theatre. Sitting in an audience listening to people laugh out loud at what I’ve written or else groaning at the filth they didn’t think anyone would have the guts to put up on a stage. Not that all my plays are like that, any more than all my writing is. I also write film star biographies and McFarland published Atomic Blonde, my book on 1950s blonde bombshell Mamie Van Doren two years ago and I have one coming out later this year on Deanna Durbin.

 Bryn: Who’s influenced you most?

Barry: I’d love to say Shakespeare, Moliere, Jean-Paul Sartre, Doris Day and all that pretentious bullshit but basically I’m a sponge and soak up an impression here, a feeling there, an emotion somewhere else. I can’t say I’m an original but what I was writing when I started was different to anything else that I knew of. Later I discovered people like William Burroughs and Jean Genet, and then the wonderful world of gay porn. So, I guess the easiest answer to that is everyone and no one, and anyone I’m reading or watching at the moment.

 Bryn: I have to ask, what are you reading and watching at the moment?

 Barry: Anything and everything Josh Lanyon writes, the crime novels of Arnaldur Indriđason, habu’s Death in Key West, Sarah Masters’ Grave Findings, and a travel guide to Iceland. Watching: a delightful English series called Ladies of Letters, the second season of Glee, the new Doctor Who, and the new season of Foyle’s War. And rewatching the films of Doris Day.

Bryn: You’re clearly very ecclectic in your tastes. Does that show through in the fiction writing as well?

Barry: Oh, I have my obsessions but it’s probably true, although it probably is for a lot of writers. My subject matter  ranges from steampunk, science fiction, Victoriana, exotic but real locations (I love travel being stuck here at the arse end of the world in Australia), mystery and detective fiction, and comic fiction while my style ranges from comedy through that icky feeling in the stomach romance through to sleaze. I’m a bower bird writer, I peck at whatever entertains me.

Bryn: What have you got coming out at lyd?

 Barry: Already in the schedule are the short M/M eroticas Carbon Dating [a young guy in lust with his best mate’s dad] followed by Marine Biology [a U.S. Marine gangbang], Let the Games Begin [What goes on at the Glory Hole Games after the main Olympic competition is over], and Stocks and Shared [bondage and revenge in the Wall Street financial sector]. Then there’s a few more in the queue that we haven’t started editing yet. Plus I’m working on, The Major and The Miners, a five-part series set in Sydney during the 1930s involving a doctor and two coal miners, and a cook book series that involves M/M erotica and recipes.

Bryn: Wow! And, where can people find you online?

Barry: Problem is that I’m Downunder and our online hours only coincide early morning when I’m not awake and late night when I’m tapping away at my computer trying to turn out the first eBook short story that earns $10 million. I’m on Facebook. And people can contact me via my website www.barrylowe.net. I’m happy to chat, I can procrastinate with the best of them.

 Barry’s first release at lyd is out now, so do have a look at Carbon Dating.

While I don’t always indicate that my settings are real places, usually I’ll have somewhere real in my head as I write. It helps me keep the details coherent, and gives me a sense of location. Places I’ve visited, and lived in, frequently inspire bits of story.

When I was working on ‘Dreams Come True,’ the setting in my head was Gloucester (UK). It’s a place I know well, having lived about 15 miles down the road as a child, clubbed there in my teens, and spent time visiting my father there as well. I like the city, it’s small, full of old architecture, history and atmosphere. I especially love the cathedral (which was used a lot in the Harry Potter films). My great grandmother once saw a ghost there!

The place isn’t mentioned by name in the story, and although the cathedral features, I hadn’t mentioned much that would absolutely pin it down as this location. Imagine my absolute surprise when I saw the cover Dalia designed for me! I know Gloucester cathedral well, and was sure that was a picture of it.

Startled, I emailed Dalia to check, and she said it had seemed like the right place to use!

It goes to prove that odd, psychic moments, strange insights and experiences of weird coincidence do happen in real life.

 Dreams Come True is a sweet, contemporary lesbian romance involving two buskers. It’s the first story of mine in a while not to have a paranormal element, which is some ways makes the business with the cover even funnier, I think.