New – Hunting, Shooting, Racing

It’s been a while, huh? No new stuff published, no posts about anything much. Real life gets you like that sometimes, stuff happens you have to push plod or plough through. Since the middle of the year we’ve had bereavements, illnesses and chunks of very unerotic work all of which took priority over writing erotica.

Hunting Shooting Racing cover

That said, one new novella is now out. Hunting Shooting and Racing (or use this link for Amazon.co.uk) is based on the idea that in the recession (which many of us are still feeling, by the way, despite government figures saying the economy is picking up) a couple who manage a 50-acre or so site for paintballing and airsoft might try to pick up on a niche market for outdoor BDSM activities. It’s large, it’s private, and it has installations ranging from stockades to tumbledown barns and faux graveyards for those who like that kind of thing for their bdsm play and, of course, for sex. Plus a lot of trees people can be tied to. This opens up all kinds of possibilities, including ‘slave hunts’ and pony play…

Here’s the opening:

Breeze playing over my bare skin. Rope tight between my legs. Stumbling over the rough grass because I’m hooded, and he’s yanking on the rope he’s using as a leash. Wrists bound behind me. Feeling exposed and helpless. Anticipating the cruel fucking he’s going to give me.

Life doesn’t get much better than this.

He won’t be taking me far. The site is 58 acres, less than a mile on each side. But naked, hooded, hands tied behind my back and dragged on a leash it feels like we’re crossing an entire county. The length of the trek ramps up my sense of helplessness. And my wetness level. The rope between my legs is slick and slippery.

Sometimes we play hide-and-seek. I hide, Dylan seeks. This time I thought I’d found a good hiding spot. The Deep Cover section of the site slopes down to a shallow pond with a small island in the middle of it. I was on the island, under a cover of low branches and leaf litter.

He found me.

The deal was, if I could stay hidden until dusk, he’d be my slave until tomorrow morning. If he found me, I’d be his prisoner until then. It’s a grown-up version of hide-and-seek. An adult, triple- X-rated version.

I thought I was well hidden, but he found me. I’ll give him credit for that. I heard nothing. Nothing that couldn’t have been a bird in the trees or a vole on the waterline. Then his hand on my ankle, pulling me backwards. His knee on my spine. Hands forced halfway up my back and tied there.

“How …?” I wheezed.

“Easy. I’ve been noticing the places you looked at in the last couple of days. I saw the mud stirred up in the pond. After that it was just a case of being quiet and using my sixth sense.”

Fuck. Next time I’ll go to the Trench Warfare section and dig myself a foxhole.

[Edited to add: when I first checked the Amazon.com listing it showed as ‘pricing information unavailable’. I thought that was a glitch but it turns out to be what Amazon does if you can access it from a closer Amazon site, in my case Amazon.co.uk. If you’re in the US and buying from the .com site you’ll be fine, it shows as $1.91 or thereabouts for 37 pages.] If you’re in the UK it will cost you £1.19. I have no idea what the conversion factor is into pence per orgasm, but no doubt you can be guided by your own experience.

There will, incidentally, also be a story of mine in another Sweetmeats collection in the near future – a collection called Wander Lust themes on sex and travel, and in the case of my own contribution with a bit of a steampunk thing going on as well. And a mountweazel, if you know what one of those is (and no, it’s not a new type of sex toy…).

In case I’m not back on here before Halloween (or Samhain, if you’re that way inclined), remember the ‘Our Publications’ list includes several vampire, paranormal and other suitably Halloween-ish titles including Ridden (vodou bdsm), The Vampire Skye (vampire lesbian bdsm), The Vampire’s New Plaything (vampire bdsm), a short story in Xcite’s Spirit Lovers collection (paranormal bdsm), Velvet’s story ‘A Woman Possessed’ in the Sweetmeats Naked Delirium collection (her story is paranormal pagan bdsm, the others vary) and a bunch of other stuff. You may detect a bit of a theme going on there… The links are all to Amazon.com but the ‘Our Purchases’ page gives Amazon UK links and other sources as well.

Have fun and enjoy your erotica reading responsibly!

-F

eFestival of Words update

Remember the eFestival of Words last month? Fulani’s Museum of Deviant Desires story collection, published by 1001 Nights Press, didn’t win the Best of Indepdendent eBook Awards ‘Best Erotica’ category (the winner was Inky by J.B. Hartnett, and congratulations to the author and publisher).

But Museum of Deviant Desires was the runner up in the Best Erotica category. As far as we know it’s the first time we’ve had any kind of writing award, even as a runner-up, since Fulani won a competition in a local writer’s club when he was about 14. So it is kind of gratifying.

If you haven’t read The Museum of Deviant Desires it’s available from several places, including Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk. Currently selling at a dollar and some cents in the US and 77 pence in the UK, which is a tiny amount considering how much (cough) ‘research’ was needed to write it. Plus it’s been reviewed as a ‘braingasm’ and the ‘next generation of erotic fiction’.

Finally – thank you to the faithful band of voters who voted for the book!

Freebie, until 30 September!

 Xcite, who published it, tell me that ‘First Day at Work’ has been chosen to be a free iTunes offer for September, ending on the 30th September.

The picture (left) is a clickable link but here is another link to the iTunes download.

‘First Day at Work’ is a short story (about 6000 words, 17 pages on a Kindle reader) concerning someone who takes a new job and discovers the warehouse stocks a wide selection of sex toys. She then discovers the people working in the warehouse have some rather intimate relationships that involve those sex toys, and more. You can guess what happens next…

It’s a fairly early example of my writing, but if you like it you can check out the ‘Our Publications’ page above to see more recent stories, novellas and novels.

The story may or may not attract an Amazon price match (it hasn’t so far). But you can check it out for yourself at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.

 

Voodoo Fetish free until 28 July

Voodoo Fetish, the second book in my Vodou Trilogy, is free on Amazon until 28 July: it’s available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk. The first book, Ridden, details Eloise’s brush with the lwa and Baron Cimitiėre in which she’s used as an instrument of supernatural healing. Her powers are only released, though, when she has bdsm sex in which she can use her pain to channel away another person’s illness. This novella isn’t free, so to read the backstory you’ll need to pay a nominal two dollars and some cents. Voodoo Fetish details her life back in London. You’d think London is a long way from vodou – but the vodou diaspora is present these days in many large cities. She’s called upon by the lwa to carry out a healing ceremony for the daughter of a work colleague. Among other things this involves supernatural sex, discussions with crows and a dead witch, sex with a pagan couple she meets who are recruited to her healing project, a relationship with a houngan (male priest) who comes from the slightly different New Orleans tradition of vodou, a bass guitar with interesting properties, and discussion of the Navier-Stokes equations of fluid dynamics. There will be a third novella in due course, which explains how the various people she’s healed are connected together and what the longer-term project of the lwa was. And, yes, bdsm and sex will be involved. However, for now you can read the second novella, Voodoo Fetish, for free. Go to it. Enjoy.

Shiny new covers

Because I’ve been busy on other projects recently I missed the news that Xcite won a prize: ETO Best Erotic Book Brand 2013.

ETO is Erotic Trade Only, an annual convention in the UK for all erotic trades that also puts out a magazine, has a blog, and so forth. They award prizes at their annual event and the complete list of winners is here.

Some of the sex toys that won prizes, incidentally, were things I had to Google in order to work out what they were and what they do. Some days I just feel like a dinosaur who doesn’t know anything any more. Maybe a session with a Revo 2 would pep me up… Yes, it won a prize. As did Lovehoney, which is where that link leads. And when I searched the internet for it, I was initially puzzled because there’s also a car tyre of the same name. But I digress.

 The reason I knew Xcite had won the prize was because they’ve been redesigning the covers of their books to include a spiffy little thing that on a real book cover would be a sticker announcing the prize.

But they’ve also redesigned some of the covers completely, and I think they’ve done an excellent job on them. I’m guessing here but I think other titles of mine (and of Velvet Tripp’s) will probably be getting the same treatment in the near future. As and when I spot new covers I’ll announce them.

So my First Day at Work and Vampire’s New Plaything short stories, and the Tricks For Kicks collection that has my story ‘Filthy White Dress’ in it, all now look like the pics in this post (the other links to these stories that are around this blog that show the old covers also still work, of course).

And if you go over to the ‘Our Publications’ page, you’ll find links to Amazon Uk and a bunch of other places where you can also find these titles.

Just thought you might like to know all that. And… Buy our books!

Sex, Art and Aromatherapy for free (until 9 June)

Xcite tell me Sex, Art, and Aromatherapy will be free on iTunes Bookstore between 27th May – 9th June.

It’s a short story – one of my gentler pieces of erotica, and about 6000 words – about a woman who’s already experienced in BDSM and fetish, but she falls into conversation with an older man in an art gallery, who also seems experienced in that world. He tells her stories about how, in his youth, BDSM was simply one part of a wider and more spiritual quest. She sets off on a journey with him to discover some enlightenment.

Quick sample:

The label says the picture is called ‘Untitled No. 41 (1989)’, by Joshua Cesario.

Ruby consults her mobile phone. The display should tell her the time, but it’s blank. The battery’s died.

A few other people are in the gallery. One is an older man, sitting on the leatherette bench in the middle of the space. He’s looking at the same picture.

‘Excuse me,’ she whispers. ‘What’s the time?’

He looks at his watch, casually. ‘A couple of minutes after three. Are you in a hurry?’

She’s not. Though she was planning on buying some shoes and chocolate on the way home.

‘You’ve been looking at the picture for a while,’ the man observes. ‘Do you know much about it?’

‘Why? Are you the artist?’

He chuckles. ‘Much as I’d like to, I don’t paint. I’m an aromatherapist.’ Figures: for the first time, Ruby notices a faint scent of rosewater in the air. ‘But I did know him, for a time. I first met him at a party. This was maybe twenty years ago.’

‘Oh?’ Ruby’s interested, but not yet hooked.

‘You’ve no doubt worked out that despite being abstract, the picture’s about sex. Specifically, about sex and bondage. It was… How shall I put this? It was that kind of party. Fetishistic. Orgiastic.’

Ruby does a mental doubletake, remembering that this fifty-something man with greying hair must have been young once. The kind of things she’s done, while fresh and interesting to her when she experienced them, have been done before…

‘I remember he’d tied up a young lady – she was a lady actually, though I don’t recall her exact title – and there was a certain amount of sex involved along with the painting. But that’s another story. This painting, I remember him explaining the details in a drunken conversation. It was a memorial to a particular woman he’d been having an affair with, to their idea of love.’

Of course the large canvas was about sex. Otherwise, why the pile of clothes in one corner and the shoes at the end of what, presumably, is a naked body? And what picture isn’t about sex, anyway, in some coded form? But the story coded into this picture suddenly captures her imagination and she wants to know more.

This link to iTunes should take you to the US iTunes store directly. If you need another store, just search for author ‘Fulani’ and title ‘Sex, Art and Aromatherapy’.

Depending on which store you’re viewing you’ll either see the cover image at the head of this post or the one on the ‘Our Publications’ page (also see left) – when it first went onto iTunes they weren’t keen on covers depicting bondage.

So have fun. For free, until 9th June.

Filthy Money

Filthy Money cover (link to Smashwords)

Please read responsibly!

I’ve just self-pubbed this collection of eight stories, which I’ve described as quasi-erotica: Filthy Money, and other stories of sex in the gutter. And I’ve put it up at the bargain bin price of 99 cents.

Why ‘quasi-erotica’? As I said in the blurb, these are stories of desperate sex, sexual perversity and moral degeneracy from the margins of contemporary society – they’re mostly set in the kind of social situation where people are living in bad neighbourhoods, or in squats, or on the streets. The kind of situation where no one has any money but drug and alcohol use are common and life is chaotic.

It’s not, of course, an accurate representation of that life. The collection is BDSM themed, for a start. And many of the more unsavoury aspects of that life – self-harm, self-destructive behaviour, people who collect debts with machetes and so on – have been toned down. A lot.

I haven’t included a snippet as a come-on. You can see the first 20% for free on Smashwords anyway.

I’ve had these stories in my head for a while, maybe for a couple of years. And I’ve self-published them for two reasons.

Firstly, it was a form of exorcism. It worked, more or less. But secondly, since it’s unlikely to be a massive best-seller anyway, I’ve treated it as an easy introduction to self-publishing on Smashwords. At the moment it’s only on Smashwords (and thus ultimately its associates like Diesel, Ebooks-Eros and B&N). I haven’t decided if I want to put it anywhere else, like Amazon, yet. That’s a decision I’ll make a month or two.

Self-publishing it was a learning curve, but now I’ve climbed it I might try it again in the future with other stuff that’s a little less strange and dark.

Have fun. If it actually sells I’ll be gratified. But if you like it it’ll only encourage me – even if you only like it in a ‘That’s as entertaining as looking at a car wreck’ kind of a way.

Free Voodoo Fetish!

From 8 to 12 May 2013, my Voodoo Fetish novella is free on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk.

I won’t bore you with the plot summary or blurb, because you can find those things on Amazon anyway.

I’ll just point out that it’s an erotic novella with paranormal and BDSM themes. Along the way you’ll find sex, bondage, whips, post-structuralist philosophy, vodou, paranormal sex, fluid dynamics equations, three-way and four-way sex, the 1832 Public Cemeteries Act, fetishism, gas masks, sex in a cemetery, syncretism, demonic possession, medical and musical equipment being destroyed by a malevolent spirit, a bass guitar, a goat’s head, and an anvwar mo. And references to certain things you can find on YouTube. And sex and bondage and bdsm.

I hope you enjoy it. If you could also review, rate or tag it on Amazon or Goodreads or wherever that would be kind. And if you like it – I have others; Ridden, obviously, which is the first book of the trilogy, but you’ll find other paranormal/supernatural erotica over on the ‘our publications’ page of this blog.

Velvet also has paranormal erotica published, including the much-praised and well-reviewed A Woman Possessed – an entertaining story of spiritual possession, pagan ritual and bdsm.

Writing Voodoo Fetish

You may have noticed the second novella in my Voodoo Trilogy was published last week. Since it draws, at least a little, on voodoo (or vodou, or voudun) practices I thought it would be worthwhile giving you some background.

Not being a practitioner myself, I drew on a bunch of sources – books and interweb stuff I’ll mention later.

The first thing they told me was that voodoo is a religion that probably started sometime in the mid-1600s but became more developed in Caribbean slave populations in the 1700s, based partly on Christian (mainly Catholic) beliefs and partly on older West African religions, generically labelled as vodun or voudun.

The second thing they pointed out was that there are several more or less distinct branches of voodoo, with both Haitian and Louisiana (or New Orleans) versions, plus santeria (in Cuba, and based largely on Yoruba rather than Fon and Ewe religious beliefs) and candomblé (Afro-Brazilian).

And the third thing was that the voodoo diaspora has spread worldwide as its adherents have migrated out of the Caribbean. So there are populations of believers in the US (particularly New York), Montreal, London and probably almost any other ‘world city’ you can name. Plus there are believers in West Africa where the original Fon, Ewe, Yoruba and other religions also still exist.

As it’s spread, of course, it’s become more varied. It started as a syncretic religion, putting together elements of other traditions. And it remains such, since it’s been taken up by a number of people who don’t (as far as I know) have roots or heritage in Haiti or New Orleans. So it’s still evolving, and that’s a feature I confess I’ve used to excuse a certain latitude in the way I’ve dealt with voodoo in the novella.

If you want to know more than Wikipedia will tell you, you should find (or at least I did) some books in your local library. Probably around shelfmark 299.67, which is where they are in my local library (you’ll find that shelfmark referenced in the novella).

I’d also recommend, from among a range of things I’ve read, Voodoo: Truth and Fantasy by Laennec Hurbon. You’ll probably only find it sporadically in Amazon’s ‘used’ lists, but the author’s written other similar books that I imagine are equally good. You’ll find this book name-checked in the novella too.

I can’t even begin to list the websites I looked at. A Tumblr blog, effyeahvodou.tumblr.com is a mine of information. Haunted America Tours is a page primarily for tourists to New Orleans and thus based on Louisiana voodoo, but contains a wealth of information and links. And in the UK, there’s a musician who’s also a voodoo practitioner whose blog is at www.doktorsnake.com. If you’re interested in visuals, the majority of stuff you’ll find on the internet is not of any serious interest. Some of it is Christian preaching against voodoo; some is deliberately sensationalist, and some is perhaps intended more for the low-end horror film market. However there’s one interesting documentary on Youtube that’s more anthropological in nature – Maya Deren’s 1945 ‘Divine Horsemen’ film of actual voodoo rituals, with a very open-minded take (it’s probably duplicated elsewhere on Youtube as well).

And so to the novella. Following on from part 1, ‘Ridden’ (also on Amazon.co.uk), our heroine Eloise finds herself back in London teaching English as a second language. Despite her change of location and culture, the lwa have a job for her. They don’t know the ultimate significance of it (which will have to wait for the third part of the trilogy) but they know it’s important. She’s nudged – in fact, thrown bodily – in the direction of doing their bidding. Eloise has certain supernatural powers that aren’t particularly flashy and spectacular in themselves, but only come into play in the course of sex that involves bondage and more. Hence she has to create the situations in which sex with very strong bdsm and fetish elements can take place. Which she does.

I’ve borrowed syncretically (i.e. mashed together) a number of real-life locations for the action, including a cemetery I know, and a magic shop (as in, it sold products for magical workings) that no longer exists but used to be close to where I lived in the days when I lived in London.

I might add that some of the scenes in the book are written from (ahem) personal experience, bearing in mind my connections with pagans who have been involved in sex magic. Not that I, or even they, have demon-battling experience or anything. But as a writer of imaginative erotica I’m entitled to stretch a point…

Find my novella Voodoo Fetish at Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk.

Sizzler Editions revamp

Sizzler just announced a revamp of their website, which will be temporarily closed prior to a grand relaunch on 1 April 2013. See Renaissance Sizzler’s announcement on their Tumblr account here.

[***Edited 7 April to add: the new URL is sizzlereditions.com and a redirect is in place from the old site as well.]

This only affects one of Fulani’s books, the story collection Hanging Around – which is still available from a bunch of other places including Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk; Barnes and Noble (Nook edition), AdultEbookShop and Fictionwise.

While I think of it, you might be interested to know the cover model was Ellie, a goth/fetish model who moved in the same circles as me a few years back. The photographer was Jon Wilson, who at the time was a prolific fetish photographer in the UK. And the setting was a swingers’ club near Birmingham, UK which had monthly fetish events as well as being a venue for photoshoots and such. Turn the pic on its side: this was actually a suspension from a bondage frame that isn’t visible in the pic, with the frame itself not visible in the shot.

Times move on. Ellie left the area, I think for family reasons, and I lost touch with her. Jon Wilson, when I had a conversation with him a couple of weeks ago, is now heavily into making CGI. And when the lease on the building used by the swingers’ club ran out, so I heard, the property was sold for redevelopment. Another club started up in that area soon afterwards and also does fetish events, though I’ve never been.

The story collection, though, remains as fresh, imaginative, juicy and bouncy as it was the day it was published!