Interview with billierosie

We recently had the great pleasure of meeting billierosie and spending time talking about writing and erotica. Then we asked her if she’d do a blog interview, and she said yes.

If you don’t yet know her writing, you should. She’s been published by Renaissance Sizzler in their Pirate Booty anthology, and their Sherlock Holmes-themed collection My Love of All That is Bizarre, their latest anthology Hunger and their forthcoming collection of erotic tales of London town. She also has a collection of short, erotic stories, Fetish Worship plus two novellas, Memoirs of a Sex Slave and Enslaving Eli. Her writing sometimes goes to places others fear to venture: fetish is high on on her agenda but alongside fur and feathers, stockings and toes, you’ll find whips, branding and golden showers.

[*** Edited to note that while Sizzler revamps its website from 21 March, with a projected re-opening on 1 April 2013,  links to the Sizzler site shop.renebooks.com won’t work. However most titles are also available from Amazon and other sources.]

What got you into writing erotica? 
I came to erotica via reading Romance novels. Mills and Boon, Silhouette. I
found them very tame; but I soon discovered my favourite authors were
teetering on the edge of something called erotica. Really, I’d never heard
of such a thing! This was in the old dial-up days of computers, so I waited
untill I was next online and Googled ‘sexy stories for women’. I came across
an online lesbian book store and I ordered Caught Looking, an anthology
edited by Rachael Kramer Bussel. Wow! Here were women writing the stories I
had wanted to read for years. And there was I thinking that there was
nothing between Romance and Pornography. So I ordered more books and even 
more. I
started to know what stories turned me on and I thought I would have a go
myself. Write the sort of stories that I like to read. So in a way, all the
reading I’d done was my market research – and I sort of fell into it from
there.

Are there other genres you’d like to write as well? Which ones and why?


Crime fascinates me. I watch tons of it on the Sky channels. I love Ruth 
Rendall (particularly when she writes as Barbara Vine) and Val McDermid – I 
love the TV adaptation of her Wire in the Blood. I understand that Val is 
thrilled with it too. So I would love to write a novel, or even a short 
story in the crime genre. But with so many big, powerful names up there 
already, I feel daunted. I mean can you top Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on 
a Train? But I guess that Lynda La Plante must have felt a bit like that 
too when she started out. I am quite new to writing creatively; so I feel 
that I still have a lot to learn. It’s only been about four years since I 
wrote my short story, ‘La Petite Danseuse’: it’s in my Fetish Worship 
collection. I read it through recently and I am still pleased with it. It’s 
about a woman who has an erotic experience with a reproduction of Degas’ 
little statue. I got a kick out of the shock value in that tale – using a 
work of art as a dildo!

If any one of your stories could be made into a film – which one
would you choose, and why? 
Oh definitely Enslaving Eli! It’s all about a young man, Eli, who falls 
for a woman he’s met at a party. He doesn’t realise that she’s a Dominant 
and when he finds out he’s turned on by the idea. Little does he know what 
being submissive to a woman entails! The locations I used are all place I 
know well; some from my childhood, others are places I’ve visited on 
holiday. The action moves from rural England to a Greek fishing village. 
From London town to a secret hideaway in the countryside. I think the tale 
would work really well in film – oh and there’s lots of sex in it too of 
course!

What are the most difficult aspects of writing for you? 
That first sentence! I like to try and grab the reader’s attention right 
away. Once I get going I’m fine. I think that all writers work differently. 
I tend to get that first sentence and paragraph down; then I’ll go back to 
it later and edit and add to it. So I’m sort of building the story in layers 
as I go. Sometimes I have no idea how a story is going to end and it’s easy 
to lose my way. But mostly I have an ending in mind and I craft the story to 
that point. Having said that I have about five or six stories in my files 
that I’ve started and been unable to finish. But I never erase those 
stories – I can use bits of them maybe in the future or eventually have a 
’eureka’ moment and the ending will just come to me.

Are there any underlying themes that persistently find their way
into your stories?  At the moment I’m writing a lot of FEM/DOM stories — but they are always written from the submissive’s point of view. It seems to me that in a Dominant/submissive relationship, it is the submissive who controls the events. Usually by being deliberately disobedient and having to be punished. Having said that – I am currently working on a Daddy’s Little Girl novella for Diabolic Muse. And here too, it is the ‘Little Girl’, the submissive, who controls the dynamic.

Quite a few of your blog posts refer to the role of women in the
 Bible. Is there any religious motivation for this? I’m not a conventionally religious person although I think that I am quite spiritual. I find a beauty in the natural world that is blows my mind, and it is in the natural world that I seek a faith. I think if there is anything beyond all this, it will be far more exceptional than any religious calling can explain. As for my blog posts about women in the Bible – the Bible stories were alive for me as a child. I had a book with pictures and I can still see the images, even now, when I close my eyes. I remember there was a ‘Daniel in the Lion’s Den’ picture. Daniel taming the lions and the golden hand of the holy spirit writing on the wall God’s message for the king; ‘You have been judged and found wanting.’ It still sends a shiver up my spine!

What would you like to be when you grow up?  Ha! I never, ever knew what I wanted to be when I grew up! But I guess I am doing it now – writing pornography!

Are there any occupational hazards to being a writer?  It has more to do, I think, of being a female writer, writing porn. When we met a few weeks ago, I mentioned about the creepy guy, who sent me an email; ‘I know where you live.’ Since then, I have been circumspect about how much information I give out about myself. It seems weird to me that men, especially, seem to confuse me, the writer, with the protagonist in my FEM/DOM tales! Remember Misery by Stephen King? Creepy Annie, who told the protagonist; ‘I’m your number one fan’ before she mutilated him!

What was the best gift you were ever given? My pony, when I was eleven years old!

***

About billierosie

People fascinate billierosie. What makes them tick; what are their secrets and lies. The effete guy in the bank; the blonde lady shopping in the supermarket, the elderly lady living in a care home. What stories could they tell? Perhaps erotic stories of sex, intrigue and fetish? And fetish is high on billierosie’s agenda. The strange, haunting stuff that informs our darkest desires. It could be fur or feathers. Shoes, silk stockings, or toes. Poop or pee. An amputee’s stump. If we made a list it would go on for ever.

billierosie has been writing erotica for about two years; she has been published by Oysters and Chocolate, ‘The Wedding Dress’ [editor’s note: Oysters and Chocolate, an erotic story blog, closed its doors a couple of months ago]. Her other publications include:

Contributions to Renaissance Sizzler anthologies Pirate Booty, My Love of All That is Bizarre, Hunger and their forthcoming collection of erotic tales of London town.

A short erotic story collection, Fetish Worship.

Two novellas, Memoirs of a Sex Slave and Enslaving Eli.

billierosie lives in a pretty village in England. She doesn’t fit with village life; certainly not the Women’s Institute. billierosie loves the theatre, Art, film, books and all things eccentric. billierosie plans to have fun and stay young, writing pornography. billierosie can be found at her blog; www.billierosie.blogspot.co.uk.

Enslaving Eli, by billierosie - cover imageEnslaving Eli – When Jasmine the beautiful Dominant meets tall, hunky Eli at the dullest party in the world, Eli wants to see her again. He doesn’t understand her reluctance, they’ve had fun together and it isn’t as if he is asking her to marry him, just maybe a cup of coffee. When Jasmine tells Eli of her secret life, Eli is intrigued and gradually he is initiated into a world of BDSM, that as Jasmine’s submissive, is impossible for him to walk away from. Jasmine tells Eli tales of a secret, exclusive organisation, The Coterie. The Coterie is centuries old. Its members are Dominant women; their ethos in life is total submission of the male. Eli endures humiliation, depravity and absolute control, at the hands of Mistress Jasmine. But Eli and Jasmine are more than Mistress and slave, they have fallen in love. When Mistress Jasmine is killed in a road traffic accident, Eli is devastated. Officially, Eli now belongs to The Coterie. He is property. He is told that he is to be sold to another Mistress. Eli has other ideas. Enslaving Eli, is told from Eli’s point of view, in the form of flashbacks, as the Mistresses of the sinister Coterie organisation reach out to regain control of their property. The story explores a much under discussed orientation; that of the male submissive. Relinquishing control, is not seen as a masculine way to go about things. But in relinquishing control, Eli’s life is fulfilled.

Memoirs of a Sex Slave, by billierosie - cover imagePrologue to Memoirs of a Sex Slave: The confessions of a submissive woman. …the feeling of being filled in her rectum thrilled her with its very indecency; she wanted more. As if in a psychic response, the stranger pushed in another finger; she was tight, but his persistence and the lubricant did their work. Then a third finger. She wanted him to rape her anus, defile her, right there in the middle of the club with everyone looking on. Slowly he masturbated her rectum; pushing in, retreating, going further in with each push. Her pelvis pushed back on him. It was her body’s reaction to the strange new sensation. She was helpless, her body’s needs dictated the rules. She felt the flat palm of his hand on her buttocks. He was all the way in. Her rectum muscles gripped him tightly. He moved his fingers in a circular motion, stretching her as if in preparation for a man’s thick cock. Elektra trembled as he finger fucked her dirt hole. When he slowly slid his fingers from her, she felt bereft, empty and tears trickled down her cheeks. He moved around to face her and she watched him examine his fingers. She had emptied her bowels earlier in the day, but still his fingers were streaked with her dark excrement. His hooded eyes watched her face, as he held his fingers to her mouth, a silent order for her to lick them clean. Elektra lapped obediently. She could taste the lube that he’d used and something dark and forbidden. The taste excited her and she slobbered over his fingers. A tremor of shameful disgust shuddered through her body like an electric shock; what was she becoming? Or had this always been her truth, it was just that the doors, until now had been kept closed? Her head reeled with dark, indecent, ancient taboos.

Fetish Worship by billierosie - cover image Extract from ‘Feet’, the first story in Fetish Worship: A collection of short stories. For Adam, it had always been feet, for as long as he could remember. One of his earliest memories was of sitting underneath the big, oak table in his mother’s dining room, surrounded by ladies’ feet.He was just a toddler and his mother had no-one to leave him with at her monthly book club meetings. So he was allowed to crawl around under the table, as long as he didn’t make a noise. Adam never made a noise. He sat and listened to the women’s soft voices and laughter, as he sucked his thumb, lost in his own private heaven, gazing at, and inhaling the smell of women’s feet. Once he’d dared to touch a lady’s foot. He stroked the fine creamy skin curiously, marvelling at the delicate bones beneath. The lady had peeped down at the little boy beneath the table, and smiled.

Male domestic violence – a note

This is just to point you to BillieRosie’s blog post about the rising incidence of female abusers and male victims in domestic violence cases.

While the majority of cases are still male abusers and female victims, the situation is no longer as clear-cut as it once was. And for that matter, from other sources and contacts, we’re aware that domestic abuse and violence can also occur in gay relationships and between carers and their dependents. In the last couple of years, it turns out, organisations like housing associations – which are required to have policies on how to deal with domestic abuse cases, provide support to victims, etc. – have in at least some cases been rewriting those policies to reflect the trend, using more gender-neutral terminology and looking past the stereotypes to work out how to provide an effective response whatever the situation.

Much as this blog takes a liberal and laissez-faire attitude to matters of sex and relationships, it’s also important to remember that there are real social problems out there that do real damage to people’s lives. Victims need to be supported, and perpetrators stopped.

Quote, Fulani, unquote

Had quite a long email exchange with Billierosie about bdsm – she was writing a piece about  Tennyson’s 1833 (and revised 1842) poem ‘The Lady of Shalott’, itself based on mediaeval sources. The poem is often taken to be about the process of creativity and the twin pulls of needing isolation but also needing engagement with the world, though Billierosie explores themes of dominance and submission through it.

The end result is she quotes a fair bit of the exchange, and comes up with an interesting take on the poem. And some cool fantasy material. And the pre-Raphaelite paintings she includes in the post are good as well.

Read her post on the subject here.