The Intelligent Dress

A quick note about the dangers of writing erotica that has a near-future science-fiction element: things can come true more quickly that you expect.

Corporate Slave Cover

In my novel Corporate Slave (you can buy it on Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and in a bunch of other places listed on the ‘Our Published Work‘ page) one part of the plot revolves around an ‘intelligent dress’, which has a number of functions. These include internet connectivity and the ability to carry out surveillance of other nearby electronic equipment, the ability to functino as body armour and the ability to change colour depending on the mood of the wearer. In circumstances of sexual arousal the dress may become transparent.

When I wrote the book I knew that prototype jackets with built-in cellphones existed. I knew that some forms of plastic were and are under development that can shock impacts by stiffening. And I knew that some other materials exist that change colour if given a particular type of electrical charge. These are all separate developments that I bundled together into one item.

Bear with me here. The BBC has just published an article about road technology (which you can read here). The key detail of the article is that the technology now exists to embed self-illuminating road signs in the surface of roads, and it’s being tested at the moment in the Netherlands. But there’s a comment in the article about something else: the technology has been developed by the artist Daan Roosegaarde, famous for interactive projects, and a manager at the Dutch civil engineering firm, Hans Goris. And

Mr Roosegaarde’s past efforts have included a dance floor with built-in disco lights powered by dancers’ foot movements, and a dress that becomes see-through when the wearer is aroused.

You can read more about the Intimacy 2.0 dress on Roosegarde’s own website, including pictures and video – and there’s a longer journalistic piece on YouTube that explains the leather and e-foil dress moves from opaque to transparent as the wearer’s heart-rate increases.

And for men? Well, that could be even more interesting. Roosegarde says ‘We’re working on a suit that becomes transparent when you lie’.

 

 

The trouble with science fiction

It’s been a couple of months or so since my latest novel, Corporate Slave, came out and a lot’s happened in that time. In fact, bearing in mind that although it’s an erotic novel but with some science fiction elements to it, things have already happened that mean one of the key sci-fi gadgets may be in your high street stores in the next couple of years.

That’s the trouble with science fiction. You imagine something that’s ahead of the curve of current technology, and within a few months technology has already caught up with you.

Specifically, one of the things I envisaged was an Intelligent Dress – a length of material that could be worn in a variety of styles, contained a lot of computer technology built into the material, was capable of using built-in sensors to react to things like air pressure changes to anticipate a blow and change its structure to act like armour, and could change colour based on the wearer’s mood. Oh, and it would be powered from the electrical current of the wearer’s body.

When I ‘invented’ the Intelligent Dress I knew some of these things were already being worked on in various labs around the world.

The idea of the dress being powered by the electrical current in the body of the wearer was, in fact, based on the ADE651 (here’s what Wikipedia says about it), a handheld explosives detector created by a British company and sold extensively in Iraq. Unfortunately, investigations by the BBC and evaluations by other more technical sources concluded that it was, basically, useless and in the UK a fraud investigation was launched against the company’s managing director. Nonetheless bodies do carry a small electric charge and if you use a multimeter you can measure it. So the basic idea of a body-powered electronic device isn’t an impossibility. It’s just not been used to power any working devices yet, but I’m sure someone, somewhere is working on it.

Changing colour: there are a number of ‘smart materials’ already in use in different applications. There’s a list on Wikipedia. One company already makes a yarn that changes colour depending on the UV light it’s exposed to – though that wasn’t the specific reaction I had in mind.

There are also electrotextiles that change elasticity with an electric current. You can read about them here and here and there are other possibilities for such materials here which include textiles that change composition quickly in reaction to different stimuli. So the idea that a mechanism to turn a dress into armour isn’t far-fetched. It can already be done, as that last link indicates, with sheets of nanotube-coated paper. It’s just a case of detecting the threat and applying the stimulus to cause the change.

Finally, as to the computing facility built into clothing: we’ve just had grapheme announced as a material that will enable this, while using a different technology, there’s also a company CuteCircuit now marketing a ‘Twitter dress’.

So the smart idea I had in early 2012 for how clothing might become intelligent in a few decades’ time had become, by the end of 2012, something that looked like it could be introduced by, perhaps, 2014.

All of the elements I proposed already exist in some form or another in different yarns and textiles. I’m sure there are already people thinking about how to integrate these different functionalities – perhaps not for fashion purposes, but for medicine or whatever, though they’ll feed through into the clothing market quickly enough after that.

And bear in mind that if you go out clubbing in rough neighbourhoods, stab-proof fashion garments have already been on the market for quite a while…

If I write another sci-fi erotic story, which is highly likely, next time I’ll have to set my sights a little higher. A faster-than-light warp-driven spaceship, perhaps. But then NASA have already commissioned a feasibilty study. Read about it here.

What’s isn’t particularly sci-fi in the novel, though, is the sex. It’s still real, hard sex mostly informed by the tropes of BDSM and based on the idea that BDSM becomes the new ‘normal’ way to have sex. Oh wait… someone published a novel that led to widespread interest in it, didn’t they? So maybe even that’s not as radical as I’d thought when I started writing. Though some of the social and economic contexts I put it in are, I hope, unlikely to happen in my lifetime. But I’m not holding my breath about that.

One thing that does, as far as I know, remain ahead of the curve is that since ‘fucking’ as a swearword is common enough to be almost polite conversation, I found a new one. Yes, it’s a real practice. Yes, it also begins with an ‘f’ and ends in ‘-ing’. But it’s a little more… perverted. And while I haven’t heard it being used as a swearword yet, I’d lay money on overhearing people using it in casual conversation sometime in the next year or so.

The novel, again? Corporate Slave, also on Amazon UK, Smashwords and a bunch of other places. Full listings on our publications page.

Running on Diesel

We’ve just discovered a selection of our stories on Diesel eBooks.

According to its September 2011 press release (see among other sources Digestdoll.com) ‘The Diesel eBook Store, the world’s largest independent retailer of electronic books, today announced the launch of its new eBook retail platform (http://www.diesel-ebooks.com). The new site now gives Diesel’s customers the ability to enjoy eBooks using a wide range of technologies. Central to the change is an entire new suite of capabilities designed to deliver a more satisfying purchasing experience.’ It looks like most books are available for multiple reader formats including iPhones and Android devices.

Our stuff on Diesel currently includes:

Fulani: Addicted to Rope novella, The Vampire Skye novella, The Vampire’s New Plaything short story, The Museum of Deviant Desires story collection (included in Terrance Aldon Shaw’s Big Brain Erotica 2012 list), Smoking Hot novella (out of the much-praised Naked Delirium collection from Sweetmeats Press), and his recent Corporate Slave novel.

Velvet Tripp: Xcite’s Tropical Paradise collection, with her story giving the collection its title; Xcite’s Submission in Silk collection, including her story ‘Go Find Yourself’; and A Woman Possessed, a novella broken out from the much-praised Naked Delirium collection from Sweetmeats Press – and most reviews have claimed this is the best story of the collection!

You can, by the way, register with Diesel to get alerts when any more of our books are on their site. And for selected books you appear to be able to earn actual money – though admittedly only a few cents – for writing reviews. So potentially, in return for rankings and reviews, you’d be able to get occasional free books.

More Corporate Slave

It’s now available on Amazon for Kindle, in the US and in the UK.

And if you want an idea of what it’s about and an extract, in addition to previous posts here you can look at a different extract on my Fulanismut blog (opens in new window).

Corporate Slave: published

Corporate Slave Cover

Fulani’s latest novel Corporate Slave is now out, published by Pink Flamingo. You can find it on PF’s Erotic Book Network site as a paperpack or an ebook. Over the next few days it will appear in other places as well, we’ll update availability info as it comes in.

This is a full-length novel of 80,000 words, involving copper-bottomed, boiler-plated BDSM on almost every page.

It’s set in a dystopian near-future, amid the collapse of the state and the rule of large, multinational corporations with their own justice departments and prisons – a world in which prisoners are goods to be traded with their value depending on the services they can provide. Including sexual services. It’s also a world in which some experimental technology being developed today is starting to become more widely available – such as computers woven into the cloth of garments. Part of the plot revolves around such a garment, the Intelligent Dress.

This is the world Cassie lives and works in, as a sales assistant in a convenience store. Until she gets caught up with a resistance movement, and then taken prisoner.

But rather than try to describe the novel, here’s a taste of how it begins:

Cassie rolled her eyes upwards in a vain attempt to see the expression on Ben’s face. His cock wedged firmly in her throat meant she couldn’t tilt her head. Her lips were spread wide, tongue hanging out, the tip of it just caressing his scrotum.

She’d taken the whole length, but it left her no room to maneuver. Her field of vision was entirely filled with a light fuzz of ginger public hair, a few inches of skin, and the bottom edge of his T-shirt—a lurid baby-blue color that didn’t suit his skin tone. Not that it mattered. She wasn’t giving the blowjob because she liked his dress sense, but because he was going to give her a Dress.

She hoped Ben would come soon, not because she wasn’t enjoying the blowjob, but because she was due at work soon. He was engorged and she could taste the pre-cum ejaculate already, but he seemed to be holding off on her. She gave a throaty growl and took his entire length, thankful she had full control over her gag reflex. His hand reached out and grabbed her hair, stopping her from pulling back. That wasn’t exactly a surprise. It was a man thing, wasn’t it—wanting to feel in control?

That was okay. She preferred it when she wasn’t in control. Sexually, at least. It gave her a sense of release.

Cassie made a gug ggg sound deep in her throat, which she meant as a question: what the fuck do you want me to do?

“Let’s make it real,” Bob grated. Then, raising his voice: “Hey, Luke, handcuff her for me, will ya? Hands behind her back!”

Luke, sitting on the other side of the room, looked up from the screen and removed his earpieces. Cassie caught a glimpse of a nude woman hanging by her wrists, legs splayed, flanked by two men in military uniforms. She was struggling, her body bearing the marks of abuse with a whip. She might have been screaming. Hard to tell whether the tinny sound coming from the earpieces now in Luke’s hand was screaming or music.

Luke hit a button on the remote, freezing the screen image, and picked over the litter of beer cans beside him until he found the cuffs.

She didn’t struggle. Not seriously, anyway. A token wriggle or two so he had to work at getting the cuffs on.

When her wrists were secured, Ben dragged her bodily forward, still on her knees, so he could sit in an armchair with her mouth still wrapped around his cock. It was hard to balance because Cassie’s own body weight pushed her down onto the cock, and she was able to come up only when Ben pulled back on on her hair. He grunted in satisfaction and pumped her head up and down. She tried to relax, knowing that at this rate he’d at least come quickly. He was, after all, fucking the fantasy in his head as much as he was fucking her mouth. She concentrated on getting her throat to relax and keeping it as lubricated as possible.

Ben was suddenly gasping for breath, much like Cassie herself, and released his flood. And it was a flood, filling her throat and sinuses but with more plastered on her face. He clutched at her straw-blonde hair tight enough to make her yelp, then relaxed enough that she could extract his cock from her mouth and try to suck in air. He pushed roughly on one shoulder and she fell back heavily on the carpet, lying on her side. Every time she coughed it seemed to bring up his fluid from her lungs. She sneezed, and gobs of it spattered the front of her T-shirt.

Oh well. It wasn’t like she’d be wearing it at work.

And it gets more intense from there on in. Those links again – the paperback and the ebook are both available right now from Pink Flamingo’s Erotic Book Network, $12.75 for print and $7 for the ebook.

New Novel Corporate Slave

Corporate Slave Cover

It’s out. It’s finally here! Fulani’s latest Novel Corporate Slave will be available from Friday 2nd November. After Twelve months of Slaving away over a hot Mac, editing, proofing, then finding a delightful cover, it’s ready for you to enjoy. And I’m sure you will enjoy it. Fulani’s top quality writing (I know I’m biased, but see for yourself) will keep you turning the pages, stopping only to cool down!

You’ll be able to find it at Erotic Book Network initially, but later on Amazon and on lots of other websites such as Smashwords. 

Here’s the lowdown:

Life isn’t easy for Cassie. She’s a sales assistant in a convenience store, in a society where sex is used to sell everything and is one of the main commodities for sale.

When she buys one of the new Intelligent Dresses to wear when she’s out clubbing, it sparks a sequence of events that lead to her being accused of using the garment’s on-board computer to carry out industrial espionage. Her captors assume she’s part of the resistance movement, seeking to bring down the group of multinational corporations that rule the country. She is imprisoned, interrogated and tortured, and ultimately sold as a slave to a senior corporate exec, Mistress NightMaire. She becomes a pleasure slave to be used for the entertainment of guests and clients.

Meanwhile she discovers a friend of hers, Lorne, is also being held by Mistress NightMaire. And Lorne, it turns out, does have connections to dissident groups.

Cassie begins to plan her escape. But will she be able to find Lorne? Will she be able to join up with the dissidents? Can they change the world? And just as importantly, now she knows the capabilities of the Dress can she get her hands on another one?

Don’t miss this one! VelvetTripp

[Edited 1st Nov to add: read a short sample of the novel, which sets out some of the setting and characters, over at Fulani’s other blog – fulanismut.blogspot.com]