Saturday, October 31, 2015

Vampire Cutter #MySexySaturday #99cents #TrickorTreat

This week's My Sexy Saturday topic is Our Sexy Halloween. In celebration, I've released a new ebook at the introductory price of only $0.99!

Vampire Cutter is actually NOT a story about someone who slashes vampires. That would be kind of awesome, though.

See, a few years ago I wrote this great MMF menage erotic romance short called Blood Addict. I loved that name so much I called the anthology in which I published it... you guessed it... BLOOD ADDICT.

The anthology sadly under-performed (especially for a book full of red-hot paranormal stories), so most readers have never been exposed to this tale. I couldn't publish the story as Blood Addict after publishing an anthology as Blood Addict, so, to prevent confusion, I've renamed it Vampire Cutter for the ebook version.

That's not confusing at all, is it? Only took three paragraphs to explain. heh

Anyhoo, since it's My Sexy Saturday, I share with you the first 7 paragraphs from Vampire Cutter:

It was just like quitting smoking.

That’s what people didn’t seem to realize. If you wanted to give up blood and you had a hell of a lot of willpower, you could do it. It wasn’t easy. Hell, it was probably the hardest thing Byron had ever done, but it was possible.

Vampire stories were so romanticized. All the undead stuff, the melodrama of addiction, the eroticism, the homoeroticism? That wasn’t life, for Byron, even if he was gay. Well, bi, actually.

His boyfriend Tyler was always on him about bisexual invisibility and how they shouldn’t let people think they were gay just because they were two guys who loved each other. Byron didn’t care so much what people thought, but for Tyler’s sake he corrected their mistakes.

Sometimes.

Well, okay, maybe part of the reason he let people assume he was gay was that it helped in his profession. If you’re styling a woman’s hair and she’s sitting there thinking you’re gay, she’ll open up to you like crazy. It makes the job easier. Tell her you’re bi and suddenly she’s wondering why you mentioned it at all. Are you hitting on her? What’s your deal? So, often, Byron let sleeping dogs lie. No skin off his ass.

And then along came Amy and everything changed.

I've got a few buy links for you--only a few because I left this to the last minute to upload. Oh, and the American Amazon page is messed up as I'm posting this. On my end it says Vampire Cutter is available for sale, but the site says it's not. So you'll have to give the link a click and hope for the best!

Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/589345?ref=GiselleRenardeErotica
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B017E2DIA0?tag=dondes-20
Kobo: https://store.kobobooks.com/ebook/vampire-cutter

Oh, and if you're reading this post on Halloween, you can still get A Taboo Trick or Two FREE right here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B016XFMTJK



Thursday, October 22, 2015

Trick or Treat! Get Your Halloween Erotica Here!

Last week, a certain sock puppet by the name of Lexi Wood came to me asking for favours--as usual. She'd written a taboo tale called Trick or BRAT, and she wanted me to write a companion piece.

As you know, The Other Side of Ruth came out last week. Yeah... the novel I worked on for five years was finally hitting the market and Lexi wanted me to spend my precious hours writing a story to complement hers?

But I did it, of course. I can't say no to that sock!

Lexi's story is about Chloe's Halloween night. My story is about Chloe's best friend, Anisha. Chloe bails and Anisha ends up going to this college costume party alone. She's having a pretty lousy time to begin with, but nothing can prepare her for the moment when her FATHER bursts through the door... with his hot young girlfriend!

Her father's been dating Maryam since summer, but lying to her, telling her he was divorced. NOT TRUE. Anisha's devastated, but she can't help feeling sorry for Maryam. Helps that her father's girlfriend is gorgeous in her frosted pink lipstick and a dress that looks like a more pastel version of one of these:

Anisha's dressed like a sexy bee, by the way. In case that helps set the stage.

Anyway, once I'd written this lesbian companion to Lexi's Halloween tale, it needed a name.

I couldn't come up with one. (Don't you just hate it when that happens?)

So I stole a line from a song I find very evocative: More Like You, by a Toronto band called Brave Shores:



Shaking Up This Costume Party is at Amazon.

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B016XFMP0I
Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B016XFMP0I
Amazon Canada: http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B016XFMP0I
Amazon Australia: http://www.amazon.com.au/gp/product/B016XFMP0I

So is Lexi's story, Trick or BRAT.

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B016XGN2Z4
Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B016XGN2Z4
Amazon Canada: http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B016XGN2Z4
Amazon Australia: http://www.amazon.com.au/gp/product/B016XGN2Z4

Because both stories are available, bundled into one cute collection called A Taboo Trick or Two!

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B016XFMTJK
Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B016XFMTJK
Amazon Canada: http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B016XFMTJK
Amazon Australia: http://www.amazon.com.au/gp/product/B016XFMTJK

Happy Halloween from your friendly neighbourhood smutketeer!

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

This is the day we've all been waiting for!

Okay, it's the day I'VE been waiting for. (No, not Back to the Future Day...)

Ever since I got that email from CreateSpace saying they're FINALLY going to start distributing directly to the Amazon.ca site, I've been antsy about seeing my new lesbian novel, The Other Side of Ruth, pop up there.

Well, today's the day! http://www.amazon.ca/The-Other-Side-Ruth-Lesbian/dp/151776159X

Okay, maybe not THE day, because although Ruth is listed at the Canadian Amazon site, it's listed with this caveat:

Temporarily out of stock.
Order now and we'll deliver when available. We'll e-mail you with an estimated delivery date as soon as we have more information. Your account will only be charged when we ship the item.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.ca.
Gift-wrap available.

I'm guessing it'll be listed as "in stock" soon, so if you're Canadian and waiting anxiously to purchase your copy from Amazon, be sure to fill in your email address on the page and Amazon will email you when it's officially available.

Here's that link again: http://www.amazon.ca/The-Other-Side-Ruth-Lesbian/dp/151776159X

If you buy your books elsewhere, like at an independent bookstore, or if you get books at the library, ask them to order a copy. They should be able to, although I think it can take a number of weeks for titles to populate from CreateSpace to certain vendors. But can't hurt to ask, and you'll be doing me a huge favour by spreading the word about Ruth.

Love you!


via GIPHY

Monday, October 19, 2015

Guest Post: On Doing, and Writing, Blood Sports

A Guest Post by Xan West
Part of the "Show Yourself To Me" Blog Tour


The first play party I went to was at Castlebar, a dungeon space in San Francisco that has been closed for over a decade. It was originally a warehouse, had high ceilings and a big central room where most of the play happened. There were also smaller rooms you could rent for private play, and social areas with comfortable chairs and couches. I was a novice, and I’m sure my eyes were wide and my gaze hungry and fascinated and frightened all at once, as I took everything in.

I had braved my way into a dyke leather social. I went alone, heart in my throat, hands that couldn’t stop fidgeting, fascinated by things that barely made sense to me. Why was there a bowl of clothespins on each table that seemed to delight people so much? They were colorful, different sizes, but what did they mean?

I managed to connect with a few folks at the social, despite being completely distracted by the fact that all these queer women were actually kinky. Our small group, that included a couple other novices and one experienced player, decided to go out to dinner and then go to the women’s play party that very evening. I was barely able to pay attention to anything during dinner, barely able to eat. Excited, scared, trembling a bit with nerves, I walked in the door.

Castlebar had this disclaimer form that you signed before they let you in, acknowledging that you understood what you were getting yourself into, along with a set of rules to read. They also had a list of what you might see in huge letters right at the door. I had read a lot about BDSM, of course. But I didn’t know enough terminology to understand some of what was on that list. The words I did know made me feel even more nervous. But also…free. Like the point was to accept that I might see anything, or everything, that I had fantasized about, and a hell of a lot more possibilities I hadn’t even dreamed of.

I wandered around the party, losing my group almost immediately. I must have spent a good three hours in the big dungeon space, watching. Just watching. It was enormously liberating, the idea that it was totally ok to watch. I’d been to fag public sex spaces before, and there was often this air of secretiveness, of avoiding the gaze, hiding in the shadows of the back room at the bar. This was very well lit, and the edges of the room had chairs where you could just sit, and look, welcomed that. It was a revelation, this ability to just look, and listen, as people did kink. To let myself sink into fantasy as I did so. It changed me.

After I’d had my (temporary) fill of watching for the night, I was a bit giddy. I went into one of the social rooms and sat on a comfortable chair, began to chat with some dykes close by. One of them was this butch who was preparing to top someone in one of the private rooms, and was revving herself up for that. She pulled out some needles and explained, in a casual cheerful tone, that piercing was one of the ways she got herself ready to top, that it put her in the right headspace. She stripped off her vest, and began piercing her own chest. I couldn’t take my eyes off her, so close, no voyeuristic distance between us.

Her gaze lifted and she looked right at me, and said, in this husky voice all changed from the firm cheerful one of a moment ago, “This works better if someone does it for me.”

I explained that I didn’t know how. She said she’d teach me.

Oh, she did, giving a quick and dirty explanation about safety precautions, then holding my gaze as she explained that she thought of it as fucking. That you were fucking someone’s skin this way, and that’s what made it so hot. That made a lot of sense to me, especially once I had a needle in my hand, and it was inside her skin, blood running down her chest. Oh yes, this was a glorious way to fuck someone.
She gave me a few needles to take with me. I kept them for years.

That was my first lesson. The next time I learned blood sports was in a class I had organized a few years later, because no one else was asking people to teach the damn subject. A leather dyke stood in front of the room and had us practice on mangos with scalpels. She talked about the need to be especially careful and responsible when doing blood sports in public because they were so taboo (a huge contrast to my first lesson in blood sports). What I remember most about that class was learning that I didn’t have to draw the blood for blood sports to get me high as a kite. Just watching her cut into her submissive, and I experienced this intense beautiful rush that had me loopy for hours.

I don’t just get that experience from doing blood sports, or watching. I get it from writing blood sports, too, especially when characters drink blood. If I write a blood sports scene well enough, I can see it so clearly in my mind, feel the deep sadism and burst of desire and satisfaction all wrapped together. I’m a sadist who loves making tears fall and loves drawing blood. When the writing is good, it can get me off just to write about licking either fluid from a bottom’s skin, or watching the glory of them slowly dripping.

I write blood sports into my stories more than most folks, and it’s not just because I love them and get off writing them. It’s also because blood means so much, is such a nuanced and varied path for play, for intimacy, and for communicating culture. Blood play is a lovely element that can add so much to a story.

Most of the vampire erotica I’ve read seems to think of feeding on blood as a metaphor for sex, an aphrodisiac, an expression of power, or a path to intimacy. And certainly blood sports can feel like all of those things, but they are also a pleasure unto themselves, complete and beautiful and scorchingly hot. My vampire story, “Willing”, is written from the perspective of a sadist and a blood sports enthusiast, and I think it brings something different because of that. Here is a taste for you, a short ride inside this vampire’s desire for blood. As a heads up, this excerpt includes descriptions of pain play, D/s and blood sports.

“Please use me, Sir,” is all he says.

Mine. Possessiveness washes over me. I double the belt and start slamming him with it, the welts rising rapidly. Vision begins to blur. This is all about sound and movement. My body senses where to strike. My blows hammer him into the table. I can feel a growl building in my throat as his scent shifts. My cock swells as I hurl the belt into his back in rapid crashing surges.

“Mine,” I growl. “Mine to hurt. Mine to use. Mine to feed on. Mine.”

The possessiveness rises in me, a tsunami cresting and breaking over him as I blast the belt into his back, rending his skin. Welts form on top of welts and break the surface. He is moaning as I howl, the beast fully in my skin and oh so hungry. I lay the belt across the back of his neck and crouch on the table above him, eyes focused on the gashes opening his back to me. I drop on top of him, rubbing my chest into the blood on his back.

I breathe the scent of him in and growl happily, “Mine.”

I free my cock, swollen to bursting, and shed my pants. I will savor the first real taste. Right now, it’s enough to smell it and feel it against my skin, and I know there is more for the taking. I rub it onto my cock, stroking it in as I close my eyes. I want inside, now. Want to rend him open. Thrust myself into him, bloody and hard. I want to tear his back open with claws and teeth, and feast.

I describe this to him, and he moans his consent. “Please, Sir,” he says softly. “Please.”

He is all want and need and crave, and where his hunger meets mine, we will crest.

Having a taste of blood sports as a novice helped me know something very important about myself as a top, was one of the first times I touched my sadism. I came to kink as an edge player, and this experience was a vital moment of recognition that I was an edge player from both sides of the kneel. I treasure that, and want to offer opportunities for similar moments of recognition in my erotica.

About Show Yourself To Me


For ebook or print copies at Go Deeper Press: http://godeeperpress.com/projects/show-yourself-to-me-by-xan-west/





Book Description:

In Show Yourself to Me: Queer Kink Erotica, Xan West introduces us to pretty boys and nervous boys, vulnerable tops and dominant sadists, good girls and fierce girls and scared little girls, mean Daddies and loving Daddies and Daddies that are terrifying in delicious ways.

Submissive queers go to alleys to suck cock, get bent over the bathroom sink by a handsome stranger, choose to face their fears, have their Daddy orchestrate a gang bang in the park, and get their dream gender-play scene—tied to a sling in an accessible dungeon.

Dominants find hope and take risks, fall hard and push edges, get fucked and devour the fear and tears that their sadist hearts desire.

Within these 24 stories, you will meet queers who build community together, who are careful about how they play with power, who care deeply about consent. You will meet trans and genderqueer folks who are hot for each other, who mentor each other, who do the kind of gender play that is only possible with other trans and genderqueer folks.

This is Show Yourself to Me. Get ready for a very wild ride.

My website:

The stops on the blog tour:

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Canadians Can Be Thankful

https://www.createspace.com/4521764


Got a nice bit of news yesterday, which was Monday of the Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada. I planned to share it last night, but, due to a turkey-induced food coma, I fell asleep on the couch.

But I'm partially awake now, so here is the news I received from CreateSpace:

Hello,

Starting October 8, we began making CreateSpace titles enrolled in the Amazon.com sales channel available directly to readers in Canada on Amazon.ca. Your title may already be offered on Amazon.ca through Expanded Distribution or other channels, but now you can earn the same royalty on Amazon.ca that you would earn for a sale on Amazon.com.

You can expect to see a title enrolled in the Amazon.com sales channel on Amazon.ca in 30 days. [...]

Best regards,
The CreateSpace Team

What does this mean for YOU (assuming you're Canadian)? It means print versions of my books will now be available directly via the Canadian Amazon site.

I know this sounds like "so what?" news, so I'll tell you why it matters to me.

A couple years ago, when I published my award-winning trans lesbian novel The Red Satin Collection at CreateSpace, a library system in New Brunswick expressed interest in carrying the book. The problem was that they purchased their books at Amazon.ca (which was a surprise to me--I thought all libraries purchased through special secret library-only channels) and The Red Satin Collection was not available for purchase at Amazon.ca. For whatever reason, they couldn't buy from the .com site or any other channels.

When you're an author who starts self-publishing (especially when you began your career in a small press world), suddenly you're thrust into handling all aspects of your own little publishing business. And sometimes you don't know what the hell you're doing.

In this instance, I contacted CreateSpace and asked how this library could go about purchasing the book at Amazon.ca. In the end, I couldn't solve the problem. Now, two years later, CreateSpace has solved it. They're making print books available at the Canadian site.

Why it took so long... well, don't ask me. I still find this business baffling. But, in true Thanksgiving tradition, I'm grateful that Canadians will now be able to purchase my paperbacks more easily.