Foot and Shoe Fetish Sexy Surprises

Foot and Shoe Fetish Sexy Surprises

6 Erotic Stories

Series: Sexy Surprises

Volume 57

by Giselle Renarde

Word Count: 15,000

ISBN: 9798231188161

Step into desire with Foot and Shoe Fetish Sexy Surprises, a sizzling collection of six erotic stories where passion meets stockings, heels, and bare skin. From soft arches to stunning footwear, every tale explores the delicious terrain of foot and shoe play through the eyes—and bodies—of characters who are queer, straight, and trans. Whether it’s the sting of a stiletto or the tenderness of a toe kiss, these stories go deep into the fantasies that live below the knee.

In these pages, reunion turns to revelation as old friends reconnect at a wedding. A butch lesbian finds herself falling hard for the radiant femme who polishes more than just nails at the local salon. Domination, submission, devotion, and surprise encounters unfold in unexpected places. Each story balances lust with heart, proving that fetish and romance can make exquisite bedfellows.

Whether you're here for the slow burn or the high heat, Foot and Shoe Fetish Sexy Surprises delivers pleasure in all its forms—tender, rough, playful, and raw. Laced with fantasy and grounded in vibrant identities, this anthology invites you to indulge and surrender.

Buy Now from Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F9FWW7VG?tag=dondes-20
Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=hy1fEQAAQBAJ

Apple: https://books.apple.com/us/book/foot-and-shoe-fetish-sexy-surprises/id6746136962
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Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/foot-and-shoe-fetish-sexy-surprises

Everand: https://www.everand.com/book/864123759/Foot-and-Shoe-Fetish-Sexy-Surprises-Sexy-Surprises-57

Find more retailers with the Universal Book Link: https://books2read.com/u/mlorBZ

The journey toward paying the rent starts with a single sale

Sometimes I lose sight of what's really important.

It's very easy to be swayed by all sorts of factors, even when you're a strongheaded person. Greed is a communicable disease. If you surround yourself with people who always want more, more, more, you're bound to catch it.

Humility is a quality I greatly admire, but it's never been my strong suit. The thing about selling books for a living is that books don't cost a lot of money. Each individual sale doesn't bring in a ton of dough. If you make your living as a writer, as I do, you have to sell a lot of books to pay the rent. Each individual sale is a drop in the ocean.

It's taken a drastic downturn in book sales for me to realize what a huge compliment every single sale is.

I don't know why it's taken me so long to realize this. I don't buy a lot of books myself. I read every day, but I get my books from libraries. The last book I bought was Janet Mock's Redefining Realness. In Canadian dollars, it was just over $20. I'm a low income earner. I saved up to buy it. I love that book. It's outstanding. I held it in such high esteem that, when the audiobook came out, I encouraged my library system to purchase a copy. They did. Sweet did the same with her library system, and they purchased the audiobook too.

Buying Redefining Realness was important to me. It was an experience. I still read in print, but the first bookstore I went to didn't carry it.  Saving for the book, going out on multiple excursions to find it in the world, and then buying my own copy... this was all very meaningful to me.

That was one sale of one book for Janet Mock. It was a memorable experience for me. I cherish that my copy.

My copy of Redefining Realness, with my favourite sections flagged.

 
I'd never considered that, when readers buy my books, they might be having similar experiences--and if not similar experiences, at least similar feelings. There's so much hope and anticipation infused into a book purchase. Readers are really hoping to find what they're looking for inside your story. Your words matter to them.

It's hard for me to imagine readers holding my words in high esteem, because I don't hold myself in high esteem. When I think there are people out there, people like me, who don't earn a lot of money but they've saved up to buy a book I've written, I feel humbled. I take that as such a huge compliment.

And it's not just the spending money aspect. It's the spending time aspect, too. So many people are so busy, and there's so much entertainment out there in the world, and in here in our computers. There are so many ways to be entertained and amused. It blows me away that people spend their time with my words, with my work.

In order for me to pay my rent and put food on the table (and in my cats' bowls), I need to sell hundreds of books every month. If I only sold one, I'd be in trouble. I think that's why I lost sight of how incredibly important every single sale is. The journey toward paying the rent starts with a single sale.

I never used to feel particularly emotional about book sales. I do now, more and more. The fewer books I sell, the more I value each individual sale. Each reader. Each minute spent consuming my work.

I need readers. I need sales. Without them, I wouldn't have anything to eat. I wouldn't have a roof over my head. But I'd lost sight of two very important truths: each reader is a blessing; each sale is a compliment. I hope to hell I don't lose sight of that again.

The Crisis in Midlife

This post was written in 2018

I'll tell you how I've been feeling lately.

I've been feeling like every worthwhile thing I'm ever going to do in my life--everything good, everything useful, everything productive--I've already done. The best is behind me. I'm just waiting out my sentence.

Last month, my mother told me I'm not a spring chicken anymore. That threw me for a loop. Isn't your mother supposed to think of you as a child for always? But when I told my girlfriend, she said, "Yeah, well you're middle aged."

Middle aged?

My ex, who (as you know) was much older than me, used to say that every time he looked in the mirror, he expected to see his 18-year-old self. And instead he saw an old man. It was jarring.

I didn't get that when I was 19.

I get it now.

The thing I really didn't get is that a midlife crisis is... well... a crisis. Crisis in the sense of crisis counseling, crisis lines, crisis intervention. The term always made me think of sports cars and 22-year-old girlfriends, but there's more to the story. Holy Mother of God, is there more to this story.

There's a reason you try to recapture your lost youth: that's when you accomplished everything of value. Or, at least, that's when I did. Or, at least, that's how I feel. But you're talking to someone who peaked in high school. Your mileage may vary.

I'm sure there are ways to feel useful again. Volunteer work and such. But volunteer work is just one more of those things I did when I was younger. I worked in the domestic violence sector for years, and I burned out so hard I can't even tell you. I've volunteered my ass all over this city, and most organizations (the big box charities in particular) have left me disillusioned at best and disgusted at worst.

In a perfect world, I would feel fulfilled by my work.  So I've devoted a lot of my time and energy to projects I felt would be helpful to others. The thing is, in order for your book to help anyone, someone in the world has to... read it. And when you get to the point where you write something super-meaningful and then you literally can't even give it away for free, it becomes pretty clear that the work isn't going to dig you out of this hole.

Now I get why people go back to what gave them pleasure as children, as youths. There's a simple joy to childhood that's so hard to recapture decades later.  The lights dim over time. The world is less shiny and bright.

Maybe I've been watching too many YouTube videos about nihilism and existential angst, but lately I've been wondering if I should even bother trying to do anything of value, if anything actually has innate value anyway, or if we're all just marking time.

I remember having fantasies, when I was young. Fantasies about all the exciting things I would do in the future. I would imagine scenarios in detail. It was really energizing. Made me want to get up in the morning and work toward my goals.

Now? In midlife, or whatever this is?

I don't have fantasies anymore.

How do you get through life when it seems like your best days are behind you?

I'm taking it one day at a time.

C'est pas tes oignons

This post was written in 2018

When I was in kindergarten, the whole class had to line up single file by the door at the end of the day. Mlle Medina wouldn't release us into the care of our parents or picker-uppers until we'd neatly arranged ourselves in no particular order.

One day, I saw Grant bud in front of Nathan. I was not happy. You can't just cut in line like that. Nathan was there first! How dare you?

Even at the age of six, I was not one to let injustice go unnoticed. I went over to Grant and I was like, "I saw what you did! How dare you? Nathan should be in front of you!"

Mlle Medina came over to see what all the loudness was about. I explained the situation to her. She explained that it had nothing to do with me. C'est pas tes oignons, Giselle. I should take my place in line. Mind my own business.

My teacher wasn't mean about it. Not at all. I could tell that she was amused by my crusade to right the wrongs of the kindergarten line. This was the same teacher who told my mom not to worry too much about my... behaviour. Life would soften out the edges.

It hasn't.

I'm in trouble again.

With family, this time.

I just finished watching a very touching documentary called Much Too Young, about caregivers of parents with early-onset Alzheimer's and dementia. The thing that sets this film apart from others on the topic is that these caregivers are young men and women in their twenties, some in their teens. I could never have done what they're doing. Not at that age, not at this age, probably not at any age. I'm not a nurturer. I care, but I'm not caring.

But some of the sentiments they expressed resonated with me, especially early in the film before the various participants had met each other. They didn't know who to talk to about what they were experiencing. There were support groups for caregivers, sure, but not for people under 30. All the caregivers were the age of their parents. They felt very isolated.

I've been feeling that way too, when it comes to stuff with my grandmother. If you've been reading my posts over the years, you know that I've participated in her care. She does not have dementia. That's a big distinction. But she is legally blind, she's experiencing hearing loss, and her mobility isn't the best. Recently, she was hospitalized for 6 weeks with multiple infections that resulted in a whole lot of delirium.

She checked herself out of hospital prematurely. Realistically, she requires round the clock care. She can afford it, but she's too cheap to pay the money. A lot of people who grew up in the Depression era are like this. She wants to stay in her house. It's not safe for her to be living there anymore, but my grandmother is one hard-headed motherfucker. I'm allowed to trash-talk her because I AM her. We have exactly the same personality. We share the same faults. Anything negative I say about her, I would be more than willing to say about my self.

So how did I end up in hot water with my family?

Well, here's the thing about old people... they can be assholes. I have this on good authority. Every story I tell my girlfriend about the latest asshole thing my grandmother (whom I love very much) has done, she's like, "That's old people. That's what happens."

I sure as hell hope that by the time I'm in my late 80s, those suicide booths from Futurama will be a real thing, because God Almighty I don't ever want to turn into that. Does it really happen to everyone?

"Focus narrows," my girlfriend says. "Life becomes very narrow."

This is what I see in my grandmother now. It's not that she's necessarily a different person than she was before, it just seems like you're dealing with the worst possible version of her. Someone who takes everyone else's time and care for granted, someone who feels entitled to all this and more, someone who expects everyone to give give give even when they're already drained and never feels the need to say thank you.

Without getting into too much detail, it came to my attention that my grandmother had lied about a medical professional in order to manipulate a situation and achieve her own ends. My grandmother's actions led to serious repercussions for that medical professional.

I love my grandma, but no. Just no. You can't fuck with people's livelihoods like that. This is someone's job, someone's career, someone's pay cheque. Someone's life. I don't care how old you are and how much your focus has narrowed, you don't pull this shit.

My grandmother's already reeling from feeling that she's lost control of her life. She calls us "mean" and tells us we won't let her do what she wants to do, even though everything we do is what she wants. At times our entire lives are wrapped up in doing what she wants. So I went over her head with this one. I phoned the supervisor of the medical professional to tell them my grandmother had lied and here's what her motives were.

The supervisor was frankly quite relieved, because their whole organization was baffled about the accusation. It didn't make sense to anyone--didn't make sense because it wasn't true. I was told that an investigation was already underway, and I spoke to them less than 24 hours after the whole thing started.

Maybe I'll always be the same kid I was in kindergarten, but if I see someone doing wrong by another human (even if the wrongdoer is a relative and the wrong-done-by is a relative stranger), I need to speak up. You can love someone and not support their actions.

When I talked to that supervisor, I figured they'd tell me "Oh yes, your aunts have all called me to give me this information." I was very surprised that, even though the whole family knew about my grandmother's wrongdoing, nobody was willing to say it out loud, except to each other. I told my mom I'd made that phone call. She supported my decision but warned me not to tell my aunts.

Last week I let my guard down. I told one of my aunts I made the call. To my face, she was smiley and supportive, but my sister tells me that, behind my back, my aunts are all saying I should mind my own business.

These days, because anxiety has been an issue, I'm trying to reflect on potential repercussions before I get worked up. When my sister told me my aunts are mad at me, the first thing I did was laugh. Then I said, "What are they going to do? Punch me? Disown me?"

Most probable scenario is they'll keep talking about me behind my back and never say a word to my face.

You know what? I can handle that.

Every Book Needs Readers

Last year, I talked about filling The Well of Creativity with every kind of media I can get my face on.

At that time, I viewed myself as a dry well. I've shifted a touch, to view myself as a fallow field. A healthier outlook, I hope.

We all need to rest once in a while. I used to be obsessed with the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Aspects of Love. One of the first lines in the show is: "I'm resting again--that's what actresses say when they're not in a play." Am I resting because I'm not writing? Or am I not writing because I'm resting? Either way, I'm not in a play.

Most writers are readers first. Reading is important to fill The Well. Watching movies, TV, plays, listening to audiobooks and Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals--it all helps us to be better writers. But I covered that last time.

I'm revisiting the importance of reading (and watching and listening) because a new thought occurred to me the other day, another reason it's so important to be a voracious consumer of media:

Every Book Needs Readers

Before, I was thinking about the benefits of reading to me, as a creative writer and human person. Now, I'm thinking about the benefits of reading to the author of that book, and even to the book itself.

One of the reasons my will to write has dwindled is that there are far fewer eyes on my words than there used to be. Or at least it feels that way. Every time a reader picks up a story I wrote, a novel or an anthology or short, that's huge for me. Every sale is a big deal, but it's not even about the sale. I put so much time and energy, so much of myself, into everything I write. I want eyes on those words.

So now, every time I read a book, I imagine how pleased the author must be that their words are being read. Kind of silly, I know. They're probably so successful that one more set of eyes makes no difference to them. But maybe readers think that about me. After all, I'm a full-time writer. I've been doing this job for more than a decade. Maybe readers consider me established.

I hope they know how much it means to me when they consume my words. Every book I write needs readers. If my words aren't read, what's the point in writing them?

I used to think of reading as part of my ongoing author education. And it is. But lately, I've considered it more of an imperative. I'm particularly drawn toward books that are out of print, stories that aren't online, aren't available on Amazon, aren't ebooks. Yellowed paperbacks that will cease to exist once these few copies have come apart. They're on their last legs.

Every book needs readers. Doesn't matter what you're reading, as long as you're reading. But, for me, those yellowed finds are the ones I want to read... before they disappear forever. 

Boundless Desire: 3 Spicy Bisexual Romance Novellas

Boundless Desire
3 Spicy Bisexual Romance Novellas
by Giselle Renarde
Word Count: 68,000
ISBN: 9798227016003

Passion knows no limits in this sizzling trio of contemporary bisexual romances, where desire refuses to be boxed in and love doesn’t play by the rules.

Forbidden Folk: When Winter Green’s estranged mother dies, the two remaining members of her folk trio ask Winter to come on tour. Winter grew up on a tour bus. She can’t go back. But Steven and Virginia hold one secret nobody else knows. Will her desire to discover the truth be enough to bring her back to the folk music fold?

Cherry: Recently-divorced Phil is the last man in the world who should turn Cherry’s head. He’s twice her age, for goodness’ sake! When they meet up on a camping trip, the forest isn’t big enough to keep these two apart… even if they’re totally wrong for each other.

Pie Girls and the Very Lonely Man: When Butler meets a retro rockabilly pie shop owner, the last thing he expects is that she’ll try to seduce him. No, scratch that. The last thing he expects is for the pie girl’s wife to walk in on them! When the pie girls invite him to stay at their house, a visit to a lonely small town grows into the kind of adventure Butler wouldn’t have dreamed up in his wildest fantasies. Can a lonely man live in a dream?

Intimate, raw, and unapologetically steamy, Boundless Desire celebrates love in all its unexpected forms—with multiple partners, plenty of heat, and zero shame.

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F5T95YSB?tag=dondes-20
Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=zlJYEQAAQBAJ
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1753703

Apple: https://books.apple.com/us/book/boundless-desire/id6744899191
Nook: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/boundless-desire-giselle-renarde/1147317721
Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/boundless-desire-1

Find more retailers with the Universal Book Link: https://books2read.com/u/m2DD5R

When does the mellowing begin?

This post was written in 2018

I should have known it was a dream. This sort of thing never happens in real life: I was having a frank and honest discussion with my mother... about the menopause. And then I woke up.

Remember a few weeks ago I mentioned an elementary school teacher who told my mom not to worry too much about me, that life would round out the rough edges? Remember I said I'm still waiting for that to happen?

Well, I wish it would happen soon. I'm really getting sick of myself.

Summer came about three months early this year, and that's something most Canadians get excited about. Not me. Summer in the city means more people in the streets, more construction, more dirty-and-gritty.

In the summer, it is impossible for me to leave my house without getting into some sort of altercation. My sisters call me a New Yorker. My mom's afraid I'm going to get shot one of these days. It amazes me that nobody's thrown a punch. A few have come close, but I'm pretty sure I know what's stopped them: I'm five feet tall and I weigh 87 lbs. If you're bigger than that (and most people are) and you come at me swinging, nobody's going to be impressed.

I'd say I start at least 98% of the arguments I get involved in, with strangers on the street. In the sense that I speak first. Yell, usually. At drivers, at cyclists. I yell at them because they're breaking traffic laws and endangering my safety: failing to stop at STOP signs, driving through red lights, making illegal turns, driving on the sidewalk. I see this stuff literally every time I leave the house. So basically every time I set foot outside, my life is in danger.

You'd think after the attack last month, drivers would be more sensitive. But no. Pedestrian deaths in this city have skyrocketed over the past few years. It's bad.

So when people drive their cars or bicycles right-the-fuck at my body, you bet your ass they're going to hear what I think about that. I'm not impressed.

I'll tell you the one that happened yesterday, because it's fresh in my mind--but I've got hundreds of stories like this one. I've lost track, honestly. So I was walking along the sidewalk and there was this team of surveyors who had their equipment set up on the sidewalk, and there was me and some dude walking along, and this cyclist (who had been riding on the road previously) mounted the sidewalk and came right at us.

She was playing chicken with us. She wanted us out of her way, even though it's actually illegal for cyclists to ride on the sidewalk here. I've seen it so many times I can tell when people are playing this game, deliberately trying to scare other humans. That's what she was up to.

Don't fuck with me, lady. Seriously.

She was coming at me and this dude, and I was just like "Get off the sidewalk!"

The words were barely out of my mouth and already she was telling me to fuck off.

She won her game of chicken against me and the dude. What were we supposed to do? She was coming right at us. So I jumped off the sidewalk in one direction and the poor dude had to jump into the street.

The surveyors moved to protect their equipment, blocking it with their bodies so she wouldn't crash into it. That worked. She didn't tell them to fuck off, not that I could hear. She got off the sidewalk and went off looking for other pedestrians to harass, I guess.

I've been in this exact situation (minus they surveyors--that was new) more times than I can count. But here's what really scared me yesterday: I had this visceral reaction to being told to fuck off. I've been told to fuck off hundreds of times by hundreds of strangers, but yesterday... it wasn't even anger. It wasn't an emotion. It was this surge of primordial rage.

I wanted to bash in her skull.

I have one of those metal water bottles that's sort of club-shaped, if you can picture what I'm talking about. I just kept thinking how glad I was that my water bottle was in my bag and not in my hand, because if it had been in my hand I think I might have hit her with it. Hard.

When I told my girlfriend this story, she was like, "Good thing you didn't or you'd have landed yourself in jail." And I think she's right.

I've been thinking about why I feel it necessary to stand up for myself so loudly every time I feel even the slightest bit threatened. Stuff like this always seems to go back to what we learned in childhood, right?

When I was a child (and even into adulthood), I viewed my mother as weak because she allowed herself to be subjected to domestic violence in many forms. I didn't know about trans-generational trauma and stuff like that. All I knew was that my mom was weak and I didn't want to be like her. So I spoke up all the time. My mom told me I was too loud, so I got louder.

I learned another very valuable lesson in childhood, also from my mother (sort of), and that's that the police don't give two fucks about womenfolk. My mom called the police pretty often, when my dad was getting violent. Sometimes they showed up, but even when they did they were like "Don't worry your pretty head. Just let the man tire himself out. There's a good girl."

After my parents divorced, the violence escalated. Suddenly the threats weren't just against my mother, they were against us kids too. My dad would break into our house, bust up our shit. One time he broke in with a can of spray paint and wrote horrible things on our walls. It was... traumatic.

We went to the police. Oh so many times. The police did nothing.

So the lesson I learned in childhood was that you need to stand up for yourself because nobody else is going to do it for you. Especially not the police.

Last year one of the altercations I got into started exactly like the one above: cyclist mounted the sidewalk and rode straight at me. I was like "Get off the sidewalk," but this guy didn't just tell me to fuck off and go on his merry way. He jumped off his bike and came at me, started shouting at me, calling me a "mouthy bitch" and all this.

That day, I thought to myself: This is it. I'm going to get punched for sure this time.

I just kept walking in the other direction because, honestly, I didn't want to get punched. Maybe my diminutive stature worked in my favour, because the guy kept cussing me out but he didn't get physical. Finally, he picked up his bike and went off.

The reason I'm telling you this is because that whole incident happened in front of a cop. Seriously. A police officer was standing directly in front of us the whole time this guy was coming at me, and he didn't do a damn thing. I guess he was waiting for me to get punched. Maybe then he would have stepped in.

So now I'm stuck. I've been a "mouthy bitch" for nearly 40 years. Do I even want to change, at this point? I don't know. Not really. But I also don't want to be stressed and angry. I don't want to get in altercations all the time.

You're supposed to mellow as you get older, right? When is that going to happen for me? Because I'm thinking, with the impending menopause and all... won't that just ramp up my already substantial rage? I barely have control of my emotions as it is. If I get worse, Sweet's right--I'm going to wind up behind bars. As we've learned, cops are not my friend.

Listen to me: I'm expecting change to come at me from the outside in. If I really want to mellow, it's got to start with me. I need to make a choice.

But not tonight.

Sexy Surprises Volume 12: 24 Queer and Trans Stories

Sexy Surprises Volume 12

24 Queer and Trans Stories

by Giselle Renarde

Word Count: 102,000

ISBN: 9798230867944 

Sexy Surprises Volume 12 is bursting at the seams with passion, heat, and heart. This massive collection features 24 queer and trans stories that celebrate love, desire, and the unexpected moments that bring people together. Whether it's a chance encounter, a long-held secret finally revealed, or a heat-of-the-moment decision that changes everything, these stories serve up romance and lust in equal measure.

Within this volume, you'll find four full anthologies—Trans Lesbian Sexy Surprises, Trans Masc Sexy Surprises, Sapphic Sexy Surprises, and Queer Sexy Surprises—each offering a rich tapestry of characters and relationships. From tender first times to bold reunions, slow burns to instant sparks, the range of stories reflects a broad spectrum of LGBTQ experiences.

Sexy Surprises Volume 12 is for anyone who craves connection, heat, and heart-stopping moments of surprise. Whether you're here for the steam, the sweetness, or the swoon-worthy storytelling, every story is a celebration of queer and trans joy, desire, and the power of being seen—and wanted—exactly as you are.

Buy Now from Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F4ZZQ1MH?tag=dondes-20
Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=QsFVEQAAQBAJ
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1748423

Apple: https://books.apple.com/us/book/sexy-surprises-volume-12-24-queer-and-trans-stories/id6744618414
Nook: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/sexy-surprises-volume-12-giselle-renarde/1147281841
Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/sexy-surprises-volume-12-24-queer-and-trans-stories

Find more retailers with the Universal Book Link: https://books2read.com/u/mgxwQv

The Cure for Social Isolation

This post was written in 2018

I've had a rough couple weeks. Pretty common, for a depressed person. The difference this time was that I was started to feel socially isolated. I can't remember another time when I would have plastered that label all over myself, but it got so bad I started reaching out to actual humans. And I never do that.

I got in touch with my oldest friend. We have a close bond. I know stuff about her that she doesn't tell most people. I knew her when she was going through some tough PTSD shit. She knew me when I was young and foolish.

Now we live in different cities and we rarely see one another. We rarely even talk, but somehow that doesn't matter. The bond between us is so strong we don't need to be in constant contact to feel connected.

But sometimes I need support, and sometimes she does, and that's usually when we reach out to each other.

It was me reaching out, this time. We made plans to see each other. Unfortunately, the father of a friend of hers died, and she had to drive clear across the province for the funeral. We formulated new plans for when she'd be passing through Toronto on her way home, but the thing about my friend is that she has a very serious health condition and her depressed immune system meant she became quite ill and stuck in the small town where her friend lives.

So none of our plans panned out. I don't blame her, obviously. But that doesn't stop me from being sad that we didn't get to see each other.

Depression and social isolation mingle in this weird way where the isolation is crying out, "I want to see someone," and the depression is whispering, "No you don't.  You just stay right here by me."  It's so seductive, the way it holds you close and runs its fingers through your hair. Depression has such a good grip on a person like me. It knows how to keep me from seeking out solace in the social sphere.

Through all this, my girlfriend's been working her ass off getting ready for a charity event she helps to run. She called me one night when she'd planned on coming over and said she was just too tired.  She'd been doing hard physical labour for 12 hours. I understood.  But I was so sad about not being able to connect with anyone, not even my own girlfriend, that when she called I was just silent on the phone.  I couldn't speak. I was too sad, but I couldn't explain why. I literally couldn't produce words.

It led to a very unfortunate misunderstanding, which I couldn't clear up because... Depression. Sweet was upset with me.  She didn't know everything that had happened with my friend getting sick and all that.  She just thought I was being a selfish brat.

When I woke up Saturday morning (okay, afternoon), life wasn't looking good.  The only thing I had to look forward was picking up a hold at the library.  And, to be honest, sometimes I get really jazzed about that.  But not when Depression's got me in her grip.

Thank goodness for radio. It's gotten me through some really rough times. And not just the music, but the hosts too.

I was listening to an indie rock station, and the host was talking about how she'd been feeling really irritated because she knew the streetcar she took to work would be diverted. The route change had to do with King Street being turned into a pedestrian walkway during the Toronto International Film Festival.

The radio host said that, after feeling disgruntled about the change in her commute, she decided to simply leave the house early, get off the streetcar where the road closure started, and walk through the pedestrian section of the street. And doing so took her from being irritated that her route was interrupted to feeling elated by the buoyant energy of all these people trying to get a glimpse of movie stars.

So I thought... you know what?  I'm going to King Street.

I'll tell you something about me: I don't even like movies. I have the attention span of a fruit fly. I cannot sit through a movie.  Just ask my girlfriend. She's a movie buff.  But she has a movie friend who goes to the movies with her, because I just can't.

I didn't go to the film festival for the movies.  I went for the people.

And you know what?

It worked.

As soon as I got to King Street, where it was blocked off for pedestrian use, the energy all around was just electric. There were people of all ages snapping photos, laughing and talking, lining up to try samples of products.  Restaurants had spilled out onto the street. Roads became patios.

But it was the people that helped me shake this bout of depression. Their excitement was frenetic.  There were big screens set up, I guess to broadcast celebrities getting out of limos?  I don't know. I'm really not up on pop culture.  But just that sound of teens squealing, the general frenzy, the joy and anticipation--it lifted me out of the pit I'd been living in for weeks.

My girlfriend's volunteer event was only a few blocks away, so I walked up to meet her.  She'd been on her feet for ten hours by that point, but she wasn't too busy to talk.  I was finally able to tell her everything that had been going on, and she said that if she'd realized all that she'd have cut me some slack instead of arguing.  We spent the rest of the evening together and it was great.  And a big part of the greatness was being out in the city, in these big crowds of people.

So the cure for social isolation is... people?  That seems a little too simplistic.

I've been thinking about those who are depressed and living in smaller communities. If they go out to a community gathering, they're probably going to see people they know.  The key, for me, was in being able to go out and be around people I didn't know. For me, that first step toward integrating myself more fully into the world is being anonymous in the world. Being around people, but being a nobody.  Enjoying the energy and excitement of an event without really being part of it.  I don't drive. If I lived in a tiny community, I'm not sure what I'd do.

But for those of us who live in active, vibrant cities, the cure for social isolation might simply be to find a crowd that's excited about something fun.  Steal that collective energy before it dissipates.  If you're anything like me, you need it.

It's funny--I was on the subway the other day and a man got on with his leg in a cast.  He was having trouble negotiating the crowd and I asked him if he needed a hand.  He thanked me, but said he was doing okay. He told me: "My motto is I'd rather have pain like this, that's visible on the outside, than pain on the inside that no one else can see."

I swear that man was reading my soul.

Taboo Tales Sexy Surprises: 3 Erotic Stories

Taboo Tales Sexy Surprises

3 Erotic Stories

by Giselle Renarde

Word Count: 17,000

Forbidden passions unfold in Taboo Tales Sexy Surprises, an unforgettable collection of three erotic stories where desire takes charge.

A sensible young woman is enraged and then enraptured by her father's hot new stripper wife. A college student falls hard for her sexy stepbrother—and his best friend. And when two complete strangers get together in our third and final tale, they know they can never reveal the secret they share!

Cater to your cravings and indulge your fantasies as you weave your way through a taboo world where lust knows no bounds.

Buy Now from Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1742179