This was written as a quick exercise in tattooing kink and posted in another, more personal writing blog that I have, but I figured it could go here as well. At 723 words it’s quite short, but I think it’s a nice little taste of something and it was fun to write.

It’s m/f, femdom, and probably not safe for work, though there’s nothing particularly raunchy in it.

The Beautiful Marks

Keller lies under the needle for her, because he loves her, because she’s commanded it. Because pain endured in her name is pleasure. He lies under the needle and the candles flare higher, and the artist summoned from the edges of the village grins in the dimness. When Keller lifts his head enough to see her, she’s leaning back in her great black chair and smiling at him, her fingers steepled in front of her breasts. Her magnificent breasts. Perhaps later he’ll be allowed to touch them, allowed to worship them with his lips and tongue.

But now Keller lies under the needle, and he does it for her.

The day before, she had ordered that he be marked and he had bowed his head like an obedient slave, because he was, but in his heart he had felt a wild thrill like something fluttering against the inside of his ribcage, yearning to break loose. If she marked him now he would be marked forever, forever hers, her pet and plaything and her love. She had showed him what she wanted, the elaborate spirals, the shapes that might be trees, flowers, mountains and beasts and birds. Dancers whirling in the flames of a great fire. All there, hidden in the marks now stabbed over and over into his skin. The shapes taking form. He’s hard as he lies facedown against the table, trying not to grind himself against it, for she’ll see it and she’ll punish him for taking pleasure before he’s been granted the favor.

Marked. Marked, by her command. He had knelt at her feet and kissed the delicate line of her fine leather riding boots and she had blessed his skin with the crop, a taste of what was coming to him the following day.

He loves her so much his heart aches with it, the most delicious pain. A slower, deeper pain than the sharp buzz in his skin. He shivers faintly but he isn’t cold; a roaring fire burns across the room and the manor stones themselves are warmed. He is slowed by it, the heat and the pain, his breaths coming at long intervals. He feels so at peace. He is the pleasure of his Mistress, her joy, and soon he will be her work of art, sitting naked and proud by her feet, turning his back to her admiring guests. Proud, but not too proud. Not of himself. Keller has no pride but what his Mistress gives him.

The beautiful marks.

He lets out a gasp as the world seems to bend around him, and he sees her lift a black-gloved hand, and the pain stops so suddenly that he shivers again. “That’s enough for now,” she murmurs. “Let him rest. In a few hours we’ll begin again.”

He lies still as she gets to her feet and comes to him, gliding across the thick carpet, reaching out to run her fingers through his hair. He wants to kiss her fingertips. It’s almost overpowering, the urge, the gratitude. He won’t, not until he’s told.

“You look so lovely,” she whispers, bending her lips to his ear. “Are you quite well?”

It takes him a second to find his voice, and when he speaks he sounds strange in his own ears. “Quite well, Mistress.”

“Very good.” She straightens up again and touches his lips, and then he kisses them, eager but slow. “I’ll have someone bring you water and food, and they will bathe your face.” She pauses, her head slightly cocked as she looks down at him, her hair long and dark and her eyes too dark to make out.

“You are my very favorite,” she says at last. “The most precious thing I own.” Again he feels the thrill swelling, so sharp and so sweet that it edges into pain, and he smiles.

“I love you, my Mistress.”

She answers him with another caress, and he watches her go, her body moving smooth and graceful in her long gown. A servant brings him food, tips a pitcher of water to his lips, and he swallows it all without ever noticing them.

And when the needle touches his skin once more and she’s there in her great chair and watching him with that perfect smile tugging at her mouth–then, and only then, is he happy again.

Something in one of the writing communities I follow caught my eye and I felt like saying a little something about it, because in a small way, it’s been life-changing.

Don’t wait until you “feel inspired,” because most of the time, you won’t.

A couple of years ago, I went through horrible writer’s block. Or at least, I thought that’s what it was. I now think that not understanding the above was my problem. Some of it was energy–or rather, a lack of it–because I was in college and a lot of the time I was busy. But I’m in grad school now and I’m still managing at least 500 words a day, and most of the time I’m doing two or three times that much. 500 is my hard minimum (unless I grant myself a rare day off) because I know that even at my most exhausted and cranky, I can do that much. But I’ve also discovered that most of the time, I can do a lot more. But the thing about this is that I rarely ever feel like I can. It’s not a flash of inspiration and a thrilling sense of drive. It’s sitting down with a blank space in front of me and filling it with something, even if I think that something is utter shit.

And the thing is, that also rarely happens now. Lots of times I’m not overjoyed by it, but I can tell that I have something that can at least be worked with. Minimum daily wordcounts are something I have fresh appreciation for, and editing is something else, though when I write I’m lucky enough to still usually get things that are at least two thirds complete on the first pass.

But yes, no more of waiting for inspiration. Because even if it comes initially, it often doesn’t stick around, and then the only thing to keep me going on is sheer bloody-minded determination. Stubbornness, even. This fucking thing is not going to beat me.

And something else I’ve discovered: I used to think that inspiration led to writing, but in the past year or so, I’ve discovered to my joy that writing usually leads to inspiration. I’m hammering away at the keyboard and then suddenly everything is wonderfully clear and I know what I have to do. Even if it’s just a second, a second is usually all it takes, and I’m set for the day. Sometimes, on very good days, what happens is enough to get me through a week.

I’m sure that for a number of you out there this is something you picked up early on, but for me it’s a relatively recent discovery, especially considering how long I’ve been writing, and the process of learning it and incorporating it into my daily life has been deeply satisfying. I don’t know to what degree I’ll do this professionally–academic writing, sure, but while I’ve been paid for creative stuff, I still don’t feel like I can call myself at all a pro–and in fact it may never be more than a hobby. But it’s something that’s been great fun to discover, and to rediscover.

I said above that even when I’m exhausted and cranky, I can still do 500 words; in truth, those are some of the times where I find my wind and can just keep going and going. Because maybe the most important thing I’ve discovered is that no matter how miserable I am about shit, writing usually has a funny way of making me feel okay again.

Changed the look of the blog around a little. There was something claustrophobic about the old theme that just wasn’t quite working for me. This one also has a header image provided by my wonderful fiance and general appendage, and I like it.

But that’s not why I’m posting. I know a lot of writers are a little reluctant to share pieces of things before the piece as a whole is done, but I’m too careless for that kind of restraint. I just toss stuff out there. So I want to share an excerpt of a novella that I’m working on and that I’m pretty excited by.

It’s untitled as yet, but its fantasy setting concerns a village in a valley bordered by two mountains, mountains that, to the people of the village, are also gods. Every year there is a festival that culminates in a ritual intended to appease the gods, but the exact nature of the ritual is a mystery to all but the priests–and the two villagers who are chosen to participate. The young man Jaith wonders about the ritual, but his wondering becomes more than idle when he and his lifelong friend Shoa are chosen to take part in it.  As they quickly discover, the ritual has the potential to draw them together with an unbreakable bond–or destroy their friendship completely.

Excerpt after the cut.

The world was still cast in the faint gray light of pre-dawn when the sound of the ram’s horn lifted over the sleeping village and announced the festival day.

Almost immediately, the village began to come awake. There was much to do, much to prepare before the evening and the sun would pass quickly between the two mountains that capped the sides of the valley. The mountains were snow-capped and bare and forbidding, but the valley was green and pleasant, and the gods were owed much for their generosity.

The two gods of the mountain. The mighty Keth, golden with sunlight, and his lover Hozah, his peak sloped in a bow before Keth’s majesty, their forms locked into the rock in a tableau of permanent and perfect dominance and submission. Today was their day, tonight their nuptial night, and the village buzzed with excitement. Flowers were woven into garlands and hung from windows, gaily colored paper lanterns were strung through the streets, everywhere was the smell of cooking and baking.

Jaith ran through the streets, barefoot and heedless of the rough cobbles, for he often went barefoot this way. He was young and like all the youths he was fearless of bodily injury, tanned and strong and quick with a grin and a joke. And he loved festivals, for festivals meant good food, dancing, perhaps some flirtation with one of the other pretty young things of the village. And whether the young thing in question was a boy or a girl… ah, that mattered little. What mattered was to live and be happy, for the gods were mysterious, and took lives on their own ineffable schedule. Soon he would go into the mountains, make his first lone kill and take the name of a man. But now, though he no longer had a boy’s body, he had a boy’s freedom, and he would devour that until it was removed from him.

Past street sweepers and women hanging bundles of sweet herbs from the eaves of their houses and merchants setting up their stalls for the day, Jaith ran. Down side streets, through little garden patches, until he came to the house he’d been making for, stopping at the door and pounding at the wood. “Shoa!” he called, dancing back into the street and waving his arms before the windows. “Shoa, wake up, you useless piglet!”

“Your father must have been a monkey,” muttered a passing woman, and Jaith merrily ignored her.

“Shoa!“

At last a sleepy-looking boy opened the door and peered out, blinking, his long dark hair mussed and tangled. “Gods, Jaith,” he muttered. “Sun’s not been up an hour. Have you no mercy?”

“None today.” Jaith grinned toothily. “Come on, they’re setting up the ball court. If we hurry, we can have a game or two before the others push their way in.”

Shoa rolled his eyes, scratching his bare chest. “‘The others’. It’s their court, Jaith. And I don’t think they like two little blasphemers running up and down their sacred flats.”

“I don’t care what they like.” Jaith stepped forward and hooked an arm around Shoa’s neck. “I like you. I’d hope you’d know me by now, even if you aren’t my blood. Come on, friend of my youth. Old Sun waits for no one and the day comes once in a circle. Don’t give me any more trouble or you’ll find yourself bathing in the cow pond.”

Jaith never had to try very hard to get Shoa to go along. He never really had. Another roll of his eyes and Shoa was stepping out of his door and into the street, not even bothering with a shirt. “A bath in the cow pond might feel good after a game with you,” he said, jostling Jaith’s shoulder with his own. “Anyway, you cheat.”

“I never,” said Jaith, offended. He darted ahead a little way and turned, walking backward down the street and grinning cheekily, somehow avoiding people and animals alike. “So have you heard any gossip from your father? Any idea who’s to be chosen?”

“I never know how you expect my father to pick up any gossip,” Shoa said with exaggerated patience. “He’s a lamplighter, not an old woman in the marketplace.”

“Lamplighters get everywhere. And he’s a lamplighter in the temple, today.”

Shoa shrugged, kicking a stone aside. “Regardless. I haven’t heard a thing. Not about who’s to be chosen for the ritual, nor much of anything else.  He’s been too tired to speak more than a word to me since last night.”

“Useless,” Jaith said airily. “Both of you.” He was already forgetting it, the burning question that sat every festival day in the people’s minds: who would be chosen to play the part of Keth and Hozah, and ritually consummate the mountain gods’ everlasting marriage. It was a juicy question, the topic of much talk and speculation, for the choice was vital in order to ensure a bountiful harvest and a mild winter. But the ball court was already in view, laid out in a flat, unused field at the edge of the village, the sun spreading invitingly over it and workmen moving around it like ants, fitting the last hoop and painting the last of the boundary lines.

“Move your slug feet.” Jaith tugged at Shoa’s arm and ran ahead, pulling off his tunic as he went and tossing it aside, his back and shoulders instantly and pleasantly warm. The breeze was rising over the fields and freshening the air. Over them loomed the watchful hulks of the mountain gods.

“Neither Bird Nor Tree”, to Circlet Press’s Like a Long Road Home anthology, release date to be announced. Post-apocalyptic m/m journey story, with Cormac McCarthy influences that I’m not even going to try to deny. I was deeply in love with this piece when I was writing it and I’m glad the good people at Circlet seem to have thought as much of it as I do.

The lovely Jenre has (positively) reviewed the Torquere Taste Test that I have a story in (along with two really great stories by JL Merrow and Mercy Loomis). The review is here.

I’ve also added a sidebar for reviews, since Like a Thorn has also gotten a couple.

Now and then I get a little depressed about the beautiful black Takamine Jasmine that’s sitting in my closet. It’s been sitting in there for a while, and it’s been coming out at longer and longer intervals, especially since Rob and I moved in together and school began to take up more and more of my time. It’s at least partly that a good guitar is kind of going to waste, though I can’t bear to part with it–it was a gift from my mother and it has a lot of sentimental value aside from its value as an instrument. But I also get depressed about the fact that I never did anything with those lessons I took, I never practiced like I should have, I never really learned to play at all. And at one point I really wanted to.

Then the other night I picked up Stephen King’s On Writing, just to have something to look over in bed while I waited to get sleepy, and I happened across this passage:

When my son Owen was seven or so, he fell in love with Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, particularly with Clarence Clemons, the band’s burly sax player. Owen decided he wanted to learn to play like Clarence.  My wife and I were amused and delighted by this ambition. We were also hopeful, as any parent would be, that our kid would turn out to be talented, perhaps even some sort of prodigy. We got Owen a tenor saxophone for Christmas and lessons with Gordon Bowie, one of the local music men. Then we crossed our fingers and hoped for the best.

Seven months later I suggested to my wife that it was time to discontinue the sax lessons, if Owen concurred. Owen did, and with palpable relief–he hadn’t wanted to say it himself, especially not after asking for the sax in the first place, but seven months had been long enough for him to realize that, while he might love Clarence Clemons’ big sound, the saxophone was simply not for him–God had not given him that particular talent.

I knew, not because Owen stopped practicing, but because he was practicing only during the periods Mr. Bowie had set for him: Half an hour after school four days a week, plus an hour on the weekends. Owen mastered the scales and the notes–nothing wrong with his memory, his lungs, or his hand-eye coordination–but we never heard him taking off, blissing himself out. As soon as his practice time was over, it was back into the case with the horn, and there it stayed until the next lesson or practice-time. What this suggested to me was that when it comes to the sax and my son, there was never going to be any real play-time; it was all going to be rehearsal. That’s no good. If there’s no joy in it, it’s just no good. It’s best to go on to some other area, where the deposits of talent may be richer and the fun quotient higher.

My God, I thought, that’s me. That’s the thing: with me and the guitar, there was rarely any joy to carry me through the wilderness of Sucking At It, the thing that everyone has to go through when learning to do something new. I got through that with writing, and I got through that with academics, because I love those things. I love them regardless of how good I am at them. In fact, it might be fair to say that I need to do them; in the downtime between college and graduate school I found myself reading academic texts and writing papers when I didn’t have to, and for a long time I was writing things that no one was reading at all, writing simply because not writing felt too wrong.

I don’t feel that with the guitar, so it may simply be that while I love music and I love to sing, playing an instrument isn’t something that my brain is set up to do. Not like it’s set up to do other things. So I shouldn’t waste my time feeling bad about it. For now I’m keeping the guitar, because as I said, it’s important to me for a whole host of other reasons. And also, things change. I may wake up some morning and discover that that urge, that need and that love, they’re there. And I hate giving up on things for good. That, too, is not really in my nature.

But I feel better. Thanks, Steve.

Taste Test: Scared Stiff is now on sale at Torquere Books, featuring “Summer in Canaan” by me, as well as two other stories that I’m sure are awesome, though I haven’t managed to sit my ass down and read them yet.

Three works of supernatural hotness, just in time for Halloween. Go pick it up!

On the 22nd, I’ll be co-chatting with JL Merrow and Mercy Loomis at Torquere’s Livejournal community. We’ll be talking about ghosts and spooks and things that go bump in the night, as well as posting excerpts from the anthology, so it should be a good time.

So this used to be kind of an academic blog, but at least for now it’s going to be mostly a place to talk about current and upcoming fiction projects.

Next up on the ledger: “Summer in Canaan” in Taste Test: Scared Stiff, coming on Oct. 21st from Torquere Press.

Jacob, a schoolteacher and writer in New York City, feels a certain malaise one summer and heads upstate to a remote cabin in the hopes of reigniting his creativity. Once there, he meets Aaron, a local young man with a mysterious air about him. As they slowly begin to form a friendship–and Jacob feels a potential spark of something else–it becomes clear that Aaron is more than he seems.

Have a taste under the cut.

He stopped by the dock, reaching out to take hold of one of the posts and looking up. Aaron was wearing cut-off shorts that looked like they’d seen a few summers, bare feet dangling into the water and sending the smallest of ripples against Jacob’s arms and chest.

“Hi.”

“Hi.” Where the hell did you go last time? But he didn’t ask it out loud, whether it was shyness or something else, and he wasn’t sure. Aaron was wearing a white tank top and Jacob watched the shift and flex of his bare arms as he leaned forward.

“How’s the water?”

Jacob shrugged and moved back in the water, trying to see Aaron’s face better. “Okay. It was a little cold at first.”

Aaron smiled. “You’re in the mountains, buddy. That’s why people come here.”

“Is that why you come here?”

“I told you, I live here.” Aaron laughed a little and Jacob shook his head.

“I mean here.” Jacob splashed a gesturing hand across the water. “The lake.”

“Oh.” Aaron looked off across the water, watching a cloud of gnats drift up and away, toward the trees. There was a tiny splash and a widening set of ripples as a fish leaped for them and vanished. “Yeah, I guess that’s got something to do with it.” He looked down again. “How long are you staying for?”

“A while. End of July, maybe. I have to be back in the city in August.”

Aaron cocked his head. “What for?”

“I’m a teacher.”

Aaron smiled again, a strange, small smile, a stretch of the lips that suggested a great deal more than it showed. “Never liked my teachers.” He paused for a second or two, kicking up a splash with one foot and sending it sparkling faintly through the air. “You’re okay, though.”

Jacob returned the smile. “I try.”

“I kinda wonder, though… how can you afford to come out here? I always heard teaching paid shit.”

Jacob laughed, a warm sound that worked slowly up through his ribcage and felt good in his throat. “Again with the questions.” He reached up a wet hand and beckoned, and it occurred to him then to wonder a little bit at what he was doing. Here, his ground was far less sure than at home. “Why don’t you come in, and I’ll see about answering?”

Aaron arched a brow. “What if I don’t want to?”

“What, are you scared?”

“You’re trying to goad me.” Aaron grinned widely. “Okay, fine. I’ll be goaded.” He stood up on the dock and stripped off his shirt, and as Jacob watched Aaron body come into view and tried to look like he wasn’t watching, he thought You haven’t actually ever seen me with all my clothes on, have you?

Not that it was a disadvantage he minded all that much. But it was nice to watch things even themselves out a bit.

“I’m holding you to it,” Aaron said, dropping his shirt onto the wooden planks and curling his toes over the edge of the dock. “You better answer me.”

“I said I might,” said Jacob, but Aaron was already diving in a graceful arc, up and out and over Jacob’s head, slicing into the water like a long blade. There was hardly any splash. Jacob watched it, feeling a twist of admiration and something deeper besides, and then a few feet away a wet red head broke the surface, laughing. Aaron palmed water out of his eyes.

“So?”

Jacob smiled, swam closer. It was like a book, like a movie, like something he might come up with on a night when he was feeling particularly lonely. Streams of water trickled down Aaron’s face and neck, the strong lines of his shoulders barely visible above the water, and they were dusted with freckles just like the bridge of his nose.

“So,” he murmured, close but not touching, and he was still smiling. “My father died a few months back. He left me some money.” It hadn’t even come close to making up for everything, but he supposed it was a start.

“I’m sorry.”

Jacob shook his head. “Don’t be. I’m here.”

“You are,” said Aaron, and again he smiled that strange smile and began to swim a little distance away, and it was a distance that Jacob couldn’t quite bring himself to close, until the thunder began to rumble in the distance and it was time to say goodbye.