Lorelai pulled the gem from the ooze and stared at it in fascination....

"It was so smooth, so clear, so invitingly empty. Gradually her mouth began to open, her irises to close, as her mind became a blank and shining replica of the gem she had taken. The gem that had now taken her."

And so on and so forth. ;-)

I've discovered some new goodies on Model Mayhem, courtesy of model Little Miss Nicks, photog I Must Be Dead, and hair stylist/makeup artist Heather Blaine - who seem to enjoy working together, and who seem to enjoy a lot of the same things I do, especially altered eyes. Be sure to click all the thumbnails to get the full effect of those spooky-cool contacts. Where can I get some?

Nazi grape smugglers

Sure, I could have used one of the cooler new images from the upcoming Watchmen movie; but really, why would I want to? ;-)

Check io9 for a gallery and links to more pics - including Nite Owl II in truly awesome snow gear and the hottest shot of Latex Laurie yet. In fact, I might have to make that one my new desktop wallpaper. :-)

Some slightly more on-topic pics tomorrow, I promise. ;-)

EDIT: After I posted the above, I found even more pics - including a beaten-but-unbowed Rorschach in prison garb here. Better take a look now before the lawyers notice!

This and That

"This" being a link someone recently gave me to an old Salon.com article about the EMCSA written by the woman who would eventually go on to create io9. I'm still giggling at the thought of Eye of Serpent being mistaken for a "he." ;-) I seem to recall people thinking I was a guy, too, when I first joined the EMCSA. Why is that? Do some people think women are incapable of writing really hard-edged erotica or horror? If so, I hope the intervening years have taught them otherwise. ;-)

As for "that," here's a teaser-y little update on the current state of The Mysterious Collaboration. We have now all submitted plot outlines and are working out how to twine them together. I feel like a Tom Wolfe astronaut, strapped into a tiny capsule on top of a giant tank of rocket fuel, with preparations being made to set the whole thing on fire. Those preparations will take a long time to make it all work out right, but the excitement is building, and the liftoff should be awesome.

Just too scrumptious not to share

If you haven't yet signed on with Deviant Art (totally free, remember?), this image ought to be enough to push you over the edge. Behold the lovely Aradia Ardor, half slick black latex, half beautifully tattooed bare skin - and all just begging to be explored with hands and eyes, lips and tongue. Doesn't it just make you want to groan aloud?

Aradia has two pictures from this set in her gallery, but I like this one a little better than the other because of the high contrast.

A love letter...to the Internet

When I was a kid (back in the olden days when everyone had to walk ten miles to school - uphill, both ways, in the snow) I lived in a small, narrow-minded Southern town where I always felt like an outsider even without knowing I was a lesbian. I loved science fiction and fantasy - and Dungeons and Dragons, which I could never find a group to play with. The only other person I knew who was interested in the game bragged about himself and his buddies making up "Jason Voorhees monsters" and things like that, but he politely declined my request to join in on the fun. I guess I was either too girly or too goody-goody for him, or possibly both. Anyway, I finally bought my own game and roped in a few half-hearted friends to give it a try. I brought them to the door of the dungeon and told them it was locked, upon which they spent a good ten minutes arguing about what to do (Yes, they did have a thief) before finally deciding to burn the door down. That tells you all you need to know about that little experiment.

Computers were just becoming commonplace when I entered college, but I wasn't much interested because I was still all about books and writing, my only escapes from a boring, whitebread life in which I never really felt like I belonged. I remained uninterested in computers until a night somewhere in the mid-nineties, when I asked a friend to introduce me to the Internet. At first he showed me sites dealing with all the usual, boring kinds of stuff I hated about real life; but eventually he thought to teach me about Yahoo (There was no Google then), and that led to the discovery of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to Star Trek," my first indication that there was a wider world of people like me out there, and I could finally reach them. (BTW, that parody is still online after all these years, if you're curious: Part 1, Part 2.)

It literally changed my life. Now, at last, I have friends I can be myself with, friends with whom I can talk about the things that really interest me instead of pretending to be interested in the things "normal" people always go on about. The fact that these friends are in different states or different countries or even on different continents just makes it that much more exciting. Even after all these years, I still get a geeky little thrill from the fact that I can talk to someone in the UK or Brazil or New Zealand. Just seeing their different turns of phrases or different spellings is a constant reminder that I'm communicating with people who live on the other side of the freaking planet. And when I finally get to meet them (as I've done with quite a number of friends in my other Internet life), there's such a rush of warmth and excitement and recognition, with none of the awkwardness that characterizes much of my dealings with the people I interact with in daily life. It's just amazing.

I know the Internet is a double-edged sword. It can be used to disseminate hate and misinformation just as easily as it can bring people together. But overall, I see it as a vastly positive force in the world. Just think: if I'd had access to the 'net as a kid, I wouldn't have spent so many years feeling like an outcast weirdo. I might not have been suicidally depressed as a teenager. I might have learned a couple of decades earlier that sexual minorities are just regular people who deserve the same rights and respect as everyone else. Hell, I might have learned I was a sexual minority a couple of decades earlier.

Growing up when I did, where I did, I was only given one way to see the world. Kids growing up today in that very same town (which honestly hasn't changed much in 20+ years) aren't limited to that small town like I was. If they're SF/fantasy geeks, they can find hundreds of like-minded friends online - and play those role-playing games as often as they want, with as many people as they want. If they're sexual minorities and being persecuted in real life, they can find support and encouragement online from people all over the planet. If they question the religious beliefs they've been brought up with, they can explore alternatives and ask the questions they don't dare ask in real life. Or even if they aren't sexual minorities or questioning their faith themselves, their online involvement will expose them to people who are; and in the long run, I believe that will lead to greater understanding and tolerance for all of us.

All hail the Internet!

More Freaky Fetish Art

I was originally going to title this post "I feel pretty, oh so pretty," but that was before I made my final selection of pictures and two of them turned out to be not so pretty after all...though I still find them more than enjoyable. ;-)

Anyway, I started out with the idea of featuring some of the creepily lovely goth gowns I found by accident on Deviant Art, but you know how one thing leads to another, especially with my pinball machine of a mind. Suffice it to say that if you like creepily lovely goth gowns, there are plenty more in the galleries of the first two artists below.

At left is Lady-Dementia's Scream of the Butterfly. She and the second artist, LuneBleu (Her piece below is titled Misanthropic Alchemy) share both a friendship and artistic influences. In fact, I decided against the original pic I had in mind to represent Lady-Dementia's work because, as much as I liked it, I had to concede that one tentacular dress was probably enough for a single blog entry. However, if you're really interested in seeing the other tentacular dress, just click here.

I found these first two artists only recently, when I stumbled across an "article" that was really a picture list called Gothic Beauty. The third artist, on the other hand, is someone I've been watching for a long time. The quality of Spookeriffic's work varies hugely, and I'm sorry to say that most of her recent stuff is pretty awful; but when she's on, she's really on. Anyone who's hung around my blog long enough or read enough of my stories on the EMCSA understands why I chose Resist to share with you, but Spookeriffic has lots of other gems tucked away inside her gallery; you just have to hunt for them a bit.

Have fun!

miscellaneous coolness

I found the image at left on Christine Kessler's blog and immediately thought she'd fit right in at the compound of one of Tabico's most famous Mistresses, Diana Snowdon.

Next up is a link Lady K recommended to me via e-mail, an 11-page Flickr album of latex/zentai goodness.

Finally, Antiseptic Fashion now has a website! Yum!

What do you get when you cross an ex-English teacher with a horror movie geek?

Someone who gets a kick out of this:

Various updates

First, as I hope you're all aware, the first chapter of Spy vs. Guy was posted to the EMCSA last Sunday. I haven't had a huge amount of feedback on it yet, which isn't surprising since my audience doesn't overlap much with the m/m audience, and m/m doesn't seem to be hugely popular on the EMCSA anyway. However, I will note that a common comment of those who have responded is, "I don't normally read m/m, but I thought I'd give your story a try, and I loved it. I guess I really do just have a fetish for MC, period." So let that be a temptation to those of you who haven't taken a peek yet. ;-)

And, as a further temptation, let me add this. One unexpectedly pleased reader asked for an early look at Chapter Two, which makes me think there might be more of you out there who feel the same way but just haven't said anything. I tend to assume that for every one comment I get via e-mail or see on one of the forums, there are probably ten more lurkers who feel the same way. So, as a favor to you all, and because I never expected to leave my readers hanging so long (I didn't know Simon would be taking a vacation this week), I've uploaded a fully polished, fully coded, HTML version of Chapter Two here. I repeat: this is not a mocked-up RTF document that you have to download; it's a finished web page. So have at it - and please let me know if you're enjoying the story. I had so much fun writing it, and I'd like to know that others are having fun reading it.

And now on to topic #2. The collaboration train (though "train" isn't quite the right word for this vehicle, nudge nudge wink wink) is back to three riders, though not the original three. But sometimes "creative differences" really are just creative differences and nothing nasty or sinister. We're all still friends; it just turned out that four people working on a single story (as opposed to an anthology) is really just too many heads banging together in close quarters. The only issue of (minor, I hope) contention at this point is me keeping my Myers-Briggs strong "J" under control while working with a strong "P." ;-) Anyway, the characters and plotlines are shaping up quite nicely, and I'm excited about actually starting to write. Unfortunately, we haven't quite reached that point yet...but we're getting close.

And so on to topic #3. I haven't heard much about the upcoming movie Push anywhere except io9, but what I'm hearing (and seeing) there makes me increasingly excited. The plot involves a number of different people with psychic powers, including - but not limited to - mind control. Most are part of (or being used by) a Secret Evil Government Organization (TM), and others are on the run from it. Since you already know I'm a not-even-closeted geek, you won't be surprised to hear that I've been fascinated with telekinesis, premonitions, and all the other usual psychic shit since childhood; so this movie looks ready to bowl a strike for me. And that's even before you add in a cast of second-tier-but-always-more-than-enjoyable actors like a) Dakota Fanning, in line to become the next Jodie Foster (i.e. a child prodigy who makes a successful transition to adult superstar, not - well, not necessarily - a barely closeted lesbian* who's cool enough even for most homophobes to accept), b) Djimon Hounsou, who gets hotter with every movie and who has the chance here to play a delightfully charismatic, reptilian villain whose eyes turn solid black when he uses his MC powers, and c) Chris Evans, on an increasingly successful quest to prove he's no mere boy toy but actually has something going on upstairs...something I find quite intriguing.

Not convinced yet? Take a look at this. The video snippet looks super-cool (And I'm dying to find out what Hounsou does to that waitress after he MC's her), but even if you're on dial-up and can't watch the clip, the rest of the article gives you a great taste of what to expect. I think. I really hope this movie won't turn out to be a disappointment, but so far, it's looking pretty damn good.

*Note to Ms. Foster's lawyers: this is only my opinion. ;-)

Cyberpunk Superstars

I can't say I'm familiar with all (or even most) of the cyberpunk tropes and authors, but I do enjoy the genre, and a couple of its brightest lights are among my favorite novels of all time. I'm talking about William Gibson's Neuromancer and Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash. Let's see if I can convince any newbies to read either or - better yet - both of them. Maybe it'll help if I tell you right up front that one of the two features mirrored eyes; and both feature mind control, as well as two very different types of fascinating, smartass antiheroines. Oh, and the antiheroes are quite likable, too. ;-)

I'll start with Neuromancer, since that's the book that really introduced cyberpunk to the masses (In fact, Gibson himself coined the term cyberspace in an earlier work). In a nutshell, the story revolves around ex-hacker Case, whose punishment for his crimes is a biological modification that prevents him from accessing the 'net at all. When a shady ex-military officer offers to reverse the damage in exchange for Case's help in a dangerous scam, the plot is off and running. Soon we're introduced to fellow conspirator Molly Millions, who's the main reason I keep coming back to this story (and the others in which she appears) time and time again.

Oh, how to describe the delectable Molly? She's a "razor girl" or, as a group of spacefaring Rastafarians terms her, "Steppin' Razor" (Yes, you heard that right: spacefaring Rastafarians. And they're everything you'd imagine.). Molly is a top-flight street fighter and mercenary equipped with razor claws that she can extend from beneath her nails with a flick of the fingers. And she has mirrored lenses implanted in her eye sockets. When asked at one point how she cries, she says her tear ducts have been rerouted into her salivary glands, so, "I spit." That tells you all you need to know about Molly right there. And yet there's so much more...like her backstory involving sexual slavery and MC (not the only MC in this story, but to say more would be to spoil some nice surprises).

I've searched the web for even a halfway decent depiction of Molly; but unfortunately, this is the best I could come up with, and it doesn't do her justice by a long shot. In my mind she looks more like Gina Gershon. With a body, lips, and attitude like Gina's, who cares whether or not you can see her eyes? In fact, the fact that you can't see them just intensifies the attraction. She's the epitome of totally unattainable cool.

Neuromancer is justly regarded as a modern classic, even taught in some college classes. Gibson shows you why right from the start with this famous opening line: "The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel." The whole book is written like that, which makes it at once fascinating, futuristic, and occasionally damned hard to understand. Gibson's attitude toward his readers seems basically to be, "Keep up if you can, suckers." I do love the book, but I had to read it two or three times to fully understand it.

Neal Stephenson is quite a bit friendlier in Snow Crash. This guy actually takes the time to explain things the reader might not understand - like avatars. Yes, just as Gibson gave us cyberspace, Stephenson gave us avatars. Everyone on the internet knows what they are now, but the idea (in its modern form, anyway) started right here. Snow Crash is another piece of seminal cyberpunk, responsible for many of the ideas we now take for granted both in SF and on the real live internet.

It's also occasionally, unexpectedly hilarious. Take, for example, our protagonist, whose actual name is Hiro Protagonist. He's a half-black, half-Asian computer genius who (because of poor people skills and that damned samurai sword he won't let go of) has been reduced to delivering pizzas for the Mafia. In this dystopian future, the Mafia is an organization at least as open and legitimate as any other...which isn't saying much. Anyway, Hiro doesn't deliver pizzas for very long, or we wouldn't have a story; but before he loses the job Stephenson does manage to fire off this hilarious, over-the-top description of Hiro's delivery vehicle, which is still my favorite passage from the entire book:

A row of orange lights burbles and churns across the front, where the grille would be if this were an air-breathing car. The orange light looks like a gasoline fire. It comes in through people's rear windows, bounces off their rearview mirrors, projects a fiery mask across their eyes, reaches into their subconscious, and unearths terrible fears of being pinned, fully conscious, under a detonating gas tank, makes them want to pull over and let the Deliverator overtake them in his black chariot of pepperoni fire.

Is that brilliant or what?

Anyway, after losing his job, Hiro teams up with a punky teen who calls herself Y.T. (I'll leave it to the novel's readers to discover what the initials stand for) and who has, if not actual biological implants like Molly, a rather unique device called a "dentata" which she uses as a defense against potential rapists. If you're not familiar with the reference, click here - but DO NOT READ THE SNOW CRASH SPOILER at the bottom. You're meant to wonder just how dentata-y Y.T.'s dentata really is; and the payoff, when it comes, is truly hilarious.

Y.T. herself is a very cool character, not a smartass movie-teen with a bigger brain and fancier vocabulary than most adults (Yes, Juno, I'm talking to you). Okay, well, Y.T. is a smartass...but she can also be just as dim and clueless as any real teenager, especially when it comes to matters of the hormones. Thus the dentata scene, which will leave you screaming - but only with laughter. I promise. ;-)

But wait - there's an actual plot here, too. And yes, it does involve mind control - as well as computer viruses that can infect human brains; ancient (I kid you not) Sumerian mythology; and a bad guy so dangerous that not only does he have "Poor Impulse Control" tattooed across his forehead, but he also drives a motorcycle equipped with a hydrogen bomb where the sidecar used to be, rigged to detonate if his brain ever ceases to function.

And did I mention the mind control? People with actual antennas sticking out of their actual heads. Yeah, it's that kind of story. ;-) And Hiro really can use that samurai sword. Snow Crash is a totally insane, wacky, badass book - as opposite from Neuromancer as two books in the same genre can be, but every bit as wonderful.

I recommend both very highly.

a couple of random observations...

...from today's visit to io9:

Who would ever have imagined that goody-two-shoes Superman was secretly into BDSM?

Maybe it's a guy thing and I wouldn't understand, but I can't help thinking that if I had a dick, the absolute last place I'd want to put it would be in this.

Yumscious new recommendations from today's EMCSA Update

Ah, what a delight to see new stories from both trilby else and Jukebox (along with Lady Ru'etha this time) in the same update! I'll say a few brief words about the former here and save the bulk of my comments for a private e-mail. As for the latter, well, I suspect Jukebox and especially Lady Ru'etha will probably get a bigger kick out of my commentary, seeing it posted here for all the world to view.

So...first to Outcall. Wow, I didn't realize just how long it had been since trilby posted a new story until I dug into this one. It was like slipping into a warm, familiar bath...full of slippery bodies and bubble-empty minds. Soooo many variations on hypno-play with soooo many different victims under soooo many different kinds of spells. Just luxurious. But my favorite scene was the one near the end when Jaden and Tavia, deeply enslaved but for the moment more or less themselves, compare notes on what it felt like to fall under Fiona's spell. It plays out almost like juicy gossip, only with the "juice" a bit more literal than usual.

And that's all I'll say here about "Outcall." The rest will be for trilby alone.

And so on to I Can't Wait. Threaded all through my enjoyment of this story is my flat-out jealousy of Jukebox for being involved in a real-life, entirely consensual hypnotic relationship. I've been fantasizing about just that ever since I first embraced my lesbianism and my MC fetish. So when I read the bit about shylittlekitten being another of Lady Win-Now-Will's willing slaves - a female one - and remembered that at least some of what Jukebox is writing these days stems from real-life experience, I couldn't help wondering if Lady Ru'etha swings both ways, too...or if she has any mp3 files of her own to share. I'll bet she does. ;-)

Unfortunately, my real-life beloved would not take kindly at all to my sharing myself so intimately with someone else, even online; and I love her with all my heart. I'm not about to do anything that would hurt her. So (sigh) I'll just have to content myself with wondering how much of this story was inspired by real events, wondering what it's like to actually live out what for me will probably only ever be a fantasy. Hell, even if my gf and I ever did break up, I'm not the type (mentally, emotionally, or physically) to delve into the real live fetish scene. I'm a hobbit, remember? You do not want to see the real me in bondage gear. Dammit.

a couple of new terms to broaden your vocabulary

According to my friend the alley cat, I'm not an attention whore; I'm an attention courtesan.

And according to a regular blog visitor who recently de-lurked to e-mail me, the last thing he wants to be is a chudwah.

From now on, I'm going to make every effort possible to insert both terms into my daily conversation.

Reaching extraordinary new depths of exhibitionist geekery

My closet exhibitionist is getting a little out of control. As if it wasn't bad enough that I've admitted to be a Tolkien fanatic and a regular reader of Defamer.com, I now feel compelled to share the picture at left from - wait for it - Cute Overload.

*sigh* Yes, I know, I know. What can I say? But you must admit, this picture does have a certain...ummmm....Okay, I give up. I don't know what it has, but somehow I just...can't...look away.

Anyway, if any of my readers actually find this sort of thing appealing, you might be interested to know that there's a whole section of that site devoted almost entirely to women stuffing animals down their cleavage. 8-/

Masuimi Max gives great trance

Not too long ago, I was browsing through some favorite fetish sites and collecting new pictures, mostly of Masuimi Max. Adding them to the folder where I already had several older pictures stored, I couldn't help noticing just how right this gal looks as an entranced slave. She's got the perfect face and figure for it...well, as long as she doesn't go any further with the plastic surgery. Michael Jackson is already casting jealous glances at her nose. But her expressions are just so blankly, submissively, lustily perfect.

Here are a few of my favorites. I don't remember where I got all of them any longer; but some, at least, came from the following sources: a Fetishistas article, Inner Sanctum, and a large, untitled collection of random pictures.

Well, the friends of Dorothy are off to see the wizard

The "wizard" being Simon bar Sinister. ;-) I've just sent the first chapter of "Spy vs. Guy" off for posting next Sunday.

BTW, I mentioned Lady K's new story in my recommendation yesterday, but I'd be remiss if I didn't note that Jukebox also has an excellent new/old squick piece up, as well. Check it out.

Author Recommendation

Okay, I'll admit it: even after six years on the EMCSA, I've still missed a number of extremely worthwhile authors. I don't always have the time to check out everything that sounds interesting in every weekly update, so some very fine stories slip through my cracks. Then there's the fact that some very fine authors have only a few stories on the EMCSA, and the fact that some of those authors haven't posted anything new in a long time, since before I started checking the updates weekly. Given all that, you can see how easily I might miss the occasional jewel.

Such was the case with Lady K. She had six stories on the EMCSA, none of which I knew about, when she responded to my post on the MC Garden seeking fact checkers for my Ireland-set Ethna Redux. She gave me good advice on that one, then wrote me again later asking if I'd return the favor with a story she'd just written, An Appointment to Keep.

Well, friends, there wasn't much advice I could give on a tale that was already so sweet and tempting. It's a mood piece, delightfully mysterious, with a rather different kind of domme than we F/f writers usually dream up. I complimented Lady K on the story and told her it would make a lovely debut for her on the EMCSA...upon which she kindly pointed out that she had several other stories there already. Boy, did I feel like an idiot!

Anyway, I went back and started with The Anlorgash Incident, which she'd recommended to me specifically and which turned out to be a delightfully squicky, Lovecraftian piece with the requisite white-eyed zombies and repulsive-but-irresistible monstrosity. Yum!

After that I read four of her remaining five tales (passing only on the yellow one), and all were more than worth my time. However, the last of the Five Short Stories deserves special mention for a) giving a slimy wannabe-bimbo-maker his comeuppance and b) including a sorority girl who, very much like yours truly, doesn't yet know she's a lesbian. That one gave me a warm little glow.

So there you have it: a batch of fine jewels recovered from the cracks they'd slipped through, and another "Recommended Authors" link in my sidebar. Thanks, Lady K. :-)

just about the hottest video I've ever seen

This morning I found this video on Asudem Latex's blog and was beyond blown away. Apparently, you can let up just enough on a vac bed's suction to allow someone to masturbate inside it. And if that someone is especially talented, and if the bed itself is rocking and pumping at the same time....Wow. Just wow. A "nurse" shows up somewhere around the four-minute mark to add a bit of a training/brainwashing vibe to the whole scene; but honestly, I was perfectly happy with the first four minutes - especially when that little pink tongue popped out. ;-)

I'm not embedding the video here because it's too wide, so just click the link above and enjoy. Damn, I wish I was that woman!

Jeffery Scott is a gigantic, wonderful pain in the ass

Finally someone has been kind enough to let me know that the ten Jeffery Scott thumbnails on my second Ecstasy of Surrender page no longer link to valid images. I can only imagine how long that's been going on, with me none the wiser. Anyway, thanks to my feline friend for being the only one honest enough to tell me I had spinach in my teeth.

The images I had originally linked to are still there on Jeffery Scott's One Model Place page, so I suppose the site must move its URL's periodically to keep people from doing exactly what I thought I was so sneakily and successfully doing for so long. :-/

But I've got them this time! I've uploaded my own full-sized copies of the pictures to my Yahoo/GeoCities account, and I know those links will stay put...well, unless Jeffery Scott's lawyers stop by with an injunction notice or something. You never know.

Anyway, be sure to check that OMP page for a larger version of the new pic above - and be sure to notice the grinning gal in the background: the next eager victim, perhaps? Scott updates there and at Model Mayhem fairly frequently - usually, but not always, with the same pictures.

still spasming and 'gasming

Here are the latest goodies I've found on io9: two Watchmen videos I've never seen before, though one is quite old. Both offer all kinds of tantalizing glimpses of things we haven't seen elsewhere.

The older one is most notable for giving us our first glimpse of Rorschach unmasked (Warning to folks who haven't read the graphic novel: You really don't want this surprise spoiled, so either don't watch this video, or else close your eyes from the one-minute mark to the 1:22 mark. And yes, I promise you that Jackie Earle Haley is well-made-up enough that you probably won't recognize him in the movie even if you know his face).

The latter video, I'd say, is most notable for a) convincing us that chiseled Patrick Wilson really can pull off the dweeby look of a gone-to-seed Dan Dreiberg, and b) getting President Kennedy to shake hands with Dr. Manhattan.

Directly below are the two videos, oldest first (Again, that's the one with the unmasked Rorschach, so beware). And then, because I'm still in such a festive mood from the holidays - and because I have some time off work to devote to this kind of geeky shit - below the videos are eighteen stills from the two of them combined for those of you still consigned to dial-up. You're welcome. ;-)



Watchmen Exclusive