Just as an aside, I am slightly pissed off about the upcoming Mad Max movie

The character posters and trailer look great, but goddammit, why did they have to name Charlize Theron's character "Imperator"? It's true that I didn't invent the word, but I was counting on it to sound cool and unusual in my new story. Now readers are just going to think I stole it from a movie.

Getting over the speed bump

Here's the short version: I've spent the last week working on an old, slow loaner computer while I waited for a part to come in that was supposed to fix my real computer; but when the new part came in, it didn't fix the problem. I finally came to the realization I should have had a week ago: I needed a new computer, not a fix to the old one.

So now I have that new computer, and with it a new version of Windows to learn and an assload of files to restore. Fortunately, I can restore them, because ever since the debacle a few years ago when I lost my most precious Virtual Hypnotist programs, I've been backing things up regularly to the cloud. I can get everything back this time, but it's going to take a while.

In the meantime, here are a few notes that I hope will make you smile. Even on the slow loaner computer (and twice on a public library computer), I've been able to keep working on "What Do You Give the Alien Who Has Everything?" It's 4/5 done now, and all I have left are the climaxes - pun fully intended. And since I'd already asked to take next week off from work for vacation, I can spend most of that time catching up on my writing - which I really, really want to do because I'm still in the zone and I'm loving what I'm doing. I might get the rough draft finished in another couple of weeks, and then I'll be able to share it with some select beta readers.

Finally, until I have the time to share a bunch of hot new latex/total enclosure pictures I've been hoarding, I'll give you these two lovelies instead. Here are my physical models for the two mind controllers of "What Do You Give": Julia Alexander will be "played" by Kato, and Steven Dominick will be "played" by Jude Law. I expect those choices will meet with your approval. ;-)

speed bump

My computer is out of commission for (hopefully) just a few days, so I can't really post a full entry here. I'm on a public library computer and don't want anyone to see me posting my usual kind of stuff. ;-) But thankfully, I've been uploading my story to the cloud every day, and now I can download it and work on it from here. After all, who's going to bother reading simple words over my shoulder? It's just pervy pictures I have to worry about. };-)  So I'll keep writing, and I'll keep my fingers crossed that I get my own machine back soon.

Sneak Peek at my Upcoming "Choose Your Own Adventure" Story

First, about the picture at right. I'm thinking about using it (in slightly altered form, and with a tropical background) as part of my cover art. I need a young, blond, innocent slave. Do you think this model is sexy enough to do the trick?

Now, on to the sneak peek. I've said before that in this story, you'll be able to choose your stand-in's sex and orientation (with orientation being loosely defined; you're not locked in with the sex scenes). I'm about to give you the first segment of the story, where you choose your stand-in's gender, and then the first path after you choose the character's gender. The paths diverge right away, and I've decided to give you the male point of view because there's a bit more mystery to it. So here you go:

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The camera in front of you hovers in midair. You have no idea what keeps it up there, or even what it’s made of. The surface looks like translucent chrome, and beneath it are dark, whirling shapes and pale lights. No matter how you move, it stays about three arm lengths away from your head, swiveling around to catch the best view of whatever you want to record.

That’s another thing that worries you: how does it know what you want to record? It turns toward you when you begin a report, or when you want to make an important point; but at other times it seeks out the best subject in its (and your) line of sight and homes in on it just as well as any human cameraperson.

It’s a lot more unnerving than a human cameraperson, though. You didn’t ask for this device, or even this assignment. You were given it along with the Imperators’ summons to attend their first press conference. They called for you (and for several dozen other reporters) specifically by name.

How did they even know your name? You’re a junior reporter, not that well known aside from a small fan base. And after today, maybe you’ll only ever be known as a not-quite-nobody who got enslaved by an Imperator. Whatever they have planned for today, it’s more than just a press conference.

Still, you’re a professional, and you’d have taken this assignment even if it were a choice and not a command. You square your shoulders, look directly into the camera eye, and begin your report.

“This is Mark Holland, reporting live for Global News Network.”

“This is Elizabeth Kirkland, reporting live for Global News Network.”

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“I’m on the final leg of my journey to the Seychelles, once the most exclusive island resort on the planet, now home to the man and woman who rule that planet. Thousands of others live here too. Once they were kings and queens, politicians, models, performers, soldiers, and the preexisting resort staff of Mahé Island. Now they’re only slaves.

“At the moment I’m just a few miles west of the Island, approaching the North West Bay. For the most part, the view is magnificent: soaring green mountains dotted with granite outcroppings, clear turquoise water, and hardly a cloud in the sky. But there’s something different about the Glacis District these days: irregular patches of silver clouding parts of the Imperators’ complex. Until today, when they finally allowed outsiders to approach the Seychelles, we believed the blur was only visible to satellite cameras, that it representing some kind of jamming field. Well, it certainly is a jamming field, but it’s also a physical phenomenon. Have a look.”

The camera follows your gaze, homing in on walls and domes that look like solidified mist. They glitter brightly in the morning sunlight. You know what used to be under those structures, before the Imperators came back; but anything could be under there now.

You continue your report. “Fortunately, most of Mahé is and always has been visible. Just over there you can see the beach where the British SBS were scheduled to land during their joint raid with the American SEALs–” you point, and the camera follows your finger. “Whether they did land, and what eventually became of them, are two of the mysteries I hope to solve today.”

Even seeing the Imperators will solve one mystery. Earth’s satellites capture slave displays every day, but you haven’t seen an Imperator since the disastrous raid, although they’re surely not hiding out of fear. Earth has no weapon that can hurt them. Steven Dominick and Julia Alexander still look human enough, but they are not human.

They aren’t even the people they used to be. The two of them must have gone through a battery of psych tests before being chosen for the Europa mission, and if they’d had any tendencies toward world domination, NASA would never have accepted them. But here they are now, ruling the planet and mocking every attempt to take them down.

You think again about the sex slaves, displaying themselves (or being displayed) so proudly. It hasn’t escaped your attention that every reporter the Imperators summoned is young and telegenic. They might plan to make sex slaves of you all…and if they do, how could you ever stop them?

You imagine yourself nude and kneeling blissfully at the end of an Imperator’s chain. It might happen or it might not. Maybe the Imperators don’t want you for a slave, or maybe there’s some way to change their minds, or to beat them, or…well, something.

Still, you can’t stop thinking that you might end up a mindless sex toy. And if you do, whom would you rather belong to?

Steven Dominick

Julia Alexander

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seriously kinky shit

This is me...more or less. I've started messing around with the Bitstrips app on Facebook, and this is actually a pretty good likeness. Also, I have indeed been writing some seriously kinky shit lately.

"What Do You Give The Alien Who Has Everything?" is coming along swimmingly. Instead of doing the barbecue-and-fireworks thing for Independence Day, I spent most of the weekend indoors typing - and I loved it. I am deep in the zone and very pleased with how the story is coming together. I can't wait to share it with you. It's hard to do a word count for a Choose Your Own Adventure, but by my best estimation, I wrote over 10,000 words this weekend - and that's just a small fraction of the story's total length. So far. ;-P

A couple of people have asked me whether I plan to make the original "What Do You Give the Man Who Has Everything?" available again. I don't think so, no. When you read "What Do You Give the Alien," you'll see that a good 80% of "What Do You Give the Man" is still in there, and you'll have about eighty times as much new story on top of the old.

This won't be a long post; I don't suppose many people are spending their weekend online anyway. But I to talk for a minute about another subject, completely unrelated to what's above. In between bouts of writing over the weekend, I started reading another Jeff VanderMeer book, City of Saints and Madmen. It's a collection of interconnected stories centering on a fantastical, slightly steampunk city called Ambergris. There are monsters, both human and inhuman. There is fungus. But this book is so unlike the Southern Reach series that it's hard to believe they were written by the same author.

Now, City of Saints and Madmen didn't grip me immediately the way Annihilation and Authority did. In fact, I actually thought at first that I'd wasted my money buying it. Then the book took the same kind of hard left turn that VanderMeer pulled off at the beginning of Authority, and I'm pretty sure I actually said "holy fucking shit" out loud. You might think you know where the first story is heading. You might think you know where VanderMeer wants you to think it's heading, and that you know where it's really heading instead. Well, he is trying to make you think it's heading somewhere - and he's probably even trying to make you think you know where it's really heading in spite of where it appears to be heading. But you'll still be wrong about where it's heading.

If you're confused, you're meant to be.