#365Gratitude Day 40:Home and hearth

Thursday was freezing.  We had snow in the wee hours before dawn, and even though it warmed up enough to make it go away, the day was bitter cold and very windy.  It was the sort of day that made me glad to be indoors.

Not my actual house, but it conveys the idea I'm going for here.

On my way home I fought awful traffic, blown about in the wind shear, did some late night grocery shopping, and came home very glad to my house.

It was well lit, warm, and inviting.  I got in, put away the groceries, and felt warm, safe, and sheltered.

You know, that's not a small thing that feeling.  I forget sometimes what a blessing it is.

#365Gratitude Day 39:He's alive

Sometimes, I go out of my way to write pun titles and be all funny and misdirecting about my gratitude blog posts.

This isn't one of those times.

I have a friend, J., someone I have known for a very long time.  We lost touch with one another about a decade ago.  He contacted me recently to thank me for being his friend, to tell me how much our friendship has meant to him.

He told me that because he was about to undergo some pretty serious surgery that had a 3 in 1 chance of just plain killing him.  

The surgery was on the 27th of January.  I texted and I called, trying to find out if he made it.

I waited.

And waited.

I checked the online obituaries.

I despaired.

Wednesday, I heard from him.  It didn't go without complications.  But he came out the other side.

He's alive.

I'm grateful.

#365Gratitude Day 38:A good story

On my way home last night I was listening to an audiobook as I drove, 69: Sultry Short Erotic Stories of Need and Desire.  

I love collections of erotic short stories.  They can be hit or miss though.  I've been on-and-off listening to this particular anthology for a while, as sort of filler amongst other things.

It hadn't really clicked with me, until last night.

Two stories in it, one right after the other, caught my attention.

First was "His", by Charlotte Stein.  It's about a powerful businessman, getting a spanking by his diminutive wife.  Every little thing about it was perfect.  The narrator's voice was spot on, and the story described not just the action but the feelings of the main character so very well.

Here's a clip from it.  Sorry it can't be longer. 

Then there was "Talk to the Hand" by Allison Wonderland.  This one's the story of a deaf woman and her hearing lover, who is kinky.  Actually, they both are.  It's the story of how the main character comes out to her lover, who, spoiler, already knew.  It's brilliant.  The characters come alive as you listen.  You just know them.  (Valentalae in particular would love this one, with her love for deaf culture.)

Again, here's a clip from it, I wish could be longer.

These are both so artful.  I'm grateful I own this book, and can listen to them over and over.

#365Gratitude Day 37:Pornwhat

As an author who writes erotica, I can be something of an effete snob about erotic fiction.  I often (but not always) need it to be narratively good, have believable characters, situations, conflict, setting, and narrative.  

Having said that, I'm also not full-of-myself about it.  I recognize that one of erotica's prime goals is to arouse people.  I consider myself validated when someone tells me something I wrote made them wet or hard.

These same sensibilities translate into my love for pornography.  And I do love it.  Although again, I'm kind of exacting about it.  Sex-negative stuff, content which degrades, trivializes, or asserts gender-essentialism generally doesn't do it for me.   

There are particular things which appeal to me, but I'm often at a loss as to exactly what about them speaks to me.

Today I'm a bit closer to understanding some of that.

This post has three such images.  They're all drawn images, and none is exactly, directly explicit, but they are still NSFW.

I stumbled across each of them in an early morning tumblr-porn-crawl because I was in a bit of a mood.  

In the first, a dominant woman cuddles her submissive in their bed.  The woman's in bra, panties, and stockings, and she's got the man cradled to her chest.  You can't even see what he's wearing.  The room they're in is warm, inviting, and suggests a bright sunny morning.  They look like they're caught up in adoring one another, even as she's definitely in charge.

In the second, a fully dressed woman has a submissive man, naked except for some sort of harness, trapped under her legs while she sits and reads a book on a dreary, rainy day.  She's got one hand lovingly caressing the man's hair.  The comfort, warmth, and intimacy they feel is palpable.

In the third, the most abstract and cartoonish of the lot, a woman in a gray dress is laying back, on a plain red background square, and has her submissive man, who is naked, on his stomach between her legs, as she pulls his head by his hair, to lick her between her legs.  From the slight detail you can see of the dress the woman's got a curvy, natural figure.  She's not particularly thin, nor particularly heavyset, but she's got curves.  Her thighs are proportionate, and very real.  Her face has a pleased expression of bliss.  The man's arms are underneath her, you cannot see them, but you can tell that he is willingly under her control.  It's an animated image, and as she tugs his head to press him into her, she nods her own head in acknowledgement of the situation.  

The thing I see in all these images, the thing that fairly jumps out at me is that in each of these pictures, you can see how everyone in the picture feels, and you believe it.  

The power exchange and consent are so plain to me, and so compelling.  Through my love of these images, I know myself just a little bit better.

I'm grateful for them, and for that.

#365Gratitude Day 36: Home again for the very first time

So here's a funny thing.

As I'm sure you know, both of my books, and the majority of short stories I've ever written take place in a town called Littleton.

One of the weirder things about that is that I never say exactly where that is.  

That's on purpose.  There are actually many different places called Littleton across the United States, and even one in England.  

What I do when I write is intentionally blur details of all of them together into a sort of idealized Littleton.  I'll pull street names from the one in West Virginia, and the name of a business or park from the one in Colorado.  Plus of course the magical bonding glue of just Outright Making Shit Up™.  

Well, there's one of these Littletons (Littletonae?) in North Carolina.

And, on a goof, I decided to drive through it on my way home on Sunday.  I even stopped in the Hardee's there for a bite to eat on my way.

Pulling into town was decidedly weird and sort of magical.  

I kind of knew the place, and kind of didn't.  At the Hardee's I asked the cashier if there was a good place to get a picture of the town sign, and we struck up a little conversation about it.

She was downright folksy and countrified, and politely curious.  After she told me which way to go, she asked me, "Why are you so interested in that, sugar?"

"Well," I said, "I'll tell you a secret.  I'm an author."

"Ohhh," she said, nodding as if she understood.

"And I wrote a book that's kind of all about this town, and kind of not."

"Really?" she asked.  "What's the name of your book, honey?"

"Oh I'll tell you," I said, "but you should know, it's erotica, and it's rather a filthy book."

"Now you just have to tell me," she said, grinning.

So I did.  Like I said, magical.