“Something to Remember You By.”

To celebrate Wild Rides, my new collection from Dirt Road Books, I'm sharing a long story that isn't in the book at all, but does appear in the first collection in 2011 from Lethe Press, A Ride to Remember.  Feel free to skip my rambling introduction and dive right in.


I can’t type the title of this WWII song without longing to share more of its lyrics, and wishing even more that I could somehow impart the emotional impact of the tune. But “Fair Use” permissiveness for song lyrics and poetry in general has very strict limits, so all I dared to use in the story I wrote was the song’s title. For whatever reason, titles can’t be copyrighted, so I even used most of this one for my own story’s title.

In my story “To Remember You By” I referenced a wide range of song titles to evoke the mood and intensity of the WWII setting. My parents were in their youthful prime then, and I was exposed to the music of that era in the movies they watched and the records my mother sang along with long after the war was over. I’ll never be able to tell how many readers may have heard the tunes and lyrics in their heads as they read my story, or how much that may have affected their enjoyment, but it’s been published several times since its first appearance in Hanne Blank’s anthology Shameless: Women's Intimate Erotica from Seal Press way back in 2002, so a fair number of people have probably read it. There was even a condensed version printed in Penthouse when Seal Press persuaded that magazine to take a few stories from the anthology as samples of what kind of erotica women were writing. The timing was bad, because Penthouse went into some temporary form of bankruptcy just then and never paid us for our work, but I was almost as disappointed that in condensing my story they took out all the musical references.

 Ah well. “To Remember You By” was also reprinted in one of the editions of The Mammoth Book of New Erotica, and it was the lead-off piece in the first collection of my own stories, A Ride to Remember from Lethe Press in 2011, while a sequel, “Alternate Lives,” about the same characters thirty-five years later, was the end piece. Maybe I’ll share that one with you sometime.

Okay, enough reminiscing. Time to face the music! (Fair warning: one of the characters is bisexual.)

To Remember You By
                           
Sacchi Green

     In the summer of 1943, the air was sometimes so thick with sex you could have spread it like butter and it would have melted, even on cold English toast.
    The intensity of youth, the urgency of wartime, drove us. Nurses, WACs, young men hurled into the deadly air war against Germany, gathered between one crisis and another in improvised dance halls. Anything from barns to airfield hangars to tents rigged from parachute silk would do. To the syncopated jive of trumpets and clarinets, to "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" and "Accentuate the Positive," we swayed and jitterbugged and twitched our butts defiantly at past and future. To the muted throb of drums and the yearning moan of saxophones, to "As Time Goes By" and "I'll Be Seeing You," our bodies clung and throbbed and yearned together.
     I danced with men facing up to mortality, and with brash young kids in denial. Either way, life pounded through their veins and bulged in their trousers and sometimes my body responded with such force I felt as though my own skirt should have bulged with it.
     But I wasn't careless. And I wasn't in love. As a nurse, I'd tried to mend too many broken boys, known too many who never made it back at all, to let my mind be clouded by love. Sometimes, though, in dark hallways or tangles of shrubbery or the shadow of a bomber's wings, I would comfort some nice young flier with my body and drive him on until his hot release geysered over my hand. Practical Application of Anatomical Theory, we nurses called it, "PAT" for short. Humor is a frail enough defense against the chaos of war, but you take what you can get.
     Superstition was the other universal defense. Mine, I suppose, was a sort of vestal virgin complex, an unexamined belief that opening my flesh to men would destroy my ability to heal theirs.
     My very defenses (and repressions) might have opened me to Cleo. Would my senses have snapped so suddenly to attention in peacetime? They say war brings out things you didn't know were in you. But I think back to my first sight of her, the intense gray eyes, the thick, dark hair too short and straight for fashion, the forthright movements of her lean body--and a shiver of delight ripples through me, even now. No matter where or when we met, she would have stirred me.
     The uniform sure didn't hurt, though, dark blue, tailored, with slacks instead of skirt. I couldn't identify the service, but "USA" stood out clearly on each shoulder, so it made sense for her to be at the Red Cross club on Charles Street in London, set up by the United States Ambassador's wife for American servicewomen.
     There was a real dance floor, and a good band was playing that night, but Cleo lingered near the entrance as though undecided whether to continue down the wide, curving staircase. I don't know how long I stared at her. When I looked up from puzzling over the silver pin on her breast she was watching me quizzically. My date, a former patient whose half-healed wounds made sitting out most of the dances advisable, gripped my shoulder to get my attention.
     "A friend of yours?" he asked. He'd been getting a bit maudlin as they played "You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To," and I'd already decided he wasn't going to get the kind of comfort he'd been angling for. I shook off his hand.
     "No," I said, "I was just trying to place the uniform. Are those really wings on her tunic?" I felt a thrill of something between envy and admiration. The high, compact breasts under the tunic had caught my attention, too, but that wasn’t something I was ready to admit to myself. I watched her movements with more than casual interest as she descended the stairs and took a table in a dim corner.
     "Yeah," he said with some bitterness, "can you believe it? They brought in women for the Air Transport Auxiliary. They get to ferry everything, even the newest Spitfires, from factories or wherever the hell else they happen to be to wherever they're needed."
     His tone annoyed me, even though I knew he was anxious about whether he'd ever fly again himself. But then he pushed it too far. "I hear women are ferrying planes back in the States now, too. Thousands of 'em. Next thing you know there won't be any jobs left for men after the war. I ask you, what kind of woman would want to fly warplanes, anyway?" His smoldering glance toward the corner table told me just what kind of woman he had in mind. "Give me a cozy red-headed armful with her feet on the ground any day," he said, with a look of insistent intimacy.
     "With her back on the ground, too, I suppose," I snapped, and stood up. "I'm sorry, Frank, I really do wish you the best, but I don't think there's anything more I can do for you. Maybe you should catch the early train back to the base." I evaded his grasp and retreated to the powder room; and, when I came out at last, he had gone.
     The corner table, however, was still occupied.
     "Mind if I sit here?" I asked. "I'm Kay Barnes."
     "Cleo Remington," she said, offering a firm handshake. "It's fine by me. Afraid the boyfriend will try again?"
     So she'd noticed our little drama. "Not boyfriend," I said, "just a patient who's had all the nursing he's going to get." I signaled a waitress. "Can I get you a drink to apologize for staring when you came in? I'd never seen wings on a woman before, and...well, to be honest, I had a flash of insane jealousy. I've always wanted to fly, but things just never worked out that way."
     "Well," Cleo said, "I can't say I've ever been jealous of a nurse's life, but I'm sure glad you're on the job."
     "Tell me what being a pilot is like," I said, "so I can at least fantasize."
     She told me, over a cup of the best (and possibly only) coffee in London, about persuading her rancher father that air surveillance was the best way to keep track of cattle spread out over a large chunk of Montana. When her brother was old enough to take over the flying cowboy duty, she'd moved on to courier service out of Billings, and then to a job as instructor at a Civilian Pilot Training Program in Colorado, where everyone knew that her young male students were potential military pilots, but that Cleo, in spite of all her flight hours, wasn't.
     Then came all-out war, and the chance to come to England. Women aviators were being welcomed to ferry aircraft for the decimated RAF. I watched her expressive face and hands and beautifully shaped mouth as she talked of Hurricanes and Spitfires and distant glimpses of German Messerschmidts.
     As she talked, I did, in fact, fantasize like crazy. But visions of moonlight over a foaming sea of clouds kept resolving into lamplight on naked skin, and the roar of engines and rush of wind gave way to pounding blood and low, urgent cries. Her shifting expressions fascinated me; her rare, flashing smile was so beautiful I wanted to feel its movement under my own lips.
     I didn't know what had come over me. Or, rather, I knew just enough to sense what I wanted, without having the least idea how to tell whether she could possibly want it too. I'd admired women before, but only aesthetically, I'd rationalized, or with mild envy. But this flush of heightened sensitivity, this feeling of rushing toward some cataclysm that might tear me apart…that I wanted to tear me apart… This was unexplored territory.
     "So," Cleo said at last, looking a bit embarrassed, "that's more about me than anybody should have to sit through. What about you? How did you end up here?"
     "I'm not sure I can even remember who I was before the war," I said, scarcely knowing who I'd been just half an hour ago. "It seems as though nothing interesting or exciting ever happened to me back then. Not that 'interesting' will be a fair description of life now until I'm at a safe distance from it."
     She nodded. We were silent for a while, sharing the unspoken question of whether the world would ever know such a thing as safety again. Then I told her a little about growing up in New Hampshire, and climbing mountains, only to feel that even there the sky wasn't high and wide enough to hold me. "That's when I dreamed about flying."
     "Yes!" she said. "I get that feeling here, once in a while, even in the air. Somehow this European sky seems smaller, and the land below is so crowded with cities, sometimes the only way to tell where you are is by the pattern of the railroads. The Iron Compass, we call it. I guess that's one reason I'm transferring back to the States instead of renewing my contract here.
     "The main reason, though, is that I've heard women in the WASPs at home are getting to test-pilot huge Flying Fortresses and Marauders. And that's only the beginning. Pretty soon they'll be commissioned in the regular Army Air Force. In Russia women are even flying combat missions; "Night Witches" the Germans call them. If the war goes on long enough..." She stopped short of saying, "If enough of our men are killed I'll get to fight," and I was grateful. "History is being made," she went on, "and I've got to be in on it!"
     In her excitement she had stretched out her legs under the table until they brushed against mine. I wanted so badly to rub against the wool of her slacks that I could scarcely pay attention to what she was saying, but I caught one vital point.
     "Transferring?" I leaned far forward, and felt, as well as saw, her glance drop to my breasts. The starchy wartime diet in England had added some flesh, but at that moment I didn't care, because all of it was tingling. "When do you go?"
     "In two weeks," she said. "I'm taking a week in London to get a look at some of the sights I haven't had time for in the whole eighteen months I've been over here. Then there'll be one more week of ferrying out of Hamble on the south coast. And then I'm leaving."
     Two weeks. One, really. "I've got a few days here, too," I said. "Maybe we could see the sights together." I tried to look meaningfully into her eyes, but she stared down at her own hands on the table and then out at the dance floor where a few couples, some of them pairs of girls, were dancing.
     "Sure," she said. "That would be fun." Her casual tone seemed a bit forced.
     "I don't suppose you'd like to dance, would you?" I asked, with a sort of manic desperation. "Girls do it all the time here when there aren't enough men. Nobody thinks anything of it."
     "Somebody sure as hell would," Cleo said bluntly, "if they were doing it right." She met my eyes, and, in the hot gray glow of her defiant gaze, I learned all I needed to know.
     Then she looked away. "Not," she said carefully, "that any of Flight Captain Jackie Cochran's hand-picked, cream-of-American-womanhood pilots would know anything about that."
     "Of course not," I agreed. "Or any girl-next-door nurses, either." I could feel a flush rising from my neck to my face, but I plowed ahead. "Some of us might be interested in learning, though."
     She looked at me with a quizzical lift to one eyebrow, then pushed back her chair and stood up. Before my heart could do more than lurch into my throat, she said lightly, "How about breakfast here tomorrow, and then we'll see what the big deal is about London."
     It turned out we were both staying in the club dormitory upstairs. We went up two flights together; then I opened the door on the third floor landing. Cleo's room was on the fourth floor. I paused, and she said, without too much subtlety, "One step at a time, Kay, one step at a time!" Then she bolted upward, her long legs taking the stairs two, sometimes three, steps at a time.
     Night brought, instead of a return to common sense, a series of dreams wilder than anything my imagination or clinical knowledge of anatomy had ever managed before. When I met Cleo for breakfast it was hard to look at her without envisioning her dark, springy hair brushing my thighs, while her mouth... But all my dreams had dissolved in frustration, and I woke up tangled in hot, damp sheets with my hand clamped between my legs.
     Cleo didn't look all that rested, either, but for all I knew she was always like that before her second cup of coffee. When food and caffeine began to take effect, I got a map of bus routes from the porter and we planned our day.
     London Bridge, Westminster, Harrod's department store; whether I knew how to do it right or not, every moment was a dance of sorts. Cleo got considerable amusement out of my not-so-subtle attempts at seduction. She even egged me on to try on filmy things in Harrod's that I could never afford, or have occasion to wear--what on earth, we speculated, did Harrod's stock when it wasn't wartime?--and let me see how much she enjoyed the view. I didn't think she was just humoring me.
     In the afternoon, after lunch at a quaint tearoom, we went to the British Museum and admired the cool marble flesh of nymphs and goddesses. Cleo circled a few statues, observing that the Greeks sure had a fine hand when it came to posteriors; I managed to press oh-so-casually back against her, and she didn't miss the chance to demonstrate her own fine hand, or seem to mind that my posterior was not quite classical.
     Then we decided life was too short to waste on Egyptian mummies, and wandered a bit until, in a corner of an upper floor, we found a little gallery where paintings from the Pre-Raphaelite movement and other Victorian artists were displayed. There was no one else there but an elderly woman guard whose stern face softened just a trace at Cleo's smile.
      Idealized women gazed out of mythological worlds aglow with color. The grim reality of war retreated under the spell of flowing robes, rippling clouds of hair, impossibly perfect skin.
      Cleo stood in the center of the room, slowly rotating. "Sure had a thing for redheads, didn't they," she said. "You'd have fit right in, Kay."
     I could only hope she herself had a thing for redheads. Standing there, feeling drab in my khaki uniform, I watched Cleo appreciating the paintings of beautiful women. When she moved closer to the sleeping figure of "Flaming June" by Lord Leighton, I gazed with her at the seductive flesh gleaming through transparent orange draperies and allowed myself, experimentally, to imagine stroking the curve of thigh and hip, the round, tender breasts.
     "I don't know how this rates as art," Cleo said, "but oh, my!"
     A hot flush rose across my skin, of desire, yes, but even more of fierce jealousy. I wanted to be in that bright, serene world, inside that pampered, carefree body, with smooth arms and hands not roughened by scrubbing with hospital soap. I wanted to be the one seducing Cleo's eyes.
  "She could have a million freckles under that gown," I blurted out childishly. "The color would filter them out!"
     A tiny grin quirked the corner of Cleo's mouth. As always, I wanted to feel the movement of her lips. "Freckles are just fine," she said, "so long as I get to count them." She turned, and leaned close, and shivers of anticipation rippled through me. "With my tongue," she added, and very gently laid a trail of tiny wet dots across the bridge of my nose. I forgot entirely where we were.
     Then she bent her dark head to my throat, and undid my top buttons, and gently cupped my breasts through my tunic as her warm tongue probed down into the valley between. I couldn't bear to stop her, even when I remembered the guard. My breasts felt heavy, my nipples swollen, but not nearly as heavy and swollen as I needed them to be.
     Cleo's gray eyes were darker when she raised her head. "Where," she murmured huskily, "is a bomb shelter when you need one?"
     But we knew that even now, when Hitler's Russian campaign had distracted the Luftwaffe enough that there hadn't been a really major attack on London in over a year, every bomb shelter had its fiercely protective attendants.
     The guard's voice, harsh but muted, startled us. "There's a service lift just down the corridor. It's slow. Though not necessarily slow enough."
     She gazed impersonally into space, her weathered face expressionless, until, as we passed, she glanced down at Cleo's silver wings. "Good work," she said curtly. "I drove an ambulance in France in the last war. But for God's sake be careful!"
     In the elevator Cleo pressed me against a wood-paneled wall and kissed me so hard it hurt. I slid my fingers through her thick dark hair and held her back just enough for my lips to explore the shape of her lips and my tongue to invite hers to come inside.
     By the time we jolted to a stop on the ground floor my crotch felt wetter than my mouth, and even more in need of her probing tongue.
     There was no one waiting when the gate slid open. Cleo pulled me along until we found a deserted ladies' room, but once inside, she braced her shoulders against the tiled wall and didn't touch me. "You do realize," she said grimly, "what you're risking."
     "Never mind what I'm risking," I said. "One nurse blotting her copy book isn't going to bring everything since Florence Nightingale crashing down. But you..." I remembered Frank's bitter voice asking, "What kind of woman?"  Tears stung my eyes, but it had to be said. "You're holding history in your hands, Cleo." I reached out to clasp her fingers. "Right where I want to be."
     "Are you sure you know what you want?"
     "I may not know exactly what," I admitted, drawing her hands to my hips, "but I sure as hell know I want it!" I reached down and yanked my skirt up as far as I could. Cleo stroked my inner thigh, and I caught my breath; then she slid cool fingers inside my cotton underpants and gently cupped my hot, wet flesh. I moaned and thrust against her touch, and tried to kiss her, and her mouth moved under mine into a wide grin.
     "Pretty convincing," she murmured against my lips.
     I whimpered as she withdrew her hand, but she just smoothed down my skirt and gave me a pat on my butt. "Not here," she said, and propelled me out the door.
     On the long series of bus rides back to Charles Street we tried not to look at each other, but I felt Cleo's dark gaze on me from time to time. I kept my eyes downcast, the better to glance sidelong at her as she alternated between folding her arms across her chest and clenching and unclenching her hands on her blue wool slacks.
     Dinner was being served at the Red Cross club, probably the best meal for the price in England. Cleo muttered that she wasn't hungry, not for dinner, anyway, but I had my own motive for insisting. The band would be setting up in half an hour or so, and with the window opened, you could hear the music from my room. Well enough for dancing.
     So we ate, although I couldn't say what, and Cleo teased me by running her tongue sensuously around the lip of a coke bottle and into its narrow throat. Her mercurial shifts from intensity to playfulness fascinated me, but the time came when intensity was all I craved.
     "I don't suppose you'd like to dance, would you?" I repeated last night's invitation with a barely steady voice. "If I tried my best to do it right?" I stood abruptly and started for the stairs. Behind me Cleo's chair fell over with a clatter as she jumped up to follow me.
     I reached my tiny room ahead of her--nursing builds strong legs. I crossed to the window to heave it open, and then the door slammed shut and she was behind me, pressing her crotch against my ass, wrapping her arms around me to undo my buttons and cradle my breasts through my sensible cotton slip. I longed to be wearing sheer flame-colored silk for her.
     When she slid her hands under the fabric and over my skin, though, I found I didn't want to be wearing anything at all. "So soft," she whispered, "so tender..." and then, as my nipples jerked taut under her strokes, "and getting so hard..."
     A melody drifted from below; "Something To Remember You By." I turned in her arms. "Teach me to dance," I whispered.
     We swayed gently together, feet scarcely moving in the cramped space, thighs pressing into each other's heat. Cleo kneaded my ass, while I held her so tightly against my breast that her silver wings dented my flesh.
     "Please," I murmured against her cheek, "closer..." I fumbled at the buttons of her tunic. When she tensed, I drew back. "I'm sorry...I don't know the rules..."
     "The only rule," Cleo said, after a long pause, "is that you get what you need."
     "I need to feel you," I said.
     She drew her hands over my hips and up my sides until she held my breasts again; then she stepped back and began to shed her clothes. Mine, with a head start, came off even faster.
      The heady musk of arousal rose around us. A clarinet crooned, "I'll Be Seeing You." I cupped my full breasts and raised them so that my nipples could flick against Cleo's high, tightening peaks, over and over. The sensation was exquisite, tantalizing--I gave a little whimper, needing more, and she bent to take me into her mouth.
     I thought I would burst with wanting. My swollen nipples felt as big as her demanding tongue. Then she worked her hand between my legs, and spread the juices from my cunt up over my straining clit, and my whimpers turned to full-throated moans.
     Cleo raised her head. Her kiss muted my cries as she reached past me to shut the window. "Hope nobody's home next door," she muttered, and suddenly we were dancing horizontally on the narrow bed. I arched my hips, rubbing against her thigh, until her mouth moved down over throat and breasts and belly, slowly, too slowly; I wanted to savor each moment but my need was too desperate. I wriggled, and thrashed, and her head sank at last between my thighs, just as in my dreams. Her mobile lips drove me into a frenzy of pleading, incoherent cries, until, with her tongue thrusting deeply, rhythmically into my cunt, my ache exploded into glorious release.
     In the first faint light of morning I woke to feel Cleo's fingers ruffling my tousled hair. "If I were an artist I'd paint you like this," she whispered. "You look like a marmalade cat full of cream."
     I stretched, and then gasped as her fingers roused last night's ache into full, throbbing resurgence. "Sure enough," she said with a wicked grin, "plenty of cream. Let's see if I can make you yowl again."
     This time I found out what her long, strong fingers could do deep inside me, one at first, then two; by the end of the week I could clutch at her whole, pumping hand.
     Sometimes I think I remember every moment of those days; sometimes everything blurs except the feel of Cleo's hands and mouth and body against mine, and the way her eyes would shift suddenly from laughing silver to the dark gray of storm clouds.
     We did more sightseeing; the Tower of London, Madam Tussaud's Wax Museum, St. Paul's Cathedral scarred by German bombs. We took boat trips up the Thames to Richmond Park, where we dared to kiss in secluded bits of woodland, and down river where we held hands across the Greenwich Meridian. One night, in anonymous clothes bought at a flea-market barrow, we even managed to get into a club Cleo had heard of where women did dance openly with women. We couldn't risk staying long, but a dark intoxication followed us back to her room, where I entirely suppressed the nurse in me and demanded things of Cleo that left both of us sore, drained, and without regrets.
     On our last night in London we went anonymously again into shabby backstreets near the docks. I brought disinfectants, and we chose what seemed the cleanest of a sorry lot of tattoo parlors. There, welcoming the pain of the needle as distraction from deeper pain, we had tiny pairs of wings etched over our left breasts.
     We parted with promises to meet one more time before Cleo's last flight. I mortgaged a week of sleep to get my nursing shifts covered, and at Hamble Air Field, by moonlight, she introduced me to the planes she loved.
     "This is the last Spitfire I'll ever fly," she said, stroking the sleek fuselage. "Seafire III, Merlin 55 engine, 24,000 foot ceiling, although I won't go up that high just on a hop to Scotland."
     From Scotland she'd catch an empty cargo plane back to the States. I had just got my orders to report to Hawaii for assignment somewhere in the South Pacific. War is hell, and so are good-byes.
     "Could I look into the cockpit?" I asked, wanting to be able to envision her there, high in the sky.
     "Sure. You can even sit in it and play pilot, if you like." She helped me climb onto the wing, with more pressing of my ass than was absolutely necessary, and showed me how to lower myself into the narrow space. Standing on the wing, she leaned in and kissed me, hard at first, then with aching tenderness, then hard again.
     "Pull up your skirt," she ordered, and I did it without question. She already knew I wasn't wearing underpants. "Let's see how wet you can get the seat," she said, "So I can breathe you all the way to Scotland." She unbuttoned my shirt and played with my breasts until I begged her to lean in far enough to suck my aching nipples; then, with her lips and tongue and teeth driving me so crazy that my breath came in a storm of desperate gasps, she reached down into my slippery heat and made me arch and buck so hard that the plane's dials and levers were in danger. I needed more than I could get sitting in the cramped cockpit.
     We clung together finally in the grass under the sheltering wing. I got my hands into Cleo's trousers, and made her groan, but she wouldn't relax into sobbing release until she had her whole hand at last inside me and I was riding it on pounding waves of pleasure as keen as pain.
     I thought, when I could think anything again, that she had fallen asleep, she was so still. Gently, gently I touched my lips to the nearly-healed tattoo above her breast. Tiny wings matching mine. Something to remember her by.
     Without opening her eyes she said, in a lost, small voice, "What are we going to do, Kay?"
     I knew what she was going to do. "You're going to claim the sky, to make history. And anyway," I said, falling back on dark humor since I had no comfort to offer, "a cozy ménage in Paris seems out of the question with the Nazis in control."
     Then, because I knew if I touched her again we would both cry, and hate ourselves for it, I stood, put my clothes in as much order as I could, and walked away.
     I looked back once, from the edge of the field. Cleo leaned, head bowed, against the plane. Some trick of the moonlight transmuted her dark hair into silver; I had a vision of how breathtaking she would be in thirty or forty years. The pain of knowing I couldn't share those years made me stumble, and nearly fall. But I kept on walking.
     And she let me go.

     On June 24, 1944, against all justice and reason, the bill to make the Women Airforce Service Pilots officially part of the Army Air Force was defeated in Congress by nineteen votes. In December, the WASP were disbanded. By then, though, after going through hell in the Pacific theater of war, I had met Jack, who truly loved and needed me, whose son was growing below my heart. His kisses tasted of home, and peace, and more unborn children demanding their chance at life.
     Thirty-three years later, in 1977, when women were at last being admitted into the Air Force, the WASP were retroactively given military status. It was then, through a reunion group, that I found out what had become of Cleo Remington; she had found a sky that was high and wide enough to hold her fierce spirit, and freedom as a bush pilot in Alaska.
     And she was, as I discovered, even more breathtaking at sixty than she'd been at twenty-six.
But that's another chapter of the story.
 
     

     
     
 
             
   
       
       
 

 
 
         
   

# 1 On the Blog Tour! Fanning My Own Fic

My brand new book comes out on March 19th, and this time, instead of an anthology, it's a collection entirely of my own work, being published by the wonderful folks at Dirt Road Books.

This blog tour includes a raffle, with most of the blog hosts offering books. I'm offering a paperback (in the US only) of my out-of-print, collectible anthology Lipstick on Her Collar, first home of my short story with that title, which is included in Wild Rides. To enter, go to:
http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/eef4ee4b1702/?

There will be eight blogs on this tour, every one different. Here's the schedule:

 Date Host URL

3/19 Sacchi Green http://sacchi-green.blogspot.com/
3/20 KD Williamson https://kdwilliamson.org/
3/21 Annette Mori https://annettemoriauthor.com/
3/22 Andi Marquette https://andimarquette.com/

3/25 R.G. Emanuelle https://rgemanuelle.com/
3/26 Beth Burnett https://bethsnewlife.com/
3/27 Women and Words https://womenwords.org/
3/28 Cheyenne Blue https://cheyenneblue.com/

Now onward to my first blog post, and a whole free story.

Fanning My Own Fic


Thanks for letting me ramble on here about my new collection, Wild Rides and Other Lesbian Erotic Adventures, a topic I never seem to tire of.

This time I have a confession to make. I write fanfic about my own stories. At least it feels that way. Several times lately, when I was searching for something to write to submit to other editors’ anthologies, I’ve found myself going back to pieces where I’d skipped over some passages of time, or left possibilities for more adventures with the same characters, and filled in the gaps or continued the saga with new stories. Three of the stories in my new collection show the results of this questionable habit. “Dragon Descending” is a prequel and origin story featuring the pirate captain in “Pirate from the Sky,” distinct enough, apparently, to stand on its own, since it was published elsewhere. And “Finding Carla” is obviously another one, taking up the lives of the characters in “Pulling” two years later. Those are both here in the new book. Then there’s “Meltdown,” the most recent of three escapades I’ve taken my characters on, and I may well put them through their kinky paces again some time.

I think, or at least hope, that these work as intended, but there are some others not included in the book (although published elsewhere) that may not do as well to maintain the images and personalities of the characters, so I’ve been reluctant to show them together.  Now, though, after being encouraged to share extra scenes from outside some of stories in this book, I’m going to offer one that occurs in between “Pulling” and “Finding Carla.” I’m not at all sure it fits the characters well enough, although it’s been published on its own. Go ahead and read it, and then read those in Wild Rides, or read those first and come back to read this and find out in detail what happened in that barn at night with those horses. I hope you can forgive a bit of repetition from the first story. You can be the judge as to how it works.  Let me know, okay?

Here goes:

Baubles and Beads
Sacchi Green

Garish pink, purple and green fingers of light from the midway groped between the buildings all the way to the horse barns. Some of the fair’s rides and hucksters kept on as long as cash still smoldered in the pockets of the farm boys, but Carla shut down her balloon-dart concession at the official closing time. She could’ve handled the lingering customers by herself, most of them on the leering side of friendly and the slurring side of drunk, but my looming six-foot-two of crop-haired farm girl didn’t hurt. We rolled down the canvas, secured it, and slipped away into the shadows.
Lights just as garish had seeped through skimpy curtains from the neon sign outside her motel room last night. I’d scarcely noticed, obsessed with Carla herself, the black-haired, blue-eyed bad girl of my dreams.
She’d bound me to the bedposts with strings of flashy mardi gras beads, my prizes from her game, and challenged me NOT to break them no matter what she did. I’d almost managed it. And learned, first, how it felt to give up, give in, abandon my strength, my will, all the armor built up over the years. In the beginning I’d had to struggle not to strain against apparently flimsy bonds, but the more Carla forced pleasure into pain and pain into pleasure, the more both willpower and reflexes faded away. I floated somewhere beyond thought, drowning in pure sensation. When she tipped me over at last into a thrashing orgasm I must have broken those strands of beads, but it was a long time before I noticed them sprawled limply across the bed, and longer still before I saw that they were strung on strong nylon thread, knotted between each bead, every strand only broken at a single point.
So the second thing I learned, the most important, was not to assume that just because something looks flashy and cheap it must be flimsy.
It was my first time exploring the darker pleasures of sex, at least with someone who knew what she was doing. In grad school, studying veterinary medicine, my friends and I had plenty of access to barns, and ropes, and dim spaces deserted at night. I’d been invited to some secret sessions where we played, or rather played at being players, but it was strictly amateur night. Mostly clumsy flogging, and the occasional cracking of a whip, but no real sex to speak of. I’d known how to crack a whip without touching my horses’ glossy hides since I was half-grown, and could control my two-ton draft team with no tools but my voice and muscles, so floundering around in a hayloft with whips and floggers just seemed silly. So did the girls who couldn’t take even a fraction of what I could have delivered—or give me a fraction of what I didn’t even know I needed.
I still didn’t pass up any chances to learn my way around women’s bodies, including my own, and had a fine time of it, but Carla…well, ”hot” didn’t begin to cover the vibes she gave off. Something in the way she moved, and the way she played to the guys ogling her in her booth, wisecracking with sultry innuendos that didn’t actually promise them anything. They never caught on when she got to bantering with me and really did promise more than I could imagine. Even my muscle-bound teenaged brothers had no clue what I was up to. They’d finally given up on hovering within range of her seductive aura when I gave them extra money and told them I’d seen a swarm of girls from their high school on the prowl over by the tilt-a-whirl.
In a lull while her customers’ attention turned to a dramatic scene between a guy and the girlfriend who dragged him away, Carla let me know that big dumb farm boys weren’t her type, but a big farm girl—no “dumb” implied—might be right up her alley.
My wrists and ankles were still raw. My tenderer parts ached when I remembered the keen torments and even keener pleasures she’d put me through. But later, after I’d demonstrated my own grasp of the basics--and of her tender parts--and taken possession of the shiny beads, Carla had offered to meet me again tonight on my own ground to face any challenge I set, even if it meant getting up close and personal with horses that looked to her “big as elephants and twice as mean!”
Whatever I thought I’d known about women, Carla was a whole different story. A story turning out to be more complicated than I’d bargained for, but worth every bit of whatever it took. Last night she’d taught me more about myself than I’d ever faced up to before; tonight it was my turn to challenge Carla. Maybe even teach her a thing or two. And find out more about myself.
The horse barns faced east, away from the chaos of the midway and the crowds. I’d signed up for the overnight security shift, so once the guy on evening duty saw me coming, waved, and took off, there was nobody else around. There’d sure better not be.
A full moon was rising. Carla gazed up at it for a minute or two while I reached around from behind and fondled her sweet round breasts. A warm late-summer breeze raised tendrils of her hair to brush against my cheek. Moonlight intensified the hint of mystery I’d already sensed about her even in the glare of neon, an impression of layer upon hidden layer. I hoped for a chance to explore them all.
“Autumn’s almost here,” I murmured. “Plenty more fairs coming up. I’ll be bringing my team to half a dozen or so. You’ll be at Fryburg in Maine?”
“Maybe.” She shrugged and stepped out of my embrace. “But bring on your challenge now, Ree.”
She knew it would be about the horses. Yesterday, when I’d led my team out of the pulling ring and over to meet her, she couldn’t hide her terror. Molly and Stark, great black Percherons, two thousand pounds each with hooves the size of pie plates. Any city girl would be scared. I’d backed the pair off, told her I’d meet her at ten at her carnival booth, and moved on toward the barns, surprised at how much that lapse in Carla’s femme-top self-possession excited me. A chink in her armor.
Now I leaned against the open barn door. “First, find out where I hid the beads.”
Carla relaxed, back in her own territory. “Let’s see. Maybe here?” She probed the pockets of my shirt, managing even through the flannel to tweak nipples still sore from her clamps last night. Then she reached up under the shirt to squeeze my heavy breasts, sending lightning strikes deep into my cunt. I tried hard to control my breathing. “Or here?” She worked her hands into the front pockets of my jeans, finding the same tube of horse lube I’d used with her last night, then the rear pockets, with more squeezing. My hips began to shift. The look on my face must have given me away. Or maybe the catch in my breath.
“Aha.” Her fingers went between my legs to knead the thick seam of my jeans into my crotch. “Are these beads in your pants, or are you just glad to see me?”
I could barely get any words out. “See…for yourself!” She wriggled a hand down inside belt, jeans, and briefs, found what she was looking for, and began sliding the strands through my slippery heat. I nearly lost it. One of those strands had been nestled even deeper the night before last, when I’d been supposed to be resting up before the final round of the draft horse competition, but could think only of her. Tonight the beads had been driving me wild for half an hour. Was I really so set on being in charge tonight?
 I gritted my teeth and yanked her hand, clutching its wet ruby and peacock-green prizes, out into the night air. I’d re-tied them securely after breaking them last night.   Even in the dim light from a single bulb inside the barn they glowed like a Rajah’s treasure. Or…what was the right term? A Ranee’s?
“Mmm.”  Carla ran them across her tongue before draping the strands around her neck so that they swayed across her breasts.
I drew a shuddering breath and turned away.  “Now find the other two strands.” I stepped into the barn. Carla hesitated, then, very slowly, followed.
Molly, in a roomy box stall just inside the entrance, leaned her great black head over the gate and whuffled a greeting. Her brother Stark, just across the way, merely dozed on.
“Molly, this is Carla. Carla, Molly.” Molly lowered her nose politely to be petted. Carla jerked back, braced herself, then raised a tense hand. I knew her fear of the horses wouldn’t last long, but it might at least soften her up a bit.
“Hello, Molly.” Her voice wavered. The black nose dipped lower, snuffling at the green and ruby beads on Carla’s chest and then at her hands. Carla jerked back again, then suddenly laughed. “You’re smelling Ree on me! I guess that makes us all pals.” She stroked the velvety nose tentatively. “And you’re wearing beads, too!” The gleaming strands twined through the mane on either side of Molly’s neck, the golden on the right and the purple on the left.
“You’ll have to climb on the gate to reach them,” I pointed out.
She shot me a dirty look, mounted the lower bars, and reached across and upward. Even then, if Molly hadn’t been nuzzling her shoulder, the beads would have been too high for her to reach.
The first strand came loose easily. Carla climbed down, dangled it in front of me, then let it go when I gripped her wrist too hard for comfort. Yes, I definitely did want to be in charge, now that she had to meet my challenge. More was at stake than a tumble in the hay. Carla’s chin went up almost imperceptibly--and then she lowered it, turned, and climbed back up on Molly’s other side. Molly bent her head again cooperatively, but I gave a low whistle and she moved backward so that Carla couldn’t reach no matter how far she tried to stretch.
“That’s how I tell her to back off,” I said conversationally as I pulled Carla’s skirt up and panties down. “You want me to back off any time, just whistle. You do know how to whistle, don’t you?”
She stopped reaching in vain for the beads, kicked off her panties and skirt, and thrust out her bare butt. Playing along, letting me get away with something, but taunting me just the same. I let the golden beads drift gently over each round, tempting cheek, drew them along the valley between, then whipped them suddenly across each side. Carla gripped the top of the gate and didn’t look around. I swung them harder twice, slashing in diagonal strokes that left an intriguing latticework pattern. I’d tried whipping my own arm with the beads that morning, though, and knew how extra painful they could be, so I switched tactics. Breaking the skin would end things too soon.
Besides, I couldn’t wait any longer to touch her directly. The heat of her skin, the sound of my bare hands striking her flesh, the tremors of her body, her musky scent intensifying by the second… I lost count of my strokes, intoxicated, high on power and lust, all the more when she began making guttural sounds interspersed with gasps. “It’s…it’s okay, Molly!” she got out as the horse twitched and shifted nervously.
I eased off, until she grated, “More, Ree, damnit!” twitching her hips to emphasize the demand.
“My territory, my rules! I decide what you get, and how much, and when.” I made a stab at sounding stern. It felt good. More than good.
Her muttered words were barely audible. “Yes Ree, all right, whatever you want…” Then, even more faintly, “Please…”
My hand came down hard again on her rounded, tantalizing butt, over and over. I wanted her to want more of that, and to want all the kneading and squeezing of her reddened flesh my fingers indulged in between bouts of spanking. I needed her to want those things, and to want them even more because they pleased me.
I struggled to keep some control over myself. A whack on a draft horse’s rump just hard enough to get his attention could do real damage to a slender girl. I tried to gentle her again with slower strokes, but she shuddered and squirmed.
“Please…” Carla’s whisper was low and tremulous now. “Don’t stop…don’t let me drop…” Whatever she meant, I was dead sure playing along had nothing to do with it any more. She wasn’t enduring the pain now so much as absorbing it, consuming it.
“Trust me,” was all I thought of to say. I got one boot up onto the bottom rung of the gate and one arm around her waist, supporting her, never letting up but varying the rhythm of my hand. Her dark hair hung down on either side, exposing the pale nape of her neck. After a while I gave in to temptation, bent my head, kissed that tender, vulnerable skin, and felt a tremor wash through her.
Then I bit down, just hard enough to leave my mark without drawing blood. That jolted her into shuddering motion. Her breath came harder, in gulps, then hard, wracking sobs. I lifted her down and managed to get to the folding chair beside the door and sit with her cradled her against my shoulder until the heaving of her body subsided. She murmured something into my shirt that might have been, “thank you…” and then raised her head just a little. “If only…I wish…”
I’d have done anything for her by then. “Wish what? Just tell me what you want!”
She shook her head, wiped her tear-streaked face against my shirt, seemed to pull herself together, and sat upright on my lap. The old Carla was back, cockiness muted, playing along, but any real vulnerability well-hidden.
“Whatever you want, Ree.” She pulled off a tank top, her only remaining garment, and started to unbutton my shirt with her teeth. My tits strained toward hers, just inches away. Suddenly her mouth changed course, toward the shirt pocket where I’d clumsily stuffed the strings of beads. Loops of each still dangled outside. Carla’s tongue flicked the golden strand, drew it slowly all the way out, and dropped it into her hand. My cunt clenched as though the beads had undulated right through it.
“You don’t want to let these go to waste, do you?” Her tone was low, smooth, sultry.
The raw marks on my wrists from last night tingled. I hesitated. What did I want most? Carla wriggled seductively on my lap, but couldn’t conceal a wince of pain. I stroked what I could reach of the superheated cheeks pressed against my thighs. That backside needed a rest from friction. More sitting wasn’t an option.
“Across my lap. Now. On your stomach with your hands behind your back.” I lifted her just enough to ease her movement, and had her wrists bound behind her in seconds with the golden beads. Nobody’s better at one-handed knots than a horse handler.
I forced myself to take it slow. Two more strands of beads slid between those lovely moon-pale, red-striped cheeks--rolled lower into the hot, wet heat between her thighs--nudged at her hardened clit--until I couldn’t stand to let the beads have all the fun. I got the tube of lube from my pocket, opened it with my teeth, lubed my hand, drew out the beads, and slid two fingers deep between Carla’s folds. She arched into the pressure, moving frantically at first, needing more, more depth, more force, but I still teased her with retreat and advance and retreat, over ever more wet and slippery terrain, ignoring her wriggles and pleas for more until my own need forced my hand.
Faster, deeper, harder, her sounds and movements igniting my own body. Time had no meaning, only motion. My big hand raced to give her everything she wanted, everything she could take, everything I wanted her to have, until her body tightened around my fingers, pulsed to a relentless beat, then clenched even harder as the crescendo shook her.
Carla’s sobs of release dwindled gradually to whimpers. I lifted her down to the sleeping bag I’d left spread on a mound of clean straw in the empty stall next to Molly’s, lay down with her, and started all over again--with the added benefit of lips, tongue, full frontal contact, hands freed from beads, and my own thundering crescendo.
Much later Carla muttered drowsily, “I didn’t get the other strand yet. I failed the challenge.”
“That’s okay.” I pulled a rough horse blanket up over us. “Just never assume that because something looks extra big and strong, it must be scary.”
“Maybe I’d like it to be scary, now and then.”
I let her have the last word, unless you count Molly’s gentle snort, and drifted into sleep. But only for a while.
“Ree!” Carla was straddling me, her old cocky, assertive self again. She’d retrieved the purple strand of beads from Molly’s mane while I slept and bound them around my wrists, and now she whapped me across the chest with golden ones. “Molly and I want to go for a ride!” Meeting my challenge in full, then topping it.
“Okay,” I said. “But for the sake of Molly’s unblemished reputation, I’d just as soon you kept it inside this barn and the one next door.” Even with my wrists tied I could make a stirrup with my hands for Carla’s foot, and toss her high onto Molly’s broad back.  
It was a shame, really, that no one but me got to see a dark-haired, naked Lady Godiva ride a great black mare through the horse barns that unforgettable night at the county fair. Especially since I very much doubt that the original lady rode with strands of golden and royal purple beads coiled inside her well-seasoned cunt.
That glorious sight turned out to be a parting gift. We slept again, clinging together, but when I woke in the morning Carla was gone. Gone from my arms, from the barn, from the fairgrounds, with nothing to tell me how to find her, and no sign of her at any of the other fairs that year. All I had left was a new sense of myself, searing memories of pleasure and pain, Carla’s scent on Molly’s back, and a faint voice murmuring in my dreams, “If only…I wish…”
I haven’t given up wishing.

BLE v. 3 Blog Tour with Nat Burns and "Jani-Lyn's Dragon"

The title of Nat Burns’s story “Jani-Lyn’s Dragon” didn’t quite ring a bell when I first saw her submission in my email, but the instant I saw “September 1970” at the beginning of her document I knew where she was going, and knew I wanted to go there with her. Here’s how her blog post begins:

“Singer Janis Joplin’s stellar rise to celebrity status and then tragic death from a heroin overdose at twenty-seven years of age spoke to me on a deep, visceral level. I felt that she was too young to lose her life and that a great burgeoning talent had been taken from us. I also felt a strong urge to write a scathing piece about this act of treachery from the Universe. Instead, I turned the injustice and sense of betrayal into, what else, but a story of love and eroticism.”

Go read the rest of Nat’s discussion of how and why she wrote what she did.
www.TheNattyBits.com

 And comment there, or on any of the other posts in this series, or on my Facebook posts about these blogs, to be entered in a drawing for a free ebook copy of the anthology.


Blog Tour List and Links


December 1
Sacchi Green
Introduction
sacchi-green.blogspot.com

December 2
Pascal Scott
The Night Shift
sacchi-green.blogspot.com

December 3
R. D. Miller
Perfume
sacchi-green.blogspot.com

December 4
T.C. Mill
Fearless
http://tc-mill.com/2018/12/04/on-loss-and-anger-and-being-unafraid-fearless-in-best-lesbian-erotica-vol-3/

December 5
Victoria Janssen
Still Marching
http://victoriajanssen.com/2018/12/still-marching-a-tale-of-our-times/

December 6
Anna Watson
Sweet of My Heart
sacchi-green.blogspot.com

December 7
R.G. Emanuelle
The Auction
 http://rgemanuelle.com/2018/12/07/the-auction

December 8
Scout Rhodes
Morning Fog
sacchi-green.blogspot.com

December 9
Emily L. Byrne
Rainbow’s End
sacchi-green.blogspot.com

December 10
Mags Hayward
Yin and Yang
sacchi-green.blogspot.com

Valerie  Alexander
Ninjutsu
December 11
valeriealexander.org

December 12
Xan West
Trying Submission
https://xanwest.wordpress.com/2018/12/12/the-alchemy-of-d-s

December 13
M. Birds
Where There’s Smoke
www.mbirds.ca/journal

December 14
Raven Sky
Fuck Me Like a Canadian
sacchi-green.blogspot.com

December 15
Sommer Marsden
Husher
https://sommermarsden.blogspot.com/2018/12/best-lesbian-erotica-volume-3-husher-by.html?fbclid=IwAR0QBcgA4Yh7bCSRcPO5FDmiI2yIZ2D5VQFWHhV-R6ljdEOqZ_jy_Z8DjQs

December 16
Lea Daley
Rules
sacchi-green.blogspot.com

December 17
Nan Barret
Oliver: Twisted
sacchi-green.blogspot.com

December 18
Nat Burns
Jani-Lyn’s Dragon
www.TheNattyBits.com

https://www.amazon.com/Best-Lesbian-Erotica-Year-3/dp/1627782869/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1543190819&sr=2

BLE v. 3 Blog Tour: Nanisi Barret D'Arnuk's "Oliver Twisted"

Oliver: Twisted

Nanisi Barrett D'Arnuk has travelled around the world to gather information for her writing. She has five novels, several novellas and many short stories published, ranging from mysteries to sweet or erotic romances. More are in the process. A New-Age Political thriller will be published this fall.

Nanisi’s own blurb for “Oliver: Twisted” follows the traditional questioning format. “When Cheryl Oliver meets a striking woman in the casino restroom, things seem to be looking up. Jerry is even impressed by Cheryl’s guard’s uniform, but is her interest in Cheryl’s necktie as a fashion accessory or something more nefarious?”

But my question concerning the story is, “Just how did Nanisi gather information on what it’s like to be working above a Las Vegas casino watching unaware gamblers through surveillance cameras?” There’s no question, though that the story is original, very hot, and certain characters do, indeed, get lucky.

Here’s an excerpt from the very beginning:
_______________

I looked out across the field of people and shook my head. All these women, and not one could look at me. Not that they knew I was there, but just once I wished that someone would look up and see me, or at least looked like they saw me. That’s all I wanted: just one woman. But, like every other night, not one raised her eyes. Just once, I thought, at least one.

I watched the women focus on their cards, not letting a thought that someone was watching disturb their concentration. The dealers dealt and shuffled, then dealt and shuffled, and dealt and shuffled. The players won and lost without looking around, without a second thought for the bubbles in the ceiling that contained surveillance cameras.

This is an easy and boring job, except on those rare nights when someone, either too drunk or wanting more money, tried something foolish. Then we get to watch interesting things, like someone being surreptitiously thrown out of the casino; hidden, so the other patrons wouldn’t be disturbed. Tonight I watched the cutie in the second seat at the blackjack table. She had short dark hair that looked great from the top. So did her voluptuous cleavage that showed when she leaned back. These were the ones that made this job interesting. I could be a voyeur without the fear of being discovered or guilt that I was staring.
_______________

Are you curious now?



Oliver: Twisted

Nanisi Barrett D'Arnuk has travelled around the world to gather information for her writing. She has five novels, several novellas and many short stories published, ranging from mysteries to sweet or erotic romances. More are in the process. A New-Age Political thriller will be published this fall.

Nanisi’s own blurb for “Oliver: Twisted” follows the traditional questioning format. “When Cheryl Oliver meets a striking woman in the casino restroom, things seem to be looking up. Jerry is even impressed by Cheryl’s guard’s uniform, but is her interest in Cheryl’s necktie as a fashion accessory or something more nefarious?”

But my question concerning the story is, “Just how did Nanisi gather information on what it’s like to be working above a Las Vegas casino floor watching unaware gamblers through surveillance cameras?” There’s no question, though that the story is original, very hot, and certain characters do, indeed, get lucky.

Here’s an excerpt from the very beginning:
_______________

I looked out across the field of people and shook my head. All these women, and not one could look at me. Not that they knew I was there, but just once I wished that someone would look up and see me, or at least looked like they saw me. That’s all I wanted: just one woman. But, like every other night, not one raised her eyes. Just once, I thought, at least one.

I watched the women focus on their cards, not letting a thought that someone was watching disturb their concentration. The dealers dealt and shuffled, then dealt and shuffled, and dealt and shuffled. The players won and lost without looking around, without a second thought for the bubbles in the ceiling that contained surveillance cameras.

This is an easy and boring job, except on those rare nights when someone, either too drunk or wanting more money, tried something foolish. Then we get to watch interesting things, like someone being surreptitiously thrown out of the casino; hidden, so the other patrons wouldn’t be disturbed. Tonight I watched the cutie in the second seat at the blackjack table. She had short dark hair that looked great from the top. So did her voluptuous cleavage that showed when she leaned back. These were the ones that made this job interesting. I could be a voyeur without the fear of being discovered or guilt that I was staring.
_______________

Are you curious now?

Blog Tour List and Links


December 1
Sacchi Green
Introduction
sacchi-green.blogspot.com

December 2
Pascal Scott
The Night Shift
sacchi-green.blogspot.com

December 3
R. D. Miller
Perfume
sacchi-green.blogspot.com

December 4
T.C. Mill
Fearless
http://tc-mill.com/2018/12/04/on-loss-and-anger-and-being-unafraid-fearless-in-best-lesbian-erotica-vol-3/

December 5
Victoria Janssen
Still Marching
http://victoriajanssen.com/2018/12/still-marching-a-tale-of-our-times/

December 6
Anna Watson
Sweet of My Heart
sacchi-green.blogspot.com

December 7
R.G. Emanuelle
The Auction
 http://rgemanuelle.com/2018/12/07/the-auction

December 8
Scout Rhodes
Morning Fog
sacchi-green.blogspot.com

December 9
Emily L. Byrne
Rainbow’s End
sacchi-green.blogspot.com

December 10
Mags Hayward
Yin and Yang
sacchi-green.blogspot.com

Valerie  Alexander
Ninjutsu
December 11
valeriealexander.org

December 12
Xan West
Trying Submission
https://xanwest.wordpress.com/2018/12/12/the-alchemy-of-d-s

December 13
M. Birds
Where There’s Smoke
www.mbirds.ca/journal

December 14
Raven Sky
Fuck Me Like a Canadian
sacchi-green.blogspot.com

December 15
Sommer Marsden
Husher
https://sommermarsden.blogspot.com/2018/12/best-lesbian-erotica-volume-3-husher-by.html?fbclid=IwAR0QBcgA4Yh7bCSRcPO5FDmiI2yIZ2D5VQFWHhV-R6ljdEOqZ_jy_Z8DjQs


December 16
Lea Daley
Rules
sacchi-green.blogspot.com

December 17
Nan Barret
Oliver: Twisted
sacchi-green.blogspot.com

December 18
Nat Burns
Jani-Lyn’s Dragon
sacchi-green.blogspot.com

https://www.amazon.com/Best-Lesbian-Erotica-Year-3/dp/1627782869/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1543190819&sr=2

BLE v. 3 BLOG TOUR POST FOR “RULES”, BY LEA DALEY

Child care is a risky business. No one knows that better than Haley Walton, a newly-minted Program Director at an inner-city preschool. Children hide, they run away, they climb and fall, they misinterpret the most innocent actions. And dicey adult behavior adds to the danger; preschools can seethe with as much drama and intrigue as any medieval court or contemporary police station.
Child care is riskiest of all when you’re a lesbian working in a conservative community, subject every damned day to doubt and misunderstanding. So maybe Haley should have thought twice before going home one night with Pim Brauer, a charismatic art professor whose red-hot reputation is enough to attract intense scrutiny.
Still, Haley is determined to be the consummate professional, supremely prepared, unfailingly cautious—until the day she forgets that she’s especially suspect, forgets that expectations are different for her. When she encounters an injured child on the playground, she breaks the one unbreakable rule for lesbians, foolishly deciding to administer first aid in an empty classroom, out of view of security cameras. Before she knows it, she’s accused of sexual assault and her carefully constructed world comes crashing down.
To make matters worse, she’s alone. A recent breakup with Pim has left her isolated and unmoored. She’d like to confide in someone—perhaps her boss, Drew Malachi, who may also be a lesbian. But Drew’s never given her that opening and since the accusation she’s drawn a closed circle around herself. She scarcely speaks to Haley during the devastating period that the abuse investigation takes place.
After the scandalous allegations go public, Pim rethinks her decision to dump Haley. But despite Pim’s charms and expertise, a lover’s reunion will prove more challenging than she guesses. Such a delicate situation calls for a radical solution.
Excerpt:

Now that Pim had reclaimed her ideal woman, she damn well wouldn’t let some phony accusation destroy their love life. But Hayley was traumatized, her defenses nearly impregnable. Pim thought about the problem for days before concocting a plan. Maybe it was brilliant. Maybe it was crazy. Just then, though, it was all she had. She reserved a suite for the weekend at an exclusive hotel—an absurdly expensive getaway, since the InterContinental was in walking distance of her condo on the Plaza. But when she drew the drapes that Friday night, there wouldn’t be a single reference point for Hayley, nothing familiar. The past would be erased, the future a blank slate. Just the way Pim wanted it…
The accommodations couldn’t have been less like the places Hayley spent her ordinary days—the rundown preschool, her own shabby-chic apartment. Everything in the suite was fresh and elegant. Pim had ordered flowers, candles, and a superlative bottle of wine. Halfway through a second glass of Merlot, Hayley felt her shoulders relax.
Pim must have noticed. She removed the goblet from Hayley’s hand, saying, “In a minute, I’m going to make love to you, baby. But tonight there are rules…”

Background:
In writing “Rules”, I drew on nearly three decades of work in early education settings, first as a classroom teacher, then as an administrator. Few people guess how complex, demanding, creative, and terrifying this career can be. Every day is a tightrope walk, offering innumerable opportunities to improve children’s lives, or to destroy the reputations of even the most well-intentioned practitioners.
“Rules” is an excerpt from Love Gone Nova, an unpublished novel. Writing it allowed me to share both the significance and the intricacies of my professional world. More to the point, it provided me with the perfect opportunity to explore two lesbian partnerships—one long-established, the other just on the cusp of becoming—each of which is impacted by Haley’s careless misstep with a student. Like every writer, I love my imaginary people, and I’m deeply grateful that Sacchi Green has introduced them to the light of day.

Bio:
Lea Daley has written fiction and poetry while raising children, claiming a lesbian identity, earning a BFA in painting, teaching preschoolers and college students, surviving the death of her only daughter, and heading a nonprofit agency that serves low-income working families. Her debut novel, Waiting for Harper Lee, was a Golden Crown Awards finalist and received a Lavender Certificate from the Alice B Readers Appreciation Committee. Her second book, FutureDyke, won a Goldie Award and was a Lambda Literary finalist. Her short stories have been published in numerous anthologies. Retired now, she lives to write in Alton, Illinois.


Blog Tour List and Links


December 1
Sacchi Green
Introduction
sacchi-green.blogspot.com

December 2
Pascal Scott
The Night Shift
sacchi-green.blogspot.com

December 3
R. D. Miller
Perfume
sacchi-green.blogspot.com

December 4
T.C. Mill
Fearless
http://tc-mill.com/2018/12/04/on-loss-and-anger-and-being-unafraid-fearless-in-best-lesbian-erotica-vol-3/

December 5
Victoria Janssen
Still Marching
http://victoriajanssen.com/2018/12/still-marching-a-tale-of-our-times/

December 6
Anna Watson
Sweet of My Heart
sacchi-green.blogspot.com

December 7
R.G. Emanuelle
The Auction
 http://rgemanuelle.com/2018/12/07/the-auction

December 8
Scout Rhodes
Morning Fog
sacchi-green.blogspot.com

December 9
Emily L. Byrne
Rainbow’s End
sacchi-green.blogspot.com

December 10
Mags Hayward
Yin and Yang
sacchi-green.blogspot.com

Valerie  Alexander
Ninjutsu
December 11
valeriealexander.org

December 12
Xan West
Trying Submission
https://xanwest.wordpress.com/2018/12/12/the-alchemy-of-d-s

December 13
M. Birds
Where There’s Smoke
www.mbirds.ca/journal

December 14
Raven Sky
Fuck Me Like a Canadian
sacchi-green.blogspot.com

December 15
Sommer Marsden
Husher
https://sommermarsden.blogspot.com/2018/12/best-lesbian-erotica-volume-3-husher-by.html?fbclid=IwAR0QBcgA4Yh7bCSRcPO5FDmiI2yIZ2D5VQFWHhV-R6ljdEOqZ_jy_Z8DjQs

December 16
Lea Daley
Rules
sacchi-green.blogspot.com

December 17
Nan Barret
Oliver: Twisted
sacchi-green.blogspot.com

December 18
Nat Burns
Jani-Lyn’s Dragon
sacchi-green.blogspot.com

https://www.amazon.com/Best-Lesbian-Erotica-Year-3/dp/1627782869/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1543190819&sr=2

BLE v. 3 Blog Tour with Sommer Marsden and "Husher"

Yes, really, Sommer Marsden! It's a great treat when I get a story from Sommer. We've been together in many an anthology over the years, and I always love her work.  She needs no introduction here, so I'll just quote a snippet from her post today and then you can go on over to read all the rest.

"Husher was fun to write. It was sexy and odd and I liked it a lot. As a writer, what more can you ask for then all of those elements? I mean, it had me at odd, you know? "

https://sommermarsden.blogspot.com/2018/12/best-lesbian-erotica-volume-3-husher-by.html?fbclid=IwAR0QBcgA4Yh7bCSRcPO5FDmiI2yIZ2D5VQFWHhV-R6ljdEOqZ_jy_Z8DjQs

And comment there to be entered in a drawing for a free ebook copy of the anthology. Comment on any of these Blog Tour posts, although apparently my own blog is inexplicably blocking most comments.

BLE v. 3 Blog Tour: Raven Sky's "Fuck Me Like a Canadian"

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