Reaching Out from a Mind as Dirty as All Outdoors

If you get lucky enough, I might post adult-only material from time to time, so be 18 or over, or please be elsewhere.

I'll be discussing erotica here, the writing of it and the people who write it, as well as what we've written. I find all these aspects stimulating, but if any of them bore you, feel free to skim. You never know what you might miss, though.




Total Pageviews

Saturday, August 24, 2019

Charity Sunday: Planned Parenthood

Planned Parenthood Needs Us!


Charity Sunday is the invention of writer extradinaire Lisabet Sarai, and this month several more authors have pitched in to make it a group blog hop. Here's how it goes. Each writer chooses a charity  and makes a donation to it for every comment you make on our posts. You get to read excerpts from our work, we make the donations ourselves, and we all get to feel a little better about our world. Links to all the blogs are way down at the bottom of the page.

I had a different charity in mind at first, but the timing can’t be ignored. We all know what Planned Parenthood does, and we know in light of recent news what Planned Parenthood needs from us. And I know, from a college friend, how much Planned Parenthood has done for women. Two years after graduation my friend needed their help, and was so impressed that after her daughter had been born and adopted she went to work for the organization. They got a good deal; her intellect and organizational skills are top-notch. A few years ago she reunited with her daughter, now a mother herself, and they have a close and happy relationship.

So thanks, Planned Parenthood, personally. I will make a contribution to Planned Parenthood for each comment to this blog post.
https://www.plannedparenthood.org

Now for a story excerpt. It was hard to think of a story of mine with any connection to this charity--I usually write lesbian erotica, and don’t include much about parenthood. Make that never. Except…this once…

I’ve edited fifteen erotica anthologies over the years, several of them award-winners, and contributed my own stories to many more. In a new collection of my own short stories, Wild Rides and Other Lesbian Erotic Adventures from Dirt Road Books, two of the stories are a pair, and the one that’s a sequel does involve a single mother trying to get custody of her six-year-old child. Not exactly Planned Parenthood territory, but it’s plausible that she might have had help from them at some point.

So onward! The first story in the pair, “Pulling,” is the heavy hitter when it comes to sex. The second, “Finding Carla,” has a good share of that, but also goes into the emotional depths of motherhood under stressful conditions, so I’ll give you two different excerpts from that story, with a gap between. For that matter, anyone who would like to read the entire story can just email me and I’ll send it along. sacchigreen@gmail.com (or look me up on Facebook) Or, of course, you could buy Wild Rides with all its wide (and deep) variety of stories.
(Note: The cover image does not represent these characters, but it comes close to one in another of the stories in the book.)

From “Finding Carla”
Sacchi Green

“Keep your skanky hands off me!” The words sliced through drifting aromas of coffee and pancakes and bacon. “Touch me again, and those fingers won’t even be able to fuck your own sorry dick!”
I’d know that voice, that attitude, anywhere. A truck stop where Vermont slopes into New Hampshire wasn’t high on my list of places to look, but how much, really, had I ever known about Carla? Apart from the way she sounded in hip-swishing, femme-top command of any situation—or with her hips so entirely out of control she couldn’t shape gasps into words—or steeling herself to mount my huge draft horse in spite of her terror.  We hadn’t had much time for the getting-to-know-you parts.
I couldn’t see into the dining area past the family with fidgety kids ahead of me. Getting by without trampling them didn’t seem likely, but I was giving it a try anyway when a skinny whirlwind shot from around the cashier’s counter and whacked me from behind.
“Ree Daniels, move your butt!” The manager forged her way through the milling kids like an icebreaker. I was twice Lyddie Brown’s bulk and a foot taller, but I followed in her wake anyway.
It was Carla, all right, her pot of scalding coffee poised right above the hastily withdrawn hand—and the crotch—of a middle-aged truck driver I’d seen around before. On the skuzzy side, usually on the make, but Carla could’ve handled his kind in seconds with a sly quip, back when she’d been working arcade games on the county fair circuit.
Now her face and body were tense, brittle, close to panic. She looked as near to being spooked as any horse I’ve ever handled. What the hell had got into her? And what was she doing here?
It was my turn to shove Lyddie aside, with a look meant to convince her I knew what I was doing. “Hey Carla.” I moved in close. “Let me help you out with that.” My hand curled around her fingers on the coffeepot’s handle. My body edged hers away from the customer. “Let’s put it down over here, okay?”
The wildness in her dark eyes mellowed into recognition, and something I hoped was deeper. That last morning at the fair, while I was still asleep, she’d cleared out without any clue as to how to find her, and for nearly two years I’d figured all she’d seen in me was a hot enough two-night stand to pass the time with. If she’d thought that was all I’d seen in her, she’d been dead wrong. Okay, I lied about the getting-to-know-you bit. Two days and nights was enough for me to discover the vulnerability behind the bravado, the steel determination that overcame fear—and to want to know more.
“Sure,” she said now, “anything you say, big girl.”  Her voice shook, but the old low, intimate tone was still there.
Remembered lust surged back in a rush.  Carla had always radiated sparks of bad-girl eroticism. Even with her waves of black hair confined in a knot and her waitress uniform just skimming her curves, she shot off pheromones that could pierce a Humvee. I’d have felt some sympathy for the driver if he hadn’t started to bluster.
Lyddie rolled her eyes, jerked her head toward the office, and went into damage control mode.  
I got Carla to the coffee station and deposited the hot pot. In spite of interested observers at every table, my hand settled into the sweet spot where waist curves to hip as I steered her into the office and kicked the door shut.
She was shivering when I put my arms around her. I’d never imagined Carla so shaken. Physically wary, sure—my big horses had scared her before she’d discovered the delights of naked bare-back riding at midnight—but nothing like this melt-down. “Oh, honey, what’s the trouble?” I used my soothing-skittish-fillies tone. “It’ll be all right.” I stroked her black hair, glossy as my Percherons. It came loose from its prim knot, falling into the wild mane I remembered whipping back and forth over my sweaty torso as she rode me.
“No it won’t,” she muttered against my chest. When her head lifted I saw that the glitter of tears in her eyes came as much from rage as from despair. It was oddly reassuring.
“There goes another job! That bastard! But I can handle his kind without lifting a finger. Usually.” Carla searched her breast pockets. I took pity and grabbed the box of Kleenex from Lyddie’s desk.
I dabbed at her damp eyes. No make-up beyond a subdued shade of lipstick. She still exuded that Jezebel-of-your-dreams air that had grabbed me the first time I’d seen her, but something else as well that grabbed me even harder, even as I shied away from examining it too closely. “So what went wrong?”
“Me. I went wrong. ‘Sorry, I’m not on the menu’ didn’t do the trick, but I could’ve just smiled and moved away. When he put his hand on my butt, though, I felt…I wanted…dammit, Ree, I needed to be touched so bad it hurt, but not by his kind!”
I could recognize a mare in heat long before I earned my veterinary degree, and my experience of women had tuned me to the similarities. Women aren’t as easily ruled by their hormones as mares, though; for Carla to go off the deep end, there must be as much turmoil in her head as in her body. Dangerous territory.
Just the same, my hand went to her thigh and would have traveled farther if Lyddie hadn’t charged into the office just then.
Carla tried to pull away. I kept an arm around her shoulder.
“How’s it going, Lyddie?” I hoped my grin still had the tomboy charm that used to get me extra pie as a kid. The manager had known me all my life, and my family even longer. We’d always stopped here when I was helping my dad transport horses to New Hampshire farms and fairs. The grin could have got me a whole lot more than pie if I’d been so inclined, once I’d grown up, cropped my straw-yellow hair short, and shown that I knew who I was and where I was going.
Lyddie looked us up and down, hands braced on hips, head shaking in exasperation. “Might’ve known you’d be acquainted. There’s gotta be an explanation behind this, but I don’t have the time or patience now.”
“It’s the old story,” I said. “Farm girl meets carnival huckster at the county fair. The Lancaster Fair year before last, when my team was in the pulling trials.” I realized too late that Carla might not have included the midway balloon/dart concession on her resumè.
“Judging by such a touching reunion, maybe you wouldn’t mind taking Miss Volcano-mouth off my hands for a couple of days until all this drama blows over.”
Carla stirred under my arm. “I’m sorry, Lyddie. I should just move on. Thanks for taking a chance on me, but I’ve always been bad news.”
I wanted to shake the old arrogance back into her. On the other hand, if it had been just a shield, I wanted to know what was behind it.
Lyddie softened. “You’re not bad, honey.  You’re just drawn that way.”
Carla was right on it. “Thanks, Lyddie. Jessica Rabbit is my role model.”
“You’re a fine cashier and waitress,” Lyddie added. “Never did figure out what you’re doing in a place like this. You could make a lot more tending bar in the city or the tourist area over by Mount Washington. At least bars have bouncers.”
Carla’d begun to relax, but now she tensed and glanced away from Lyddie. “Can’t blame a girl for wanting to try out respectability for a change.”
I was tired of being left out of the conversation. “If riding in the cab of a horse van rates as respectable, I’d be glad of the company. I’ll be back this way tomorrow or the next day. We’ll see how things look by then.”
“Just let me get out of this uniform and grab a few things.” Carla wriggled out of my grasp. Lyddie and I watched her go, both our gazes fixed on her slender back and swaying ass, both of us exhaling when she’d gone. But Lyddie’s sigh was somber.
“Can’t get a job at a bar these days without a background check,” she said. “A police record will shoot you right down. She’s a whiz with numbers, too, took some accounting courses she says, but the same goes there.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?” But I knew.
“Just something to bear in mind, Henrietta.” Lyddie tweaked my butt and left the office fast. Just as well. I don’t mind the occasional grope, but nobody gets to call me by my given name.
Carla met me at my truck. “You got Molly and Stark in there?” Face scrubbed, hair pulled into a flowing ponytail, jeans not too tight and plaid shirt managing not to gape across her full breasts, she’d still never pass for the girl-next-door type. Which was fine with me.
“Nope. Truck’s empty. I’m picking up a couple of two-year-olds in Maine and bringing them back to my farm for training.” I boosted her up into the cab, enjoying cupping her rump in my big hands.
“Haven’t taken the team on the competition circuit lately.” I settled into the driver’s seat. “Molly indicated in no uncertain terms last spring that she was ready to be bred, so all summer she got to laze around in the pasture with nothing heavier to pull than kids on a hayride, and this spring there’s one more black Percheron filly in Vermont.”
“A sweet little Molly!” Carla’s smile wavered, and she turned her face away.
Dangerous currents for sure. It occurred to me that I did know, or at least suspect, something intensely personal about Carla. Something she didn’t know I knew.

***
My eyes stayed fixed on the road ahead, neck cramping with the effort not to turn and stare. I knew a pull-off next to the river a couple of miles ahead, plenty big enough for the truck.
“How about you, Ree?” Carla knew she had me going. “You been getting plenty of action?”
“Haven’t let anybody else tie me to the bedposts with Mardi Gras beads and then dare me not to break them, but I get by.” I risked a sideways glance. “I still have some of those beads.”
“So do I.” Her wistful tone made me want to hold her close even more than I wanted to fuck her.
It was a good thing no fisherman was parked in my pull-off. A clash between a horse rig and a pickup would be no contest. And it was a good thing that a row of young birch trees, first tender green leaves unfurling, masked us from the road. Carla was on me before my truck stopped rolling. I grabbed both her hands and held her off, but she got a leg over my thigh.
“Carla, we have to talk. No fuck me and leave me this time. I mean it.”
She tried to laugh. “Anything you say, big girl. But can’t we fuck first and talk later? I promise I won’t leave. How could I? You’re my ride.”
I guess I gave in, since suddenly my hands were on her hips and she was, quite literally, riding me. I leaned the seat back as far as it would go. Even so her ass made the horn honk, so I squirmed sideways until my substantial butt was in the passenger’s seat and we had just enough room to loosen our clothes in all the right places.
The sex was fast and furious, nothing fancy, with her knee in my crotch and my fingers in hers and our mouths hungry for whatever they could reach. We kept it up through wave after wave until finally Carla collapsed on my breast sobbing for breath. It wasn’t all that cold outside, but the windows were steamed up, making the space inside seem safe and intimate. Breathing our mingled scents, her skin pressed against mine, felt like coming to a home I’d just discovered.
It was a while before I realized that her sobs were producing real tears. “It’s okay,” I murmured, stroking her hair, my hand sticky with her juices. “Tell me about it.”
“If only…” she nestled even closer against me.
“Tell me,” I said, and then, on a hunch, “Girl or boy?”
She stiffened. “Girl. How did you know?”
 “An educated guess.” This was going to be tricky. “Okay, you know I’m a veterinarian.”
“Yeah, so?”
I blundered along. “So I have a problem. My hands are too big. Okay for delivering foals and calves, but not always for young ewes in trouble with their first lambing. Even with lube. In tough situations I need an assistant with, well, smaller hands.” This wasn’t going well.
Carla sat up straight and said it for me. “So when I could take your whole hand that night, you figured I’d had a kid.”
I shrugged. “Never found anybody who hadn’t who could.” No need to mention the faint stretch marks on her belly.
 I thought a storm was brewing, but suddenly she grabbed my left hand and cradled it between her naked breasts. “Was that animal lube you used?”
“Horse lube. I never expected to get lucky at the fair, but I always keep some vet supplies in my truck, so…”
“Got any with you now?” This was the cocky, seductive Carla, even with a tear-streaked face.
“Maybe, but there isn’t room in here for that much action. And you promised we’d talk.” I draped her shirt around her shoulders and rebuttoned mine. “What’s her name?”
“Josie. She’s almost six.” Carla took a deep breath, looked away, and let it all come rushing out. “She’s been with my cousin in Boston since she was three. I…I couldn’t be with her for a while, and when I got out, I couldn’t find a job to support her, so I took whatever work I could get and saved up. It seemed like enough after the carnival gigs, but then my cousin said I wasn’t a fit mother so she’d report me to social services if I tried to take my child. Now Josie’s getting to be as wild as I always was, and they can’t handle her, but my cousin still thinks it’s her duty to try. And my cousin’s husband comes on to me lately when I visit. So I’ve been trying to get respectable—even got a job as a secretary, but of course my boss couldn’t keep his hands to himself. I did some damage and had to get out.”
No surprises there. What did startle me was my own sudden, certain determination. I turned her gently to face me. “Lyddie tells me you’re good with numbers. Business paperwork fries my mind. Being a bookkeeper for a lesbian veterinarian might not rank at the top of the respectability chart, and I couldn’t promise your boss would keep her hands to herself, but there’s a farmhand’s cottage you and Josie could have to yourselves, separate from my house. It’s yours if you want to give it a try.”
A light flashed in Carla’s eyes, then died. “Social services are such hard-asses!”
“It’s the 21st century. Massachusetts and Vermont and even New Hampshire are getting better. And…” I played my remaining card… “I know a good Boston lawyer.”
“Lawyers are expensive.” Before my mouth was halfway open, she added, in her don’t-cross-me tone, “No. You can’t pay.”
“No need. She does pro bono work for discrimination cases. And she owes me a favor.”
“Oh?” Carla’s expressive eyebrows arched. “I suppose you cured her horse, or something?”
“Her Great Dane. She has a vacation condo over toward Mt. Washington. I check up on the place now and then when she’s not there. That’s where we’ll stay tonight, so we’d better get on the road.”
“You must be real friendly with this lawyer,” Carla said pointedly as we rolled along through the wide valley of the Ammonoosuc.
I just grinned, and took a while to answer. Spring was greening up the fields and woodlands. In spite of uncertainties, I was feeling pretty spring-feverish myself. “I have plenty of friends,” I teased. “The favor she owes me is getting her together with another friend, a ski instructor at Wildcat.”
“And now you’re all pals together, right?”
“The condo does have a super-sized Jacuzzi,” I countered. “Big enough for three, even if one is my size.” She shouldn’t assume I only wanted her because my opportunities were limited.

***

Well. That’s too long already, so I won’t bore you further by including the scene where a feisty six-year-old girl with trust issues meets a skittish, shiny black Percheron filly.
Love at first sight.

***

Remember, comment here for me to make a donation to Planned Parenthood. Also, a comment will enter you in a drawing for a free ebook copy of my collection. If you wonder what the heck other kinds of stories I write, you could find out in Wild Rides. From a jeep-jockey WAC in Vietnam, to pirates in the South China Sea as WWII approaches, to gargoyles in Paris, a shape-shifting dragon, prison inmates matching strength to strength, and more, and more, and more.

Amazon-Wild Rides








Sunday, August 11, 2019

Midsummer Moonlight and "A Dance of Queens"

Sacchi Green

A change of pace from my series of teasers for the stories in Wild Rides, a collection of my own work. I’ll get back to those soon.

My news now is that I’ve just had a story accepted for The Nobilis Erotica Podcast (“The Most Prolific Science Fiction and Fantasy Erotica Podcast in the Known Universe”--nobilis.libsyn.com . I’m new to podcasts, except for a few times I've read my work when I was being interviewed by one blogger or another, but now that I’ve discovered some podcasts that allow submissions previously published in print, I’m sitting up and taking notice.

This particular story, “A Dance of Queens,” is one I wrote many years ago, for Best Transgender Erotica, edited by Hanne Blank and Raven Kaldera for Circlet Press. The setting is Elizabethan/Shakespearean England, on the banks of the Thames at the Lord Chancellor’s country estate where A Midsummer Night’s Dream is being produced. The three main characters are the actors who play Queen Titania and Queen Hippolyta, and Queen Elizabeth herself, nostalgic for her youth when she might roam free in disguise through Midsummer revelries. I had a great time writing this, doing research on the kinds of bawdy pantomimes and banter of that era, as well as getting deeply involved with my characters in their various twists and turns of gender complexity, even more than you might at first suspect.

Let’s see whether I can fit in enough excerpts here to give you a proper—or improper—taste of the whole.

From “A Dance of Queens”
Sacchi Green

Midsummer’s Night, the play safely done, dusk sweet as a languorous touch on yearning flesh...and still I could not take my love into the greenwood and lay her on my cloak and be consumed in her fire.
I cursed my own impatience. We should have pressed on without pause, but Quenta had tormented me so, slipping a hand beneath my shirt and then down into my breeches until I could scarce walk, and must stop for a taste of the feast to come.
So the Queen’s messenger had caught us. And truly, by the shimmer in the air at the instant she appeared, I knew there had never been hope of escape. In the Welsh hills and valleys we have tales, more than tales, of such creatures, though I had thought the filth and disbelief of London must repel them. At another time I would have been glad that the green countryside along the Thames still held such folk. Glad or no, we had no choice now but to let the greenwood’s promise fade into shadow.
Frustration pounded in my veins. I jerked away from Quenta’s touch, the mere
brush of her hand making me forget that I must not even think of “him” as “her” until we could be blessedly alone.
I focused on the wide skirt sailing just ahead. Though the farthingale was not devised with a lady dwarf in mind, its absurdity was more than countered by the messenger’s bearing and the Queen’s crest broidered on her sleeve. It scarcely needed Quenta’s nudge to put me on guard against those keen, merry eyes, though they had looked up at me from about the level of my belt.
Such danger should have chilled my ardor. But surely the Queen would waste little time on us, might have forgotten already her whim. At most there could be a gracious word or two, perhaps a small purse. Why, then, command that we bring our play-garb? A jest among her ladies?
But in the great bedchamber we found Her Majesty alone, a slim, pale figure whose aura crackled through the paneled room like heat-lightning.
Our diminutive guide swept a curtsy. “The player boys, Madam. Quentin O’Connor and Kit Rhys.”
Bright tired eyes assessed us. “Well enough, Gwen. Now keep us private for a bit.” The attendant gave me a wicked sidelong glance as she went to sit between the great oak door and the carven screen before it.
Quenta elbowed me sharply. I joined her in an elegant stage bow, feeling the royal glance caress our snug-hosed calves. Her Majesty was said to have ever an eye for a well-turned leg; if it went farther than a look, or a leg… But I had never heard so much as rumor that it did.
Her voice was cool enough. “So, Titania and Hippolyta. You played the queen’s parts well, each in your own way.”
“Never so well as you, Your Highness.” Quenta’s green eyes gleamed wickedly, and I suppressed a groan. This was no time for her sly wit!
An answering gleam lit the Queen’s eyes. “Ah, but I have performed the role far longer!” Her face seemed less weary now; it was hard to credit that she had more than twice our years. “Do you not think I could play Queen of Faery as well as England’s monarch?”
I tried to break the manic current between them. “Yes, in truth, Highness. Or Queen of Amazons, or any ruler ever conceived.” I knelt with Hippolyta’s tunic and gilded leather breastplate across one knee. Her gaze turned toward me, lingering on my long legs; I felt as when Quenta would stroke me from calf to thigh and beyond, and my flesh would melt and surge in sweet torment.
“I have not your height, lad, to play the Amazon,” she said. “You did well enough, though one could scarcely credit that you would yield to Duke Theseus, whether in battle or in marriage bed. But come, it was bravely played, if a slighter part than Titania’s.”
She turned to Quenta with a thoughtful look. “Have you two played Master Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet?’ You would suit well as lovers.”
Did she toy with us? What hope had we against the wits of one who played with envoys, kings, even the Pope, for her own and England’s gain?
“Quentin is acclaimed as Juliet,” I answered cautiously, “but to tell truth, Hippolyta is my first speaking part, and well may be my last. I am more like to play an accompanying lute, or rattle distant armor.”
“It is an awkward age, I know,” she said. “Your voice is nigh too low already for a woman’s part. Indeed...” Those keen eyes scrutinized us closely. “I might think you both somewhat old for boy players.”
I tensed inwardly, forcing my body to reveal nothing. To stifle Quenta’s special genius would be a crime against art, against life itself! But if she were judged to be a woman...A woman appearing upon the public stage was such outrage that the penalty could only be surmised.
Quenta laughed, and in that instant the tilt of her head, the cock of hip and shoulder, were entirely those of a brash youth. “I can play you any age, Lady, any sex.” She took on the bombastic voice and gestures of Bottom the Weaver. “I can play you a roaring Lion, or a most excellent Wall...” and then her voice softened, its husky purr making my flesh quiver with longing for the velvet touch of her tongue.
“Or I can be the Lady Moon herself.” She stepped toward the high window, every motion, every line now utterly female, despite the padded trunk-hose muffling the sweet curves of her hips. Had I been a jot closer my hand would have slipped of its own accord between cloth and smooth, seductive skin. And had she turned, and my fingers found what waited between her thighs...
“Look you, Lady, how the new moon burns, no silver bow, but a crescent slit through which the passions of the sky pour forth. Can you not see in me that same bright fire?”
And she was, in truth, the very essence of the new moon, its tremulous yearning in her slim grace, its hot intensity in her smoldering eyes. Then I stepped toward her and broke the spell, and it was not her madness but mine that gave us away.
“Sirrah! Do not force me to see that which were better kept hidden!” If the Queen sensed that we were lovers, she had no wish to bring it to an issue. I did not think that she had yet sensed more.
“But Titania may see what England’s Queen may not.” Quenta knelt, proffering her red wig, leaf-green draperies and silver demi-mask. “On Midsummer’s Night, the fancies of mortal and fairy alike may roam free. Come with us, Lady, to observe their merry frolics!”
Even through my outrage I saw what Quenta had recognized at once. Though the Queen might conceal it even from herself, it was for this we had been summoned.

[Then much later, after extensive viewings of many bawdy revelries and pantomimes outdoors in the celebration:]

A slim, imperious hand gripped my shoulder. “Enough, lad. You have done nobly, but the Midsummer’s magic I recalled is gone forever.”
 “Nay, lady, there is magic still!” Quenta’s eyes glowed cat-like in the torchlight. “Kit has found a place a fairy queen might lie, and takes me there this night. We shall see what magic three queens together may ignite!”
I could have wrung her slim white neck. The Queen, though, waved dismissively. “I doubt not such a tryst is meant for two alone. Only see me back to the Hall, and then be off wherever youth and Midsummer madness lead you.” She took my arm. “You may divert me as we go. Is there indeed ‘a bank where the wild thyme blows...With sweet musk roses and with eglantine?’”
“As to that, Lady, the scent was more of mint and fern. I saw daisies but no roses, though there were berry brambles aplenty. Perhaps by daylight you might view it.”
“Ay, perhaps.” Her voice was bleak.
“Now!” said Quenta. “Now, by moonlight, or not at all!” Her fierce eyes held mine, her meaning all too clear. When I turned toward the greenwood the Queen, a gleam restored in her eye, did not demur.

  [Then the erotica goes deeply into where erotica usually goes, and somewhat beyond, entangled with history and fantasy and layers of long-suppressed emotions. Oh, and here’s an inconsequential spoiler from Gwen near the end:]

“No matter. Our sweet Lady has more need of you than you can know, for service quite apart from this night’s frolic. Neither of you will strut upon the stage much longer; who would credit such protracted youth? But two who act so well can do it on the Queen’s behalf, and be her eyes and ears about the world. Be sure I will send soon to tell you of her needs.”
“We are truly hers, body and soul,” I said. “But Gwen...who, or what, are you?”
“Need you ask?” she said impatiently. “The realm of Faery takes yet a care for England’s welfare, and for her rightful monarch. As for me, think you the Puck must be ever confined in male form?” It took her sharp pinch to make me close my gaping mouth.
_______________




I don’t yet know when my story will be up on the podcast. I’ll try to mention that here when I find out. I’ll also mention that “A Dance of Queens” was reprinted in my first collection of my own work several years ago, A Ride to Remember from Lethe Press. It’s available in Kindle format on Amazon for $3.00, and quite likely on Smashwords as well. For that matter, just ask and I’ll send you a pdf copy. The book was a Lambda Literary Finalist, the year two out of four finalists in the erotica category were mine—but neither won. That’s okay, a good friend did win the category that year, and I’ve had winners both before and after.