A note on ER vs. EH

(Reposted from TRS Spookapalooza)

ER is Erotic Romance. People who know me, know that I do not do Romance. I do love stories, which is actually not the same thing. As well, I think some people are parsing the definition a bit too fine when it comes to separating  Erotic Romance from porn. The former being somehow acceptable Sexually Explicit writing, while the latter is not. In any case, I've had my say on this elsewhere (see below).

EH is Erotic Horror. A lot of people associate this sub-genre of speculative fiction with - as a writer of my acquaintance has said - "sex gone bad". But to me EH is just a scary story with hot sex, all of it good. With some irreverence (when have you ever heard irreverence from me?) I call it "scary porn", at least the way I write it.

To be sure, the scary part is associated with the "Yuck" factor that someone pointed out in commentary to one of my excerpts (I think it was In the Belly of the Night #3). Well, that's what I write, so no apologies. On the other hand, the point of the scary stuff is not to gross out the reader, but to add to the tension and suspense, because fear and sex actually go together very well.

In any case, my stories always have good old fashioned heroes and heroines, and the good guys always win, vanquishing - or at least escaping from - the monster(s). Yes, there is dismemberment, shredding and chomping. But really, I just write love stories that happen to have inhuman antagonists who occasionally eat people.

By the way, Garou 1: Black Widow is a little more Romance and a little less slavering fangs in the dark, for what it's worth.

JC Alpha Male, in all his irreverent glory

Garou: Black Widow - Excerpt #2

A small woman of late middle years opened the door to her apartment, at first only a crack, then after an exclamation of $Mon Dieu! she threw it open and reached up to grab Garou’s face and kiss him hard on the lips.

“$Mon Dieu!” she exclaimed again. “Stephan! It has been so long!” Then she stepped back, and her face showed concern. “Ah, Stephan, what has happened --”

“Marie, “he grimaced. “I need your help.”

She ushered him inside to a cluttered but comfortable apartment. He made a face at the heavy aroma of cigarette smoke and the overflowing ashtrays, but eased himself into a chair in the small kitchen as Marie fussed with a teapot. “No espresso for you, young man. You need some special tea.” She kept looking at him while she threw together several powders and leaves in a pot, added water and tossed it all in a microwave.

While the microwave hummed, she turned to Garou. “Now tell me, $mon amour,” she said in a soft voice. “What happened?”

He told her everything. Marie had been an attractive, vibrant woman of forty-seven when they first met twenty-five years ago. She understood his kind, and knew quite a bit about them, and about other things, as well. They had become lovers, for a short, intense time, before parting. Now, at seventy-two, she remained trim and feminine, with Elfin features and regal cheekbones. She wore dark slacks and a blouse that she still managed to fill out very nicely. Even her hair remained thick and dark, although probably assisted. Looking at her brought back strong memories of passionate sex on the living room floor.

“And you survived?” she asked somewhat rhetorically. She poured tea and then leaned back against the counter, crossing her arms under her tits and incidentally lifting them nicely.

He sipped cautiously, from past experience. This brew seemed less offensive than others of hers that he had tasted. “She is a vampire. She spilled her blood to save me.”

Marie’s eyes narrowed. “I have known a few vampires, and I do not trust them. I never have. You know the type, everything is all about them. They are more flighty than my daughter, Yvette, $Mon Dieu, who has a new man or woman every week. Sometimes two or more, twice a week, and she is forty-five.” She snorted. “I will never have grandchildren.”

“Yvette is a high strung artist, “Garou pointed out. “She changes lovers with each new painting. She told me it refreshes her soul.”

Marie made a rude noise. “Lucky you, you were never one of her paramours. All right, then Monsieur Werewolf, what is your pleasure?”

“Aside from you?” he said, smiling, with genuine affection.

She smiled, too, and looked away. “We have been there, $mon ami. Do not bring up the past.” But she dipped into the pocket of her slacks and pulled a pack of filterless cigarettes and fumbled with her lighter, clicking it several times before it lit. She took a long drag, staring at nothing, exhaled a gray plume of smoke and said. “I would have given a lot to remain young like you.”

$One of the reasons people like me rarely enter long term relationships. “You are special, $ma cherie, but like the blood of a vampire, mine is potentially fatal to those who have not been affected by the virus. I will not take that chance, not with you.”

Marie sighed. “We have been there, too.” She looked up, all business. “And you have a woman now, a very serious catch if I am to judge, who has been taken from you in the night by a man who does not hesitate to kill. So, then, what do you have for me?”

He opened his balled fist and offered her what lay in his palm. A squashed lump of silver.

She looked at it and swore. “$Merdre, you took this in the chest and got up again?” She looked at him with a grim smile. “Vampire blood or not, you are very hard to kill, $mon ami.” She carefully examined it before touching it. Looking, sniffing. She held up a hand and left the kitchen, rummaged in the drawers of a small antique cabinet in the living room, then returned with a magnifying glass. Holding it close to her face, she took the bullet from Garou and examined it minutely for several minutes before announcing, “Aha! As I suspected!”

She returned to the cabinet in the living room, extracted several items, and brought them to the kitchen. As she worked, she murmured to herself. “The bullet was hand cast -- who manufactures silver bullets, eh? And the markings of this one are peculiar to a type casting device I have rarely seen. You know they are all pretty much alike, except the manner in which the bullet is poured. In this case, the cast was poured from the top, the business end I believe you crude Americans call it, and there are trace amounts of the casting material still adhering to it, in spite of its recent travels through your handsome carcass.”

She set up what appeared to be a strange looking microscope. Along with the usual assortment of parts, it appeared to have a small cylinder attached at right angles to the main sighting device. The extra cylinder then bent at a right angle to itself, into a separate eyepiece. Marie placed the bullet under the microscope and adjusted the position and focus through the main eyepiece. Then she looked into the second eyepiece.

“Hmm. Interesting, but I can only tell you the provenance of the bullet, not where the shooter is at this moment.”

Garou removed a piece of cloth from one pocket. “Try this.”

Marie examined it for a second, then sniffed it, and her eyebrows went up. “Blood from the attacker?”

Garou nodded.

She gave him a sour look. “And when were you planning to inform me of this?” She turned back to the microscope.

Garou waited patiently. Very carefully, Marie manipulated small controls to rotate and reposition the bullet. After several minutes, she removed it and with a small pair of scissors snipped of a piece of the cloth scrap and placed that under the lens. She spent the next twenty minutes looking through first the main eyepiece, then making adjustments, then looking through the second eyepiece. Finally, she abandoned the main eyepiece altogether and concentrated on the second one.

After a half hour of this she sighed and looked up at him. She leaned back against the kitchen counter and lit up another of her foul cigarettes.

“The bullet was made in Wallachia,” she said, exhaling a long stream of smoke. She pointed at him with the cigarette. “Not Romania, you understand. It is over five hundred years old. Easy to tell by the percentage of pure silver. It was cast originally as a musket ball, then melted and recast, only last week I think, as a nine millimeter. The recent caster and the original caster are the same. The blood tells that tale. And more.” She tilted her head and said softly, “$mon amour, you did not tell me you were hunting Vlad the Impaler.”

100 and counting

Page views, that is. At about eight or ten a day no one need alert the media, but it's better than I expected. Now if people would just leave comments...or maybe not.

By the way, the e-mail link is in my profile (such as it is): jonathanwright@changelingpress.com.

Garou: Black Widow - Excerpt

“I have a… a hunger you cannot imagine,” said Elena in halting English. Turning her elegant black head from the tall French doors that let out onto the narrow balcony, she looked over her shoulder at Garou, who leaned on his cane in the center of the living room.

“I believe you,” said Garou. He listened to the sounds of the little side street that echoed between the high end apartments of the 7th Arrondissement, on the Rive Gauche in Paris, where only those with money or huge debt could afford even a one bedroom apartment. This one encompassed the top floor of a seven story building in early Baroque style that dated from the early seventeenth century. Garou figured a conservative value would be twelve to fifteen million Euros. “You live well.”

She shrugged. “A benefit of twelve centuries of accumulated experience.”

High value antiques dotted the rooms and unusual paintings lined the walls. Some he recognized as originals by moderately famous masters of their time. Many of the paintings seemed to have been done by the same painter, one he did not know and who did not sign his work. Simple portraits, stunning lifelike depictions of varying emotions from ecstasy to terror. He felt sure that any of them would fetch a six figure price.

“You like my paintings?”

He inclined his head.

“I have done them myself.” Her gaze held his momentarily, as if attempting to convince him of a lie.

He looked at her, at the paintings, and back to her. He ignored her face for the moment and once again ran his eyes up and down her sensual curves and considered that he would soon fuck her. But in his own time.

“Thank you, Monsieur Garou,” she responded as he stared. “Your appreciation of my body gives me much pleasure.”

She had changed into a robe so sheer as to offer the illusion that she had been tattooed with cranes and chrysanthemums that seemed to flow over the curves of her body.

“For the record -- is that how you say it? I was born in Aquitaine in 747, the year of the birth of Charlemagne. As you will note, I am black, the daughter of Moorish slaves brought from Africa by Muslims in the early part of that century.”

“So you are a vampire?” Garou’s voice hinted of neither sarcasm nor trepidation.

Elena smiled with relief. She could sense when a man did not believe her or worse yet, when he did and tried to hide the instant fear. This man believed her and felt no fear. $One in a thousand. Ten thousand.

“I am no blood sucker. No.” Not strictly true, and the lie shamed her, but she felt the familiar heat rising in her as she looked at him, which she preferred to do rather than stare at the nightscape of Paris. Men had always been her chief desire and her fatal weakness. She let the robe fall open, an invitation. “I only want you to take me.”

She acted from the certain knowledge that he wanted very badly to fuck her and would do so with great enthusiasm, an advantage few women ever had. The fact that she would almost certainly love every second of the experience made her briefly happy, as always. For now she could ignore the inevitable finalé. Her nipples stiffened.

Garou smiled. “You’re gorgeous beyond any man’s hopes. Why bother with a broken down relic like me?”

“You jest, knowing there is more to you than a casual glance will reveal.” She smiled again. “I happen to prefer older men. Your age is misleading, for it is your strength as much as a burden. And you still have great strength, in your body and your mind as well. I stand here offering myself to you, a very delectable bon mot, non? And yet you refrain from ravishing me outright, when almost any other man would have tried to maul my tits back at the café. It is your experience that women will melt for a man who shows that sport of self-control, n’est-ce pas?”

She lowered her eyes. “I so adore men who can resist me. Forgive my coarseness, but I desire nothing more than to be used like a slave, as though you do not care if I take pleasure in your handling of me.” Even speaking of it made her weak. I have lived more than fifty generations but I remain a slave to men. She let the robe slip down over her shoulders. “I shall beg if you desire it.” Her voice quavered with her need. “Or perhaps even if you do not.” She could not remember wanting a man so much.

Garou shifted his weight as if to ease the pain in his joints, then joined her by the window. Seemingly unaffected by her openly sensual display, he gazed out at the ethereal beauty of the sparkling lights of Paris. “Yes,” he said without looking at her. “I do desire it.” He leaned the cane against the wall. Standing before the open window, he slowly undressed.

She leaned against the door and teased her nipples. “Do I excite you by playing with my body?”

“Yes. Does it excite you to perform for me?” he countered.

“Yes,” she breathed. This close, Elena began to tremble with eagerness. “Please,” she whispered. “Please fuck me, monsieur.”

As he revealed more of his muscular body, made more impressive by the white in his hair and on his chest, Elena breathed deeper, with more urgency. I make myself excited by showing my hunger. A wonderfully vicious cycle. For a moment Elena simply stared at him, drinking in his overpoweringly male sexual presence.

She let the robe fall.

Garou smelled her musk and tried to control his raging hunger. At his age he knew beautiful women were there for the taking, anywhere, even if they thought otherwise. But he had never met a woman like this, so beautiful, so certain of herself, and yet so clearly vulnerable.

That vulnerability did it for him. His cock stiffened and rose. He touched her gently, letting his fingers trail down the side of her sculpted face that seemed carved from mahogany, with high cheekbones and lush lips. Down her slender neck, over the prominent collar bone. Down over her tits, as heavy and firm as any male wet dream could make them. He lingered there, of course, fondling them gently then spreading his fingers and teasing both nipples at once, enjoying the sensation of their stiffness against the warm softness. She undulated slightly, making little thrusts of her tits against his hand.

“You understand my hunger.” Her voice had thickened noticeably. She closed her eyes and rested her head against the door, exposing her neck as if for him to bite. He used both hands to gently pinch and twist her nipples. She squirmed and made a small whimpering sound, arching her body. Her hands reached for him.

“Put your hands behind your back.”

She bared her teeth in a hiss of pleasure. “You see that I have -- large nipples,” she breathed, opening her eyes slightly. “They are hard and long and ready for you to suck them.”

“When you beg for it,” he replied, clenching his jaw against the need to do just that. I must control myself. I must. If he changed now everything would be lost.

She writhed like a snake. “Please, take me…”

He ran his fingers over her cunt, lightly teasing her lips, stroking, stroking. “Not yet. “ With his other hand he continued to tease her nipples.

She raised her hands, her fingers curled like claws, grasping at the air. Her head lay back against the door and she thrust her tits out. “Please!” she hissed. “I cannot stand it! Please!” Against his orders she gripped his shoulders. “Please! Suck my tits!”

He growled, surprising himself with his intense desire to devour her in a storm of uncontrolled passion. “No. You will do as I say.”

Elena moaned.

“Outside.” He released her.

She sagged against the door, breathing heavily.

On the narrow balcony, only the waist high rail of wrought iron stood between her and a seven story drop. The illogical thrill of fear mixed with her searing hunger for sex. Why him? Why? Regret did not enter into her thinking anymore, but she felt angry at herself for not being in control of her hunger. It would all be so much easier if I could just die.